The answer to Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

POSTED BY: BadgersHat
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 22:38
VIEWED: 15240
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HKCAVALIER

Thursday, August 11, 2005 11:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I wasn't "borderline" rude, I WAS rude. Sorry. But when I consider all of the religions that ever existed and currently still exist.... even from my admittedly meagre knowledge... it seems unhelpfully limiting to paint ALL religions with the characteristics of the few that we're familiar/ comfortable with.

HK alludes to an interesting progression of religions. In decentralized societies, religions have many gods. In centralized ones, there is only one, and in fact the histories of Greek and Egyptian beliefs record increasing centralization. In patriarchal societies, the god(s) are male while in matriarchal ones they are female, and in the link I provided the legend records the transition between the two. In more egalitarian societies (which to this date have been primtive) the gods are natural features, while in more "developed" societies they tend to be anthropomorphised. More than anything, religion seems to trace the rise and fall of various powers in society.

But what I find more fascinating than any religious practice, babarity or belief is the set of cities that occupied the Indus valley about 2500 BC. Unlike most ancient cities, they had no fortifications, temples, palaces, or armories. Funerals were simple. The only evidence of a possible religion was a scattering of clay figurines of unknown significance, most often found in trash pits. These cities existed for 500 years. I'll have to look up the names (I read about them in National Geographic). One of them may be Harappa. It provides an indication that people may not always develop or need religion, and societies may not require them as organizing principles.

Now you're talkin' my language, Signy! A good book on these weaponless valley cultures is The Chalice and the Blade.

This really gets to the heart of everything we're dealing with today. How can egalitarianism flourish in a fundamentally hierarchical system like our modern civilization? With Gods like Jehova and Alah running the show, how can we achieve peace?

I find it very interesting that the constitution of the United States was derived in part from the Iroquois Confederacy. A federal system that respected the autonomy of the individual states (clans) and the separation of powers into three branches of government, these ideas are straight out of the Iroquois constitution. If the Prime Minister of England wants to suspend free speech in time of war, there's nothing saying he can't do that, but in America we have that freedom written into the Bill of Rights. Our very American concept of individual freedom is indigenous. United States culture, from the beginning and at it's heart is multicultural. After the civil war and the centralization of power in Washington that followed, our government became much more European in style. By the end of the 19th century most of the Indians were gone. New immigrants from Europe had no contact with our indigenous culture and our government has gotten more centrist and more invasive and more hierarchical ever since. The gods of Europe have eclipsed the gods of this land, or so it would seem.

How's that for hijacking the thread?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

CHRISISALL

Thursday, August 11, 2005 11:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Ah yes, white man always have something to prove!

Oh yeah, my Robot can beat your robot!!!

It was probably grief, yeah.
My wife (longtime aquantaince of said MM) told me he respects the ones who last as long as he does.
We were supposed to jump in the cold lake right after, but that kind of a transition smelled like a heart attack for me ( heat I can take; cold is my Kryptonite). Wow, it was a few years ago now.

I wish more western minds could let go of the 'this is exactly' and 'that is precisely' stuff when it comes to religion. Setting any faith in stone makes it a 'dead faith', as far as I see it. We need more 'living faiths', whatever those particular religions might be.

Christ was prolly a very flexable dude Chrisisall

FIVVER

Thursday, August 11, 2005 11:26 PM

Huh,

This link was just posted...

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/050811_scientists_god.html

Of course this survey includes "social scientists".

Fivver

CHRISISALL

Thursday, August 11, 2005 11:38 PM

Well that was bracing! I would have thought the % of believers to be WAY lower!

But I did expect the non-traditional leanings for those that do grok some God or other...

Stranger in a stranger land Chrisisall

NEUTRINOLAD

Friday, August 12, 2005 10:39 PM

Science is the study of the natural world.
God or gods or godlings or spirits or ghosts or other such entities are in the realm of the supernatural. Any proposal that is founded on the supernatural is scientifically useless, by definition.
Science exists because the statement, "It's God's will," explains not a gorram thing in the 'Verse.
So we're all done with this foolishness now, right?

SPINLAND

Friday, August 12, 2005 11:08 PM

Besides, we all know the answer was revealed years ago: 42. Crikey, do people forget important facts quickly around here!

