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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Darwin and Religion

Darwin and Religion

by John Cole|  November 27, 200510:41 pm| 58 Comments

This post is in: Media, Science & Technology

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Cathy Young has a worthwhile post up on the subject of Charles Darwin and religion:

My statement that “Darwin was a Christian” oversimplified the complex reality of Darwin’s views, and should have been more nuanced. However, the notion that Darwin developed his ‘theory of natural selection as a way to “work out his issues with God” is preposterous, if only because he developed his theory more than a decade before he developed his “issues.” It also says a great deal about the mindset of ID proponents, who treats scientific inquiry as essentially driven by ideology.

Incidentally, that is what makes ID a fundamentally non-scientific enterprise: not that it is driven by religion, but that it is driven by ideology. That is, its proponents question evolutionary theory not because they dissatisfied with the scientific/factual evidence for it, but because they don’t like its conclusions. To be sure, they look for and claim to find scientific and factual holes in the theory, but the main (or only) reason they start looking is that they don’t want it to be true. It makes no difference whether a critique of Darwinian theory is motivated by defense of religion or, say, by concern that biological Darwinism easily lends itself to apologetics for social inequality. In both cases, the motivation is ideological, not scientific.

An interesting read (Cathy always is), but what makes it more interesting is that the post builds upon a column of Cathy’s that was printed in the Boston Globe. I find what Cathy has done here to be the model of what I would love to see from all journalists and columnists- blogs in which they can expand upon their printed columns that may leave things out due to editorial selection or space considerations. Likewise, blogs provide a great forum for the authors to respond to feedback as well as offering readers an opportunity for some ‘one on one’ with media figures.

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58Comments

  1. 1.

    Steve S

    November 27, 2005 at 10:56 pm

    It makes no difference whether a critique of Darwinian theory is motivated by defense of religion or, say, by concern that biological Darwinism easily lends itself to apologetics for social inequality.

    Someone once explained to me, that William Jennings Bryant, 4 time Democratic Presidential candidate back at the turn of the 19th century, argued against Evolution in the Scope case primarily because he didn’t like that it led to apologetics for social inequality.

    It is interesting that today that the GOP promotes evolution as the reason behind social inequality, and then at the same time denies it for scientific purposes. It’s like we’re all still wrong, just in a different way.

  2. 2.

    James Emerson

    November 27, 2005 at 11:20 pm

    Good article. Thanks for the link.

  3. 3.

    ppGaz

    November 27, 2005 at 11:51 pm

    That is, its proponents question evolutionary theory not because they dissatisfied with the scientific/factual evidence for it, but because they don’t like its conclusions. To be sure, they look for and claim to find scientific and factual holes in the theory, but the main (or only) reason they start looking is that they don’t want it to be true.

    Excellent piece.

  4. 4.

    scs

    November 28, 2005 at 1:11 am

    That is, its proponents question evolutionary theory not because they dissatisfied with the scientific/factual evidence for it, but because they don’t like its conclusions.

    Okay that is my problem with some ID opponents. They dismiss it outright as craziness before they even investigated the thinking because they don’t like the people who are pushing it. In fact half of the arguments I received against ID were basically, “well the people who believe ID are fundie moonbats”. I say it doesn’t matter if Hitler himself came up with the theory, it either has good ideas or it doesn’t. So it really shouldn’t matter what the hell ID’ers motivations are. Does ID have any good points? Yes. No. Why not. That should be the scope of the argument.

  5. 5.

    Steve S

    November 28, 2005 at 1:15 am

    Does ID have any good points? Yes. No. Why not. That should be the scope of the argument.

    No the scope of the argument is whether or not ID is a Scientific Theory, and as such should be taught in the same context as Evolution.

    But ID is not science, it’s a religious belief.

    I don’t have any problems with ID as a religious belief. What I have a problem with is using ID to try to undermine science and the importance of science for our continued growth.

  6. 6.

    scs

    November 28, 2005 at 1:28 am

    But ID is not science, it’s a religious belief

    SteveS, it is not enough to say something is a religious belief, you have to SHOW it is a religious belief. I recommend you read this short article I saw recently to see how scientifically relevant the issues that ID has recently brought to the forefront are.

  7. 7.

