emotional

The Bible is a book of mythology. It is, for us, a window into ancient people's view about the world. The Bible tells both how to go to heaven and how the heavens go, just as Greek mythology and Mayan mythology do the same. That there should be an incompatibility between science and the Bible should be no more surprising than the incompatibility between science and the Vedas, the Popul-Vuh or the Norse sagas.

Having said that, God and evolution are compatible. It's just that we have to stop relying on books of mythology to tell us how to go to heaven (theology) or how the heavens go (science). Both theology and science should be drawn up from the factual evidence.

Oolon Colluphid

Provided theists are happy about god not interfering. Because that would be the supernatural, which has no place in science. In other words, god and evolution are not so much as compatible, but rather that one of them is irrelevant to the other. God and evolution are compatible in the same way that Macbeth is compatible with the rules of chess.

But it’s worse than that. The findings of biology actually refute some versions of ‘god’.

At the least, a creator god would not make really stupid designs.

Slightly further: a loving creator-god would not create the bewildering variety of parasites.

Slightly further still: a loving god would not allow such a wasteful, suffering-laden process as evolution to take place, let alone employ it as its means of making the diversity of life.

Each of these gods is a hypothesis. A basic prediction from each of these hypotheses is falsified by factual evidence. These gods are therefore falsified.
I agree. The factual evidence for theology being...?

TTFN, DT

Jan Haugland

If any supernatural being directed evolution, then evolution by natural selection did not occur. Affirming a supernatural "direction" is in effect denial of the natural process of evolution.

Of course, one can still believe that there exists a God, or that God originally created primitive life, but there is no more need for any deity to "direct" evolution than there is a need to postulate a deity that holds the planets and stars in their place.


- Jan

...who rants and raves every day at Secular Blasphemy

Oolon Colluphid

Well, it could have been directed. But if so, it has been directed in such a way as to look remarkably haphazard... in other words, undirected! Whatever else, it was not, it seems, directed so as to produce us.

The most damning thing against direction is extinctions. 'Direction' that involves about eight mass extinctions (Precambrian, Vendian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, the famous K/T one that did for the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and marine reptiles, and the Holocene) and numerous smaller extinction events, is an odd sort of 'direction'! Just when life seems to be getting somewhere, large proportions of it get wiped out.

For a brief overview, see Extinctions: Cycles of Life and Death Through Time.

And then, there's ordinary extinctions. Raup has estimated that something like 99.9% of species that have ever lived are extinct. Where's the directionality in that?

Cheers, DT

emotional

"Supernatural has no place in science"?! So say you. This raping of science to exclude anything supernatural is pernicious, to say the least -- science no longer free, but shackled to a particular philosophy.



A creator God is free to employ an entirely (to us) untuitive system of evolutionary design. It just means the Bible was wrong; it doesn't mean that the whole creator-God concept must be thrown in the trash.



These points may be valid, but only because the mainstream theistic religions have so sold us as to the attributes of God. It should be more honest to acknowledge that we don't really know much about God. Evolution implies that the prime directive of God is to give all creatures as much free will as possible, even if it is at the expense of the well-being and pleasure of the individual creature.

Lots of substantiated evidence for the existence of a spiritual plane alongside this material plane. But you won't accept this, because you've already made up your mind that only matter exists. So here I have to rest my case.

Wounded King

Dear Emotional,

That the sciences developed from the basis of natural philosophy may suggest to you why supernatural explanations are somewhat anathema. It is not so much that science denies the existence of supernatural causes so much as there is no place in the framework of science, as a method of determining natural laws, for them to sit.

It is of course perfectly true that humans really know nothing about the nature of God, God is undoubtedly wholly alien to our perceptions and his motives likewise, but this gives us no rationale for including God in our efforts to understand life, to the contrary it suggests that such efforts must be futile.

Evolution implies nothing about God, except perhaps that his intercession is not neccessary for life to exist. It certainly doesn't suggest that there is any progression towards free will, indeed many hard line materialists scoff at the idea of free will.

And kind though it is of you to save us the mental anguish of subjecting us to the mind bending extremes that a materialist is prone to in the face of evidence of the other , could you perhaps offer one or two references for all this substantiated evidence?

TTFN,

Wounded

CJD

(I was working on a rather long response, but *poof* it disappeared. I suppose there is a perfectly useful scientific explanation for that, but I'll go with the supernatural cause for kicks.)

Here it is, in short:

Nermal, you are responding to the 20th century fundamentalist and YEC hermeneutic. They are not representative. May I suggest spending more time with the Hebraists, et al., usually found in dusty, old libraries? A "literal" reading is not taking a text at face value in the face of absurdity, a literal reading is taking a poem and reading it like a poem, or a narrative as a narrative, or prophetic literature as prophetic literature. I implore you to leave-off pop-theology for a time and look for the answers among the experts.

Now, for Darwin's Terrier. I had a lot written in my first attempt. But here it is in sum:

* Literary interpretation is not irrelevant, it is responsible. It takes into account everything you are supposed to when reading a text: grammatico-historical, socio-historical, and literary genre.

*The Scriptures portray God as sustaining the cosmos, not "interfering" with it.

