Political Correctness and Darwin

[77zach]

Then you are dismissing legitimate evidence on the grounds of you, as a chemist, being "unimpressed". Sounds like the scientific standard to me, except the opposite. I'd be happy to discuss any inconsistencies you felt there were from observations within your field, or from those you feel innately qualified, but taking the paint brush and covering it all up in one stroke is a fallacy on your part.


Listening to people refer to the Watchmakers Analogy over and over is tragic.

If you really feel that your position is resolute, and that you have a sound argument, do us all a favor and straighten out these guys over here:

www.atheist-experience.com


They'd be happy to discuss things with you. Unless you are happy living within your comfort zone and challenging your ideas is way too stressful for you.

I would not call myself a chemist, but I did have two published Phd professors who were and they surprisingly agreed with my position and emboldened me, as I expected complete uniformity of opinion. This was before I had seen Ben Stein's film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Neither of these were religious people, but the biochemist said it was "laughable" and "ridiculous" that humans came from apes, birds come dinosaurs, etc. The rest of the dpt seemed to accept it and any objection was met with a shrug.

What my undergraduate education did impress upon me is the complexity of biological systems. The first proponents of evolution thought the cell was basically a glob of goo. Now that I abandoned chemistry for medicine, my disdain for the common conception of evolution has grown. One could, for example, spend a lifetime studying the nephron, the functional unit of the kidney. You could fill a library with what we know about the kidney, but our understanding is still light years from being complete. To say it evolved is an incredible claim, and it's made by people who aren't familiar with the organ, how it dances with the heart, liver, and pituitary gland in response to changes in fluid volume, osmolarity, glucose levels, peripheral vascular resistance, blood pressure, sodium levels, potassium levels, magnesium levels, hydrogen ion concentration, stress, etc, ad infinitum. I'm sure you could find a nephrologist who is an ardent proponent of evolution, but again, I think his faith in nothing divine is greater and more close minded than mine.

 

[Venator]

I would not call myself a chemist, but I did have two published Phd professors who were and they surprisingly agreed with my position and emboldened me, as I expected complete uniformity of opinion. This was before I had seen Ben Stein's film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Neither of these were religious people, but the biochemist said it was "laughable" and "ridiculous" that humans came from apes, birds come dinosaurs, etc. The rest of the dpt seemed to accept it and any objection was met with a shrug.

What my undergraduate education did impress upon me is the complexity of biological systems. The first proponents of evolution thought the cell was basically a glob of goo. Now that I abandoned chemistry for medicine, my disdain for the common conception of evolution has grown. One could, for example, spend a lifetime studying the nephron, the functional unit of the kidney. You could fill a library with what we know about the kidney, but our understanding is still light years from being complete. To say it evolved is an incredible claim, and it's made by people who aren't familiar with the organ, how it dances with the heart, liver, and pituitary gland in response to changes in fluid volume, osmolarity, glucose levels, peripheral vascular resistance, blood pressure, sodium levels, potassium levels, magnesium levels, hydrogen ion concentration, stress, etc, ad infinitum. I'm sure you could find a nephrologist who is an ardent proponent of evolution, but again, I think his faith in nothing divine is greater and more close minded than mine.

So what is your opinion on how life became diversified? Oh and you can't say a god did it, unless you have evidence of said god that meets scientific scrutiny.

 

[77zach]

So what is your opinion on how life became diversified? Oh and you can't say a god did it, unless you have evidence of said god that meets scientific scrutiny.

Science and scientists are not gods. It's politically correct to think we have or will one day have answers to all of our questions. The scientific method is a valuable tool but can't be used for all questions. Evolutionists claim they use the method to satisfactorily answer the question of Origins. They do not. Creationists do not make such a claim. I think the latter are more reasonable and honest.

 

[eye95]

The scientific method does not look backwards. It is purely forward looking.


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[beebobby]

Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

 

[Mr Birdman]

religion

Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Atheism is a religion because you have to believe----?

 

[Venator]

Science and scientists are not gods. It's politically correct to think we have or will one day have answers to all of our questions. The scientific method is a valuable tool but can't be used for all questions. Evolutionists claim they use the method to satisfactorily answer the question of Origins. They do not. Creationists do not make such a claim. I think the latter are more reasonable and honest.