    Jon H

    November 28, 2005 at 1:47 am

    “Does ID have any good points? ”

    No. At best, it boils down to “I can’t figure out how this bit of biology works, and the evolutionary biologists won’t give me an answer when I stamp my feet, so therefore it must be God.”

    The flaws in this include the following.

    First, just because biology can’t explain something, doesn’t mean they will never be able to. ID would just put up a marker saying, “God Did It” or “It’s Unknowable”, and stop investigating. That’s not science.

    Second, the ID position betrays a demand for certainty, and a discomfort with uncertainty. “I don’t know” is an entirely valid answer in science. If science doesn’t have an answer, that isn’t a flaw, that’s just a signal that more research is needed, and perhaps new technology and methods. What is invalid is to say ” that’s irreducibly complex, we’ll never figure that out”. There’s no point in that.

    Might as well just say “I can’t figure it out, I give up.” And what’s the point in that? Who’s going to build a career out of a string of failures and dead-ends where their imagination and training failed them? Well, okay, George W. Bush. And Brownie. But that’s different, that’s politics, where they soar with the eagles despite their failures. But a scientific career would not look good if you spent twenty years investigating various things and declaring them all “irreducibly complex”.

    Third, if you impute God in the things that haven’t been worked out, then God’s special works get fewer and fewer as we learn things. (Perhaps that’s why the ID proponents want to declare things “designed” or “irreducibly complex” – in order to save those unknown things as “God preserves”.)

  8. 8.

    Jon H

    November 28, 2005 at 2:01 am

    scs, ID did nothing to bring those issues to the forefront.

    That was just scientists being scientists. ID is not spurring research into anything, except perhaps how to fight their rhetorical, PR, and legal gambits. Scientists have plenty of their own motivators, and “proving Behe wrong” isn’t going to get anyone a grant.

    Really, though, that story is a bit weak. Humans didn’t evolve eyes independently.

    There has, for decades at least, been a hypothesis that eyes started with light-sensitive spots (as suggested by the EMBL story). Then the light-sensitive spots became slight depressions, giving a degree of directionality. Then the depressions became enclosed, except for a small hole, creating a pinhole camera effect. Then, the hole probably developed a covering of transparent skin, to protect the inner eye. Meanwhile, the light-sensitive cells in the eye would be improving.

    Actually, I think Darwin himself came up with that.

    Furthermore, this particular research isn’t all that interesting. It isn’t the first to find opsins in the brain.

    “The Journal of Neuroscience, May 15, 1999, 19(10):3681-3690

    Encephalopsin: A Novel Mammalian Extraretinal Opsin Discretely Localized in the Brain”

    That EMBL press release is just tarted up with “Darwin” stuff to make it sound more newsworthy.

  9. 9.

    scs

    November 28, 2005 at 3:24 am

    First, just because biology can’t explain something, doesn’t mean they will never be able to

    Okay, if, and I say ‘big IF’ just for the sake of argument, Behe could come up with some argument to show that mutation and natural selection alone was insufficient to explain some particular phenomenom, what should the conclusion be?
    See, I agree with you, and I say the flaw in his ideas is that he concludes that since, in his mind anyway, a situation is not explained through natural selection, a random process was NOT responsible for the phenomenom. He should instead conclude only that natural selection and mutation was not responsible for the phenomenon, as to conclude that a non-random process was responsbile, he would then have to show that natural selection and mutation are the ONLY possible random processes at work. So a little philosophical error there.

    However, for argument’s sake, I do feel it is scientifically POSSIBLE to show somehow that a particular phenomenom was not induced through natural selection and mutation. As I’ve said before, one could show for instance that the the number of mutations generated at a natural rate would have been too slow to produce certain complex mutations in the time they have evolved on earth. I’m not saying that that will ever happen, because from what I can understand, all the mutations WERE fast enough. I’m just saying the tests are there, so there is an element of science to some of his arguments. He just kind of loses it once you get to the conclusions.

  10. 10.

    scs

    November 28, 2005 at 3:26 am

    And by the way, I feel that John Cole is picking on me with these ID posts, because it is probably apparent by now that I am the only one to argue it on here. He is just trying to goad me on, I know it!

  11. 11.

