This certainly puts an end to the watchmaker argument.

[Brickjectivity]

If you find an insect in the woods with functional gears.....

Creature with Interlocking Gears on Legs Discovered

This was actually discovered a while back, but I never came across this myself until now.

Creationists can put the watchmaker issue to rest now. It's no longer useful anymore from a creationist viewpoint in vain attempts to invalidate evolution.

It's completely valid however from an evolutionary standpoint that gears can form naturally on their own, and be functional which definitively voids any notion of a God or deity as being responsible whatsoever given the fact that you actually can walk into the woods and see actual functioning gears.

It would be interesting in viewing the cladistics of this particular insect.

Good points.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Are you talking about his hair style?

Dead Ferrets. Or, perhaps the fur harvested from mole-rats, it's not entirely clear.

 

[David T]

If you find an insect in the woods with functional gears.....

Creature with Interlocking Gears on Legs Discovered

This was actually discovered a while back, but I never came across this myself until now.

Creationists can put the watchmaker issue to rest now. It's no longer useful anymore from a creationist viewpoint in vain attempts to invalidate evolution.

It's completely valid however from an evolutionary standpoint that gears can form naturally on their own, and be functional which definitively voids any notion of a God or deity as being responsible whatsoever given the fact that you actually can walk into the woods and see actual functioning gears.

It would be interesting in viewing the cladistics of this particular insect.

since this is science in application to crop circles.......DEEP...

 

[Ponder This]

Organic mechanisms such as the gears discovered on the plant hopper nymph affirms that the process of evolution is the actual source by which it came about and certainly excludes the notion of intelligent design by any God or deity.

This discovery totally counters and puts to rest the watchmaker analogy by which creation or intelligent design has now been proven not to be a prerequisite in order for gears to randomly form. It doesn't support the watchmaker analogy , it effectively destroys it.

Go read Paley's Argument again.

"If I stumbled on a stone and asked how it came to be there, it would be difficult to show that the answer, it has lain there forever is absurd. Yet this is not true if the stone were to be a watch."​

If the grasshopper with gears in its legs is the watch found in nature, then this is exactly what Paley means. You stumble upon... a grasshopper with gears in its legs!?! Paley's conclusion: There is a maker.

Darwin agreed with Paley's argument (that's right, he agreed)... and then Darwin developed his theory of Natural Selection. Then Darwin rejected Paley's argument on the basis of his theory of Natural Selection. Grasshoppers with gears in their legs affirm in the minds of Creationists everywhere that there is a maker. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection suggested to Darwin that creatures were not designed. There is nothing in the presentation of grasshoppers with gears in their legs to suggest this sort of Natural Selection Darwin is talking about. You will find that your 'discovery' of gears in the legs of grasshoppers will generally have the opposite effect then the one you think it will in the minds of Creationists who use the Watchmaker Analogy.

For example, Paley argued that the eye was an example of design. If you walked out into nature and discovered creatures with eyes, then Paley would say, "See? I told you so." Whereas, Richard Dawkins went to great lengths to argue that eyes were evolved. This is because things like eyes and gears in grasshopper legs are all things which the Watchmaker Analogy argues are confirmation of a maker.

So I'll repeat: go read Paley's argument again and understand what his argument is.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Go read Paley's Argument again.

"If I stumbled on a stone and asked how it came to be there, it would be difficult to show that the answer, it has lain there forever is absurd. Yet this is not true if the stone were to be a watch."​

If the grasshopper with gears in its legs is the watch found in nature, then this is exactly what Paley means. You stumble upon... a grasshopper with gears in its legs!?! Paley's conclusion: There is a maker.

Darwin agreed with Paley's argument (that's right, he agreed)... and then Darwin developed his theory of Natural Selection. Then Darwin rejected Paley's argument on the basis of his theory of Natural Selection. Grasshoppers with gears in their legs affirm in the minds of Creationists everywhere that there is a maker. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection suggested to Darwin that creatures were not designed. There is nothing in the presentation of grasshoppers with gears in their legs to suggest this sort of Natural Selection Darwin is talking about. You will find that your 'discovery' of gears in the legs of grasshoppers will generally have the opposite effect then the one you think it will in the minds of Creationists who use the Watchmaker Analogy.

