In Defense of Evolution

[Don]

I have no desire to belittle anyone's beliefs.  In fact, if someone tells me that they believe in the Easter Bunny, I will give their beliefs just as much respect as I would yours.

I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, but I do believe that there's a little Santa Claus in each of us.

[karlhenning]

I have no desire to belittle anyone's beliefs.

You expend much effort in that for which you say that you have no desire, then.

[Ten thumbs]

I have no desire to belittle anyone's beliefs.  In fact, if someone tells me that they believe in the Easter Bunny, I will give their beliefs just as much respect as I would yours.

Indeed. There are many farmers who will tell you that there a far too many Easter bunnies.

[Joe_Campbell]

Indeed. There are many farmers who will tell you that there a far too many Easter bunnies.

...and too few eggs

[Norbeone]

It is certainly true that I cannot know that God exists. I believe in Him as a matter of faith. .

This is a completely reasonable approach to take. Granted, I probably wouldn't agree with the reasons you have for believing in God, but at least you have the humility to admit that you cannot know, something i've been trying to get across to DavidRoss for the last while.


David, if you're still at least viewing this thread, could you explain to me (in as simple a way as you feel i'd need) how anyone can KNOW that God exists -God, the designer of the universe - not just the idea, not just the word? Thanks.

[drogulus]

This is a completely reasonable approach to take.

    Let me show why it's not. The only approach believers consistently acknowledge is belief as a matter of faith, as opposed to any arms-length evaluation of evidence. There are also some efforts, not very convincing ones as I've pointed out, to use pure reason as a method for bolstering a pure faith approach. I find this puzzling not just for the strange disjunction of both recognizing and not recognizing the weakness of faith by itself, but also because it's a kind of argument in the alternative which is curiously blind to how the approaches don't actually support each other.

     1) God exists as a matter of faith. But if that's too much to accept we'll give you:

     2) Reason can demonstrate this as well (versions of Ontological and Design arguments).

      Two such flawed approaches can't reinforce each other since they fail on their own, and no cumulative power is obtained by combining them (if it makes any sense at all, which it doesn't. No faith argument is necessary nor would it be invoked if a strong argument for gods could be made on the grounds of reason).

      The faith idea fails because it's endorses the existence of anything (and, in fact, everything. So it follows that ones faith in the nonexistence of gods is exactly equal in truth value to faith in their existence). No principle limits it to one kind of entity. What is believed in exists and that's it. To accept this is to accept that the concept of error has no basis. How do you correct an error with no means recognized to do so (you have removed the means by disregarding sense data and reasoning about it as the basis for existence claims)? As Thomas More might have said: "Where do you hide from the devil, the laws being flat for the sake of your angel?".*

      Any faith operation that supports your god supports mine as well, as well as any nongod, antigod, or anything that human intuition can come up with. The only corrective for this combinatorial explosion of fanciful beasties is gone. This is no time to start saying: "Well, now you're just being silly!". The thoughtlessness was baked in from the beginning with the idea that faith is autonomous with respect to reasoning about experience. It's not.

      Deductive arguments from an initial premise depend for their plausibility on some standard other than that of pure faith. If you need faith at the beginning you've lost before you've started. It's a faith argument with logical window dressing. If any premise can be granted, any logical argument that follows can be accepted as true, if it passes the test of noncontradiction. Yet right away it's apparent that no argument for the existence of entities has ever succeeded on this basis. Mathematical arguments to demonstrate the consequences of abstract relations don't give you a proton or a quark or any other real object without observations, however indirect, that make a confirmable theory possible. The observation can precede the theory and inspire it, or follow as a fullfillment of a prediction the theory makes, but it can't be dispensed with.

      If intuitions are true because you have them, then it follows that the whole empirical exercise is delusional. You can't simultaneously need and not need to confirm your ideas to consider them facts. The supposed separation of the world into material and spiritual realms is itself an anti-empirical fantasy that exemplifies the dilemma. Dualism divides the world in two and embarks on an endless series of weak justifications, one unconfirmable rationale after another, each one designed to patch a defect that occurred at the beginning of the series when certain ideas were exempted from the normal vetting process before that process itself had arrived at its mature form.

     _{*There are also the "Monsters of the ID" of Professor Morbius in the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet. Robbie the Robot, when told to destroy the intruder who menaces our heroes, has a nervous breakdown because the order conflicts with his prime directive never to harm a human being. Robbie knows that the invisible beast is Morbius himself, his dark imaginings given almost limitless power by the vast machine of the Krell. I wish I had a robot like that. I'd have to keep it away from churches, though, just in case the prime directive failed and Robbie really started to "Stamp out Satan".}

[Shrunk]

David, if you're still at least viewing this thread, could you explain to me (in as simple a way as you feel i'd need) how anyone can KNOW that God exists -God, the designer of the universe - not just the idea, not just the word? Thanks.

