quote:Originally posted by rivka: It's more than that. There is a tendency among some (definitely not all) atheists to insist that evolution (or science in general) disproves God, or removes the need for God, etc. And then they wonder why religious people get upset . . .
Hey, I get upset with that. Talk about missing the point of science. And god, for that matter.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: It's more than that. There is a tendency among some (definitely not all) atheists to insist that evolution (or science in general) disproves God, or removes the need for God, etc. And then they wonder why religious people get upset . . .
Yes this is what I was trying to say.
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As for two different creation accounts in Genesis, I keep hearing this, but nobody has pointed it out for me.
Obviously there is the account starting in Gen 1:1
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: By the same token I assume that those arguing for evolution (big or little "e') are omiting God as a necessity in any way after the first life form, and possibly from the Big Bang on.
Surely in your life you have at one point trained someone to do something.
Did you train them that they can't do the task assigned unless God steps in and does some part of it?
Or did you "omit God as a necessity" to completion of that task, because you can see plain as day that the divine intervention isn't necessary?
Evolution is no more atheistic that gravity, or heliocentrism, or germ theory, or changing a fuse, if that's what you once taught someone how to do.
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I had a professor in College who spent a lot of his time in Lebanon. He was still amazed, and taken aback, that the standard response to telling your cab driver where to take you, is "If God wills it."
So proof of God is the ability to safely get from the Airport to the hotel in a Lebanese cab.
Further, since God is everywhere and everything, proof of God is safely walking across a street.
However, I would not fire all the cross walk wardens and tell children, "Close your eyes and just walk across the road. It is up to God to decide if you get across or not."
The fact that I can get across the street safely by taking my safety in my own hands and studying the traffic flow and maybe even obeying the traffic lights in no way denies the existence of God.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: The fact that I can get across the street safely by taking my safety in my own hands and studying the traffic flow and maybe even obeying the traffic lights in no way denies the existence of God.
Safely crossing the street in the manner you described does not disprove God but it does suggest that God's participation in crossing the street is minimal at best (through an application of Occam's Razor).
I think the point is that some people give their god too much responsibility for actions that are under human control. For example, it would be a little odd for someone to thank God for a college acceptance (I'm a senior ) when admissions are controlled by admissions officers. Did God somehow control the minds of the admissions officers? There isn't any evidence for that. It would make more sense to thank God for providing a life with the opportunity of going to college but that still runs into problems.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: It's more than that. There is a tendency among some (definitely not all) atheists to insist that evolution (or science in general) disproves God, or removes the need for God, etc. And then they wonder why religious people get upset . . .
Hey, I get upset with that. Talk about missing the point of science. And god, for that matter.
Agreed on all points. And as a theist who considers evolution extremely likely, I find such nonsense both counterproductive and incredibly frustrating.
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quote:It's more than that. There is a tendency among some (definitely not all) atheists to insist that evolution (or science in general) disproves God, or removes the need for God, etc. And then they wonder why religious people get upset . . .
This is a rather unfair criticism Rivka, because it's a "who started it?" scenario, on several levels. Darwin knew in advance that if he published his theory, it would be attacked by religion, precisely because theists themselves believed that it disproved God. The fact that atheists gravitated toward it isn't a matter of fault, it's just the only alternative to religious creation.
Further, atheists are always on the defensive, because our belief set is the minority. We are bombarded with the demand that we believe, yet when we present the reasoning behind why we don't believe, we're treated as though we are the attackers. That's not to say that we don't attack religion, I'm just pointing out that historically, the volley was initiated on the theistic side.
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"The fact that atheists gravitated toward [evolutionary theory] isn't a matter of fault, it's just the only alternative to religious creation."
There you have it. Atheism is irrelevant to the truth of the theory. Atheism does, however, require the theory to be true.
I recently read a book that was unfortunately lacking in details about this part (its focus was on astrophysics), but the author believed the millions of years time frame was obviously true. He talked about how the development the earth's geology and atmosphere would have required life to to look a certain way over the eons. Billions of years ago, life forms more advanced than bacteria would not have survived (and not simply because all there was at the time was bacteria.) And so a Creator would have had to shape the development of life in such a way as it appears in the fossil record, by carefully adding new life forms over time (and in the general order that Genesis describes.)
