Prove Evolution: Win $250,000!

Creation Science Evangelism ^ | N/A | Dr. Ken Hovind

[handk]

Dr. Hovind's $250,000 Offer
formerly $10,000, offered since 1990

I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.*  My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.

 

Observed phenomena:

Most thinking people will agree that--
1. A highly ordered universe exists.
2. At least one planet in this complex universe contains an amazing variety of life forms.
3. Man appears to be the most advanced form of life on this planet.

Known options:

Choices of how the observed phenomena came into being--
1. The universe was created by God.
2. The universe always existed.
3. The universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes (known as evolution) so that no appeal to the supernatural is needed.

Evolution has been acclaimed as being the only process capable of causing the observed phenomena.

Evolution is presented in our public school textbooks as a process that:

1. Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.
2. Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)
3. Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).
4. Caused the living creatures to be capable of and interested in reproducing themselves.
5. Caused that first life form to spontaneously diversify into different forms of living things, such as the plants and animals on the earth today (biological evolution).

People believe in evolution; they do not know that it is true. While beliefs are certainly fine to have, it is not fair to force on the students in our public school system the teaching of one belief, at taxpayers’ expense. It is my contention that evolutionism is a religious worldview that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax-supported schools, parks, museums, etc., is also a clear violation of the First Amendment.

 

How to collect the $250,000:

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution (option 3 above, under "known options") is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence. Only empirical evidence is acceptable. Persons wishing to collect the $250,000 may submit their evidence in writing or schedule time for a public presentation. A committee of trained scientists will provide peer review of the evidence offered and, to the best of their ability, will be fair and honest in their evaluation and judgment as to the validity of the evidence presented.

If you are convinced that evolution is an indisputable fact, may I suggest that you offer $250,000 for any empirical or historical evidence against the general theory of evolution. This might include the following:

1. The earth is not billions of years old (thus destroying the possibility of evolution having happened as it is being taught).
2. No animal has ever been observed changing into any fundamentally different kind of animal.
3. No one has ever observed life spontaneously arising from nonliving matter.
4. Matter cannot make itself out of nothing.

 

My suggestion:

Proponents of the theory of evolution would do well to admit that they believe in evolution, but they do not know that it happened the way they teach. They should call evolution their "faith" or "religion," and stop including it in books of science. Give up faith in the silly religion of evolutionism, and trust the God of the Bible (who is the Creator of this universe and will be your Judge, and mine, one day soon) to forgive you and to save you from the coming judgment on man’s sin.

* NOTE:
When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

[general_re]

I do not offer ontological arguments to prove the existence of God, but to answer those who assert or imply that it is irrational to so believe.

It's not at all irrational to believe. Nor is it irrational to not believe. The absolute existence of God is beyond the reach of logic and reason, and logic and reason cannot tell us what the answer is. In the absence of logic and reason giving us an answer, we must look elsewhere for a deciding factor. Or not, of course - flipping a coin is as rational as anything else. Of course, one might be able to make a case for the superior rationality of agnosticism, but IMO, it'd be pretty weak....

Now, there is one caveat - the absolute existence or non-existence of God may be beyond the reach of logic and reason, but specific claims about God may very well not be. Be careful about pronouncements about God, especially if they're testable and falsifiable. It would be rather embarrassing to advance a claim about God that was later proven to be false - it would probably be no sweat for God, but it might be embarrassing for you ;)

Yes, you do. But Why? Eichmann persisted, until he was executed, in thinking what he did was ok. He said, "Remorse is for children. It is useless." How do you justify a moral condemnation of Eichmann if his own made up morality was as legitimate as yours is? How can a subjective 'morality' be binding on anyone else? Actually any moral prescription is self contradictory to a premise that reduces morality to mere personal (or should I say 'impersonal':^) preference. You have your personal preference; he had his.

Perhaps. Tell you what - let's put it to a vote as a tiebreaker.

Now, I see your next objection coming - what reason do we have for voting one way or the other? How can we justify choosing my preference of not murdering each other in great numbers over Eichmann's preference for murdering lots of people in a horribly efficient way?

And the answer is the same - enlighted self-interest. I don't want to be murdered. I suspect that most people already agree with that premise, that they, too, do not wish to be murdered. So we say "Sorry, Adolf, as much as you'd like to murder people, we just don't want to be murdered. And we've outvoted you 6 billion to 37."