For example, Paley argued that the eye was an example of design. If you walked out into nature and discovered creatures with eyes, then Paley would say, "See? I told you so." Whereas, Richard Dawkins went to great lengths to argue that eyes were evolved. This is because things like eyes and gears in grasshopper legs are all things which the Watchmaker Analogy argues are confirmation of a maker.

So I'll repeat: go read Paley's argument again and understand what his argument is.

I'm going to make it simple, so even you can understand it. You're going to need to read up and familiarize yourself with David Hume's argument on the matter as it relates to the watchmaker analogy as you obviously are ignorant to the factors that invalidate the watchmaker analogy.

Given that we now know, and have discovered, gears are on a young plant Hopper nymph and are familiar with how it's formed, and exactly "who" formed it, puts the entire watchmaker analogy to rest as we already know who and what the Creator is, whether it be a walk in the woods and coming across a watch or as in this case, discovering fully functioning gears on the plant Hopper nymph.

We've already seen watches being "created" and already know who and what the creator and designer is as much as we already know how eyes are formed and "who" created it.

This applies to evolution in the case of gears here and that it does not in fact even remotely support the watchmaker analogy in support of creationism.

Your own lack of understanding is pretty obvious to this flawed and debunked analogy and it's desperate support on the side of creationists in the implication that creationism or intelligent design is being supported in any true way or manner by the analogy.

 

[Twilight Hue]

since this is science in application to crop circles.......DEEP...
View attachment 26145

Yes it is. *Grin*

 

[Deeje]

It's easy enough to observe. We already know how the gears form in the Plant Hopper nymph as the experts can trace the cladistics of the insect via its genome.

How does knowing how the 'gears' form, lead to ruling out a Designer of something that is obviously 'designed' for a specific purpose? And why is it seen only seen in the nymph, not the adult hopper? Science makes guesses.

It's obviously not a result of a creation by a God or a deity. It's clearly the result of natural selection and adaptation to the environment of which the insect lives in to which the experts already know how the mutations occur that brought about the gears in the first place.

Now, this is an example of why I find evolutionists' reasoning to be so confusing. What you guys see as evidence for no "God or deity", we see as the opposite....so what are we each seeing in these "evidences" that leads us to opposite conclusions?

If the "experts" already know how the mutations occur that brought about the gears, is there substantiated evidence to back up what they believe?
When it comes to mutations, we already know that beneficial ones are extremely rare. (Google beneficial mutations in humans and see how many there are and how life altering they are)

A mutation, in the majority of cases is detrimental to any organism, not beneficial, yet these 'beneficial' mutations are supposed to explain all the myriads of wonderfully functioning creatures on earth...including us. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't add up.

There are certainly no indicators of any divine guidance or design at play within the genome which pretty much kills the notion that a God or deity is proactively playing a role in its development. It comes about through genetic mutation for which the insect develops either an advantage or disadvantage in its environment and passes it on. We know this because evolution can be observed, and design has nothing to do with it.

Ah, now this seems to indicate a failure to comprehend what "creation" actually means.
Creation does not mean that the Creator was "proactively" involved in the adaptive process that naturally leads to microevolution. What the Creator did was to program the complex functions including adaptability, into his design. This does not require that he be 'proactively involved' in what he instituted to take care of itself in the programming. Could this be the problem?

Instinct drives the natural world and this is evidence of intelligent programming...not mindless evolutionary processes.

It kills the notion of intelligent design because it's random genetic mutation , not divinity that results in what appears to be something intelligently designed but simply is not because of the random nature by which mutations occur that can be detrimental as well as beneficial for the organism.

It only "kills the notion" if the notion was in error to begin with. Things "appear" to be designed because they logically are. Nothing humans use for specific tasks was not designed by intelligent minds for a specific function. When is that not true? We are designers and creators just like the one who made us in his image. We start with an idea and we design it in our imagination, gather the materials and tools and we make what we imagine into reality. Why can't God be like that?

