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QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M
@canusernamebemyusername I’m sure that there’s no shortage of “clockmaker god” sort of scientists.
@QuixoticSoul Deism just doesn't seem as popular anymore:( Most people see God as an interventionist. To me that sounds like someone who is a poor designer that keeps having to fix their design because they didn't make it right the first time. A God to me would sound more like a Deistic deity that made it perfect and doesn't need to intervene. Thus they set natural laws in place so the system can run by itself including evolution. So I don't find their to be a conflict between the two. Just a conflict between evolution and certain denominations.
Though Oggg doesn't seem to have a conflict. I like him.
Though Oggg doesn't seem to have a conflict. I like him.
OggggO · 36-40, M
@canusernamebemyusername I'm not quite a Deist, although I certainly have some Deistic influences on my beliefs. That said, I don't see interventions as anymore the evidence of a poor design needing to be fixed than I do interaction with a procedurally generated video game as evidence that the seed was imperfect. The way I see it, God nudged the path of life in a general direction, but mostly let it run by itself.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@canusernamebemyusername The Catholic Church has of late resorted to mixing the two, because it's increasingly seen as out of touch with reality.
The catholic church:
1. denies that evolution applies to humans (no, seriously!)
2. touts what it calls 'theistic evolution'... the unsupported and completely superfluous claim that a magical entity directs evolution in order to support some or other goal i.e. that evolution is both teleological and subject to magic.
Either of those bastardisations mean that whatever it is that they claim to accept, it isn't the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
To cover their duplicity, they try to create a straw-man called 'biological evolution' (there's some other sort?) and to then differentiate that from 'theistic evolution'... in other words, to deliberately create confusion in the minds of the public by foisting upon them a distinction without a difference.
The catholic church:
1. denies that evolution applies to humans (no, seriously!)
2. touts what it calls 'theistic evolution'... the unsupported and completely superfluous claim that a magical entity directs evolution in order to support some or other goal i.e. that evolution is both teleological and subject to magic.
Either of those bastardisations mean that whatever it is that they claim to accept, it isn't the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
To cover their duplicity, they try to create a straw-man called 'biological evolution' (there's some other sort?) and to then differentiate that from 'theistic evolution'... in other words, to deliberately create confusion in the minds of the public by foisting upon them a distinction without a difference.
@OggggO @newjaninev2 I think theistic evolution is heading on the right path. But sadly it can get mangled too. I knew a guy in school that was becoming more atheist over time and theistic evolution was one of the things he went through. Science has pushed God back in a lot of areas but will probably always remain in the things we don't yet know. Like what banged the big bang kind of stuff. Being unfalsafiable God will always have somewhere to live. And I'm okay with that. Just as long as people at least keep trying to gain knowledge and don't stop at one answer.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@canusernamebemyusername Trying to force-fit magical entities into the evolutionary process has three fatal problems:
1. they simply aren't needed... the mechanisms that drive the process are well-understood, and don't require supernatural intervention
2. Evolution isn't teleological. If some or other intelligence were using it to achieve a specific goal (which, of course, we assume is us), then evolution would be the most hit-and-miss, convoluted, and uncertain method imaginable, That's one reason why the Catholic Church is trying to exclude humans from the evolutionary process (it's not the main reason).
3. Postulating magical entities unnecessarily complicates everything, because now we need to account for the existence of the magical entities. Did they also evolve?
1. they simply aren't needed... the mechanisms that drive the process are well-understood, and don't require supernatural intervention
2. Evolution isn't teleological. If some or other intelligence were using it to achieve a specific goal (which, of course, we assume is us), then evolution would be the most hit-and-miss, convoluted, and uncertain method imaginable, That's one reason why the Catholic Church is trying to exclude humans from the evolutionary process (it's not the main reason).
3. Postulating magical entities unnecessarily complicates everything, because now we need to account for the existence of the magical entities. Did they also evolve?
JoeyFoxx · 51-55, M
@canusernamebemyusername @OggggO The nudge thing is what I find to be flawed.
Statistically speaking, it is near impossible to win some of the modern lotteries. The odds of winning are so infinitesimally small, that there is little point in playing. And yet, eventually, someone wins. Why? Because, it's not literally impossible, it's just extremely unlikely.
Life on earth, at some point in the distant past, hit the universe's version of the lottery. While it's likely that conditions for the birth of life may have existed, or do exist, or will exist somewhere else in the universe, that statistical happenstance that resulted in the formation of micro-organisms happened here. Might it have happened elsewhere? Sure, but like the lottery, it's unlikely.
Evolution is merely the natural result of entropy. Everything is breaking down. Those things that survive are those things that change in the right way to survive other changes.
There is no plan. There is no logic. It's just happenstance.
SOMETHING will survive. We just don't know what will survive until it does. (Just one reason that the literal future cannot be predicted)
"God" is a way to provide meaning to a universe that has no meaning.
Statistically speaking, it is near impossible to win some of the modern lotteries. The odds of winning are so infinitesimally small, that there is little point in playing. And yet, eventually, someone wins. Why? Because, it's not literally impossible, it's just extremely unlikely.
Life on earth, at some point in the distant past, hit the universe's version of the lottery. While it's likely that conditions for the birth of life may have existed, or do exist, or will exist somewhere else in the universe, that statistical happenstance that resulted in the formation of micro-organisms happened here. Might it have happened elsewhere? Sure, but like the lottery, it's unlikely.
Evolution is merely the natural result of entropy. Everything is breaking down. Those things that survive are those things that change in the right way to survive other changes.
There is no plan. There is no logic. It's just happenstance.
SOMETHING will survive. We just don't know what will survive until it does. (Just one reason that the literal future cannot be predicted)
"God" is a way to provide meaning to a universe that has no meaning.
OggggO · 36-40, M
@JoeyFoxx And that is the simplest and most logical explanation for it all. I however, have had personal (and non-replicable) experiences that don't fit such a scenario, at least to my mind. I do not expect them to convince anyone else, in fact they [i]should not[/i] convince anyone else, as they rise nowhere near the standards of evidence, but they have left an impression on me. I'm not going to say I can't be wrong, nor would I ignore any explicitly contradictory evidence, but barring such, I have my beliefs, even though they are unfalsifiable.