Do you believe in Evolution?

[Flying_Monkey]

2/ Some dedicatedly believe they are the result of continuous improvement by 'natural selection'.

You do realise that 'natural selection' and 'improvement' are not the same thing, don't you? Whether you are trying to be funny or are just a bit odd, you seem to be getting the scientific theory of evolution mixed up with the pseudo-scientific 'social darwinism' of the late nineteenth century, which still seems to have a remarkable following (probably because it tells the kind of comforting story that religions do) of some kind of progress. It isn't just a question of being 'balanced' or saying 'I don't know' - we know enough to know that evolution functions. That does not however tell us anything about anything else (origins for instance).

 

[marinyork]

Of course not, as long as it's in RE and not science lessons.

Should we even have RE in schools? There are arguments on both sides of this.

 

[JamesMorgan]

It is interesting to observe that a simple question about science quickly become a debate on religion. If the original question was 'Do you believe in Creationism' or even 'Do you believe in God' then the responses would seem more appopriate. As for 'evolution' it depends on what is meant by the term. It is fairly universally accepted that species change over time, and ultimately new species will be formed (including our own). As to why this happens, there may be a number of theories. Clearly Darwin's theory of evolution is the most popular and for the time being has the concensus view on being most likely to be correct. However, science has repeatably shown that as knowledge develops, new theories will become prominant. Some of these will add sophistication to old theories (for example Einstein's theories of relativity vs Newton's laws), some will be a complete change to old theories (for example Copernius and rotation of the Earth around the Sun). So, if the question means is Darwin's theory of evolution correct, then all we can say is that is the most likely theory we have today but over time new theories are likely to develop that will supercede his theory. I wish schools would teach this approach, rather than simply teaching that Darwin's theory of evolution is fact.

One area that Darwin does not address (and potentially why there becomes an ongoing debate with the 'creationists') is how did life start in the first place. From a personal viewpoint I do struggle to see the great leap from a few organic chemicals floating around to forming the complexity of even the simplest lifeforms. It also seems a little suprising that the conditions to start life appear to no longer exist on the planet. I suspect that when this question is really answered, Darwin will appear to be a minor theory supporting the grand theory of the creation of life.

 

[rich p]

There are three types of people. The 'Thinkers', 'Doers' and the useless other third.



The 'Thinkers' open their mind to alternative theories and ask "Why?"



The 'Doers' do as the name implies, they "do" without question and very obediently.



The 'useless other third' were programmed to crash on Earth. That's the dreadful truth.





Notice the number 3 keeps cropping up. The number of points in an equilateral triangle. Two equilateral triangles constitutes the 'Star of David', thus giving it six points.

Six times the number of fingers and thumbs we have, gives sixty. The number of degrees in each corner of that equilateral triangle.

Sixty times six is three hundred and sixty, the number of degrees in the whole circle of the compass.



6*10*6*10*6*10*6*10*6*10*6 = 4,665,600,000 The approximate number of orbits this planet has made since its ( scientific ) creation.

In the equation, the number 6 appears 6 times. The six days of creation. ( One 'day' is 777,600,000 orbits )



The first 'civilisation' in Sumaria used the Sexagesimal ( base 60 ) counting system. How weird.

Excuse my rather coarse and atypical use of the vernacular but f*ck me, you do talk some sh*te.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Excuse my rather coarse and atypical use of the vernacular but f*ck me, you do talk some sh*te.

I visited the toilet six times yesteday. Surely that's got to mean something...

 

[Davidc]

Numbnuts, Tyred and anyone else who believes in God is perfectly entitled to do so, and simply being rude about their beliefs and religions is unnecessarily unpleasant. To argue for your own stance on religion or otherwise is the acceptable and polite way to address disagreement with other's views on the issue.

I don't think there's a god, and the scientific evidence for evolution is at a level where it should be referred to as a scientific Law. My total rejection of the concept of a God or Gods is not based on evolution, although that points in the right direction. If anything its basis is in physics, though I've been reading some of the recent mathematical work on complex systems and that is looking the strongest reason for rejecting the supernatural as a basis for anything. Even so complexity maths can only point to there being a diminishingly small probability of there being any coherent planned basis for the cosmos, it can (probably*) never prove it. That will always leave a tiny bit of room for belief, however improbable. Don't knock it - the believers might be right.

Because evolution is a scientific Theory (or Law) it is disprovable, so it might be wrong. (If it isn't disprovable it cannot be science). You can't believe in a scientific theory, you can only acknowledge that as yet no-one has disproved it.

Religeous belief (or faith) cannot be proven. Neither can it be disproved. If either of those conditions is met it ceases to be religious or faith.

*This type of maths can only show that as a system becomes more complex the more effectively it can work by distributed adaptive control and the less effectively it can work by centralised planned control. While that points strongly to the cosmos and everything in it evolving it can't rule out a planned creation - it just says that the latter is a chronically inefficient way to get here. I did see this sarcastically cited on an American web site as absolute proof that God exists!

 

[rich p]

I visited the toilet six times yesteday. Surely that's got to mean something...

Spooky indeed!

Perhaps I was too hasty in my dismissal - which I considered for 6 minutes, incidentally

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Spooky indeed!

Perhaps I was too hasty in my dismissal - which I considered for 6 minutes, incidentally

Wow that's amazing, I only thought about your post for six seconds before forgetting who you were entirely...

 

[Davidc]

Wow that's amazing, I only thought about your post for six seconds before forgetting who you were entirely...

careful FM - someone will put a hex on you

 

[Glow worm]

Would you be in favour of banning the teaching of the Bible?


