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Merrick 2148 posts |
Sep 16, 2008, 23:21
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handofdave wrote: The fact that we humans exist, and have developed the capability to mold our environment, build things, even tinker with our own DNA actually is a point the 'creationists' can employ in their argument... if we are so talented, who's to say there isn't some older race of being out there who had a hand in our world? I think this misunderstands the motivation of creationists. They are not going with a theory that fits the evidence, they are going with the evidence that fits the Bible. It can't be an older race. The bible made clear it's one being. To say 'an older race' would be blasphemy. nigelswift wrote: Back in the good old days, long ago, when I were a lad and teachers taught stuff, my Biology teacher spent weeks on evolution and in the last ten seconds she said "Of course, some people believe Genesis instead". Genesis has two creation stories, though. Chapter one has God making light, water, land, plants, animals, and then lastly man and woman at the same time. Less than a page later, at a time before the earth has plants, he makes the first man from dust who has 15 verses of mooching about getting lonely before God pulls out a rib and builds a woman. The key thing is that it's all laid out and nothing evolves. Evolution is at odds with the idea of the eternal soul. I cannot see how anyone can square the two. As I rabbit on about at length here, either everything has souls (in which case you're a mass murderer ever time you walk on grass or chop vegetables); or God introduced souls at some point in evolution (a bit mad given that the first ensouled child will have had anatomically indistinguishable parents); or we have some better grade of soul; or the whole thing's bollocks.
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handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 03:33
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Oh, I know what the creationists are trying to achieve. Lately they've been getting a bit more shrewd with the whole 'intelligent design' angle. What's funny to me is that now that they're trying to play science at it's own game, I think some creationists are beginning to ease up on their dim view of evolution. Ultimately, we may never be able to forensically discern just exactly when and what constituted that spark that turned inanimate matter into the incredibly rich biosphere that we have on this planet. I do know I'd rather have that unanswered than cheapen the mystery by adopting some crude mythology as a substitute for real knowledge, tho.
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moss 2897 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 07:38
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A pox on you all I know which belief system I'm joining ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society If you want to join there's a marvellous questionnaire, choose between your favorite historical figure, Rasputin, Bonapart, Tony Blair or Attila the Hun http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm strange what you find in your email first thing in the morning.....
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 09:13
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The flat earthers do serve to illustrate how ludicrous creationists are. Although, there are differences - most of them are probably just having a laugh and they're not engaged in a major push to subvert the education system. Although, there is this - "In the small town of Grass Roots, MO, one of our members has successfully infiltrated the public education system. By being hired on as a teacher in the district, she was able to gain a foothold that has allowed us to "replace" nearly every lower grade teacher in the entire town with loyal Flat Earthers. The students are now undergoing deprogramming measures and are expected to be released when they reach their mid-thirties. Untrue and a joke hopefully. Did anyone see Dawkins interviewing a creationist science teacher from the north of England? Hope he got sacked or muzzled. Is that fascist of me? Don't care. I think Palinism should be banned from the education system too. The world is in too much trouble for the flight from scientific rationality to be officially aided.
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stray 2057 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 11:28
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Well tbh, the whole of the Old Testament is inconsistent (it gets even more completely out there if you throw in the book(s) of Enoch too), and its, of course, totally at odds with the New Testament (which is reasonable really). The New testament itself is a complete mess, when not only are the gospels are split 2 against 2 with something as important as the Ascension (did he go see Mary, or go see Peter), but the acts of the apostles after that are completely at odds with the fundamental message of Christ. Its all interpretation, and a lot of the many branches of Christianity have formed a workable consistency out of it by cherry picking interpretation. The whole text cannot by any stretch be used as a consistent structure for a faith. The best bet is to go to the original Judaic text that were ripped off to make the Old Testament. However, it's the New Testament that should count for Christians really, which doesnt contain the creation myth. So, Christiantity it could be argued could/should function more like Taoism in regards the formation of the universe. In the first two centuries after Christs death the schisms within Christianity were a lot more marked than they are now. There was also a group of faiths modern Thelogians describe as 'gnostic' who seem to be closer to the gospels than the acts, but even they had groups within them that were trying to crowbar in the many gods of the Hellenic myths. One of the main principles of the Gnostics though seems to be that the Holy Spirit is female, or at least the creator (mother) of God, and God, well, lies a lot. In short what I'm saying is Christian disagrements with the text, and even going as far as rejecting entirely the creation myth therein is not a recent development. There are also the texts discovered in the Nag Hammadi Library that didnt make the cut into the accepted books (Gospel of Thomas, Mary, Apocryphon of John, Song of Sophia etc) of the bible we have today, a collection of texts that interestingly also included a fair chunk of Plato's Republic. There are even more alternative creation myths in those codex. Sooo...? The faith works when, like other faiths, it is taken outside of the possible metaphor, metaphysical descriptions of how the universe was created. It's all moot. It's because that it functions as a tool of ethics that it continues to function today. Fairy stories are fairy stories, they were to some people in 2AD as they are now to some people in 2008AD. I also think that the idea that the concept of the eternal soul is somehow diametrically opposed to evolution is well, dumb tbh. It shows a complete lack of understanding as to what the soul is to Christians (but it would take way too long for me to go into it properly). As for animals, plants etc, erm, what ? We have 'dominion over the animals' to quote the text on that one, Soul vessels or not. It's the Holy Spirit, receiving it, listening to it and acting on it that should be the true form of a Christian. That is the only singularly consistent part of the faith. Also, its important for a Christian to accept that even people in Spirit can sin, it doesnt take away freewill after all (thats the current batch of evangelicals grave mistake, blasphemy if you like). As Christ was pretty clear, work in spirit, help those who ask for your help, aid them to receive the spirit if they ask for it. That's it, everything else is a distraction, irrelevance. Evolution, much like politics, or anything else 'of this world' are not things Christians should be involved in. When Christianity became a political, state system, or generally an agent of control, it ceases to be Christian. Those are thr proper arguments/issues to raise with the hypocritical forms that are attempting to push creationism. 'Spreading the word' means discussing, not enforcing (christ again is pretty fucking clear there, in 'the pray for them' and 'leave her alone' approach), and the creation myth of Genesis is not part of that word either tbh.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 11:49
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"I also think that the idea that the concept of the eternal soul is somehow diametrically opposed to evolution is well, dumb tbh." I think it IS diametrically opposed unless you make a very specific leap of faith (which Christiansd do, in their millions). If evolution is accepted then Man is merely an advanced form of amoeba, having developed through all the intervening stages. Yet if religion is also accepted then at some moment in that journey "God" interverned and imbued all subsequent humans (or pre-humans? or post amoeboids? Which?) with a soul. It works, and it unites evolution and religion, but you need to reeeeally want it to.
