By definition theistic evolution looks just like non-theistic evolution. And since theistic evolutionists seem to reject the use of holy books as science books, the way to find answers is the same also.
Nonetheless, if you assign meaning to evolution, or claim it was in some way inspired by a loving god who knew how it was going to come out, it is perfectly reasonable to ask these questions. The cruelty of life makes perfect sense in a godless world, but I hope less sense in a godfull world - unless god is a monster, of course. Theistic evolution already admits that the concept of god has no scientific explanatory power - are you saying it has no moral or philosophical explanatory power either?
So what? The point raised was that some people “dismiss” parts of the bible. In fact, that does not happen. People read the bible in different ways.
If you would like to have a dispute over whether religion has any validity, open a new thread to discuss it.
There are specific lessons that theistic evolutionists tend to take from the various creation myths–the world was created as good, not evil (as some competing mythologies propose), that God was the author, that the world is ordered, not chaotic, that humanity has a role in exercising dominion over it, etc. Regardless whether any person outside those faiths would agree with those points as either real or good and regardless whether or not they are “made up,” they are not “dismissed” by the believers, but incorporated into the belief system of the religions that accept them. That is how mythology works and is employed by societies.
No. I am saying that in a discussion of whether Creationism is in conflict with science, (yes), there are religious belief systems to which the OP pointed that are not actually Creationist, specifically, Theistic Evolution. Challenging that separate system deserves a thread of its own.
It’s not a separate system, or if you must make a distinction it isn’t a helpful one because they’re so closely interconnected. My questions directly challenge the idea that creationism and evolution are compatible, because creationism relies on religion to be true. The religion stated in the OP is Christianity.
Otherwise it’s not really a debate. A god could have created the world and installed evolution. Sure. But that’s not why people have a problem with creationism and evolution not matching up.
Relegating the Bible to the status of mythology would count as dismissal to me. To me, being a Christian means believing there is a truth in the Bible that isn’t present in Hesiod’s Theogony or Snorri’s Edda.
Is this necessarily so? I would imagine that theistic evolution might (although this, too, isn’t necessary) show traces of bias in the selection process.
(Obviously, there is also the problem of “false positives.” It is probably no more than coincidence that a massive asteroid wrecked the ecosphere at what was, for we mammals, a fortuitous moment. If one is searching for biases…one will probably find them…)
Nonsense. There’s no room for gods in the laws of physics, we already know more than enough to rule out the Christian God. Especially given how full of logical contradictions and just plain silly ideas he is. God is as disproven as any idea out of pure mathematics can be; it’s just that the believers refuse to admit it, and demand that a special lower intellectual standard be applied to their religion than is applied to everything else. And they’d refuse to admit it if presented with that thousands-of-years-more-advanced knowledge.
And the Bible is a barbaric, ignorant and irrational document written by irrational ignorant barbarians, not something to base a moral life on. If you really based your life on it you’d be in prison or dead, not posting here. Civilized, moral behavior requires either ignoring the Bible or intensely cherry picking from it.
No it isn’t. Religion is unhealthy for society and tends to produce destructive behavior and attitudes. It corrupts people, both morally and intellectually.
And before you start complaining about me bashing the religious, people who make your argument are effectively calling atheists & agnostics evil or emotionally sick (and often explicitly do so). So if you don’t like return criticism, too bad.
Is this necessarily so? I would imagine that theistic evolution might (although this, too, isn’t necessary) show traces of bias in the selection process.
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True. It’s yet another way that trying to reconcile Christianity and the real world has unfortunate implications; it makes God out to be a liar who has carefully constructed the world to look like he doesn’t exist. And as previously said, it makes him into a monster responsible for all the suffering caused by nature.
The idea that God never does anything that can be identified as having come from him is just a relatively recent excuse created to handwave away the fact that wherever science looks, there’s no evidence for him. He wasn’t shy in the Biblical myths, and before science started disproving their claims left and right Christians had no problem with the idea that God would leave evidence of his existence; it was assumed that he had, in fact.
For those reading along, most of us atheist don’t think this and aren’t so hostile towards religion. And most of us with any type of actual scientific background understand that a belief in God, Gods or the supernatural seems to be a normal, although not necessary, part of human nature.
Which doesn’t keep religion from being at least as hostile to them.
And so what? Plenty of stupid or evil things are “a normal, although not necessary, part of human nature”; you could use the same so-called justification to defend everything from patriarchy to lying to bigotry.
