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In your scenario where rape is better than cooperation, not only does homo rapist have to rape to spread his, and only his genes, he must also kill all potential competitors. So in a population of 200 homo rapists, evenly divided among the sexes, then your homo rapist needs to kill off around half the population. This is an inefficient way to increase or maintain the population.
Fire 2:
Homo rapist can't even help another male in need, as that is helping that other male to spread his genes. Neither can he expect help from any other male. He is therefore more vulnerable to being attacked by other males or wild animals. This is anything but beneficial for his genes.
Fire 3:
Homo rapist can't even allow his brothers to live, otherwise he is helping to spread a communal gene pool, the very thing you are arguing against.
Fire 4:
If he is genetically inclined to produce babies born without lungs, for example, the environment will definitely filter those genes out of the gene pool. And that is twisting the evidence, how?
Fire 5:
If he can't produce children, or produces weak children, his genes die out, whereas a communal gene pool does not.
Fire 6:
The more successful he is in producing children, the more work homo rapist has to do to support the pregnant mothers. A communal gene pool does not have this problem.
Fire 7:
If homo rapist meets a mother with a 10 year old child that is not his, to ensure the child's genes don't get spread, homo rapist has to kill the child. So the mother has invested over 10 years of energy for nothing. This is an inefficient way to increase or maintain the population.
Fire 8:
If he raises a family, they need to act as a community to ensure survival, so your homo rapist scenario STILL leads to the need for communal living.
Fire 9:
Homo rapist must allow one of his sons to kill the others off, without knowing which son has the better genes.
Fire 10:
Homo rapist must either rape his own daughters to pass only his genes on, or he must allow other males to rape his own daughters, weakening his own genetic effect. And this second scenario has the same results as none rapist communal living, so you have absolutely no advantage there.
Fire 11:
Your scenario either misses out 50% of the data, or treats them as nothing but senseless objects with a jiggly hole. I'm talking about women. Women don't like being raped, so would form communities to protect themselves from rapists. So once again your self refuting scenario produces communal living.
Fire 12:
And homo rapist doesn't get to have sex. And having killed off the other males, the population dies out in sexual agony and frustration.
Fire 13:
Women also want to pass on their genes, but prefer to do so with people who don't rape. So the benefit goes to the man who doesn't rape, and it is he who is more likely to pass on his genes.
So next time, please try not to ignore the maths, science, and 50% of the worlds population.
Again what does evolution care about any of that. if a species has to kill off all competitors to insure its genetic line that is exactly what evolution is all about. we see it all the time in the animal kingdom; the supreme male has all the females until he is challenged and beaten by another. In the ape family (I think it was the baboon) when the supreme male is defeated by another the new supreme male will search out and kill off the old supreme males offspring.
and you did not even try to answer why evolution produced homosexuals which would have no way of carrying on it genetic line.
Ok then walk me through how it is that most of humanity believe rape to be an evil thing from just an evolutionary perspective. Because imo evolution should have been pro rape as it would allow for more offspring to continue the genetic line, which is what evolution at its core is all about. And on the other side of the issue would be why evolution would cause people to be homosexual because they could not reproduce any offspring and would then die out.
Again ... "evil" is a theological term loaded with presuppositions. I use the word "harm" or "harmful". The question in any moral decision, or in promulgating a set of specific rules from that morality to produce an ethical code is, what is sustainably beneficial or harmful to making society civil?
Rape has been conclusively shown to be an extreme form of psychological and emotional harm. It is violation of the highest order. People who are raped are, generally, permanently scarred / damaged by the experience. Aside from the human carnage, it promotes distrust -- also harmful to civil society, for which some sort of trust framework is pretty much the fuel that such a society runs on. Rape is also violent -- it is more about power than about sexual gratification per se. It is a way of demonstrating total dominance over someone who is psychologically and/or practically speaking unable to push back. In fact if they are theoretically capable of pushing back (physically able to just walk away, for example) and don't, all the better -- rapists get off on the feeling of power and control. Authoritarian, violent societies are uncivil and contrary to the whole point or goal here. So ... in this and a hundred other ways, rape is harmful to and actively undermining of civil society. Therefore it is to be forbidden and prevented in no uncertain terms.