    Bob In Pacifica

    November 28, 2005 at 8:50 am

    Here’s a thought: Can you be Christian without believing in any of the supernatural stuff? Can you believe in what Jesus said about how people are supposed to treat each other without dragging in the walking on water stuff, the miracles, even without the whole God thing?

  12. 12.

    Krista

    November 28, 2005 at 9:04 am

    Good question, Bob. I’ve often felt that way myself. I do think that Jesus was a real person, and I do think he was a wise person and had a lot of very valid, necessary teachings about human nature that still apply today. But personally, I think that as more and more people heard about him, he became legendendary — and that’s when all of the stories began about the virgin birth, the walking on water, etc.

  13. 13.

    Boombo

    November 28, 2005 at 9:16 am

    Bob, Krista, in that case you would probably not fit in well with most mainline Christian denominations. If you are actually interested in pursuing this line of thought, perhaps you should check out the Unitarian Universalist Church (however that’s spelled). From the few UU’s I’ve known, you might feel more comfortable with their ways of looking at it.I’m sure there are people who can give you actual information and let me know if I’m talking out of my ass.

  14. 14.

    Dave Ruddell

    November 28, 2005 at 9:20 am

    Here’s a thought: Can you be Christian without believing in any of the supernatural stuff?

    I suppose, from a semantic standpoint at least, the answer would be no. Presumably a Christian would believe that Jesus was The Christ (the annointed, the Messiah), whereas if you believe that Jesus was just a great philosopher, you’d want to use a different designation (Jesusist?).

    Of coursethis distinction is not made in the real world, although I suppose some of the more religiously conservative folks out there accuse their more liberal minded brethern of not being ‘real’ Christians. As a non-practising Agnostic, I don’t worry about it too much.

  15. 15.

    Krista

    November 28, 2005 at 9:22 am

    Bob, Krista, in that case you would probably not fit in well with most mainline Christian denominations.

    I don’t fit in well with mainline anything. Besides, I live in a small rural area. My choices for places of worship are United, Baptist, Mennonite, or Gospel Hall (a hardcore Christian sect where the women are expected to not cut their hair, and to pump out lots of babies.) I’d rather just do what I do now: call myself an agnostic and try my best to be a kind person.

  16. 16.

    The Disenfranchised Voter

    November 28, 2005 at 9:22 am

    It should be noted that Unitarian Universalists aren’t Christians. They are their own religion.

  17. 17.

    kenB

    November 28, 2005 at 9:40 am

    The mainstream Christian churches require you to confess Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, which nominally requires you to accept his divinity; however, there are plenty of churches (at least in New England and the west Coast, maybe not the red states) where “nuanced” understandings of Jesus’ divinity are common, though people tend not to be comfortable talking about that in “official” settings.

  18. 18.

    BumperStickerist

    November 28, 2005 at 9:41 am

    Would the ID folks concede that mathematics is intelligently designed?

    Therefore, there is nothing wrong with beginning every mathematics course with:

    “Math is just too darn orderly to have *happened*, therefore it must be an intelligently designed system. If it’s designed, it must have been created. Which, obviously, requires a ‘creator.’

  19. 19.

    Cyrus

    November 28, 2005 at 9:46 am

    Okay, if, and I say ‘big IF’ just for the sake of argument, Behe could come up with some argument to show that mutation and natural selection alone was insufficient to explain some particular phenomenom, what should the conclusion be?

    Well, if he could, and if that phenomenon he was disproving was the entire process of evolution, then evolution should be reevaluated. If his disproof held up under scrutiny, then Darwinism would be rejected and Beheism would take its place as accepted scientific truth and the framework for future research.

    And if I had wings instead of arms, and if my chest muscles were about five times as big as they actually are, I could fly. If I could fly and had become world-famous for it, they would have torn down all the pictures of Superman and put up my picture and a stylized letter “C” instead.

    I can’t help but think that we’re arguing about different things here. Yes, you are correct, the fact that ID’s supporters are “closet” young earth creationists trying to get that belief introduced into science curricula is not by itself reason to reject their ideas. (Just to mock them :).) Before you even get to that there is more than enough scientific reason to reject their ideas. PZ Myers posts about it often. talk.origins has much more. So I don’t disagree with your hypotheticals, but they are so very hypothetical that I don’t see why you’re bringing them up.

  20. 20.

