General Debate 23 February 2010

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Chthoniid

Scott-

1. Yeast is not bacteria
2. Similarly, you are also woefully ignorant of what the theory of evolution actually is. It is a molecular change that occurs at the genetic level due to mutation and selection pressures.
We observe this all the time.

It is willfully and intellectually dishonest to set your only standard of proof as observed speciation, when you know that this is an event that occurs over tens of thousands of years. (We can certainly demonstrate it via cladistic trees & molecular markers- as has occurred with the Galapagos finches). I don’t for instance, demand that you provide eye-witnesses to the act of creation to prove Genesis is true.

While no-one knows the details of abiogenesis, that is not the same as saying we don’t have several good working scientific hypothesis- with biochemical and lab support- of how it could occur. Eventually we will be able to narrow it down. And you’re side-stepping the whole issue that the break between life and non-life is very, very weak. Technically viruses are not alive even though they exhibit many other characteristic of life.

I don’t agree that the latest conjecture is extra-terrestrial seeding. This conjecture has been around a long time and stubbornly resists support at a biochemical or elemental level.

Given your manifestations of actual knowledge of the science here, I wouldn’t be so sure that it the science that is the rubbish.
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February 24, 2010 2:33pm
virtualmark

Pete … from a theological point of view there’s no reason why evolution and the Bible can’t co-exist.

The key theological message in the Bible is that God created the world and created life. The description in the Bible of how he did it is unscientific and flowery – which shouldn’t be surprising given when and where it was written – but the Bible has lots of chapters of poetic, lyric and symbolic language and I’d contend the first chapter of Genesis is one of those. (that said, the Bible also has lots of chapters of quite clearly written prose too … and theology is in large part the academic study of which is which).

Theologically what would be important is the “who” of creation far more than the “how”.
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February 24, 2010 2:35pm
Chthoniid

– you know they’ve moved from science into the area of faith/religion.

No, science follows the evidence, produces predictions (such as the background radiation in the Universe) and explains a broad set of phenomenon (like the Hubble constant). The evidence points to an inflationary universe.

Faith survives in the absence of evidence, worships the absurd and fantastic, eschews prediction and accommodates paradoxes.

The ancient Greeks using science had worked out that the world was spherical, proposed heliocentric models of the solar system and calculated the circumference of the planet 2 centuries before Christ.

Christians were still burning people for heresy in the early 17th C for proposing heliocentric models that defied scripture and revelation.
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February 24, 2010 2:39pm
virtualmark

Pete … I agree that there’s no reason why any group of people should think they are more valuable or superior to any other group of people, whether that’s classified by race or religion or what colour their socks are.

The philosophical challenge for secular humanism is that if there is no intrinsic value in human life, if life is just some cosmic coincidence, then there is no meaning to life beyond self-fulfilment (hedonism) and there is no tragedy if life is lost.

That’s why Camus wrote “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide”. Camus is being intellectually honest to his beliefs. But it is a pretty bleak outlook to live your life by.
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February 24, 2010 2:40pm
Chthoniid

And in other news, religious people starve 1 year old to death for disobedience
http://www.smh.com.au/world/baby-who-failed-to-say-amen-starved-by-cult-court-20100223-ovav.html

Make me laugh, go on, tell me how Christianity makes people moral.

How can you claim atheism is evil when men of faith can do this.
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February 24, 2010 2:46pm
Pete George

from a theological point of view there’s no reason why evolution and the Bible can’t co-exist.

I agree. The Bible is actually a chosen collection of texts. If looked at in a historical context there were a lot of interesting and useful things written. It is useful to many people now, and many of those people accept the science of evolution to various degrees.

No one has any proof of how “the universe” came to be, and we may never have any proof. The only difference between me and someone who is religious is that religious people try to apply names and explanations and reasons to it.

I believe something along the lines of cosmic coincidence, and suppose it’s possible it was inevitable. At the same time I think life has value, and it can be a tragedy when a life is lost (granddaughter in utero last year), but not always (my father when his time was up a decade ago) – sad but accepted as a reasonable outcome.

I’d like my life to be as good as possible (while it lasts), and also wish the same for my family and friends and anyone else. So I’m staunch on not committing suicide, yet.
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February 24, 2010 2:53pm
virtualmark

Chthoniid …

First, I wouldn’t claim that atheism is evil.

Second, the word “cult” sprinkled liberally throughout this article should be a flag to any unemotive reader that these people were unhinged, and it’d be unfair to hold them up as an example of anything other than psychologically damaged people who need help.

