Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[Rubee]

God’s neither simple nor complex, since that requires a prior cause which determines whether God is (A) simple or (B) complex. And if there is a prior cause, its not God.

God’s absolute simplicity. But maybe you’re thinking of ‘simple’ in the ordinary sense of the word.

 

[Rubee]

I was discussing complexity, not transcendence. Any omniscient entity has to be complex, just to handle all the information needed to be omniscient.

Why? You’re assuming that something has to be made up of many other things to handle info. I wonder how you founded this assumption.

I think scientists should stick to science and leave philosophy alone or at least learn the ideas. An atheist philosopher wouldn’t make such statements.

If God is simple, then you should have no problem with a simple cause for life on earth.

None of the causes you propose are simple, though. You’re relying on one composite cause after another. Suggest a simple cause, and yes, no problem.

 

[Aquinas11]

Yes I just mean he transcends whole notion of “simple” or “complex” since that is parameters/characteristics we assign to finite things.

 

[Techno2000]

buffalo:

Look at the videos above and then let’s discuss.

That does not tell me whether or not you accept a simple cause for life on earth or a complex cause.

God is life itself.

 

[Rubee]

Yep! And existence itself.

 

[rossum]

God’s neither simple nor complex, since that requires a prior cause which determines whether God is (A) simple or (B) complex. And if there is a prior cause, its not God.

Since God is the prior cause of the universe, then are you telling us that the universe is neither simple nor complex? If the universe is neither simple nor complex, then how can entities within the universe be simple or complex? Since God is neither, then simplicity and complexity must have their origins separately from God. Hence, by your argument God did not create all of the universe, only part of it. He did not create either simplicity or complexity.

 

[Aquinas11]

Since God is the prior cause of the universe, then are you telling us that the universe is neither simple nor complex?

No

If the universe is neither simple nor complex, then how can entities within the universe be simple or complex?

N/A

Since God is neither, then simplicity and complexity must have their origins separately from God Hence, by your argument God did not create all of the universe, only part of it. He did not create either simplicity or complexity.

You have that backwards: because God is neither, then simplicity and complexity must have their origins from God.

They can’t have their origins from something that is already complex or simple, since complex or simple already existed in that thing and thus it can’t be the origin of complexity or simplicity. This isn’t theology its just101 common sense.

 

[rossum]

They can’t have their origins from something that is already complex or simple, since complex or simple already existed in that thing and thus it can’t be the origin of complexity or simplicity. This isn’t theology its just101 common sense.

Then life did not take its origin from God because God is already a living God. Intelligence did not take its origin from God because God is intelligent. Any and all properties of God did not take their origin from God because they already existed.

That makes a lot of things that exist (including existence itself) that God did not create, because they already existed.

 

[Aquinas11]

Then life did not take its origin from God because God is already a living God. Intelligence did not take its origin from God because God is intelligent.

God neither living or intelligent, since again those are characteristics of finite things. If God had those characteristics he’d have to have prior cause making him (A) intelligent instead of (B) dumb, and thus would not be God.

 

[Techno2000]

That makes a lot of things that exist (including existence itself) that God did not create, because they already existed.

You’re over complicating things, all life comes from God and returns back to God.

and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:7

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Beats me why you waited all this time to offer this line of argument. The same would apply to all parts of the body: ‘Gee, how come my legs evolved and then somehow my brain evolved to tell me to put one foot in front of the other? And how come lungs evolved and then somehow my brain evolved to tell me to breath in and out? This is really an argument? And it took you well over 8,000 posts to realise this?

In other words, you’ve got nothing. You haven’t even attempted to explain how a heart and its essential partner - the brain stem - could have evolved separately, yet ended up perfectly attuned to each other.

This is one of the more fascile arguments against evolution.

The suggestion is that some random guy on the internet (me) who is reasonably well read on the subject of evolution, but has no formal education in any of the myriad aspects of the subject, is expected to give a detailed account of the complete evolution of the pulmonary and central nervous system in mammals (something, if I were able to do, would probably pass muster as a thesis to get me a phd or a first class degree at a minimum). And if that is not forthcoming…hah! So much for evolution!

