Does Evolution Have a Purpose?

[Smilin]

Originally Posted by Watser?

Imma go over to the coffeeshop and have some deep discussions there...

Some of that "big toe" coffee you drink...

[Adam]

Out of my head, Garnet!

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by Smilin

Some of that "big toe" coffee you drink...

Coffeeshops don't sell any actual coffee

[Smilin]

NOW THAT certainly has its purpose!

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Garnet

Right. And what is gravity's opinion on this?

it's keeping a lid on it.

[Garnet]

Originally Posted by Adam

Out of my head, Garnet!

[GodPossessed]

Originally Posted by Adam

Out of my head, Garnet!

There seems to be a glich in the Matrix

[GodPossessed]

I've recently discovered that naturalists and I have been talking past each other. How could I have been so blind? I seemed to have been missing key words in their arguments. When they tell me things like "science can demonstrate that dead people don't come back to life" there is an unspoken, and assumed by natural means at the end. Forgive my insensativity. I know that none of the naturalists in here would violate magisteria to comment dogmatically about the miraculous or the possibility thereof.

[Rocky]

Evolution's primary purpose apparently is to give atheists something to believe in. It's their religion.

[Naru]

Originally Posted by Rocky

Evolution's primary purpose apparently is to give atheists something to believe in. It's their religion.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by Rocky

Evolution's primary purpose apparently is to give atheists something to believe in. It's their religion.

LOL

Your bus has arrived



Thanks for playing!

[Joshua Adams]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

we evolve (usually) to better adapt to our environment.

i think what Iacchus might be getting at is why does that happen at all?

If you're asking seriously, it's because of the deep connection between adaptedness and the ability to contribute to the next generation.

Those who adapt better leave more offspring, who (and this is the salient point) inherit their parents' adaptations. Those who are not well adapted tend to die off, or can't find a mate, perhaps--hence, once their time runs out their genes are removed from the gene pool. As a result, the next generation consists of a higher proportion of those well adapted individuals than the preceding one.

Obviously this is all "on average" since even the most fit organism can encounter a freak accident, or something. But since we're dealing with long time spans, it evens out along the pattern you'd expect. Even if the "bad genes" live to see another generation, they're just competing with more and more of the "good" ones... it's only a matter of time.

There's no need for anyone to set things up to work this way, because it's not arbitrary. Maybe the exact strength of the gravitational constant is arbitrary (perhaps not, though)--with something like that, it makes sense to ask why it is the way it is. But with evolution, things just can't work out any other way.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

There's no need for anyone to set things up to work this way, because it's not arbitrary.

that sounds more like there must be a need if it's not arbitrary.

personally, i don't care either way. i think it's stupid from all angles to debate strongly where we come from...that attention could be better used elsewhere...like where we're going.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Naruto

it doesn't seem retarded when it gets to the point that people argue it should be taught in schools. leave evolution for later on in high school as an elective or for university. if you use evolution to battle intelligent design...you're religious...because evolution could be the intelligent design and speculating that it isn't, is the same frame of mind as some god fundie...you're saying things you don't know.

[Joshua Adams]

Originally Posted by ITSOZ

that sounds more like there must be a need if it's not arbitrary.

Arbitrary means it could have been different than it is, though. This at least admits the possibility that someone made a decision about the matter, causing it to be one way and not another.

For something that's not arbitrary, it just logically has to be that way. Hence, no being could have made it that way. That would be like saying God decided to make 2+2=4. He didn't decide it, it precedes him. At best, his involvement with evolution would be to set up the initial conditions and let it run. He might interfere with evolution by, like, killing off all the fit organisms and letting the unfit reign. He might be tinkering with things all the time, although there's zero evidence for this. But he didn't set up the logic behind natural selection.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

it doesn't seem retarded when it gets to the point that people argue it should be taught in schools. leave evolution for later on in high school as an elective or for university. if you use evolution to battle intelligent design...you're religious...because evolution could be the intelligent design and speculating that it isn't, is the same frame of mind as some god fundie...you're saying things you don't know.

No-one I've heard of uses evolution primarily to battle intelligent design. Schools teach evolution because schools teach science and people battle intelligent design in the classroom because it isn't science. The argument that defending educaion against religion-inspired attacks on science itself constitutes religion is just fucking retarded. Its not religion. Its doesn't remotely resemble religion.

