Thread: How about Evolution AND Creationism, instead of VS.

If all man-made things were invented & created by someone - cars, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. - then why do some people get so repulsed by the idea that the universe and its laws were also created by someone?

Evolution is undoubtedly real, because fossil records proved as such. But like missing links in fossil records, just because a higher being can't be seen/found doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution). This just might solve the conflicts between the two parties. Or offend both. *sigh* there's just no pleasing some people.

Well, as Voltaire said: “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

Originally Posted by Calicis

If all man-made things were invented & created by someone - cars, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. - then why do some people get so repulsed by the idea that the universe and its laws were also created by someone?

Evolution is undoubtedly real, because fossil records proved as such. But like missing links in fossil records, just because a higher being can't be seen/found doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution). This just might solve the conflicts between the two parties. Or offend both. *sigh* there's just no pleasing some people.

You'll undoubtetly offend both parties.

Creationists because they don't want to believe that they are animals, they want to believe we're created in our present form as a "special creation of God", which is stupid.

Evolutionists/scientists because of the scientific method. A nonexplanation like God can't satisfy as a logically sound explanation for a phenomena/observation. You'll just replace one unknown with another.

However, there are people who think God is driving evolution. Though I doubt they consider "missing links" a work of God.

Originally Posted by Calicis

If all man-made things were invented & created by someone - cars, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. - then why do some people get so repulsed by the idea that the universe and its laws were also created by someone?

Unlike cars and corporations and all human appliances, the universe and its laws don't break. Why would something unbreakable require a builder? I know it's impossible to wrap one's mind around, if one cannot grasp infinity. Very many scientists are still enthralled to the assumption our universe (and laws) were created e.g. Big Bang.

Originally Posted by Calicis

how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution). This just might solve the conflicts between the two parties.

If it can't be broken, does it want a maintenance guy?

Man made things break because the tools (the math & engineering) we use to create are only estimates, never completely precise. The laws themselves are perfect, but we aren't so we can't utilize them perfectly. Then it's only expected that man made things break over time. A perfect being can create perfect laws, and since it makes sense that one knows its own creation inside out, this being can execute the laws flawlessly.

Calicis wrote:
how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution). This just might solve the conflicts between the two parties.

If it can't be broken, does it want a maintenance guy?

It's not maintenance, it's progress.

So how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution).

My stand is that God might well exists and might be experienced subjectively by individuals (which I seriously doubt but I give the benefit of doubt to those believers), he doesn't play any role in the natural processes (as far as we know).

If evolution can be explained by purely natural phenomenons such as natural selection, we should leave God out of any scientific explanation. Any argument along the line that evolution depends on too "luck" and is therefore unlikely to happen spontaneously is basically just argument from ignorance since there might be new evidences that proves otherwise. Creation-cum-evolution is therefore highly improbable.

Originally Posted by Calicis

Man made things break because the tools (the math & engineering) we use to create are only estimates, never completely precise. The laws themselves are perfect, but we aren't so we can't utilize them perfectly. Then it's only expected that man made things break over time. A perfect being can create perfect laws, and since it makes sense that one knows its own creation inside out, this being can execute the laws flawlessly.

The laws aren't necessarily perfect, but they might seem perfect.

The way I see it, the forces or laws of nature are simply a product of matter and energy, and that seems to be the case. For example natural selection is a force which is dependent upon enviroment, and the strenght of gravity depends upon mass.

If God existed and did anything that affected our universe, all the things God did were done before Big Bang.

Originally Posted by prasit

If God existed and did anything that affected our universe, all the things God did were done before Big Bang.

Where did God find the time to do anything before the Big Bang?

"Evolutionist" and "Creationist" extremists who believe that their ideas cannot be reconciled are like the following idiots in a grocery store. The "creationist" says, "see how perfectly red, round, fragrant and beautiful the tomatoes are, this is proof of design and so there must be a factory somewhere employing the very best engineers so that these tomatoes can be constructed according to exacting specifications." To this the "evolutionist" says, "there is no evidence of any engineers here so you are obviously delusional, these tomatoes must have come into existence entirely due to the action of the mathematical laws of nature." Both are idiots because they fail to see one simple fact that is in front of their face and that is that tomatoes are alive and are a part of living organisms. As a result neither sees the truth which is a relationship between the farmer and the tomato plant -- how blind can they be?

This fact and nature of living things is what makes nonsense of both the creationist's divine watchmaker and the evolutionist's mechanistic laws. The fact that what they are discussing is alive, means two very important things. One is that living things do things for their own reasons and come into existence NOT by design and construction but by growth and learning. The other thing is that living things do not grow and learn in a vaccum but are radically open to their environment and thus they have plentiful room in their lives for caretakers, shepherds and teachers. Yes. teachers. For here we find the role of God. Not controling. Not designing. But involved in a relationship with the student, trying many different ways to .... to what? To remake the student in some pre-envisioned pattern that all people should be? To stamp them out according to factory specifications? To make them understand the world as the teacher believes is the only way that the world must be understood? OR... is it to facilitate, aid and inspire them to find their own understanding, to find and become according to their own choices the person that they can become?

Yes there are factual goals. For we do not want them to confuse 1+1=2 with a matter of opinion as if 1+1=3 were just as good. And likewise we do not want them to be confused about the difference between science and theology, imagining that creationism is a scientific theory, or that evoution is a religious heresy. Oh well I suppose parents and pseudo-christian cults can program and indoctrinate their children to believe that scientists are all going to hell. I certainly cannot stop them. But I will certainly fight to keep their filth out of the public classroom. Meanwhile I shall also try to put out the fires of outrage they create to assure the more reasonable atheists that not all Christians are brain dead zombies.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

caretakers, shepherds and teachers. Yes. teachers. For here we find the role of God...

