(A) God and/or/in Science

[Husker_x]

Working on it. I'm a bit busy at the moment but I started drafting a response.

 

Edit: In reply to Landlord's post a few above this one.

[Landlord]

I look forward to your guys' responses.

 

tschu, I guess the "question" is how do we make sense of where we are as a species in regards to intellect and discovery, when it doesn't seem there is any necessity to comprehend truth in order to have an advantage in the evolutionary process? Not sure if that entirely makes sense, but at least at surface level it seems the only two explanations are that we either need to acknowledge that we might not actually know anything to be true with certainty, or that if we are going to assert that we know truth, that there must be more to these processes than current theory entails in order to get to where we are.

 

 

Also I didn't mean to confuse terms - that was a semantical mistake on my part. I suppose what I meant is that if we are going to accept that as the entirety of knowledge.

[BigRedBuster]

Calling evolution a "belief" by the way is misguided. See the relationship between belief and knowledge...a belief that is truth and has justification for being true is no longer a belief, it is knowledge.

 

 

I don't think anyone on here is claiming evolution doesn't happen. Organisms do change over time to adapt to their environment.

 

But, to me anyway, there still is a belief involved when you get to the degree that evolution without any other power involved is the source of all life from non life and that non-life came from a mass of matter that.....I guess was just always there. To me, that takes almost as big of leap of faith as believing in a higher power being involved.

[NUinID]

Why do you have to choose a God if you believe in a higher power?

Yeah, I agree. If you think there is a creator it doesn't much matter what you think that creator's name or purpose is in the context of this particular argument.

 

 

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. My point is, the question if there is a creator or not is really separate from religion. Religions are man made traditions to worship a creator/higher power. Whatever name is given to that higher power originally came from humans.

 

The simple idea of a higher power really has no bearing on what actual name you give that power and vice versa.

 

Also, my "God" just well might be the exact same "higher power" that every other religion worships around the world. They simply have developed different human traditions (and name) around that higher power.

 

Very good explanation that I agree with. This is why I have a hard time with one religion be it Christianity/Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism/Judaism etc. over another. I feel that all can be a pathway to the higher power.

[Landlord]

Why do you have to choose a God if you believe in a higher power?

Yeah, I agree. If you think there is a creator it doesn't much matter what you think that creator's name or purpose is in the context of this particular argument.

 

 

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. My point is, the question if there is a creator or not is really separate from religion. Religions are man made traditions to worship a creator/higher power. Whatever name is given to that higher power originally came from humans.

 

The simple idea of a higher power really has no bearing on what actual name you give that power and vice versa.

 

Also, my "God" just well might be the exact same "higher power" that every other religion worships around the world. They simply have developed different human traditions (and name) around that higher power.

 

Very good explanation that I agree with. This is why I have a hard time with one religion be it Christianity/Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism/Judaism etc. over another. I feel that all can be a pathway to the higher power.

 

 

The problem with this sentiment is that if one of these belief systems is accurate, the rest can't lead to the same place, because they have different truth claims. Nothing big, only creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.

 

If all can be true then none are true.

[BigRedBuster]

Why do you have to choose a God if you believe in a higher power?

Yeah, I agree. If you think there is a creator it doesn't much matter what you think that creator's name or purpose is in the context of this particular argument.

 

 

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. My point is, the question if there is a creator or not is really separate from religion. Religions are man made traditions to worship a creator/higher power. Whatever name is given to that higher power originally came from humans.

 

The simple idea of a higher power really has no bearing on what actual name you give that power and vice versa.

 

Also, my "God" just well might be the exact same "higher power" that every other religion worships around the world. They simply have developed different human traditions (and name) around that higher power.

 

Very good explanation that I agree with. This is why I have a hard time with one religion be it Christianity/Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism/Judaism etc. over another. I feel that all can be a pathway to the higher power.

 

 

The problem with this sentiment is that if one of these belief systems is accurate, the rest can't lead to the same place, because they have different truth claims. Nothing big, only creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.

 

If all can be true then none are true.

 

And that question has nothing to do with there actually being a higher power or not. The first question is....."Is there a higher power?" If the answer is "no"...end of discussion. If the answer is "yes", then you have to start muddling through all of the man made traditions and beliefs to find the real truth. It really is amazing the amount of Religion that is man made. I'm not discrediting that, but, it is important (in my mind) to distinguish what parts of religion come from man and what comes from a higher power.

