Are Evolution and A God Irreconcilable?

GWolf

Oh and Zillah, I already said 'everything living". Don't bother trying to catch me out.

Zillah

I asked questions. If your position is correct, then surely you have answers?



If your position is not correct, then you do not have answers, and might get upset when I ask questions. In which case you might want to revise your position.

GWolf wrote:

I like being an agnostic, so why does every christian and every atheist I know keep trying to convert me? Seriously, all my relatives tell me to pick a side. I say you limit yourselves, I like things the way they are

If you asert that souls exist then you are not agnostic. An agnostic is someone who asserts that there is not enough evidence either way, and so maintains neutrality on the issue.

You appear to be some form of wishy washy spiritualist.

And I am very open to the idea that there are things we don't know or understand, hence why I don't jump to conclusions without gathering as much information as I can.

GWolf wrote:

Oh and Zillah, I already said 'everything living". Don't bother trying to catch me out.

Uh no, you said: "I think everything has a soul, and it's not what makes us more intelligent."

That was in response to my question about what counts as alive.

GWolf

And you appear to be a closed minded fool who seems more interested in proving himself right then entertaining ideas outside your limited experience. And I already established my opinons about whtehr or not they defiently exist. I deal in ifs, since there is zero way of proving or disproving something you don't have any understanding of. Which is why people who deal in aboslutes bug me. I'm not a spiritualist, I'm not an anything ist, I only use the term agnostic because its easier then wasting both our time on an actual explanation. but you enjoy feeling superior and right. I'll enjoying feeling good about myself and not wrong

Fallen Seraph

GWolf wrote:

what is it with atheists that you have to think in absolutes about everything. I don't see whyt atheists and fundamentalists don't get on, they have the same attitude.

Almost all generalisations are wrong. [/irony]
A lot of atheists don't try to convert people or think in absolutes. Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't make them closed minded.

GWolf

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Almost all generalisations are wrong. [/irony]
A lot of atheists don't try to convert people or think in absolutes. Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't make them closed minded.

Sorry, but fundamentalists autimatically disallow any idea of scientific explanation for things, and athesisits visa versa. Seems pretty damn close minded to me. I like disagreement, I dislike the attitude.

Zillah

GWolf wrote:

And you appear to be a closed minded fool who seems more interested in proving himself right then entertaining ideas outside your limited experience.

Closeminded? Definately not. I entertain all ideas, consider the evidence and arguments for them. If something has no evidence and bad arguments I will reject it. Like souls; you have no evidence and no argument.

You dismiss the existence of [insert vampires, flying unicorns or something ridiculous you don't believe in]. Why is that ok, but I'm closeminded if I don't think souls exist?

And I already established my opinons about whtehr or not they defiently exist. I deal in ifs, since there is zero way of proving or disproving something you don't have any understanding of.

But there are infinite "ifs". Vampires, werewolves, Thor, Zeus, flying spaghetti monsters, unicorns, grey aliens etc. You reject billions of things every day, I just reject one of the things you happen to believe in. Why do I get lambasted but its fine for you?

Which is why people who deal in aboslutes bug me

What absolutes have I dealt with?

pinksoir

GWolf, what reasons do you have for believing in the existence of a soul? What evidence have you encountered that would make you accept the idea? What is the point of a soul?

GWolf

Zillah wrote:

You dismiss the existence of [insert vampires, flying unicorns or something ridiculous you don't believe in].

Flying unicorns, no. No evidence that horse ever had a hexapodal existence, which would be needed. Well, except Grani, but I don't know a lot about him. Unicorns maybe. Many animals that lack horns todayy had ancestor that were horned. As for vampires, well since that's something that lives off of blood, then certainly. Plenty of examples in nature

werewolves, Thor, Zeus, flying spaghetti monsters, aliens etc.

Lycanthropy is a recognised psychological condition. Thor and Zeus, no more reject them then I reject any God persay. Aliens? Of course I beleive in aliens. What sane, locical person doesn't. The universe is so big there has to be life out there somewhere. I highly doubt their paying us any visits, but howsever....

Fallen Seraph

GWolf wrote:

Sorry, but fundamentalists autimatically disallow any idea of scientific explanation for things, and athesisits visa versa. Seems pretty damn close minded to me.

An atheist means someone who doesn't believe in god. Not believing in god doesn't preclude believing in magic. I'm mostly quibbling the generalisation, rather than the mindset.

