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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: What we must accept if we accept evolution Part 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
1) If evolution entails atheism then it must deny Deism. How is evolution inconsistent with the view that a Deity created the Universe and left it to develop on its own. That would not be a good God. That would be a cruel God.
2) If evolution entails determinism then it must deny Quantum randomness. How does evolution do that ? The opposite of "determined" is not "random" but "willed." Physical events aren't willed. "Random" just means the causes are unknown or too complicated to tabulate--like a roulette wheel.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I think the better statement may be that EITHER atheism OR an evil God follow from Evolution. Oh, sure. I just dismissed that alternative.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
The relationship between will and determinism has not been decisvely settled but I agree with the position that will is not incompatible with determinism (and I would go further and say that will must be deterministic). What matters is determinism versus free will. In order to have free will, you need an incorporeal mind. If we evolved, we don't have one. Human life consists of automatic physical events. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-30-2006 05:07 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
If your argument that evolution logically entails determinism is dependant on your argment that evolution entails materialism then you need to establish that argument first. A I already did. Consciousness evolved. If it evolved, it had to evolve from the physical--that's all there was to evolve from. So consciousness is physical too. The physical can only produce more physical things. The incorporeal is not natural. There has to be a non-physical self to do the willing to have free will. Otherwise the willing is not really willing. It's an automatic physical event.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
IMO we have free will. IMO, a physicalist account of cognition is possible, at least in principle. If all you have is a brain, you have no self capable of willing an act. Everything you do is caused physically. If it's caused physically it wasn't "your" decision. The body is just going through automatic reactions to stimuli, like water running down hill.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Jar, this list of names is absurd. The point is not whether one or a million people are capable of believing something or not. Anybody can believe anything. The question is whether the belief makes sense or not. Christian evolutionists are forced to believe in a cruel God: evolution is cruel.
If somebody wants to believe in a good, all-powerful God--the God of Western religion--they cannot logically believe in evolution. It's more reasonable to believe in a Fall in which Nature also fell. You can't believe in the Fall and evolution at the same time. The YEC's at least are a litte more consistent. They have an explanation--bizarre though it may be--for the apparent arbitrary cruelty of nature. The Christian evolutionists have nothing but vague moralizing.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
That it happened at all is a black mark on a suppsoedly "all-powerful" God's record. The YEC's have a standard answer for this: free will. Even God cannot make a round square.
(And need I point out the oddity of a God who does not want animals to die but also demands animal sacrifices because He enjoys the smell of cooking meat ?)y Can we leave the Bible and this tribal god out of this?
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Again,until you can prove that I believe in a cruel GOD, your point is refuted. Logically, you are forced to. Evolution is cruel, bloody, murderous. If you still want to say you believe in a good God and evolution, you just need to realize you and those other millions are believing in something that makes no sense. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-31-2006 04:36 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
And if we can't discuss the Biblical idea of the Fall or the Bible-based YEC view without talking about the God of the Bible - that IS the God directly associated with each We can keep the nature of the God philosophical. I've been thinking about these "cruel God" and "weak God" concepts. I don't think they hold much logical water myself. That's why I didn't mention it originally.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Unsuported assertion. Also way OT You don't seem to know what the topic is, Jar. Let me explain it to you. The topic (part of it) is as follows: I am contending that if you believe in evolution, you cannot believe in God. By God I mean all-good, all-powerful God, which I believe is your standard Western version of God. When I say one cannot believe in God and evolution at the same time, I mean logically you can not. Of course, you can believe emotionally or irrationally anything you damned well please, and so can anyone else. Now I will explain to you why you cannot logically believe in an all-powerful, all-good God and also believe in evolution. You cannot do so because the deviser of evolution must also be seen as either cruel or indifferent. He devised a system in which, in order to survive, life forms have to feed off other life forms. If creatures ate dirt and rocks, it would be morally nicer (I grant you the diet sounds insipid). He devised a system in which creatures go around killing each other for prey. This is cruel. The arbitrary cruelty of nature is apparent to anyone: to take just one example, birth defects. Now birth defects are, I suppose, caused by messed-up genes. Genes are all part of this evolutionary scheme of your cruel God that you and your other 10,000 bishops believe in. And what do you say in response? You say "Many others believe as I do." What, is this a popularity contest, in which we decide the truth by how many people believe something? Your only answer is that evolution is "perfect." I really can't see the perfection of it. Do you call birth defects perfection? What about vestigial organs? Are they another example of perfection? Now, let's turn to Paulk's idea. He seems to be arguing that because there are many other objections to the concept of God, then evolution doesn't count. The FAll doesn't make sense, he says--therefore evolution doesn't count as an argument against God. However, evolution