Goddit versus Evolution

[calamity]

I heard something on the Herman Caine radio show that made me shake my head. mostly because I know it's believed by many. "God made men and women."

Uh, no. Sex evolved. God didn't do it. Just like God did not create humans, we evolved...from the same ancestor as did the apes. In fact, God, if it even exists, did not do squat. Almost everything can be quite reasonably explained without the need to pull a god out of your hat.

 

[TheGoverness]

I heard something on the Herman Caine radio show that made me shake my head. mostly because I know it's believed by many. "God made men and women."

Uh, no. Sex evolved. God didn't do it. Just like God did not create humans, we evolved...from the same ancestor as did the apes. In fact, God, if it even exists, did not do squat. Almost everything can be quite reasonably explained without the need to pull a god out of your hat.

Was he making some anti-evolution argument, or an anti-gay one?

 

[Fishking]

I heard something on the Herman Caine radio show that made me shake my head. mostly because I know it's believed by many. "God made men and women."

Uh, no. Sex evolved. God didn't do it. Just like God did not create humans, we evolved...from the same ancestor as did the apes. In fact, God, if it even exists, did not do squat. Almost everything can be quite reasonably explained without the need to pull a god out of your hat.

Do you have anything unique to bring to the discussion or are you just making a public statement of your atheism and your disdain for those who believe in religion?

 

[ashurbanipal]

How do you know God didn't do anything? Nothing about evolution, or any other accepted theory in science, rules out divine action. For that matter, we have no final explanations of anything--evolution certainly gives us no final answers.

 

[CMPancake]

How do you know God didn't do anything? Nothing about evolution, or any other accepted theory in science, rules out divine action. For that matter, we have no final explanations of anything--evolution certainly gives us no final answers.

Evolution certainly rules out the Abarahmic take on the origin of the world.

 

[zyzygy]

How do you know God didn't do anything? Nothing about evolution, or any other accepted theory in science, rules out divine action. For that matter, we have no final explanations of anything--evolution certainly gives us no final answers.

Why rule in divine action?

 

[TheGoverness]

Evolution certainly rules out the Abarahmic take on the origin of the world.

Yep. The Earth ain't 6,000 years old.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Evolution certainly rules out the Abarahmic take on the origin of the world.

Well, it rules out the literal view of Genesis 1-3 that so many evangelicals push these days. But that view is an aberation in the history of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought. It wasn't unusual for medieval theologians, for example, to ponder the age of the earth, and to suppose it was inconceivably old (Aquinas, for example, rejects the notion that anyone knew the age of the earth).

 

[ashurbanipal]

Why rule in divine action?

There are plenty of reasons people believe in God, and some of those are reasonable reasons. It's reasonable for a mystic who has seen God to believe in God, for example.

That said, note that this is an extension of the OP, which attempts to rule out divine action. My point was simply that there's no basis to do so.

 

[Spartacus FPV]

How do you know God didn't do anything? Nothing about evolution, or any other accepted theory in science, rules out divine action. For that matter, we have no final explanations of anything--evolution certainly gives us no final answers.

There is no such thing as evidence of a negative. An entity cannot leave evidence of its non-interaction. There is no reason to invoke a god when the science already explains things.

 

[CMPancake]

Well, it rules out the literal view of Genesis 1-3 that so many evangelicals push these days. But that view is an aberation in the history of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought. It wasn't unusual for medieval theologians, for example, to ponder the age of the earth, and to suppose it was inconceivably old (Aquinas, for example, rejects the notion that anyone knew the age of the earth).

So if we can mutually agree that the very first chapters of the Bible can be demonstrably proven false then can we also agree it is absurd to look at the rest of the text and wish it is not false as well?

 

[zyzygy]

There are plenty of reasons people believe in God, and some of those are reasonable reasons. It's reasonable for a mystic who has seen God to believe in God, for example.

That said, note that this is an extension of the OP, which attempts to rule out divine action. My point was simply that there's no basis to do so.

The lack of any credible evidence is a good basis.

 

[zyzygy]

Why are we only discussing one god? All religions have their creation myths.

 

[ttwtt78640]

I heard something on the Herman Caine radio show that made me shake my head. mostly because I know it's believed by many. "God made men and women."

Uh, no. Sex evolved. God didn't do it. Just like God did not create humans, we evolved...from the same ancestor as did the apes. In fact, God, if it even exists, did not do squat. Almost everything can be quite reasonably explained without the need to pull a god out of your hat.

Care to list some of those exceptions and why they point to God as their cause/creator?

 

[CrabCake]

So if we can mutually agree that the very first chapters of the Bible can be demonstrably proven false then can we also agree it is absurd to look at the rest of the text and wish it is not false as well?

It can't be proven false. Certain ignorant ways of reading it can be proven incorrect, but that doesn't make a correct reading of it false. Can we disprove all Nietzschean philosophy wrong by proving that the events in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" did not really occur? Can we disprove all Randian philosophy wrong by proving that the events in "Atlas Shrugged" never occurred? Can we disprove Dostoyevsky's views on faith and doubt by showing that the events in "The Brothers Karamazov" did not actually occur?

Of course you can't disprove any of that, that's not how you evaluate allegorical works.

 

[calamity]

Was he making some anti-evolution argument, or an anti-gay one?

Anti-feminist, trying to explain that men and women are different.

 

[calamity]

Care to list some of those exceptions and why they point to God as their cause/creator?

I would probably just point to them being unresolved. I doubt there can be a logical argument made for god being the answer to those unknowns.

 

[calamity]

How do you know God didn't do anything? Nothing about evolution, or any other accepted theory in science, rules out divine action. For that matter, we have no final explanations of anything--evolution certainly gives us no final answers.

Because there is no need to pull god out of a hat to explain those things.