There is a process for resolving such dilemmas - let people decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Why you decide which way to vote doesn't really matter - if you wish to have your way, you will have to justify it to the satisfaction of others.

What if the consensus in Germany at the time was in favor of Eichmann's personal preference of having as much fun as possible throwing caviar parties, and killing as many Jewish people as possible? The consesus among many Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank is also that it is a positive good to kill as many Jewish people as possible. If consensus is the basis for morality, then these Consesus' (consensi?) prove that the aforesaid aims and ends must be seen as 'good'.

I don't say they must be good. However, we might posit the notion of persuading others to see the utility inherent in the concept of "rights", maybe even universal rights. If I can persuade you that it's in your best interests to treat something as a right, then it doesn't really matter whether or not we believe that God actually gave us a set of inalienable rights, so long as the practical effect is the same.

So long as we behave as though inalienable rights existed and were universal, does it really matter if they actually are or aren't? I say to you "Look, in the long run, it's good for you and your neighbors if we all don't try to prevent each other from speaking our minds," and I lay out exactly why I think that is so (I'll start by passing out copies of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, I think), and then we can agree on a basic first principle. We've created something that we will treat as a right, without needing stone tablets. You respect my speaking, I respect your speaking, and because we've agreed in advance that we should do so, we have some justification for dealing with those who go back on their promise and transgress.

I can just imagine us trying to persuade someone like Uncle Joe Stalin or Mr. Mao, or whomever, that it really is in his best interest to give up his murderous practices. Perhaps we can these days persuade Islamists to do the same. But what if they refuse to be persuaded. Are they "wrong" for not adopting our morality?

And you think they'll be more amenable to a Christian case against murder, do you? ;)

Regardless, as I said, we must decide on these things both individually and as a society. If the individuals of a society express their preference against such things, then there is no remaining justification for such a thing being permitted. Unless Uncle Joe can somehow construct a case for why his desire to murder people should override their desire not to be murdered, I think he'll probably be out of luck. And before you ask, no, the ends cannot be used to justify the means - it is not rational ;)

A proscription of murder may have utilitarian value, but you can't say, at least consonant with your premise, that there really is anything objectively "wrong" with murder. It is just as much a part of nature as anything else. There cannot be anything "wrong" with the cosmos. The cosmos just is.

We can look around the animal kingdom and see that violent death is the order of the day, although animals rarely kill their own kind. Why is that? Why is "murder" relatively rare in the animal world? The wolf pack has no mercy at all for the prey animal, but you'll wait a long, long time before you see a wolf kill a packmate.

But the animals have no sense of morality, and no sense of God at all. And they certainly lack the reasoning ability that we have, such that they cannot try to rule out murder pragmatically either. We know this, which is why when some animal kills a person, we do not arrest it and try it for murder, and attempt to hold it "responsible".

So, if they don't reason, and they don't know "objective" morality, why don't they kill each other more often than they do?

And the answer is because the practice of widespread cannibalism, or just killing your packmates randomly, is a dysfunctional practice. Animals that do that much tend to go extinct - the only ones left are the ones that didn't do that in the first place, or that stopped doing it for some reason.

(See, we're actually drifting back towards evolution, which is what this thread was supposed to be about in the first place.)

So, in addition to the preferences of people not to be killed, we can make the case that to permit something like murder would be wrong - and we define "wrong" as dysfunctional, in this case. So murder is "wrong" on one level because people do not wish to be murdered, and it is "wrong" on another level because it is dysfunctional, potentially leading to extinction.

Now, there's a hole at the bottom of all this, which is where I have to steal a march from you and carve out an exception to rationality. In the end, there's no particular rational reason to prefer life over death, or to prefer survival over extinction, just as there's no particular rational reason to prefer God over no-God - we can justify them in terms of desires and preferences, perhaps, but probably not rationally so (you may disagree, but try putting together a logical case for why it's better to be alive than dead - it's harder than you might think).

So, we simply accept people's preferences for themselves as they are - those who prefer life will choose life for themselves, and those who prefer death can do themselves in. Of course, we already do this, really - people already have this choice, whether or not we think they should.

And that's a reasonable, rational stance to take - we accept the universe as it is, rather than irrationally pretending that it is some other way.

[Diamond]

Our conditioning is not the only factor. People are different and so it is not uncommon that they develop differently although they were influenced in the same way. My case was pretty similar as that of tortoise (#539), though my environment might not have been that religious as rural Idaho but it definitely was religious. I can also say that my position is accurately described in his second post.