And wrt to people disallowing any supernatural explation for things; I really don't think that it's closed minded to put some faith in a paradigm that has a rather proven track record in explaining things it sets its mind to... I don't think many people assert that there don't exist phenomena that science can't currently explain (if there did then there wouldn't be much left for science to do), but I think it's kinda hard to disagree that it's simply prudent to let science have a bit of a think about them, before pronouncing them supernatural.

--Goldberry--

Zillah wrote:

In your scenario, what about poor Adam's parents? They're essentially identical to him, like you and your parents. When he died, he was the only person in heaven. His parents ceased to exist, like any other animal. Is that how you view it? Why did God choose Adam's generation to be the first ones with souls? Did he not love Adam's parents?

It is how I view it, I mean physically Adam's parents would have been essentially identical to him but if they didn't have eternal souls (the Church actually does believe animals have souls, just not eternal souls like ours) then they weren't human. I'm sure he loved them in the way he loves birds or fish, but unless they had eternal souls they would have only been very smart animals.
Why he chose that moment to create the human race, I don't know, only God can answer that.

GWolf

pinksoir wrote:

GWolf, what reasons do you have for believing in the existence of a soul? What evidence have you encountered that would make you accept the idea? What is the point of a soul?

Point, well to use a pharse that might get me crucified here(hehe), God Only Knows. As for evidence of an existence. Well, a soul is supposed to be something that exists in us and after we die, yes? Well, as far as we know energy cannot be destroyed, only altered in some fashion. And if the energy of our bodies, electrical or whatever, is merely altered after we die, then that's a psssible, maybe not probable, explanation. Point is, if we don't know what to look for, no way to prove or disprove it's existence. Humans think we have all this science stuff down. We know nothing. We might have a basic understandings as they effect our world, might. But we haven't the foggiest clue of reall universal laws. Why do you think we have so many theories about alternate universes and wormholes and such.

Zillah

Whoops, I missed this post in the rapid posting:

GWolf wrote:

I said living, and I meant living. If viruses are alive then yes. Single celled organisms, yes. Since multicelled organisms have cells that all act together, I'd count that as one. Anything else? One of the reasons I'm an agnostic is because while I'm open to the idea of a deity or deities, I'm closed to organised religon. For me, it's an entirely personal thing

I've already pointed out that "alive" is not an absolute statement. Things that are considered "alive" are just complex molecules that replicate. A virus is just a little bit of matter that can make copies of itself, but you give it a soul. But you deny a macrophage a soul despite the fact that it is thousands of times bigger and more complex. It leads a much more diverse life, but just because it works cooperatively with others of its kind it doesn't get a soul.

And the new one:

" wrote:

Flying unicorns, no. Unicorns maybe. Many animals that lack horns todayy had ancestor that were horned. As for vampires, well since that's something that lives off of blood, then certainly. Plenty of examples in natur

I'm talking about flying unicorns that can go invisible and fly and sing to me at night so I get nice dreams. On weekends they bring me ice cream.

Do you believe they exist?

If not then you're a "close minded fool" who deals in absolutes.

GWolf

--Goldberry-- wrote:

It is how I view it, I mean physically Adam's parents would have been essentially identical to him but if they didn't have eternal souls (the Church actually does believe animals have souls, just not eternal souls like ours) then they weren't human. I'm sure he loved them in the way he loves birds or fish, but unless they had souls they would have only been very smart animals.
Why he chose that moment to create the human race, I don't know, only God can answer that.

I always thought it would be hilarious if God made humans simply out of boredom. We hype ourselves up and it turns out we were a way of killing a week

Zillah

--Goldberry-- wrote:

It is how I view it, I mean physically Adam's parents would have been essentially identical to him but if they didn't have eternal souls (the Church actually does believe animals have souls, just not eternal souls like ours) then they weren't human. I'm sure he loved them in the way he loves birds or fish, but unless they had souls they would have only been very smart animals.
Why he chose that moment to create the human race, I don't know, only God can answer that.

Ok, your argument is consistent at least.

Just to be sure of your position: Does the soul have any effect in the physical world? If so, what is it? If not, then Adam and his parents were all human beings as we'd recognise them. His parents were "human" in every sense of the word until they died.

If you found out tomorrow that one of your parents didn't have a soul (lets say God tells you for arguments sake), would you love them any less? Would you love your own mother no more than you love the fish and birds?