    Al Maviva

    November 28, 2005 at 10:18 am

    Well, at the risk of coming off as a burnin-gays-at-the-stake right wing bible thumping drooling maniac…

    I don’t think science is necessarily incompatible with religion, providing the religion we’re talking about is accepting of the fact that science, properly done, explains the principles underlying the operation of life the universe & pretty much everything. Science has a couple gaps that it currently can’t address. One is how so much order came out of disorder. The ontological question is a real bitch for science – you can talk about primordial ooze or the big bang or the expanding/contracting universe, but addressing those issues and concluding that you’ve answered the ontological question, is like dissecting a 7-11 burrito and concluding that you’ve visited Mexico. It appears that the universe follows a set of rules. How did that happen? Where did the energy/matter originally come from? It seems to me like there is room for at least some deistic metaphysics in the answer to that question. But hey it’s just my theory. The other problem I have is entropy. One’s room doesn’t clean itself you know, it needs to be acted upon by an outside force. It seems to me that if all energy states eventually trend towards equilibrium (burning out, decaying, etc) then the existence of life, in fact the spontaneous generation of it, seems quite unlikely without special intervention, or at least some special rule that contradicts the general trend of all other matter/energy in the universe.

    This line of thinking gets me to deism pretty easily. I’ve mulled it over for nearly 30 years, read a lot on the subject, and cannot figure a way that the universe could have gotten to contain so much mass and energy or even exist, without some outside source creating it. This squares with Genesis’ description of the void, and the creator. Getting from that more or less rationalist deism to the notion of a personal God who occasionally intervenes in the operation of physical laws takes a leap of faith, but I don’t find it that hard to take that first step.

    Regardless, it can’t hurt to repeat Pascal’s wager.

  21. 21.

    The Disenfranchised Voter

    November 28, 2005 at 10:27 am

    Regardless, it can’t hurt to repeat Pascal’s wager.

    Pascal’s Wager is a very weak argument for believing in god. He makes his argument on complete assumptions, such as if god does exist then automatically heaven and hell exist. He gives no reason as to why these two “places” exist automatically, he just makes the assumption that if God does, they do.

    Furthermore, Pascal also assumes that believing in god alone is enough to get into heaven. This is another assumption. For all we know god might only allow christians in heaven, muslims, etc. (though I doubt this is the case, if a god does indeed exist)

    I never saw why people consider Pascal’s wager as noteworthy.

  22. 22.

    Davebo

    November 28, 2005 at 10:32 am

    I never saw why people consider Pascal’s wager as noteworthy.

    Now had he gone all in that would have been something.

  23. 23.

    kenB

    November 28, 2005 at 10:35 am

    cannot figure a way that the universe could have gotten to contain so much mass and energy or even exist, without some outside source creating it.

    Well, OK, but then who or what created the outside source? I admit that these are problems, but I don’t see how “God” is the magic answer to them. Either way one is left with a mystery.

  24. 24.

    ppGaz

    November 28, 2005 at 10:55 am

    I don’t think science is necessarily incompatible with religion, providing the religion we’re talking about is accepting of the fact that science, properly done, explains the principles underlying the operation of life the universe & pretty much everything. Science

    A small number of decades ago (say, four) both scientists and theologians were happily discussing this very idea, and doing it quite well.

    That was before politicians figured out how useful it would be to divide up voters along religious and other “values” lines, and thereby grab power for themselves.

    A good deal of the “conflict” between religion and science is ginned up, manipulative baloney designed to keep people distracted from what the powerful do when nobody is looking.

  25. 25.

    Al Maviva

    November 28, 2005 at 10:57 am

    >>>Either way one is left with a mystery.

    Well, yeah. That’s my point. A mystery, and some theories. And Pascal did okay with his wager, but he’d have never picked Florida State to be in the ACC championship game with three losses.

    Seriously, Pascal’s wager is weak insofar as it goes from an assumption, to a personal god. I think the third part of his wager is the strongest part – It doesn’t hurt to believe, because believing and doing the stuff the church says you should do does have some utility now, and if you’re right, you will land in fat city. If you are wrong and believed in something that isn’t true, it still had some present utility, and you won’t care anyways, you will just be a hunk of meat rotting into dust. I know parts one and two have been subjected to pretty strong criticism, but part three of his argument, focused on the utility of Christian belief, holds up pretty decently I think, if my interpretation of it (and Pascal’s discussion of the subject is open to some interpretation) is correct.