So no answer.

Scientists admit that we probably won't know everything, that some things are unknowable. But they keep trying and find more and more about the universe all the time. Scientific Method (SM) can indeed be used for all questions.

Evolution DOES NOT answer any questions on the origin of life, that is biogenesis. That may be an unknowable subject. It DOES explain the diversity of life, from whatever was the origin of life.

Creationists make the claim that God created everything. That is NOT reasonable or honest. Because it begs the question what/who created god.

 

[77zach]

So no answer.

Scientists admit that we probably won't know everything, that some things are unknowable. But they keep trying and find more and more about the universe all the time. Scientific Method (SM) can indeed be used for all questions.

Evolution DOES NOT answer any questions on the origin of life, that is biogenesis. That may be an unknowable subject. It DOES explain the diversity of life, from whatever was the origin of life.

Creationists make the claim that God created everything. That is NOT reasonable or honest. Because it begs the question what/who created god.

I think God created the diversity of life we see. Of course, this does not prevent a yorkie or poodle "evolving" from a wolf, to anticipate one common objection. If one of God's inherent attributes is eternality, then perhaps it's time for me to admit my creatureliness and God's otherness. This position isn't really stranger than physicists saying the universe is ever expanding. That could very well be...but expanding into what?

 

[georg jetson]

SNIP

Theism is one thing and one thing only. The belief that there is a deity. FULL STOP. ADD NOTHING MORE.
Many religions are "Theistic", and many are not.

Atheism is one thing and one thing only. The belief that there is no deity. FULL STOP. ADD NOTHING MORE.
Some religions are "Atheistic" (Buddhism and Janism for example), most are not.

Religion is a belief structure that has three major components: Ritual, Dogma, and Tenets.

SNIP

I apologize Slow. I forget how much emotion you have invested in your religion. I do commend you for your faith. I only hope mine is as strong.

BTW - what is your scientific background?

 

[georg jetson]

I would not call myself a chemist, but I did have two published Phd professors who were and they surprisingly agreed with my position and emboldened me, as I expected complete uniformity of opinion. This was before I had seen Ben Stein's film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Neither of these were religious people, but the biochemist said it was "laughable" and "ridiculous" that humans came from apes, birds come dinosaurs, etc. The rest of the dpt seemed to accept it and any objection was met with a shrug.

What my undergraduate education did impress upon me is the complexity of biological systems. The first proponents of evolution thought the cell was basically a glob of goo. Now that I abandoned chemistry for medicine, my disdain for the common conception of evolution has grown. One could, for example, spend a lifetime studying the nephron, the functional unit of the kidney. You could fill a library with what we know about the kidney, but our understanding is still light years from being complete. To say it evolved is an incredible claim, and it's made by people who aren't familiar with the organ, how it dances with the heart, liver, and pituitary gland in response to changes in fluid volume, osmolarity, glucose levels, peripheral vascular resistance, blood pressure, sodium levels, potassium levels, magnesium levels, hydrogen ion concentration, stress, etc, ad infinitum. I'm sure you could find a nephrologist who is an ardent proponent of evolution, but again, I think his faith in nothing divine is greater and more close minded than mine.

No kidding. My undergrad years opened my eyes pretty wide to what is considered "science". It is interesting that educated people like ourselves are looked upon as uneducated if we disagree with some politically incorrect ideologies. I'll never be a PHD, not because of intellect, but because of the big bite out of a $hit sandwich I'd have to take when it comes to my belief system. Jeeezz, I get political pressure from my employer to agree with global warming mythology. Such is the BS of electrical utility business these days.

 

[georg jetson]

SNIP

Creationists make the claim that God created everything. That is NOT reasonable or honest. Because it begs the question what/who created god.

No it does not. There are only 2 positions. Either God existed first or Nothing existed first.. Did you get that?

For sure, "something" existed first and that's a bad omen for those that think everything came from nothing.

I think it boils down to what people will accept as a definition of God.

 

[slowfiveoh]

I apologize Slow. I forget how much emotion you have invested in your religion.

A single belief does not a religion make. This is where you and 77zach fall tragically apart. It is abundantly clear you have no philosophical understanding or background on what constitutes a singular belief, and what constitutes a religion.