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, August 13, 2005 3:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by NeutrinoLad:
Science is the study of the natural world.
God or gods or godlings or spirits or ghosts or other such entities are in the realm of the supernatural. Any proposal that is founded on the supernatural is scientifically useless, by definition.
Science exists because the statement, "It's God's will," explains not a gorram thing in the 'Verse.
So we're all done with this foolishness now, right?

I will never understand why some people are so offended by the mere fact of a discussion that they have to enter into it only to squelch it. You don't like the conversation? Move along.

Furthermore, your logic is

. It boils down to this: what is not already acknowledged as scientific fact is therefore unscientific. Same logic the church used to persecute Galileo. Science at its core concerns itself with observable reality. I, personally, have observed most of the items on your list, numerous times and with witnesses. If I am to study the natural world, I must, therefore, include them.

You haven't experienced any of these things. From where I sit, your denial of their reality is a little like a virgin denying the existence of sex.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

FOSTER

Saturday, August 13, 2005 3:23 AM

I thought that humans "homo sapiens" have been in their current form for around 25,000 years. And mutations are still occuring ; ).

The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things of shoes of ships of sealing wax of cabbages and kings and why the seas are boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.

SERGEANTX

Saturday, August 13, 2005 4:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Science at its core concerns itself with observable reality. I, personally, have observed most of the items on your list, numerous times and with witnesses. If I am to study the natural world, I must, therefore, include them.

For the reasons you cite above, I have to agree with NeutrinoLad, sort of.

What I agree with is that Science in no way addresses, or even admits the existence of, the supernatural. But, it's in many ways a confusion of terms (perhaps on my part?). As you point out, HK, anything observable is part of the natural world and therefore something science must acknowledge.

This is something that's always been a stumbling block for me when it comes the whole concept of the 'supernatural'. If a phenomenon is observable, if it can affect us in any way, then it is part of our natural world. If it can't affect us in any way, direct or indirect, then the reality of its existence is moot. Maybe I'm looking through a very narrow lens, but I see no way for anything 'supernatural' to have any meaningful existence.

This is where mystics always usually lose me. They insist on defining certain phenomenon as supernatural. I really don't know what to do with that unless I recast it to mean, "something we don't yet understand with science", but that's not the same thing.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, August 13, 2005 6:10 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
This is something that's always been a stumbling block for me when it comes the whole concept of the 'supernatural'. If a phenomenon is observable, if it can affect us in any way, then it is part of our natural world. If it can't affect us in any way, direct or indirect, then the reality of its existence is moot. Maybe I'm looking through a very narrow lens, but I see no way for anything 'supernatural' to have any meaningful existence.

This is where mystics always usually lose me. They insist on defining certain phenomenon as supernatural.

Okay, hold it right there. You the one "insisting on defining certain phenomenon as supernatural." I ain't telling you anything is "supernatural."

You say, "If it can't affect us in any way, direct or indirect, then the reality of its existence is moot." What phenomena are you referring to here? I've been in a house where everyone there saw a ghost and heard it scream; an ex-girlfriend of mine was physically attacked by what certainly looked like a demon, suffering three clawed rents above each knee; a group of small humanoid critters with oversized hands and feet and very large ears turned on a sprinkler system under my feet; angelic "guides" have given me information about a client that I had no way of knowing innumerable times.

The trouble is, you haven't experience any of this stuff. None of these kinds of things have affected you. My best explanation is that these phenomena seem to function a lot like emotions. We see people deny emotion all the time. Some people never cry. Some people drink instead of feeling grief. Such people have no idea what they're missing. These emotions happen to people all around them--you'd think they'd be able to extrapolate from the experiences of these other folks, but they don't. In extreme cases people redefine these emotions which they don't experience in very self-serving terms. Some men see tears as an expression of weakness or an indication of homosexuality instead of the psyche's way to balance itself. Some people when they finally allow themselves to experience grief without self-medicating feel exactly as if they were dying.

Sometimes whole cultures agree to these avoidant fantasies. Somehow the thought that so-called "supernatural" creatures may have any existence in the world is totally unacceptable. These beings threaten a whole cosmology for some folks. Does that seem right to you? I gotta wonder: what's the big deal?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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