Evolution and God

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Resistance is Character-Formin]
That might take a really long time to process. Based on the changes in the personality of God over the course of our history, I think that the simulation has already been running several decades in “real” time, and that it’s slowing down as the population grows.

I think the timeline goes something like this…

God starts up the program as a child or young teen, starting the simulation at around the time of the dawn of history. Hundreds of years are ran in a day of God-time, and so every few decades he does something miraculous to the world, usually pretty cruel things because he’s immature and not taking the program very seriously (keeps hitting the disaster button). At some point it gets a little too slow for his taste, say one decade per day, and he does a reset by wiping out most of the people to speed the game up again. We have a post-Noah period where the interventions slow down in our perception, but that’s just because we’re living fast again by God’s standard. By the time of the Judges things have slowed down again and interventions seem more frequent and less cruel, but then they stop for a while - he may have got bored with how slow things were, but instead of wiping the slate again he just leaves it and goes to the mall or something, and meets his girlfriend. The simulation is left alone, and then auto-pauses after a while because it’s obvious nobody is playing it. Much later God’s son starts messing around with his father’s simulation, and is shocked at how cruel this world he has is after inserting himself into it for a while. He sets it up to auto-save the experiences of the people in the simulation while he’s gone and promises to come back later and make it a nicer world, and also decides not to interfere with it anymore, except maybe every now and then to do something nice for someone like heal their cancer or help them win a football game. He’s probably working on getting a nice paradise simulation going, and when he does he’s going to transfer us all into it, or at least the ones who lived since he started the auto-saving.
[/QUOTE]
So…you’re not basing your Last Thursdayism ideas on science at all, but rather on a very strange reading of the bible, where you seem to selectively ignore the many parts* that don’t fit your theory?

I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about something worth discussing seriously. You may entertain whatever religious fiction you like, but it doesn’t interest me.

  • So, when god-boy decides to restart, he does so not by actually restarting the system as any sane god would, but rather by deliberately and laboriously gathering together and packing up everything he likes up using an arkival compression technique, floods everything else in the simulation, then carefully unpacks everything and takes the extraordinary amount of time and effort to fake none of that ever happening? Other, that is, than a convenient record of it in the minds of the inbreeding little family he saved but clearly had to rewrite out of existence in recreating currently observable history, but from whom the record survived anyway? Riiiiight. If you believe that, I have this IPU to sell you, cheap! You can be sure it’s real because there’s no way to detect it. And it’ll only cost you everything you’ve got --that’s in simulated money, so it’s like you’re paying nothing at all!
42

[QUOTE=Resistance is Character-Formin]
There are a number of things that make me think that we are not living in the “original” reality.

First, I’ve experienced situations where I have dreamed of some future happening, that happens exactly as I dreamed much later. I don’t believe it is possible to know the future, so I think it’s probably a glitch in whatever system is simulating my experiences and memories.

Secondly, I frequently encounter extreme coincedences that seem very unlikely to be just chance. I recently started going to church and every service the preacher will discuss something that I had been talking about earlier in the week, and it’s not stuff like current events either. In one case I had read an old philosophy book about free will and determinism, and it’s connection to quantum physics, and that Sunday the preacher was talking about the exact same thing. It creeped my wife and me out. It’s not just church, but the coincedences consistently happen in church. It makes me think that the simulation is trying to reveal itself to me in the context of religion (I only recently started going to church for social reasons and considered myself an atheist).

Thirdly, there are aspects of the universe as we perceive it that makes me think it’s a simulation. For instance, the very elegant Newtonian laws of physics seem to fit the world perfectly on a macro scale, but on a small scale it seems that there is a lot more randomness in the behavior of particles that adds up to resemble a Newtonian universe, but only when you don’t look at it closely. Also, the fact that there seems to be a limit to the “resolution” of the universe on a subatomic scale - particles don’t move smoothly from one point to another as they appear to, but jump from one point to another, just like images on a computer screen appear to move smoothly from a distance, but are in fact made up of little elements disappearing from one point and showing up at another. Finally, the way that observing photons can seem to change their behavior - it’s like the simulation only models the individual photons in light when they are being observed, otherwise a simpler wave model is used.

Finally, there’s the hypothesis that, if it’s possible to create a fine-grained simulation of the world with self-aware entities that are not aware that it’s a simulation, it will almost certainly be done at some point in history, and the odds that we are living in the “real” universe instead of the billions of simulations seems small, especially combined with the other items I have listed above.

I hypothesize that the universe is a simulation and that our gods are actual living beings who are interfering with the simulation. I fit this into the Christian theology by supposing that the world was created as some kind of test or entertainment for a series of “gods”. I think that the “false gods” are virtual opponents created by the programmer of the simulation that are to be competed against by the real beings.
[/QUOTE]

This thread has become rather strange, so I will make it even more stranger.

