March 16, 2006
Has This Commercial Been on North American TV?
I guess this is too offensive for 45% of America. You know who you are.
Todays Question: Does an Atheist have to believe in evolution?
I say yes. If you say the Atheist may not have an opinion, I would then ask: Do you believe man started off on earth as man?
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I must say "no". Evolution is a scientific theory, something that attempts to explain life diversity It is been tested all the time and evidence is gathered that supports it. Evolution is not something we can believe or not believe.
ReplyDeleteDr. Marco, does an Atheist have to accept the theory of evolution, and if not, what is his/her alternative?
ReplyDeleteWell, my thought is that an atheist doesn't have to believe anything by default. The only thing atheists have in common, as a matter of course, is that they are without god belief.
ReplyDeleteBut, having said that, there is ongoing evidence for evolution. Evolution is both a theory and a fact. "Theory" doesn't just mean some idea that was pulled out of a bored scientist's butt on sunday afternoon because they were bored.
No matter what a contrite believer will try and tell you, evolution is evidential and as such, does not require belief.
Some theists consider evolution to be a return to animal worship. Believing in evolution seems to imply having faith in evolution and therefore worshipping evolution I have never quite understood the need to worship myself or for that matter the notion that God is upset when people do not worship him. Evolutionary theory is an extremely valuable theory that has great explanatory power. Some would say that one of its weaknesses is that it can be used to explain too much and is thus a tautology. Yet is tautology just another word for obvious fact? As is often the case these discussions all descend (or is it ascend?) to a question of semantics.
ReplyDeleteI will throw my money ( 2 cents) on the table and say that an atheist need not believe in evolution. An atheist could have no scientific opinion claiming that he would leave that question to the scientists and specialists much as he would leave the discussion of morals and ethics to the philosophers.
Nevertheless I believe that merely the existence of a viable alternative theory to divine creation is tremendously important. Just one contrary fact could upset the whole applecart. For instance if man was uniquely physically different from other mammals in that instead of a brain he had a gas that ascended to heaven when he died or something like that. No evolutionary theory could explain it and I’m sure that this would be well within the capabilities of an omnipotent creator. Or if the creation process was continuous, new, fully formed animals could just appear at random. Or even simply having a manufacturers label placed somewhere on the body. Wouldn’t that make things a whole lot easier?
We’ve come a long way, baby!
ReplyDeleteDoes an atheist have to accept Evolution? As a biological mechanism, of course they do—no different than accepting being stabbed in the eye will cause discomfort. I see no problem in accepting Evolution as an atheist so long as anything remotely dogmatic is removed from consideration.
That said, there are far trickier questions to be pondered by atheists—many of which involve all sorts of prejudicial dogmas that atheists take for granted. For instance: advocating the “inalienable rights” of all people. Huh? Says who? I’ve just reduced the universe into its most scientifically reducible state and built it back up again inserting the “evolution” of human beings and the evolution of all of their crazy ideas. Arbitrary nonsense!
An atheist doesn’t accept any all-powerful progenitor of the human race or ultimate arbiter of human morality and law. An atheist lives in a universe fashioned by cosmic chance and astronomical accidents; and as far as people and animals are concerned, lives in a world populated by highly complex chemical robots. Humans, as mere molecular replicators propped up by calcium rods and wrapped in fat, oily shells have no more rights than celery, window glass or blacks driving in expensive cars.
For the atheist to claim interest in protecting peoples’ rights or to advocate saving people from the untoward advances of hostile religious dogmas is to make judgments, judgments based on values, and since said values cannot possibly spring from some source divine or greater than mankind itself, this makes the entire self-serving enterprise wholly arbitrary and frivolous! Yes, it may be arbitrary but it’s a rational choice we make for the betterment of all mankind. Well, I hate to break it to you but the atheist, at his death, will be soulless, reeking heap of fetid meat. His contributions to the betterment of society and righteous sense of accomplishment derived from that will be gone, null, vanquished, lost to the stoic blackness of time and space. And ultimately, when all the universe dissolves and “every creature shall be purified” there won’t be a single monkey on earth, angel in heaven, or super ego pouring through the cosmic volumes of the Akashic Record to give a damn.