Third, where in the Christian belief (since you refer to Christianity … I suspect no straight-thinking Christian church would have had anything to do with these people) does it endorse starving children (or adults for that matter) if they don’t say “Amen”? Where is that a part of Christian belief.

Fourth, if there is no God and there is no objective communal right or wrong … only your individual right and wrong … then who is to say that this is a tragedy? Why is this child starving to death “evil”? Secular humanism says this child was just a collection of atoms that existed for a period but which had no intrinsic value as a human life. Why are you upset about its death? What philosophical basis do you have for feeling this is evil?
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February 24, 2010 2:57pm
virtualmark

Chthoniid, the real philosophical challenge for all of us is this …

When a crazy cult starves a 1 year old to death it is a perversion of Christian belief, and not an authentic example of Christianity.

When Stalin kills 10 million people (give or take) it is the logical rational outcome of secular humanistic belief.

That is the ugly truth.
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February 24, 2010 3:06pm
Pete George

When Stalin kills 10 million people (give or take) it is the logical rational outcome of secular humanistic belief.

Why? If I see “secular humanism is a life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead good, happy and functional lives” and think that sounds ok, why should I be grouped with Stalin and his excesses? That doesn’t seem logical or rational.
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February 24, 2010 3:26pm
virtualmark

Pete … who says that secular humanism is a life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead good, happy and functional lives???

You may well want it to mean that. And I happily accept that you are a nice person who would like to live your life like that. But – and this is a genuine question – how do you philosophically get from “secular humanism” to “good, happy and functional lives”?

In a secular humanistic world how do you define “good”?

Why are you good and why is Stalin bad?

You may not like what Stalin did – I don’t either. But in a secular humanistic world his morals and his point of view are every bit as valid and equal as your morals and your point of view. Except he’s stronger and more ruthless than you and would kill you. Just like the weakest springbok in the herd gets eaten by the lions. And human life is no different from a springboks.
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February 24, 2010 3:36pm
virtualmark

Try it this way …

Start with the statement “There are no gods”.

End with the statement “That is why I am good and Stalin is evil. QED.”

Take as many intermediate steps as you think you need, as long as they are all internally consistent and consistent with your opening statement.

If you can get there then you’re a greater philosopher than Bertrand Russell, to name just one example.
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February 24, 2010 3:39pm
virtualmark

Playing devils advocate (for Christianity!?) …

1. There is a God.
2. God said “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13)
3. I have not murdered anyone.
4. Stalin murdered at least 10 million people (directly and indirectly).
5. That is why I am good and Stalin is evil. QED.
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February 24, 2010 3:43pm
Scott

Okay chaps –Chthoniid — sorry yeast, not bacteria — point taken.

However we still don’t have one really good example of evolution in action. Yeast that remains yeast simply won’t do. This scientific fact, we still don’t have one good example. Just give me one? Something becoming something else. If the molecules to man theory of evolution is true, then there must be one good well researched example that has stood the test of time? Anyone?

But let me for the sake of argument agree with the rest of your positions. Evolution doesn’t cover how the universe began and how the Earth was formed. It doesn’t cover the origin of life and (surprisingly to me) it doesn’t even cover the beginning of life — how life evolved from nonlife. So let’s agree on that.

And furthermore since these things didn’t evolve, let’s agree that the universe was created by God in six days, including the earth and including the first form of life. I am happy to agree on that?

If we all happy so far I say — excellent! — I think we have made real progress today.
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February 24, 2010 3:43pm
virtualmark

Scott … I suspect the scientists response would be to point out that evolution can only be observed over quite long time-spans, indeed probably longer than our human lifespans.

What’s hard to get your head around is the immense timeframes involved. Millions of years.

As an example … New Zealand is moving across the face of the globe about as fast as your fingernails are growing. Once upon a time New Zealand was contiguous with Australia. How many years do you need to form the Tasman Sea if you move at fingernail pace? Is it any surprise that we have only just very recently been able to measure that movement?
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February 24, 2010 3:52pm
Chthoniid

@virtualmark

Your arguments are simply not logical.

Take your position on Xtianity:
P1: True Xtians only do good things
P2: Someone who said they were Xtian did a bad thing
C: The person wasn’t a true Xtian.

(cf. the fact that in the UK, Xtians are wildly over-represented in sex crimes).

All you have done is a dishonest sleight of hand to immunise Xtians from the accusation that they could ever lead to bad things.

