Why does evolution select against atheists?

Fraggle Rocker said:
While some philosophical systems that we Westerners call "religions" are able to deal with that--such as the Dao and Confucianism--the religions that have come to dominate the world cannot. Judaism, Christianity and Islam exacerbate tribal differences and at their worst teach their members that the members of the other tribes are inferior, evil, or downright inhuman. Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Sunnis, Shiites, Orthodox and Unorthodox Jews... they all evolved into traditions of looking down on each other to the extent that making war and attempting to kill each other off was an acceptable way to resolve that difference when evangelism failed.
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as a christain i've never been taught anyone was inferior, evil, or downright inhuman because they didn't believe. these people were labeled as lost sheep.

So in prehistoric times religion may have played a part in helping us rise above the other animals, but today it has the opposite effect. It strives to unravel our coalescing global civilization and take us back to the days of warring tribes--basically bringing us back down to the level of the other apes.
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atheism will indeed, without a doubt, bring us down to the level of the ape.
as a matter of fact atheism will make humanity EQUAL to the ape.

Only by our ability to override instinctive behavior, such as religion, . . .
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whoa, stop, wait a minute.
religion is instinctive?
you don't find that odd fraggle?
The Big Bang has just about achieved the status of a canonical scientific theory: "true beyond a reasonable doubt." The universe was once a point mass of infinite temperature, and I don't think anyone's going to argue with a straight face that life could have existed in that undifferentiated milieu.
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if the big bang occurred at all . . .
i believe the "steady state" and plasma" ideas are supported by various scientists.
where did the energy come from to heat this "point source" to an infinite temperature?

i have little hesitation saying a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory.
-sir fred hoyle.
Of course precisely because we have not yet worked out all the details, that evidence is circumstantial and weak, but it is nonetheless evidence and it is respectable evidence.
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is this why "creation scientists" are labeled as deluded, inferior, or somehow mentally deficient, so their "evidence" would be considered not respectable?
At this point abiogenesis is the only hypothesis for the origin of life that is based on reason rather than faith or crackpottery, so it has rather a lot going for it.
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since when?
Down through the years, countless thousands of scientists in various disciplines have established the law of biogenesis as just that—a scientific law stating that life comes only from preexisting life and that of its kind.

there is NOTHING anywhere that says different.

All other hypotheses violate the Rule of Laplace: Extraordinary assertions must be accompanied by extraordinary evidence or we are not obliged to treat them with respect.
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then i respectfully request a logical explanation for things becoming alive.
The religious hypothesis, in particular, is nothing but sophomoric fallacy: "A god created life." But that god is alive so what is his origin?
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who said anything about a god?
 
Enmos said:
Wrong. I can accept whatever explanation as long as there is compelling evidence for it.
By the way, I have no beliefs about how life arose, except that it must have been from natural causes. And that's because supernatural doesn't exist by definition.
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no you can't enmos.
you can't give a logical explanation for things becoming alive but yet you say they did.
you can't give any explanation for a force that enables consciousness but you say there is.
you say abiogenesis occured but can't give any examples of it ever happening.
 
leopold99 said:
no you can't enmos.
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:crazy:

leopold99 said:
you can't give a logical explanation for things becoming alive but yet you say they did.
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Do you deny life ?

leopold99 said:
you can't give any explanation for a force that enables consciousness but you say there is.
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Do you deny consciousness ?

leopold99 said:
you say abiogenesis occured but can't give any examples of it ever happening.
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I know of one example (although I never said that, but ok..)

Please, now give me YOUR explanations for these three things. And state how you know that it happened that way.

I see you conveniently ignored my posts about the term supernatural.
 
leopold99 said:
as a christain i've never been taught anyone was inferior, evil, or downright inhuman because they didn't believe. these people were labeled as lost sheep.
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Atheists enjoy viewing others with the black and white prism. Furthermore, misinformation, and at times, utter and complete lack of knowledge, are used to accomplish these goals.

What Atheists forget is that religions, just as atheism (i.e. Russia, China, etc.), are used by ruling parties or governments to weaken political opponents.

Some people have a vested interest in seeing the world this way, it helps them sleep at night. So let them enjoy their time on this planet for a while. The truth shall become apparent in the end, then it will be too late.
 
DiamondHearts said:
Atheists enjoy viewing others with the black and white prism. Furthermore, misinformation, and at times, utter and complete lack of knowledge, are used to accomplish these goals.