God, I wish I was dead.
So, you're a Buddhist then Mr Devareaux?
ReplyDelete"Humans, ......have no more rights than celery,.."
Have you lost your mind? We say who has rights and who doesn't. We, humans, make these laws in order to make our lives safer and more comfortable. Eat a human like you would a stick of celery and you will soon be facing the consequences of your actions.
Angloamerican,
ReplyDeleteSo, you're a Buddhist then Mr Devareaux?
I'm Latvian Orthodox. Obviously.
We say who has rights and who doesn't. We, humans, make these laws in order to make our lives safer and more comfortable.
Allow me to repeat me:
Yes, it may be arbitrary but it’s a rational choice we make for the betterment of all mankind. Well, I hate to break it to you but the atheist, at his death, will be soulless, reeking heap of fetid meat. His contributions to the betterment of society and righteous sense of accomplishment derived from that will be gone, null, vanquished, lost to the stoic blackness of time and space. And ultimately, when all the universe dissolves and “every creature shall be purified” there won’t be a single monkey on earth, angel in heaven, or super ego pouring through the cosmic volumes of the Akashic Record to give a damn.
In whose eyes are you making society "better" for? Notwithstanding that "better" is a judgment call; judgments are based on values; and values are arbitrary in an accidental world without meaning (atheism), in the cosmological blink of an eye your "better" society" is as good as having never existed once those frail, solipsistic human minds have ceased to exist. All that hard work for nothing, eh??
Don't get me wrong. I'm not disagreeing with the atheist premise, but I think your reaction proves my point that there is a measure of dogma and "faith" associated with god-murdering atheism nonetheless. You can't argue that life is pointless and then argue for the improvement of pointlessness. Or maybe you can. Convince me. That's all I ask.
Eat a human like you would a stick of celery and you will soon be facing the consequences of your actions.
Are you saying that cannabalism has never been an accepted practice? Those people-eaters made choices based on arbitrary beliefs and their practices were thus acceptable. Some other people came along and made choices on equally arbitrary beliefs and deemed those practices unacceptable. You're kind of proving my point here and that, oddly enough, isn't what I had hoped for.
Oh, like you've never eaten a young Fillipino girl before. Shut up.
Morals are man made. They have even evolved in us. We know it is wrong to kill another human being, atheist and theist alike.
ReplyDeleteAs an atheist, I realize this our only chance at life. I'm happy with that realization.
I don't hate god, god does not exist. I live in a real world.
Sorry, BEAJ. I ran out of people to harrass on my site. ;)
ReplyDeleteMorals are man made. They have even evolved in us.
Now that may very well be. I'm sure we can agree that the human brain comes pre-programmed with certain information and that a fundamental set of moral prerogatives (located in some module in the brain) has, like any other trait, been developed and passed down through the human species. Good for us. My point was that promoting the betterment of society, for example, through those good morals, already is a contradiction of atheist nature. If all things are ultimately pointless, then there's no point in pretending that we're making things "better" for posterity. Posterity for who when humans cease to exist and the earth is swallowed up into nothingness? What posterity when we've become the tree falling in the forest and no one is around to hear us fall?
I'm not disagreeing, as I said. It's just that these arguments about moral evolution, about leaving legacies or making one's mark on history for the better--that I hear many atheists repeat--strike me as being dependant on certain "weaknesses" one might be so inclined to attribute to the overtly religious mind. It's as if the room is never quite empty when you're an atheist; there's always that "other" standing over your shoulder.
Then again, I'm also of the mind that ours' are monkeys' and we're not exactly equipped to answer such questions, let alone know exactly how to pose them.
Atheists have the right to believe or not believe in evolution. It is their choice to make.
