GOD and EVOLUTION - Survey (Nov/23/2007 )

God blew life into mud - is this the religious way of saying 'we don't know how life started, so we will attribute it to our god'?
You are making the assumption that you have the right god? Couldn't the 'god' of the Koran be the correct one ... actually couldn't it also be down to the FSM or one of the many Hindu gods - I think the universe was created from the dung of a pink unicorn by a pack of smurfs.

The church tried to keep us in the dark-ages believing that the earth was the center of the universe.

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when god took mud and blew life into it, i would think of that as the first living cell that arose fron the primitve soup. life, tho expected for such a complex system as a cell as a means to lower free energy of an organized system by getting even using entalpy from chemical reactions is a fortune "accident". or divine intervention.
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Yeah, but you really aren't explaining anything - you have no PROOF. meh!


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... and taking the holy world literally, is the key to understanding the world around us in scientific terms and being able to realize that there is a god behind this. the more i learn as a scientist, the more convinced i am that all of this his makes sense in a world with god.
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I dare you to take that to an international evolutionary biology conference ...

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and taking the holy world literally
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Do you mean holy word or world - if the former then you are contradicting yourself.

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Mistress of Madness,

Its all a very wishy washy post really isnt it ? As a scientist you have to prove things, please prove to me there is god which isnt centered around the earth is so complex something must have created it.

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i am not trying to explain science by using god, all i am saying is that religion and science are by no means contradictory and everything stated in the bible is metaphoric, the message it contains has been simplified for everybody to understand. the problem is that, when taken literally, causes positivists to blow up and say "yay, this is all crap that cant be proven"
god is not somehting you can prove in a laboratory, it is a matter of faith and we must realize there are things that cant be explained 100% rationally. such as love, or human nature. yeah, we can study the brain, receptors, etc. but that will never explain miracles and mysteries of god. what makes us human, (apart from 46 chromosomes, and evolved nervious sytems) why we feel pain, why we tend to be good, even if it is only deep down inside is out of the domains of science.
nevertheless, tho religion and science do not cover the same issues of the same subjects, such as life, they are by no means in contradiciton. unless of course religion is taken literally. once again, this is the area of theology. profound study of this message.
i do not mean literally for instance that an antropomorphic god took the primitive soup and used his lungs to create life, but there must be some kind of divine intervention in the beauty and majestousy of the creation. by no means god playing with organic legos, but something much more ethereal, beyond explanation. this "blo life into mud" is merely a metafor of this divine intervention.
my post refers to the ways people have mistaken the bible literally. of course these are written very lighlty, but all i am trying to say is that there is no contradiciton unless people put these things in the same domain.
which of course is the mistake of most.

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>>everything stated in the bible is metaphoric
Are you sure about that? Doesn't that contradict your previous post? Also I don't think you can defend the bible for being homophobic or sexist - that certainly isn't a metaphor.

>>god is not somehting you can prove in a laboratory, it is a matter of faith
Yes, that's correct. Science you don't have to take on faith - it is evidence based. If we don't KNOW something we have to admit we don't KNOW it, not apportion it to some mysterious thing in the sky that we cannot test. WE SIMPLY DON'T KNOW.

>>explained 100% rationally. such as love, or human nature. yeah, we can study the brain, receptors, etc. but that will never explain miracles and mysteries of god. what makes us human, (apart from 46 chromosomes, and evolved nervious sytems) why we feel pain, why we tend to be good, even if it is only deep down inside is out of the domains of science.

Why we feel pain - basic biology ... come on, please think about this. Read about leprosy if you want to get an understanding of the importance of pain.

Why we are good - this is a typical bible basher argument - without religion we are all amoral monsters that would murder and thieve given half a chance. Well I have never believed in God(s), I have never stolen and never killed. There are numerous examples of people killing IN THE NAME OF A GOD, see 9/11 - don't dare use the Hitler or Stalin rebuttal to this because they DIDN'T KILL IN THE NAME OF ATHEISM - plus Hitler was a Catholic - Google Hitler, God with Us.

>> but there must be some kind of divine intervention
Why, because you don't understand something? Again you are attempting to patch a hole in human understand with something that requires no testing. Again you close with a similar statement, from which I conclude that Science and Religion are indeed in conflict, one requiring proofs the other requiring FAITH - an absence of fact and blind trust.

The plural of lego is not legos, this is an Americanism and is wrong. The company that makes lego bricks is called lego, therefore you have one lego brick and many lego bricks - this is a pet peeve.

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Where to start, where to start...

Permunky and mjolner: Why are you trying to cast the whole of the Bible as though it's the one style? There is imagery, narrative, poetry, proverb, apocalyspe (a highly specialised literary style), prophesy. Some of these are meant to be taken literally, some of them are meant to be taken figuratively. 'Switch brain "ON" before reading', is the best advice I can give. Look at the document, decide what style it is and read appropriately. I mean, who looks at the newspaper, and tries to understand it as though it was a limerick? Or who looks at a poem (or song lyrics, if you're not into poetry) and tries to understand it literally, as though it were prose?

