On the morality of evolution

[Akar]

Kissaki,

So, what you're saying is that the words in the Bible are true but that you can't get your head around there being an afterlife for which you will be sent into?

There's no way you haven't just intentionally misunderstood his post.

[basics]

Ultimately, we won't. The earth isn't going to be habitable forever, and even the universe itself will eventually die. Meanwhile, we're going to do our best to live and thrive, because that's what we do. On an individual level, too, we know that each and every one of us is going to die. But before that happens, we are doing everything we can to survive. Sure, it's just postponing the inevitable... but death is a train you cannot possibly be late for, so there's no point in rushing.

Kissaki,

The Bible says that and so you are just postponing the inevitable so where is my mistake about what you said?

[Kissaki]

Kissaki,

The Bible says that and so you are just postponing the inevitable so where is my mistake about what you said?

No, the Bible says you can survive your own death through the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm saying everything dies. You asked, "Humanity lives on a doomed planet which it has no control over so how is it going to survive," and I pointed out that in the long run, we don't. But that's not something evolution takes into consideration. Life wants to live.

[Muizer]

And as far as future evolution goes, there's this a book I read quite some time ago called "Life and Death of Planet Earth". To get a glimpse of its contents, you can watch this lecture by one of its authors.

Btw, if anyone knows of more recent works along the same line, please let me know. It's a fascinating topic.

[antaeus]

No, the Bible says you can survive your own death through the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm saying everything dies. You asked, "Humanity lives on a doomed planet which it has no control over so how is it going to survive," and I pointed out that in the long run, we don't. But that's not something evolution takes into consideration. Life wants to live.

Of course we're now talking timescales... Because there is every chance that our genetic legacy will outlive our planet (whether that is us or just from us is another question). And there's also every chance that those who inherit our legacy might also keep the planet alive a lot longer than it would otherwise survive, even beyond the life of our star.

An then there's that surviving death thing. We might also be able to synthesise Heaven too soon enough... with uploaded consciousnesses and living without want or need in a virtual environment as close as infinitely as technically possible.

But yeah... cold heat death or big rips or what ever...

[Sir Adrian]

Actually there is a close to 0 chance our genetic legacy will outlive the planet, because even if we do colonize outside the solar system those colonists will no longer be fully human within a very short time-frame and no longer recognizable as formerly human within 10000 or so generations. For our genetic legacy to survive you'd need a planet that is EXACTLY like Earth, same atmosphere, same gravity, same day/night cycle, same temperature, weather and seasons, roughly similar biological niches. The probability for that tends towards 0.

[Kissaki]

Actually there is a close to 0 chance our genetic legacy will outlive the planet, because even if we do colonize outside the solar system those colonists will no longer be fully human within a very short time-frame and no longer recognizable as formerly human within 10000 or so generations. For our genetic legacy to survive you'd need a planet that is EXACTLY like Earth, same atmosphere, same gravity, same day/night cycle, same temperature, weather and seasons, roughly similar biological niches. The probability for that tends towards 0.

Well, if we're getting nerdy about this (and why on earth not), then however different our descendants will be from us, 10000 or so generations down the line, they will still be our legacy. And they would not nescessarily need a planet exactly like earth.

Why, we don't even need a planet exactly like earth - in the ballpark will do. After all, our species evolved some 300,000 years ago. In that time, climate has varied greatly. And the regional differences are quite significant as well. And the further back in time you go, the greater the atmospheric differences.

And in any case, by the time we are able to travel to distant stars, we have probably mastered terraforming to some degree, and probably even colonised Mars. So whatever our atmospheric needs, we ought to be able to find suitable planets.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I think the idea humans will advance to the point of colonizing other planets before this one potentially ends civilization as we know it is a pipe dream. If we have tech remotely capable of making other planets more livable we should be concentrating those resources on keeping the one we have in such a state. The survival of the species depends on it.

[conon394]

I think the idea humans will advance to the point of colonizing other planets before this one potentially ends civilization as we know it is a pipe dream. If we have tech remotely capable of making other planets more livable we should be concentrating those resources on keeping the one we have in such a state. The survival of the species depends on it.

I agree job one is keeping home a livable place. But I am OK with modest investments over time such that in the very long run we have a shot at sending people out into the wild black yonder on a coin toss. Colonization on the solar system is silly unless you are shooting for a young star someplace else, Mars is just as toast as Earth in the long run.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Agreed I think the hail mary deep space expedition, if we ever get to that point, will have to be done by robots in any event, unless humans find a way to transcend our fleshy prisons.

[basics]

The greatest words ever presented to mankind are, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." He did it in six wonderful days, not in thousands, or millions, or even billions of years, how? Because He is God in Whom nothing that was created was not created but by Him. Everything that exists only exists because He is in it and through it and if He had to withdraw the minutest particle from anything it would collapse into nothing. Man cannot and never will be able to compete with God.

[conon394]

The greatest words ever presented to mankind are, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." He did it in six wonderful days, not in thousands, or millions, or even billions of years, how? Because He is God in Whom nothing that was created was not created but by Him. Everything that exists only exists because He is in it and through it and if He had to withdraw the minutest particle from anything it would collapse into nothing. Man cannot and never will be able to compete with God.