What other factor could there be, other than conditioning? What I mean is that if evolution of an impersonal universe is what produced you what else could "you" be, other than a total product of heredity and the conditioning of your environment, which continues to this day? You speak as if there is some type of dualism present in the impersonal universe that produced you, for example, as if there is somehow a "you" in there somewhere that can change "your" "beliefs". What are your beliefs if not effects that are always and only caused by physical and chemical reactions in "your" brain? If your beliefs are always the effects of physical forces your brain, what is it that is causing the physical forces to produce different effects/beliefs? Aren't "you" just an effect along for the ride of all those physical/chemical reactions? Aren't your beliefs just the product of those same neurochemical reactions? What is the physical force that that changes your beliefs/chemical reactions?

Cordially,

[general_re]

Way too many syllables.

And you can prove this heresy, yes? I say that six syllables is just right because six is the magic number provided by the universe. Or by Un-v-rs-, I should say (don't want to be too disrespectful). A snowflake has six sides. Insects have six legs. A quartz crystal is a six-sided barrel arrangement.

Go on,. prove me wrong, you non-Universe believing, six-denying heretic. Go on.

[inquest]

Uhh... ummm... OH, YEAH? umm...

[tortoise]

I would gather as well that "free will" is also something whose meaning eludes you?

No, "free will" is a fairly well-defined concept, though one can argue endlessly as to the specifics of when one meets the definition (e.g. whether or not the subjective perception of free will is actually "free will" if some non-biased observer can observe that it is not).

[general_re]

You're on your way back to work - I'm on my way out the door. Universe never stops, does it? ;)

I'll get back to this later tonight...

[Motherhood IS a career]

Tell you what give me a few of the positive things the muslims offer us and why and in the culture it produced.

See, now you're changing the subject. First you were picking on Muslims for being murderous anti-anything-that-isn't-Muslim, and of wanting to take over the world. Now you're bashing them for being anti-feminist. One might accuse you of being anti-anything-that-isn't Christian, but by accusing you of such, I would not accuse ALL Christians of being that way. Do you see the distinction? (Something tells me you don't.)

And who said anything about me personally choosing to live under that religion?? (Or any religion for that matter?)

As for racist remarks, perhaps I chose the wrong word. (Sorry, English is not my first language, it's my fourth.) But clearly your statements were anti-Muslim. So insert the word that is equivalent to racist, but applies to singling out a particular religion, instead of a particular race.

Just in case you're wondering, I would take the same exception if someone of the Muslim faith (or any other creed) made similar remarks about "ALL Christians".

Since the topic of this board is not "Muslims: Good or Bad?", this is all I have to say about this subject. Please feel free to have the last word.

[tortoise]

You speak as if there is some type of dualism present in the impersonal universe that produced you, for example, as if there is somehow a "you" in there somewhere that can change "your" "beliefs". What are your beliefs if not effects that are always and only caused by physical and chemical reactions in "your" brain? If your beliefs are always the effects of physical forces your brain, what is it that is causing the physical forces to produce different effects/beliefs? Aren't "you" just an effect along for the ride of all those physical/chemical reactions? Aren't your beliefs just the product of those same neurochemical reactions? What is the physical force that that changes your beliefs/chemical reactions?

I don't believe we have free will in the strict sense (omniscient observer), so yes, my own position is that what I believe today is the consequence of the state machinery of the universe running. The interesting part of this is that we are not capable of observing the state machinery as humans (other than very local and coarse models) so we live life with the illusion that things are random or directed by self-will.

I actually work in a very utilitarian area of mathematics that deals with this very concept. Ultimately, "free will" is an illusion that is created when a universal predictor (math term) has insufficient model memory (e.g. in the human brain) relative to the state machinery it is trying to model (e.g. the universe). In the case of the universe, which we can effectively treat as an infinite state machine today, we may always subjectively observe some level of "free will" in the universe regardless of whether or not it is true in an absolute sense. In a sense, most people don't see the strings, and the ones that do can't cut them.

In short, I am under the illusion that I changed my beliefs as a consequence of free will. However, I am also aware that this illusion exists and why it exists, and therefore would say that I have no choice but to have the beliefs I have if anyone wanted to press the point. Most people don't think about it this much though, so I rarely break it down this far.