ReplyDeleteYou have to live in the here and now. My hypothetical atheist above leaves such questions to the philosophers and gets on with enjoying life. He need not believe in evolution.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that there may be some truth in the theory of eternal recurrence. Yeah, you all had forgotten about that, huh? What’s the point of your pointlessness then?
"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you-all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust. "
-Nietzsche
Isaac Newton said, "I feign no hypothesis" which, in the parlance of his day meant, "I don't promise that anything is true."
ReplyDeleteIt is not necessary to believe in evolution, but it certainly comes in handy when you try to explain why the genomic sequence of a chimp is more than 98% indentical to a human's.
What gets me is that most people seem to think that this uncertainty of fact is a particular problem exclusive to biology.
Perhaps the most scientific and exact of all disciplines is Mathematics, and it is full of non-facts. Any calculation containing the value Pi is automatically and necessarily wrong because the value is unknown. The entire branch of Calculus which enables us to calculate the curvature of an airliner's wing, is also based on theories and not facts.
Being the evidence so overwhelming, it is highly unlikely that a rational person (I see an atheists as a rational person) will not accept the theory of evolution as the theory that explains life diversity on Earth. If a rational person disagrees, with evolution as a theory, he or she has to provide an altenative hypothesis. By alternative hypothesis I do not mean beliefs like "Intelligent Design", which involve a supernatural creator.
ReplyDeleteJust to play devil's advocate a bit,(or maybe I should say God's advocate on second thought) while evolution can explain well how lobed-fin fishes could evolve into amphibians that could colonize land, as the lobes could slowly evolve into legs, it does not explain very well how a bird's wings may have evolved from a different structure that was not a wing. Proto-wings, which would not be developed enough to lift an animal into flight, would be negatively selected by evolution and disappear because stubby winglets offer no advantage. Now there are theories about proto-wings as "cooling-devices" for cold-blooded animals and may have then been positively selected to continue wing development, but these are not intellectually pleasing explanations. Also, there is the "glide before you fly" explanation that I like better. Also if you believe the "blind watchmaker" concept of evolution, wings may have developed rapidly in bird ancesters by the following mechanism: Sexual Selection, if pre-bird females found larger wing-stubs more attractive in their mates, this would accelerate their development many times more rapidly than natural selection, then at some point a secondary function to these structures could be exploited.......flying. Once the flying part took place, the selection pressure to keep it going would be enormous because it is such an advantage.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...So I guess Evolution wins!...We should all believe it, and to show respect, always spell it with a capital "E".
I like the glide before fly theory. It seems to be noticable with insects. The flying squirrel. Of course the bat went a few steps more than the squirrel.
ReplyDeleteGod said “And it shall come to pass, [that] him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.”
ReplyDelete-------------------
Which raises an interesting question, is Elisha as deadly as the two warriors Hazael and Jehu?
To examine the question, first we must look at the weather; we must study systems that are dynamic and sensitive to initial conditions. Can a butterfly in South America really cause snow storms to come late in North America simply by flapping its wings? We don’t really know. We can use computers to model small systems and we can see that the initial conditions affect the outcome. But the question for the butterfly would be, are its movements amplified enough or are they canceled out and lost by the system that it is in?
A prophet speaks some words and on some people they have an effect and on some people they do not. If even one person believes and is changed by the words of the prophet then amplification has occurred and that person will also spread the words to the next person and the next. The words will continue to move through the population day after day, year after year and century after century. Not all words have this effect, but those that do can survive the centuries.
A modern day example of this type of amplification is China. In 1949 there were 700,000 Christians in China but due to severe persecution and attempts to suppress Christianity; China now has from 10 to 39 million Christian. The reason for the range of 10-39 million is that no one really knows the true number.
When the Chinese began their persecution the Christians fled for their lives and every where that they went they spread the Word of God. The Christians soon went into hiding in plain sight. The imperative is not to avoid torture, imprisonment or death, but to spread the Word. I would imagine that a true believer could probably go for a month or so with out speaking about God, but not much longer.
