creat-volution

Thank you Remixer yours is the type of response I thought I would get when I posted the question. I wanted opinions and I got them I just didn't expect that so many were so closed minded.

Growing up a lot of what I/we have been told, I find has a hole or two in it's structure.

The Scientific Idea:

First there was nothing (well stuff smaller than the head of a pin) then there was an entire universe, possibly multiverse. And on one planet of billions, one cell divided into two and it was game on from then.
Could it be that our greatest minds who all share the same core conclusions, who also fall into pseudo-political clickes, who don't absolutley agree on most anything, could it be that they don't have all the answers.

The Religious Idea

First there was nothing, then God spoke and everything came into being.
Could it be that the men who wrote the books of the Bible years or even generations after the fact added something or left something out? Could it be that the many interpitaitons those books went through were less than perfect?

I for one have a degree of trouble reconciling either of the two and finding either more valid than the other. Could it be that God triggered the Big Bang and science has been busy at learning how He did it? You know God did it and humans are busy reverse-engineering the whole thing.

Does it really have to be one or the other?

 

Ismmm, thank you for your comment. I will try to give my best answer on it, but keep in mind that I talk in very relative terms and much of my reasoning is inextricably linked to my belief.

From a philosophical point of view, there is no such thing as certainty. While some people believe this conclusion to verge on the extreme, I disagree.

As with religion and science, there is only a degree of certainty we have. Contrary to what some religious believers may say, we cannot be certain on any of the things inscribed within our ideology. Any statement contrary to this is at most a logical fallacy, at worst emotional rubbish.

I cannot speak about Jews, as I know too little about it, but the main difference between the Christian and Islamic ideologies is the following: Christians believe faith is sufficient. Muslims believe both logical reasoning and faith is required.

Science has not advanced enough to give us any definitive answer regarding the creation of the Universe, or life. There are camps within the scientific community that disagree with each other on which version of events to have taken place, and there are very significant discrepancies between the current theories on the table. Though really, most of them commit the same crime they purport believers to commit: they make a leap of faith and believe their version of events to be the right one. While science has the highest "truth value" according to the principles of "propositional logic" (sorry, had to go with direct translations of the German terms "Wahrheitswert" and "Aussagenlogik"), there remains at any point in time a degree of uncertainty. Given the mentioned discrepancies between the theories and the ever-present uncertainty in assessing them, a real scientist necessarily has to find him-/herself in a state of theoretical agnosticism. We have very little of those, though, as most subscribe to one school of thought or another.

Regarding your question per se: As for whether it has to be one or the other, I don't think so. The absolute truth is whatever it is. It doesn't require our acceptance or for us to sanction it. It is, however, my belief that humans do not have the capacity to identify the absolute truth from all the other perceived truths out there. Subsequently, I believe mankind to always be in at least some state of ignorance.

 

No it doesn't. The problem with starting any thread on this topic is that the word "Creationism" means a whole lot more than "God created the world". It was a movement started by a group of Christians who wanted "God created the world" taught alongside Evolution as part of the science curriculum, when there is zero scientific evidence that this occurred. Evolution, on the other hand has buckets of evidence supporting it.

Putting that aside, there is nothing to disprove that "God" created the world, or caused the Big Bang to occur (on this, I'd suggest that Big Bang is really just a guess as to what might have happened. I'm not a scientist, but I'd question whether there is huge amounts of evidence to back this up either - so this is a whole kettle of fish different to Evolution. On the other hand there is no evidence to prove that "God" created the world, either.

Christians (or any other religious people) take a leap of faith in believing there is a god. Did the resurrection of Jesus take place? Maybe, but the only eye witnesses were his followers - not exactly the least biased people. To be a Christian you have to have faith that this event occurred (imo pretty much everything else is a sideline). There is no empirical evidence. There is no scientific basis.

Are "God" and "Science" mutually exclusive? No, but many atheists use science as a basis for rejecting God.

 

I think you will find that most atheists would quickly become theists if there was anything beyond faith to suggest that god exists. To my way of seeing, the Abrahamic god is just as implausible as Thor or Zeus.

As for science, it progresses and changes -- drastically -- over time as new information is found. It is not written in stone. Evolution would be cast aside if something better came along to explain what we can observe.

 

Got to disagree with you. I believe many atheists are more driven by an emotional disgust for religion than anything else.

That process takes long amounts of time, at every turn. Even if you had something clearly better and well-evidenced than Evolution, there will remain loyalists of the concept who will continue to challenge any concept to dismiss theirs. I believe the same to go for almost all schools of thought on currently-circulating theories.

 

There is a good amount of disgust for religion in the ranks of atheists. There has been much that religion has done (or been done in the name of religion) that is worthy of this disgust. My point has more to do with the general disbelief in god or gods (regardless of what their followers do). At present, most atheists will tell you there is no evidence to prove or disprove that god (or gods) exist. It is purely a matter of faith.

Why shouldn't it take time? I have no issue with things taking time to figure out or even accept. Think about how things went in the scientific community when Einstein came along and rattled the foundations of Newtonian physics. Or when the people trying to explain quantum physics came along and shook both Newton and Einstein...

