Muzman on 6/4/2008 at 12:25
Quote Posted by paloalto90
Evolution would have to include transmigration of species.Did Darwin's finches ever turn into um,um some scientist should be able to tell me that!!
...
They should be able to prove transmigration by DNA,yet I haven't heard the big announcement.
You've not been paying attention. There's lots of examples from bacteria to fruit fly to all sorts (if by 'transmigration' you mean the usual canard that evolution can't demonstrate the arising of new species. If it weren't dumb enough to try and argue against theories that people know perfectly well posit slow incremental changes over very long periods of time by saying "why haven't any new species appeared in the last couple of weeks or hundred years!?" it also conveniently ignores that 'species' is a descriptive concept based on structure. It's changed a lot over its life and sometimes still does. Cripes, at the low level the distinction between plant and animal gets pretty hazy.)
I did find this just hunting around lately;
(
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080402071538.htm)
anyway
Quote Posted by demagogue
I think people defending or talking about evolution shouldn't shy away from its full implications, though, and bury it under dispassionate, techy things like building a better mousetrap, or "applications" like Qooper was talking about (this isn't an stab at either of your points, btw; I'm just using it as an occassion to make an independent point, so no worries).
Evolution goes to the very heart and soul of being an individual; the very essence of our "spiritual" life ... It explains why "red" looks like red and not green, why orgasms feel good and stumpted toes feel bad, and the feeling of motivation to get up in the morning and do
anything and not simply sit and die slowly. It's inside of you and you can't get away from it...
Yeah, I know what you're saying. I think there is still a fair bit of wiggle room for the metaphysical given what we know and the nature of consciousness, but I know what you mean. And actually many of the science folks I've encountered lately following this incident are saying prettymuch what you're saying; the more you know about this stuff, the less 'need' there is for god and religion. Obviously Dawkins says this, but Myers and people like Julia Sweeny tell tales of science understanding leading inevitably to altheism (or as she puts it
away from anaturism) and facing up to what it all means. There's a lot of talk about reclaiming atheism as a reasonable outlook (not that it's usually put like) since it's usually a dirty word in the US apparently. Tantamount to saying you're a baby eating psychopath to some.
catbarf on 6/4/2008 at 14:24
Quote Posted by Muzman
And actually many of the science folks I've encountered lately following this incident are saying prettymuch what you're saying; the more you know about this stuff, the less 'need' there is for god and religion. Obviously Dawkins says this, but Myers and people like Julia Sweeny tell tales of science understanding leading inevitably to altheism (or as she puts it
away from anaturism) and facing up to what it all means.
I think this is something of a misrepresentation. Science and evolution don't lead to atheism, but they do eliminate the 'God of the gaps' used to explain away natural phenomena. And it seems that the basic premise behind Expelled is evolution leads to atheism leads to the Third Reich (or equivalent).
SD on 6/4/2008 at 15:22
Quote Posted by catbarf
Science and evolution don't lead to atheism
Sure they do.
paloalto90 on 6/4/2008 at 15:41
Quote Posted by SD
It means he's an imbecile.
Yeah personal attacks a high sign of intelligence.
catbarf on 6/4/2008 at 17:11
Quote Posted by SD
Sure they do.
No amount of explanation is going to make people less likely to believe in God. Sure, there's only a few people who believe that the Earth is flat and only 6,000 years old, but as long as people can keep on assigning recently-disproved texts the label of 'metaphor', religion isn't going to go away. Now, one who follows a scientific mindset will be led to atheism, that is true. But the pursuit of science by the experts won't convert the everyman.
Ben Gunn on 6/4/2008 at 18:00
Quote Posted by SD
Sure they do.
No they dont. And Im saying this as an atheist. There are sound philosophical reasons for the seperation between scientifical knowledge and personal, subjective truths.
Humans live in two worlds which no one know how they correlate. I dont want to write a tl:dr post so just search for serious essays about the psyco-phyiscal problem.
jay pettitt on 6/4/2008 at 18:13
The day Darwin published Origin of Species, the human species became self aware. In one uniquely elegant phrase we came to understand, for the first time, life, the universe and everything; and our place in it. We knew how and where to search when we had further questions; and it certainly isn't in spell books, scriptures or by chanting.
Sure, your head is your own space, you can believe in a religion and evolution at the same time if that's what floats your boat; but religion has failed. Aside from considering it's own historical or social significance it is redundant as an aid to understanding life or the universe and should be retired. The god of gaps has, at long last, been flushed out.
SD on 6/4/2008 at 18:23
Science leads to atheism because science teaches us not to believe in anything without evidence, and there is no evidence for a God. The only scientifically supportable position is that there is no God, just as the only scientifically supportable position on unicorns or leprechauns or spaghetti monsters or compassionate conservatives is that they don't exist.
Evolution leads to atheism because evolution is the only process by which we know intelligence arises. In the absence of any evidence that intelligence can arise any other way, God, as the greatest intelligence that ever was, must have evolved from something else. Since religion teaches us that there was nothing pre-God, we have a paradox: an intelligence such as God cannot exist without having evolved from something, but in order for him to be God, he must not have evolved from anything.
I'm too tired of debating this shit on the Internet with people who refuse to accept the inherent intellectual inferiority (theists) or superiority (atheists) of their particular stance, so I ain't going to be extrapolating further. I hope.
BEAR on 6/4/2008 at 19:37
Quote Posted by SD
Sure they do.
The loss of spirituality will be a slow processes. Religion is a hardwired response, meaning its alot harder to demonize than we would like, which is something we athiest have to come to grips with if we're to have any chance of getting along with anyone.
The human ability to believe the unbelievable is everywhere; all we can really hope is to redirect that. Religion is taught earlier than anything, meaning by the time you become an adult its so ingrained in your psyche there really is no way to get it out. All we can really hope for is to seperate religion from trying to affect the real world.
heretic on 6/4/2008 at 19:52
Spirituality will always be around in some form. This doesn't have as much bearing on religion as it used to, being that the larger bodies of organized religion have become more about tradition than the actual spirituality that served to spawn the movements to begin with.
The flock is almost always more devout than the shepherd that predominates over them.
