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20thCenturyBoy
Joined: 09 Dec 2007
Posts: 77
Location: southeast PA
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 Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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Of course I believe in evolution, how else would Charmander become Charzard?
On a more serious note, I believe in evolution, and not in creationism. I could never find truth that there was a higher being controlling everything we do. Because if there was, how could we have free will? Why would god be making me do stupid things like play guitar hero? Or insult him?
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kromagnon
Joined: 23 Apr 2007
Posts: 53
Location: Boone, NC
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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The existence or non-existence of a higher power should not affect whether you have free will or not. That is up for debate on both sides of the scale.
Scientific side:
The choices you make are merely illusions of free will, the choice you brain makes is simply a chain reaction of very real physics equations involving the neurons in your brain, meaning that if we could completely clone your brain and simulate the inputs of your memories, experiences, and other physical inputs, than this brain would make the same "choices" you made.
Religious side:
God knows what you are going to do. God can't be wrong. Therefore you HAVE to do what He knows you will do, and can't possibly choose to do anything different.
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pk217doc
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 145
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| kromagnon wrote: | The existence or non-existence of a higher power should not affect whether you have free will or not. That is up for debate on both sides of the scale.
Scientific side:
The choices you make are merely illusions of free will, the choice you brain makes is simply a chain reaction of very real physics equations involving the neurons in your brain, meaning that if we could completely clone your brain and simulate the inputs of your memories, experiences, and other physical inputs, than this brain would make the same "choices" you made.
Religious side:
God knows what you are going to do. God can't be wrong. Therefore you HAVE to do what He knows you will do, and can't possibly choose to do anything different. |
I have issues with each of these statements.
Scientific side: The human brain is still a mystery to science. There is no hard evidence or proof as to exactly how it works. We have indicators and ideas of what makes it work, or at least what helps it to work, but we certainly do not know WHY it works the way it does.
Also, I doubt there would ever be a way to exactly simulate one person's memories, experiences, and whatnot, and even if it were possible, you can't just assume that one brain would still make the same "choices"/choices as its cloned counterpart.
Religious side: If God knows what we are going to do and can't be wrong, which in turn means we "HAVE" to do what He knows we'll do, why are there murderers, rapists, thieves, etc.? In this context, you could almost argue that we are simply a video game (i.e. GTA series) that is being played out by some bored kid.
Furthermore, if your response to the murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. is that God doesn't control these individuals, the Devil does (or Hades or whomever), does this also imply that if God does in fact exist, that he only controls certain individuals (i.e. only the "good" people)?
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woozerkristen 
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 1917
Location: Auburn/Tuskegee, AL
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| pk217doc wrote: | Religious side: If God knows what we are going to do and can't be wrong, which in turn means we "HAVE" to do what He knows we'll do, why are there murderers, rapists, thieves, etc.? In this context, you could almost argue that we are simply a video game (i.e. GTA series) that is being played out by some bored kid.
Furthermore, if your response to the murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. is that God doesn't control these individuals, the Devil does (or Hades or whomever), does this also imply that if God does in fact exist, that he only controls certain individuals (i.e. only the "good" people)? |
Augustine was, I believe, the first to articulate the idea that God exists outside of time, but I think it's a view that makes sense. If God created time, he must necessarily exist outside of it. I think of it as someone sitting with a view of a timeline of the entirety of existence. We always have the free will to make our own choices, but God sits in a position where he can see what all those choices will be. Kind of like when a parent sees their child headed down a wrong path but chooses not to intervene, allowing them to make the mistakes for themselves (and hopefully learning from them). They see where the kid is headed but it's always the kid's choices.
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pk217doc
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 145
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| woozerkristen wrote: | | pk217doc wrote: | Religious side: If God knows what we are going to do and can't be wrong, which in turn means we "HAVE" to do what He knows we'll do, why are there murderers, rapists, thieves, etc.? In this context, you could almost argue that we are simply a video game (i.e. GTA series) that is being played out by some bored kid.
Furthermore, if your response to the murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. is that God doesn't control these individuals, the Devil does (or Hades or whomever), does this also imply that if God does in fact exist, that he only controls certain individuals (i.e. only the "good" people)? |
Augustine was, I believe, the first to articulate the idea that God exists outside of time, but I think it's a view that makes sense. If God created time, he must necessarily exist outside of it. I think of it as someone sitting with a view of a timeline of the entirety of existence. We always have the free will to make our own choices, but God sits in a position where he can see what all those choices will be. Kind of like when a parent sees their child headed down a wrong path but chooses not to intervene, allowing them to make the mistakes for themselves (and hopefully learning from them). They see where the kid is headed but it's always the kid's choices. |
I can see your point about letting someone make their mistakes and hopefully correct and/or learn from them, but this still does not address the murderers, rapists, etc. aspect I was talking about, or at least not in the way I'm thinking of it. I am a parent, and if I had the gift of being able to view my child's timeline of life and knew that they were eventually going to murder/rape someone down the line, I can't imagine myself just saying, well, they'll learn from that once they're jailed and released later on.