I think that the difficulty many believers have in understanding this reasoning process is that they see evil as a thing-in-itself, as a force, as something that comes from outside a situation and imbues it with "wrongness" which then requires some special metaphysical mojo to be able to "sense". When what is actually "wrong" about any activity, even one that society has heavily conditioned us to consider taboo or revolting, is the outcomes. Not just the surface outcomes, either, but the ultimate, long-term, sustained outcomes.
Let us venture into a somewhat grey area. One could (and some do) rationalize a superficially consensual sexual liaison with a minor because in the short term both parties feel really good about that liaison. Arguably, such a relationship is not technically "rape"; it is certainly less violent and invasive. But moral inquiry is far broader in scope than that. It asks, can the minor give meaningful informed consent, or does that consent belong to their parents? It asks, is there a balanced power dynamic in this relationship so that it might produce a stable family unit or at least positive emotional and mental growth for the participants? It asks, what is the likely ultimate outcome for this couple and how will tolerating that outcome benefit or harm society's stability, civility and durability? What is society's compelling interest, if any, and is it strong enough to justify sanctioning either or both parties to this relationship?
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Originally Posted by pneuma
I know they are horrible questions to contemplate Mordant but they are legitimate questions that evolution must answer.
That's a false dilemma. It is not something for evolution to answer, it is something for society to answer. Along the lines suggested above.
The concept of civil society has everything to do with the objectives of such a society and nothing to do with how we evolved through natural selection, or even IF we did.
I am not sure why you are muddying the waters with natural selection or the false implications of it that you are clearly obsessed with. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because you have to justify the NEED for a holy spirit because after all if morality is simply an organically emergent property of societal interactions then god adds nothing to the objective of civil society (or the objectives OF civil society).
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Originally Posted by pneuma
The difference is the ego is taken out of the picture, thus no one can boast about being superior to another.
Ego is in the picture and is not taken out by introducing god. If I had a nickel for every time a Christian has unctuously declared in my hearing that they represent (and are a favored confidante of) the Creator, thereby rendering what is, in fact, their own views, to be sacrosanct -- well, I'd be a very wealthy man, many times over.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
Sorry I was at work and only had a few minutes each time on the net to answer so did not explain myself very well. Most of Christianity hold pretty much to the view you put forth so yes they are legitimate questions.
Thank you.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
The truth be told I don't have all the answers you are looking for, I am still learning and growing myself but I do have a different view of some of the things you mentioned. For example Gods all knowing/foreknowing aspect.
Most of Christianity and probably most atheist see this aspect as God knowing the beginning and the end and everything in-between from eternity past. Now to me there are two points here. God knows the end from the beginning because that is what God will do Himself. Thus all humanity will be made in His image and likeness just as is recorded in Gen. 1:26-27.
The other point is the in-between what man will do. Most believe God knew what man would do from eternity past also, but scripture does not bare that out imo. God says He tests us so that He will know what is in our heart (think of abe and Isaac) it was only AFTER God tested abe that God said now I know you will withhold nothing from me.
Other scriptures state God searches our hearts, now why would God need to search our hearts if God knew what was in them from eternity past?
Thus foreknowledge of what man will do is not from eternity past but is done through the searching and testing of what is in our hearts.
Thus God's all knowing aspect is seen in that God searches out our innermost thoughts and nothing is hid from him.
From a theological perspective I have no issue with what you are saying here. It is a valid take-away that tries to interpret scripture in a way that is not contradictory either within itself or with what most people seem to want to believe about god. (What I mean by that is, theology reasons that god must be completely independent of all other beings, entirely self-sufficient to be god, therefore, all-powerful and all-knowing. This is not 100% unambiguous in scripture, partly for just the reasons you cite, but it represents what humans want god to be. If god isn't those things, then he is just a very powerful being, and is not transcendent over all, and lacks total authority to define and impose morality, because it makes him fallible and limited).
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Originally Posted by pneuma
I take it these questions are the ones that you had no answer to and they in part are the reason why you gave up on believing in God.
They were a precipitating factor, as they often are, given that people don't change either beliefs or behaviors until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. But I answered these questions to my complete satisfaction and have moved well beyond them. To unwind back to the point where I'd be able to entertain potential answers to these questions, there are far more fundamental ones that would have to be addressed first, including but not limited to, god's very existence.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
But is that really a good reason for doing so? Does evolution have all the answers? No, but you do not give up on it but keep looking for how evolution can answer the unanswered questions that it leaves in its wake.
