God vs Evolution, can't we all just get along? (NOVA: Intelligent Design on Trial)
 

NOVA: Judgement Day, Intelligent Design on Trial

Ok, so why does there have to be such a fight? Can't evolution and God come to terms? There should be no division..

Religious folks should accept that the observed reality of evolution could be the physical mechanism of the God(s) they believe in and the creation myths they venerate.

Scientists should stop being so fucking up tight and let religious folks be, and further accept that much of evolution does also remain as much a theory as Genesis or some other creation myth, there is much evidence, true, but lets all understand that it is equally a matter of belief.

I see no need for conflict.

The theory of Evolution is not necessarily a fact, and people like myself who believe in God should NOT think they know Him so well that they know how and what exactly God does/did. A little humility goes a long way..

This NOVA special makes some good points, obviously the theory of "Intelligent Design" is not science, but what is called science is also over emphasized as an absolute fact when it its not the case. I think they should meet each other half way, the scientists should accept the gaps in their theory, and the religious folks should loosen up with all this 'they know everything about God' nonsense, nobody knows anything or everything about anything at all! We are ALL equally ignorant of true reality, we all just live in our own imaginative version of the universe, and we should spend more time sharing with positive and love rather than dividing with bullshit and schizm. Love goes even further than humility.

peace and love
habte selassie

"Evolution is a fact"
-Carl Sagan.

*shrug* good enough for me

Elaboration: I think it is a fact in that natural selection cannot be denied, that over the course of millions of years natural selection animals must inevitably evolve. There were some really interesting bits of the Cosmos series that spoke to the origins of life; millions of years ago when the earth was much different physically/chemically, the many different chemicals would combine to form different molecules that eventually grew so complex they began in effect replicating themselves (imagine it as something trying to reach equilibrium, but really I don't know all the science behind it).

I don't believe in any deity. The origins of life hardly matter. I'm personally more interested in the origin of the universe. In the end, it is all unknowable and not worth any conflict it should create(or perhaps not worth knowing should it be the cause of serious religious/secular struggles).

The problem is that the people behind the supposed "Intelligent Design" movement are largely fundamentalist wackjobs in sheep's clothing (which isn't too hard for them to find since they're always being told to be sheep anyway!) They aren't looking for a serious debate, or as you suggest a dualistic way of seeing things, they purely want to get "Creationism" taught in public schools as if it were science (which it isn't) as opposed to philosophy (which it is).

I'm with you that far too many scientists are reactionary to the other extreme, but it's the covert agenda of the "Intelligent Design" movement that brings that about.

Personally, I believe in an Abraxian higher power who doesn't necessarily have a lot of time for the little ants on this planet who are just learning to dodge the magnifying glass lens that intermediary forces/entities are aiming at us. Those that don't get fried are slightly smarter, or at least quicker, than the other little ants, and that's natural selection!

Why a higher power? Why not cut out the middle man? Can't the universe have always been?

i saw only a piece of that shit cuz i had to leave the house. there was this dumbfuck retired cop moron censoring science books on behalf of the school board. what a fucking dumbass fuck. retarded fucking moron. send him off to moron camp. who the fuck puts these turds in charge? on what authority? with what kind of qualifications? dumb, dumb, dumb fucking shitheads.

what suchfriends proposes in lines 2 and 3 is akin to the jesuitic interpretation of evolution. ah, jesuits-- without them, catholicism would be pure dumbfuckery, like that turd who was denying the holocaust the other day. it's the only perspective that makes sense if you want to stay religious and moderately reasonable.



thank you, and good night.

That would be the Abraxian higher power of which I speak. I believe the Universe to be conscious though on levels we can't begin to communicate with. The "always been" part, being a perfect example, because I don't know what that means at all, and neither do you. It's the whole damn chicken - egg conundrum (though of course the egg came first, since chickens evolved from Tyranosaurs!)

the Theory oF Evolution THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION does not discount the possibility of there being a god, or gods, or deities, but it DOES discount pretty much every single thing that has ever been said, written, or preached regarding the actual doings, achievements, creations, involvements of these aforementioned god, gods, deities, etc. that is why it scares the livin shit out of nearly everyone concerned with organized religion and making sure a new generation of humans keeps buying their bullshit.

Actually, it's not that threatening to Hinduism which has quite a few parallels. But yeah, it does make that Yaweh dude a lot more allegorical than most sheep can flock to.

as far as a personal day to day involvement in the universe and it's workings

Absolutely. Most mythical deities seem pretty puny when you consider this little planet to be the speck of dust it really is in the cosmos.

I quick dictionary and google search had yielded nothing. I still don't know what Abraxian actually means. In any case, I couldn't give myself over to such a credence simply because it would betray fundamental roots of common sense.

Truthfully, I don't see the difference in believing in a god, or a conscious universe.

Of course, I don't know what a universe that has always been means, but that is exactly why I have no belief on the matter. I think it is completely secular, there is no 'magic' behind it, and it can't be known. Why believe in anything? Speculation seems a lot more rational. All I know is that the universe is here, and that it obeys laws of physics and science. How it got here hardly matters (to my day to day life). It's all probably a bunch of math anyway.

And in any case, you don't know what an Abraxian higher power means since we can't even begin to communicate with it. Why must I know what a universe that has always been means?

The only rational of faith in God that I really respect is a personal existential dialectic of the unknown. This conception of God as the wisdom of the unknowable is largely irrelevant to the origin of the physical world (or I should say that the origin of the physical world is irrelevant to this God) as this God plays a role in being and nothing more. It's bad theology to suppose that an old man shat out the universe as is, God is a concept that frames being and, in turn, frames knowledge. Supposing it as an objective entity is to misunderstand the purpose of God, like a user of a computer using google in order to find that the user does or doesn't have fingers to type with.

Also it is weird talking about empiricist philosophers with scientists (or science enthusiasts). They take themselves so given that many are ignorant of what they are about!

You don't have to ask my permission not to know anything!

Abraxian was my personal extrapolation from Abraxas which is to say, that I am embracing the concept but not the individual myth. I draw more from Hesse's Demian than the Gnostic texts (which I haven't even read, but I guess that's where Hesse got the idea). Just that I don't think a power that is really universal (i.e. the universe) can be looked at as either "good" or "evil", because those are purely human concepts.

So yeah, just a personal myth based upon gut feeling and a way of looking at things. I put no more stock in it than you and your big questions that you pefer to not have answered unless it's by Stephen Hawking in a book without too much math. I look at things that way too, actually.

I wasn't asking permission. I was making some sort of point, I suppose.

I read Hesse's Siddhartha, a different AP lit class read Demian. I liked the former, and I've heard the latter is good.

But at any rate, we seem on the same page. Good night.

Ah, what is the sound of no fingers googling? Bravo!

I had to keep starting your post over while reading it because every time I saw the words, "God is a concept" I'd hear John Lennon singing my favorite song from the Plastic Ono Band!

"Concept" isn't the best word. What I may mean is that it is an a priori concept like time or space. As evidence suggests, there is no distinction between the two but that distinction is made anyway. Thus, God may or may not empirically exist but preconditions existence.

Somehow, knowing you really do have a goatee makes it alright!

I would have been stroking the beard but I can't type with one hand easily. :(

Ah, what is the sound of one hand stroking...?

They do.