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

[Bradskii]

edwest211:

Then why bring it up here? Some version of this topic gets a new thread here on a regular basis and that’s been going on for years. Evolution is not important. But the constant selling of the idea here seems to be… for reasons unknown

Why? Because this is the Philosophy forum. Good science never needs selling; just proving. If one is disinterested in any topic then one simply restrains using their mouse clicker (79 posts, so far?).

I think you asked some time back who on earth could think that you could use evolution to promote atheism.

It’s a useful storytelling device. And it’s useful for spreading atheism.

QED

 

[Bradskii]

Swimming rat becomes whale Makes sense…

You have to understand evolution for it to make sense. There are quite a few regular posters on threads like these who are determined to remain ignorant. So for them, yes, it makes no sense.

 

[rossum]

Swimming rat becomes whale Makes sense…

You are right, it does make sense.

• Swimming rat becomes swimming otter.
• Swimming otter becomes swimming seal.
• Swimming seal becomes swimming dolphin.
• Swimming dolphin becomes whale.

Evolution is generally a gradual process.

rossum

 

[o_mlly]

You are right, it does make sense.

• Swimming rat becomes swimming otter.
• Swimming otter becomes swimming seal.
• Swimming seal becomes swimming dolphin.
• Swimming dolphin becomes whale.

Evolution is generally a gradual process.

Complies with Gen 1:20-22.

20Then God said: Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky. 21God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of crawling living creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw that it was good, 22and God blessed them, saying: Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth.

 

[o_mlly]

I think you asked some time back who on earth could think that you could use evolution to promote atheism.

And I recall you answered correctly, “Nothing supports atheism.”

 

[rossum]

Complies with Gen 1:20-22.

20Then God said: Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky. 21God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of crawling living creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw that it was good, 22and God blessed them, saying: Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth.

Unfortunately that does not comply with reality. That is from day 5 of Genesis, while land animals only appeared on day 6. Birds are descended from land animals and so cannot have appeared before them. You will need to provide a fossil bird from the Devonian or earlier to support the stated order of appearance in Genesis.

rossum

 

[Techno2000]

Cruciferi:

Swimming rat becomes whale Makes sense…

You are right, it does make sense.

• Swimming rat becomes swimming otter.
• Swimming otter becomes swimming seal.
• Swimming seal becomes swimming dolphin.
• Swimming dolphin becomes whale.

Evolution is generally a gradual process.

rossum

So, I guess that blow hole thingy just kinda slowly formed by trial and error.

 

[goout]

This is just a commonsense argument.

If God created species, then apart from animals that have gone extinct, all the animals that exist today should be no different from when they were first created; there should be no new species. So it should be true that the Platypus has always existed for as long as there have been animals. From the moment animals existed they ought to be identical to the animals that live today. The evidence does not bare out that cl;aim.

So while one might not want to take evolution as fact, i think one can think that it is the most likely origin of species when compared to the biblical 7 day creation explanation…

Both/And
God is not a scientist or engineer. God transcends his creations. God is not beholden to science.
Science is “the how” in human terms.
God is the who, the why, the meaning, the purpose, the ultimate actor, the very actualization of being and existence.

The evolution of species is self evident to any sane and observant person who can absorb common sense scientific evidence.
God can do nature any way God wishes. God is not a subject of fundamentalist constraints, any more than science is the end of knowledge Neither/nor. Fundamentalism and atheism make strange bedfellows.

Oddly enough, fundamentalists think they exalt faith, what they exalt is their own limitations. I like to call it the “small-god theory”.

 

[Techno2000]

I like to call it the “small-god theory”.

Yes, God would be a small god, if he had to use evolution to create things.

 

[o_mlly]

Unfortunately that does not comply with reality. That is from day 5 of Genesis, while land animals only appeared on day 6. Birds are descended from land animals and so cannot have appeared before them. You will need to provide a fossil bird from the Devonian or earlier to support the stated order of appearance in Genesis.

Unfortunately the above argument is but a fallacy; an appeal to ignorance. Moreover, the burden of proof falls upon the one who claims to grasp reality. You will need to show that no bird fossils exist to prove Genesis wrong. Absence of evidence is not absence of being.

