Bible vs Darwin

[canalon]

Or is he just a spammer whose link has been removed by a mod????

[alextemplet]

I belive what bible says.

So do I. What's your point?

[enarees]

I belive what bible says.

The Bible hint about androgenesis.
The language in the Bible is secret.

[seahorse24]

Hi alextemplet
Sorry im not a catholic but i was brought up in a catholic school, im church of England. Likewise its nice to see like minded people.

Hi alextemplet. No one is expecting science to supply proven answers to all questions, least of all scientists (scientific proof is indeed a rare thing in reductionist approaches). Particularly the ultimate questions, such as how the universe or life began. We may come up with good hypotheses that agree with observation as far as we can take it, but we cannot test these hypotheses. My reference to abandoning reason involves making the leap of faith required to believe in supernatural entities as a replacement for acknowledging and accepting our ignorance. My leap of faith involves believing that nature is all there is. I suspect we will all die without knowing the truth of the matter, but I have to make my bets based on probabilities of what is likely. My wife (a Christian) likes to tease me by saying I'm a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists, though, are people who know they are right. I don't and can't make that claim. I just love the process of trying to figure things out.

Thats exactly what they are though hypothesis. Have you ever looked at the cosmological arguement for existence? Go back to the big bang and discount everything the bible and science says for two minutes. you have this thing about the size of a baseball about to explode into the universe. where didi this 'baseball' for lack of a better word come from? Did a ball of matter materialise from nothing or has it always been here? Both questions are hard to imagine any answer to. How can something come from nothing? How can something have always been here. I suspect the bible gives the answer we seem to spend our entire lives trying to research. In fact how do we know that what you nicely term 'supernatural' will be science fact in years to come. I suspect one day scientists will prove the exsistence of a soul etc and explain it then it wont be supernatural any more. People once thought science was witch craft. It amazes me that atheists are so closed minded. Science can only explain material things. It will never explain love, it can tell u how it happens, our bodily processes but never how we really feel it or go out of our way to feel it. Point of thought also. There are particles that pass thru us all the time to them we are like cloud. How is that for a perception of reality. We are made from elements, the same elements that make up inanimate objects, at what point did a bunch of atoms that are apparently randomly bonding and rebonding become conscious???? Im sorry but my neurological connections, and atomic chemistry do not describe who i am, they describe a part of how i work. The bible describes man as a trinune, soul, spirit and body. How many years of research is it gonna take before this statement too is proved right? All science can do is describe the world that was created. And wasnt Darwin a christian anyway? (i may be wrong about that)

[seahorse24]

yes i was wrong darwin was agnostic. people never mention the theories that he came up with that were down right wacky! A lot of science contradicts things other parts of science call laws ie thermodynamics. Evolution is a theory for a very good reason, a lot of it disagrees with some of these laws. I believe micro evolution which Darwin observed is obviously right we see it day by day. But it does not describe or even come close to describing how we got here. Im not saying the bible is 100% correct either, although it hasnt been proved wrong yet. What im saying is to believe in one or the other requires a huge leap of faith. To be an atheist requires just as big a leap of faith! The fact that atheists have even thought about what they choose to believe is a paradox in itself, as why would a random bunch of molecules want to justify their own existence. If we are as evolutionary theory says then why do we have the need to achieve, to love, and to be loved. To promote a feling of wellness therefore ensuring survival of the species? I dont think so. The very fact that atoms have arranged themselves into human bodies with needs is very very strange in itself and disagrees with thermodynamics. we if anything should be eating, sleeping, and reproducing and thats it, yet we have books for enjoyment, cinema, we actually care about animals that should be our competition for food in the wild. Im sorry but i have to say this again i am more then a bunch of atoms and survival techniques. That materialistic part is only part of who i am, it is not the whole. To say we are just atoms means basically that at some point atoms developed consciousness. Yet im sure i dont see any tables and chairs arguing on this forum!

[canalon]

This is a bit of topic, but as far as i know, there are no contradiction to the laws of thermodynamic. Just people who do not understand them... And evolution or human life are definitely in plain agreement with thermodynamics.

I will not preach about atheism (that would be a bit contradictory), but I can certify that love, altruism and desire of achievment and many other things do not need to be grounded in the belief of any mystical superentity. And atheism is not the belief in the absence of god, it is simply the absence of belief in god (i.e. there is no need for any external entity to explain the world as we know it).