Uh uh, now you're making the same mistake I did.  He doesn't say he knows God exists; he says he knows God.  The distinction seems to be important, though how one can know something and yet not know it exists remains beyond me.

[drogulus]

Uh uh, now you're making the same mistake I did.  He doesn't say he knows God exists; he says he knows God.  The distinction seems to be important, though how one can know something and yet not know it exists remains beyond me.

    That's because you don't know. Have faith and then you will. How do I know this? I don't, but I have faith.

[Joe_Campbell]

I'm pretty sure he did say that many people know God exists...

[Lilas Pastia]

I think that's perfectly fair. However, I think what is perfectly unfair is to suggest that all religious people in the world somehow suffer from some mass delusion based on a psychological predisposition.

Btw, sorry if I unintentionally pigeon-holed you; perhaps you can understand my reaction to your idea?

Just catching up on this thread - God, things evolve with such speed and unpredictability!

Of course I understand, I actually agree 100%. I'm still nonplussed to see the almost seismic collective brainstorming that erupts whenever that Go/no god debate resurfaces. And how the same arguments keep coming back, with seemingly definitive arguments from each side, proferred with unflappable aplomb. But they are like the chaff which the wind drives away (that's not from me, as some will have recognised ). I suppose the wind makes a full circle every four or five months .

[Ten thumbs]

On the other hand, nobody knows that god does not exist. So what is atheism based on if not faith?

[Don]

Never underestimate the power of faith.  I think it has much more going for it than trying to use logic and common sense to come up with the answers.

[mahler10th]

On the other hand, nobody knows that god does not exist. So what is atheism based on if not faith?

Atheism, as far as I understand it, requires nothing to base itself on - atheism is faithless.  The only thing it might be based on is the posit that there is something called God and it exists.  No faith is required whatsoever have an atheist outlook.  One does not need faith to believe that Superman does not exist or ever existed.  Without palpable evidence, I for one 'know' Superman doesn't exist.
Anyway, I DO believe in God, but not as organised religion of any type would recognise.

"It's God Jim, but not as we know it."

[Al Moritz]

Atheism, as far as I understand it, requires nothing to base itself on - atheism is faithless. 

Incorrect. Atheism assumes that the world has naturalistic origins. There is no scientific evidence for that *). Thus, atheism is based on faith.

*) the working of the world according to laws of nature is an entirely different matter; this would also be expected from as theistic perspective -- in fact, this was the perspective of the scientists who started the scientific revolution and who all were theists.

[karlhenning]

Never underestimate the power of faith.  I think it has much more going for it than trying to use logic and common sense to come up with the answers.

Simply said, and good sense.

[scarpia]

Incorrect. Atheism assumes that the world has naturalistic origins. There is no scientific evidence for that *). Thus, atheism is based on faith.

Science is based on skepticism, the notion is that you don't believe something unless there is evidence for it.  The notion is not that you believe something unless you can prove it is wrong.  There is no empirical for the existence of "god"  so the scientific attitude would be to assume it does not exist, pending further evidence.  That is closer to the attitude of what is commonly called an agnostic, rather than an atheist.  On the other hand,

[Al Moritz]

Science is based on skepticism, the notion is that you don't believe something unless there is evidence for it.  The notion is not that you believe something unless you can prove it is wrong.  There is no empirical for the existence of "god"  so the scientific attitude would be to assume it does not exist, pending further evidence.  That is closer to the attitude of what is commonly called an agnostic, rather than an atheist.  On the other hand,

I agree with you on science proper. However, as we have seen, atheism, just like theism, is a philosophical position that goes beyond scientific evidence and thus science.

[orbital]

Anyway, I DO believe in God, but not as organised religion of any type would recognise.

That is an interesting concept to me.  Is a notion of God, completely outside of religions and socially accepted dogmas, possible?
I know there are some approaches that take energy or the cosmic force or things like that as their bases for God, but the problem with them generally is that such a God would be completely irrelevant. God has to include a consequence as part of its properties. Otherwise, why would it matter if it existed or not?

As for evolution, here is a neat little software that is good for passing time, above everything else 
www.swimbots.com

[Don]

That is an interesting concept to me.  Is a notion of God, completely outside of religions and socially accepted dogmas, possible?

Of course it is possible.  Religions and dogmas are created by humans.  The existence of God is independent of what humans are up to.

[Al Moritz]

Francisco Ayala interviewed in HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) Bulletin

http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/aug2008/perspectives/creationism.html

From the NCSE website:
A Supporter of NCSE since its founding, Ayala is University Professor, the Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Among his contributions to the defense of the integrity of science education are his testimony for the plaintiffs in the challenge to Arkansas's 1981 "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act" (McLean v. Arkansas) and his lead authorship of the recent publication from the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, Science, Evolution, and Creationism (National Academies Press, 2008). His latest book is Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion (Joseph Henry Press, 2007).