No. It is one version of Christianity.
There are a lot of Christians with differing beliefs and understanding on the issue, (as well as many other issues).
I would not have put it in Great Debates. I think it should have been a General Question. However, once a “religion” thread finds itself in Great Debates, it generally attracts enough conflict quickly enough that there is no point in trying to move it.
Well, you would have a lot of company among Fundamentalist Christians.
For better or worse, that position is not held as true by a very large number of Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and a smattering of Orthodox and other Christian groups. In this case, the word mythology is being used in its anthropological sense of a story expressing a truth held by a group. It is not merely a set of “just so” stories. That is why Fundamentalists reject the doctrines of the other groups I have mentioned; Fundamentalists insist on a literal reading of Scripture while not all other groups insist on the same understanding.
Christians would state that the bible contains truths that are not in the Theogony or an edda, but, (aside from the Fundamentalists or literalists), they would not deny that the expression of those truths is often through mythology.
The notion that Scripture expresses truth through stories is not even a very new belief. Augustine of Hippo addressed the same issues at the beginning of the fifth century in his essay On the Literal Meaning of Genesis in which he very carefully lays out the thesis that Genesis is not a literal description and even goes on, in chapter 19, to instruct Christians to not misuse it as literal in the face of unbelievers who will simply laugh at the Christians’ obvious errors.
Some religious people are hostile, some aren’t.
It wasn’t a justification, but most religious people in the US are neither stupid nor evil.
It’s not relegating the whole Bible to the status of mythology, just an acceptance that some stories were used to explain complex concepts to primitive people. Even today a large swath of the world is not educated, so an explanation of amino acids and cellular division wouldn’t do much good.
The basics behind the story, that there is a higher power, that he made humans special, that humans are usually spiteful and mean, but we should strive to be better is taught well by the creation story even if it isn’t scientifically accurate.
Der Trihs, you have now submitted your obligatory sneer at religion.
More to the point, you used a post that I had already pointed out was off-topic to this thread as the excuse to make this point. Take it to a separate thread and do not further hijack this one.
badger5149, I will now make this a formal instruction: if you wish to debate the value of Christianity or religion, in general, please open a new thread to do so.
[ /Moderating ]
You did? As far as I can tell, unless I’m missing it the only post you said that about is one I didn’t respond to. And even with that one you didn’t say it was off-topic in “moderator mode”.
Most of the Christians I know are, like Badger’s friends, of the “God said 'Let there be light”, and that was the Big Bang" school of thought. To most of these people (lawyers, doctors, engineers, machinists, math teachers, bank officers, …), both mechanisms are equally mysterious. (See “Science education in the U.S.”.)
Does the belief add to our scientific understanding? No. It’s not science.
Does it inhibit our scientific understanding? No. These people “get” evolution and the origin of species, even if the origin of the universe is still beyond them.
In fact, I believe it promotes scientific understanding; they don’t understand how the microenvironment in cells effect the physical shape of enzymes, but they understand enzymes, and hormones, and metabolic disorders.
They are willing to accept that something might be true, even if it is outside their current knowledge; that is a good thing, because no-one can understand everything.
Badger did not; s/he followed the conversation.
In a spirit of “rational inquiry”?
j666: Do you live in the US? If so, most of the Christians you know are atypical of Christians in the US. Most American Christians, if not outright creationists, think that God “nudged things along” as part of evolution. That sort of belief is not conducive to rational inquiry as it assumes evolution is, at best, directed or, at worst, the product of an Intelligent Designer.
[QUOTE=Gallup]
Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God’s guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.
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Agreed. IOW, Der Trihs speaks for himself, not for the entire community of athesits or freethinkers.
Sure. Theistic evolution is all about the process being stacked to make us humans come out. But they don’t even claim that the evidence of this is detectable, so the hypothesis is classically unfalsifiable. It is kind of like getting a specific hand on the fourth round of a bridge game (obviously not tournament where the cards are stacked!) and claiming you set up the cards to get that hand.
If theistic evolution could show an instance where selection did not pick a trait with an reproductive advantage they might have something, but I’m not aware of them even claiming to be able to do that.
I’d like to get something clear. When you said creationism, do you mean “God created the Earth in 6 days 6,000 years ago” creationism or did you mean theistic evolution, in which God created the Earth but in a way that followed normal physical processes, with perhaps some undetectable nudges?