GWolf

Zillah wrote:

I'm talking about flying unicorns that can go invisible and fly and sing to me at night so I get nice dreams. On weekends they bring me ice cream.

Lets see. In order to see we use light and it has been theorised that if we reflected the light just right we'd be outside the visual spectrum. Now, if the unicron posessedd a covering which had a reflective quality then yes, it's perfectly possible. And if they're vocal cords were altered so that they had more sing song voices, and they were at least partially nocturnal, then yes, a unicorn could be flying past you at night singing.


All things are possible, it's probablity we're dealing with here. And you can't decide the probablity of a deity of some sort existing if you can't undertand the factors, which no one does.

*Edit* oh right ice cream. Well if they were trainable, why not?

Zillah

GWolf wrote:

All things are possible, it's probablity we're dealing with here. And you can't decide the probablity of a deity of some sort existing if you can't undertand the factors, which no one does.

Aha! So we're dealing with probability. If there is no evidence for something, surely that makes it as improbable as is theoretically possible?

Like souls.

Scofflaw

GWolf wrote:

You know, that's not a bad theory at all

The temptation to found my own church is nearly overwhelming sometimes.

cordially,
Scofflaw

GWolf

Not automatically. There was no evidence of dinosaurs existing until their bones were first exposed however far back that was. If humans had existed back then and you'd asked them what they thought of the idea of a 7 tonne bipedal reptile with tiny arms and a head that was nothing but mouth and teeth, they'd have said it was highly improbable. Well, they'd be wrong now wouldn't they. When you know what to look for its easy to find it.

Zillah

GWolf wrote:

Not automatically. There was no evidence of dinosaurs existing until their bones were first exposed however far back that was. If humans had existed back then and you'd asked them what they thought of the idea of a 7 tonne bipedal reptile with tiny arms and a head that was nothing but mouth and teeth, they'd have said it was highly improbable. Well, they'd be wrong now wouldn't they. When you know what to look for its easy to find it.

True, but completely irrelevant.

If I had said dinosaurs existed, long before there was any evidence for them, then it would have been completely stupid of anyone to believe me.

The fact that it turned out I was right is irrelevant, because I just got lucky, it was still a ridiculously irrational position to maintain. 99.99999% of the time that anyone made a proposal that had no evidence for it, they were wrong. Anyone who does propose something that has no evidence is almost certainly wrong.

GWolf

Zillah wrote:

True, but completely irrelevant.

If I had said dinosaurs existed, long before there was any evidence for them, then it would have been completely stupid of anyone to believe me.

The fact that it turned out I was right is irrelevant, because I just got lucky, it was still a ridiculously irrational position to maintain.

Depends. For you to think dinosaurs existed, you'd either have had to have seen something that made you think it was possible, or be completly crazy. I can't assume that that the people who put forward the thoery of a god or souls were out to make something for themselves out of it, any more then I can think that about the ideas put forward in astrophysics. Therefore, I'm left with either crazy or saw something that made them belive in something. And since I can't prove or disprove either, I'm left with my stance, whatever the hell that is. And btw, I am just plain crazy, before you ask. I'm also terrible at explaining things, whcih explains a lot

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

The temptation to found my own church is nearly overwhelming sometimes.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ok, how about we each found a church. We can then run them secretly together, but publically we will portray the other as wicked, immoral and generally up to no good.

Nothing ever brings people together like a sensationalised enemy.

GWolf

Zillah wrote:

Ok, how about we each found a church. We can then run them secretly together, but publically we will portray the other as wicked, immoral and generally up to no good.

Nothing ever brings people together like a sensationalised enemy.

I already did. Only other memebers are my dad, and our tv watching dog. She's in charge.

Zillah

GWolf wrote:

Depends. For you to think dinosaurs existed, you'd either have had to have seen something that made you think it was possible, or be completly crazy. I can't assume that that the people who put forward the thoery of a god or souls were out to make something for themselves out of it, any more then I can think that about the ideas put forward in astrophysics. Therefore, I'm left with either crazy or saw something that made them belive in something. And since I can't prove or disprove either, I'm left with my stance, whatever the hell that is. And btw, I am just plain crazy, before you ask. I'm also terrible at explaining things, whcih explains a lot

Uh, wow.

Ok so you accept that your position only makes sense if you are insane? Logically then, any sane person should think what you're saying is ridiculous?