Ahh yes if you believe absoultly a particular set of texts long edited and modified to the effect that they have on you. There are unfortunately many others and many other firm believers in those other traditions. There have also been many other firm believers of the larger tradition you follow who see things rather differently than you do .

[ggggtotalwarrior]

"The Bible says its true, so it must be true, because as we know from the Bible, every word in the bible is true"

There's like 1000 other books out there with the same premise; its just sheer narcissism on the part of some to assume that the one of the culture they were raised in is the exact correct holy text.

[Sir Adrian]

The greatest words ever presented to mankind are, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." He did it in six wonderful days, not in thousands, or millions, or even billions of years, how? Because He is God in Whom nothing that was created was not created but by Him. Everything that exists only exists because He is in it and through it and if He had to withdraw the minutest particle from anything it would collapse into nothing. Man cannot and never will be able to compete with God.

If the Sun was created on day 2, when did the first day start and end? We don't know how God created, well, everything.

[Muizer]

I kind of feel I have to jump to Basic's defense here (albeit in a kind of backhanded way). Let's acknowledge that his biblical literalism is at least cohesive in the sense that only such an anthropocentric version of "creation" is consistent with the notion that the bible is the revealed word of god. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than believing that text fits in the context of a 13+ billion years 'back story' including the big bang, the birth of our solar system, and the origin of life followed by more billions of years of evolution.

If there is controversy about the nature of the universe and how it came about, it is not between theists and non-theists. It is most definitely between those who follow a particular religion and those who do not. It is about the question whether it is credible that scripture is the revealed word of God, not whether there is a god.

In that context I'd like to point out that dismissing Genesis as non-literal does not so much help the credibility of the bible by resolving an apparent conflict but rather it eliminates one of the opportunities it had to reveal something transcendant. Arguably, it would have been more credible if it said nothing at all about creation than something that does not show any signs of transcending contemporary thinking.

[basics]

Say perchance I had to kill you to survive just because you had more than me, where is the morality in that? There isn't any yet men kill for lesser reasons than that. Oh and by the way women can be just as bad and they're supposed to be the better at understanding ones. No my friends evolution is nothing to shout home about.

[Kissaki]

Say perchance I had to kill you to survive just because you had more than me, where is the morality in that? There isn't any yet men kill for lesser reasons than that. Oh and by the way women can be just as bad and they're supposed to be the better at understanding ones. No my friends evolution is nothing to shout home about.

Morality is a collective thing, with individual building blocks. Every person manages to justify his actions to himself, and so he is moral according to his own code. But if other individuals disagree with his moral views, he has a problem: now he is an outlaw. Perhaps they will seek to kill him.

And then, of course, there is the fact that a person would have to be pretty stupid not to realise that his own actions can be used against him. So even if he were a psychopath, devoid of empathy, then he would think twice before harming others for personal gain. But then the majority of individuals do have empathy, which is the essential ingredient for a society to work. And an inevitable step of evolution.

I do get the feeling, however, that you seem to think people who accept evolution also look to evolution for our morals. This is simply not the case. Evolution explains how such a concept could come to be, but it does not tell us what is moral and what isn't. That is a subjective matter.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I kind of feel I have to jump to Basic's defense here (albeit in a kind of backhanded way). Let's acknowledge that his biblical literalism is at least cohesive in the sense that only such an anthropocentric version of "creation" is consistent with the notion that the bible is the revealed word of god. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than believing that text fits in the context of a 13+ billion years 'back story' including the big bang, the birth of our solar system, and the origin of life followed by more billions of years of evolution.

If there is controversy about the nature of the universe and how it came about, it is not between theists and non-theists. It is most definitely between those who follow a particular religion and those who do not. It is about the question whether it is credible that scripture is the revealed word of God, not whether there is a god.

In that context I'd like to point out that dismissing Genesis as non-literal does not so much help the credibility of the bible by resolving an apparent conflict but rather it eliminates one of the opportunities it had to reveal something transcendant. Arguably, it would have been more credible if it said nothing at all about creation than something that does not show any signs of transcending contemporary thinking.

I’m similarly taken aback by the idea that theistic evolution has the presumably intended positive impact on the credibility of the Bible. Cutting God down from “I am the Truth” and the Bible from “the sword of Truth” to “you can’t prove I’m not true” is a grim concession which suggests the priority is not to defend truth but to protect a narrative. Thus as you say the conclusion, whatever it may be, is less relevant to the intended audience of non-religious skeptics than to Christianity and its apologists.

[Akar]

Say perchance I had to kill you to survive just because you had more than me, where is the morality in that? There isn't any yet men kill for lesser reasons than that. Oh and by the way women can be just as bad and they're supposed to be the better at understanding ones. No my friends evolution is nothing to shout home about.

You sound like the girl with glasses in this video.



Basically, you've missed the entire point.

[ggggtotalwarrior]

I didn’t think people like that actually existed, and that Ricky Gervais just argues with his straw man interpretation of his opposition, until I started coming to the D&D section.