* As to the supposed contradictions you list:
1) You, like Nermal, assume the YEC hermeneutic. I am not working from that, nor does the bible teach conclusively anything regarding scientific origins. I do not disagree at all with the earth's geological record. It's an old place. The bible does not clearly teach either position. But science helps us understand which is more plausible.

2) The parts on chemistry, medicine, psychology, physics—all deal with the same issue, that of miracles. Given your naturalistic assumptions, it would be a waste of our time to follow that trail, suffice to say that from an Xian perspective, miracles are not a "violation" of nature (so Hume), but extraordinary events that are seemingly impossible, though well within an absolute Being's ability to accomplish.


* You wrote "Whenever a claim is made about the world, it is a scientific claim." I do not understand. Can you prove this statement for me? Is it not unassailable and therefore entirely useless to this discussion? Do you mean, "Whenever a claim is made about the observable world of phenomena, it is a scientific claim"? As opposed to a deductive theological claim? If that is the case, I agree, but given my conviction that science and theology are complimentary, this poses no threat.

*Either the world is a result of an impersonal, dense and hot point of singularity randomly exploding or it has been shaped by an eternal and absolute personality. The "theos" is either one of these, so we "logise" about it. Precisely at the point where the astrophysicist fails to account for the universe, theology picks it up. But it goes beyond that, of course; theology is not just the study of God per se, it is the study of the implications for life that acknowledging God (the bible, etc.,) demands.

* Please, if I were attempting to prove anything to you, the first step would be to point out that you are equally guilty of circularity, that is, you start your ability to know anything at the very same point I do: credo ut intelligam The main problem with your position, though, is that you assume things that your naturalistic assumption does not allow, namely, any universal law (like logic, etc.). Naturalism, by definition, asserts that nothing can exist outside (beyond, transcendent) of the world of nature. But how can a law that is theoretically unable to exist outside the natural world (i.e., think of a box) make any kind of dogmatic statement about that world?


* You have missed it altogether. The point is that they were mistaken in their reading. If you think, for example, that taking the "firmament" passages at "face value" means promulgating the absurd, what else can I say to you that is not a waste of my time? Is your equally biased opinion now self-evident, or do I have to try and convince you some more that expectations often produce our conclusions?

This is complete bunk. You do not even live by these standards, so do not try and presume to paint me into a corner. I mean, why do you bother to post comments on a forum that relies on words to convey meaning if you truly believe the self-referentially absurd nonsense you have written? I implore you, as I did Nermal, to read something else besides pop-theology and YEC if you are going to say anything about hermeneutics in relation to Scripture. I would be happy to offer a list of books as a good starting place.

Not all, but definitely some. I could not agree more. That was my point.

* Again, my point exactly. Remeber, my foundational hermeneutical principle is that science and theology are saying different things about the same things; not "different things about different things" (Kantians and all of you atheists out there), or even "same things about the same things" (YEC, etc.). What we have here is an explicit contradiction regarding foundational principles—and one of us is wrong.

* You must also see by now that your final question is no question at all. What you are asking me to prove is wrapped in my identity, just as the oppostite is wrapped-up in yours. My convictions are real. Are you willing to wipe them away with a mere slight of hand? Who do you presume to be?

Thanks for the discourse, even though, from your own admittance "anything can mean whatever you want it to mean," I do believe we have communicated something meaningful to each other.

Regards,

CJD

emotional

Science is the investigation of facts and the fashioning of theories to explain them. It is nothing to do with "natural philosophy". Sciences such as anthropology and criminology are examples of those that don't hesitate to make supernatural (or call it "indeterminate") inferences in order to explain things. Exacts sciences such as chemistry are more restricted to natural hypotheses, but this doesn't hold true for science as a whole.



I disagree. Rightly you say, after what the bungling and chicanery of Christian and Islamic theologians did, that the concept of God is heavily clouded. But from this point I say we're at the beginning of a great research project, finally unobstructed by the chains of scripture-based theologians.



Evolution doesn't require atheism, it only allows for it. Concluding, as Dawkins does, that evolution means atheism is a fallacy. Evolution does mean some concepts of God are false (such as the Christian one), but it doesn't mean the entire concept is so. The way I see it, evolution is the absolute exercise of Will of all souls emanating from the Anima Magna, or God. It is indeed a novel way of creating diversity that God has willed to take place!



By "free will" I mean the ability to choose a path of action. Within the limitations of their bodies, all creatures have unrestricted free will.



Try here, or the hardcopy book After Life by Colin Wilson (Llewellyn). But I don't think it'll budge your views a single inch.

Wounded King

There is a large difference between something which is indeterminate and something which is Supernatural. I can quite easily see why anthropology and criminology woul take an interest in belief in the supernatural, but I would be interested in your proof that they often explain things by refering to supernatural causes, rather than things resulting from a belief in the supernatural. Is 'the devil made me do it?' commonly a plausible defence in court.

Saying that Science has no relation to natural philosophy simply shows your ignorance of the history and development of the scientific method.

Please provide some evidence that all creatures have free will rather than simply acting in accordance with their body chemistry.

notMichaelJackson

Has natural selection been proven? Anyway, natural selection does not disprove that God directed evolution, just that he did not have a hand in every single event that took place during it. Even the most die-hard theist would not claim that God plays a role in everything that happens in the modern world, so we have no reason to think that he would do so with evolution.