Why can't someone believe in a god and Evolution ?

@Abstraction But one could argue those are moveable tangents of our understandings now, which of course are much more attenuated, nuanced then when the idea of God was created. I doubt Cohen was a dumb man, never believed in the scientific method, instead look for a spiritual answer, ascertaining these rigid ideas, we love now, become themselves, but obstacles.... but this comes full circle on the value of art vs science. And in this time, there is little appreciation for art; which mirrors lack of respect of faith.

@ArishMell 'Despair' - giving up all hope of achieving a rational unified answer to knowledge and life. We enter a pluralism. He considered Hegel opened the door to this with - instead of thesis and antithesis (A is not non-A) - he looked to synthesis - dialectical thinking. He thought Kierkegaard took it the next level by saying we can only reach meaning by a, 'leap of faith.'

[i]“The leap is common to every sphere of modern man’s thought. Man is forced to the despair of such a leap because he cannot live merely as a machine . . . If below the line man is dead, above the line, after the non-rational leap, man is left without categories. There are no categories because categories are related to rationality and logic. There is therefore no truth and no nontruth in antithesis, no right or wrong – you are adrift.” (Escape From Reason, 241, 256).[/i]
* I appreciate that picking up any philosophical writing midstream leaves lots of helpful clarifications out. Certainly, below the line we are machines, animals. Meaning can be sought in spiritual or non-spiritual ways - but it is not empirical knowledge. Above the line is also what @thewindupbirdchronicles is alluding to.

@Abstraction Well, I think the despair is in the minds of some very unhappy philosophers; but society now does seem to like putting people into categories, at least at Earthly level.

Whether we use religion or not, my approach is to enjoy the good sides of the lives and world around us as we have, not try to fit ourselves into gloomy philosophical categories.

@revenant The benefits of technical advances do exist; but I do know many young people might never enjoy them to the full, nor own a house, even if they find well-paid work.

While wealthy Londoners in the legal, money and entertainments trades buy second-homes to sky prices beyond local reach in attractive parts of England; many professionals working in the capital - teachers, nurses, scientists etc - are lucky to buy just a modest flat in Greater London and its suburbs.

Car ownership is becoming ever costlier, and many people will never afford battery-powered ones, throwing more people into having to use public transport and accept its limitations, including its complete lack in many areas. Some living within British cities now choose to have no car at all.

If the young were wide-eyed idealists, I think their situation will soon cure them of their dreams.

I am an uncle-times-seven and some of them now have children of their own. My direct nephews and nieces are all working and some have bought their own homes; but their children's generation...? Only time will tell, but it is said that there are now young couples so fearful of the future that they are choosing not to have children.

@ArishMell Not to have dreams is not living but those dreams sound like nightmares to me !

@revenant Indeed! Or at least dreams turning sour.

@Holidaze it's important that we do . The Atheists use it to deny any religion

@espoir Anything and everything can be attributed to a god... which is why the postulation is pointless and unnecessary... it explains nothing, not even itself.

@newjaninev2 It may be necessary to believers. And to clarify for the believers that God created evolution as a means of all life development

@newjaninev2[quote] The Ancient Greeks were discussing evolution 400 years before that was written... and the above quote doesn't describe evolution[/quote]

I'm somewhat of a history buff and would appreciate it if you can aid in my education by providing a link to ancient Greek language manuscript that discusses evolution.

I though that Wisdom 19:19 summarized evolution in a simple sentence.

@Diotrephes [quote]a simple sentence[/quote]

[b]Evolution is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles[/b].

That's it. That's evolution. Nothing more and nothing less.

Try:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought

https://classicalwisdom.com/philosophy/evolutionary-theory-in-ancient-greece-rome/

There's not a single 'scientific fact' in the bible that isn't either wrong, or wasn't already known

@newjaninev2 I was hoping that the source would be in Greek.

@Patientlywaiting Humans are not from apes because humans [b][i]are[/i][/b] apes (one of the Great Apes which include orang utan, chimpanzee, gorilla, and bonobo).

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Evolution is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles. That's it... that's the definition of evolution. Nothing more, and nothing less.

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'theistic evolution' isn't evolution.

Evolution isn't teleological.

Evolution has no end goal... there's no 'ideal' towards which it moves. There's no specific direction, so if it were 'directed', it wouldn't be evolution... it'd be development.

Evolution doesn't require an agent.

Evolution (which is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles) is a natural consequence of genetic replication... unavoidable. Nothing has to 'make it work'.

What creationists are trying to market as 'theistic evolution' is simply an unnecessary complication, isn't evolution, and is bandied about simply to avoid the contradiction they made for themselves.

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Every organism that has ever lived has been (and is) subject to evolution. That has been so since life began.

There is no 'micro-evolution' and there is no 'macro-evolution. These terms are a distinction without a difference.

There's just evolution.

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The term 'missing links' is used by those who think that one species turns into another species (the sort of thing found in creationist pamphlets). In fact, 3.5 billion years of evolution rests on common ancestry.

The chimpanzee-human last common ancestor, from which both chimpanzees and hominids diverged, lived around 7 million years ago (give or take a week). Among hominids, the [i]Homo[/i] genus emerged around 2 million years ago, and humans [i](Homo sapiens)[/i] last shared a common ancestor with other hominids around 300,000 years ago.

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Any questions?

@newjaninev2 Yes, I studied evolution by Charles Darwin where he said thing like humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor rather than on from another. The term missing link, comes from the idea that monkey like humans had a common ancestor too, which is probably true too. But the idea that we came from monkeys is untrue. But thanks for your explanation on it all.

@espoir People came from fish.

@Vetrov [quote]God created man.
But he needed a monkey to do it…[/quote]

In the Bible, only Jews are men and humans. Gentiles are beasts, animals, pigs, snakes, dogs.

@Vetrov Do you miss your tail?
https://www.webmd.com/baby/what-is-a-human-tail

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/pregnancy-and-birth/article-731581

@ArishMell He became agnostic with age.
[quote] "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." [/quote]

@ArishMell Nature works through the [i]process[/i] of evolution.
That process is driven by the [i]mechanism[/i] of Natural Selection.

@newjaninev2 Yes - but I was not analysing the how, only accepting they happen.

Religious people (other than the out-and-out literalists) would say, selection and evolution can be analysed scientifically but still happen by the work of a deity; non-religious do not need a god for them.

@likesnatural like me

@BohemianBoo yes, but my interpretation I believe is right, and it doesn't contradict evolution at all.

@espoir We'll just see about that!

@BohemianBoo what's to see about? It's what I believe to be true

@likesnatural Evolution isn't teleological... it has no pre-determined direction, and there's no 'end goal'.

Accordingly, there would be no point in a magical entity directing it, because there's nothing towards which it could be directed. Such a postulation would be a completely unnecessary complication.

@Roundandroundwego [quote]Because the Romans said Jesus was 2000 years ago in the Bible.[/quote]
There was no one named "Jesus" 2,000 years ago. The name didn't exist until about 1630, less than 400 years ago.

@Diotrephes most church calendars imply that 2000 thing. You erase that, now you never knew.