is one of many arguments one can bring against the concept of God. I agree. But what is that to this thread? What the thread is arguing is that IF you accept evolution, you cannot accept a good all-powerful God. It is not saying, because of other reasons--plug in your own--you also cannot accept the concept of God. For example, somebody might say, "Evolution makes no sense to me. I think all these life forms sprang up spontaneously at the same time. However, the cruelty of nature tells me there is no god." Such a view does NOT contradict what is being argued on this thread. It is being argued that IF you accept evolution, you cannot accept God in the traditional sense. It is not saying that there might not be some other reason why you also would not accept the existence of God. However, my point has an advantage over other views that would reject evolution and yet still have other objections to God. There is evidence for evolution--there is a great deal of evidence. Moreover, this evidence is scientific--it is not merely a little philosophical argument. You say my ideas are unsupported. You say I'm off-topic. What else are you going to say, Jar? If you think that you can wiggle out of this cruel God of yours, which you say you and 10,000 other people believe in, not to mention the millions of Catholics, give me some reason why this evolutionary God of yours is not cruel. Don't tell me to start another topic. This is it. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-01-2006 03:56 AM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
You claim that the concept of the Fall is the only possible response that can preserve the idea of a good God Why should I care about the Fall? I'm no YEC. My position is nihilistic. What I am doing is explaining how illogical a Christian evolutionist is. The thread is about what we must accept if we accept evolution. It's not: the Fall explains the cruelty of nature. I brought in the FAll to make the point that you can't believe in the Fall and evolution at the same time. Some people--namely YEC's--think the Fall explains the cruelty of Nature. But then some Christians might try to say that they believe in evolution anyway. I do think, if we had to choose among Christian beliefs, the YEC view is more consistent--but that is not necessary for my argument.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Now I'm going to explain to you why, if you accept evolution, you must accept nihilism. I'm defining nihilism as the idea that human life has no "formal purpose." We are not made for any particular use or function. We just happen to be here, hanging about.
Because this concept of an evolutionary God makes no sense, in that he is bound to be either a cruel or weak God, we must reject the idea of God. We can also reject a Deistic God for the same reason. A God that made the world and then went away would be cruelly indifferent to the sufferings of his creatures. Now the notion of a cruel god or weak god makes no sense as a Creator. A Pagan might believe in such a god. A pagan believes in natural Gods (or any rate, might do so). Natural gods are gods that spring up out of nature somehow, rather than creating nature. If you spring out of nature, then you are not the creator of nature. So there is no God. Thus saith evolution, if logically carried to its conclusions. Thus saith other ideas too, but we are discussing evolution. Or at least I think so. In my off-topic way, Jar, I have this delusion that evolution is relevant to this thread. So we were created by a natural, mindless process--via natural selection--note that word "natural"--and mutation (mainly). Nature had nothing in mind when it made us: nature has no mind, so it would be difficult for it have something in it. We, as human beings, have no formal purpose. A formal purpose is an objective purpose. It is that purpose for which something is made by its creator. If I make a chair, its formal purpose is to be sat in by unsupporting, off-topic, pee-brained folk such as myself. I could also use this chair as a ladder, but that would not be its formal purpose. We could also use it as a subject of a poem, as follows: In Memorium to my Beloved Chair, Recently Broken by my Fat Ass To all of us sorrowfully gathered hereTo mourn the death of my lovely chair, Let this be a warning; let it be clear: This is what comes of hotdogs and beer. This is what comes of hotdogs and beer,Of gluttony lust and midnight cheer. Had I eaten fresh fish, we wouldn't be here. This is what comes of hotdogs and beer. This is what comes of pizza--cold,After a night's carousing, gobbled with glee, While you listen in awe to the message machine, Wondering who on earth "Nancy" might be. This is what comes of a lifetime of sin,Of oysters and sweet rolls and peanuts and gin, And that long passing glance at some sweet girl's skin (The folksinger type, as they all were then): Ah, that I could do it all over again! There you have the chair being used for a personal rather than formal purpose. Now if the chair could devise its own purposes, those purposes would be subjective on the chair's part. But if the chair is always about its purpose--until, alas, it is broken in spirit--it is doing God's will, so to speak. We are in the position of a chair devising its own purposes except that we were made by a natural process not by a being. We are, in a formal sense, totally useless. This is another way of saying that life is meaningless. This is nihilism. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-01-2006 07:18 AM This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-01-2006 09:54 AM This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-01-2006 01:20 PM This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-01-2006 01:21 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
You're drunk. On the contrary, I'm dangerously sober.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
But you can believe in something very similar to the Fall, right? I.e. free will introducing suffering into the Universe, against the creator's wishes. I'm talking about a Fall that includes the fall of Nature, caused by sin.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
You say it is impossible to believe, I say look, here are people that do believe. That refutes your assertion. No, it doesn't. 1. physical possibility: it is physically possible for me to believe that God is a tomato in my garden patch.2. logical possibility: the belief in evolution and your God at the same time is logically impossible.
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