Take your position on Stalin.
P1: Stalin was an atheist
P2: Stalin was a bad person
P3: Hitler was a bad person also, but I’ve already constructed my argument to deny he was a true Xtian
C: All atheists will become bad people (or promote an evil society)

There is nothing in this argument that follows. You haven’t proved anything, nor established your inevitable ugly fact. Stalin also had a beard, he also was a communist. You just have some unconnected facts.

You’re engaging in a non sequitur that is becoming increasingly tiresome.

You have also repeatedly fenced off evolutionary or contractarian explanations for socal behaviour, and again I’m having trouble with these evasions.

A simple contractarian argument would be posing the question of whether you would like to live in a society where people were no different to animals or had the same rights as chattels (especially if you risked being an animal or chattel). Assuming you would prefer to live in a society where you were ‘special’ or had ‘rights’, then that society can be justified on rational moral grounds.
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February 24, 2010 3:54pm
Pete George

1. There is no God.
2. I say “I shall not murder anyone”
3. I have not murdered anyone.
4. Stalin murdered at least 10 million people (directly and indirectly).
5. That is why I am not as bad as Stalin.
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February 24, 2010 4:08pm
Chthoniid

Scott, if you refuse to understand what evolution is and why it has been unequivocal demonstrated in the paper I cited, then all you are doing is arguing from ignorance, with some rhetorical flashes to evade the gaping absence of evidence of the biblical accounts.

The actual facts are that there are many observations about the natural world and the universe that support and mesh with scientific models. There is nothing that supports biblical accounts. Dogma may bolster your confidence in the fantastic and absurd, but it remains fantastic and absurd.
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February 24, 2010 4:08pm
virtualmark

Chtoniid …

Just because someone says they are something doesn’t mean they are it. Mark Bryers said he was an honest businessman. Blue Chip investors now think not. “Queen Antoinette” from your SMH story may have said she was a Christian. But where in her actions is anything consistent with Christianity???

You are either (i) overly trusting on taking people’s claims at face value, in which case I have a bridge to sell to you, or (ii) wilfully pointing to people you know are unrepresentative strawmen to prop up a fallacious argument.

I see no problem in saying that Christian’s will do bad things. They will lie, rob and cheat like all of us do. That is completely uncontroversial in Christian theology. So I am not seeking to immunise Christians from the accusation they have done bad things.

But I’m also mature enough to accept that some peoples repeated ongoing pattern of behaviour is inconsistent with published Christian beliefs, and at that point I’m intelligent enough to question their true commitment to Christianity rather than question Christianity itself.

Neither have I argued your second conclusion, that All atheists will become bad people. What I have argued in fact is that atheists have no moral philosophical basis for deciding who is bad and who is good. They can only decide whether their own actual behaviour is “good” or “bad” when measured against their own standards of behaviour.

I have only fenced off evolutionary explanations for social behaviour in terms of saying, look there’s competing views on this and I find the weight of evidence for the contrarian view – that people are inherently selfish – overwhelming. Where was Hamilton’s views on social evolution during the Stanford prison experiment? Why didn’t all the participants in that experiment hold hands and sing Kumbaya?

Have a go at the challenge I posed at 3:39. You may need some time though.
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February 24, 2010 4:08pm
virtualmark

Pete …

Your step 2 doesn’t bind your step 4 🙂 I think what you meant to say was:

1. There is no God.
2. I say “I shall not murder anyone”
3. I have not murdered anyone.
4. Stalin said “I shall murder anyone I like”
5. Stalin murdered at least 10 million people (directly and indirectly).
6. That is why I didn’t murder anyone and Stalin did.
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February 24, 2010 4:13pm
Pete George

let’s agree that the universe was created by God in six days,

That’s not simple.

What is “the universe”?
What is “God”?
Whose god?
What was a day before the sun was created?
How long was a day before the sun was created?
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February 24, 2010 4:13pm
Fale Andrew Lesa

Chtoniid,

It is not as if the theory of evolution is flawless either, evolutionists who support the theory whole heartedly are scientifically ignorant and blind. Such evolutionists are motivated by articles of faith, not science, and should be treated as religionists who believe in the theory of evolution, not scientists. Scientists, after all, question and disprove prevailing theories, proposing new ones in their stead.

Do me a favour and research the following: Archaeoraptor Scandal (China 1999), the Piltdown man, Nebraska man, the Java man, Peking man, the disproved existence of the Brontosaurus, etc.
I should point out that these evolutionary flaws, forgeries and deceit are withheld from the secondary school curriculum for scientific subjects: students are not taught these interesting artifacts on your beloved theory and I doubt that they ever will.
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February 24, 2010 4:18pm
Pete George

– that people are inherently selfish –

Probably. Mostly. I think that I am mostly selfish.

