Jack the Bodiless

You still have not provided any basis for this remarkable assertion. It appears to be pure wishful thinking on your part: "I don't want to believe in evolution, so I'll just assume that the evidence doesn't support it".

It is NOT possible that the hypothesis of common descent is in error. Therefore any valid worldview MUST incorporate the fact of universal common descent, as theistic evolution does.

The evidence supports common descent so WELL that the odds against Biblical creation ex nihilo greatly exceed the estimated number of atoms in the Universe: a criterion that YOU recently stated as tantamount to "proof".

I will again urge you to read my archived thread on this subject: <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=42&t=000247&p=" target="_blank">Proof that Genesis is False.</a>

Genesis Creationism requires ignorance. Theistic Evolution is for theists who are not ignorant. For those who choose to remain ignorant, it probably has no appeal.

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Jack the Bodiless ]</p>

GeoTheo

Vander,
Since you phrase it that way. It is more likely that all life evolved from a common ancestor, than it is likely that there is a God.
That is because you can point to empirical evidence for common descent. There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God.
In a nutshell: I don't think anyone can prove there is/is no God, but it can be proven that Genesis is not literal history. The Earth is simply not 6000 years old and there simply was never a global flood that killed off every living thing on the land mass of the Earth. It is not possible.
But there is a point when somthing just clicks. It did for me. After that it becomes extremely obvious life evolved. But before it clicked I honestly didn't see it. So it may not have clicked for you yet. But once it clicks it gets reinforced constantly that that is just how it is. Right now as you read this, look at your arm leading to your hand touching your mouse. Is there just a little bit of hair on your arm? Why is that? There is no other explanation for why you have just a little bit of hair on your arm, than because you had a distant ancestor with a lot of hair on it's arm. As it is now that hair serves no purpose. It doesn't keep you warm and it doesn't protect you from the sun. Some people have almost no hair on their arm. They are none the worse for it.
Once things click, little things like that will come at you from all directions and they will all make sense.
I just hope you don't have your belief in God set up like a house of cards resting on a literal interp of Genesis.

Xixax

I can tell you from personal experience that holding onto Biblical literalism is a trap that leads to many atheists instead of reasonable theists.

For me, it was one major stumbling block that helped lead me to reject Christianity entirely. There were other factors as well, but that one stands out remarkably, because for once I had something I believed entirely was literally true shook free by reason and examination... then suddenly a secular world seemed so much more likely than a spiritual one.

Now I'm in an unusual position, where I am making efforts to seek out a spiritual side again without the hangup of literalism. It's extremely difficult for me.

However, I find people like GeoTheo and Bubba inspirational, as my honest hope would be to some day find out that belief in God does not require belief in a murderous deity, and also does not require me to ignore mountains of evidence supporting common descent.

In a way VZ, you are helping propogate an idea that will lead to drastic denials of God over an issue that should be a non-issue for you. Where in the Bible does it say that salvation is dependent upon belief in ex nihilio creation of separate species? If it doesn't say that explicitly, then why aren't you allowed to be open to the possibility that evolution is the "how" of God's creation, without jumping to the conclusion everyone believes it also answers "why"?

Doubting Didymus

Bump.

Vanderzyden, your presence is missed.

Doubting Didymus

A second bump.

It has been quite a while?

Vanderzyden

DD,

Thanks for the reminder to return to this thread. However, you should know that some of my subsequent responses here will refer to the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001647" target="_blank">"Mind from Non-mind" thread.</a>. That is one reason why I posted there before coming here. Allow me to encourage you to read what I have written there and remember it when you reply in this thread. I will also raise this issue with GeoTheo, since (a) the content of his last two posts serve to strongly reinforce my position and (b) I would like him to consider this very important matter in light of what he has written here thus far. However, I first owe you a response....

Let me begin by asking you to consider evolution as a "process":


Now, here is Webster's definition of process:


You contend that evolution is process. Which of the meanings above do you find most suitable, and how do you reconcile your preference with what Gould and Futuyma have written?

I ask again, what is being processed? To what end is the process moving? Who set the process in motion, and what are the parameters? How does one go about characterizing the intermediate and final "results"? What are the results for? (Note: I am asking the question from the perspective of the Darwinist, not the theistic evolutionist. I am justified in doing so because we must successfully combine two belief systems into one so that we may properly arrive at the term "theistic evolutionist".)