Every creature has a pre-programmed ability to preserve its own species. But adaptation has never led to a change in taxonomic classification. New varieties within a single family is all they have ever observed. Anything outside of that is assumed, but not provable.

Science presumes that adaptation can lead to major changes over time......it claims that all living things evolved (by accidental mutations, coupled with natural selection) into all the life forms that exist on earth. But the magnitude of those changes requires belief that single celled organisms can accidentally mutate themselves into dinosaurs and billions of other creatures, given enough time.
But I have yet to see any real evidence to substantiate that assumption.

Extremely rare beneficial mutations just can't explain all that beneficial change, not to mention the complexity and ingenuity demonstrated in so many of the "designs" we see in nature.

If there's anything that "designs" it would be the environment and how the organism adapts via genetic mutation.

You are right.....it is environmental change and different food sources that drive adaptation....but it can never explain the kinds of complex changes needed to form new families of creatures. Science has to make guesses about that. It can interpret evidence to support its theory but that doesn't make its educated guesswork into provable facts.

The watchmaker analogy/theory is just not relevant anymore in the argument for design. And that includes intentional genetic manipulation because it's still random and uncontrollable.

It appears as if you misunderstand what "creation" actually involves. There is no magic wizard int the sky 'proofing' things into existence.....that is what evolutionists want people to think....YEC's have not helped that image. Intelligent Design takes science and the Bible and combines them, very logically.

You don't have to dismiss what science knows (as compared to what they "believe") and you don't have to put a literal spin on what Genesis says about the timeframe (creation did not take place in 7 literal "days")

There is middle ground for those who are not blinded by either extreme position of this argument. Examine the grey areas and you will see how compatible they really are.

 

[Valjean]

What puts geered legs in a class any different from any other anatomical feature? The geers would be relevant to the magic vs mechanism debate only if they were in a unique class that could not have occurred by natural selection. They are not. In this respect they are no more remarkable than hinge joints, eyes or ears.

Darwin was perplexed by special and anatomical variety only until he discovered a natural, non-directed mechanism that would account for them.

Plants and animals reproduce, and they reproduce with variation, that is, their children are all slightly different from each other, and these differences are the material natural selection works with, generation after generation, to produce the gradual changes we see in evolution.

Watches do not reproduce with variation.

 

[Ponder This]

I'm going to make it simple, so even you can understand it. You're going to need to read up and familiarize yourself with David Hume's argument on the matter as it relates to the watchmaker analogy as you obviously are ignorant to the factors that invalidate the watchmaker analogy.

Given that we now know, and have discovered, gears are on a young plant Hopper nymph and are familiar with how it's formed, and exactly "who" formed it, puts the entire watchmaker analogy to rest as we already know who and what the Creator is, whether it be a walk in the woods and coming across a watch or as in this case, discovering fully functioning gears on the plant Hopper nymph.

We've already seen watches being "created" and already know who and what the creator and designer is as much as we already know how eyes are formed and "who" created it.

This applies to evolution in the case of gears here and that it does not in fact even remotely support the watchmaker analogy in support of creationism.

Your own lack of understanding is pretty obvious to this flawed and debunked analogy and it's desperate support on the side of creationists in the implication that creationism or intelligent design is being supported in any true way or manner by the analogy.

LoL. Okay.
David Hume:

1. We have no experience of world-making.

• True, but irrelevant to grasshoppers with gears It's an objection to the inference, not the premise.

2. Insufficient similarities.

• Grasshopper with gears show more similarities, which make the analogy more pertinent, not less pertinent.

3. If the argument is correct, then it still doesn't give evidence for the traditional God of Christian theism.

• Irrelevant, since the objection assumes the argument is correct!