Getting with the wrong crowd or making bad decisions is one thing, but to knowingly take someone else's life or completely alter their life through rape is something entirely different. This is especially true to me if the person killed/raped is just some random person that the offender just happened not to like or disagreed with over something stupid.
And I'm sure someone will think or say that it was the victim's free will to be in that situation, so you can't blame the offender or God for allowing the offender to go through with whatever happened, but I say take a look at any of the recent mall/school/church shootings and explain that. Explain how any god can simply let something like that happen, and ruin the lives of so many random people, and the lives of all of the family and friends who loved that "random" person who was killed.
As a footnote to this, I am not a family member or friend of any of the people recently killed in any of the events. So I'm not trying to bring attention to it for that purpose, I'm just using it as an example.
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kromagnon
Joined: 23 Apr 2007
Posts: 53
Location: Boone, NC
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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I would like it known that those are not MY arguments against free will, those were just examples of existing arguments against free will from both the religious and scientific crowds.
It was just meant to be an example of how believing in a higher power shouldn't affect the belief in free will.
I personally believe in free will.
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pk217doc
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 145
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| kromagnon wrote: | I would like it known that those are not MY arguments against free will, those were just examples of existing arguments against free will from both the religious and scientific crowds.
It was just meant to be an example of how believing in a higher power shouldn't affect the belief in free will.
I personally believe in free will. |
I would also like to point out that I was simply providing counter-arguments to those suggestions, not necessarily saying kromagnon was incorrect or disillusioned. kromagnon never mentioned in his post "I believe the religious side or scientific side" when he presented both arguments, so I wasn't trying to imply anything against kromagnon, just providing my thoughts on the two suggestions that were provided in the first statement.
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woozerkristen
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 1917
Location: Auburn/Tuskegee, AL
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| pk217doc wrote: | And I'm sure someone will think or say that it was the victim's free will to be in that situation, so you can't blame the offender or God for allowing the offender to go through with whatever happened, but I say take a look at any of the recent mall/school/church shootings and explain that. Explain how any god can simply let something like that happen, and ruin the lives of so many random people, and the lives of all of the family and friends who loved that "random" person who was killed.
As a footnote to this, I am not a family member or friend of any of the people recently killed in any of the events. So I'm not trying to bring attention to it for that purpose, I'm just using it as an example. |
Because constantly breaking the rules He put into place (whether it be individual free will, the law of gravity, or any other thing) it would be chaos. If God could step in and keep someone from carrying out a bad act, they don't have free will any more.
I personally believe that God does try to use other people (making use of their own free will) to "run interference" to keep things like that from happening, but it doesn't always work. But in short, if you have God step in and keep bad things from happening, then you no longer have free will. It's instead, "you can make your own choices, but as long as you choose good."
We're getting kind of far of from evolution here, though...
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turbo
Joined: 08 May 2007
Posts: 1910
Location: Huntington Beach, CA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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I hope I clear a little bit up, but it seems like evolutionists are arguing the fact that evolution exists, and the creatonists are arguing where we came from.
To the creationists: Evolution is a fact. You can't deny that evolution exist, be it in basic mutations or not.
To the evolutionsts: It does take some faith to believe in evolution. There are gaps that aren't linked.
To the creatonists: Evolution is so probably, you can't just toss it out the window. The fact that fossil records go back so far, and they all resemble eachother through the timeline, kind of like a story progressing. The fossils weren't just found randomly, they were found in certain areas, and not other areas, you can follow migration patterns of new species, through the changes and whatnot.
I had an idea going, but I worded everything really badly and lost it D:
lol maybe someone can make sense of it.
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dmaster13
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Kingofterrors wrote: | Let me just sum this up best i can... as the great George Carlin would say " MY GOD HAS A BIGGER DICK THEN YOUR GOD."
And for whoever said it... I am an athiest and i'm not completely convinced of evolution. |
Why aren't you completely convinced of evolution? Did it choke solo S?
Any way I think this article will completely throw every creationist's thinking into wack IF THEY READ IT WITH AN OPEN MIND. I myself don't know what to think but this was a very interesting article to read(I really don't have a stance BTW)http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/thingscreationistshate.htm
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thecaptainof 
Joined: 04 May 2007
Posts: 7571
Location: ¯\(°_o)/¯
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| dmaster13 wrote: | | Kingofterrors wrote: | Let me just sum this up best i can... as the great George Carlin would say " MY GOD HAS A BIGGER DICK THEN YOUR GOD."
And for whoever said it... I am an athiest and i'm not completely convinced of evolution. |
Why aren't you completely convinced of evolution? Did it choke solo S? |
Holy shit, I never thought the 'solo S' thing would stop being funny, but you've just managed to kill it. Congratulations.
...aaaand on-topic:
| Quote: | Any way I think this article will completely throw every creationist's thinking into wack IF THEY READ IT WITH AN OPEN MIND.
*blah blah link* |
Except, it won't. What you have to consider here is that (LOLSIMPLIFICATION ahoy, to avoid an explanation of encyclopaedic proportions) there are two groups of people in this discussion with directly conflicting views and precisely zero chance of persuading each other to change opinions, regardless of what they throw at each other. An article which comes across as horribly patronising and disrespectful (regardless of the fact that it ostensibly backs up my point of view) really is not going to help anyone in a debate which has been, for me at least, very amicable and stimulating.
