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Why is atheistic evolution absurd? [Spirituality & Religion]

“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”
― G.K. Chesterton
First atheism and evolution have no causal relationship to each other.

Atheism is the refusal to accept the existence of a Semitic god.
It has a few variants, which are discussed by Dawkins in [i]"The God Delusion"[/i].

There are plenty of devout people - Jews, Christians and Muslims - possibly a majority, who believe that science, evolution and faith in God are entirely compatible. They say the story of Genesis is a poetic metaphor, and that evolution was the actual means by which God created the world. The Catholic and Anglican churches accept this view.

Evolution started as a scientific theory. It has gradually gathered an enormous amount of evidence to justify its acceptance by scientists across many fields. Scientists have never proposed that life evolved from nothing.
On the contrary, the universe had already existed for billions of years before life on this planet evolved. It is probable that life had already evolved on countless other planets, but they are too far away for us to know about.

Physicists did, for a very long time, have a difficulty with explaining how matter and energy first manifested as the universe.
Theories include the Big Bang, an expanding and contracting universe, and a finite universe that will die of endless expansion.
Each idea initially had some evidence to support it, but not enough to explain all the known phenomena of the macrocosm and quantum physics.

However, since developments in string theory in mathematics, in astronomical and laser and nuclear measurements, and the discoveries of the Boson particle, dark matter and dark energy and the ways in which they interact, physicists are edging closer to a Universal Field Theory. If they get one that can be verified via experimentation and measurement, and which can reliably predict phenomena, we will be closer to discovering exactly how the universe came into being - or whether it has always existed but in differ forms and phases.
@Speedyman I think the theory of Schrodinger's cat is flawed and I don't think you actually understand it if you are using that as an insult. The circumstances that led to life beginning are common, happen all the time, and there are probably little pockets of newly evolving micro-organisms all the time that we don't realize are newly created because the earth s covered with microorganisms already. And why should I try to prove to you that intelligence can come from non-intelligence without intelligent intervention? You don't have to believe in science. It's okay. I support you believing in your religion.
Speedyman · 70-79, M
I know the theory of Schrodinger’s cat of course But the problem is that people like you use the word probability when there is no probability at all in real terms. What you are saying about micro organisms is complete nonsense because the micro organisms are there already. We are talking about life coming from nothing. Your problem is is that you do not seem to understand what we are talking about. The other thing is that the micro organism stay as micro organisms. We don’t Observe them evolving into other things@CleverFunnyNameGoesHere
@Speedyman we see them evolving all the time. what are you talking about? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380822/

and here

https://mbio.asm.org/content/7/2/e01395-15
Elessar · 26-30, M
Evolution doesn't care about one's faith or lack thereof, so a sentence starting with the expression "atheistic evolution" is absurd itself.

And the answer supported by creationists is even more absurd since
1) they date the beginning of the world 5000-6000 years ago, we have an pretty much infinite amount of evidence for life to have existed much, much before than that and
2) even if we admit there's been a creator, who created the creator itself?
Elessar · 26-30, M
@Speedyman Why, are you out of arguments?
Speedyman · 70-79, M
No just bored@Elessar
This message was deleted by the author of the main post.
Why would an Evolutionist assume that there was ever nothing? The first law of thermodynamics states that: "Energy can neither be created no destroy it can only be converted from one form to another." The Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy states that: "Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another." Mass is energy at a lower frequency. Mass can be converted to energy and energy can be converted into mass. Mass being converted into energy is what happens in nuclear fusion and fission. Some scientists feel that Energy being converted into mass is what happens when light particles are combined to create electrons and positrons.

The fabric of space has mass that can be measured by the gravitation effect of dark matter and dark energy.

The Big Bang theory is often misrepresented in media and oversimplifications of what it is, mislead people to believe that scientists believe that there was "nothing" before the Big Bang. In reality, the Big Bang Theory is simply an explanation of what made the universe to be what it is now. IE (when God decided he was sick of the way things were and decided to create the universe)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/21/the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-after-all/#14dfbb3355df

The formation of life on earth could have easily evolved with the naturally occurring elements and processes on the planet. Laboratory experiments have reproduced the conditions that scientists believe existed at the time of early life developing and common amino acids have formed. The kicker is that it didn't take very long in a lab for these amino acids to form in laboratory conditions. So if you extrapolate that out to the thousands or billions (depending on what a person believes) of years since the earth formed or was created, simple amino acids could, in theory, quite easily evolve.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/primordial-soup-urey-miller-evolution-experiment-repeated/


Evolution is changes in the amino acids that make up a an organisms DNA. With small organisms that reproduce quickly, these changes can influence an entire population in a matter of days. With larger organisms, it takes longer only because the organisms reproduce more slowly. Changes in DNA can occur randomly because DNA is matter/energy, and matter/energy is constantly in a state of flux and interacts with other matter/energy like radiation, oxidation, or just because the molecules electric field happened to be influenced by some other electric field.