[knapplc]

I agree with BRB that there's a leap of faith in the origins of life theories I've been reading about during this conversation. I don't think it's as large as the leap you have to make to believe in "a god" as the progenitor of life, but there's definitely room for questions.

 

The one big difference between ID and evolution is that with evolution, we have a far better road map of how it was done. In evolution there's a soupy mess, it contained "stuff" favorable to the creation of life, through chemical and biological reactions which we can see and recreate, those basic building blocks coalesced into more complex blocks, and so on, and so on, until <magic happens> those more-complex components became what we call "alive." There are verifiable and reproducible steps along the way, with one step containing "magic."

 

If a Creator was involved, the whole process from start to finish was "magic," and there is no evidence to support that. In fact, the road map we have dispels quite a bit of the magical steps the Creator would have taken. If the Creator isn't necessary for those steps, it's reasonable to think he wasn't necessary for any of them.

[Landlord]

The one big difference between ID and evolution is that with evolution, we have a far better road map of how it was done. In evolution there's a soupy mess, it contained "stuff" favorable to the creation of life, through chemical and biological reactions which we can see and recreate, those basic building blocks coalesced into more complex blocks, and so on, and so on, until <magic happens> those more-complex components became what we call "alive." There are verifiable and reproducible steps along the way, with one step containing "magic."

 

If a Creator was involved, the whole process from start to finish was "magic," and there is no evidence to support that.

 

It seems you're arguing a dichotomy, though. I don't see how the more-complete road map, non-debatable truth of evolution is incompatible with a creator. Maybe you didn't mean that, but your last sentence sounded like it. There are a number of perspectives I can see of looking at it that can still work with the notion of a deity being responsible.

 

 

For the record, I don't necessarily have a well-defined stance on all of this (besides a belief in science and a belief in the God of the Bible), but the most attractive position to me as of today is Francis Collins' theistic evolution viewpoint. I go back and forth on a few points, but it essentially is summed up as:

 

1. The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.

2. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.

3. While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.

4. Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.

5. Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.

6. But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout our history.

 

Now before someone misunderstands me, know that I realize this is not science. It's not intended to be a scientific theory, it's merely meant to be scientifically consistent and spiritually satisfying. There's a sliding scale of how much or how little God is allowed or has decided to supernaturally intervene, if at all, but I don't see how that would make it any less legitimate either way.

[knapplc]

I did not say it was incompatible, what I said was that god is not necessary, and the less necessary god is, the less likely it is that he exists.

 

The fact that <magic happens> at some step in evolution doesn't in any way provide evidence for god. Nothing, in fact, provides evidence for god. Or, to put it another way, the best evidence we have for any god is the same evidence we have for every god.

 

You stated the inherent problem with god quite well when you said:

 

The problem with this sentiment is that if one of these belief systems is accurate, the rest can't lead to the same place, because they have different truth claims. Nothing big, only creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.

 

If all can be true then none are true.

[BigRedBuster]

I agree with BRB that there's a leap of faith in the origins of life theories I've been reading about during this conversation. I don't think it's as large as the leap you have to make to believe in "a god" as the progenitor of life, but there's definitely room for questions.

 

The one big difference between ID and evolution is that with evolution, we have a far better road map of how it was done. In evolution there's a soupy mess, it contained "stuff" favorable to the creation of life, through chemical and biological reactions which we can see and recreate, those basic building blocks coalesced into more complex blocks, and so on, and so on, until <magic happens> those more-complex components became what we call "alive." There are verifiable and reproducible steps along the way, with one step containing "magic."

 

If a Creator was involved, the whole process from start to finish was "magic," and there is no evidence to support that. In fact, the road map we have dispels quite a bit of the magical steps the Creator would have taken. If the Creator isn't necessary for those steps, it's reasonable to think he wasn't necessary for any of them.

 

 

Where did the soupy mess come from? Also, the bolded part is where I don't agree with. But, that is fine and I'm OK if others don't. I don't see how just because we have this roadmap, it proves that a creator isn't needed or wasn't there.

[knapplc]

Again, I didn't say that road map proves anything. I said that the more road map we find, the less likely it is that god was involved in life.

 

 

Most of the stuff in the soupy mess came from dead stars. Like the gold in your wedding ring, those complex molecules (iron, carbon, etc.) were forged in the nuclear fusion hearts of stars. Those stars exploded in a process we can observe today, scattering molecules into space. From the dusty novas created by those star explosions, through the forces of gravity, accretion discs formed. Those accretion discs coalesced into stars and planets, and that's how our solar system formed - and again, we can observe this happening in other parts of the galaxy.