I hope this is simple enough for you:
Every invented mechanism found to occur in nature is an example that Paley argues as evidence of a Creator. David Hume does not say that if we find these mechanisms in nature that it proves anything one way or another.
None of the counter arguments say something like: "Hey guys, if we find gears in nature that means Paley was wrong. Heh heh heh." Read the literature! Paley says that if you just look around at nature you will find things like... eyes (or in this case, gears on grasshoppers) AND that when you find those things, they support the idea that there must be a Creator. Even Darwin agreed with this... up until he formulated his theory of Natural Selection.

If that wasn't simple enough for you, don't worry, the really, really simple enough for you is that regardless of what you think Gears on Grasshoppers proves or disproves, Creationists familiar with the Watchmaker Analogy will find that Gears on Grasshoppers affirms their faith, lol.

If you wanted to say the Watchmaker Analogy is flawed, Gears on Grasshoppers was no where close to what you needed to say or do. But HUZZAH! for finding something fun and interesting to talk about!

 

[Valjean]

How does knowing how the 'gears' form, lead to ruling out a Designer of something that is obviously 'designed' for a specific purpose? And why is it seen only seen in the nymph, not the adult hopper? Science makes guesses.

Knowing that a natural, undirected mechanism can account for something renders an intentional manipulatior extraneous. That is, a personified creator isn't needed. It all can occur automatically.

Now, this is an example of why I find evolutionists' reasoning to be so confusing. What you guys see as evidence for no "God or deity", we see as the opposite....so what are we each seeing in these "evidences" that leads us to opposite conclusions?

Now this is an example of why I find creationists' reasoning to be so confusing.
I'm not saying that a natural, automatic, undirected mechanism disproves God. I'm saying that it makes God unnecessary; it violates the principle of parsimony. It's an unneeded attribution.

When it comes to mutations, we already know that beneficial ones are extremely rare. (Google beneficial mutations in humans and see how many there are and how life altering they are)

More Natural Selection than mutations, I'd say. It's not so much the dice rolls that drive evolution, but the subsequent selection of which dice numbers are retained and which go back in the mix that drives genomic change.

A mutation, in the majority of cases is detrimental to any organism, not beneficial, yet these 'beneficial' mutations are supposed to explain all the myriads of wonderfully functioning creatures on earth...including us. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't add up.

But they do add up.
Most mutations are neutral. Beneficial mutations are retained. Harmful ones are discarded. It's this process of selection that creates change, not so much the individual mutations.

Nature rolls the dice millions of times a minute. Even if only one in a thousand rolls is beneficial, these combinations tend to be retained, and at a million rolls a minute, over billions of years, they add up.

Creation does not mean that the Creator was "proactively" involved in the adaptive process that naturally leads to microevolution. What the Creator did was to program the complex functions including adaptability, into his design. This does not require that he be 'proactively involved' in what he instituted to take care of itself in the programming. Could this be the problem?

How does this not make the Creator extraneous, then, if the process is automatic and His active involvement isn't needed?

Things "appear" to be designed because they logically are. Nothing humans use for specific tasks was not designed by intelligent minds for a specific function.

I'm not seeing the "logic" here.
Human tools and artifacts do not reproduce with variation, so they cannot 'evolve' without direct intervention in the manufacturing process.

Organisms do reproduce themselves -- and with variation among offspring. Nature then automatically sorts the results. This drives evolution.
In this way the processes of human manufacturing vs natural selection of variants differ. It's comparing apples and air conditioners.

When is that not true? We are designers and creators just like the one who made us in his image. We start with an idea and we design it in our imagination, gather the materials and tools and we make what we imagine into reality. Why can't God be like that

I suppose God could, but we see neither evidence of nor need for such active intervention.
Evolution proceeds all by itself, and there is no indication of the chaos that would exist if the laws of nature were constantly being altered to effect some change. The laws of nature seem pretty well fixed and stable.

Every creature has a pre-programmed ability to preserve its own species. But adaptation has never led to a change in taxonomic classification. New varieties within a single family is all they have ever observed. Anything outside of that is assumed, but not provable.

Nothing, outside of mathematics, is provable, but reasonable assumptions can be made. If I see you on one side of town at noon, and at the other side at 1:00, I can reasonably assume you've traversed the intervening distance at some point -- but I can't prove it. Speciation has been observed. That's pretty close to proof.
Q: How do these small, intraspecies changes that you acknowledge know when to stop, so as to avoid adding up to big changes?