  26. 26.

    Krista

    November 28, 2005 at 10:58 am

    Well, OK, but then who or what created the outside source?

    Exactly. If God created the universe, then what created God? And if you say, “Well, God has always existed”, then why can you not say that the universe has always existed, and was not necessarily created? That’s why I’m Agnostic — I think that the answer to those mysteries is not for our petty human minds to know. We have a hard enough time grasping the concept of the infinite. I think that whatever the the answers ARE to those big questions, our minds are not in any way capable of understanding those answers.

    In other words, you can use God as an answer if you want, but I’m not buying it.

  27. 27.

    tzs

    November 28, 2005 at 11:08 am

    Then there’s the polytheist’s answer to those who argue Pascal’s wager:

    After you die, you wake up surrounded by a horde of really pissed-off gods with large clubs, saying “ok, now let’s have a little discussion with Mr. Smart-Ass-Logician….”

    (Swiped from Terry Pratchett.)

  28. 28.

    ppGaz

    November 28, 2005 at 11:09 am

    I’ve mulled it over for nearly 30 years, read a lot on the subject, and cannot figure a way that the universe could have gotten to contain so much mass and energy or even exist, without some outside source creating it.

    I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that people think that it’s useful … even necessary … to “figure” such a thing out. Since it isn’t figurable, then the imagination must be employed.

    Which is fun, and all, but the resulting ideas are figments of the imagination. My question is, why do you need them? Why isn’t mystery just enough for you?

    Not you personally, but all of “you” who would spend 30 years mulling it over. Why not just enjoy the mystery?

  29. 29.

    Ross

    November 28, 2005 at 11:25 am

    why can you not say that the universe has always existed, and was not necessarily created

    Because that isn’t the case. It began 13.7 billion (give or take 200 million) years ago. Incidentally, one reason soviet science was initially opposed to the big bang concept is that it smacks of a creator, or at least a creation.

    Now, I personally believe that when if scientists figure it out, the universe will be shown to be possible without divine intervention, but current science more or less insists that the universe began.

  30. 30.

    Sam Hutcheson

    November 28, 2005 at 11:25 am

    Here’s a thought: Can you be Christian without believing in any of the supernatural stuff? Can you believe in what Jesus said about how people are supposed to treat each other without dragging in the walking on water stuff, the miracles, even without the whole God thing?

    It’s not a very popular belief these days, but it was a definite option in the early church. Prior to the Council of Nicea, called by the newly converted Constantine to bring homogeny to the now-official religion of the empire, there was a very real debate between the early churchs as to the divinity vs. mortality of Jesus of Nazereth. Constantine decreed that all the bishops should come together and find a single answer, and out of that the Nicene creed came. Basically, the gathering of bishops voted and politiced until the theory of the Trinity and Jesus’ divinity was decided.

    In today’s world, reverting to the notion of Jesus as non-divine would be heretical to most Christian sects. You might find a sympathetic ear in Judaism or Islam, both of which treat Jesus as a human prophet and not divine in nature (outside of his special relationship with God as a prophet.) You’d probably want to find one of the more liberal strains of either of those sects, of course, and both are going to posit the existence of God minus the divinity-of-Jesus bit.

  31. 31.

    Sam Hutcheson

    November 28, 2005 at 11:26 am

    Shit. There was supposed to be a close italics in there after the first paragraph.

  32. 32.

    Ross

    November 28, 2005 at 11:32 am

    I’ve mulled it over for nearly 30 years, read a lot on the subject, and cannot figure a way that the universe could have gotten to contain so much mass and energy or even exist, without some outside source creating it.

    actually, the mass and energy may not be a problem, as it may very well be that the positive energy of mass and stuff is exactly balanced by negative gravitational energy. The existance of a universe in which it can take place is the real wonder. Concentrate on that part, the existance of every wonderous thing in the universe is commonplace next to the existance of a universe in which it can exist.

  33. 33.

    Krista

    November 28, 2005 at 11:40 am

    Ross –

    Because that isn’t the case. It began 13.7 billion (give or take 200 million) years ago. Incidentally, one reason soviet science was initially opposed to the big bang concept is that it smacks of a creator, or at least a creation.