 

So all that soupy mess came from ex-stars (suns, not Erik Estrada).

[tschu]

I've got a long post incoming at some point but I'm not sure where you're getting that belief in a god/gods is some intrinsic property of humans. Religion arises for several reasons - humans desire to understand their world and letting our brains fill in the missing gaps for us, combined with our self-awareness of own own existence and desire for our existence to mean something 'more' as a consequence of that self-awareness. It's kind of a psychological thing, not so much an evolutionary thing. It's not that we EVOLVED moral law of religion; it's that our brains evolved in size and complexity enough where we are the only organisms who are capable of abstract thought. Religion and philosophy followed as a result.

[JJ Husker]

 

Very good explanation that I agree with. This is why I have a hard time with one religion be it Christianity/Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism/Judaism etc. over another. I feel that all can be a pathway to the higher power.

 

 

The problem with this sentiment is that if one of these belief systems is accurate, the rest can't lead to the same place, because they have different truth claims. Nothing big, only creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.

 

If all can be true then none are true.

 

I don't feel there is a problem with this sentiment. I would not go so far as to say "all" are true but I do think many could be true. But, "true" may not be the proper word. I happen to think God is flexible enough to allow for a multitude of ways to get there. What I mean specifically is, The Christian's way may need to follow what they believe and the Muslims way may need to follow what they believe. Sure there are hard and fast differences between the two but I have a very difficult time believing all non-Christians are going to hell (or at least not reaching heaven) even though it may require firm belief and adherence to Christianity for a Christian to get there. I think there can be many different ways to one all powerful, omnipotent creator. He sure wouldn't be bound by the same limitations we are. He knows our hearts and minds better than we or any man does.

 

A couple examples come to mind that make me think this way. 1- What about the person that is never exposed to the Bible, Jesus Christ, or Christianity? 2- What about the person that has an extremely bad experience with any specific church or religion and turns away from it through no fault of their own? I refuse to believe those facts alone are enough to preclude attaining what strict followers of any religion may receive. I think God (the one creator) can provide many paths without any one being necessarily right or wrong. What may be right or true for me may not be what is right or true for another.

 

Obviously these are not ideas I have been taught being a member of the Lutheran or Catholic faiths but that is how I think nonetheless. Sorry if that was too far off subject.

[BigRedBuster]

Again, I didn't say that road map proves anything. I said that the more road map we find, the less likely it is that god was involved in life.

 

 

Most of the stuff in the soupy mess came from dead stars. Like the gold in your wedding ring, those complex molecules (iron, carbon, etc.) were forged in the nuclear fusion hearts of stars. Those stars exploded in a process we can observe today, scattering molecules into space. From the dusty novas created by those star explosions, through the forces of gravity, accretion discs formed. Those accretion discs coalesced into stars and planets, and that's how our solar system formed - and again, we can observe this happening in other parts of the galaxy.

 

So all that soupy mess came from ex-stars (suns, not Erik Estrada).

 

 

Where did the star that exploded come from? And...why does the road map that we uncover make it less likely that a God was involved?

[BigRedBuster]

I've got a long post incoming at some point but I'm not sure where you're getting that belief in a god/gods is some intrinsic property of humans. Religion arises for several reasons - humans desire to understand their world and letting our brains fill in the missing gaps for us, combined with our self-awareness of own own existence and desire for our existence to mean something 'more' as a consequence of that self-awareness. It's kind of a psychological thing, not so much an evolutionary thing. It's not that we EVOLVED moral law of religion; it's that our brains evolved in size and complexity enough where we are the only organisms who are capable of abstract thought. Religion and philosophy followed as a result.

 

 

I guess it depends on what direction you come from to your belief in a creator and your religion.

 

I can only speak for myself. When i was questioning everything, I came to the belief that there has to be a creator and a higher power involved in life.

 

OK...that's my starting point.

 

Now, how does that pertain to my religion? If, I am right and "God" created the Earth, then what does that really mean for me? We have a Bible. Ok.....that is a decent road map.

 

NOW.......look at almost all Christian churches and they have traditions and rules ...etc that aren't specifically laid out in the Bible. They are ideas from humans that at at some point in history, someone said....."Hey Dude....I God would like it if we honored him by doing this". Now...I don't necessarily have a problem with "this". But, some people need to realize that it came from ideas that humans have had and not directed from the hand of God.