Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Beliefs

[Subduction Zone]

Read the opening post in this thread and actually address the evidence in that post, not go on tangents about computer software.

The Evidence for Random Mutations

Thus far, your participation in that thread has been to try and avoid all of the evidence in the opening post and to change the topic.




"discover institute" is not a scientific research project.



How does the Big Bang theory not follow naturalistic guidelines?

An interesting point on Lemaitre. Supposedly Pope Pius XII offered to make the Big Bang Theory part of Catholic dogma to Lemaitre and he dissuaded him from that act. He was not of the opinion that science should be ordered to be believed. If this is true he had a very enlightened approach to the sciences.

 

[ecco]

For the record, my belief in "god" was shattered in Sunday School when I was told to my face by a (allegedly) reasonable adult that I was expected to believe an obvious and blatant lie, that God was a man sitting on a cloud in the sky.

Whatever belief I may have had also died in Sunday school. For me it was the cutsey pictures of the giraffes with their heads sticking out of the top of the ark. All my comic books made more sense than that.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Read the opening post in this thread and actually address the evidence in that post, not go on tangents about computer software.

The Evidence for Random Mutations

Thus far, your participation in that thread has been to try and avoid all of the evidence in the opening post and to change the topic.

pointing out similar mechanisms in ID creations like computer software, that the evidence presented is not specific to or suggestive of spontaneous mechanisms in any particular way..

"The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal" Dawkins

If you think analysis of information systems is irrelevant to assessing the validity of Darwinian mechanisms, that reflects the Victorian age understanding the theory was formulated in.




"discover institute" is not a scientific research project.
[/quote]

discovery institute; center for science and culture and others do scientific research into ID specifically

How does the Big Bang theory not follow naturalistic guidelines?

another one you could have argued with Hoyle and other atheists, not only was it 'pseudoscience' 'arguments for a creator' it could not even be 'described in scientific terms'

Naturalism inherently winces at very sudden explosive appearances of new sophisticated designs, be it the universe or major phyla..

relying on random chance as the creative engine, naturalism generally prefers to find a nice gradualistic 'naturalistic' progress.

random movements will eventually solve a Rubik's cube, Intelligent agency will make less mistakes and arrive there sooner


Hence the initial reactions to both- to first declare them 'religious nonsense', and then as mere artifacts of misleading evidence

 

[Jose Fly]

All of these criticisms were refuted when it was shown there was scientific evidence to back the theory as well as scientific reasons for proposing the theory to begin with. It was perhaps unfair of people to assume that Lemaitre was basing his idea on religious beliefs, but given his status as a Jesuit priest you can understand where that misunderstanding came from. Lemaitre himself spoke out against the idea that his theory in anyway supported theological beliefs.

That's a very key distinction and the point at which Guy's analogy falls apart (btw, notice how Guy can only advocate for ID creationism by appealing to analogies). With the big bang and other hypotheses that were initially rejected only to later become accepted, their advocates did exactly as you described.....they continued to collect data, conduct analyses, publish their results in the relevant literature, and cite that work in convincing their peers.

None of them lobbied school boards and legislatures to teach their ideas; none of them went to court to get their ideas taught in public schools; none of them wrote "alternative textbooks"; none of them made movies. Conversely, ID creationists immediately did all of the above when their ideas were rejected by the scientific community.

And that's one of the main ways we know that ID creationism is a (failed) legal and political strategy rather than science.

 

[ecco]

I agree both have apparent implications, but remember that many atheists framed the Big Bang as ' religious pseudoscience' for the implications THEY saw in such a specific creation event.

they did!!! really!!!

(wiki)
In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.[47] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest.

[Hoyle] found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, resembling arguments for a creator, "for it's an irrational process, and can't be described in scientific terms"

In your original post you stated:

...many atheists framed the Big Bang as ' religious pseudoscience' for the implications THEY saw in such a specific creation event.​

Not quite. Some proponents of a static universe, especially Hoyle, did call the concept of an expanding universe 'religious pseudoscience'. He also called the concept of an expanding universe The Big Bang theory. He made these comments derisively to malign the new theory which contradicted the static state universe he was so invested in.

Scientist, and especially prominent scientists, have huge egos. Hoyle wasn't about to lay down quietly and accept something that went against one of his major beliefs. He attacked in any way he could.

Fred Hoyle - Wikipedia

In the end, mounting observational evidence convinced most cosmologists that the steady state model was incorrect and that the Big Bang was the theory that agreed best with observations
...
Hoyle died in 2001 never accepting the Big Bang theory.​

 

[shunyadragon]

I think you should stop selling the Baha'i Faith and just tell us what YOU believe in your own words. I'm getting a little tired of your advertising.

Humility and self-reflection needed on your part. Learn to live with others that believe differently. treat them with respect, and do not try and intimidate them.

In as few words as possible simply, I am making no changes in how I post.

 

[shunyadragon]

. more to the point, you are, I'm assuming, a little less influential in academia and pop science media than people like Dawkins, who's best selling book was not called 'objective evidence for evolution' but 'The God Delusion' ....