    All right, fair ’nuff. But what about what was around before the big bang — can we not say that the precursor to the universe has always been around? Maybe I’m thinking too much of the first law of thermodynamics here…

  34. 34.

    Lines

    November 28, 2005 at 11:46 am

    When looking for a possible ending to the energy of the Big Bang or whatever creative event put the initial energy into the universe, human beings tend to fall short on one thing: Time. Our concept of time is so small that it is near impossible for our brains to understand that the change in the universal energy is happening, but its happening so slowly that we are unable to observe even a miniscule portion of it and to communicate the timeline for appreciable energy loss by a finite system.

    However, the evidence of a Big Bang seems to add up and has been measurable, showing an expansion of the universe in an “outward” direction has happened, but again, the communication of the facts is a challenge, as it requires a method of thinking that only the scientists that have studied it would understand.

    This “conceptual limitation” also crosses into evolution, mutation and natural selection. The timeline from going from fish to fowl is so lengthy that its an incredible challenge to visualize, not only to non-scientists, but to the scientists as well.

    But when you look at it from the standpoint that Cathy does in her blog post, its pretty easy to understand where ID’ers are coming from. They are looking for any nook, crany or crack to worm their ID tentacles in, not to prove ID is the right answer, but to throw doubt into evolution studies.

  35. 35.

    fishbane

    November 28, 2005 at 11:59 am

    I think the third part of his wager is the strongest part – It doesn’t hurt to believe, because believing and doing the stuff the church says you should do does have some utility now, and if you’re right, you will land in fat city.

    Ah, but the propert response is, why would I pick the Christian god? There are N religions, nearly all of which include the proposition that they are the One True Belief. Therefor, setting aside those few that make room for others, there are at least N-1 false faiths. So, why would I pick Pascal’s god? I may as well throw a dart.

  36. 36.

    kenB

    November 28, 2005 at 12:02 pm

    There are N religions, nearly all of which include the proposition that they are the One True Belief. Therefore, setting aside those few that make room for others, there are at least N-1 false faiths.

    Well, you can’t win if you don’t play…

  37. 37.

    nyrev

    November 28, 2005 at 12:15 pm

    Here’s a thought: Can you be Christian without believing in any of the supernatural stuff? Can you believe in what Jesus said about how people are supposed to treat each other without dragging in the walking on water stuff, the miracles, even without the whole God thing?

    Nope. But you’d fit right in with the founding fathers of this country, and you might want to consider getting a copy of the Jefferson Bible.

    Now, back to ID — Cathy’s post is spot on. I’d say more, but according to the theory of Intelligent Astronomy Saturn is in retrograde in my sign this month, so I should be overly cautious about engaging in debates.

  38. 38.

    Steve S

    November 28, 2005 at 12:16 pm

    SteveS, it is not enough to say something is a religious belief, you have to SHOW it is a religious belief.

    And this is where we get back to the people promoting ID. They’re quite clearly promoting it as a religious belief, not a scientific belief.

    Well, at the risk of coming off as a burnin-gays-at-the-stake right wing bible thumping drooling maniac…

    I don’t think science is necessarily incompatible with religion, providing the religion we’re talking about is accepting of the fact that science, properly done, explains the principles underlying the operation of life the universe & pretty much everything.

    You don’t come off as a rightwing nutcase for holding that belief. That’s mainstream liberalism.

    The rightwing nutcases who are promoting ID believe that science and religion are incompatible, and they want to undermine science so that we turn back to religion to find the answer to all things.

    But Science answers How… Religion answers Why… They don’t understand that.

  39. 39.

    rilkefan

    November 28, 2005 at 12:30 pm

    Can you believe in what Jesus said about how people are supposed to treat each other without dragging in the walking on water stuff, the miracles, even without the whole God thing?

    You’re talking about divine command theory. The mainstream philosophical position, known since the ancient Greeks, is that morality is not derived from a divine source. You either believe Jesus’s moral system is correct on its own merits or you don’t. I linked to a disproof of divine command theory here.

  40. 40.

    canuckistani

    November 28, 2005 at 12:33 pm

    “Well, you can’t win if you don’t play…”

    Maybe not, but how many lottery tickets should you buy if you don’t even know if there’s a prize?