IIRC you're a tutor, not a teacher yet. :wink:

BumFluff wrote

Where did God find the time to do anything before the Big Bang?

I don't really know. I just know that God (if exist) did not do anything after the Big Bang.

Originally Posted by Calicis

If all man-made things were invented & created by someone - cars, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. - then why do some people get so repulsed by the idea that the universe and its laws were also created by someone?

Evolution is undoubtedly real, because fossil records proved as such. But like missing links in fossil records, just because a higher being can't be seen/found doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So how about this, a higher being started it all (creation) and is guiding it along (evolution). This just might solve the conflicts between the two parties. Or offend both. *sigh* there's just no pleasing some people.

Finding out how the universe works is not about "pleasing some people" but about actually finding out how it works. Creationists are pissed off because their claims for creators and designers fail miserably under scrutiny. They live in a fantasy world.

Why kowtow to them? They simply need to get an education.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Yes. teachers. For here we find the role of God. Not controling. Not designing. But involved in a relationship with the student, trying many different ways to .... to what? To remake the student in some pre-envisioned pattern that all people should be? To stamp them out according to factory specifications? To make them understand the world as the teacher believes is the only way that the world must be understood? OR... is it to facilitate, aid and inspire them to find their own understanding, to find and become according to their own choices the person that they can become?

Substitute the word "God" for Thor, Zeus, Mithra, Allah or any other supernatural entity ever proclaimed to exist and you have a nonsensical explanation.

What Mitchell is stating is that you MUST find the role of HIS god.

Oh well I suppose parents and pseudo-christian cults can program and indoctrinate their children to believe that scientists are all going to hell. I certainly cannot stop them. But I will certainly fight to keep their filth out of the public classroom.

How do we keep your pseudo-christian cult nonsense out?

Meanwhile I shall also try to put out the fires of outrage they create to assure the more reasonable atheists that not all Christians are brain dead zombies.

I don't think I've ever considered you brain dead, Mitchell. Brain MIA, perhaps, but not dead.

God is not necessary for the theory of evolution, and the theory of evolution doesn't explain things or predict things with any greater accuracy when you add god. You can tack god on to the theory of evolution if you want, but you are just making the theory more complicated without actually improving it.

By "improving it" I mean improving its rationality or predictive accuracy. If you want god to exist and are out to reconcile his existence with evolution, then that might be an "improvement" on the theory in terms of your own comfort. That's true of tacking on "because that's how god wants it" to any scientific theory.

Originally Posted by prasit

BumFluff wrote

Where did God find the time to do anything before the Big Bang?

I don't really know. I just know that God (if exist) did not do anything after the Big Bang.

Because time didn't exist before the Big Bang, or so the theory goes.

Originally Posted by (Q)

How do we keep your pseudo-christian cult nonsense out?

But I am not the one who has a problem making a distinction between his religions ideas from that which ought to be taught in public schools. So the truth is that we have much more reason to be concerned if you are ever hired as a teacher.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

But I am not the one who has a problem making a distinction between his religions ideas from that which ought to be taught in public schools. So the truth is that we have much more reason to be concerned if you are ever hired as a teacher.

True story:

Today an ant was on a mat outdoors. I began to shake it off, when my son intervened. He said that is just the same as if I'm shaking a person. I said no, animals are not people. He insisted they are just like us, his teachers said so. Then he added, "We have to be kind to nature."

The discussion ended pretty shortly with my son rolling his eyes at Papa's nutty beliefs, that contradict his teachers, summer camp, and the books in his school library.

Is that not religion? Religion taught in schools, without parents' consent?

How do religions really start anyway?



BTW I did and have tried to explain the difference between feeling something and thinking something (e.g. why treat animals humanely), he kinda grasps it, but public education's idiotic moral lessons are so persistent and appealing.

Originally Posted by Pong

True story:

Today an ant was on a mat outdoors. I began to shake it off, when my son intervened. He said that is just the same as if I'm shaking a person. I said no, animals are not people. He insisted they are just like us, his teachers said so. Then he added, "We have to be kind to nature."

The discussion ended pretty shortly with my son rolling his eyes at Papa's nutty beliefs, that contradict his teachers, summer camp, and the books in his school library.

Is that not religion? Religion taught in schools, without parents' consent?

How do religions really start anyway?



BTW I did and have tried to explain the difference between feeling something and thinking something (e.g. why treat animals humanely), he kinda grasps it, but public education's idiotic moral lessons are so persistent and appealing.

If only all the nonsense that is taught in schools were that harmless. But for the most part, what is important is to to give them alternatives so that kind of crap isn't all they hear, so they can learn to think for themselves and make their own choices. Hopefully there will be improvements as time goes on, however slowly. For example, I had a teacher in high school who had a rather amazing talent - he could insult every female student in the room within the first 5 minutes.

Yeah, it could be worse.

Ironic I feel an imposition, 'cause I'm all for social engineering... just, Not In My Back Yard apparently.

Originally Posted by Pong

Yeah, it could be worse.

Ironic I feel an imposition, 'cause I'm all for social engineering... just, Not In My Back Yard apparently.

Yeah! That's alway the problem with social engineering. It ok as long as it is used on somebody else. But people have got to learn and understand that the world remade in their own image would be hell.