Science presumes that adaptation can lead to major changes over time......it claims that all living things evolved (by accidental mutations, coupled with natural selection) into all the life forms that exist on earth. But the magnitude of those changes requires belief that single celled organisms can accidentally mutate themselves into dinosaurs and billions of other creatures, given enough time.
But I have yet to see any real evidence to substantiate that assumption.

But is it not a reasonable assumption, given the trillions of genetic dice rolls and billions of years of selection therefrom?
Does our direct observation of natural selection count for nothing?
Is there any other reasonable explanation for the world's diversity?

Extremely rare beneficial mutations just can't explain all that beneficial change, not to mention the complexity and ingenuity demonstrated in so many of the "designs" we see in nature.

But they do. This strikes me as either being deliberately obdurate or ignorant of the mechanisms proposed, statistics involved and evidence presented.

....but it can never explain the kinds of complex changes needed to form new families of creatures. Science has to make guesses about that. It can interpret evidence to support its theory but that doesn't make its educated guesswork into provable facts.

But science does explain this. Denying this doesn't bolster your case. It's religion that fails to explain -- not to mention test.

That's how science works. It makes educated guesses, then tests them. Nothing is ever proven, but enough robust evidence is amassed to be pretty sure of its conclusions.

It appears as if you misunderstand what "creation" actually involves. There is no magic wizard int the sky 'proofing' things into existence.....that is what evolutionists want people to think....YEC's have not helped that image. Intelligent Design takes science and the Bible and combines them, very logically.

Now you've lost me. How does ID use science, and what does the Bible have to do with it? Unlike science texts, it's not evidence based or tested. It's 'authority' is built on sand.

If there is no magic poofing, just what is being proposed?

You don't have to dismiss what science knows (as compared to what they "believe") and you don't have to put a literal spin on what Genesis says about the timeframe (creation did not take place in 7 literal "days")

Science is a research modality. What's believed is continually in process of becoming what's known -- "known" being that which is backed by sufficient evidence to make doubt unreasonable.

There is middle ground for those who are not blinded by either extreme position of this argument. Examine the grey areas and you will see how compatible they really are.

What grey areas, and how is science 'extreme'? On one side is evidence and testing. On the other is folklore. I'm not seeing the grey.

 

[David T]

How does knowing how the 'gears' form, lead to ruling out a Designer of something that is obviously 'designed' for a specific purpose? And why is it seen only seen in the nymph, not the adult hopper? Science makes guesses.



Now, this is an example of why I find evolutionists' reasoning to be so confusing. What you guys see as evidence for no "God or deity", we see as the opposite....so what are we each seeing in these "evidences" that leads us to opposite conclusions?

If the "experts" already know how the mutations occur that brought about the gears, is there substantiated evidence to back up what they believe?
When it comes to mutations, we already know that beneficial ones are extremely rare. (Google beneficial mutations in humans and see how many there are and how life altering they are)

A mutation, in the majority of cases is detrimental to any organism, not beneficial, yet these 'beneficial' mutations are supposed to explain all the myriads of wonderfully functioning creatures on earth...including us. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't add up.



Ah, now this seems to indicate a failure to comprehend what "creation" actually means.
Creation does not mean that the Creator was "proactively" involved in the adaptive process that naturally leads to microevolution. What the Creator did was to program the complex functions including adaptability, into his design. This does not require that he be 'proactively involved' in what he instituted to take care of itself in the programming. Could this be the problem?

Instinct drives the natural world and this is evidence of intelligent programming...not mindless evolutionary processes.



It only "kills the notion" if the notion was in error to begin with. Things "appear" to be designed because they logically are. Nothing humans use for specific tasks was not designed by intelligent minds for a specific function. When is that not true? We are designers and creators just like the one who made us in his image. We start with an idea and we design it in our imagination, gather the materials and tools and we make what we imagine into reality. Why can't God be like that?