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dmaster13
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:04 am Post subject: |
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| thecaptainof wrote: | | dmaster13 wrote: | | Kingofterrors wrote: | Let me just sum this up best i can... as the great George Carlin would say " MY GOD HAS A BIGGER DICK THEN YOUR GOD."
And for whoever said it... I am an athiest and i'm not completely convinced of evolution. |
Why aren't you completely convinced of evolution? Did it choke solo S? |
Holy shit, I never thought the 'solo S' thing would stop being funny, but you've just managed to kill it. Congratulations.
...aaaand on-topic:
| Quote: | Any way I think this article will completely throw every creationist's thinking into wack IF THEY READ IT WITH AN OPEN MIND.
*blah blah link* |
Except, it won't. What you have to consider here is that (LOLSIMPLIFICATION ahoy, to avoid an explanation of encyclopaedic proportions) there are two groups of people in this discussion with directly conflicting views and precisely zero chance of persuading each other to change opinions, regardless of what they throw at each other. An article which comes across as horribly patronising and disrespectful (regardless of the fact that it ostensibly backs up my point of view) really is not going to help anyone in a debate which has been, for me at least, very amicable and stimulating. |
That is why I said if they read it with an open mind. The problem is, most people will not have an open mind with this subject. I (IMO) think I do, as I consider myself to be on the fence. That article was extremely interesting to me however.
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Thurman91
Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 1165
Location: Bradford, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:21 am Post subject: |
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stan marsh of south park said it best:
| Quote: | | "couldnt evolution be the answer to "how" and not the answer to "why"? |
evolution could be the reason why we developed into the beings we are now, but couldnt it be possible that a greater force in the universe designed this. im a catholic, i believe God created the universe and the world, i dont believe the Earth is roughly 6000 years old but i do believe in evolution. may seem strange a person can believe in two things that people think contradict each other, but its entirely possible that one thing can be created from another.
*oh and give KoT a break on Solo s, he can kick your ass in a second, and he's FCed it since then so its really getting old |
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dreamaddict
Joined: 28 Mar 2007
Posts: 844
Location: Renton, WA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:31 am Post subject: |
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| thecaptainof wrote: | | Matt wrote: | Now here is a tidbit for you (and one of the reasons I believe in the validity of the Bible)
But as for the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible), did you know that if you take the original Hebrew version, go into Genesis (the first book), find the first letter for the word "Torah", and go every 49 letters, you get the word "Torah". Then if you go into Exodus (the second book), you get the exact same thing. Then in Numbers and Deuteronomy (the 4th and 5th books), you get the same thing, but spelled backwards. Now, go to the third (middle) book, Leviticus. Go to the first occurrence of the first letter of the unpronounceable name of God, and go every 7 letters, you get His Name.
Now you may call this coincidence (and that would be quite the coincidence). But by the laws of mathematical chance, you would expect you could find this a few times with different numbers. Yet, 49 and 7 are the only numbers where this works (7 being one of the numbers God seems to like to use a lot). This means that there is no other number by which you can find either of these things in any part of the Torah.
Statistically, this is like winning the Powerball 5 times in a row (OK, I don't know the actual statistics, but I know they are insanely high).
For me, this is kind of like God's watermark for the Bible. And the Bible is full of stuff like this. The total number of letter in the Bible (in its original languages) is divisible by 7. So are the number of vowels (and therefor, also the number of consenants). |
Although it's unlikely to change my opinions on its own, that would have to rank among the most interesting things I've heard... assuming it's true, of course, but to be honest I see no reason why someone (not meaning you in this case, as doubtless you got that information from somewhere earlier) would make up such a thing when it'd presumably be relatively easy to check out.
While I'm here... I haven't yet got around to reading the link you sent me - got kinda distracted by Guitar Hero leagues and real life - but I'll try to look at it over the weekend when I'm settled in back at university and formulate some kind of response. |
you think that's crazy? Check out a little book called The Bible Code. And let us not forget that the Jews have been obsessively doing this sort of thing for thousands upon thousands of years. Ask any Orthodox rabbi about 'gematriya' and be prepared for an avalanche of craziness.
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Oggy15
Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 336
Location: I ASK THE QUESTIONS!!!!
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:31 am Post subject: |
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| Thurman91 wrote: | stan marsh of south park said it best:
| Quote: | | "couldnt evolution be the answer to "how" and not the answer to "why"? |
evolution could be the reason why we developed into the beings we are now, but couldnt it be possible that a greater force in the universe designed this. im a catholic, i believe God created the universe and the world, i dont believe the Earth is roughly 6000 years old but i do believe in evolution. may seem strange a person can believe in two things that people think contradict each other, but its entirely possible that one thing can be created from another.
*oh and give KoT a break on Solo s, he can kick your ass in a second, and he's FCed it since then so its really getting old |
So, you're saying God started the big bang, and has been looking after the universe for the past 6 million years?
Same thing that I believe in...
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