OK, now I'll have a look at some of the things I couldn't attend to previously:

My contention is not that God would be "cold and distant" on the Darwinist view, but rather it seems highly likely that he is uninvolved. He simply doesn't care. It's really not a matter of being "frigid" or "far away". Rather, it seems that, for the Darwinist, God is inefficient and not powerful enough to "do things right". Not only that, but he is anyway irrelevant. It is this that we must reconcile if we are to be justified in using a seemingly oxymoronic term as "theistic evolutionist". My counter-question to you was:

Relationship requires involvement, and it requires evidence of that involvement. However, in practice, the pure-Darwinist position denies any evidence of intelligent design; in particular, it vehemently denies the involvement of a caring, intentional, Creator-Person. I am not referring to the "theistic evolutionist" here. No, I am talking about the typical Darwinist. Just ask someone like Dawkins.

Leaving aside its implausibility, if you pursue universal common ancestry to its logical conclusion, you reach a level of absurdity, or at least a dead end. Suppose the popular notions of "natural selection" are correct regarding the mechanism by which all life has filled and diversified on the earth. What does that say about the initial conditions? Did they, too, evolve? If so, how? If not, then what brought them about? If it was God, then why did he involve himself at the initial step and not in subsequent steps? What was his purpose in doing things either way? What ultimate end(s) could the Creator have had in mind?

If the theistic evolutionist refuses to answer, or relegates God to the background (thinking him not worth the bother because he isn't empirically detectable), then it is clear that we are dealing not with a theist, but a Darwinist who happens to be agnostic. Again, it would seem that the theistic evolutionist attempts to reconcile what cannot possibly be joined together.

We shall see if those "beneficial mutations" withstand more objective scrutiny. I have read much to the contrary, and, so far, I have only seen the Darwinist response in the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001596" target="_blank">"Good mutations" thread</a>. For now, let us at least admit that most mutations are deleterious. That is, the overwhelming majority of mutations produce harmful anomalies or defects. Let us also suppose, for the moment, that there has been sufficient time, and that mutations actually cause net progressive change, and that a huge number of coincidental "favorable" accidents have occured. What, then, are we to conclude about the Creator? Is he efficient? Is he powerful? Is he rolling dice? Does he not know what he wants? Does he know, but is incapable of performing? Is he taking more time than is necessary, simply because he can?



Anyway, here we are. You and me. We are rational, sentient beings who are able to think about themselves and discuss the likelihood of the existence of God and the kind of being that he is. But what are we? And how do we exist? Well, we relate with one another. Uniquely, we understand what it means to relate. We love, we hate, we have language, and we reason. We have minds, and we should expect that mind will not come from that which is less than mind. Mind must come from something that is greater than mind. Now, the "theistic evolutionist" is likely to agree. But he will discover, upon further reflection, that the Darwinist (i.e. evolutionist) components of his belief system are in direct contradiction. That is because all theories of evolution require that the higher has come from that which is lower. The highly complex has somehow "evolved" from the simplistic.

The objection may be raised by the "theistic evolutionist":

Why can't God guide the evolution "process" along?

To which the theistic realist should immediately counter:

Why then do you preclude God from interacting directly with his creation to accomplish his purposes in the most efficient, elegant manner?

Surely you see the difficulty. Why would God be content to be a sculptor who works by trial-and-error if he is capable of "doing it right" the first time? And what does the answer say about his character?

If God does not have a particular end in mind when he sets out to create, then he is not worthy of worship. The God of the Bible does not exist, and the ordered universe that we observe is nothing but a Grand Illusion.

If God has a particular end in mind, and either (a) cannot or (b) does not care to bring it about directly, then (a) he does not exist or (b) is indifferent.

If accidental universal common descent has been accomplished by any of the Darwinian theories (that have been offered to date), then it seems that we must conclude that God is not powerful enough, or he doesn't know enough. Certainly, we must question his character. However, we must then turn to consider the immensity of the universe and the evidence of power that we infer from the Big Bang, fine-tuning, the physical laws, the intensity and enormity of the stars, etc.

If God is not involved with his creation to the point where it is complete to the end that he sought, then he does not love it. This is not love. Not in the way that the intelligent natural creatures (i.e. Mankind) has come to know love. This raises yet another concern: from where does this notion of love originate?

Notice that I say IF. If and only if. Of course, you and I know that the evidence for macroevolution is paltry at best, and highly controversial any way you look at it.

I am not insisting that a loving, relational God must create instantaneously. Indeed, I will readily admit that a 15-billion-year-old universe is simple, strong evidence that God is very patient. However, the existence of life, particularly human life requires something for which Darwinism has no answer: information, faculties of reason, language, increasing complexity, and finally, [i]humanity[i].

A response to GeoTheo is forthcoming.


John

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Albion

Oh, well, so much for all those people who support evolution and think they're Christians and that God is very involved with His creation. Bunch of deluded morons, obviously.