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stray 2057 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 11:59
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nigelswift wrote: It works, and it unites evolution and religion, but you need to reeeeally want it to. Sure, but this is an issue for Philosophy (or even evo. psych. perhaps) and not for science. I mean this in terms of debating the issue of the soul with religion as to it's existence. Any description of a soul, in terms of any faith, cannot be dealt with adequately by the scientific method. Therefore, science cannot effectively argue against it without actually seriously compromising its method. You see what I mean ? Or do you have a physical experiment that can prove the existence, or lack of, of the soul other than a subjective (or at best a sophistic) argument ? Obviously if you have a faith then you have to attach some kinda purpose to life, or more accurately faith creates it. The concept of a soul is a shorthand way to create a purpose. So is an afterlife, but again, as we're dealing with Christianity here (as no other faiths are pushing their creation myths quite like they are), the christian concept of heaven and when/how you get there is very, very wooly to say the least.
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handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 12:00
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nigelswift wrote: "In the small town of Grass Roots, MO, one of our members has successfully infiltrated the public education system. By being hired on as a teacher in the district, she was able to gain a foothold that has allowed us to "replace" nearly every lower grade teacher in the entire town with loyal Flat Earthers. The students are now undergoing deprogramming measures and are expected to be released when they reach their mid-thirties. Untrue and a joke hopefully. It's not a funny joke, when you consider what's being lampooned here, which is the very real 'stealth Christians' who have been doing EXACTLY this... 'infiltrating' school boards and local governments and bending the agenda towards their extremist positions.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 12:33
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"Any description of a soul, in terms of any faith, cannot be dealt with adequately by the scientific method." No of course. Souls lie beyond the reach of science so science has no business denying their existence. But science - or rationality - does get a small handle on the question of the existence of souls when it asks a believer the simple question - so when in the evolution of man from "animals" did man first gain a soul? If the answer makes you giggle, because it implies the first possessors of souls had parents who didn't have souls, the rationalist can claim that his guess looks rather more sensible than the guesses of the faithful.
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stray 2057 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 12:55
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Yep indeed. Um, just for giggles here let me construct a radical argument. First off lets define 'radical' cos a lot of people without a scientific or mathematical argument don't understand what radical means. I'm not saying you don't Nigel, just going to try to explain it here so people don't think I'm completely 'timecube style' mental. The purpose of a radical argument is not for it to be taken as a truth, or even remotely as something rational, but to highlight either how fucked or lacking our current understandings are. Or as a thought experiment that could possibly lead to a better philosophical understanding of er.. 'something'. A radical defence of the soul and the purpose of faith. Simply put : Human purpose. If we were to take evolution as the model of human purpose we would logically subscribe to eugenics. As humans we can for the most part function, propogate etc, outside of the norms of natural selection. Therefore it's arguable that people who were born unfit, flawed, deformed etc should either be well, executed or at the very least everyone involved should be sterilised. Bit of a leap that, granted, but hey, being radical here, this is a forum post not a philosophical or scientific paper. As we have stepped outside of natural selection through the application of our intellect, medicine, ethics etc, it's probably safe to say that evolutionary arguments do not adequately describe us as we are and how we function. I'm saying this because although more of us survive than frankly should (fulfilling the survival imperative sure), however we would still survive as a species if we did subscribe to eugenics. We don't though, because we are compassionate, where does compassion come from ? Compassion could be a product of the soul. Emotion = soul, to put it simply. Maybe the soul and it's more wooly purpose is responsible for our progression, ethics, medicine, intellect etc. Could the fact that compassion, our ability to identify with each other beyond merely competing with each other for resources, be a product of the soul ? Could the emergence of the soul be a result of evolution in that in order to compete with other species we have pulled ourselves above and beyond the rest of the game. There you go. A painfully flawed argument, most definitely, but it's getting towards what I'm trying to say. Sure, I've set a dangerous set of axioms there, particularly by attaching some kind of evolutionary purpose to the soul, and soul=emotion is even more omfg, but I hope you get what I'm saying. Yes I'm joking, but just showing how not only it's philosophically possible to argue for the existence of the soul, but to also allocate it a role outside of a faith. It's still better than the one Aristotle came up with in De Anima imho. ;)
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