God and Evolution

I've got tons of fishing magazines at home; they're laying everywhere. This one is entitled In-Fisherman and it is one of the best fishing magazines around. It's very helpful in educating you about fishing--fresh-water fishing in particular. But they have these short sections in the beginning--snippets, side-bar type things. This one is entitled "New View of Eye-Spots." It talks about how they are reassessing why these creatures have eye-spots. The purpose for eye-spots, according to evolutionary theory, is to trick the larger fish into attacking the eye-spot and away from the vulnerable spot on the fish in order to give the shad a chance to get away. But now there's a case of a shad, which is a small bait fish that larger fish eat, that has an eye-spot right in the middle of its body, which seems to be the most vulnerable spot. Why would they have an eye-spot there if the purpose of an eye-spot is to provide a protective advantage for the shad?

There's a comment made in the article, "The spots on the sides of shad may have evolved as a way to help the species maintain formation while schooling or spawning and not for defense against predators." Here's another case where you have the evolution language mixed with design language. It "may have evolved as a way to help." In other words, there is a purpose for this and that's to help schooling fish. It's so interesting when one explanation based on evolution doesn't work and they try to come up with another explanation, but both of these explanations imply design and purpose.

I then began reading a book called Big Bass Magic . This author is quite a conservationist, and I'm glad for that. He advocates catch and release, which is big among bass fishermen because we catch our fish for the sport of it and then let them go unharmed. Of course, then they can return to their natural habitat, spawn and enjoy a long life there and maybe be caught again, so we have a resource that is maintained.

The author writes this unusual paragraph. Listen carefully to the words: "Generally, today's fish management has its roots in the agencies and programs of the forties. The purpose at that time was to determine how to exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."

Let me pause for a moment. He used the word "purpose." Who has the purpose? Fish management people, right? "The purpose at the time was to determine how to better exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."

He continues, "We often still find that attitude in fish management today, and it is typified by the much publicized statement that any fish that grows up, dies of old age and is never caught is a wasted resource. Well, that presumes that in nature no purpose is served by the complete life of that fish, and it is too much for me to take when that is denied. Nature would not allow a bass, for instance, to reach ten pounds if a bass that size served no purpose in the balance of the ecosystem."

If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world.

He's saying, look, older bass, bigger bass, the ones that people catch and hang on their wall really serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Notice how he used the word purpose to describe the intent of fishery management and then he used the word purpose to describe the intent of nature. Now, what the heck is that? Nature is not a person, therefore nature cannot have intent. Only agents have intents. Nature doesn't. Nature is just a general way of describing the accident of cause and effect in a naturalistic system. So to say that nature has a purpose that is served by the complete life of the fish in the ecosystem is to say something that is nonsense. It's ironic that it is said so glibly without a blush by a man who is deeply committed to evolution.

Now, I think that his gut-level observation is accurate. I think it seems clear that there is some purpose for the full life span of different species, but we can only make a comment like that if there is someone behind the scenes that is purposing, such that the things that we see have purposes. I think it is obvious there is a designer and that's why it is very easy for this man to talk about the purpose of individuals in wildlife management in the same breath as talking about the purpose of nature. It appears that both nature and wildlife management individuals are people that purpose. I think he is right, but nature is not like a mother nature that is to be worshipped. What we call nature is really the purposes of God. It is so obvious that even this evolutionist can't speak in such a way as to avoid that conclusion, which goes to make another point.

If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world. If you want to believe in God and believe in evolution, fine, go ahead and do that, but don't act like your belief in God has anything to do with the real world. It doesn't. Your belief about the real world is evolution, and that means time and chance. If you believe that God has something to do with the real world, then you can't be an evolutionist because evolution is run by chance, not by God, by definition.

Secondly, if you are an evolutionist, then please be honest with yourself and everyone else and abandon this Mother Nature language and all of this purpose talk that you invariably allow to be smuggled into your language when talking about the natural realm. You are rationally obliged, if you want to be intellectually honest, to refer to the rest of the time/space continuum world in entirely chance terms. No more Mother Nature language. No more purpose language. No more design language. Nothing.

I think if you consistently talk in a way that fits your basic world view you will see how ridiculous that world ends up being. It becomes untenable. It can't be held because the world is obviously designed. Things obviously fit into ecosystems with a particular purpose. They obviously have their place. Bodies are obviously artifacts. Mouths were made for eating. Hands were made for grasping. Legs were made for walking. They don't just happen to do that because they accidentally formed that way through the forces of nature acting on mindless matter. That, by the way, is the thing that gives human beings purpose. Not only are their bodies purposeful but their lives are purposeful as well.

Why? There is an intelligent Creator who is behind everything. A Creator we see quite obviously, as Paul says in the book of Romans, and as you say consistently every time you use the words Mother Nature.