And why does it require scientifically verifiable evidence of that involvement? We keep hearing abut how Christianity involves a personal relationship with Jesus and faith and love and all that - from the very same people who turn round and tell us that science is incapable of answering questions about things like faith and love. So why do IDists have this pressing need for God to write "GOD WAS HERE AND NOBODY CAN DENY IT, AND BY THE WAY IT ISN'T JUST ANY OLD GOD, IT"S JESUS'S DADDY" all over nature, after giving us free will and the ability to exercise it? This whole thought process sounds illogical in the extreme.

No you aren't talking about the typical Darwinist, you're talking about atheists. Considering that, according to a poll, over a third of practising scientists in this country are theists of the "personal saviour" school and a large number of others are theists of some other sort, I don't know where you're getting this "typical Darwinist" caricature from, other than your own driving need to equate evolution with atheism.

Nothing. How many times do we need to say so?

You're asking us why God would do things? How would we know? How would you know? Your view of God is of some deity who can't stand not being noticed so he has to prove his intervention with little biochemical and biological miracles. That sounds like the view of an insecure child - "if I can't see daddy every single minute, maybe he isn't really there."

Go and find that thread which Denis Lamoureux contributed to and read it. I don't think he'd thank you for saying that he's relegated God anywhere or is any sort of agnostic.


Maybe that he might know what he's doing even if it isn't totally clear to you?


It must? Why mind in particular, why not everything else? Is this some new scientific law that someone forgot to tell us about?

Why would the most efficient, elegant manner involve acts of special creation and miracles over and above the use of the natural processes that God has already created? That is neither efficient nor elegant. But it does give insecure Christians something to feel special about.

No. Personally I don't, and I don't think a lot of others here do either. I see a person demanding that the Christian God be provable by the scientific method in such a way as to make his existence unequivocal. I see that running counter to the essence of the Christian faith.

Why would God take billions of years to create the universe just so that he could have one species on one planet to relate to 15 billion years after he started the creative process? And, for that matter, on a planet circleing a Sun that has a finite lifetime, so that this species isn't going to be around forever. Why would God create the diversity of species such that the fossil record shows a gradation of them over time if he could have poofed humans, dogs, cats, orchids, and oak trees into existence at the very beginning and bypassed dinosaurs and trilobites entirely? Who knows why God would have done that. Is it maybe just remotely possible that humans don't know all God's motives?

You're kidding. You have to be. If common descent hasn't been accomplished, then what the hell is the fossil record about? Regardless of how those species arrived there, they're there. And most of them are extinct. And you claim that a loving God created each of those species individually just so it could go extinct and be replaced by another very similar but individual species etc etc? Doesn't common descent show a more caring creator than that? I mean, that serial creator and thrower away of each individual species strikes me as much closer to your description of the uncaring trial-and-error tinkerer who gets it wrong and throws it aside and starts again.


Well, maybe he is involved and you just aren't understanding quite how. Has that even occurred to you?


So you really are happier with the God who creates species individually and throws them away and replaces them and throws away the replacements etc etc. Interesting definition of love. And I don't quite see where you're getting this business about faculties of reason, language, humanity, etc etc from anywhere except your own wishful thinking.

Sigh....

Doubting Didymus

First and foremost, it is beginning to become clear that you are not able to conceive of any kind of evolution that is not inherently atheistic. This is a hurdle you simply must clear, before this debate can be anything other than the standard set of objections against atheism. Try to think of common descent as unafilliated with either side, and you will see that it is compatable with both.

With your comments on 'process' you are arguing nothing but semantics. Soil erosion, for example, is a process. If you insist that an 'end' is neccessary, then as the end of the erosion process is a movement of soil, the end of the evolutionary process is biodiversity as we see it.

You ask for the perspective of a darwinist, as if that would neccessarily mean that the answer to the question 'who is the processor' must be nobody. From this, I see that despite the protestations of myself, and a handful of your fellow theists, you still can not see that darwinism is not affiliated with atheism. A darwinist is simply one who accepts the scientific theories of darwin, and their number includes many more theists than atheists.

So there is no need for any 'combination' of darwinism and theism, since neither veiw intrudes on the territory of the other.

This is where you are going terribly wrong. Dawkins's veiws do not come from being a darwinist, they come from being an atheist. Statistically, the typical darwinist is a theist (Darwinist here being someone who accepts the scientific findings of evolution, not neccessarily an actual scientist). Where does that leave your impression that the two are contradictory? The problem is that you are assigning all this extra baggage to the term, when it simply is not there.