GWolf

Zillah wrote:

Uh, wow.

Ok so you accept that your position only makes sense if you are insane? Logically then, any sane person should think what you're saying is ridiculous?

Whatever you think.

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Obviously we had proto ears. Are you proposing that our ancestors had proto-souls? And if they did, do those souls go to heaven? Is a dog's primitive soul destined for heaven? The Catholic church says not. They say only humans have souls. When did they get them?

They're probably wrong, then. I can't actually see the relevance of their position, since I'm developing this thesis in response to pH's claim that evolution disproves souls.

Had pH claimed that evolution disproved the Catholic Church's view of souls, I would probably just have agreed.

Zillah wrote:

What the hell has communication to do with it? God is omnipotent. He can have a conversation with a hydrogen atom if he likes.

As long as He starts it, yes.

Zillah wrote:

That aside, the soul is generally considered to be a thing that a person has. Not physical, but something they possess.

Relevance?

Zillah wrote:

As I intially said, from the point of view of the Catholic Church, there is no spiritual evolution. People have souls, animals don't. Yes/no, 0/1, on/off.

No relevance...

cordially,
Scofflaw

--Goldberry--

I think souls probably have an effect on how we think and on our consciousness, so possibly it would be possible to tell by talking to Adam's parents that they were different but not by simply looking at them. I dont know to be honest as I dont know how much of what we think can be explained scientifically.

Also I don't think someone can be born without a soul, but hypothetically speaking of course I'd still love my mother.

Dades

GWolf wrote:

I can't assume that that the people who put forward the thoery of a god or souls were out to make something for themselves out of it

You have got to be kidding.

pinksoir

GWolf wrote:

Point, well to use a pharse that might get me crucified here(hehe), God Only Knows. As for evidence of an existence. Well, a soul is supposed to be something that exists in us and after we die, yes? Well, as far as we know energy cannot be destroyed, only altered in some fashion. And if the energy of our bodies, electrical or whatever, is merely altered after we die, then that's a psssible, maybe not probable, explanation. Point is, if we don't know what to look for, no way to prove or disprove it's existence. Humans think we have all this science stuff down. We know nothing. We might have a basic understandings as they effect our world, might. But we haven't the foggiest clue of reall universal laws. Why do you think we have so many theories about alternate universes and wormholes and such.

Ok, I very much had the same questions about the soul in the past, and had much the same answers as you too. My main evidence was that we are indeed beings that possess and operate with great energy, and it's true that energy cannot be destroyed. But it can be dissipated. What happens to a flame after it goes out? What happens to the energy of an atomic bomb after it has gone off? Evidence for the existence of an atomic bomb can be found for decades after its explosion, but evidence for a flame quickly disappears. I would place the energy from a human body much closer to the 'flame' end of the spectrum than the atomic bomb.

However, the association with flames or atomic bombs is quite a weak one as the human body is much more like a machine that is constantly renewing its energy rather than a one-off burst of energy like a flame. But the point is that we have to renew our energy and we do this by eating. Indeed the very fact that we grow at all in the womb is because we have a source of nutrition. The body is an intricate system of co-dependence that relies on a source of energy (protein) to operate. In fact we are not a source of energy ourselves but more like a rechargeable battery that has energy pass through it. From conception we have nutrition passed into us through our mother, which helps us develop to a point that is no longer sustainable and which ends up in birth. From then on we spend our lives replenishing energy (eating) and conserving energy (sleeping).

The idea of a soul being the energy of our 'earthly' bodies is not a strong argument. We are not, in our whole existence, ever using the same energy. Energy is essentially in a constant state of flux. We create energy through chemical reactions in our bodies as a result of the fuel we take in. Indeed, if we don't eat we die. If we don't take in fuel we run out of steam. The energy we create is constantly being dissipated, this doesn't just happen when we die. We have developed the apparatus for effeciently turning fuel into energy but we do not possess any native energy ourselves.

GWolf

The Atheist wrote:

You have got to be kidding.

Making such an assumption allows personal feelings to become involved. Hardly a smart way to approach things

GWolf

pinksoir wrote:

We have developed the apparatus for effeciently turning fuel into energy but we do not possess any native energy ourselves.

Or we have a native energy that we can't detect, which is far from implausible.

I actually find it funny that I think what I think. The single most influetnail person in my life is an atheist. Me disagreeing with him about something is kind of the same as the sun turnng polka dotted