 

[TheGoverness]

Anti-feminist, trying to explain that men and women are different.

Well men and women are different, but God's not the reason why that is.

 

[ttwtt78640]

I would probably just point to them being unresolved. I doubt there can be a logical argument made for god being the answer to those unknowns.

The belief in a power greater than ourselves, and even attributing a name to that power, is not denying that other explanations may be valid for certain things. Are you now "probably" changing your OP tune and doubting that God is a reasonable possible cause for some of "those unknowns"?

 

[CMPancake]

It can't be proven false.

Genesis can be proven false. Hyperbole and claims of the supernatural can also be proven false when we have no demonstrable proof they ever happened.

Certain ignorant ways of reading it can be proven incorrect, but that doesn't make a correct reading of it false.

I'm tickled by the notion there's more than one way to reading and comprehending something like a book. Why is a literal understanding of the bible inaccurate?

Can we disprove all Nietzschean philosophy wrong by proving that the events in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" did not really occur? Can we disprove all Randian philosophy wrong by proving that the events in "Atlas Shrugged" never occurred? Can we disprove Dostoyevsky's views on faith and doubt by showing that the events in "The Brothers Karamazov" did not actually occur?

If any of those cited examples promised an accurate, infallable truth to their books then yes, we could refute them. But to your dismay, they do not.

Of course you can't disprove any of that, that's not how you evaluate allegorical works.

It's not my job to believe the words of bronze age goat herders, but rather their job to present credible proof of a divine entity and proof to their historical accounts.

But of course if your claim is that the bible is all just allegory what use is it anyway? The word of a book made up of fairy tales is no more credible than a Dr Seuss book.

 

[CrabCake]

I'm tickled by the notion there's more than one way to reading and comprehending something like a book. Why is a literal understanding of the bible inaccurate?

This is something you usually learn by high school. Allegorical works like Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm are often assigned to middle schoolers and good teachers will go into the meaning of the work and not just the surface story. So, if this notion tickles you...maybe you should have paid more attention in English class.

https://literarydevices.net/allegory/
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events.

It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson.

If any of those cited examples promised an accurate, infallable truth to their books then yes, we could refute them. But to your dismay, they do not.

Neither does the bible. As has already been pointed out to you, such literal readings are fairly new and limited to some small pockets of evangelicalism.

If decades from now, some groups started teaching that Brothers Karamazov, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or Atlas Shrugged are historical narratives...should we discard everything those books have to say on that basis alone? Of course not! It would make more sense to discard the new, uninformed, way of reading those works instead and return to the traditional way of reading them.

But of course if your claim is that the bible is all just allegory what use is it anyway? The word of a book made up of fairy tales is no more credible than a Dr Seuss book.

That isn't my claim to begin with. But even if it were, you are incorrect in claiming that something is "just allegory". The fact it is allegorical means it is more than just the surface story, not less than. Allegory is deployed precisely because of its ability to put a point across in a more profound way than a mere essay could.

An essay is not less valuable than an allegorical work. Books of the bible that employ allegory are as valuable as the ones that employ: narrative, poetry, letters, or apocalyptic writing. There are a wide variety of literary devices used in the bible that are all of great value.

 

[CMPancake]

This is something you usually learn by high school. Allegorical works like Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm are often assigned to middle schoolers and good teachers will go into the meaning of the work and not just the surface story. So, if this notion tickles you...maybe you should have paid more attention in English class.

https://literarydevices.net/allegory/
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events.

It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson.



Neither does the bible. As has already been pointed out to you, such literal readings are fairly new and limited to some small pockets of evangelicalism.

If decades from now, some groups started teaching that the events in Brothers Karamazov, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or Atlas Shrugged literally ocurred...should we discard everything those books have to say on that basis alone? Of course not, it would make more sense to discard the new, uninformed way of reading those books as if they were historical narratives instead.



That isn't my claim.

Your claim, as I understamd it is "you can't disprove god because the bible is a bunchof allegories." Is this incorrect, care to sum up your claim, or make an actual claim? Or would you rather fiddle **** around the bush and make no actual claim so you don't have to make an argument to support your beliefs?

 

[CrabCake]

Your claim, as I understamd it is "you can't disprove god because the bible is a bunchof allegories." Is this incorrect, care to sum up your claim, or make an actual claim? Or would you rather fiddle **** around the bush and make no actual claim so you don't have to make an argument to support your beliefs?

I'll enumerate my claims to see if that makes it easier for you:

1. We don't mutually agree that the first chapters of the bible are false, we only agree that they do not constitute a historical narrative.
2. Genesis was never meant to constitute a historical narrative and hasn't been interpreted in that way throughout most of history.
3. This does not mean that what Genesis is actually trying to teach isn't true any more than the fact that the Brothers Karamazov didn't occur doesn't mean that Dostoyevsky's points on belief and unbelief, the power of forgiveness, etc. are invalid or untrue.
4. The fact advanced literary devices were employed throughout the bible doesn't make the sections that employ those devices less valuable.

 

[ashurbanipal]

So if we can mutually agree that the very first chapters of the Bible can be demonstrably proven false then can we also agree it is absurd to look at the rest of the text and wish it is not false as well?

Not exactly. That one part is false wouldn't mean other parts are false. But anyway, why do you think it's false?

I'm tickled by the notion there's more than one way to reading and comprehending something like a book. Why is a literal understanding of the bible inaccurate?

Hmmmm...it might be because for thousands of years before and after the verses in question, the tradition and culture in which they were written did not tend to take very much writing literally at all. The Bible is full of stories which are later explained as allegories within the text itself. Heck, your own posts cannot be taken truly literally--notions cannot literally tickle anyone, for example.

The notion that a contemporary person can read a translation of the Bible colored by 2,000-plus years of theology and understand it by reading it literally is downright silly.