Next, the vexed question of our relative 'goodness'. Having a religious faith is obviously no guarantee that a person will always be 'good', just a being an atheist will not mean a person will be a baby-eating psychopath. I can't think of any religion that would say that "... without religion we are all amoral monsters that would murder and thieve given half a chance", to quote yourself (If you know of a religion (as opposed to an individual preacher) that says that, please tell me). We all have the capacity to do good things and bad things, and there have been a number of well-assembled studies to show that (for example, students role-playing "guards and prisoners", where the 'guards' started torturing the 'prisoners', despite knowing the whole exercise was just a psychology experiment). The point about killing in the name of God vs killing in the name of atheism is one in which both sides have failed. Your statement that Hitler and Stalin didn't "kill in the name of atheism" is true only on the surface. Both fascism and communism were influenced to varying degrees by philosophers such as Nietsche, whose attitudes were somewhat extreme, to say the least. Hitler, for example, used Nietsche's thinking to justify the Nazi belief in the 'inferiority' of the Jews, Gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, and the 'logic' of their extermination. That thinking was mirrored in the gulags of Siberia, the killing fields of Cambodia and the "brush wars" of Africa through the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, so it is a bit disingenuous to say that there has never been any 'killing in the name of atheism'. As for the 'fact' that Hitler called himself Catholic, this does not in any way mean he was Christian!! I mean, I used to play rugby union at school, but for me to call myself a rugby union player is so absurd as to be beyond a joke. Jesus himself said that you will know what a person is by what they do. Did Hitler follow the teachings of the New testament? No. Did he go to Mass? Confession? Did he take Communion? Not that we know. How could anybody seriously think he was a Catholic, just because he appealed to God as the final authenticating agent for his regime, and had "Gott Mit Uns" on his soldiers belt buckles? Look at the New Testament, if you want to try to prove a link between Hitler and Christianity. Where does it say, in the New testament, that Christians should kill Jews (or anyone else for that matter)? Where does it say that Christians are to discriminate against others, as though they were inferior to the Christians? No, the Bible clearly says that Christians are to love our enemies (that is, those who hate Christians), pray for our persecutors, and that we are to go further than is required of us (go the extra mile), to give our enemy food and drink if they are thirsty or hungry, and to not respond in violence (turn the other cheek). Hitler's actions are completely the opposite of Jesus' teachings, his life was completely at odds with Jesus' teachings, so how anyone could say authoritatively that he was Christian is beyond me. Please don't just accept the pages of Internet as your final authority! Remember, it isn't peer-reviewed! If you want to know something about someone, do the research yourself, or say "I don't know".

By contrast to atheism, the religious view that we are all basically not good seems to be more realistic. It is precisely because we are not, by nature, good, that people are called upon to deliberately act in a certain way, do certain things, make certain sacrifices, say certain prayers. To get theological for a moment (and hopefully I will be allowed to do this), there is a concept in Protestant Christian thinking called "total depravity". Here's what it doesn't mean: it doesn't mean every one of us is a lunatic, totally-depraved psychopathic delinquent. NO! Instead, it refers to the fact that even our purest, most noble motives, thoughts and actions are tainted by our desire to be independent of God (which is, by the way, a reasonable shorthand summary of what the Bible calls "sin"). But even here, it is a side-note to our main problem, because even if we were able to show one (or a multitude of) areas where we were totally pure in our motives, thoughts and actions, the fact that we are otherwise self-centred, self-absorbed and selfish, telling God that we will not do what he says, means we have rejected Him as God.

Finally, you still do not understand the religious (especially Christian) understanding of "faith". It is not, never has been and never will be "... an absence of fact and blind trust", to quote you again. Christian faith is based totally on evidence, historical and verifiable. Christian faith is not having faith in faith (the strength of your convictions), it is not hoping against hope. It is trusting, or relying, or depending on historical evidence. To those who "demand" that I prove the existence of God, you will never find an answer. If you limit your view of t he Universe to the things you can see, hear, touch, or otherwise record, you'll never find God. Why? Because God is above nature, greater than nature - that's a part of what "supernatural" means.

You want me to prove God exists? I want you to prove why there is no supernatural. I want you to prove that the time-space universe, the physical universe is all there is. Unless you can conclusively prove that, you haven't disproved God, you haven't even proven anything. The simple answer is because God is not physical (or else he'd hardly be supernatural), we can't use natural tests to prove or disprove His existence. Furthermore, anyone who says that there is only the physical world is not actually making a scientific statement, but rather a philosophical statement of belief. Now that's what I call blind faith!

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Because I am busy, for the moment my response to this is

oh, I add that I take this as an insult (since you quote me):

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My apologies.

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I am going to keep this quick - I am having some problems with an SQL database!

How do you *KNOW* that *YOU* have got it right? People have been studying this stuff for years and still can't agree on things - this has caused religions to split.