Our understanding of where we are, where we can from, how it all works... these are weighty questions that science attempts to answer by way of, on one hand, observable, repeatable experiments and the other, solid theories that have a basis in testable formula (some of which can eventually be tested like the latter - see Einstein's ideas around gravity).

Sure there are different factions that believe things are the way they are for different reasons. This takes place, largely, in the theoretical models. Eventually one theory will win out.

The difference here is that unlike religion, orthodoxy of belief has no place in science. Religion, by its definition, offers answers to many of the same questions that science seeks to answer, but does so with a leap of faith.

For me, that's not good enough.

 

Are we even meant to understand? I don't necessarily mean this in religious way, like God would be the only one to know, but if there is no God behind all this, it could be something human could never understand anyway.

 

Disagreed.

First, being disgusted with religion because of what has been done by man in the name of it is something I did myself in my early-teens. The thought pattern that validates such disgust is akin to that of a child, as a religion such as Islam does not tell its followers to commit the atrocities committed. The colossally cruel reign of the Catholic church in the Dark Ages was not directed by the Bible, it was done by man and his immorality. Hardly a good reason to be disgusted with the religion itself, and not very logical either.

Second, few atheists draw a distinction between religion and God. However, assuming they would draw a distinction, should evidence for God's existence ever be discovered (which I strongly doubt it will), a variety of new issues will arise in the minds of many an atheist. If God is real, why did it not prevent the founding and development of other religions? Why did/does God allow for innocent children to be killed in war? Why did/does God allow for hundreds of millions of people, many of them children, to remain on the verge of death due to starvation and/or thirst? Why did God create diseases, especially virus-based ones? This type of questions leads to an inherent emotional wall being built inside the minds of many of these same atheists, rejecting anything related to God. Delusion and denial are not uncommon attributes of our minds.

Third, it is not purely a matter of faith. It is a matter of two people (at least in the Atheist vs Muslim sense.... let's forget about Christians in general) looking at nature, its laws, space, the planets, the make-up of galaxies, the history of our Earth, the history of our Universe, the probabilities by which we could have ended up in the Goldilocks area, the exact fit of all the physical and chemical values for life to exist. One of them goes on to theorize that a sudden and random Big Bang gave birth to our Universe and everything that followed was pure coincidence and nothing else, the other goes on to deduce that the fit (which may very well have included the Big Bang) is too good not to have been invoked by a higher/an artificial power. It's a matter of the length of deduction that is employed by either party, as the information that leads to the conclusion of God's existence can be classified as circumstantial evidence.

My issue here lies with the constant involvement of misplaced emotional logic within the scientific community that comes with being a loyalist to a certain school of thought on the backfoot based on current evidence; proceeding to believe in their own theory with the thought that "I'm sure confirming research data and evidence will show up soon enough". How scientific is that? I agree that constant disagreement is the best thing for science, but I somehow believe the entire process should be more impartial.
--- merged: Sep 12, 2011 8:19 AM ---

I agree.

 

I think, if you read my comments again, you will see that I have not made the mistake of blaming religion for the horrors done in the name of religion. Frankly, I see the distinction but think it's a rather facile distinction when looked at from my perspective. That being, religion is a human construct and not of devine nature. I will grant you that, as a philosophy, most religions are peaceful at their heart. So are many things that humans have, ultimately, corrupted for their own purposes.

In the end, I find that much of what I read in religious texts does the following: 1) answers where we came from, 2) where we go when we die, and 3) offers prescribed rules for all the business in between points one and two. In the end, I am offered no solace from points one and two, from anything I've studied to date. As for three, sure there are some interesting points to be culled from various religious texts. There is a tonne of extraneous nonsense (some of which is cast aside willy-nilly). Not all that logical.

Your last sentence just about sums up my general feeling about religious folks as well. Thank you.

Sure. I can agree that some will see how things work differently and have faith that some greater power made everything come into being. I don't share that view and find that the explanations currently provided by science, provide a more plausible explanation. There is *nothing* in all of our exploration of the way things are, that suggests there is a greater power behind everything that is.

Do I 'believe' in the Big Bang theory? Only so long as it provides an interesting extrapolation that explains what we know about the Universe and the way it works today. Could some other great theory or proof arise? Why not? We are learning more and more about the Universe all the time. This does not trouble me. I am not bothered because, unlike many who go to religion for these sorts of explanations, I have not built a foundation of belief that cannot afford to be shaken, questioned and (ultimately) changed.

I can't think of anything more impartial than peer reviewed process. If your results cannot be replicated, you are not going to get anywhere.

As for proof, Einstein's theories about gravity did not *need* to be proved. They were theories that were based on formulas and ideas used to form a basis of understanding what we observe. In his time, we did not have the instruments of measurement or the ability to go to space to test his theories. When the satellites used to prove his theory were sent into space a few years ago, there was a very real chance that Einstein would have been proven wrong. This would not have been a disaster. It would have been part of the process. We would have learned something new and had to change our ways of thinking.

Very scientific.