Er, so your argument is then that either evolution is true or the God as described in the Old and New Testaments is true?

That's definitely a false dilemma. You've completely ignored the possibility of any other deities from other religions or even a deity not described by any existing religion, not to mention the falsity of the "either evolution or God" proclamation.

I'm HOPING you are joking. How can one be "conceited" when one accepts science over supernatural silliness? That is, supernatural silliness that tells its followers that in all the vast universe, of all the planets, of all the species, of all the 6.5 billion humans, of all the billions of religion-followers, of all the millions of christians, that only the tiny fraction of fundamentalist literalists can have ever lasting life and happiness? By my figuring, your INCREDIBLE conceit is absolutely glaring, not the evil evolutionists!

In-fisherman is just used as a prop to begin the line of reasoning given in the rest of the article. It is not the intention of the author to imply it is a scientific or evolutionary authority.

The use of "purpose" in the article is a recognized shorthand for a more complex argument about the likelihood of certain forms appearing or not appearing. It does not imply agency.

Any free-marketer understands this. The invisible hand of the economy is not a real invisible hand, it is merely an abstration to describe how the behavior of millions of disparate, self-interested agents can create ordered systems from their own separate actions. The market is not God, and the fact that some companies thrive and others fail, that some industries rise and others fall, is not a reflection that God has made a choice. The "invisible hand" of natural selection is no different. God chooses species no more than he chooses buggy whips and widgets.

You've completely ignored the possibility of any other deities from other religions or even a deity not described by any existing religion, not to mention the falsity of the "either evolution or God" proclamation.

You are 100 percent right.
I have.
I have chosen to believe and follow Jesus the Messiah.
He proclaimed,

I am the way,
I am the Truth,
I am the Life.
No man comes to the Father (God) except by me.

Either he was a screwball, or he was who he said he was.
They crucified him for claiming that he was God.
Some believed him, most did not.
But the many who believed him, he said would inherit eternal life.
I believe him.

the tiny fraction of fundamentalist literalists can have ever lasting life and happiness

Is this from the ozarks--hollow?

"In-fisherman is just used as a prop to begin the line of reasoning given in the rest of the article. It is not the intention of the author to imply it is a scientific or evolutionary authority."

The author uses, and quotes, statements from writers in fishing magazines and books, and describes their writers as "evolutionists". He then uses that to try to demonstrate inconsistiences in scientific evolutionary theory. That's ridiculous, and misleading. He's representing these writers as discussing evolutionary theory. If you want to try to find inconsistencies in evolutionary theory, use statements from scientists, not a bunch of guys talking about fishing.

Either he was a screwball, or he was who he said he was.

Or he was lying, you forgot that part. It's "liar, lunatic or Lord".

Of course, that leaves out the other two possibilities of "made up" or "misquoted".

Q: How can one be "conceited" when one accepts science over supernatural silliness?

A: When one accepts a "theory" as fact and calls it "science", and then impugns those who disagree and believe in a Creator.

Those who believe in a Creator, as well as those who "belikeve" in science, do so out of religious conviction, nothing more. Neither is able to produce conclusive "proof" for the skeptic.

"Evolution god...father fossil-chest thumpers---bone-whack heads!
Mutants--no design/intelligence!"

Am I the only one who can't figure out what this guy is saying?

Must be a product of home schooling....

It's "liar, lunatic or Lord".

You are right, my friend.
I have chosen "Lord".
It's a choice I'll have to live with, eh?
Before I made that choice, "living" wasn't that great.

As I've stated repeatedly, never ceases to amaze me how creationists repeatedly claim to be more religious than those Godless evolutionists, yet it's the creationists that are repeated bald-faced liars. Somehow, I think you're more likely to burn in Hell for being a liar to that degree, than for daring to suggest that Genesis not be taken literally.

Prove creation is a lie. Prove Darwinism is truth.

To an athiest, no amount of proof is sufficient, not even their own lack of it!
To a Godly believer, no proof is even necessary.

I seen no conflict between evolution and theology. They are completely unrelated.

Evolution, as a physical science, should only look at empirical evidence.

Theology, as a metaphysical science, doesn't care about empirical evidence.

There should be no surprise when the two disciplines disagree.

The real problem is that there is a cultural war being waged against Christianity, and one of its manifestations is to say that if evolution is true than the Bible must be a lie.

That in itself is a false proposition, and if you accept it you have already lost the argument.

I gotta tell you, I read these threads often, but shun posting on them because it always turns into the same old battle (we win by the way, but you know that!)

If there were evolution, my dog would evolve to do some useful purpose, such as taking the trash out to the curb. The cats would figure out how to use the can opener by now AND humans would evolve so that we could scratch our own backs.

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