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Evolution vs. Creationism
As a Atheist, I am obviously of the belief that the world was not created by some devine being. I believe that the universe is an accident that just happend. Matter was formed over time and was eventually shaped into galaxies and planets. We're not the centre of anything. Life in itself was part of this, an accident that just happend. We evolved from animals, and the only reason why I think this insults creationists is because they think the human race simply could not have evolved from lowly animals.
Here are reasons why we evolved: Our instincts are closely tied with animals. Example, the flight or fight reaction to danger is quite carnal. We all have carnal desires that surpasses our rational human thinking: The need to survive, to procreate. Hostility and sexuality are two human traits that are considerd very animal, and yet as a whole we cannot (Will not) shake these off. It's part of us.
There are some physical reason too. Monkeys (Animals around that gene pool) are incredibly similar to humans in terms of structure, we have hair on our bodies which are useless to us: Proof that we did indeed evolve from hairy creatures, not to mention the coccyx that we all have.
Plus, if creationism was true, then there wouldn't be much diversity in our gene pool, or genetically caused problems.
Against creationism, I just can't imagine a God creating the world in this way, making humans so evil and twisted, and then copping out by saying we've been given free will. If God loved humans and the Earth, he would have made things much different. For a start, nature in itself is evil, because it requires death in order for life to be established. Plus, if the universe was created, then what happend before that time? Was time even there?
Debate :)
Here are reasons why we evolved: Our instincts are closely tied with animals. Example, the flight or fight reaction to danger is quite carnal. We all have carnal desires that surpasses our rational human thinking: The need to survive, to procreate. Hostility and sexuality are two human traits that are considerd very animal, and yet as a whole we cannot (Will not) shake these off. It's part of us.
There are some physical reason too. Monkeys (Animals around that gene pool) are incredibly similar to humans in terms of structure, we have hair on our bodies which are useless to us: Proof that we did indeed evolve from hairy creatures, not to mention the coccyx that we all have.
Plus, if creationism was true, then there wouldn't be much diversity in our gene pool, or genetically caused problems.
Against creationism, I just can't imagine a God creating the world in this way, making humans so evil and twisted, and then copping out by saying we've been given free will. If God loved humans and the Earth, he would have made things much different. For a start, nature in itself is evil, because it requires death in order for life to be established. Plus, if the universe was created, then what happend before that time? Was time even there?
Debate :)
Comments
There is simply zero reason to believe in creationism, or its new masquerade outfit "Intelligent Design." If you ever want to be convinced that Intelligent Design is on a level with Harry Potter, try reading anything from Michael Behe, the premiere Creation Science figurehead. Nothing helps the case against Intelligent Design more than their own nonsensical arguments. I'll recommend The Edge of Evolution, in which Behe argues for Irreducible Complexity, the idea that some features are too complex to have possibly evolved. This is an idea that was discredited almost a full century before Behe himself was even born. Nice.
If people find human evolution from apes to be depressing... well, that has nothing to do with its truth or falsehood. But why should it be depressing at all? What's depressing about the idea that all of human achievement in science, art, culture, all of it the result of the mammalian brain? While life is actually quite mundane, consciousness is an emergent property far more awe inspiring and miraculous than any poorly defined creation by the divine. Go take a look through the Hubble telescope, or peruse some electron micro-graphs, and then tell me exactly how impressed you are by the burning bush.
As to fear of death, or rather fear of a death that presents a truly final end, I am genuinely amazed that people find comfort in the idea of an afterlife. I mean, set aside the gob-smacking selfishness of it; the fact that people will honestly say that the idea that the majority of people alive, and the vast vast majority of people who have ever lived, will burn in eternal torment, that that idea is uplifting, because it also postulates that they'll go to the good place. Leave that aside. What is attractive about immortality? The idea that there is no end, that "life," or existence would continue forever... that sounds like Hell to me. What possible "purpose" could existence have, if it never ends? If the soul is supposedly created at conception, and is never destroyed... then we have a problem of exponential growth, with no mechanism of removal. Existence itself is devalued, and this mortal coil is insulted to lengths I can barely believe. Life is cheap, from the theist perspective. It is the most precious commodity imaginable, to the atheist.
None of which would have any bearing on whether or not there is an afterlife, mind you. But I do thank God that there is absolutely no evidence that he exists, or that there is an afterlife. I see no reason to believe that there is anything nice or appealing about the religious denial of death.
As to the question of purest existence - if creationism has been pushed by science so far back as to merely postulate a "first cause" God, a "God of the numbers," who created matter, the laws that would govern said matter, and perhaps set things on their way, if creationism has been pushed to so modest a claim... what is the point? Why cling to these unsubstantiated ideas, if you've already been forced to fall back to such an immaterial claim as that? But let's look at it, all the same.
The idea that the universe needs an explanation, and that that explanation must therefore be God is called Infinite Regression. When you postulate a God to explain existence, you don't actually explain anything, you just move the question back one step. On no fewer than four occasions, I've seen small children annihilate adults, in one case a priest, on this very issue. The question is one asked by all children, because they're too naive and innocent to know that this is a question you're just not supposed to ask. "Who made God?" If the argument is that the Universe could not possibly have existed for all time, then why is that thinking any less applicable to God? Because you've decreed that God is outside of our understanding? Bollocks.