Evolution does not claim that it will protect, nourish, validate or reward me in any way. It does not have a being in charge of it that says I can "hide in the shadow of its wings", call upon it in time of trouble, appeal to it in any way for any thing. It is simply a proven explanatory framework describing how a particular process called natural selection works. As such ... all evolution has to do, is what it says it does, explain what it explains. And I'd point out that evolution is not an attempt to explain everything. It's not even about how life arose, simply how it evolves.
God on the other hand, did not do what the bible, my spiritual mentors, my parents or religion said he would do. That is the difference and that is the reason for the level of trust I have in the ToE versus the standard-issue Christian god. The ToE makes NO lavish promises, and it works. God makes extremely lavish and detailed promises, that are empty, even when your hoard your chips for the times when you really need them. Like when your wife or child are dying, things like that.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
IMO we should have questions left unanswered as they cause us to search out the why of things. Most atheist have no problem with evolution not answering all the questions because it leads to more and more research on the matter but when it comes to the Christians search for understanding God and His ways they seem to think we should have all the answers already and for us to search for a better understanding of God and his ways is just stupid to them. That attitude imo is just mindboggling for we grow from a Childs understanding of God to one of a more mature understanding of God. Thus the atheist seems to think a child should have the same understanding as an adult.
Maybe it's mind-boggling from your perspective as a relatively non-authoritarian believer, but particularly in the US, the ubiquitous and influential authoritarian Christian doctrine and dogma asserts quite confidently that it HAS all the answers, at least when advertising its value propositions (not so much when they fail to deliver on them).
In my religious tribe of origin, for example, the Jack Chick evangelistic tracts were quite popular, you know, like the one that says "God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life". That in a nutshell is how my expectations were set. It implied there'd be trouble if I didn't feel loved or that my life did not in fact reflect the unfolding of this promised wonderfulness.
Never in all my decades in the faith, was my faith ever presented to me as an imperfect tool for approximating and approaching truth. More importantly, never did it serve as even THAT. It tended to lead me AWAY from a clear apprehension of how life / reality actually works and what to expect from it. My life was FULL of bitter surprises that violated my religious faith-based expectations.
If I had been raised with the notion that religious faith generally or Christianity particularly is just another way (and maybe not even the only one) to glean a few tidbits about the Meaning Of Life or to cope with it a little better, I would have been far more sanguine about the whole idea than I now am.
Again ... "evil" is a theological term loaded with presuppositions. I use the word "harm" or "harmful". The question in any moral decision, or in promulgating a set of specific rules from that morality to produce an ethical code is, what is sustainably beneficial or harmful to making society civil?
Rape has been conclusively shown to be an extreme form of psychological and emotional harm. It is violation of the highest order. People who are raped are, generally, permanently scarred / damaged by the experience. Aside from the human carnage, it promotes distrust -- also harmful to civil society, for which some sort of trust framework is pretty much the fuel that such a society runs on. Rape is also violent -- it is more about power than about sexual gratification per se. It is a way of demonstrating total dominance over someone who is psychologically and/or practically speaking unable to push back. In fact if they are theoretically capable of pushing back (physically able to just walk away, for example) and don't, all the better -- rapists get off on the feeling of power and control. Authoritarian, violent societies are uncivil and contrary to the whole point or goal here. So ... in this and a hundred other ways, rape is harmful to and actively undermining of civil society. Therefore it is to be forbidden and prevented in no uncertain terms.
I think that the difficulty many believers have in understanding this reasoning process is that they see evil as a thing-in-itself, as a force, as something that comes from outside a situation and imbues it with "wrongness" which then requires some special metaphysical mojo to be able to "sense". When what is actually "wrong" about any activity, even one that society has heavily conditioned us to consider taboo or revolting, is the outcomes. Not just the surface outcomes, either, but the ultimate, long-term, sustained outcomes.