The things that happen to you also happen to me and countless other spiritual people. Some would call you a psychic, I don’t know you well enough to judge. The dreams are lucid dreams and many people dream of the future and it comes true as they dreamed. Some don’t have to dream, but see visions of the future. There is no glitch in the system, the veil between the spiritual world and the physical world is thin and many can see through it from time to time. The coincidences you talk about are real and you bring them into your life by your thought process. It is a spiritual truth that we create are own realities. You are also right about this not being a real universe, it is a very good grand illusion for learning about ourselves. We choose to come into the physical for the purposes of learning who and what we really are. The longer explanation should be sought from books like the “Seth” collection of Jane Roberts. I believe you are trying to explain the spiritual using science which might be possible, who knows. But if you want to increase your knowledge of what is happening to you I suggest you read or seek out a psychic and talk about it. Good luck.

43

[QUOTE=diggleblop]
I personally think it may be possible that some life forms evolve and some don’t, if evolution is real. I also feel that evolution and creationism can co-exist with each other, something had to create us and that creation can surely change over time, right? Logical

What I don’t believe is that we came from monkeys or fish or any other ape or water dwelling creature. I just really don’t know. I’m an agnostic when it comes to evolution and creationism.

I just don’t know, but I will keep an open mind. But until there is proof and I mean the smoking gun, cold hard facts, I’m gonna remain that way.
[/QUOTE]

Are you aware of the gigantic pile of cold hard facts that exist - both in DNA and in the fossil record? I’m curious as to what you would consider a smoking gun. There are actually loads of them, buried in the rocks, if you’d only open your eyes.

44

[QUOTE=diggleblop]

I just don’t know, but I will keep an open mind. But until there is proof and I mean the smoking gun, cold hard facts, I’m gonna remain that way.
[/QUOTE]

The smoking gun may be a mushroom…with legs!

45

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Are you aware of the gigantic pile of cold hard facts that exist - both in DNA and in the fossil record? I’m curious as to what you would consider a smoking gun. There are actually loads of them, buried in the rocks, if you’d only open your eyes.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I’m fairly sure that that term means that you have to find, buried somewhere in ancient rock, a “missing link” fossil showing a halfway point in the evolution between crossbows and pistols, that is still emitting smoke after being fired some time presumably fifteen million years or so ago.

46

Oh god, lekatt and Resistance are teaming up to form a Voltron of crazy.

47

[QUOTE=ForumBot]
Oh god, lekatt and Resistance are teaming up to form a Voltron of crazy.
[/QUOTE]

This is awesome
:stuck_out_tongue:

48

[QUOTE=diggleblop]
I personally think it may be possible that some life forms evolve and some don’t, if evolution is real. I also feel that evolution and creationism can co-exist with each other, something had to create us and that creation can surely change over time, right? Logical
[/quote]

What created the thing that created us? Something had to create it, right? Turtles, all the way down.

You’re first sentence is not consistent with being “agnostic”. You don’t believe in evolution. Period.

There are so many cold hard facts out there supporting evolution by natural selection that the only way not to see them is to not want to see them. Oddly, there is ZERO evidence supporting any other hypothesis. (Or maybe that’s not so odd…)

49

[QUOTE=miss elizabeth]
This is awesome
:stuck_out_tongue:
[/QUOTE]
Awesome maybe, but also in violation of forum rules.

(It’s not junior modding if I don’t admonsih the miscreant themselves, right?)

50

If there is a “mortal sin” when it comes to Science, it is willful ignorance.

51

[QUOTE=Polerius]
If God is omnipotent, then he could definitely set up everything just so, so that it lead to us being what we are today. In a sense, that might be even more awe-inspiring than simply creating everything as is.
[/QUOTE]

Yawn. Talk about dull. I prefer this:

Bolding mine. Tell me you don’t want to convert right now.

As for the whole theistic evolution thing, it’s a useful tool to prevent Christians from turning into out and out atheists (although it may have unintended effects). The original story is just too embarrassing for thinking people to hold onto. Still, the theistic evolution angle presents some internal discomforts. In a universe created and directed by an all powerful god where we are presumably the ultimate goal, what in the world was the point of most of the history on Earth? Why have trillions of species rise and fall for no apparent reason? Why have microbes change the gas content of the atmosphere? Why have the continents move and crash into each other?

Say what you will about the normal creation myth, but at least it’s efficient. God creates the world just as it is in six days (god is a union guy) and poofs people into existence. But if you’re into theistic evolution…why the hell did this critter ever exist?

Also, did god specifically create and kill all the trees and algae and miscellaneous sea life which was compressed into coal, oil, and natural gas so we could some day use it? Or was that a happy side effect?

52

[QUOTE=begbert2]
So…you’re not basing your Last Thursdayism ideas on science at all, but rather on a very strange reading of the bible, where you seem to selectively ignore the many parts* that don’t fit your theory?

I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about something worth discussing seriously. You may entertain whatever religious fiction you like, but it doesn’t interest me.

