Darwinian Dissonance?

Internet Infidels ^ | Timeless | Paul A. Dernavich

[Markofhumanfeet]

one last thought before I head up the mountains to the snow: I think you might be surprised to learn, that for a mature Christian, the cause of all motivation, is love of Christ. There is no fear, nor doing "good" in hopes of reward. The new life, is just that-- a new way of living. It's the way it is, a new reality. I think it's something that an unregenerated man cannot understand and so you get all hung up on the idea that you too can be a good and moral person, but you can't. Sorry, thanks, Mark

[Fifth Business]

bump

[bondserv]

Josh 1:8
8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Jesus did this for us, and in this age of Grace that we now live we can only rejoice with love in what He accomplished in His sinless, resurrected life. We are justified not in our ability to live according to the law, but in accepting Jesus' life as our own. We live in Him.

Mark, thank you for the continued stand for the truth that you take.

Jer 1:8
8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

[ConservativeMan55]

Source- Internet Infidels? LOL!

Just Damn!

[PDerna]

Thanks for the welcome!

"I argued reasonably well for the naturalistic basis for objective morality in 83 & 90."

I have read your arguments, and they are thoughtful, understandable, reasonable, and practically unassailable, but the one thing they cannot be is objective.

Moral laws are like gravity - they exist whether we decide we like them or not. If 51% of us decided that we would rather not obey it, it wouldn't matter. If 100% of planet Earth voted to make a law out of the so-called Golden Rule then it would be wonderful, practical, historic, and it would prove that the state of Florida didn't handle the voting process, but it wouldn't be transcendent, because it would still be a popular vote from a group of self-serving points of view. If a man, let's call him Steinbrenner...no, wait, let's just call him Joe... if Joe decided that murder and pillage was the best way for both he and all of humanity to survive, then on what basis could you object? Birds fly, ice melts, stars burn, and humans steal. We are not in the business of making ethical demands of other "collections of atoms," so what would make Joe any different?

Try to think about that question. I think you'll find that you have to go outside of naturalism to find an answer for that one. I know you are wary of picking from the world's various faiths for guidance, but that is the only logical alternative.

[PDerna]

'You don't dismiss the possibility by lawyering on what "design" means to you.'

It's not semantics. Let me explain...

I have no problem with chaos theory. It is great stuff. It is just descriptive of a physical process, is it not? For me, saying "God spoke the stars into existence" is just a more concise way of saying "God took some matter and, by subjecting it to a fantastically complex scheme of rules, created a galaxy full of celestial bodies." No problem.

When you remove the idea of God from the scheme, though, is when you begin to have some difficulty. If "chaotic self-organizing phenomena" and "natural selection," among others, are the terms by which you determine that a mindless and meaningless void arrived at planets and then human life, then so be it. But did the meaningless void intend on producing humanity? Did it set the properties governing the universe? Did it say,"I love it when a plan comes together like this?" If not, then it cannot truly be called design. It is just what happened to occur. It cannot really be called intelligent, either, unless by "intelligence" one means a benevolent sort of illusion. Because a mindless and empty void cannot produce intelligence, no matter how many years and how many monosyllabic terms you try and shovel into it.

So it's not about semantics. It's about intellectual honesty. When Dr. Pigliucci says that humans are intelligent, I believe that he really does mean that humans are, in fact, intelligent, and he does not mean that we must perpetuate an illusion that we are intelligent because it makes us feel good. I share that view. But materialism does not give you that view. You must hijack it from a theologian.

[general_re]

Well, welcome aboard, anyway - with a few exceptions, we rarely get the author himself popping up to defend his own work ;)

In my experience, atheism and evolutionary theory are two sides of the same coin, at least in the mind of the average Joe.

Pauline Kael didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon, either. Given that the most recent Gallup polls on the subject suggest that a large swath of the general population finds the theory of evolution to be compatible with a belief in God, perhaps you simply need to get out more often. And even for those who do find atheism and evolution inseparable, they will hardly be helped by articles that effectively serve to gloss over that very issue by essentially affirming that atheism and evolution are one and the same. I don't believe that, and neither do millions more, your experience notwithstanding.

Although evolutionary theory is, as you rightly point out, a descriptive and not prescriptive theory, “Darwinism” has been embraced as an entire worldview by those whose prior philosophic assumptions exclude any idea of a God (see Robert Wright).

The same Robert Wright who wrote "Indeed, the Darwinian account of our creation...is not only compatible with a higher purpose but vaguely suggestive of one"?

Nevertheless, there are those who do as you say - Richard Dawkins is one. He would have you believe that evolution and God are incompatible, so God has to go. And here in this article I am apparently presented with the same claim - evolution and God are incompatible, but this time, evolution has to go. The assessments of Richard Dawkins and Paul Dernavich are, as nearly as I can tell, identical, differing only insofar as the proposed remedies to the dichotomy are concerned - entertaining the idea that it may be a false dichotomy is apparently not on either menu today...