So yes, Elisha is far more deadly, for we are still caught in the storm that the prophets ignited thousands of years ago.
Oh my God, I'm going to have to read that comment above again again for all eternity if eternal recurrence is true.
ReplyDeleteTo angloamerican,
ReplyDeleteI am fairly sure that you are immune to the Word of God since you are an atheist, but just to be safe let's test it out.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."
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Of the 20 or 30 atheists that will read my comments, I would find it significant if even one of them would become a true believer. So play fair and always read the quotes from the bible that I am providing.
Bible Anon doesn't bother me, I guess he's found a convenient way to "witness" so he must feel good about that. And if his/her leaps of faith are as broad as his/her leaps in logic, this must be a very religious person indeed. Finally, if the moderator lets him post.....Hmmmmmm.....is this Bible Anon really YOUR alter ego B.E.A.J?
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't I let him post. The only reason I am moderating right now is that I got a couple of spam posts and I also have a message board fruitcake that keeps posting old message board posts over and over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out which is easier, moderating or deleting.
I've been accused of not being an Atheist before, and only Agnostic. But I've never been accused until now of being a schitzoid believer.
Oh I think you should moderate, and my question was of course, a bit of levity
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand why you think that my reading quotes from the Bible would make me believe. Yet I am sure that whatever created the world was good as it enabled me to be here now and enjoying the glass of wine that I am drinking. I do believe in God but only as metaphor for that which we hold to be the highest good. So by saying that God created the world the Bible is saying that whatever made the world was good. I do not disagree. A problem occurs when people imagine too much like God as old man with flowing beard or God as god of love or some other such nonsense. The Bible is written in a highly stylised way and is to be read more as poetry than prose. Sometimes a parable is a much more powerful way of getting a point across and Jesus spoke in parables too but they were not meant to be literal stories. The Bible is a guide written by people in ancient times to express the things they had learnt over generations.
Anyway why not think of a name other than anonymous. It’s kind of fun. How about Sword of Truth or Shield of Righteousness or even just Pilgrim – that way we can distinguish between you and the psycho anonymous. I call myself AngloAmerican because I am English but my heart is American.
From the book of Isaiah:
ReplyDeleteThey that make a graven image [are] all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they [are] their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image [that] is profitable for nothing?
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I never could understand why atheist or other people always seem to describe God as “an old man with flowing beard”. If Christians describe God in that manner then they are in error. Half the bible states that they should not create an image of God.
I did not want to set up and account since it requires an email address and I did not want to receive any spam associated with this endeavor. So what I will do is set up and account and provide a phony email address if the moderator will allow that. That way I can post my comments and you can know that they are from me and I won’t receive any spam on my address.
After examining the website, I can assure you that the Bacon Eating Atheist Jew is about as far from God as a man can get, without breaking any of the laws of man.
As for post bible quotes, it would take a miracle for a true atheist to convert and be healed, the person that I am looking will be the one, that when he reads the quotes, one of the messages will resonate in them. If you say that you are not that person, then perhaps the next person that reads them will be the right person.
An interesting concept in science is that order can emerge out of chaos. To some one like me, that is the same as saying that God can command that the light shine out of the darkness. The website that we are posting to is in my opinion a place that is filled with darkness. I want to see if the light can truly shine out darkness.
You aren't required to give your email addy. And I don't think you get any spam because of it because I use mine all the time and I don't seem to get any.
ReplyDeleteAtheists don't describe god as anyting. And if anyone gives god an old man with a beard look it is Christians.
Bible quotes will not convert any Atheists I know.
So God doesn't have a beard..hmmm.
ReplyDeleteWhat about this picture of God?