[PatrickHenry]

... because the practice of widespread cannibalism, or just killing your packmates randomly, is a dysfunctional practice. Animals that do that much tend to go extinct - the only ones left are the ones that didn't do that in the first place, or that stopped doing it for some reason.

The same is true of human societies. Those that embrace murder, theft, rape, dishonesty, etc. seem to be failed societies, and rarely attract immigrants. Successful societies tend to behave otherwise. I posted something about 18 months ago on this point:

Morality is generally simple to develop. Imagine you're Abraham, wandering with your familly, your servants, and your flocks. You're looking for a place to settle down. Would you select a city where they confiscate and distribute all your property? Where they rape your women? Where murder goes unpunished? Hardly. You'd select a city where your people and property are protected. Such cities would grow and prosper. Others would become abandoned ghost towns, inhabited only by packs of bandits. And so it is with nations. The USSR collapsed. The USA has prospered (so far). To some extent it's a trial-and-error process, but one that a little bit of thinking can pretty much design from scratch.

There are some of the 10 Commandments that aren't logically required -- monotheism and the sabbath, for example. The Greeks did just fine without them. Others (the prohibition on blasphemy) are arguably unnecessary, except to protect the priesthood. Anyway, most of the 10 Commandments are going to be inherent in any successful society, no divine intervention being necessary.

[MEGoody]

Whether you agree or not, here's a definition for soul. The soul is consciousness of self (whereas the spirit is consciousness of God). The two terms are often interchanged, and I don't see that as a big deal as long as everyone in the conversation has the same understanding of what is meant.

[inquest]

No, "free will" is a fairly well-defined concept, though one can argue endlessly as to the specifics of when one meets the definition (e.g. whether or not the subjective perception of free will is actually "free will" if some non-biased observer can observe that it is not).

Well, then the soul is the embodiment of that free will - true free will - in each person.

Btw, my "can't help you" was primarily in response to the second part of your original question.

[BMCDA]

Well you may not agree with with me, but I think you are getting my point:^)

I'm not really sure if I get your point. You seem to suggest that I should question my skepticism towards certain claims. Is it that what you mean?

As I understand it, Hebrew scribes were fanatic gear-heads when it came to copying Scripture texts. They went through elaborate procedures that included counting the letters in the texts to verify the accuracy of their copies. If they made a mistake they threw out the whole copy. That's why when the dead sea scrolls were found, some people were stunned at the accuracy of copies a thousand years earlier than any that they had.

And I don't question that they were extremely careful when copying texts. My problem is however with the period before those legends/stories were written down. Oral traditions can get changed by those who propagate them, they can be influenced and manipulated willfully or unintentional. Of course, once they are written down they are more immune to change but that doesn't mean they were accurate as this happend.

The good Rabbi is a little bare in his assertion that Matthew mistranlated alma. (I will note, as dryly as possible, that he doesn't help your objection against fullfilled prophecy when he says, "... Verses 15-16 state that by the time this child reaches the age of maturity (“he knows to reject bad and choose good”), the two warring kings, Pekah and Rezin, will have been removed. We see, in II Kings 15-16, that this prophecy was fulfilled when these two kings were suddenly assassinated...":^) Nevertheless, here is exegetical and lexical analysis (from more gear-heads) in more detail than probably you or I put together care to absorb: link . I do agree with the author that because of general exegetical considerations, Isaiah 7:14 is not a passage I would FOCUS on SINGULARLY to adduce proof of the supernaturalness of the Bible from fulfilled prophecy, although I do accept it as such, which is why I did list it with about 30 other messianic passages. As I said, I obviously accept Matthew's use of Isaiah 7:14 as legitimate. Matthew was just as Jewish as our present day Rabbi, and he knew Jesus a lot better. He was thus in a better position than our Rabbi to know both the meaning of the word at that time and understand his own use of it.

My problem with prophecies is more general and not only aimed at Isaiah 7:14 and the virgin birth of Jesus.
Fact is that we have a text describing a prophecy which it claims is later fulfilled. Well, that could be true but there are also other possibilities: the prophecy was never made and only after an important event happened it was claimed that it has been prophecied some time ago or the prophecy was vague so it could be made to fit a wide range of occurrences; there are of course self fulfilling prophecies and sometimes it is also very hard to tell whether it happend by chance that a prophecy was fulfilled or by divine intervention.
As long as I cannot rule out these other possibilities beyond a reasonable doubt I simply cannot accept them as true even if I really want them to be true. (This article addresses this point in more detail than I could have done here)

Regards

[longshadow]

blue-font-free zone placemarker

[inquest]

Ultimately, "free will" is an illusion that is created when a universal predictor (math term) has insufficient model memory (e.g. in the human brain) relative to the state machinery it is trying to model (e.g. the universe).

