Evolution vs. Creation

[Lote-Tree]

[QUOTE=Turk;392108]There's a lot of good books in that website and after reading some of them the statement you tried to make fun of (but couldn't unfortunately) are seem quite possible.

LOL :-) Harun Yahya?

That man is not a scientist! He uses other people's work out of context to further his creationist objectives! He has no understanding of biological evolution nor science as a whole.

[JGL57]

Evolution and Creation are one and the same, as all you atheist say that a vastly dense mass caused the big bang, then what caused the dense mass? Therefore if God is Omnipotent, could he not still know exactly how to start the sequence which lead to the single celled organism, and end it with Mankind's emancipation.

Well, sure, there is nothing wrong with deism or pantheism. I doubt big bang cosmology is taught in grammar or high school science classes - probably only in certain physics classes at university. But, at the latter, the teacher or professor would be out of line to say "Thus, there is no god, including deistic or pantheistic" at the conclusion of the course. He or she could only say that the singularity (that exploded to be the "big bang") is the start of both space and time, and scientific theories (at our level of knowledge at this time) regarding its "origin" - if that word even applies - is purely speculative.

I think the science vs. religion problem is the NOTION of the monotheistic god - the one that interferes in the natural order in historical times, e.g., popping complex beings into being ex nihlio and other sheer acts of magic.

And I use the word "notion" above because such does not arise to the level of scientific theory, as it is unfalsifiable in principle.

Gods who do not interfere - the deistic and pantheistic - are irrelevant, as such are by their nature trivial claims.

[weepingforloman]

Speaking out of personal experience (I'm only a few years removed from middle school), teachers DO teach the big bang. Obviously they are prohibited from making religious assumptions based on the theory-- but it IS taught, and taught as fact.

[hyperborean]

Here is a good video from Carl Sagan about the universe. It's funny as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOYfG0QGG0

[Lote-Tree]

Gods who do not interfere - the deistic and pantheistic - are irrelevant, as such are by their nature trivial claims.

But God's who tinker with the world after it has been created is absurd?

[Lily Adams]

Here is a good video from Carl Sagan about the universe. It's funny as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOYfG0QGG0

Ha ha. I have this one as one of my favorites on my YouTube account. (As well as the one I posted earlier.)

"Mountain Dew is the best soda ever made."

[JGL57]

But God's who tinker with the world after it has been created is absurd?

The way I would put it is - to give credence to the notion that a good explanation for an observed phenomenon is that an assumed creator god is tinkering with reality - that would be an absurd explanation. Traditionally, such goes by the name of "god of the gaps", i.e, if humans don't understand some observed phenomenon (i.e., can't prove an mechanistic theory), then a religionists runs in and shouts "goddidit" - and badda bing, badd boom, "knowledge" is created. That's absurd.

[weepingforloman]

Is it absurd to observe the laws of nature, and then to infer that a God exists? Because that is mostly what modern theistic philosophy is based upon.

[hyperborean]

Because that is mostly what modern theistic philosophy is based upon.

And that's why we argue against theistic philosophy.

[JGL57]

Is it absurd to observe the laws of nature, and then to infer that a God exists?...

In a word, yes. Reread my previous post for why this is.

[weepingforloman]

And that's why we argue against theistic philosophy.

Ah, don't get ahead of yourself. I said PHILOSOPHY, not religion.

In a word, yes. Reread my previous post for why this is.

I do not mean the God did it! response. I mean looking at the seemingly odd, somewhat random things we continue to find out about our universe-- speed may be limited, it is possible that I might sink through the chair I sit in, electrons exist in two places, but never at a between point... And assuming that something more than Nature is present. This is not how I arrive at my conception of God, far from it... But I do not find it absurd.

[Yogi]

The hypothesis is why the evolution ? Rationality of Avatara. Rationality of plotting a chart, reaching the conclusion. How the scientists work out. If there is any truth in whatever they say, the experiment must work out.

The sense and the non-sense of the search. The knowledge of the Absolute by two sources: 1) by the Unconscious; 2) by the Incarnations. It was available to the enlightened ones. Later on, institutions and organizations were established in the name of the enlightened ones. The unenlightened, when exposed to these institutions, felt the sense of power in these institutions and they created an area through which they could dominate these organizations.

In the life of Jesus Christ, who was the highest expressed essence of spiritual innocence, the human beings understood the sacrifice of the dearest and only son of the Father for the sake of humanity. This gave a very human perception of God’s love for humanity. Thus, the human beings, as physical witnesses, envisaged the immortality of Spirit within man.

Therefore, the advents of incarnations are milestones in the progress of spiritual awareness. They echoed in the darkness of the ignorance, the sound of spirituality and touched every time a new boundless perception, new fragrance, a new color to the beauty of the creation.

Because man cannot move towards God, God has to come to him as an incarnation. Books cannot do that.

Believing also is only possible through seeing an incarnation at work.

Metaphysics depends on the human conception of God which is limited. The human awareness can not comprehend reality. It has to evolve to the point of Self awareness.

[atiguhya padma]

If you believe that the laws of nature are set in stone, then I can't see how you can also believe in the resurrection; the virgin birth; miracles; the transubstantiation etc. If you believe that god set the ball rolling, and designed the universe in such a way that he could not tinker with it, then god just becomes a weak and useless attempt at explaining the origins of the universe (if you cannot explain the origins of god - other than to say that god is eternal: we might as well save time and energy and say the universe is eternal - then your explanation for the origin of the universe is useless).

[JGL57]

...I do not mean the God did it! response. I mean looking at the seemingly odd, somewhat random things we continue to find out about our universe-- speed may be limited, it is possible that I might sink through the chair I sit in, electrons exist in two places, but never at a between point... And assuming that something more than Nature is present. This is not how I arrive at my conception of God, far from it... But I do not find it absurd.

There's no denying the "weirdness" of our experienced reality. Modern day science pertaining to evolutionary cosmology, quantum mechanics, biological evolution, brain research, etc. all collectively paint quite a mind-blowing picture.

But there is no excuse, therefore, for getting carried away and defining mythic narrative as historical events. In the final analysis, there IS a difference between fact on the one hand and and fiction (expressive metaphor and allegory) on the other. Read some Joseph Campbell. It might clear a few things up for you.

[nishachara]

I think you know too much of religion and very little about science