All these changes on the molecular level are dictated by a set of interactions that do not change. Someone or something had to make those laws and dictate how those mass-energy interactions should work. Maybe it was random and the universe just kept failing and restarting until it found a set of rules that allowed it to exist. Maybe the universe has always existed in some other form or another and a catalyst (maybe God) of some kind, caused the conversion of dark energy into regular energy into matter (the Big Bang), that resulted in our current universe and the conditions that would create life on Earth.

I really don't see how evolution and creation are mutually exclusive.
Speedyman · 70-79, M
1. The proof that God exists is all around you but atheists go around with their eyes shut
2. As I have told you before we do not believe in gods that look on mountaintops and so your disbelief is founded on ignorance
3. The fact is that life and the meaning of life is found in the relationship with God and the life I lived before I knew God appears like death to me even though I was very happy before
4. Therefore I choose are a life in relationship with God. Jesus came that we might have life and have it to the full and I want to enjoy that life@newjaninev2
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@Speedyman

1. proof of nothing

2. proof of nothing

3. no compelling necessity

4. self-indulgence
Speedyman · 70-79, M
You are totally wrong@newjaninev2
Entwistle · 56-60, M
I don't know anyone who says nothing became something/everything.
Truth is that nothing is fixed or unchanging. Therefore nothing was created. There is no fixed thing that could have been created.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@hippyjoe1955 I don't believe you have told me any truth. I even think you are lying about telling the truth.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Entwistle You don't believe. We will just leave it at that.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@hippyjoe1955 Fair enough.
Nobody says anything came from “nothing.” It’s theists who refuse to say where God came from or how he came up with his designs. So it’s theists who say something came from nothing.
@Speedyman If you actually gave a shit about converting me, instead of just coming on here to try to impress everyone how much smarter you are, you would answer questions instead of insulting people. It shouldn't matter if a question is "decent."
Speedyman · 70-79, M
It was you who brought up the tooth fairy, my friend! I don’t know why belief in the omnipotent omniscient God should equate with belief in the tooth fairy in your mind. Enlighten me@LeopoldBloom
GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M
@LeopoldBloom [quote]If you actually gave a shit about converting me[/quote]

It's not up to us to convert you, it's up to you and Yahweh. All we're doing is sharing our faith in Him.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
[quote]
I really don't see how evolution and creation are mutually exclusive.[/quote]

Or as I would read that, science seeking to understand [i]how [/i]it is happening, irrespective of any deity; and religion saying its deity is making it happen, irrespective of how.

So, no, they are not mutually exclusive. They ask different questions.

The problem boils down to some deeply-religious people afraid or unwilling to accept that there exist, four basic but important differences:

a) Between belief in, doubt of, and outright denial of, the existence of any deity - as exemplified by the reductive notion expressed in the OP.

b) Between different but usually sincere interpretations or expressions of belief in their own chosen deity; let alone between theirs and any faith worshipping any other god(s).

c) Hence between believing generally in a mystical but creative deity, and in scriptural descriptions of ancient interpretations of that deity.

d) Between the natures, aims and purposes of science, and of religion.

'

Naturally I do not believe in re-incarnation, but I sometimes wonder what the ancient Hebrew priests would make of it if they could come back now and see what has been discovered well over 2000 years later.

They were not stupid, they simply did not have available the breadth of knowledge we enjoy now. I think once the basics were explained so they could grasp simple summaries of the natural sciences, and the vast scales of time and place involved, they would embrace that modern knowledge as showing their God's handiwork to be far more beautiful, sublime and majestic then they could genuinely have imagined. And yes - including the principle of evolution.

I don't think Speedyman is an outright Creationist despite his binary question, but what would those scribes re-incarnate make of that philosophy? I think they would regard it, as I do, as demeaning not only them, but also God.
User41 · 36-40, M
I don’t understand

So god must have done it
Speedyman · 70-79, M
In the beginning Godcreated. Science tells us how he might have done it. @User41
SatanBurger · 36-40, F
What came before the Big Bang? How to get a Universe from no space, no time, no matter:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8-oocxPwlM]

To be devil's advocate I wanted to give out that video aside from my personal opinion which is different. Though to the video narrator's credit, they do ask where these laws came from in the first place and he also states that these forces can probably exist regardless if there was a universe or not, that is the ultimate question. But it does give a good example of how nothing can create something.

At any rate, there's a few problems I have with your view. The one issue about your view is that even if nothing can't create something, you automatically assume it's "your" god or even if it is a god that created everything. We create, are we Gods? Do forces need to be a god to create?

I think when Robert Anton Wilson said that everyone was a pope is technically correct, if we create, we are all gods. I firmly believe this though irrelevant to this conversation. I just don't buy the concept that your version of a god is any more or less incorrect or correct as saying nothing came from something.