But some of that selfishness can present as selflessness. Like if I get a kick out of suffering for someone else’s benefit. Soon I will mow the lawn. I will suffer heat and dehydration and tiredness. My wife will probably say “It looks so much tidier now”.

Some people go as far as making the ultimate sacrifice, they give their life to save another. That is hardly selfish. I wouldn’t rule out doing it in the right circumstances.
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February 24, 2010 4:23pm
Pete George

It is not as if the theory of evolution is flawless either

Has anyone claimed that?

evolutionists who support the theory whole heartedly

Who does that?

virtualmark, I get what you are angling at, mostly. It’s interesting stuff. We might discover the answer about the time we discover what went bang where.
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February 24, 2010 4:26pm
Scott

Hi Pete — “Let’s agree that the universe was created by God in six days,
That’s not simple.
What is “the universe”?
What is “God”?
Whose god?
What was a day before the sun was created?
How long was a day before the sun was created?”

In answer to your questions — what is the universe?

Is that a point at issue? The whole physical universe, the whole thing, time and space — I imagine Christians and atheists and evolutionists would agree on a definition wouldn’t we? Christians would add I guess , there is a place outside of space and time, where God dwells. So there is a spiritual foundation to life. I guess atheists would say the physical universe is all there is.

What is God?
The God of the Bible.

Whose god?
The one supremely revealed in Jesus Christ.

What was the day before the sun was created?
The “day” as written in Genesis 1, I would contend refers to a 24-hour period. So there was evening and there was morning. God can create light prior to actually having a physical sun.

I think Genesis provides a pretty good account of how things were created. And seeing as you don’t believe evolutionary theory covers these things, I think we are all agreeing on special creation. Great!

Anyway must go — I have to work and you guys have to go to Bible study.
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February 24, 2010 4:40pm
Pete George

I guess atheists would say the physical universe is all there is.

I would expect that there are different views on that. I don’t know what it is. Is the universe “the whole thing”? Is it one of a bunch of multiverses? Is it a subset of a greater macroverse? Is it half, with a twin reverseverse?? Is it nothing but a figment of my imagination?

God can create light prior to actually having a physical sun.

Like, do you think God started with moonlight?

And seeing as you don’t believe evolutionary theory covers these things, I think we are all agreeing on special creation.

This is the old “if you can’t prove something else then my belief must be true” trick. The obvious weakness of that being you can’t prove anything about any of your fantastic story. So I have no reason to believe it.
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February 24, 2010 4:56pm
Kris K

DARWINISM, MARXISM & REVOLUTION

You know when the likes of Fredrich Engels, Karl Marx, and Leon Trotsky sing the praises of Darwinism/Evolutionary Theory that you have to pause and ask some pretty serious questions about the motives behind those, including Darwin, who push this theory:

[Excerpt from Eve’s Bite pp17] “Darwin, who I am now reading, is splendid”, wrote Fredrich Engels in a letter to Marx soon after ‘On the Origin of Species’ was published in 1859. Both communists could identify with the “survival of the fittest”, and saw that the biological ideas advanced by Darwin could equally be imposed on society at large.

The theme was later elaborated on by Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who first of all explained why atheism was crucial in the education system:

Religiousness is irreconcilable with the Marxian standpoint. We are of the opinion that atheism, as an inseparable element of the materialist view of life, is a necessary condition for the theoretical education of the revolutionist. He who believes in another world is not capable of concentrating all his passion on the transformation of this one.

Trotsky then wrote that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution must be taught in state schools, not because it is a good theory but because it makes belief in God impossible – and that was the supreme aim of Marxism:

[DARWINISM AND MARXISM]

Darwinism itself is none the less entirely irreconcilable with this belief. In this, as in other respects, Darwinism is a forerunner, a preparation for Marxism. Taken in a broadly materialist and dialectic sense, Marxism is the application of Darwinism to human society.

Darwinism is actually the mechanism by which societal values and belief in God are transformed/removed, and thus paves the way for Secular Humanism and Socialism/Marxism to reign supreme. The state is now the new ‘God’, and the elite that rule it are demi-gods which are not to be questioned and must be worshiped as well.