I would to children. And the Qu' ran or whatever the hell it's called. And all the other bonkers texts for that matter. So many parents beat their children mentally with all the god-bothering and god-fearing crap, it makes them grow-up accepting that it must be true. If such mind f*cking is started at an early enough age then a child will just accept it.

My firmly held conviction is that when an adult abuses a child’s trust by forcing them to believe whichever mumbo jumbo their parents before them indoctrinated them into believing, then it's a destructive cycle that just goes on and on. And on.

A friend of mine wrote recently that 'religion takes away a child's rationality, the ability to work things out, to reason and to be self-reliant. Also, god-fearing is normally surrounded by terrible fears and intimidation. Rituals have to be strictly adhered to in order to ensure subjects self-hypnotise a reinforcement and become sheep-like and all accepting, some of these are natural sexual denials, others include physical abuse like removing parts of the body in order to appease a mad belief'. I couldn't agree more. It's bonkers.

He also states that 'religion comes with an irrational feeling of immortality with different places to visit after death instead of everything coming to a mortal end. Worse than this, religion comes with rivalry. Many different religions fight for control of their subjects and the conversion of subjects from other religions. They go to war about this. Global conflict is based primarily on one religion invading or attacking the controllers of a rival religion.

Now then. With all this fighting going on, some of us normal folk are picking up flack and shrapnel. The religious with their controlled and closed minds are holding us as a species back. Indeed, they sometimes put us normal folk in danger when we become the victims of their bombs and attacks on their rivals'.

I also hate the god concept because the only way for humanity to move forward is for us normal folk to try to shake the religiously bigoted into realising that there is no place for them in these freethinking days of equality and brotherhood. Those who wish to keep the god concept festering and alive in the heads of their subjects need to be called to account and stopped. Surely for the good of all it's time to remove all religions from human existance

And I don't buy any of that 'you must respect the religiot's views' stuff. For centuries these are the same folk who would not have thought twice about killing anyone who didn't buy into all their effing crap.
Sorry this is all a bit heavy for the cafe and has wandered away from the evolution vs lunacy debate - maybe this thread should be in the politics thing?

 

[darkstar]

Well said Tyred. I don't care either way either.

Well if everyone was like you, the human race would still be living in caves, I'm pretty grateful to the great scientists and inventors for not having the 'I don't care' attitude...

 

[mcshroom]

I would to children. And the Qu' ran or whatever the hell it's called. And all the other bonkers texts for that matter. So many parents beat their children mentally with all the god-bothering and god-fearing crap, it makes them grow-up accepting that it must be true. If such mind f*cking is started at an early enough age then a child will just accept it.

My firmly held conviction is that when an adult abuses a child’s trust by forcing them to believe whichever mumbo jumbo their parents before them indoctrinated them into believing, then it's a destructive cycle that just goes on and on. And on.

A friend of mine wrote recently that 'religion takes away a child's rationality, the ability to work things out, to reason and to be self-reliant. Also, god-fearing is normally surrounded by terrible fears and intimidation. Rituals have to be strictly adhered to in order to ensure subjects self-hypnotise a reinforcement and become sheep-like and all accepting, some of these are natural sexual denials, others include physical abuse like removing parts of the body in order to appease a mad belief'. I couldn't agree more. It's bonkers.

He also states that 'religion comes with an irrational feeling of immortality with different places to visit after death instead of everything coming to a mortal end. Worse than this, religion comes with rivalry. Many different religions fight for control of their subjects and the conversion of subjects from other religions. They go to war about this. Global conflict is based primarily on one religion invading or attacking the controllers of a rival religion.

Now then. With all this fighting going on, some of us normal folk are picking up flack and shrapnel. The religious with their controlled and closed minds are holding us as a species back. Indeed, they sometimes put us normal folk in danger when we become the victims of their bombs and attacks on their rivals'.

I also hate the god concept because the only way for humanity to move forward is for us normal folk to try to shake the religiously bigoted into realising that there is no place for them in these freethinking days of equality and brotherhood. Those who wish to keep the god concept festering and alive in the heads of their subjects need to be called to account and stopped. Surely for the good of all it's time to remove all religions from human existance

And I don't buy any of that 'you must respect the religiot's views' stuff. For centuries these are the same folk who would not have thought twice about killing anyone who didn't buy into all their effing crap.
Sorry this is all a bit heavy for the cafe and has wandered away from the evolution vs lunacy debate - maybe this thread should be in the politics thing?

... and in this tirade you have just shown a fundamentalist belief in the absence of any deity.


What you have just managed to do is say that you have a belief that God (or dog or whoever else) does not exist; thus because you don't believe then all religious teaching should be banned.

Is that not exactly the same as a religious fundamentalist who believes that they are right and therefore any other belief (including atheism) should be banned?

There are many things I don't believe in or believe are false, but I would not presume that this should mean I could dictate what others believe or do.

 

[buddha]

Last weekend I came off my bike.
Lying, in pain, in the middle of the road I didn't shout "Oh God!" or "Oh Buddha!" etc, etc. I said "Oh Sh!t"


So I pay homage to the deity of Sh!t

 

[mcshroom]

Last weekend I came off my bike.
Lying, in pain, in the middle of the road I didn't shout "Oh God!" or "Oh Buddha!" etc, etc. I said "Oh Sh!t"

So I pay homage to the deity of Sh!t

 

[jimboalee]

Well if everyone was like you, the human race would still be living in caves, I'm pretty grateful to the great scientists and inventors for not having the 'I don't care' attitude...

And where have they got us?

6,000,000,000 humans fighting and squabbling over gold, oil and land.

There's an old saying; "Necessity is the mother of invention". Some of the most prolific times of 'invention' were during wars.