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Theism is essentially static. It requires a nice comfy, protective Father-Figure story line, unchanging because the intended audience is not, by and large, characterized by critical thinkers and the openly curious. Changes in biblical strategy occur over centuries, not overnight, as a revision to a scientific theory might.
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Yes, we might somehow accept most of modern science's ideas and still cling to the Christian Godly concept, but it's hard, when the very pillars of that particular mythology are so thoroughly destroyed by scientifically (i.e. reliably..) acquired facts.
There's the rub.
The trouble with my argument for a harmonious relationship between theism and science is that it's based on a concept of theism that isn't realistic. In your counterargument you alluded to God as ordinarily portrayed in contemporary religious texts and dogma. So, you're right. That God isn't very flexible, adaptive, or tolerant.
I'd like to think that a deeply religious person, someone who has great reverence for the mysteries and beauty of "creation," would have an ephemeral conception of God which is never in conflict with any manifestation of its infinite aspects as revealed through science, aesthetics, subjective experience, poetry, music, or any other expression of life.
A God that is frozen in "his" attributes is no god I'd ever want to be associated with.
"Natural" is a euphemism for "We haven't the slightest idea it just is" . . . but this "survival drive" (we have no idea where it came from) creates "competition" (we have no idea why it should) and the ones that "win" are "selected."
"Natural" is a euphemism for "We haven't the slightest idea it just is" . . . but this "survival drive" (we have no idea where it came from) creates "competition" (we have no idea why it should) and the ones that "win" are "selected."
We do know what the survival drive is all about, and so do you if you think about it. It makes the race stronger and better able to compete. Evolution is all about competition...Those that can't compete die out.
We do know what the survival drive is all about, and so do you if you think about it. It makes the race stronger and better able to compete. Evolution is all about competition...Those that can't compete die out.
You didn't read my post or you just prefer to interpret in a way you feel comfortable responding to. I didn't say we don't know what it is all about . . I said
"but this "survival drive" (we have no idea where it came from) creates "competition" (we have no idea why it should) and the ones that "win" are "selected."
Care to try again to address what I actually said. We are talking about processes that SUPPOSEDLY arose from undirected, purposeless, and mindless reactions among proto-chemicals and chemicals.
I define God as the maker of everything in the ultimate terms.
As you postulate evolution which is a process who or what is the processor?
A processor is necessitated only to satisfy human thinking. Other than filling in gaps that people don't comprehend, the need for a "processor" doesn't exist.
Self-organization is the principle by which things come into being according to science. In Buddhist and Taoist views, all phenomena arise, change, and vanish spontaneously in an interdependent manner.
My own user name means "inconceivable possibility" otherwise interpreted as a kind of infinitely pregnant emptiness from which everything comes into being.
For me, this emptiness is what I experience as "God" --- it's not a Judeo-Christian god with human qualities. It is the source of all attributes and it has no attributes. It is not a phenomenon but from it all phenomena arise. We apprehend this directly when we are still, quiet and focused. There's nothing to believe, it's simply what one can observe as the process taking place in the bare attention of conscious awareness.
From this condition of observation, there is no motivation to generate entities that cause things to happen, such as a creator who creates the processes of evolution. It simply happens because that's the nature of how things work as far as we can tell at this present time.
The paradigm of evolution has no particular importance in terms of knowing Truth, but it's extremely useful for understanding the way the physical universe operates so that we can do nifty things like cure diseases, save endangered species from extinction, hybridize plants for greater crop yields, and learn about why the fossil record is so richly layered and complex.
God or Not God doesn't matter to anything that actually exists or happens. It's only important to the belief systems of humans who cling to concepts in order to make sense of their experiences as conscious beings.
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