  • So, when god-boy decides to restart, he does so not by actually restarting the system as any sane god would, but rather by deliberately and laboriously gathering together and packing up everything he likes up using an arkival compression technique, floods everything else in the simulation, then carefully unpacks everything and takes the extraordinary amount of time and effort to fake none of that ever happening? Other, that is, than a convenient record of it in the minds of the inbreeding little family he saved but clearly had to rewrite out of existence in recreating currently observable history, but from whom the record survived anyway? Riiiiight. If you believe that, I have this IPU to sell you, cheap! You can be sure it’s real because there’s no way to detect it. And it’ll only cost you everything you’ve got --that’s in simulated money, so it’s like you’re paying nothing at all!
    [/QUOTE]

Hey, God was just a kid then and didn’t really know how to use the program effectively.

53

If you want “awe-inspiring” I don’t think it’s possible to trump the universe as is. Like Carl Sagan said, we’re “star stuff contemplating star stuff.” YMMV.

54

[QUOTE=Resistance is Character-Formin]
Hey, God was just a kid then and didn’t really know how to use the program effectively.
[/QUOTE]
Amazing how he managed to use it then to perfectly place all the necessary evidence to convince us modern people that the flood never happened and the planet was millions of years old. It would be a very delicate job, since there’s literally TONS of such evidence, and it’s all quite consistent.

(Note that your new formulation does not have a god going through and FSM-ing evidence into existence as it’s found. So, all the millions of delicate corrections would have had to have been made in advance, by that same ignorant kid.)

As much fun as it would be to go through your theory point by point and annihilate it with mocking hilights of all its problems, that would be a hijack of the thread. Let’s not bother.

55

[QUOTE=ForumBot]
Oh god, lekatt and Resistance are teaming up to form a Voltron of crazy.
[/QUOTE]
Let’s leave the insults to the Pit. Even if they are intended only for humor, they will be misconstrued.
[ /Moderating ]

56

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Amazing how he managed to use it then to perfectly place all the necessary evidence to convince us modern people that the flood never happened and the planet was millions of years old. It would be a very delicate job, since there’s literally TONS of such evidence, and it’s all quite consistent.

(Note that your new formulation does not have a god going through and FSM-ing evidence into existence as it’s found. So, all the millions of delicate corrections would have had to have been made in advance, by that same ignorant kid.)

As much fun as it would be to go through your theory point by point and annihilate it with mocking hilights of all its problems, that would be a hijack of the thread. Let’s not bother.
[/QUOTE]

He didn’t really create the program, just modified some settings. Satan is the programmer.

57

[QUOTE=Resistance is Character-Formin]
He didn’t really create the program, just modified some settings. Satan is the programmer.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, has this been all one big woosh? If so, I sure fell for it. If not, then you have the most batshit insane interpretation of the bible that I’ve ever heard.

In either case, you are to be congratulated.

58

[QUOTE=Polerius]
It’s not an arbitrary line. If you notice, “Christianity” derives from “Christ”, i.e. Jesus, i.e. the dude whose teachings are the foundation of “Christianity”.

No Christian will agree that “an eye for an eye” is a “core Christian belief”. That is a Jewish belief.
[/QUOTE]
I really doubt that you will find any Jews (or any more than a tiny minority outside mainstream belief) who believe in an eye for an eye. The Lex Talionis was a correctiver to blood feuds imposed at or before the time of David (regardless whether he lived) and was part of mainstream Jewish theology for a very long time. Hillel, who lived before Jesus and whose sermons and stories were collected shortly after the time of Jesus expressed an idea very close to that of Jesus’s Golden Rule. (I’m always curious why those who criticize ancient Judaism’s “harsh” god always seem to have read nothing but Genesis and a few chapters of Exodus and Deuteronomy and Samuel or Kings. It is as though Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and the other prophets, with their calls for justice and their exclamations of thanksgiing for God’s mercy don’t exist.) ::: shrug :::

59

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I really doubt that you will find any Jews (or any more than a tiny minority outside mainstream belief) who believe in an eye for an eye. The Lex Talionis was a correctiver to blood feuds imposed at or before the time of David (regardless whether he lived) and was part of mainstream Jewish theology for a very long time. Hillel, who lived before Jesus and whose sermons and stories were collected shortly after the time of Jesus expressed an idea very close to that of Jesus’s Golden Rule. (I’m always curious why those who criticize ancient Judaism’s “harsh” god always seem to have read nothing but Genesis and a few chapters of Exodus and Deuteronomy and Samuel or Kings. It is as though Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and the other prophets, with their calls for justice and their exclamations of thanksgiing for God’s mercy don’t exist.) ::: shrug :::
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, slaughter a few peoples, level a few cities, and suddenly nobody pays attention to how much time you didn’t spend killing people anymore. Unfair, isn’t it?

60

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
(I’m always curious why those who criticize ancient Judaism’s “harsh” god always seem to have read nothing but Genesis and a few chapters of Exodus and Deuteronomy and Samuel or Kings. It is as though Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and the other prophets, with their calls for justice and their exclamations of thanksgiing for God’s mercy don’t exist.) ::: shrug :::
[/QUOTE]
Because the people who admire the Old Testament don’t seem to care much about those parts; only the kill-gays, massacre unbelievers, spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child and subjugating women parts. And as begbert2 says, mass murder rather outweighs the rest in importance.