He explicitly admits the intellectual gratification he derives from Darwinism as an atheist.... mirroring exactly how Hoyle openly felt about Steady State theory.. you see the problem here..

No problem, Hoyle is dead, science lives and changes based on the evidence.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

something seeming to make 'no sense', being 'irrational'- is often due to simply not understanding another person's point of view, we've all been guilty of that

I agree both have apparent implications, but remember that many atheists framed the Big Bang as ' religious pseudoscience' for the implications THEY saw in such a specific creation event.

But those implications vanished once it was proven beyond most reasonable doubt. The same was true to a lesser extent for classical physics v. QM also- clearly there were some convenient reductionist/materialist implications of a reality running on a handful of simple immutable laws. And clearly notions of mysterious, underlying, unpredictable guiding forces had some uncomfortable implications for some..

But did acceptance of the BB or QM force anyone to give up their belief in atheism? of course not.

Similarly atheist ideology, as you concede, prefers the implications of the simplistic Victorian model for life Darwinism was conceived in. But as science moves us beyond that, nobody has to give up atheism. In fact I think it would help science progress if that were pointed out better.

'Nature is the executor of God's laws' Galileo

Your perspective is interesting, but I don't agree with you, and I think you should learn more about evolution, because you are demonstrably incorrect in your opinions about it.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Why? Why is a belief in a deity the default position? Shouldn't the default position be "I don't know" until there is evidence one way or the other? If there is no evidence for a deity creating life, then why believe it?



Why is it irrational to not believe in God when there is no evidence for God?

If we didn't know that the complexity of life can be explained by natural processes, it would be logical to assume that its origins are supernatural.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

For the record, my belief in "god" was shattered in Sunday School when I was told to my face by a (allegedly) reasonable adult that I was expected to believe an obvious and blatant lie, that God was a man sitting on a cloud in the sky.

"A man sitting on a cloud in the sky." LOLOLOL

 

[Guy Threepwood]

In your original post you stated:

...many atheists framed the Big Bang as ' religious pseudoscience' for the implications THEY saw in such a specific creation event.​

Not quite. Some proponents of a static universe, especially Hoyle, did call the concept of an expanding universe 'religious pseudoscience'. He also called the concept of an expanding universe The Big Bang theory. He made these comments derisively to malign the new theory which contradicted the static state universe he was so invested in.

Scientist, and especially prominent scientists, have huge egos. Hoyle wasn't about to lay down quietly and accept something that went against one of his major beliefs. He attacked in any way he could.

Fred Hoyle - Wikipedia

In the end, mounting observational evidence convinced most cosmologists that the steady state model was incorrect and that the Big Bang was the theory that agreed best with observations
...
Hoyle died in 2001 never accepting the Big Bang theory.​

^ we agree entirely on all this. Hoyle was a human being with a world view like everyone else, and a very influential one, that's why his pejorative label stuck with the rest of academia. Lemaitre's original 'Primeval atom' I think was a far more elegant and descriptive term, don't you?

But it's a classic case of science v atheism, involving arguably the greatest scientific discovery of all time.

Not to say atheists are always wrong and theists are always right... just that we have to recognize that ideological biases work both ways, there is no default truth for something that has no precedent like the origin of our universe, so all explanations should stand on their own merits

would you not agree?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No problem, Hoyle is dead, science lives and changes based on the evidence.

as I said, Dawkins' attitude on evolution mirrors Hoyle's on steady state, the ideological bias is alive and well

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Your perspective is interesting, but I don't agree with you, and I think you should learn more about evolution, because you are demonstrably incorrect in your opinions about it.

ditto

that's what we are here for!

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Whatever belief I may have had also died in Sunday school. For me it was the cutsey pictures of the giraffes with their heads sticking out of the top of the ark. All my comic books made more sense than that.

So did they ever find that half-necked Giraffe Darwin was looking for?

 

[shunyadragon]

as I said, Dawkins' attitude on evolution mirrors Hoyle's on steady state, the ideological bias is alive and well

Dawkins' does not believe in steady state anything.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Dawkins' does not believe in steady state anything.

He explicitly stated that he prefers the theory which makes God redundant

 

[Subduction Zone]

So did they ever find that half-necked Giraffe Darwin was looking for?

Yes. In spades.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Dawkins' does not believe in steady state anything.

Creationists tend to misunderstand the concept of Uniformitarianism.

 

[shunyadragon]

So did they ever find that half-necked Giraffe Darwin was looking for?

Yes. previously cited references to the findings of Giraffe ancestors, but apparently you are still living in Plato's Cave.

 

[shunyadragon]

He explicitly stated that he prefers the theory which makes God redundant

Dawkins did not believe in God. Nothing here of any meaning.

Has absolutely nothing to do with Dawkins' proposing any sort of steady state theory that Hoyle believed. Give up the ghosts of the past, and come out of Plato's Cave.