So is sentience an illusion as well? If it isn't, can it be modeled mathematically? And if it isn't an illusion, yet can't be modeled mathematically, would free will perhaps fall into the same category?

[Motherhood IS a career]

As a mother, I'm sure you'd acknowledge that little children are simply not capable of understanding the rationale behind some of your 'commands' or actions. It seems to me that the relationship between us and God is very similar. We simply are not capable of understanding things on the same level as He, so naturally, there are times when answers to specific questions are, for now, "Because I said so."

As a mother, I make it a point to back up my instructions with reason, especially when asked "why", whether or not the child is capable of fully understanding the answer. If the question is being asked, I believe the child deserves an answer. And I have enough respect, consideration and patience for my children to provide them with something a little better than "because I said so."

Some people are perfectly content with accepting that kind of answer, and that's fine. I'm not one of them.

(And by the way, little children understand a lot more than many adults give them credit for.)

[Motherhood IS a career]

Oh, I'm not so sure you are right about your claim that no one was ever killed or persecuted in the name of Darwin. Remember Hitler and his whole 'master race' effort? Remember the 'eugenics' movement of the mid-1920s?

I think you are confusing Darwinism and racism. One claims that there is a NATURAL selection process in place which weeds out genetic weaknesses gradually over time. The other makes its own narrow-minded judgements and attempts to use artificial means to obliterate or oppress an entire race... as swiftly as possible. One is an observer; the other, a murderer. There's no comparison.

Hitler was a racist. I don't recall him ever mentioning Darwin in any of his speeches.

[general_re]

This is all perfectly true, general_re. But it appears you may still be missing the point I've been trying to make. Just to check: God is not susceptible to logical proof because He is not a ?thing? of the class of things amenable to logical proof. We might say He is ?supralogical.? The ?fault? does not lie with God (i.e., that He is neither verifiable nor falsifiable by the techniques of the scientific method) ? the fault lies in the limited ability of the human mind to grasp a Reality which, in its totality, comprehends everything that is, intramundane and supramundane ? that is, of the orders of immanence (the natural world and the physical universe) and transcendence (the Source of created order and of the spiritual life).

Okay. I don't think I've advanced an opinion of my own as to why God is inaccessible to logic - you seem to be saying something similar to the one possibility that I did present. I suggested that if there were a God, He might very well want it that way, and you've chosen to fill in the "how he did it" part - by being not a thing or external to reality or outside the plane or blah blah blah. Whatever. I don't think that contradicts the possibility I presented, so much as supplementing it.

Of course, I do have an opinion of my own. As Man has sought to insulate God from the progress of science and discovery, and to prevent God from being falsifiable by such, Man has necessarily been forced to redefine God in terms that increasingly place Him outside the realm of logic. The side-effect of rendering God unfalsifiable is that God is also unprovable. You say God is "supra-logical" - oddly, I agree with you. I just think that it was Man that put Him there.

ME: Does God make a habit of revealing Himself directly to men in order to give them proof of His existence? Of course not?.

YOU: God doesn?t reveal Himself to men to ?prove His existence? to men; He reveals Himself in order to have relationships with men.

Which is basically the same thing I said. I said He doesn't reveal Himself in order to prove Himself. You said the same thing, and added a bit of opining about what He does reveal Himself for. Fair enough.

No, He doesn?t; and if He did, it wouldn?t end all doubts about the Reality of God. If He were to do these things, our atheist/materialist/positivist/phenomenalist friends would turn themselves inside-out to come up with a ?plausible explanation? for the fireworks from ?natural,? immanent causes. You know that as well as I do, general_re.

I don't know any such thing. And neither should you, by the tenets of your own faith. You're not seriously telling me that God could not, if He wanted, reveal Himself and provide irrefutable proof of His own existence, are you?

I admit, it's been a while since I've been to church, but have they discarded that whole omnipotence thing in the last decade or so? Because I missed it if they did - I thought omnipotence was still a central part of Christian doctrine.

Awfully presumptuous, telling God what He can't do...

