|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total) |
| |
popoi | |
Total: 915,585 Year: 2,842/9,624 Month: 687/1,588 Week: 93/229 Day: 4/61 Hour: 0/0 |
Thread ▼ Details |
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: What we must accept if we accept evolution Part 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Death was not part of God's creation. It is part of the ToE, in fact essential to it, it is driven by death.
quote: Yes, it is natural if evolution is true, and treated as natural by any God that is compatible with evolution.
Are you thinking specifically about humuan death and suffering, or do other animals count too? What about plants? They may not suffer as we think of it, but they certainly die. Did micro-organisms also live forever? Did no one ever stub their toe in the garden of eden? Animals and humans only. I don't include plants or microorganisms, and I don't think any pain, even of stubbing the toe, existed in Eden. Others think even plants count as life, and that eating them is cruelty, think eating dirt is the only moral solution to the problem, but I think plants were given for food, have no feelings and are in a different class.
And I think that death most certainly was part of God's creation. He created a heaven and a hell for everyone to go to when they die. Not until after the Fall. It was the Fall that brought death and Hell into existence. The original Creation was good, without death and destruction.
Fianlly, do you think that death necessary? Now it is. No living thing escapes it now. But before the Fall it didn't exist. But this is pretty much off topic. This message has been edited by Faith, 02-02-2006 12:10 PM This message has been edited by Faith, 02-02-2006 12:17 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I don't think there were any accidents in Eden at all. I think perfection means that people don't even stub their toes, that their perceptions are perfect and such things don't happen. The rock doesn't jump, they just know exactly where it is and miss it. That's my guess. No injury, no death, no pain, no accidents, no collisions, no mistakes. They had the potential to fall into that state though.
Fortunately we won't even be able to fall into that state in heaven --or in the new earth or the New Jerusalem. {abe: and since Jesus was able to walk through walls after the resurrection, and we will have bodies like His, I suppose that is another possible way it could happen -- we'll just walk through rocks.} This message has been edited by Faith, 02-02-2006 01:35 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
We just have to assume that induction is valid.
quote: Maybe I missed something here, but can someone explain what this means, that "induction is not valid?" You mean it's not valid AT ALL, or in this particular context, or what?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Well, yes, conclusions from inductive reasoning are always tentative until you apply other tests, but can you explain what is meant on this particular subject?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I normally see literalism as a synonym of creationism and fundamentalism, but you're right. The same goes for the identification of the serpent as Satan; it doesn't follow from a literal reading, but is instead added on. No, his identity is REVEALED, not "added on," revealed in the Book of Revelation:
quote:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I have to see how you answer Modulous then.
And I have to ask, so that leaves only deduction as a valid logical method? So you have to start with a theory you think up and then test it and that's the only valid method? But I would think induction could be a way to ARRIVE AT a theory that you could then test.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Usually you are so clear I'm surprised I can't figure out what you are saying about the physical causation of mind/thoughts etc. You've said it many times but I'm still not getting it. I get the two senses of "because" but I don't get your overall point.
All our beliefs are physically caused, since there is nothing but the physical; therefore, they are true only accidentally. I think I get the logical point, but I can't imagine something being true "only accidentally" -- if it's true it's true.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Why do you claim that physical causation must result in beliefs being accidental? {ABE: It isn't "beliefs" that are accidental, but anything we think is true happening in fact to BE true} This much I think I get: Because there is no actual self or *I* that is the generator of the idea, thought, belief. It's all an illusion. Beliefs, thoughts, mind, sense of self, all are just part of this automaton that is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical entity that came about by the purely physical processes of evolution. These patterns were selected by physical processes to enhance survival. That makes all the thought processes "automatic" in a sense, or preprogrammed in a sense, rather than intended. Without intention any correspondence they may have with actual fact or truth is purely accidental. I think. This message has been edited by Faith, 02-04-2006 08:15 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I would guess that the correspondences could be pretty accurate -- though face it, how often are they? But surely evolution selected according to the accuracy of the thoughts -- not the engine, but the thoughts -- since it is the thoughts that make the difference, direct the actions. In any case, even if they are accurate, they are still "accidental" in the sense that there is no *I* thinking them, they are merely automatically produced.
This message has been edited by Faith, 02-04-2006 09:24 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It is looking to me like an argument from ignorance. "I cannot understand how physical causation can result in an 'I'; therefore it doesn't." That reads like an argument from common sense to me, as neither you nor anybody else can understand how physical causation can result in an *I* either. On the face of it, the idea is absurd.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Well, I suppose that's about as plausible and sophisticated a theory as we're going to get for how it could have happened.