Every creature has a pre-programmed ability to preserve its own species. But adaptation has never led to a change in taxonomic classification. New varieties within a single family is all they have ever observed. Anything outside of that is assumed, but not provable.

Science presumes that adaptation can lead to major changes over time......it claims that all living things evolved (by accidental mutations, coupled with natural selection) into all the life forms that exist on earth. But the magnitude of those changes requires belief that single celled organisms can accidentally mutate themselves into dinosaurs and billions of other creatures, given enough time.
But I have yet to see any real evidence to substantiate that assumption.

Extremely rare beneficial mutations just can't explain all that beneficial change, not to mention the complexity and ingenuity demonstrated in so many of the "designs" we see in nature.



You are right.....it is environmental change and different food sources that drive adaptation....but it can never explain the kinds of complex changes needed to form new families of creatures. Science has to make guesses about that. It can interpret evidence to support its theory but that doesn't make its educated guesswork into provable facts.



It appears as if you misunderstand what "creation" actually involves. There is no magic wizard int the sky 'proofing' things into existence.....that is what evolutionists want people to think....YEC's have not helped that image. Intelligent Design takes science and the Bible and combines them, very logically.

You don't have to dismiss what science knows (as compared to what they "believe") and you don't have to put a literal spin on what Genesis says about the timeframe (creation did not take place in 7 literal "days")

There is middle ground for those who are not blinded by either extreme position of this argument. Examine the grey areas and you will see how compatible they really are.

Now, this is an example of why I find evolutionists' reasoning to be so confusing. What you guys see as evidence for no "God or deity".

No what they see is that no external reality to reality is necesary to do science. Anthromorphic projection used to be a very serious heresy today it dominates chrisitanity. I might say its not science that has a problem with the topic god its religion and science fiction fans in religion playing make "believe"

At the end of the day science is just attacking heresy or transhumanism, virtual reality is our reality all the above dressed in religious drag pretending it "christian" thats all.

Maybe start easy and work on the eucharist interpersonally.

 

[Valjean]

Now, this is an example of why I find evolutionists' reasoning to be so confusing. What you guys see as evidence for no "God or deity".

Our "evidence of no God" is the same as your evidence of no unicorns -- lack of evidence.

At the end of the day science is just attacking heresy or transhumanism, virtual reality is our reality all the above dressed in religious drag pretending it "christian" thats all.

Huh???
When did science attack anything but its own theorems?

 

[David T]

Our "evidence of no God" is the same as your evidence of no unicorns -- lack of evidence.
Huh???
When did science attack anything but its own theorems?

Well the first part i didnt post at all. I was quoting.

Second god is not a neccesity to do science at a simple child like mechanical level no matter how complex the thereoms.

Third, Since "outside reality" or " reality as virtual reality" is not necessary to do science, then the proposal by many in religion that we exist in a created or virtual reality(same thing) is not a necessity do do science as well it is nuts and is heresy in the ancient world all at the same time.

Oddly enough early chriatianity concours with modern science better than modern religion.. We do not exist in a virtual reality.

 

[Twilight Hue]

LoL. Okay.
David Hume:

1. We have no experience of world-making.

• True, but irrelevant to grasshoppers with gears It's an objection to the inference, not the premise.

2. Insufficient similarities.

• Grasshopper with gears show more similarities, which make the analogy more pertinent, not less pertinent.

3. If the argument is correct, then it still doesn't give evidence for the traditional God of Christian theism.

• Irrelevant, since the objection assumes the argument is correct!

I hope this is simple enough for you:
Every invented mechanism found to occur in nature is an example that Paley argues as evidence of a Creator. David Hume does not say that if we find these mechanisms in nature that it proves anything one way or another.
None of the counter arguments say something like: "Hey guys, if we find gears in nature that means Paley was wrong. Heh heh heh." Read the literature! Paley says that if you just look around at nature you will find things like... eyes (or in this case, gears on grasshoppers) AND that when you find those things, they support the idea that there must be a Creator. Even Darwin agreed with this... up until he formulated his theory of Natural Selection.