I guess Marx, Trotsky and Darwin ALL got their dreams to eventually come true.
Those that blindly follow Evolution must question whether there is an overarching agenda behind it and ask why exactly must Evolution not be questioned – and those (scientists) that do often find themselves scorned, without funding, and often out of a career for daring to challenge the religious precepts of Evolution and its high priests.
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February 24, 2010 4:59pm
Pete George

Your pedestalistic ideas seem to be clouding your vision Kris. Just because some people like to look up to priests and bishops and popes and saints and gods doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same way. My ideal government is far from being a god, it is an administrator working alongside people who value and act on individual and family and community responsibilities. I’d prefer a small efficient government that carries out the obvious on behalf of the people, out of the limelight.

But things don’t work like that. We have governments who want to become bigger and more powerful, we have companies wanting to become bigger and more powerful, we have religions that want to become bigger and more powerful.

So we have to work towards some sort of pragmatic compromise. WE. The people. Not just sit back and expect the government and companies and religions to sort out everything and then complain when they do anything.
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February 24, 2010 5:14pm
Chthoniid

@virtualmark

I’m sorry, you’re the one making the absurd claim based on shonky premises. There are certainly evolutionary reasons for social behaviour & moral rules, as most social animals (ants etc) also exhibit them. I’m not convinced you are familiar with either Hamilton or Trivers.

Contractarianism does also generate rational reasons for the existence of moral rules. Note that other social conventions such as languages, & market behaviour have also evolved/developed over time in human societies, there is nothing special or unique about moral rules. Moral rules are just evidence of moral rules, nothing more.

@Fale Andrew Lesa

Nobody has ever claimed that evolution is flawless. Rather the investigative methods are self-correcting and adapts to new knowledge. Fakes get detected and thrown out. Brontosaurus is real, just under the rules of zoological nomenclature the scientific name depends on who first describes it. So it’s just had a name change to Apatosaurus.

What is being avoided is the simple fact that creationism is empty of predictive content & explanation. There are no scientific papers being published in peer reviewed journals. It has no scientific content. There is no agreement amongst creationists how long a day is, whether the sequence of events should be taken literally, why invasive species should outcompete natives, how flightless birds got to NZ before all the snakes and mammals did, why we have 3.2bn genes when only 25000 are needed to make us, why we have a gene to grow a tail identical to mice, why we share the most ERV’s with chimps, why we have the same broken vitamin C gene as most other chimps, why our appendix opening is too small, why the geological column and fossil record produce no evidence of a great flood, when the first life was created, why God made 20bn galaxies just to give us one small solar system for life, why the universe is flat, why we can’t inhabit most of the earth’s surface because it’s undersea, underwater, too cold, too dry or too high, why we’re so vulnerable to UV radiation when the planet is bathed in the stuff, why dinosaurs went extinct, why termites would be designed morphologically and socially to eat wood, but God just ‘forgot’ to give them the enzymes to digest wood, why most animals down to invertebrates share the same Pax6 gene, why kiwis only have half a wing, why diseases and insect pests develop resistance to pesticides, why our eye is designed with a blind spot, why the earth’s crust has 27,000 times more carbon biomass stored in than total global biomass today, why we can only see such a minor part of the visible light spectrum (IR would be rally handy), why the Hubble constant… just off the top of my head 😉
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February 24, 2010 5:31pm
Ryan Sproull

But let me for the sake of argument agree with the rest of your positions. Evolution doesn’t cover how the universe began and how the Earth was formed. It doesn’t cover the origin of life and (surprisingly to me) it doesn’t even cover the beginning of life — how life evolved from nonlife. So let’s agree on that.

And furthermore since these things didn’t evolve, let’s agree that the universe was created by God in six days, including the earth and including the first form of life. I am happy to agree on that?

Scott,

I would have been more interested in your response to my questions about “meaning”.

I have no reason to believe that something you call God created the universe in six days, kicking off the process of evolution as part of creation. But there’s certainly nothing inconsistent about you believing that and believing that the theory of evolution best describes the mechanism by which the diversity of life came about after God started the ball rolling.
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February 24, 2010 5:35pm
virtualmark

Chthoniid … I’m familiar enough with Hamilton et al to know that they are what Richard Dawkins is referring to when he says:

However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. ‘Special’ and ‘limited’ are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.

If you still disagree, and believe that mankind would develop and hold to a workable communal moral code all on its own then when Dawkins says:

My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop it being true.

Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

is that because Richard Dawkins doesn’t understand evolution? Or is it because he doesn’t understand atheism?
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February 24, 2010 7:49pm
Hurf Durf

Another GD thread ruined by religious to-and-fro just because Delirium loves them so much.
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February 24, 2010 8:56pm