Census What explanation do you accept for the diversity of life on Earth?

This was my attempt to get the creationism topic and the "here's how I reconcile science with mythology" topic out of the gooooooo science thread.

 

Rouge_Tonne, did you see LouisCK talking about evolution?

 

A ha. Well in that case well played.

Since this is here, I'll post three of my favorite pieces by evolutionary biologist H. Allen Orr. Reviews of books by Michael Behe, Daniel Denett, and Richard Dawkins, respectively.

Review trashing Behe's "Intelligent Design" screed 'Darwin's Black Box'

Critical review of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett's work which argues that Darwinism extends outward from biology into virtually every conceivable discipline

Critical review of Dawkins' unsophisticated, myopic, and onanistic 'The God Delusion'

 

For ****'s sake just say it's "masturbatory" already.

 

I voted other. It's all just magic, as far as I'm concerned. Sure maybe some god had a hand in it, but I couldn't say which one. Gaia, maybe? Anyway, it's way cool that life has evolved so diversely, and yet so simply.

 

Even if

1. there is a God

2. God is all-powerful

that doesn't mean God uses all that power.

 

But why not? Or, why would a god put all these convoluted, arbitrary, and inefficient mechanisms into place and just leave it alone?

 

God's like a Dragon Ball Z character. He's going to go at least 20 episodes before revealing his second of five transformations, and even then he'll only be using 60% of his full potential.

 

Yeah, God's actually a massive ******* or really lazy.

He could cure all hate, suffering and loss in the world but instead gets annoyed about abortions and gay marriage.

What an awesome deity humans bow before!

 

Does he scream while he's powering up like he's really, really constipated as less-powerful deities look on in awe?

 

Well duh.

 

It's a big assumption to think that because somebody says they believe in God, they automatically believe in an "all powerful" god. Or even a single god.

I'm a Christian and I don't believe in an all-powerful God.

 

You don't believe God is omnipotent?

 

Pretty sure that the majority of Abrahamic traditions consider God omnipotent. Not saying you do, just that it's a safe assumption.

 

Nah.

Edit: that was a response to Vivec, not DG.

 

No I'm pretty sure.

 

DG, I get what you're saying. Also, it's not unreasonable to assume that most people who believe in God on these message boards are a part of the Abrahamic traditions as opposed to Eastern traditions or something. I'm just saying, in this thread it has looked like people are generally assuming "belief in theistic evolution = belief in an omnipotent creator". Which isn't necessarily a crazy assumption, but it's also not necessarily an all-encompassing one.

 

I think it was natural evolution.

I'm definitely interested in hearing more about theistic evolution and what it means for those of you who believe in it, since that's the option I'm least familiar with.

 

What MASTERPRENN said. There are many forms of theism.

Why would it be inefficient for God, when God has infinite time/energy/resources?

And who says he's "leaving it alone?" In my view, those natural processes are the work of God.

You're generalizing/stereotyping.

I'm a Christian. I think gay marriage is just as sacred as straight marriage.

And there's this thing called "free will," if you want to get into the problem of evil, but I think that's beyond the scope of this thread.

I know this wasn't directed to me, but to answer: I don't think God has to be omnipotent or omniscient in the way people generally describe omnipotence/omniscience. Still the most powerful/knowledgable force, but not necessary to be omnipotent/omniscient. Maybe God is omnipotent and omniscient, maybe God isn't, whatever.

It's not really a big deal to me. I believe God is powerful and knowing where it counts; that God understands/controls and is responsible for the processes of nature, and knows our hearts and minds, and is powerful enough to ensure everlasting spiritual life for us all.

 

The vast majority of genetic mutations are not beneficial, and many are harmful; the vast majority of species that have ever lived are extinct. I'd say that leaving a billion-year pile of corpses in our wake just to reach this our-immune-systems-respond-to-infections-by-cooking-our-brains point is pretty inefficient. And I know you're just going to use the omnipotence/omniscience/"God is outside of time" trump card. Dammit, Vivec, I try to keep my mouth shut about this but you had to post the thread!

I refer to the Futurama quote in my first post, and Ender's "God must be an *******."

 

Darth_Guy

Evolution doesn't have a goal, every organism currently alive is equally evolved, every scientist and student of science knows that. Of course organisms aren't perfect.

And problem of evil discussion belongs in its own thread.

 

Eh, just doesn't seem like quite the right register for these types of discussions. Although I will confess that as a student of Judaism, I do have an affinity for using words that are derived from it. It's actually rather astonishing how many of them are ingrained in our language, the vast majority of speakers being completely unaware of their Biblical provenance. (My favorite: the word "shibboleth" being used as an...erm...shibboleth, in the Book of Judges)

 

I was actually considering about starting a discussion along those lines...I recently read a biography of Richard Ramirez, "The Night Stalker" and was pretty fascinated by him(yeah, yeah, yeah). What's extremely provocative about him in particular is that while killers like Jeffrey Dahmer were sociopaths with deadly compulsions, I've never really thought he was "evil". Ramirez, though, is a completely different animal. He absolutely knew he was terrorizing people, and while killing was a compulsion for him, he also was doing it just for the sake of terrorizing people. I don't really believe in metaphysical "good" and "evil", but Richard Ramirez has forced me to think about it more closely than I ever had before.

 

I gotta stop. I gotta. I just can't!

Of course it's purposeless. I know that. I just assumed that if you believed there was some conscious creator behind it, that it did have a purpose. I'm just saying that if I were all-powerful, I could come up with something better that didn't cause eons of suffering and didn't make an infinite amount of mistakes and didn't continue indefinitely (until all life is gone) and the whole thing was a mistake and **** it let's just sit around waiting for the stars to burn out and atoms to fall apart.

Doesn't the "problem of evil" usually refer to human evil, not the brutality and stupidity of nature?

 

Oh, yeah, I forgot that in this context the "problem of evil" is a logical argument for the non-existence of God. I was thinking of "evil" in a more general sense. Woops.