Let us venture into a somewhat grey area. One could (and some do) rationalize a superficially consensual sexual liaison with a minor because in the short term both parties feel really good about that liaison. Arguably, such a relationship is not technically "rape"; it is certainly less violent and invasive. But moral inquiry is far broader in scope than that. It asks, can the minor give meaningful informed consent, or does that consent belong to their parents? It asks, is there a balanced power dynamic in this relationship so that it might produce a stable family unit or at least positive emotional and mental growth for the participants? It asks, what is the likely ultimate outcome for this couple and how will tolerating that outcome benefit or harm society's stability, civility and durability? What is society's compelling interest, if any, and is it strong enough to justify sanctioning either or both parties to this relationship?
I get all that mordant and agree with it. However that is not what I am asking. I am asking how we evolved into the moral being we are today. In other words how does evolution explain morality.
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That's a false dilemma. It is not something for evolution to answer, it is something for society to answer. Along the lines suggested above.
The concept of civil society has everything to do with the objectives of such a society and nothing to do with how we evolved through natural selection, or even IF we did.
Yes, but again that is not what I am asking. I am asking how our morality evolved into the society we live in today.
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I am not sure why you are muddying the waters with natural selection or the false implications of it that you are clearly obsessed with. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because you have to justify the NEED for a holy spirit because after all if morality is simply an organically emergent property of societal interactions then god adds nothing to the objective of civil society (or the objectives OF civil society).
I am not the one who brought evolution of morals into the conversation Mordant, Harry D did in post 55. I am content to leave it for now and get back to the view of scripture which I was speaking about.
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Ego is in the picture and is not taken out by introducing god. If I had a nickel for every time a Christian has unctuously declared in my hearing that they represent (and are a favored confidante of) the Creator, thereby rendering what is, in fact, their own views, to be sacrosanct -- well, I'd be a very wealthy man, many times over.
Yes I have witnessed this type of boasting also. The difference between my understanding (which is what we are talking about) and many Christians is I believe all of humanity has the Holy spirit within them, thus no one has a reason to boast above another. Most of Christianity does not believe the Holy spirit is in all humanity but is only in them. Thus they boast of being morally superior to others because they have something in them atheists do not.
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Thank you.
From a theological perspective I have no issue with what you are saying here. It is a valid take-away that tries to interpret scripture in a way that is not contradictory either within itself or with what most people seem to want to believe about god. (What I mean by that is, theology reasons that god must be completely independent of all other beings, entirely self-sufficient to be god, therefore, all-powerful and all-knowing. This is not 100% unambiguous in scripture, partly for just the reasons you cite, but it represents what humans want god to be. If god isn't those things, then he is just a very powerful being, and is not transcendent over all, and lacks total authority to define and impose morality, because it makes him fallible and limited).
But that is part of the point I have been making. People believe if God does not live up to their understanding of God he cant be God. To them it makes God lesser then he is. That why I used Gods all knowing aspect, just because people believe God cannot be God because He does not know what man will do from the eternal past does not lessen God. Imo it increases God stature as a loving father.
Example: take a football game, which coach do you think should receive the greater glory?
The*football*coach that already knows every move of every player on the opposing team (has their playbook) will make in the game and thus wins the game.
Or the*football*coach that knows the game of*football*so good that any move the opposing players make He can counter and thus wins the game.
The one view shows God just sitting up in the heavens doing nothing because he already knows the outcome, whereas my view show a God who is interactive with the players and makes subtle changes in order to move each player into a winning position.
Making humanity in His image and likeness.
Now I know the A & E crowd might think God should have just created man in His image and likeness right from the start so will likely reject this idea. However I am speaking of how humanity is evolving from the animal he was created into a spiritual being. In other words I am talking about a spiritual evolution of humanity.
When God first created biological humanity God created them of the earth earthy. We right now bare the image of the first man adam, but we shall bare the image of the second adam, which is Christ.
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They were a precipitating factor, as they often are, given that people don't change either beliefs or behaviors until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. But I answered these questions to my complete satisfaction and have moved well beyond them. To unwind back to the point where I'd be able to entertain potential answers to these questions, there are far more fundamental ones that would have to be addressed first, including but not limited to, god's very existence.
I get that, however for me I look at creation and see how complex it is and simply cannot deny the existence of God.