But most importantly, you continue to argue against a literal interpretation of Genesis. This is the wrong site to make that argument as Catholics agree with you on that point.

 

[goout]

goout:

I like to call it the “small-god theory”.

Yes, God would be a small god, if he had to use evolution to create things.

I would invite you look at yourself in the mirror and tell me how small God is.

There you are, made of material stuff, with an integrated soul. And you eat, and go to the doctor, and exercise, and apparently you think God is diminished by all this you see, and think, and do.
Why don’t you give God a little space?

 

[Gorgias]

SInce they were created just before the fall, perhaps they didn’t even have their first meal.

Where does the Bible say that the fall happened immediately at the conclusion of creation?

Yes, God would be a small god, if he had to use evolution to create things.

Right. And I guess He’s a “small god” because He had to use a burning bush to get Moses’ attention? And natural plagues to get Pharaoh’s attention? And natural miracles to get people to pay attention to Jesus?

Yeah… what a duffer. A real God would just snap His fingers and make things happen!

 

[Techno2000]

Yeah… what a duffer. A real God would just snap His fingers and make things happen!

Yes, like the fish and loaves and the water into wine… it pop right into existence, no problem.

 

[Gorgias]

Yes, like the fish and loaves and the water into wine… it pop right into existence, no problem.

Re-read those texts. It might surprise you that the multiplication of the loaves and fish isn’t said to have “popped right into existence” – in fact, they were surprised at the amount left over!

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

I think you asked some time back who on earth could think that you could use evolution to promote atheism.

And I recall you answered correctly, “Nothing supports atheism.”

Correct. You just need to explain that to Ed and those like him.

 

[goout]

Gorgias:

Yeah… what a duffer. A real God would just snap His fingers and make things happen!

Yes, like the fish and loaves and the water into wine… it pop right into existence, no problem.

Take note:
Christ took the material, and used it for transcendent good.
This transcendent good is not opposed to the material, the transcendence elevates the material and gives it it’s full meaning and purpose.
Still, a young child carries real loves and fishes, baked by real hands using principles of chemistry, caught by real hands using fishing technology.

Your expressed viewpoint is gnostic. Jesus is not a magician for those who “get it”, he is Lord of all that is.
God can create and multiply, and at the same time we are material beings with hands, feet, minds.

 

[Aloysium]

The evolution of species is self evident to any sane and observant person who can absorb common sense scientific evidence.

That would be you, right?

It’s an argument that’s hard to debate.

The evidence otherwise would be that:

• I am sane,
• I am observant and spend a good deal of time with nature
• I do science
• I have absorbed what passes for common sense at home, at school, at work and in the media pretty much all my life
• People do come to me for advice, and actually pay money for it, so I must possess a certain degree of common sense
  But:
• creation is self-evident in every moment of existence, where my mind is not elsewhere
  And:
• I simply don’t buy the assumptions that lie behind the belief in evolution

 

[o_mlly]

You just need to explain that to Ed and those like him.

OK.

Ed, It is possible to be either a liar or an atheist, but not both. Those who see only see because they are blessed. Pray for the atheists.

 

[Aloysium]

Christ took the material, and used it for transcendent good.

The Word created material being and formed it to create a first person, a unity of body-spirit (separable only in death).

the transcendence elevates the material and gives it it’s full meaning and purpose

The spirit gives the material its ability to relate to other material substances, to participate in a sociopsychological universe, to perceive, feel, think and act, thereby participating in our own creation. This Sunday we heard scripture readings about food, that which is external to us and becomes who and what we are. We communicate and feed one another. Through us, all creation is brought into communion with its Maker.

Your expressed viewpoint is gnostic. Jesus is not a magician for those who “get it”, he is Lord of all that is .
God can create and multiply, and at the same time we are material beings with hands, feet, minds.

I don’t understand what this has to do with the poster’s point.

God brings everything into existence, everything along the hierarchy of complexity found in material forms, living and otherwise, as well as those beings who are purely spiritual.

 

[rossum]

So, I guess that blow hole thingy just kinda slowly formed by trial and error.

You guess wrong. A blow hole is a pair of nostrils. We have a sequence of fossils showing the nostrils moving from the front of the snout to the top of the head.

rossum