But you know, while we're on the subject of presumption, let me take a moment to tell you about the advantages of dropping this God concept, and instead taking the universe (or, as I've come to think of it lately, Un-v-rs-) to be eternal and uncaused, and existing of its own accord.

Advantage number 1. It's not abstract, and doesn't avoid providing proof of its own existence, unlike some other metaphysical concepts I could name. Look around you - the existence of Un-v-rs- is obvious. It's everywhere you look. Everything you see is a part of it. There's no question of whether it exists, unless you're a postmodernist. But they don't believe in much of anything outside themselves anyway, so who cares about that sort of irrationality?

Advantage number 2. Un-v-rs- is not personifiable. It doesn't have desires or wishes or goals or anything silly like that. This means that Un-v-rs- doesn't require anyone to do things like worship it, or evangelize its existence, or stuff like that. This frees up a great deal of time, especially when comparing Un-v-rs- to some other, more demanding metaphysical concepts I could name.

Oh, sure, if you want, you can go forth and proselytize about the existence of Un-v-rs-, but because Un-v-rs- is obviously omnipresent (unlike some entirely abstract metaphysical concepts I could name), you'll probably find that the only people who seriously deny the existence of Un-v-rs- are those same postmodernists. And they won't listen to you anyway, unless you're prepared to spend a great deal of time wallowing in phrases like "transgressing the hermeneutical boundaries of the genderless self-actualization", or similar nonsense. My advice is not to bother - leave them in their little sandbox to play with themselves, and they generally won't bother you much.

Advantage number 3. Because Un-v-rs- is not personifiable, it's not hung up on imposing its own meaning on itself, or on you. This is great, because, unlike what some other metaphysical concepts I could name would permit, you can decide for yourself what the "meaning" of your life is, or even what the "meaning" of Un-v-rs- itself is. For myself, I have chosen to believe that the meaning of life and Un-v-rs- is encapsulated in one simple phrase - "Laissez les bon temps rouler". Un-v-rs- is not a party-pooper about such things.

Advantage number 4. The "rules". Unlike some more abstract metaphysical concepts I could name, the "rules" that apply to our everyday lives are generally simple and easily quantifiable. Rules like F = ma, which help us to understand why it is a bad idea to run into things, or to have things run into you. Unlike some other abstract metaphysical concepts I could name, Un-v-rs- doesn't just tell you "Thou shalt not jump off of ladders", or whatever. Instead, you can simply apply the rules to your situation in advance, and decide for yourself whether jumping off that ladder is a good idea.

Obviously, the advantages of accepting Un-v-rs- are far greater than just this, but hopefully I've given you some insight into what they are...

More people would have experiences of this sort if it weren't for the fact that most "educated, intelligent" people these days slam the door shut on God, thinking Him "dead." I am so amused, however, that for three hundred years now, the "executioners" or "murderers of God" have been nervously busying themselves about the putative "corpose," as if to reassure themselves that He is, in fact, still dead.

Think about that for a minute: If God did not "exist," if He were really "dead," then why has a cottage industry of "undertakers" been devoting itself to "refuting" or denying Him for lo, the past three centuries?

Old habits take time to break. Not everyone is rational all the time. But if we're going to accept things on faith, I urge you to consider the advantages of Un-v-rse-.

[general_re]

The same is true of human societies. Those that embrace murder, theft, rape, dishonesty, etc. seem to be failed societies, and rarely attract immigrants. Successful societies tend to behave otherwise.

Exactly my point - thank you for carrying it out to that extent. These behaviors, because they are dysfunctional, are selected against, and "bred out", in a sense. And that same process has selected against those behaviors in humans, just as in wolves. So its not much of a surprise that behaviors that are rare at the pack/tribal level should also be rare at the societal level - the tendency carries over.

And the Ten Commandments example is perfect. Despite not having the presence of the Ten Commandments, most human societies tend to codify all the same sorts of proscriptions that are found in the Ten Commandments - against murder, theft, lying, et cetera. And that's because those sorts of rules are exactly how we would codify those dysfunctional behaviors. As large-brained abstract thinkers, instinct alone is no longer powerful enough to generally keep us from killing our neighbors, like with wolves. So, successful societies tend to be societies that evolve laws. More or less what you would expect to happen.

[PatrickHenry]

Not bad, but instead of "Un-v-rs-" you could avoid blasphemy by doing it thusly: Univ*. Showing proper respect keeps the whole ball-o-wax on your side.