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Evolution does not claim that it will protect, nourish, validate or reward me in any way. It does not have a being in charge of it that says I can "hide in the shadow of its wings", call upon it in time of trouble, appeal to it in any way for any thing. It is simply a proven explanatory framework describing how a particular process called natural selection works. As such ... all evolution has to do, is what it says it does, explain what it explains. And I'd point out that evolution is not an attempt to explain everything. It's not even about how life arose, simply how it evolves.
I know you separate evolution from origins, but science does not seem to because all the science books in our schools promote the big bang as part of the ToE theory , which if it is not is very misleading to the general public.
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God on the other hand, did not do what the bible, my spiritual mentors, my parents or religion said he would do. That is the difference and that is the reason for the level of trust I have in the ToE versus the standard-issue Christian god. The ToE makes NO lavish promises, and it works. God makes extremely lavish and detailed promises, that are empty, even when your hoard your chips for the times when you really need them. Like when your wife or child are dying, things like that.
Maybe it's mind-boggling from your perspective as a relatively non-authoritarian believer, but particularly in the US, the ubiquitous and influential authoritarian Christian doctrine and dogma asserts quite confidently that it HAS all the answers, at least when advertising its value propositions (not so much when they fail to deliver on them).
In my religious tribe of origin, for example, the Jack Chick evangelistic tracts were quite popular, you know, like the one that says "God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life". That in a nutshell is how my expectations were set. It implied there'd be trouble if I didn't feel loved or that my life did not in fact reflect the unfolding of this promised wonderfulness.
Never in all my decades in the faith, was my faith ever presented to me as an imperfect tool for approximating and approaching truth. More importantly, never did it serve as even THAT. It tended to lead me AWAY from a clear apprehension of how life / reality actually works and what to expect from it. My life was FULL of bitter surprises that violated my religious faith-based expectations.
If I had been raised with the notion that religious faith generally or Christianity particularly is just another way (and maybe not even the only one) to glean a few tidbits about the Meaning Of Life or to cope with it a little better, I would have been far more sanguine about the whole idea than I now am
I get that Mordant. Both my parents were preachers so I was raised believing as they did. However one thing my dad taught me was to never take anyone ones word for anything but search out the matter for yourself. I have never forgot that lesson because shortly after that I started to see things in scripture that ran in a very different direction from what my parents taught me. My parent were basically of the fundament view and as you can see by reading even this little bit from me I do not hold a fundamental view of scripture and have been on this road for over 40 years now. I can tell you it has not all been roses and sunshine.
My point being, just because someone tells you a thing does not make what they say to be true. Thus to give up on something because of what you were taught seems strange to me. I get it, but it just seems strange to me.
I get all that mordant and agree with it. However that is not what I am asking. I am asking how we evolved into the moral being we are today. In other words how does evolution explain morality.
It doesn't explain morality and isn't supposed to. It explains natural selection.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
Yes, but again that is not what I am asking. I am asking how our morality evolved into the society we live in today.
The first time two people had to coexist or cooperate, there was morality. It's always been a question of how we productively and sustainably get along with one another -- what works and doesn't in actual experience over time.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
Yes I have witnessed this type of boasting also. The difference between my understanding (which is what we are talking about) and many Christians is I believe all of humanity has the Holy spirit within them, thus no one has a reason to boast above another. Most of Christianity does not believe the Holy spirit is in all humanity but is only in them. Thus they boast of being morally superior to others because they have something in them atheists do not.
Point taken. I gather than you believe in universal reconciliation as well. This notion that god deals with humanity generally and is no respecter of persons is more ... dare I say ... evolved than what is more commonly encountered. As is the notion that redemption, if it has any meaning, eventually triumphs and applies to all. This also removes the smug "you'll get yours" mentality toward the "unregenerate".
I have a lot of common cause with liberal Christian thinking actually, to the point that I have had some tentative fellowship with liberal Christianity. I find their liturgical extravaganzas too much to bear, but can appreciate the community that they sometimes manage to foster.
That said ... I'm not a close fit for it anymore, either. I have no desire to return to the cognitive dissonance of the Problem of Evil (which I prefer to call the Problem of Suffering). God does nothing to explain my reality, predict outcomes, or make things more coherent.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
But that is part of the point I have been making. People believe if God does not live up to their understanding of God he cant be God. To them it makes God lesser then he is. That why I used Gods all knowing aspect, just because people believe God cannot be God because He does not know what man will do from the eternal past does not lessen God. Imo it increases God stature as a loving father.