But I always feel impatiently like saying: Do you really not just KNOW that you are an immortal soul? But that's off topic. And getting back on topic means recognizing that this thread was supposed to be detailing what we have to believe if we believe evolution. And believing that the *I* came up from the icky ooze is one of the things we have to believe. And your theory is as good as any I guess.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
If life was made for woe and death
How hard it's then to think it sweet, What stood the man up on his feet, Infused with his Creator's breath. What Maker'd cause the blood to poundAnd fill him ruddy, made for love Reflected back to God above, But then would spill it on the ground As Cain did Abel's? No, as it spiltGod mourned its cry. It stained the earth -- Since red with crying death and birth. Though it is man's, God's borne the guilt. Or was it wordless bleeding stuffThat wrote the patterns in the germs, Connecting, unconnecting terms, Trying, failing, now the rough Draft finds its voice? A bloody museWithout a choice then sighs. Though blind, Mere matter did in fact make mind, Without intending I's and you's. So there you have it, Flesh made wordOr Word made flesh? Which more absurd? This message has been edited by Faith, 02-06-2006 11:53 AM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
An aesthetic approach to life is quite reasonable if one accepts the idea that life has no purpose. The scientifically minded keep insisting that Darwinism has no role in any of this sense of life's having no purpose, but I certainly remember its being the case that it strongly affected the general atheism around me, and my own as well. Inventing one's own identity/life was a romantic notion my generation certainly had; and the aesthetic attitude as you describe it as well, although I don't recall its being called that -- living for experience. Because life has no formal purpose, humanity no longer has a noble standing. It was commonly said that three great thinkers had knocked humanity off our pedestal, Darwin, Marx and Freud --I think, though now I can't remember why Marx was in that company. All this nitpicking about definitions, about what precisely the ToE may be properly scientifically considered to refer to is just a smoke screen to confuse things. Darwinism's influence on 20th century intellectuals was tremendous and it was all about destroying the meaning of life. Nietzsche's brand of nihilism was a direct response to Darwinism. So were Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, all the Existentialists. But the "scientists" just go on denying it. This tunnel-visioned answer that we are all just supposed to somehow make our own meaning is psychologically obtuse. Should I bother mentioning the unbelievably dreary accusation that it's about personalities -- that those who regard Darwinism as a challenge to traditional views of humanity just haven't "grown up?" This is a clash of sensibilities here, perhaps, the artistic and the ...I'd like to say "philistine" but that would be snobby; I hesitate to say "scientific" but I guess that's all that would be understood. Sorry, it's still the middle of the night for me and I'm annoyed at how this thread has been treated. Anyway I'm glad you explained what you meant about "aesthete" being the same as "nihilist" as I didn't get it either. Now I do. This message has been edited by Faith, 02-06-2006 06:37 AM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Good morning to you, too, Paul. Have a good day.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
This tunnel-visioned answer that we are all just supposed to somehow make our own meaning is psychologically obtuse.
quote: Yes, we always make our own meaning but we make it out of what is culturally available, and the effect of Darwinism -- at least the psychological effect, especially on those who really think about such things -- is to abolish all objective or formal ground for meaning.
On this point Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky were all agreed, even though the meaning chosen by the latter two was a Christian meaning. The only difference for those of us who don't ignore the scientific evidence is that we can't base our sense of meaning on a special relationship with a supernatural being. No, nobody here seems to have a sense of how much more was lost by Darwinism in an objective sense, of the larger Western philosophical framework in which humanity was given a noble place. This was built up from the predominantly Christian foundation of the West, but it certainly wasn't dependent on individual relationship with a supernatural being.
By the way, Nietzsche would have been horrified at being labelled a 'nihilist'. He considered himself the foremost 'anti-nihilist' - fighting a crusade against nihilist philosophies like Christianity! Well fine, then define your terms. I am using it to refer to a morality-free and purpose-free and meaning-free philosophical, or even cultural, weltanschaung. Nietzsche predicted the loss of all moral frameworks as a result of the "death of God." He embraced this in his rejection of Christianity which was the West's main foundation of morality. He seemed both to lament and to celebrate the Antichrist of which he was the herald. I hate Nietzsche but I consider him perspicacious. This message has been edited by Faith, 02-06-2006 09:27 AM
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024