But that is the beauty of humanity. We may never know how the Universe came into being but we keep trying to figure it. We don't just shrug and say it *must* have been a greater power because it's so complicated. Humans don't do this. We continue to think and think some more.

 

The first part of the quoted text contradict your earlier statement. "There has been much that religion has done" and "I have not made the mistake of blaming religion" don't go well with each other. You may argue that you separated what religion did and what its followers did and thus there was no contradiction. In a strict sense, you'd be right. However, you will then have to describe what you meant with "there has been much that religion has done that is worthy of this disgust".

In any case, the second part is quite a clear example of a straw man fallacy. Trying to up my earlier, possibly taken offensively, statement that disgust for religion, unless entirely based on its doctrine, to be illogical with a random example of religion's perceived illogical nature in some aspect doesn't do anything for this discussion. Further, I never claimed to defend religion's doctrines. The only religion I am willing to defend and argue for is Islam. What any other religion does is none of my concern. If you have examples of logical fallacies in Islam, I will gladly respond to it at the best of my ability, but not to a general statement on the drool contained in many religions (which in many cases I agree with).

I agree with you completely. I prefer my Atheist friends much more for debates than my religious friends. Denial is almost like a mental disease in those circles, even in Muslims. While I know several Atheists who fall victim of the same, as a whole they respond much better to balanced reasoning.

This is a non-sequitur response to my mentioning that Muslims see the scientific make-up of the Universe and conclude the existence of a higher power. First, scientific explanations are not rejected by most of the Islamic community. And second, it is often because we have our explanations and definitions of what was and is, the patterns we see (e.g. Fibonacci numbers), the beauty in galactic structures, the immense complexity and harmony in how nature operates that we believe in a higher power.

I didn't knock the Big Bang theory, or for you to believe in it. It appears you missed the point I made when I brought it up. It served as an example of similarity in/acceptance of thought: Science currently has its flagship theory of the Big Bang incident, and Islam as well as its followers certainly do not reject the possibility of such.

Again, I am not speaking for other religions. When it comes to Islam, it directs every Muslim to doubt and put into question every aspect of it. It demands its followers to seek out the best possible education and view everything critically. This is one of the main reasons that back in the age of roughly 800 - 1200 A.D. Islamic countries were the world leaders in science and academia; encouraging the establishment of a wide network of Universities in the Near and Middle East built on strong academic foundations, while the Roman Catholic church closed/burned them down in Europe.

I'll have to concede this point to you. It appears I was barking at the wrong tree.

 

I am a believer and I too am disgusted with a lot of what people have done in the name of religion. some of the owrst for me (aside from the obvious ) is false faith. Those people who wear the mask of beleivers yet live the lives of those with no faith, but that's another thing.

this is gonna piss some of you off, but here is a snapshot of how I tend to beleive today, albeit confused here it is:

First imagine God as just some dude named god. He has a son he named Jesus.

remember way back when we were kids and the back of comic books sold sea monkeys?

Jesus pestered his dad for for some sea monkeys (us). God being a good dad got them for him thinking it will teach him something and he'd learn to take care of something other than his own immediate needs. but just like the rest of us who bought turtles or goldfish god ended up taking care of us because Jesus was not doing it. god decided that He would keep his son's little project going until little Jesus finally was interessted enough to do it himself.
during his wait for Jesus to take over one section after another would spoil, God found that just removing the spoiled parts would take care of the problem and the wiped off part would grow back eventually. He'd use a spray bottle one day and a match the next.

Eventually God got tired of taking care of us (perhaps us and many others) because we required so much work and it was time Jesus learn some responsibility. He would have to take care of us Himself. To do so He would have to teach us to not be so self destructive. this was our perceived perception of Jesus here on earth.

and so on.

So we are sea monkeys and Jesus is some distracted kid.

 

To each their own, Ismmm.

That view wouldn't be able to fit in the framework of Islam, not only because Jesus is not considered the son of God (he's considered one of the most important prophets, but that's as far as it goes), as God is stated to be a being entirely unbound and independent from the realm in which we live. For God, for example, we do not believe there to be such a thing as time, and that it is all-powerful and all-knowing. As a consequence, there is no reason to believe God could get bored or moody. What is God's realm like? How does everything work there? Is there anything besides God? It's something we cannot understand, as we have no information.

What saddens me, though, is that I don't remember such a human picture of God having been portrayed in the Bible. Christians nowadays have taken a lot of liberties in the logic they employ to argue for human characteristics in God, as there is no basis for such a conclusion, even in their own texts.
--- merged: Sep 13, 2011 6:04 AM ---

I agree wholeheartedly. It certainly has no place being taught in schools as a "science" in itself. Or, worse, as a substitute for Science.

 

Genesis 1:26 - then god said, "let us make man in our image...". Not that I believe in a god, but I can see how you can take this verse and come to the conclusion we are like god (and therefore god is like us).

 

Not sure what to make of the quoted verse, to be honest. However, it does seem like something where one may argue that we are like God, however much I would disagree with it. So, I stand corrected.

 

As having been taught Christian beliefs - not fanatically though imo - it is easy to picture God as some sort of old man hovering above the Earth, seeing everything. This image is hard to shake off.