I would love to go into this but because I am not expert on these works (and I doubt you are - not hostile) I won't. My point, that you are not getting, is that the crimes that these people committed were not *because* they were atheists/agnostics but simply because they were messed up. Using communism is simply replacing one ideology with another. Atheism isn't a belief system - it simply means that one doesn't believe in a deity[s].

I will leave the "more Christian than you" section for the moment.



You are allowed ... at least I can't stop you ... I don't get how this helps your argument. So are you saying that the only thing that stops *YOU* from butchering people is your evangelical belief system? If so, you are a scary person indeed.



I'm sorry, but you don't understand what a definition is.
If the bible is a historical document - which one is the definitive one? I am being totally serious - do you think the world is 6k years old? The bible was written many many years after the events that supposedly took place - you know how rumors / memes work? Things get embellished - this can be demonstrated in a very small social environment over a short period of time - now imagine people are illiterate and the time period is 10+ years. Why is it that important figures in religious text always appear to illiterate herdsmen?



Science works by proof. If you want me to believe something you have to *show* me evidence, until that point I have no reason to believe you (thus I don't need to disprove something) - I have to take it on *FAITH*. If I could prove it, you wouldn't have any faith - again this comes down to definition.

Have a productive day/evening,

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Sorry, but I had to summarise your points to get this answer accepted by the system...

If the Bible is examined as another ancient document (or group of documents), rather than the sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity, the literary styles are readily apparent (poetry, prose etc). As far as I'm aware, textural criticism settled this debate a long time ago. It seems that the only literary professionals who argue against the accepted views do so to fit their own personal agendas, which are typically anti-supernatural ("God can't do X, so this piece of the Bible cannot be literal), or to sell their books. The rest of us, who don't spend our professional ives looking at these things have to consider both sides and make a choice (is this a step of faith? ).


OK, but how do you define a 'belief system' , if it isn't a description of the things a person believes that govern how they view the world around them? So atheism, which governs how a person views the Universe (only physical, no supernatural) is a belief system, if only because no-one can absolutely say for certain that there is no such a thing as God.
Now, as for the acts of the criminals, I agree they were totally messed up, but I'd go even further and say that their views, their political philosophies, were entirely consistent with an atheistic world view or belief system.


Not at all, thankfully. Just for the record, I wasn't the one to bring up the idea of butchering anyone...
What I mean is that my evangelical belief system seems to explain how people are seen to operate if they live as though they are independent of God, and how I should live as I acknowledge that God is God and I'm not.


{"Definition"} Let's see, now. The Oxford Online says "1. a statement of the exact meaning of a word or the nature or scope of something. " Is that OK?

{Definitive Bible?} Good question. The definitive version is the Greek, for the New Testament, and Hebrew or the Septuagint Greek for the Old Testament. The important question for those of us who aren't fluent Greek or Hebrew speakers is which translation do we use?

{ A young earth?} No, I think it's a few billion years old. As I said in an earlier posting, the important thing is to look at the document in its context. The Genesis account was written ~3500 years ago, by a man whose cosmology said that the world was flat, with a dome over it that the stars were fixed to, and which sat on another container of some description that held more water. Then remember it's poetry, which uses images.

{The gap between events and writing them down} 3 of the 4 gospels were written within 30 years or so of the events they describe, and the fourth was written at the end of the man's life.
Actually the Bible is the best-attested and most-reliable ancient document we have anywhere. This is mostly because the early Christians considered it so important to make accurate copies, they used the typical Jewish rules regarding copies of the Old Testament. If even 1 of the 20 or so rules was not observed, the new copy couldn't be used in the temple or synagogue. So if you want to declare the New testament is inaccurate historically (Graeco-Roman politics society etc) or geographically, then every other ancient document is even less accurate. And there is not one ancient historian who would suggest the documents they have aren't any good! Back in those cultures, oral history was very very important, so people learned how to memorise things correctly. Children were taught to be word-perfect, which also happens in pre-literate societies today.

{God and illiterate herdsmen} The short answer: The Bible says that God opposes the proud (that is, those whose confidence is based on their view of their own abilities) but lifts up the humble (those who look to God as being in charge). Long answer: too long for this place, but a good question.


Because science works by proof, all scientific enquiries about the existence of God is that they cannot prove things either way.
Yes, we do take things on faith. But then again, so do you, every day, whether it's something as mundane as sitting down on a chair and expecting it to hold you up or eating a meal and expecting the cook isn't trying to poison you. This kind of faith is based on evidence, on previous experience and on the character of the object or person involved. Can you prove it by science? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but that won't stop the thing being true.

It appears that this usage of the word "faith" is at odds with your definition of faith, given above. Guess who might need to consider expanding their definition of faith to allow for this other use?

and you too.

PS As a matter of fact, I'm in a pretty good mood, because I have finally generated the first of 8 new expression vectors. Hopefully the next two will be ready tomorrow, then I just have to work out the SLIC cloning for my large expression-tag constructs. I'm a hap-py boy, (Hap-py boy), Oh I'm a hap-py boy (Hap-py boy), Ain't it good when things are going your way, hey hey!

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