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quote:Atheism does, however, require the theory to be true.
Atheism doesn't even require the theory to exist. The Bible itself verifies that atheists existed thousands of years before Darwin.
I think what you are claiming is that if God does not exist, then evolution must be true. That statement is true, since there are no other possibilities, with the exception of life coming into existence for no reason whatsoever.
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Glenn: no, evolution does not need to be true if God does not exist. It could be that, for no particular reason, the universe came into existence five minutes ago, but structured so that it looked old to everything in it and everything in it thinks they have memories of beforehand. There's nothing in science that says that can't be how it happened.
It is, however, the only reasonable scientific explanation so far discovered for the state of life on this planet. There are several non-scientific explanations which are reasonable given particular religious standpoints.
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quote:It's more than that. There is a tendency among some (definitely not all) atheists to insist that evolution (or science in general) disproves God, or removes the need for God, etc. And then they wonder why religious people get upset . . .
This is a rather unfair criticism Rivka, because it's a "who started it?" scenario, on several levels. Darwin knew in advance that if he published his theory, it would be attacked by religion, precisely because theists themselves believed that it disproved God.
So? Wouldn't it therefore behoove atheists to do their best to separate the issues, which really are different questions?
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I don't think that too many atheists wonder why religious people get upset about evolution. I think for the most part we understand that. There are, of course, atheists who like to get theists upset, so they rub their noses in it, so to speak.
Actually that's why I left alt.atheism. Theists (particularly evangelical Christians) tended to come into the newsgroup to try to convert us. It had been shown numerous times that if you ignored them they would go away, but most of the atheists refused to ignore them, because they liked arguing with them. So the newsgroup devolved into mayhem.
I think you're right about separating the issues, but I also think that it's essentially matter of evangelism. Some people have a need, either to be right about something, or to win arguments, or simply to get other people to share their way of thinking. Maybe all people have that tendency, to one degree or another. Atheists that are driven by that need tend to see evolution as ammunition they can use. There's not much difference between evangelical atheists and evangelical theists in that sense. Those atheists that aren't evangelistic (or less so) tend to fall into the "you can't prove a negative, so you can't place the burden of proof on atheists" camp.
I tend to have a strong desire for people to believe in evolution. Much less strong is my desire for people to lose their belief in God (although I confess that desire does exist, but I wish it didn't). With respect to atheism, I have a strong desire to not have to be told that my belief system is wrong. Or maybe a better way of saying that is that I want atheism to have equal standing as a state of belief, as compared to theism as a whole. The agnostic in me recognizes that the issue can't be proven in either direction, but society's default is theism, and I don't like having to pretend I believe so that I can fit in. I'm particularly angry about the Boy Scouts, since it affects me so strongly.
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"I tend to have a strong desire for people to believe in evolution. Much less strong is my desire for people to lose their belief in God " Me too.
I think where I come from on the evolution vs. creationism is here: The idea of evolution makes perfect sense: Things that can reproduce, do, and pass on their genetics, things that can't die, and do not. The idea that a magic entity who I've never found evidence of created the universe does not sit as well with me, and seems more or less laughable(I'm actually chuckling a bit right now). If I look at the history of the two establishments involved I find the side of evolution to be more trustworthy. scientists have frequently corrected their errors, admitted mistakes, and revised their decisions all the while making more accurate and broad descriptions and explanations of the natural world. Religions have regularly been exposed of propagating ignorance, encouraging unquestioning belief, and dismissing overwhelming evidence for scientific discovery(read: heliocentricism). On those grounds, I KNOW evolution occurs. I do not merely believe.
Resh: Comments like yours make me sigh disappointedly.
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) when admissions are controlled by admissions officers. Did God somehow control the minds of the admissions officers? There isn't any evidence for that. It would make more sense to thank God for providing a life with the opportunity of going to college but that still runs into problems.