Here, a description for you and 77zach to ignore in your fervor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Here is an excerpt for you to also pretend not to understand:

"Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence."

I do commend you for your faith.

Faith is belief without the presence of evidence.

My "faith" that God does not exist is as strong as my "faith" that unicorns and bigfoot do also likely not exist.

I only hope mine is as strong.

Trying to equate my singular belief into a collection of beliefs to try and make my position seem as absurd as yours is tragically, transparently, desperate on your behalf.

The good thing is, its out there for the world to see. Thank you for making it so painstakingly obvious how biased you are.

BTW - what is your scientific background?

I have a Bachelors in baking cookies georg. The best in the world.

 

[77zach]

A single belief does not a religion make. This is where you and 77zach fall tragically apart. It is abundantly clear you have no philosophical understanding or background on what constitutes a singular belief, and what constitutes a religion.

Here, a description for you and 77zach to ignore in your fervor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Here is an excerpt for you to also pretend not to understand:

"Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence."




Faith is belief without the presence of evidence.

Evolution as religion was tangential to my main thesis in this thread, but one definition of the word is "a cultural system concerning the cause, nature, or purpose of the universe and human life." And, "Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures."

Now you know (I hope) that I was being a little sarcastic in referring to evolution as a religion, but "scientists" act as a sort of clergy for this set of myths, and they even have creation myths, such as "primordial soup" or "singularity" etc. A holy place for someone who ignores the chemical and mathematical impossibility of evolution might be the Galapagos Islands. A holy scripture might be "Origin of Species" or Stephen Jay Gould's work on "Punctuated Equilibrium". Heterodox academics, regardless of their achievements, will be ostracized if they advertise their unbelief. See Ben Stein's film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed".

One other shared characteristic of religion and evolutionism is denial. For example, Jehova Witnesses have seen many "prophecies" go unfulfilled. The Mormons (Adam-God doctrine, law of eternal progression) and Roman Catholics have changed their doctrines many times. Each Pope (the "vicar" of Christ) contradicts Catholic doctrine and the Bible and no one in the membership really cares. It's because people like belonging to a religious system. In the same way, obvious problems with evolutionism are ignored or mocked, and the train keeps rolling.

 

[eye95]

I think God created the diversity of life we see. Of course, this does not prevent a yorkie or poodle "evolving" from a wolf, to anticipate one common objection. If one of God's inherent attributes is eternality, then perhaps it's time for me to admit my creatureliness and God's otherness. This position isn't really stranger than physicists saying the universe is ever expanding. That could very well be...but expanding into what?

Excellent example. Dogs and wolves are the same species. You have cited an example of adaptations through evolution within a species. Wolves and dogs can still mate, generally producing perfectly healthy, reproductive animals within the same species, having the same chromosomal configuration.

While the selective breeding of dogs was mostly intentional, to bring out specific characteristics, over long periods of time, it can happen by chance. If happenstance produces a more survivable creature, the trait will likely continue. If the trait works against survival, creatures with it will die off in greater numbers, likely eliminating the trait from the gene pool.

Again, though, this is evolution within a species, not evolution creating a new species. And, to a large extent, it is man-made evolution!


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[Venator]

No it does not. There are only 2 positions. Either God existed first or Nothing existed first.. Did you get that?

For sure, "something" existed first and that's a bad omen for those that think everything came from nothing.

I think it boils down to what people will accept as a definition of God.

The fallacy is you presuppose that a god has to be in the equation. It doesn't. We know nothing about nothing, how can we? How does one study nothing? What would be the parameters of nothing?

God does not need to exist, for a universe(s) to exist. The universe(s) may have always existed. We have no idea of what was before, what we perceive or call the "big Bang". If you take god out of the equation it's really easy to see he is not needed for matter to exist. It just does and we may never understand why, which is okay.

But the evidence for a supernatural being is lacking, again how can you study something supposedly outside of our natural world? Now that's not to say we can't study or do experiments for the existence of a god. We can and some have. So far the results show that the probability of a god is very very small.

