Then again if a creator was watching His work roll out, why would She not want the best suited creature to win out in each instance? What need would He have to put the fix in to ensure one creature’s success over another’s?
1 Like
(Not so parenthetically, God has feminine characteristics¹, to be sure, but please be sensitive to the fact that your deliberate use of the feminine pronoun is offensive to more than one of us.)
I cannot speak to every specific instance, of course, but in general, things were ‘set up’ to create the biosphere that allows advanced civilization, among other reasons. The best suited for what, exactly?
¹A couple of instances, not to mention that a shepherd ‘mothers’ his flock:
Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I was just moved to make it more inclusive for some reason. I’m not compulsive about doing so all the time.
2 Likes
@glipsnort and I (an atheist) can argue over the proper statistical and scientific meanings of the word random without needing to go to war over theological beliefs. There is no need for conflict between the belief that God guides evolution and the scientific concept of random mutations.
3 Likes
You are easily forgiven. 
I knew you did not intend to be offensive.
I neglected to include biomass.
You probably meant to say this:
But everything I’ve seen or read suggests their position to be such that it would never be appropriate to scientifically conclude intelligent agency in any conceivable circumstance.
If my smart phone were the product of sexual reproduction and used DNA with ribosomes and RNA to construct itself, your point would be compelling. 
Peace,
Chris
2 Likes
@SkovandOfMitaze, @Dale, @Redblade_Flame, @Mervin_Bitikofer, @MarkD, @Jay313, @Dale, @mitchellmckain,
Good point. The use of the word random has been so expanded by science that is has become basically meaningless.
On the other hand we need to ask, Random in relationship to what? For me it is clear that evolution is not random in relationship the the environment. When we try to predict the future as @glipsnort said it is hard to be exact because there are too many unknown variables. When we look to the past, most of those variables have been resolved and we can more clearly see that changes in the physical environment have brought about changes in biology. of the earth This is not random. The extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs was not random. The evolution of the bird-dinosaurs to birds was not random.
There are two very significant issues here. First, we have a bias vs. a “random” process. Random used to mean the situation where every possibility has an equal chance of being selected. Bias means that some possibilities have a better chance of being selected. They are not the same thing.
Second, there is a difference of terminology which skews the whole process. For Darwin Variation, or the process whereby changes in genes take place, is clearly a secondary process, which words with Natural Selection to produces the whole process which is evolution. Here Variation is called evolution. Variation becomes the whole story and since Variation is random, the whole process is random.
Third, there is no mechanism for Natural Selection. Natural Selection was an important part of evolution for Darwin. It was also controversial as Survival of the Fittest. Today it is not controversial, even though it has not changed.
What has changed is the emergence of Fundamentalist Creationism which opposes evolution on the basis of scripture, so today the problem of Natural Selection has been ignored. This is why a wrote a book on this issue, Darwin’s Myth.
Survival of the Fittest are not Darwin’s words, but he accepted them and incorporated them into the Origin of the Species. It clearly says how Natural Selection works. It says if a new allele survives and its descendants thrive, then they will alter the existing species or establish a new one, but it does not make clear why nature would selection one allele over another, so it is more magic than science. They replaced “God did it” with “Nature did it.” Sadly we have not gone beyond this here.
Darwin was correct and Coyne is wrong. Evolution is determinant, because Natural Selection is determinant, not random. Where he was mistaken is that Natural Selection does not work based on a relentless struggle between biota, but symbiosis between biota.
Here is some very telling evidence: https://www.pnas.org/content/112/7/2087
.
Missed this, I think! In my dotage I may have replied already.
What most, beyond incarnation; God the ignorant, enculturated bloke, didn’t we make up? If anything?
The only remotely empirical evidence is the early Church demonstrated in the early letters of Paul. Something had happened in Second Temple Judaism less than 20 years before. Something wonderful. Radical, humane, inclusive, universal social justice came out of The Prophets. I pause there as I don’t recall that as explicit in Paul. It comes over a generation later in the Gospels. So the quantum leap in moral evolution took fifty years. Must glean
- First Thessalonians (c. 50 AD)
- Galatians (c. 53)
- First Corinthians (c. 53–54)
- Philippians (c. 55)
- Philemon (c. 55)
- Second Corinthians (c. 55–56)
- Romans (c. 57)
for it.
(One thing that isn’t there, in the final letter, is homophobic damnationism of course.)
Perhaps I infer different things from the term “made up” than you do; to me “made up” means something originated in our own minds and therefore has no independent existence apart from us. So if we made up God, that would be the atheist position that God, as a Creator that precedes and is before us - the Alpha and Omega - does not really exist as such but is only a figment of our imaginations. Is that your position?
Not quite sure whether you’re suggesting it is the moral advance which offers that evidence or the witness of the prophets? Either way, I can’t imagine empirically demanding Thomases would be persuaded.
Pretty much, evidently.
No, no, no, no Mervin. Apart from if there is no God we obviously did. The stuff in the Bible. One way and/or another it’s made up, vastly in the OT, if not completely and much in the NT even if the incarnation occurred. Even by the Incarnation Himself.
Believers don’t typically use as many ifs as you do. You state things absolutely authoritatively one moment and then say ‘if’ the next.
So if I understand you correctly, you think we all just made up pretty much everything. I hope you can see why this is pretty much a non-starter for, ummm … believers?
2 Likes
Believers of what? What in the OT is not made up? What does belief privilege? And why is making stuff up problematic? Jesus made Himself up and that’s OK. Apart from claims of events around Jesus’ life in the NT, which could be based on actual events generations before, what isn’t made up? All the rhetoric, all the figurative language, all the prophecy, the apocalyptic, and more, is made up. No?
I’m not a typical believer. I state the rational, which is, has its own authority. I use conditional logic too. Are they mutually exclusive?
So I’ve gathered by now! I’m glad to have a diverse mix of brothers and sisters in Christ.
Maybe this is an English language difference we’re dealing with. Over here if a lawyer in court asked you “so did you see the defendant robbing the bank while you were there?” And you responded with a story about a lot of other people you saw on the scene (but not really), and then the lawyer gets suspicious and presses you on it: “So, Martin, aren’t you just making stuff up here?” …and you respond, “well of course! Isn’t everything made up?” You would be immediately dismissed from court as an undependable witness.
“Made up stuff” = “Not True” in the normal use of language around here. So essentially your words say that almost everything about Christianity is false. Is that indeed what you are claiming?
If instead you are saying the Bible, our language about God, etc. all has human origin - even while still possibly inspired - i.e. also a revelation from God, then yeah - there are ways to say that too, but probably not by just proclaiming “we made it all up.”
I’m just trying to help you communicate accurately here.
1 Like
I’m communicating just fine thanks Mervin. Courtroom procedure is a very modern development. Victorian. The OT is not Christianity, so we can discount any of its distinctive claims. I’ve no idea what inspired could mean beyond a feeling, how one can clearly see anything more in ‘scripture’. It sure is a language issue! An epistemology issue. Looking for divine inspiration in scripture is a bit like looking for it in DNA.
But the NT presumably is Christian, then, yet that doesn’t bother you from calling most of its stuff “made up” (i.e. ‘discounted’ by most people’s vernacular) too. You may have your own reductionist approach to all sacred writ, but don’t expect that any large majorities of believers approvingly follow you in that, or even understand you when you write as if they think along the same lines.
…i.e. speaking of incarnational language … there’s something to be said for meeting people where they are at.
1 Like