These questions are easy for the theistic evolutionist. Put simply: god is involved in absolutely everything, and his purpose and ends are the same as for any theist. All the theistic evolutionist insists on is that god does not use super duper magic powers, but natural processes. I do not see why this means god would be irrelevant. It is in fact, a far more mature veiw of god that he should work with the natural laws that he created rather than pulling things out of hats just to show off.

That is incorrect. The vast majority of mutations are neutral. Negative mutations are largely irrelevant to evolution, as they rarely persist for more than one or two generations.

Your objections simply do not follow. I still insist that if I were a god, evolution is the method I would surely choose.

Perhaps god is more like us than you give him credit for. Sure, god might have an end in mind, but why shouldn't he take as much pleasure from the means? This is an objection you have not yet adressed, and you already have admitted that god must be patient to have waited this long in the first place.

All of this is one massive non-seqiteur. It also contradicts common sense. If the only god worth worshipping is one who achievs his end in the most efficient possible manner, then what is the point of having an old universe? Why not click his fingers and bring his end instantly to be?

It should be glaringly obvious that god is NOT interested in only the end of his plan. The very fact that we are not there already is strong evidence that his desire includes at least some portion of journey toward that end. Given this, all objections to the 'inefficiency' of the evolutionary process vapourise.

This is slightly confusing. I have already adressed this concern. We know that the world as it currently is, is NOT gods end. It is quite reasonable to assume, given omnipotence, that whatever end he has in mind, he could, if he chose, bring it about instantly. Therefore god does NOT place as much worth on efficiency as you do. Efficiency is no way to create beauty. Efficiency is no way to create wonder. Efficiency is nowhere near as desirable an attribute as you claim it to be.

More of the same. Third option: god is interested in more than a final end. Does the god you worship appreciate music? I certainly hope so. If so, what music would he listen to? Would god prefer the music he wrote himself (which surely must be the finest ever composed), or would god care even more for the music of mozart, made even greater by the knowledge that it was not programmed note by note by his own hand?

The analogy is obvious: just as it is possible for god to appreciate music he has not written personally, he could easily appreciate creations that HE created indirectly. That is, not directly pieced together one atom at a time. Evolved beings would be music to gods ears.

You know full well that I do not accept that. You are also aware that the overwhelming majority of theists do not accept that, either. If evolution is delusion, then you and other creationists are very lonely in being the only ones who see clearly.

Even if I were to agree that god is required for these things, it does not follow that theistic evolutionists have no answer. They, like yourself, can rely on god to explain these things. Since I have already established that darwinism is not connected to atheism, your assertions are meaningless to this debate.

Nat

"Of course, you and I know that the evidence for macroevolution is paltry at best, and highly controversial any way you look at it."

I love how Vander assumes that this is true and also seems to think that all the scientists around here who actually study the material agree with him on this. What a buffoon! What an arrogant buffoon!. BTW Vander - just for the record the evidence for macroevolution is not paltry and is not controversial outside a few undereducated religious circles, primarily here in the US.

"However, the existence of life, particularly human life requires something for which Darwinism has no answer: information, faculties of reason, language, increasing complexity, and finally, [i]humanity[i]."

Actually, the ToE is specifically design to explain the existence of "information" or complexity, and it does a very good job at it. Just because you are so close-minded to real investigation because of your irrational bronze age religious beliefs does not and will not change that. There has also been an enormous amount of work done on the development of language (and their subsequent evolution), but you'll probably ignore that because you believe in the literal truth of the ridiculuous Tower of Babel mh. Moron.

"We shall see if those "beneficial mutations" withstand more objective scrutiny."

You think your scrutiny is OBJECTIVE!?! You are so deluded it is unimaginable. How about the scrutiny of the thousands of molecular biologists that have made these discoveries - are they objective? Or do you define objective to simply mean in accordance with your religious beliefs?

"I have read much to the contrary, and, so far, I have only seen the Darwinist response in the "Good mutations" thread."

You must have fun reading all those Creationists books then. Guess you wouldn't like to challenge yourself too much by actually reading a real science text.

"For now, let us at least admit that most mutations are deleterious. That is, the overwhelming majority of mutations produce harmful anomalies or defects."

WRONG! I will not admit that, nor should any one who knows anything about the genome. Te vast overwhelming majority of mutations are neutral to the survival of the organism beause they are not expressed phenotypically. You really need to actually learn something about these topics before trying to debate people about how wrong they are. Youe come off sounding like a close minded idiot.

Jack the Bodiless

On another thread, I recently noted Vanderzyden's habit of asking questions for which evolution is the answer to the very question being asked. This is more of the same.