Example: take a football game, which coach do you think should receive the greater glory?
The*football*coach that already knows every move of every player on the opposing team (has their playbook) will make in the game and thus wins the game.
Or the*football*coach that knows the game of*football*so good that any move the opposing players make He can counter and thus wins the game.
The one view shows God just sitting up in the heavens doing nothing because he already knows the outcome, whereas my view show a God who is interactive with the players and makes subtle changes in order to move each player into a winning position.
Yes I see where you're going with this and if I had a deity to cast in a good light that's actually the way I'd go about it.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
Making humanity in His image and likeness.
I am not of the view that suffering is a requirement for such a process. We are not chess pieces to be moved around on god's board, castled and disposed of in the service of some stratagem or other. I am far more able to accept human suffering that is not a consequence of human folly as simply existing amidst "nature, red in tooth and claw" because that's the way it happens to be. As soon as that sort of thing becomes part of some Plan it becomes decidedly perverse trying to see the Planner as balanced and benevolent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pneuma
Now I know the A & E crowd might think God should have just created man in His image and likeness right from the start so will likely reject this idea. However I am speaking of how humanity is evolving from the animal he was created into a spiritual being. In other words I am talking about a spiritual evolution of humanity.
I think you are just putting a spiritual sheen over something that is happening organically on its own (although in hideous fits and starts).
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Originally Posted by pneuma
I get that, however for me I look at creation and see how complex it is and simply cannot deny the existence of God.
That is an argument from incredulity. We can demonstrate how order and complexity arise from simpler forms without intentionality in the mix.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
I know you separate evolution from origins, but science does not seem to because all the science books in our schools promote the big bang as part of the ToE theory , which if it is not is very misleading to the general public.
There is no one misleading anyone. The theory of evolution and what it is about is not a federal secret. The Big Bang is a separate theory about a separate topic. Abiogenesis is a scientific hypothesis currently, not a theory, on yet another topic. A scientist might talk about all of these in the same breath if he were doing something like when deGrasse-Tyson presented a relative timeline back to the big bang on Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey because they are all products of science.
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Originally Posted by pneuma
My point being, just because someone tells you a thing does not make what they say to be true. Thus to give up on something because of what you were taught seems strange to me. I get it, but it just seems strange to me.
Except that I have not rejected it merely because it is what I was taught. I rejected it because the preponderance of evidence makes it exceedingly unlikely to be true. That I was taught it is mere coincidence. The way I initially came to reject what I was taught is because it did not explain or predict experienced reality nearly so well as empiricism / rationalism / skepticism has. A typical consequence of skepticism is that it leads to atheism because there is not just only a little, but no substantiation for the assertion that an invisible being in an invisible realm is responsible for the creation and maintenance of reality.
I did spend several months evaluating whether there was some other compartment of Christianity or even some other religion that would not suffer from this fatal flaw, but the problem isn't really so much the specific tenets of Christianity (or of, say, fundamentalist Christianity as it was taught to me) as the failed epistemology of religious faith on which they are all based: the notion that one should afford belief to the unsubstantiated, rather than following evidence where it leads regardless of dogma or desire.
Except that I have not rejected it merely because it is what I was taught. I rejected it because the preponderance of evidence makes it exceedingly unlikely to be true. That I was taught it is mere coincidence. The way I initially came to reject what I was taught is because it did not explain or predict experienced reality nearly so well as empiricism/rationalism/skepticism has. A typical consequence of skepticism is that it leads to atheism because there is not just only a little, but no substantiation for the assertion that an invisible being in an invisible realm is responsible for the creation and maintenance of reality.
You err in understanding why you think the "preponderance of evidence makes it exceedingly unlikely." You think so precisely because of what you were taught about "it" (meaning God). You are stuck in the conditioned thinking about an invisible being in an invisible realm when in fact we are within the being (God) itself. It is AS IF one of our individual brain cells was sentient and trying to figure out what is the significance of everything within our body and brain and concluding there is no invisible being in an invisible realm. Yet the reality is that cell is just part of who WE are and our body's individual cellular lifetimes and perspectives have no ultimate import to OUR essential existence.