Its also fucking retarded to suggest that intelligent design represents a credible alternative to evolution. It doesn't. Its just Stupid and Ignorant writ large and the battle against it is a battle against stupidity and ignorance. Arguing that hostility to intelligent design is informed by religious fervour is no different from arguing that hostility to flat-earthism, terracentrism or sympathetic magic is informed by religious fervour. IOW its so fucking dumb the only reason intelligent and informed people bother arguing is that there are sufficient numbers of stupid and ignorant people in the world to exercise enough political power to employ the machinery of state to fill the next generation's head with voodoo crap.

[GodPossessed]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

That would be like saying God decided to make 2+2=4. He didn't decide it, it precedes him.

Serious theist don't posit that God can violate necessary truth like 2+2=4, no married batchelors or square circles. An assumption that there are things that govern even God needs to take into account that the things that describe God are not limitation upon Him. The old question of "can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?" is cute, but non-sensical. And, as Lewis so aptly pointed out, "nonsense is nonsense, even if you talk it about God."

[Brimshack]

Originally Posted by Rocky

Evolution's primary purpose apparently is to give atheists something to believe in. It's their religion.

And here we have a special variety of Christian folks. It's the Lying sack of Shit. Not just any lying sack of shit, but a lying sack of shit for Jesus. And that makes it okay. Because lying for Jesus will make any sack of shit seem like a sack of holy shit. And that's okay with Jesus. Jesus likes Holy shit, because holy shit doesn't stink. It just lies there, lies and lies, and lies, but it smells good to God, apparently. So, He wants you to lie for Him. At least that's what this particular variety of fecal packaging seems to think.

...others actually make an effort to live to their faith and live life in keeping with Christian principles, but some Christians would rather just try to prove theemselves perfectly shameless in his name.

[Doctor X]

Well, Junior states in the Synoptics that he lies to people to prevent them from being saved.

So . . . I gather . . . it is consistent.

--J.D.

[Rocky]

The fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to. It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator.

Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion. Some may prefer to call it humanism, and New Age evolutionists may place it in the context of some form of pantheism, but they all amount to the same thing. Whether atheism or humanism (or even pantheism), the purpose is to eliminate a personal God from any active role in the origin of the universe and all its components, including man.

[Joshua Adams]

You seem to quote an awful lot without citing any sources. Didn't you learn not to plagiarize in school?

[Joshua Adams]

Originally Posted by GodPossessed

Serious theist don't posit that God can violate necessary truth like 2+2=4, no married batchelors or square circles. An assumption that there are things that govern even God needs to take into account that the things that describe God are not limitation upon Him. The old question of "can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?" is cute, but non-sensical. And, as Lewis so aptly pointed out, "nonsense is nonsense, even if you talk it about God."

Why did you reply to my post with this?

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

You seem to quote an awful lot without citing any sources. Didn't you learn not to plagiarize in school?

Considering he accused me of plagiarizing my own material, this rather adds "Hypocrite" to his list of credentials.

That and he may be too much the Coward to cite it. "Random Crazy Fundamentalist" is not much of a reference. However, let us unpack it:

The fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to.

Because the evidence forces recognition of it.

It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator.

Argumentum ad veritatem obfuscandam--evolution, as has been explained to this child numerous times, is not a theory of "the origin of everything," with or without a creator or even Santa Claus.

Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion.

So the Christian evolutionary biologists . . . missed . . . the memo?

The rest is word-salad.

--J.D.

[Rocky]

“Darwinian theory is the creation myth of our culture. It’s the officially sponsored, government financed creation myth that the public is supposed to believe in, and that creates the evolutionary scientists as the priesthood… So we have the priesthood of naturalism, which has great cultural authority, and of course has to protect its mystery that gives it that authority—that’s why they’re so vicious towards critics.”

Phillip Johnson. PBS television documentary "In The Beginning" [May 1995]

[GodPossessed]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

Why did you reply to my post with this?

Joshua - it was a response to the usage of the word "precede." I don't see that it's logically necessary. Maybe I misunderstood you.