What Atheists forget is that religions, just as atheism (i.e. Russia, China, etc.), are used by ruling parties or governments to weaken political opponents.

Some people have a vested interest in seeing the world this way, it helps them sleep at night. So let them enjoy their time on this planet for a while. The truth shall become apparent in the end, then it will be too late.
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Pot kettle.
 
Neither life nor the Universe are static

Leopold99 said:

you can't give a logical explanation for things becoming alive but yet you say they did.
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Two points. I'll try to be brief:

(1) Life, in the end, is nothing more than a specific balance of matter and energy. Everything in the Universe is a specific balance of matter and energy. Further, given the scale of the Universe, which has infinite potential, life becomes not so much an extremely difficult or implausible proposition, but a statistical inevitability.

(2) As with the fossil record and evolution, religious claims about what isn't known are the essential equivalent of reading the scoreboard at halftime and claiming one team won. Once upon a time, religionists mocked Darwin's whale-bear proposition. Where are the fossils? they asked. This persisted into the 1980s. And then the fossils of what would become known as Ambulocetus natans, the :"walking whale" were discovered. In these questions of science and religion—

• Scientific Answer: Stay tuned. We're working on it, and we're pretty sure we know what we're looking for.
• Religious Answer (e.g., Christianity): The fact of an incomplete process means the process can never be completed.​

—religion fails the test.​

That we have not achieved any specific answer does not mean we never will. One would think people would have figured this out by now. And not just with evolution and life. It keeps happening. Many mocked the idea of flight itself right up until Kitty Hawk. You know, just for instance. We're the human species. All we need to do is keep our hand in the game of life; we keep accomplishing really cool shit, and it's getting even more and more spectacular as we go along. From figuring out how to sail, or building really cool structures to flying around in space, we've come a long, long way in our time.

Of course, with redemptive religions betting against humanity, perhaps we shouldn't wonder why so many of the adherents just don't see it that way. They're too busy trying to win the bet.
 
Not all of them. In fact, the scientific community is often the biggest hurdle in tackling the dogma of ideas.
 
Tiassa,

Well Said !

The greatest fear of those who believe in a specific religion or a specific route as to how we are here and why is continued discovery. Since that will continue they are resigned to a never ending change of position.

Leo,

You call yourself a christian, I respect you as a person. But how many times has the original postion changed to accomodate discovery. What changes will it need to take with future discovery.

and this,

atheism will indeed, without a doubt, bring us down to the level of the ape.
as a matter of fact atheism will make humanity EQUAL to the ape.
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is way over the top and it would be interesting to see how you can validate such a statement.

It's interesting that you agreed to the position that life could be flourishing on it's own throughout the universe finding it's way with whatever the planets system will allow, on any planet it can get a foot hold, but then claim to be of the belief that we were made specifically in the image of one creator.

If there is life elsewhere on another planet, full of all kinds of animals, are we then to assume that there are humans there as well, in charge of it all ?
 
jpappl said:
is way over the top and it would be interesting to see how you can validate such a statement.
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it most certainly isn't "way over the top".
the ONLY difference between man and ape as far as the law is concerned is that humans have a soul placed there by a god.
now, if you remove that, what does that make humans?

validation enough?
 
jpappl said:
It's interesting that you agreed to the position that life could be flourishing on it's own throughout the universe finding it's way with whatever the planets system will allow, on any planet it can get a foot hold, but then claim to be of the belief that we were made specifically in the image of one creator.
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where did i say we were created in "the creators image"?
 
No the only difference between the two is that human beings are considered to be and held responsible for their actions. Animals we just shoot if they do something wrong.
 
Science v. Science

S.A.M. said:

In fact, the scientific community is often the biggest hurdle in tackling the dogma of ideas.
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If I say that's irrelevant, it's because those problems are between one scientific theory and another, nor between religion and science.

Take, for instance, the late Dr. Elizabeth Targ. She did some good research into distant healing, and even established a couple of curious correlations. But she never did identify any mechanism suggesting how distant healing would work. And, in a sad irony, her research was not enough to save her in the end. She passed to cancer several years ago.

Her work was respectable; it didn't over-assert itself. That's why we never hear religious people citing it. There's no way to say science discriminated against her work because it didn't. No conclusions were rejected because the assertions were tenable, e.g., "There is a correlation between focused prayer and healing", not, "This is proof that prayer works."

Were she alive today, her work would still be in the phase of gathering data and looking for a pattern. She understood the scientific method, and was careful to stay within those boundaries.
 
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