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I did spend several months evaluating whether there was some other compartment of Christianity or even some other religion that would not suffer from this fatal flaw, but the problem isn't really so much the specific tenets of Christianity (or of, say, fundamentalist Christianity as it was taught to me) as the failed epistemology of religious faith on which they are all based: the notion that one should afford belief to the unsubstantiated, rather than following evidence where it leads regardless of dogma or desire.
Your will get complete agreement from rationalists but that concern about the epistemology of belief in God does NOT in any way invalidate the existence of God. It applies only to the things believed about God.
Mordant much of your post deals with evolution and as neither of us want it to go there I will leave those parts unanswered if that is ok with you.
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Point taken. I gather than you believe in universal reconciliation as well. This notion that god deals with humanity generally and is no respecter of persons is more ... dare I say ... evolved than what is more commonly encountered. As is the notion that redemption, if it has any meaning, eventually triumphs and applies to all. This also removes the smug "you'll get yours" mentality toward the "unregenerate".
I have a lot of common cause with liberal Christian thinking actually, to the point that I have had some tentative fellowship with liberal Christianity. I find their liturgical extravaganzas too much to bear, but can appreciate the community that they sometimes manage to foster.
Yes I believe in the salvation of all just as we are commanded to teach.
1Ti.4:10-11
For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
These things command and teach.
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I am not of the view that suffering is a requirement for such a process. We are not chess pieces to be moved around on god's board, castled and disposed of in the service of some stratagem or other. I am far more able to accept human suffering that is not a consequence of human folly as simply existing amidst "nature, red in tooth and claw" because that's the way it happens to be. As soon as that sort of thing becomes part of some Plan it becomes decidedly perverse trying to see the Planner as balanced and benevolent.
I don't believe evil is a part of Gods plan. Let me give a short view of how I see the OT and the creation of man as it might help you understand where I am coming from.
The OT is written in shadow of things to come
Col. 2:16-17
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath*days:Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body*is*of Christ.
A shadow is caused when a body or object obscures the light. It is not the shadow that is important; but the body that made the shadow. And according to Col.2:16-17 that body is Christ.
Paul also states in
2Co.3:12-16
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
And not as Moses,*which*put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which*vail*is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
That a vail is over the OT that is still in effect today when people read the OT and that vail is done away in Christ.
Christ is the common denominator in both passages.
This to me is why we are to take every thought captive to Christ. Most see this as cherry picking; however if these scriptures are to be believed all I am doing is looking at the body of the shadow which takes away the vail over the OT.
Anyway that how I understand the OT and do my best to apply it to Christ.
Concerning the creation of man I see it this way.
Gen.1:26-27 says
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his*own*image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
This is a prophesy of what will be in Christ. According to Paul Christ is a many membered body; male and female created He them.
So the question is how do we become the body of Christ or fulfill this passage?
Now with the light that the above passage is something that will take place in the future. If you reread the above passage you will see that man was already created; let us make MAN....
So if man was already created; in what manner was man created?
Ecc.3:18-20 states
I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all*is*vanity.
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
That man themselves are beasts no different than any other beast, they all have the same breath and all return to dust. Thus biological man was created an animal.
And God looking on this animal called man said let us make man in our image and likeness.
So the scriptures go on to explain the process of how He will do this.
Gen.2:7
And the LORD God formed man*of*the dust of the ground (just like all the other animals), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The word breath here comes from the Hebrew word n\eshamah which is rooted in the Hebrew word nasham which means to destroy but also carries the weight of a woman in travail.
This woman in travail is giving birth and that birth is the birth of Christ within mankind. This birth of Christ comes in seed form and must be cultivated in order for growth to occur.
So what does God do after the birth of Christ in man? God makes a garden for him and places him in the garden with two specific trees. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the choice of life or death.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you,*that*I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live Deu.30:19
In other words once Christ was birthed in humanity we were given a moral choice we could continue to live like the animal we were created or we could cultivate the birth within us and grow spiritually unto full stature in Christ.
You were asking us to answer questions that had already been answered while pretending your assertions were valid.
And you did raise a point where evolution was the answer.
According to you. Anthony Flew who knew the ins and outs of evolution far better then either of us or anyone else here on this form came to the conclusion via the evidence that there was a designer.
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