[Dataman]

And that's all it was, a story, a manmade fairytale. Something man can imagine. There was absolutely nothing in the story to prove it was true.

And there we have the essence of darwinism.

[Dales]

How about avoiding spinning the thread down with such comments? Things were going fine up to here. Same with the comment about him being communist. Your earlier point regarding unrealistic idealism was (without me agreeing or disagreeing with it) basically the same point without being needlessly antagonistic. Let's try to keep things from degenerating into an insult war. We spent a few months cleaning these threads up, and we'd like to keep them that way.

[balrog666]

Because a mindless and empty void cannot produce intelligence, no matter how many years and how many monosyllabic terms you try and shovel into it.

I'm afraid your "conclusion" does not follow from your argument. Feel free to try again.

[VadeRetro]

If "chaotic self-organizing phenomena" and "natural selection," among others, are the terms by which you determine that a mindless and meaningless void arrived at planets and then human life, then so be it.

There is a lawfulness in nature which is the rightful subject of scientific scrutiny. You can account for an awful lot of what we see when you know the rules.

But did the meaningless void intend on producing humanity?

I doubt it. Efficiency was pretty low, if we were the point. There's a pretty high overhead not only in space useage but in time useage. Here's a timeline of just Earth history, never mind the 10 billion or so years of the history of the universe before that.

Vertebrate history is crowded down near the end, there. Human history is a blip just before the closing credits.

Did it set the properties governing the universe?

We only have one example of a universe. Whether another universe would have the laws of physics observed in ours is not clear to me.

Did it say,"I love it when a plan comes together like this?"

No, and there's a relentless anthropomorphizing strawman quality to your arguments. You criticize science and scientists for lapsing into such relic language to explain themselves even when they actually reason along different lines. But animism seems to be all you do. You utterly miss the gather-facts/form-hypotheses/gather-more-facts elements of what science is doing.

You say it's not about semantics, but when you take the semantics away there's nothing left.

... Because a mindless and empty void cannot produce intelligence, no matter how many years and how many monosyllabic terms you try and shovel into it.

Problem One, False Premise: It was essentially never empty or a void, although it was certifiably mindless when the flash of what we now call the cosmic microwave background was emitted about 300K years after the big band. It was a not-quite-perfectly uniform hot gas of hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium, cooling as it expanded.

Problem Two, Begging the Question: When did you show that non-intelligent life cannot produce intelligence under natural selection?

[VadeRetro]

... after the big band.

Which is why we still refer to "the Big Band era." (Editor needed, must work for peanuts.)

"... After the Big Bang" was meant.

[js1138]

Same with the comment about him being communist.

Thank you. I thought it best to ignore the insult, but I appreciate the support.

Back on point, there is nothing idealistic, romantic, or communistic about packs of preditors. There are, however, rules followed by individuals that support the survival of all, and which are necessary for the survival of the species.

[js1138]

Mind your Ds and Qs.

[VadeRetro]

True, I should have written "the big banq."

[longshadow]

...when the flash of what we now call the cosmic microwave background was emitted about 300K years after the big band.

Holy Cow! Glenn Miller did Cosmology?

[VadeRetro]

No, but whoever wrote "Moonlight Becomes You" was obviously some sort of atheistic materialist.

[PDerna]

Fundamental laws of cause and effect. Shall I explain them or do I trust that you will accept it as a homework assignment?

[PDerna]

I have to humbly accept my spanking, as you have corrected me on both counts. I need to go sit in the corner, but not the same corner that contains my computer - obviously the oxygen was getting thin over there.

So on point #1, you are right - the process of evolution is not at all incompatible with the idea of God or creationism. I was never intentionally trying to say that they were mutually exclusive.

And on #2, of course it is Richard Dawkins and not Robert Wright. Dawkins was the one who claimed that he was an atheist from Day 1, and that the Darwinian theory of evolution merely gave him "intellectual fulfillment." And that is the thread which connects both points - Darwinism as an observable process of differentiation is perfectly valid, but as the intellectual Holy Grail which explains away the need for a Creator, it is incredibly insufficient.

[PDerna]

I think we have to agree that we don't really know what was in the "void" or how it got there, because the sudden appearance of anything - electrically charged particles or God - must be taken on faith. The cosmic radiation does not show up in any family genealogy that I have seen.

But there is no Problem Two. When did anyone show that a "certifiably mindless" group of matter CAN produce intelligence under natural selection? Never mind the science - it defies the most fundamental laws of cause and effect. All we agree on is that intelligent life exists. Your timeline explains complexity, but it cannot show where human consciousness arrived, never mind Glenn Miller.