  41. 41.

    rilkefan

    November 28, 2005 at 12:42 pm

    “Well, you can’t win if you don’t play…”

    Sure you can. I’m an atheist, I’m not playing. Maybe there are vast alien intelligences out there copying our neural patterns into computers and running us as simulations for eternity. Maybe they’re treating people like me to an eternity of bliss and all religious people to an eternity in a cuisinart.

  42. 42.

    rilkefan

    November 28, 2005 at 12:47 pm

    By the way, I dislike Young’s look-at-their-motives argument. That’s only useful if you have no time, no integrity, or no ability to weigh the evidence. Plenty of scientists attack others’ theories because they find the theories’ mathematical underpinnings aesthetically displeasing.

  43. 43.

    Barry

    November 28, 2005 at 12:59 pm

    But (1) that’s finding their mathematical underpinnings aesthetically displeasing, as opposed to opposition on religious grounds. (2) The scientists attack others’ theories by falsification and proposing better theories, not by political maneuvering.

  44. 44.

    Lines

    November 28, 2005 at 1:14 pm

    You fly by falling at the ground and missing, just remember that. The theory of Gravity is more faith oriented than rooted in science.

  45. 45.

    Jon H

    November 28, 2005 at 1:14 pm

    Al writes: “One’s room doesn’t clean itself you know, it needs to be acted upon by an outside force. It seems to me that if all energy states eventually trend towards equilibrium (burning out, decaying, etc) then the existence of life, in fact the spontaneous generation of it, seems quite unlikely without special intervention, or at least some special rule that contradicts the general trend of all other matter/energy in the universe.”

    In the case of life on earth, entropy doesn’t really enter into it, because the Earth is not a closed system – you’ve got massive amounts of energy being dumped on the Earth, 24x7x365. Plus there’s thermal heat from the core, material from meteorites and comets, etc.

    Order happens spontaneously all the time, it happened for every snowflake, every salt crystal on a margarita glass.

  46. 46.

    farmgirl

    November 28, 2005 at 1:16 pm

    Sam Hutcheson — “Basically, the gathering of bishops voted and politiced until the theory of the Trinity and Jesus’ divinity was decided.”

    Constantine didn’t actually convert until on his deathbed … and the concept of the Trinity was borrowed from his own pagan belief system (some sun-god thing that I’m not remembering). He essentially forced the Trinity on the council at Nicaea — it really has no basis in Christianity before that point.

  47. 47.

    Jon H

    November 28, 2005 at 1:22 pm

    rilkefan writes: “That’s only useful if you have no time, no integrity, or no ability to weigh the evidence. ”

    You’d be correct if this were being ‘fought’ in the scientific journals and conferences.

    But it ain’t. The ID people are going through legislation, ‘stealth’ school board elections, and popular media. Some of these audiences couldn’t be persuaded by the best scientific minds and arguments on the planet.

    Actually, engaging just the theories would only feed the “ID vs. science controversy”, which just gives apparent support to the ID faction’s contention that there is a controversy to be taught in science classes.

    The whole ID endeavor has to be addressed.

  48. 48.

    Ross

    November 28, 2005 at 1:44 pm

    All right, fair ‘nuff. But what about what was around before the big bang—can we not say that the precursor to the universe has always been around? Maybe I’m thinking too much of the first law of thermodynamics here

    The catch is that time, being like a spatial dimension, didn’t exist before the big bang. It’s a really odd concept, and one I don’t understand as well as I would like, but at a singluarity, e.g. the big bang and inside black holes, time doesn’t exist. The only way I know to describe it is that saying “before the big bang” is like saying “North of the North Pole.”

    To the best of my understanding, thermo I doesn’t apply to quantum fluctuations, and the explosion of a singularity into the universe has to start out as a quantum fluctuation.

    Of course, my understanding of early universe cosmology is fairly limited, so I may very well be wrong about all of this.

  49. 49.

    Steve S

    November 28, 2005 at 1:52 pm

    Constantine didn’t actually convert until on his deathbed … and the concept of the Trinity was borrowed from his own pagan belief system (some sun-god thing that I’m not remembering). He essentially forced the Trinity on the council at Nicaea —it really has no basis in Christianity before that point.