If that wasn't simple enough for you, don't worry, the really, really simple enough for you is that regardless of what you think Gears on Grasshoppers proves or disproves, Creationists familiar with the Watchmaker Analogy will find that Gears on Grasshoppers affirms their faith, lol.

If you wanted to say the Watchmaker Analogy is flawed, Gears on Grasshoppers was no where close to what you needed to say or do. But HUZZAH! for finding something fun and interesting to talk about!

I think it would be prevalent to quickly point out for sake of taxonomy that a Plant Hopper belongs to the suborder of Homoptera, while grasshoppers belong to the suborder of Caelifera.

Hume pointed out that we already have prior knowledge on how watches are made and who made them, whereas proponents of a God or deity make the analogy unfalsifiable totally bypassing on how God or an intelligent designer would make something like that to come about.

Gears are especially effective since watches generally have many gears for which the complexity of making a viable working gear would only be attributed to a designer or creator by its proponents. We have course now have seen that is entirely untrue.

Nobody has ever had known or seen a "creation maker" compared to a watchmaker from which all the watches come from.

There's no doubt we do know and acknowledge that it's the genome of an organism which is responsible for the emergence of fully functional gears on the young plant Hopper effectively eliminating any support that people would have for the argument of any responsible God or deity as there isn't one to start with, rendering the watchmaker analogy antiquated and useless on part of creationists.

It doesn't support creationism or factually establish intelligent design for the simple fact an organism's genome is essentially the "creator" of which we are already familiar proving that you don't need an intelligent designer to make fully functional gears and consequently, a follow-up that a "creation maker" aka intelligent designer is not required to make complex organisms.

Likewise, there's no doubt debate can be fun and interesting. It's what keeps debate forums chugging along providing good exercise for the little gray cells! :O)

 

[gnostic]

Atheism is not a denial of the existence of god. It is a lack of belief in a god or gods.

One thing that you must be aware of is that the meaning of words change over time. In Darwin's time "race" and "species" were roughly synonymous. Today atheism is a much broader concept than it was in the past. Basically people are either theist, that means that they belief in a god or gods, or they are atheists, they lack such a belief. A person may be an agnostic theist or agnostic atheist, though most agnostics that I am aware of fit into the latter category.

I see what you are getting, I do agree that atheism actually mean a lack of belief in god or gods’ existence, so my use of the word “denied” was a poorly chosen word.

But you should remember that both atheism and theism disagree and agree about the existence of god through a matter of “belief”, hence “belief” vs “disbelief”.

Where as agnosticism is more about certainty through “knowing” and “not knowing”, in which agnostics falls under the later, and gnostics in the former.

To agnostics, believing and knowing are two different things.

I did not read this letter until you quoted from it. Apparently, I was unaware of this letter until this thread started, and didn’t know the content of this letter until you had just quoted it.

This letter, as I was unaware of until yesterday, I was more aware of earlier letter he wrote to John Fordyce in 1879 (Letter 12041, May 7), in which he denied ever being “atheist”, and stated that he was more of “agnostic”.

"I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

But apparently from this auctioned/sold letter is a later letter in which he changed his mind.

And the 2 letters are only one year apart.

I think if we looked at his whole life, he was a Christian during the time of his voyage to him publishing On Origin Of Species in 1859. But at some point in time, he became agnostic, due to his friendship with Thomas Henry Huxley, but Huxley didn’t coined the word agnosticism until 1869. But clearly Huxley’s thoughts on predated his coinage of the word, perhaps as early as his letters (1860 &1863) to Charles Kingsley.

So if I was to hazard a guess, he was a Christian lot longer than he was a agnostic, and a lot longer as agnostic than that of being atheist, judging by these 2 letters.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I see what you are getting, I do agree that atheism actually mean a lack of belief in god or gods’ existence, so my use of the word “denied” was a poorly chosen word.

But you should remember that both atheism and theism disagree and agree about the existence of god through a matter of “belief”, hence “belief” vs “disbelief”.