I seriously doubt that over a billion people have been converted. The cult I was brought up in relied mainly on breeding their own members and I suspect that most of those billion have been born into it too.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that certain Christians have great faith in the power of the word of God which is the Bible as if simply quoting the words will have some shamanistic effect on the listener/reader. It aint gonna work around here. I have read the Bible several times over and am not some savage just emerged from the jungle you know.
As for no images, that does sound rather dull and rather Taliban like. I suppose you approved of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas too.
LfromD
ReplyDeleteMy estimate is three million, how's that? Pulled it out of thin air actually, much like you did. Yes, three million roads to Damascus, the rest were either born into it or just went along because their spouses/tribal leaders/parents did. Peer pressure, that sort of thing.
So, did you approve of the destruction of the Buddhas? I have a Christian friend who could not deny that his religion would have approved of destroying them too, so I am just kind of interested.
Actually, I think I do do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my metaphorical God. How's that?
“Why do the innocent, the children, the old and the weak have to suffer?”
ReplyDeleteEvolution has produced man, its mouthpiece, so now in a round about way can answer this age old question. The combination of replication, mutation and selection has caused all the suffering and joy. You can call these three, evolution’s trinity. Evolution has no feeling, has no idea what suffering it is causing and therefore allows it. There that didn’t blow your mind did it?
I had a “Road to Damascus” moment when I realised that the greatest creative process in the universe had no intelligence as we know it.. Indeed intelligence, feelings, pity, would hamper its awesome creativity. Man’s noble struggle now is to fight and tame this cruel power. We will do all there is in our power to thwart the cruel aspects of replication, mutation and natural selection, at least where it has power over us.
I expect a commercial designed for the human intellect to 'BUY" something is based on more fact that the perverbial 'TELEVISION'
ReplyDeleteepisode or movie designed to entertain a certain age group by evaluation of a 'RELIGIOUS' parent
who monitors everything their children WATCH.
Hmmm. Now we know the meaning of Love.
Parents protecting their kids from COMMERCIALS.
LOL..Yeah, man. The Scriptures are a story of the Hebrew FAITH. Would you want to tell your kids we were all protozoa? How would you explain our current form?
We come from the best protozoa mind you not those skanky ones.I tell my kids that all the time.
ReplyDeleteYou know, the more you think about an infinite God the more impossible he becomes. So God knows everything that has been and is to become. He already knows about every possible combination of things therefore does not think of anything new because he already knows it. By being infinite and You know, the more you think about an infinite God the more impossible he becomes. So God knows everything that has been and is to become. He already knows about every possible combination of things therefore does not think of anything new because he already knows it. By being infinite and omnipotent he is actually severely limited. He cannot create anything new because nothing is new to him.
ReplyDeleteIf you think about it hard enough LfromD he becomes only possible as a metaphor for all things past and present and in the future. Think a little harder and he becomes unnecessary to explain much if anything. Your ideas are pretty much primitive anthropomorphism.
Ooops my cut and paste from Word went severly wrong there. Still, maybe you get the idea. It's ironic that being infinite and omnipotent can be limiting.
ReplyDeleteAsk him how come amputees never get to grow back limbs through prayer and watch him stumble or hide. God is limited when it comes to that miracle or he just doesn't do amputees. Just cancer, blindness, deafness, and leprocy.
ReplyDelete"It seems to clear out mind and allows me to focus better."
ReplyDeleteWhatever gets you through the night..., as John used to say.
Actually I don't really want to take away anyones faith in whatever they want to believe as long as it's harmless.
It certainly would be nice to have a supernatural friend while enduring such trials.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that a human is just a tragedy waiting to happen. I read the other day that the first human may have already been born that will live a thousand years - what tragedies they would see in their lifetime. We humans get judged quite harshly, I believe, considering all the horrors we have to put up with. Not that I believe in judgement of course except by your own conscience.
Anyway, it's not all darkness around here you know, we all would believe if their was some solid evidence. Yet how can we choose between all the faiths? Which is right? Who can really tell? Are all religions simply there to give hope in a world of inescapable tragedy?