    I’m not sure about that. If I recall correctly, Constantine had been a worshipper of Mithras, a god from Persia. It was popular religion amongst the Roman army after the 1st century, up until Constantine converted to Christianity.

    But while Christianity did steal some concepts from Mithraism, such as the virgin birth, and the date of Christmas. I don’t believe the Trinity was amongst that. I suspect the Trinity came from Egyption influence with Isis/Osiris and their son Horus.

    I do know that there had been some great debate up until that point of the divinity of Christ. This is one of the controversies revealed in the Dead Sea scrolls. Obviously the problem was if there is only one God, but Jesus is divine, how do we reconcile that? Thus came the trinity concept…

    It should be noted… Christianity didn’t replace other religions, it merely took some of their better ideas.

  50. 50.

    Sam Hutcheson

    November 28, 2005 at 2:06 pm

    Constantine didn’t actually convert until on his deathbed … and the concept of the Trinity was borrowed from his own pagan belief system (some sun-god thing that I’m not remembering). He essentially forced the Trinity on the council at Nicaea —it really has no basis in Christianity before that point.

    While Constantine wasn’t babtised until his death bed, his conversion is usually attributed to his seeing an omen before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. Basically, he saw either a cross or the labarum in the sky (or in a dream) accompanied by the words “in this sign, conquer” and upon waking before the battle commanded his troops to paint the standard on their shields. That’s the official version, at least.

    The point, though, is that prior to Nicaea there was a well-established and popular history in the church (particularly in the eastern church) that did *not* assert the divinity of Jesus. Only after Nicaea was that divinity canon. If someone is looking for a version of Christianity that doesn’t have the “Jesus as son of God” bit, they could go to the pre-Nicene beliefs of the early eastern churchs for a historical ground stone.

  51. 51.

    rilkefan

    November 28, 2005 at 2:08 pm

    My point above was that one should see what the ID guys are saying, see that’s it’s garbage, and then note their motives. Then one can say the next time they come around that they’re still anti-science bozos and make them start from scratch.

  52. 52.

    BIRDZILLA

    November 28, 2005 at 2:45 pm

    The movie INHERIT THE WIND is a complete phonie the whole movies is a fruad i mean they still cant come up with proof for evolution at all

  53. 53.

    Lines

    November 28, 2005 at 3:38 pm

    What if man created God, not the other way around? Would that make him Dog?

  54. 54.

    Steve S

    November 28, 2005 at 3:40 pm

    The movie INHERIT THE WIND is a complete phonie the whole movies is a fruad i mean they still cant come up with proof for evolution at all

    Huh? Like any scientific theory, you don’t come up with proof. You come up with experiments which validate the assumptions…. or lead to other theories.

    Darwin’s theory was influenced by his watching dog breeding, and how breeders would breed for certain traits. He took this and said, what if nature sort of does the same thing. That’s all Darwin evolution is really about.

    So dog breeds can be considered proof of evolution, in that we know we can breed for certain traits.

    G. Gordon Liddy believes in evolution. He “selected” his wife because she had good strong bones and teeth, or something like that.

  55. 55.

    Al Maviva

    November 28, 2005 at 5:16 pm

    >>>Not you personally, but all of “you” who would spend 30 years mulling it over. Why not just enjoy the mystery?

    I dunno. Why do people wonder and argue about other incredibly abstract, insoluble mysteries, like why Bruce Coslett has an NFL coaching job. We just do it. I think it’s human to wonder.

    And Jon H, I know the Earth is a closed system, but what’s outside of the Universe? My understanding of the latest theory is it expands and eventually will contract. What is it expanding into?

  56. 56.

    rilkefan

    November 28, 2005 at 5:43 pm

    “eventually will contract.”

    No, the current understanding calls for accelerating expansion.

    “What is it expanding into?”

    What “expanding” means isn’t that stuff is going anywhere – it means that distances between objects at rest are increasing. This is a general relativity thing, not a kaboom thing.

  57. 57.

    ppGaz

    November 28, 2005 at 7:42 pm

    What if man created God, not the other way around? Would that make him Dog?

    It could make him Doug.

  58. 58.

    BIRDZILLA

    November 28, 2005 at 10:07 pm

    The whole idea of evolution is based wholey on bone fragment a foddels and a theory that has yet been proven its still junk science

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