Evolution and Specialness of Humanity

You are right about the lack of purpose, but you speak as though if we "need" God, then there is one. What we need has nothing to do with the truth. We might need God, but that doesn't mean there is one. But evoluton per se does not create purposelessness, nor does evolution preclude a God.What precludes a God (in my view) is the obvious random nature of life apart from the details about evolution. Life is accidental and arbitrary. Somebody is born with no hands, for example. I saw on TV this little girl(s) with two heads. It was horrifying. It was an accident.

"Purpose" is not like an apple that you can take from an existing tree. You have to plant the tree yourself... "Significance" is also not like an apple that you can take from an existing tree. You'll again have to plant that tree yourself... I agree we don't need a God. And that's good news, given there apparently isn't one available.As to purpose... I don't think we need something like an absolute purpose. But we do need the ability to define our own purposes, and there are plenty of examples around of people doing pretty well in that respect.

D'oh!Did it again, I keep hitting reply on the wrong post...sorry.

If you don't use the "SUBMIT" button, you can back out of that gracefully (without leaving a trace). Just use the BACK button enough times. Or, if your browser has a menu to go back to a specific item, just go directly back to before the reply.I use tabbed browsing, and my habit is to open REPLY in a new tab. If I find that I goofed, I can just close the tab.

You assume that evolution is totally random. Evolution is just a theory about what happened. The theory, in and of itself, does not say why it happened. The theory is that we evolved through a series of genetic mutations, (at least as I understand it), but it does not tell us why the genetic mutations occurred. You can believe that these genetic mutations occurred randomly or you can believe that a creator caused the mutations. Either position is outside of the realm of science.Assuming that the theory of evolution is correct it can then just become part of the creation story. Incidentally, as near as I can tell Darwinism deals with how we developed physically. Our ability to love or hate, to rejoice and grieve etc is something else again.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

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and questioned my ability to love another person because of my age.

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Actually, I believe it was YOU who implied that I don't know about love because I accept the evidence for Biological evolution, Charlie.That's why I'd like you to explain to all of us what true love is all about. Clearly, you believe you know better than the rest of us, so I'd like to absorb some of your infinite wisdom.I'm listening

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Not intending to judge, but I don't see fulfillment in the things that you obviously do. Social/Economic Gain isn't on my agenda.

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So, raising happy, healthy loving children wouldn't fulfill you?What about volunteering for a literacy program, or at a battered women's shelter?Unfulfilling, in your book?

Prophex, do you accept the fact that allele frequencies in populations change over time?Yes or no?

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Prophex, do you accept the fact that allele frequencies in populations change over time?

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Would you mind explaining this?

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I am smiling.

Yo...hook up in chat if you got a minute

Not intending to judge, but I don't see fulfillment in the things that you obviously do. Social/Economic Gain isn't on my agenda.

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So, raising happy, healthy loving children wouldn't fulfill you?

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What about volunteering for a literacy program, or at a battered women's shelter?

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Unfulfilling, in your book?

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In regards to what I said, I wasn't referring to you, notice the reply info at the bottom of the post. You took it personally it seems, telling my things that you have done that have apparently fulfilled you? Raising Children, Volunteering to help the community you are in... Doing these things can provide fulfillment in the sense of actually looking at the effects of what you have done. But when one sees the world as many people do, a world based on survival of species, (evolutionists), these acts are almost fake, without significance beyond a strategy to help or advance the species. The love you have put effort in giving was simply part of an interaction based solely on survival, and it was not given for your feelings or for yourself, or even for the people that you may have helped, it was done for humanity, as a species within a world of millions of other species. For this, the way things that are meaningful, become meaningless, I don't accept the theory of evolution.

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I am smiling.

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Actually, I believe it was YOU who implied that I don't know about love because I accept the evidence for Biological evolution, Charlie.

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You may know of love, but refuse to understand it's apparent use within "evolution", and how truly fake it is there.

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I am smiling.

Just a quick comment. Social/economic gain was never my agenda, either. I went into mathematics, computer science, education, because I knew I could find those fulfilling. I also find self-education fulfilling.Maybe I was filled with awe about the world, and it was my idea to explore it that I wanted to pursue for fulfillment.If I had made social/economic gain my agenda, I would probably be quite unhappy.It seems to me that you are on the right track, prophex. And my best wishes for your future. But I do hope that you get over your hangups about evolution

Does evolution say anything about love? I wouldn't have thought so.I don't doubt that some evolutionists say things about love. They also say things about altruism. Both are rather speculative, in my opinion.I don't doubt that my behavior has evolved. But that's my evolution as a person. My behavior did not evolve in the biological sense. Biological evolution gave me the hardware that I use in my behavior (well, part of the hardware). But the kind of person I am was not destined and encoded in my genes. At least, that's how I see it.Notions like love, purpose, meaning of life -- these do not come from my genes. They don't come from God, either. They come from my experiences.

I still don't see what one thing (evolution) has to do with the other. (meaning/purpose)Evolution is just a mechanism. Simply that what happens when you throw the ingredients of our physical world together. Nature does constantly experiments, natural selection weeds out the failed experiments.You should look at it from the positive side: apparently this mechanism at the very least is flexible enough to allow such things as 'love' and 'altruism'. So how could you keep up that it is opposed to it?