And this very small probability is the reason for atheism. Atheists look at the probability of a god and conclude that one most likely does not exist, so they take the position of not believing based on that evidence. As some have said the same reason we don't believe in Santa, unicorns, or bigfoot, which by the way, are more likely to exist than a god.

If there was good evidence for a god, there would be very few atheists.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

The fallacy is you presuppose that a god has to be in the equation. It doesn't. We know nothing about nothing, how can we? How does one study nothing? What would be the parameters of nothing?

God does not need to exist, for a universe(s) to exist. The universe(s) may have always existed. We have no idea of what was before, what we perceive or call the "big Bang". If you take god out of the equation it's really easy to see he is not needed for matter to exist. It just does and we may never understand why, which is okay.

But the evidence for a supernatural being is lacking, again how can you study something supposedly outside of our natural world? Now that's not to say we can't study or do experiments for the existence of a god. We can and some have. So far the results show that the probability of a god is very very small.

And this very small probability is the reason for atheism. Atheists look at the probability of a god and conclude that one most likely does not exist, so they take the position of not believing based on that evidence. As some have said the same reason we don't believe in Santa, unicorns, or bigfoot, which by the way, are more likely to exist than a god.

If there was good evidence for a god, there would be very few atheists.

Nice post well thought out. Thank you.

A question I asked my mom when I was 6 "where did God come from?" the answer "Always existed"

A question to ask big bangers "where did that singularity come from" ...was it always there?

A proposed thought in the science fiction book Blasphemy by Douglas Preston (maybe proposed somewhere else but that is where I learned of it) is that the universe and everything in it including us exists because that is simply easier to explain then it not existing at all.

 

[eye95]

Once again, time is a construct of our universe. If you believe that God created it (I do), then God exists outside of time. Concepts such as "before," "first," "next," and "after" would not be applicable in the realm in which God exists.

When God perceives our universe, he perceives all of it as a single unit, every point in every dimension, including points in time. He would simply direct his attention to a point in space-time, much like we, trapped in time, can turn our head to view a point in our three-dimensional space.

So, what existed "before" God? There is no such a thing as "before" God. You are trapped in time-constrained thinking.


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[beebobby]

Atheism is a religion because you have to believe----?

In facts, evidence and the scientific method. No faith required.

 

[marshaul]

Once again, time is a construct of our universe. If you believe that God created it (I do), then God exists outside of time. Concepts such as "before," "first," "next," and "after" would not be applicable in the realm in which God exists.

When God perceives our universe, he perceives all of it as a single unit, every point in every dimension, including points in time. He would simply direct his attention to a point in space-time, much like we, trapped in time, can turn our head to view a point in our three-dimensional space.

So, what existed "before" God? There is no such a thing as "before" God. You are trapped in time-constrained thinking.

How can there be an act of creation, without there necessarily being time, i.e. the differentiation between sequential states?

The sole property of time is dynamism – everything else (including the comparison of time to the spatial dimension, e.g. the concept of "space-time") is an abstraction. The absence of time – stasis – implies an absolute inability to change, and therefore fundamentally precludes something like an act of creation.

Consider:

The fact of "creation" implies: A. the existence of a state where the thing in question did not exist; B. the existence of a state where the thing does exist; and C. an irreversible transition from the first state to the second. (Otherwise, it is meaningless to say that God created the Universe.) Therefore, the fact of creation implies the existence of an irreversible sequence of states. An irreversible sequence of states is nothing more than time, and time is nothing more than an irreversible sequence of states.

Therefore, if God created our universe, time cannot be "a construct of our universe".

QED.

 

[Venator]

Once again, time is a construct of our universe. If you believe that God created it (I do), then God exists outside of time. Concepts such as "before," "first," "next," and "after" would not be applicable in the realm in which God exists.

When God perceives our universe, he perceives all of it as a single unit, every point in every dimension, including points in time. He would simply direct his attention to a point in space-time, much like we, trapped in time, can turn our head to view a point in our three-dimensional space.

So, what existed "before" God? There is no such a thing as "before" God. You are trapped in time-constrained thinking.


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<o>

We are all trapped in the natural world. It's all we know. It's all we can study. It's all that really matters. For if god is outside all of this, so what?

One can claim all sorts of things. But as McKown said so well “The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” ― Delos Banning McKown