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Author Topic:   Can survival of the fittest accomodate morals?
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


(1)
Message 9 of 64 (551402)
03-22-2010 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Den
03-22-2010 12:45 AM


....more reading required!
Can you please explain this contradiction in these scientific beliefs?
There is no contradiction in science (not beliefs as quoted above - science has no 'beliefs'), only your comprehension.
To try and clear your confusion:
Science (including the Theory of Evolution — or ToE) is not a belief system. It is a descriptive model of the best fit of the universe according to current available evidence. It is not a prescriptive treatise on how things should behave, merely a descriptive evaluation of how things actually are.
If you want to talk morals you can't talk science - for the same reason if you want to talk morals you can't talk mathematics - they just don't intermix. Now if you want to really talk morals you need to talk 'humanism' - which is the moral code that often accompanies (but is no way dependant upon) atheism.
Atheism is not a moral system either - it literally only means "lack of belief in gods." You seem hell bent on trying to attack the system that 'opposes' religion - well science and atheism are not the things you should be attacking. They are anti-religion in the same measure that mathematics is anti-religion. You need to address the humanism moral code.
So can I respectfully ask that you cease to make a jackass of yourself by prattling on about irrelevancies and instead go look up about humanism - decide what you don't like and then start a thread on that. At least then you'll be somewhere near the topic that you’re really aching to attack (the modern alternative to a religious code of morality - humanism)!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Den, posted 03-22-2010 12:45 AM Den has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 22 of 64 (551851)
03-24-2010 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Dr Adequate
03-24-2010 2:49 AM


Lack of worldly knowledge?
Hi Dr A,
But if I have misrepresented your ideas, then please feel free to explain yourself further. You wrote "Nature in all its forms is perfect". Now, please tell us. Does that include dolphins committing rape and lions committing infanticide, or doesn't it?
It's a fair bet friend Den is clueless about your ecological revelations. I have tended to find over the years that most creationists are mind-bogglingly ignorant about most matters in the natural world.
I even encountered a creationist on another site who screamed at me that the fact we have opposable thumbs was proof we aren't related to other primates! I asked him if he'd ever been to a zoo and gazed at the opposable thumbs, and big toes, of the chimps, monkeys, gorillas ......he went very silent.
As did the idiot who maintained that features like wings couldn't develop gradually since if it didn't work the very first time the critter would be gobbled up. I replied "What you mean like ostriches don't exist - wings but no flight whatsoever- so they obviously must all get eaten?" Again, total silence - you could almost hear him think "Oh shit - I didn't think about that!"
I have a notion that if these creationists were thrust into the field of ecology for a year there would be likely to be quite a reduction in the number of them pushing views on debate boards such as these. It's amazing what a bit of real education can do for a person!
Edited by Drosophilla, : No reason given.
Edited by Drosophilla, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Dr Adequate, posted 03-24-2010 2:49 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by hooah212002, posted 03-24-2010 10:44 PM Drosophilla has replied
 Message 24 by Dr Adequate, posted 03-25-2010 1:28 AM Drosophilla has replied
 Message 25 by dwise1, posted 03-25-2010 1:40 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 26 of 64 (551920)
03-25-2010 8:51 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by hooah212002
03-24-2010 10:44 PM


Re: Lack of worldly knowledge?
Too right, mate. If only they came here for that..........
They do Hooah, but they intend to educate us - not the other way round....it's amazing what confidence belief in God instills...!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by hooah212002, posted 03-24-2010 10:44 PM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 27 of 64 (551921)
03-25-2010 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Dr Adequate
03-25-2010 1:28 AM


Re: Lack of worldly knowledge?
It would be a pretty bizarre argument even if his premise was true. Evolution is not, after all, a process whereby things stay exactly the same ...
Agreed - but that is quite subtle for creationists to swallow. But you'd at least think they'd get out there to zoos and such like to see how things really are - physically in nature - before arguing from ignorance. It's not hard to see opposable thumbs, and toes on primates in zoos is it? Don't these guys ever 'get out'?
Edited by Drosophilla, : No reason given.
Edited by Drosophilla, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Dr Adequate, posted 03-25-2010 1:28 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 28 of 64 (551922)
03-25-2010 9:03 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by dwise1
03-25-2010 1:40 AM


Re: Lack of worldly knowledge?
Hi Dwise1
Graduated from college with a BS Physics and, facing a market that wasn't hiring physics grads, went to work as a field geologist for a petroleum company, even hired several other creationist geologists. Reported at the 1986 International Conference on Creationism how they had to face and work with rock-hard evidence that the ICR had taught them did not exist and could not exist for Scripture to have any meaning and that they had all suffered "severe crises of faith". It was later that he was himself driven to the verge of atheism, but was finally able to find an harmonization that preserved his faith. Though he is definitely no longer a creationist.
His own story is told at:
The Transformation of a Young-earth Creationist
Why I left Young-earth Creationism
He posts other "Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle" are posted at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/person.htm
Share and enjoy
I'd heard about Glen Morton before - I think possibly reading one of your earlier threads - thanks for fleshing out the details for me.
As a sad counterbalance though it can swing the other way:
I believe Kurt Wise was a Harvard trained geologist who learned under Steven J Gould (no less) and realised the bible and the geology he learnt were incompatible. Apparently he cut out all parts of the bible that had to go if our geological understanding is correct - and he found there was virtually nothing left of the bible.
So he made a choice - and turned to fundamentalism and rejected his Harvard geology degree and all his hopes for a scientific future - simply because he was forced to make a choice over two incompatible systems....and in his case creationism won!
Don't know about you but I find that very sad.....so much lost on so little (well none actually!) evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by dwise1, posted 03-25-2010 1:40 AM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by dwise1, posted 03-25-2010 10:57 AM Drosophilla has not replied

  
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