Where as agnosticism is more about certainty through “knowing” and “not knowing”, in which agnostics falls under the later, and gnostics in the former.

To agnostics, believing and knowing are two different things.

I did not read this letter until you quoted from it. Apparently, I was unaware of this letter until this thread started, and didn’t know the content of this letter until you had just quoted it.

This letter, as I was unaware of until yesterday, I was more aware of earlier letter he wrote to John Fordyce in 1879 (Letter 12041, May 7), in which he denied ever being “atheist”, and stated that he was more of “agnostic”.

In those days an atheist denied the existence of god. The definition has changed over the times and now it is more about belief. A strong atheist denies the existence of god. A weak atheist lacks belief because of a lack of evidence and typically says "Show me the evidence and I will change my mind". Technically they are also agnostics. There are both atheistic agnostic and deist agnostics. Agnostics claim not to know. for sure. Far too many Christians claims to "know" when they only believe. Agnosticism is merely being honest about not being able to know for sure. I myself would be properly labeled as an agnostic atheist.

It is not wise to base arguments on terms that have changed over the years. Just as it is wrong to call Darwin a racist because he he used the term "race" in ways that could be racist today it is also wrong to say that he was not an atheist based upon his statement that used a different definition than we have today.

But apparently from this auctioned/sold letter is a later letter in which he changed his mind.

And the 2 letters are only one year apart.

I think if we looked at his whole life, he was a Christian during the time of his voyage to him publishing On Origin Of Species in 1859. But at some point in time, he became agnostic, due to his friendship with Thomas Henry Huxley, but Huxley didn’t coined the word agnosticism until 1869. But clearly Huxley’s thoughts on predated his coinage of the word, perhaps as early as his letters (1860 &1863) to Charles Kingsley.

So if I was to hazard a guess, he was a Christian lot longer than he was a agnostic, and a lot longer as agnostic than that of being atheist, judging by these 2 letters.

Or perhaps he merely wanted to make an earlier statement clearer. I will remind you that once again atheism was a definite statement in his day and perhaps he did not want to go that far. Nothing wrong with that. Today one can be both an atheist and an agnostic just as one can be both a theist and an agnostic. Most religions do not like people that are honest enough to say that they are not sure so they have creeds and oaths that people must take where they have to state that they are sure, even if that is not the case in reality. As a result people that are willing to call themselves "agnostic Christians" are very small. But they do exist.

 

[gnostic]

Or perhaps he merely wanted to make an earlier statement clearer. I will remind you that once again atheism was a definite statement in his day and perhaps he did not want to go that far. Nothing wrong with that. Today one can be both an atheist and an agnostic just as one can be both a theist and an agnostic. Most religions do not like people that are honest enough to say that they are not sure so they have creeds and oaths that people must take where they have to state that they are sure, even if that is not the case in reality. As a result people that are willing to call themselves "agnostic Christians" are very small. But they do exist.

Perhaps, SZ.

But you have to admit, that the 2 letters are only 1 year apart, and his later letter is contradicting his early one, where he say he “isn’t” atheist.

Was he atheist a lot longer than his last letter on the subject?

Well, I’d guess that we would never know.

But the truth of the matter, is that I don’t really care if he was a Christian, theist, atheist or agnostic. His Natural Selection are not based on his religious background.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Perhaps, SZ.

But you have to admit, that the 2 letters are only 1 year apart, and his later letter is contradicting his early one, where he say he “isn’t” atheist.

Was he atheist a lot longer than his last letter on the subject?

Well, I’d guess that we would never know.

But the truth of the matter, is that I don’t really care if he was a Christian, theist, atheist or agnostic. His Natural Selection are not based on his religious background.

I think you are hung up on a term whose definition has changed over the years. One has to look at the definition of the time that the terms are used. By the standards of his time he never was an atheist. By the standards of our time he was.

Darwin probably never thought for sure that there was no god, he simply lost his belief in gods, by today's standard that would make him an atheist,, although a "weak" one. By the standards of his time he was merely a non-believer. He was not an atheist by the 19th century usage of the term.