This is like someone who denies that the moon landings happened asks Joe Blow for the detailed specs of the computer that controlled the entry into lunar orbit and the code that enabled it. And when Joe says, well - I know there was a computer and code that ran it because there are a gazillion other facts that back up the landings and I’m pretty sure you could get details of the code somewhere on the web, but I’m also pretty sure I personally couldn’t give you detailed information on how the code was developed, we would get…hah! So much for the moon landing!

So we know hearts have evolved because we can see the different stages in variojs organisms. From simple creatures that don’t have what could be reasonable described as a heart but which does have a system for the tranfer of fluids around the body, through to what we posess. Just as we can see how computer code has evolved from punched cards through BASIC up to…whatever is being used these days.

Very few people in the world are expert enough to give a detailed account of how computer code developed through the various stages and there are ditto very few people who could give you a detailed account of the evolution of the pulmonary system.

Yet you use this to deny evolution itself.

Farcical.

 

[edwest211]

Bradskii,

Your post added no new knowledge to the discussion. It also pointed out that scientists know what they know by observation of things alive today. The concept of evolution is not needed.

The poster you responded to made a valid point: how do interrelated parts of the body form where both are needed to help sustain the other?

 

[Techno2000]

The poster you responded to made a valid point: how do interrelated parts of the body form where both are needed to help sustain the other?

Very Slowly

 

[edwest211]

Too slowly to matter?

 

[Bradskii]

…how do interrelated parts of the body form where both are needed to help sustain the other?

This is not a question. This is a claim. That as it seems so stupefying to you that a pulmonary system and a nervous system can work in tandem, then gosh, evolution has just been shown to be complete nonsense.

The fallacy of incredulity writ large.

 

[Techno2000]

Too slowly to matter?

Slow enough to make it sound plausible.

 

[rossum]

God neither living or intelligent

Read your Bible: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (emphasis added). That is Psalm 42 (Protestant numbering) or Psalm 41 (Catholic numbering).

Do you worship a dead God? I think not. Or are you equivocating about the meaning of “life”? By all means say that God has type-1 life, while other things have type-2, type-3 etc life. But whatever God has, and however it differs from the human, animal, angelic etc. versions, it is still a form of life – the Bible says so.

God is a living God, as the Bible says, so God cannot have created life because God is not created. God did not create everything; He created everything except Himself.

The same argument applies to all other properties of God, or are you going to tell me that God is non-living, non-intelligent and non-existing?

 

[rossum]

The poster you responded to made a valid point: how do interrelated parts of the body form where both are needed to help sustain the other?

They develop in parallel. A jellyfish has a nervous system, though not yet a brain. It has a sort-of circulatory system: fluid sloshing round in the body cavity moved by ordinary muscles that are under the control of its nerves.

We still have a partly similar system. Our entire lymphatic system is pumped by ordinary muscle movements, not by the heart. And half of our blood, the venous half, is not pumped by the heart but by ordinary muscle movements. The heart is a specialised muscle and part of the brain has specialised in controlling the heart. Both are developments of the much simpler system found in jellyfish. Yes, some of our very early ancestors were jellyfish.

 

[Aloysium]

how do interrelated parts of the body form where both are needed to help sustain the other?

There clearly exists an ordering principle beyond those that define matter as described by the fundamental forces of nature and the related physics and chemistry. That life force, traditionally called a soul, would be the cause of matter coming together as one whole entity, like you and me here. It would be behind what is understood as natural selection. A frog croaking in the dark, snapping at a mosquito or jumping from a snake is instinctive behaviour that is an aspect of a natural structure beyond those of the atoms and molecules of which the creature is composed. That which we are doing right here and now reveals that overarching ordering of the material. Even if one accepts the concept of evolution, it is the organism, as Darwin noted, that mutates. The material focus of today, believing that some random, not preprogrammed chemical gltch in the DNA is responsible, makes the theory more unbelieveable than it was before. The ToE would make a little more sense if we assume such a power in nature that acts in a manner analogous to my thinking these words, writing them down and reading them, all of which are neurochemical events happening within the psychophysical unity that is a person. It is the soul of the thing, the existential reality of the kind of being it is, that brings the matter together in each individual expression of what it is, and it would be that which would have evolved, but was in fact created.

 

[Aquinas11]

He created everything except Himself .

I think we’re in agreement.

God is a living God, as the Bible says

Never said anything about Bible. I didn’t realize you believed in Bible. Alas, irrelevant since that “living” is not literal meaning God has pulse and ages, etc. But I’m glad you see you believe in Bible