Furthermore, the word nothing by itself is a misnomer because nothing means that it is the complete absence of something, there's "nothing" there. But the universe is filled with forces like energy and gravity.

Stars are a good example of this.

If you consider that, nothing can create something probably from the same recycled forces that are out there, including the ones that make you fall off a cliff.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@SatanBurger The God beyond which no other God can exist. The only One that meets that criteria is Yahweh.
Speedyman · 70-79, M
First of course this is total theory and it is totally unproven. Every few years someone comes up with a new theory about how our universe came into existence. But even if we solve the mechanism that does not mean to say we can dispense with the agency. Even if we know how the universe was created does not mean to say I dispense with the Creator. That is total nonsense. Lack same because I know how my car works I can dispense with the guy who designed it. As he said at the end he put the laws there in the first place?@SatanBurger
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Speedyman It is not a theory. It is what is called a 'scientific fantasy'. There is absolutely no evidence or principle that would cause this to happen. Then of course there is that tiny little fact of intelligent design that simply can not be explained away. There is too much complexity in living forms that can simply not be explained by random chance and circumstance. Even the neo Darwinist evolutionist are starting to admit it. They got together in 2016 to try to explain how complicated things came into existence and couldn't. The concept they debated was the ear. How did the ear evolve since it is a two part thing. It is extremely complex and without the complexity it wouldn't work and how did such a thing get coded into the DNA? (More and more it is being observed that DNA doesn't control physical attributes. You can take a stem cell and put it in the area where there is a liver and it will become a liver cell. No one can explain how that works. The best and most logical theory is that the Universe was created and all life on earth was created by a Super Intelligence All Powerful Being.
QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M
Once again, you betray deep ignorance of the subject, this time mistaking evolution and cosmology.
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Speedyman · 70-79, M
@LeopoldBloom no-one says it was!
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Speedyman · 70-79, M
You seem to be very ill informed and very narrow in your views about things. I’m sorry if you’ve had some unfortunate experiences but you really need to broaden your horizons@BobGrant45
AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M
Democrats deny science by claiming there’s more than two sexes.

Republicans deny science by denying evolution and climate change.
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@hippyjoe1955 Just as I dont concern myself if you want to spend your time praying to a lump of wood they used to nail people to. Of course the child molesting thing is a little upsetting, but thats the people, not the religion. Nor will I assume you are one of those egomaniacs who believes they can pray a cure for covid 19.. Thats a science problem. Besides. None of those things are the least bit funny. I just laugh at you because you try to convince everyone here that you believe these things.. And that makes you the fool.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@whowasthatmaskedman I don't concern myself with your nonsense. Been there done that. Yours is the dead end.
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
@hippyjoe1955 I expect so.. and that idea doesnt scare me at all. Lived my life well the first time and got it tolerably right. I am content. You on the other hand will have a lot of "splainin" to do.. Maybe you will be better off going my way??
I think an anesthetic is important for things like surgery and wisdom teeth removal
I thought you wrote aesthetic evolution, and was thinking people getting sexier ain't a bad thing 😏
Speedyman · 70-79, M
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Speedyman · 70-79, M
Your brain I assume sir? @SW-User
JovialPlutonian · 36-40, M
Or God just made everything out of itself, maybe!!!
GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M
It's a lie plain and simple.
GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M
@ArishMell [quote]Calling anything a "lie plain and simple"[/quote]

Whether you think I'm demeaning myself or not is of no consequence. I only call them as Yahweh sees them.
Speedyman · 70-79, M
Godless Darwinism was a theory which was popular because it tried to explain the way God but now it is becoming more and more outdated@ArishMell
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@GodSpeed63 You can't blame your Yahweh for your own acts. Nor can you assume you know how Yaweh sees things - you only follow your interpretation of one ancient society's religious beliefs.

What is absurd is the phrase "atheistic evolution", because there is no such title. Believing in the natural sciences generally is not incompatible with believing in God.

There are many scientists who also follow one or another religion. Are they liars?

There are many religious people, lay or clergy, who may not be scientists but do accept and appreciate the findings of science even if it does not agree with an ancient religious tale. Are they liars too?

Science has no religious standpoint. It asks how and when things happened - not why or by whom. In fact it has to respect but be neutral about religion because it is so international, represented by scientists of all faiths and none.

'

I can understand some people find comfort in the apparent "certainty" of scriptural literalism they fear to question and argue, and are uncomfortable with anything that thrives on questioning and constructive argument.

Science is applied curiosity, questioning, observing, testing, discussing, reviewing and revising. Religious literalism is applied suppression, to serve not a deity capable of looking after its/his/her-self, but the suppressor.

What I do not know is why some people are so determined to call science "lies", and that everyone else must do so too - and miss the irony of using the Internet to say so!

 
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