As for your argument about conciousness, there are not chair nor tables arguing on this forum, but this does not prove anything, because it seems that conciousness require a bit more than just atom piling, something like organization. And then when I look at some animals, well I see this complexity and definitely thngs that reflects different derees of reaction to the environment, from the simplest (bacterial chemotaxis) to the more complex (baby caring in many species for example.)

[mith]

seahorse, it's pretty well known that the second law of thermo concerning entropy only refers to a closed system.

[alextemplet]

I would say that atheism is precisely a belief in the absence of a deity; the very word means "without God." Absence of belief I would call agnostic, which means "without knowledge."

I think the supernatural will forver remain outside the capability of human understanding. Even if the universe is purely material, there would still be a limit to how much we can learn because of concepts such as the uncertainty principle. Also, if the universe really does exist in ten or eleven dimensions, as superstring theory speculates, our ability to comprehend the whole of it would be even less. How can we possibly understand ten dimensions when we can only observe four of them? I think God intentionally designed the universe this way, so that He can freely act however He chooses and we would be blissfully unaware, thus leaving maximum scope for our own free will. I have seen more than enough miracles convince me of the existence of the supernatural, and I believe these miracles are nothing more than God working through normal natural processes that we simply cannot understand. Understood in this sense, miracles are not really "miraculous" in terms of violations of natural law, but simply the properties of laws we do not and might never understand.

So maybe the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is a false one, but I don't think the whole of it will ever be entirely within our comprehension.

[seahorse24]

seahorse, it's pretty well known that the second law of thermo concerning entropy only refers to a closed system.

This is a bit of topic, but as far as i know, there are no contradiction to the laws of thermodynamic. Just people who do not understand them... And evolution or human life are definitely in plain agreement with thermodynamics.

I will not preach about atheism (that would be a bit contradictory), but I can certify that love, altruism and desire of achievment and many other things do not need to be grounded in the belief of any mystical superentity. And atheism is not the belief in the absence of god, it is simply the absence of belief in god (i.e. there is no need for any external entity to explain the world as we know it).

As for your argument about conciousness, there are not chair nor tables arguing on this forum, but this does not prove anything, because it seems that conciousness require a bit more than just atom piling, something like organization. And then when I look at some animals, well I see this complexity and definitely thngs that reflects different derees of reaction to the environment, from the simplest (bacterial chemotaxis) to the more complex (baby caring in many species for example.)

Well as for people not understanding laws, i have worked as a research associate (after completing PhD) for 10 years so i would hope i would by this time! Atheism is a belief!! look it up, if you dont believe in anything you are agnostic. From what i see its all about a persons perception, one person can look at a tree and be in awe, another can look at it and see a bunch of biochemical processes. I love the way unbelievers choose to word anything spiritual with words such as mystical, or superentity. These are quite derogatory words in the context you use them (proving again that atheists are offended by people having beliefs), and refer more to other religions. As far as i can see none of the believers on this thread have ever said anything derogatory, it seems that non believers feel the need to tell us we believe in fantasy!

[seahorse24]

It is nice to see someone who is open minded also alextemplet, with the same views as myself. But we may have to agree to disagree with this one. Another thread should be opened for science vs God i think.. This seems to have gone on a tangent. I have worked with both physicists and chemists on collabolrations and there are honestly more believers then atheists. the more i work in science the more i realise we know nothing, there seems to be a very fine balance, a choice to believe or not, there is proof for both choices, it all boils down to faith, and faith alone. We have free will to believe or not. If you choose not to, fair enough your choice. But do not tell me i believe in mystical superentitys. The bible as someone mentioned before isnt a scientific text and should not be taken as so, but it certainly doesnt contradict science, anyone who says otherwise has never read it.

[alextemplet]

Seahorse, I think you might be taking offense at something that isn't meant to be offensive. Words like "mysticism" or "superentity" are nothing more than generic terms used to describe the supernatural or the spiritual. I don't understand why you would be offended by these words, or insist that they only be applied to non-Christian religions. In fact, mysticism is a word that is used often and with great pride among Christians. Many great theologians like St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila referred to themselves as mystics, and were not ashamed to do so. The word means to be in touch with the spiritual, and that is something that I think every Christian should strive to achieve.

As far as starting another thread, I really don't think that would achieve much. It would inevitably go the same route as all the others.

[canalon]

BUt seahorse since you know so much about the laws of thermodynamic, could you please enlighten me on waht generally accepted part of science would be in contradiction with the laws of physics in general and the laws of thermodynamic in particular.
Just so you know, the comparison between plane assembly and evolution is just a comparison and not a good one at that. And as such will not be considered as a convincing proof.