Bollocks to creationism. Where alchemy ends, chemistry begins. Where astrology ends, cosmology begins. And where creationism ends, physics and biology begin.
GOOD DAY. :p But seriously, I need to be studying. Stupid Kevin M, posting topics, distracting me. :(
[edit] - Fun site for secular people: Fundies Say the Darndest Things.
That's all I got
It would be extremely stupid to say that the Mona Lisa was an accident and formed (by itself) over time. Same goes for everything else.
The problem isn't in trying to find an ordering process in nature, as the painter is to the Mona Lisa. The problem is in saying that the ordering process in nature must be EXACTLY like a painter. A painting implies a painter, but does a puddle imply a puddle-master? Does a mountain imply a mountain-sculptor?
The cosmos is how it is thanks to the "painter", we refer to as thermodynamics, gravity and electromagnetism, among others. THAT is the painter that takes randomly moving atoms and organizes them into planets and stars and nebulae, and organizes their movements with respect to one another.
And this also extends to obviously purposeful structures. The horse-head nebula is beautiful, but it is how it is because it can't be any other way. An eye, on the other hand, is how it is to serve a specific function, so it seems to more compellingly point to an intelligent, concious creator. Well, the eye certainly does have a creative force behind it, though it's not concious. The "painter" of the living world is, of course, natural selection. That's what gives rise to the complexity and beauty of life on earth.
Again: Of course there had to be a constructive force. But nothing implies that that has to be a concious force like a god.
The book makes the salient point that self-organizing emergent phenomena can appear to have been pre-designed because they have esthetic or complex natures, but in actual fact arise from non-conscious phenomena behaving according to natural law.
A common example of a fallacy cited by creationists is to take the number of natural isotopes (85, if we discount the past-Bismuth elements except for Uranium and Thorium) and simply take 85 to the 85th power as the number of statistical ways in which these elements can interact and say "See! Getting even methane, never mind complex purines and pyrimidines to make RNA and DNA is out of the question by pure, random chance!"
Which....
is total crap.
Chemistry as we know it would be impossible if elements really reacted completely higgledy-piggledy like that, and we know that's not how they chemically behave. They interact according to certain basic rules that govern their behavior, provided there's appropriate energy input.
Gosh, wait a minute... what's that great big blazing yellow ball in the sky?
THE SUN!
Which is just pouring energy onto the Earth like nobody's business and has been doing so for a few billion years now.
So the energy input is not an issue, it's just a matter of how many carbons there are and how many hydrogens there are and how to get them to interact via photochemical reactions which promote free radicals (such as hydrogen radicals) reacting quite vigorously - say, hydrogen with carbon, and one of our rules says that carbon likes to close its shell if it can share eight electrons around in some fashion... and lo and behold, methane!
From here it really is just a matter of energy input driving further complexity until eventually a compound is formed which, because of its properties, can react with other molecules in the area such that it can make a copy of itself.
Enter RNA and DNA. The rest is just details. :P
Creationism is simply the expression, writ large, of a quite-human need to feel special. It's a perfectly valid need, in moderate doses (for example, childhood self-esteem) is even a necessary one.
But to go from that, to insisting that the human race as a whole is special because of the belief that some big guy out there somewhere actually cares about this back-woods planet in the outer two-thirds of this rather average galaxy called the Milky Way, is not, in my view, a productive or helpful process, because it opens the door to abdicating the responsibility that humanity has for solving its own problems.
I can not add to it like Kevin M. and Morro did really, but i have to say that this has made me think a little more about it.
I must admit, ive always believed in God....yet havent....if that makes sense. I like to think that there is an afterlife of some kind, but yet im not sure what it is. Im not sure if we "live on" so to speak, in heaven, but i believe that our souls are....around, in a way. I believe that when people die, their presence is still with us....around us....but im not sure how.
God....ive always believed in him, yet im not religious at all. Ive always believed that he is there....somewhere....watching over us in a really screwed up way. If there is a God, why is there so much hurt and pain in the world? The last few years, ive almost stopped believing in him. I will admit tho that in times of utter sadness and hatred alike, i have cried or cursed at him. But is he there? I have no idea. Again, id like to think that he is. That one day i'll meet him in heaven....and its almost sad that part of me doesnt believe in heaven anymore. I certainly dont believe in hell, so why would there be a heaven?
As for the creation of the universe, i loved reading what you guys wrote. But i have no idea and cant contribute to it really. I dont see anything wrong with us having evolved from monkeys or apes or whatever....thats what happened....who cares? Why would people be ashamed of that?
This is something that ive just recently started to think about tho so im still toying with the idea of it and am still, obviously, quite confused. Very good thread tho.
I think the religious have trouble valuing the intangible, and thus imagine such intangibles as the feeling of being close to someone who is gone as corresponding to a physical reality. They can't simply accept the feeling as being worthwhile all on its own. It seems to cheapen the emotional side of life a bit.
Thanks for the post, baby_e. The on-the-fencers almost always have the most interesting things to say. I read too much. :(
I found it really interesting what they wrote, but have to admit that i wish i knew more about what they were saying :(