Who says Christians need to believe that God creates a universe that is predetermined/ programmed to do one thing? I sure don’t. So I share your difficulty there.
I presume that God wanted to create (use evolution to create) moral beings and not mere robots. But for an organism to demonstrate morality (and true Agape love), it must exist in a universe where there are truly bad options vs. good options to choose. The world we see fits this description. God does not force humans to behave badly, he created a universe in which it is possible (of their own free will) to choose to behave badly. I presume that it was only once sentience and self-consciousness arose in humans, that God holds them accountable for their own decisions, and then provided a generous and free path, open to all who choose it, for reconciliation with him. I do not think that non-human animals are judged as immoral for behaving according to their natures and I have faith in the wisdom of a good God that he does not “cast people into Hell” for sins they are completely unaware of. I agree that would seem unfair. I think he will judge each person based on what they know, based on their own knowledge of God, their own moral conscience and free-will choices in that context.
I think the problem here is that you have a sacred text that went out of its way to inform people of the existence of malevolent forces, and that these forces are deceptive and enormously powerful and effective at it.
2 Corinthians 4:4
Satan, who is the god of this world , has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News."
I don’t believe in demons or Satan either, but I do believe in theism and have a bias towards Christianity. Even so, I am trying to be self aware here, and try to take important messages into consideration.
I can sympathize with this, as it’s similiar to my personal experience and beliefs. I feel compelled to follow the bread crumbs and try to find evidence of the peekaboo God reigning champ. Which is why I spend a minimum of 1-2 hours a day investigating something I don’t necessarily believe in.
But, hey, we’re all enormously lost here, and on some levels that’s what forgiveness is about.
Fair enough, and these are the opinions of many religions.
However, Christianity is different. The choice is to ‘believe’ or die/go to hell. So I think going down this path can lead to questions of whether we should all be some other monotheistic religion.
No, you misunderstand. I am not advocating “universalism” of all religions.
And No, this is not a good description of what Christians think about what is required to avoid Hell. For example, it says in James 2:19 “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”
In other words, mere intellectual assent, i.e., “belief in” a certain set of theological statements is not what is demanded–even the demons “believe” certain facts about God. In context, when Jesus says “believe in me” it means “place your trust in me and follow me as a disciple”–it is a question of the posture of one’s heart.
And nowhere does scripture define all the different ways that “coming to God through Jesus” might include. In fact, there is a strong suggestion that people can behave morally (i.e. according to the best knowledge they have) while not knowing the name “Jesus”, and God will count such acts as done for himself and call them “righteous” See Matthew 25: 37 “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? 39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’40 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,[f] you were doing it to me!’
Believing this does not equate to universalism (the idea that "all religions are equal paths to the truth) It’s just that we humans can’t judge people’s hearts and tell who is “in” versus “out” based on a known set of criteria. That task we (thankfully!) leave to God to sort out.
Yes, the popular media tends to jump on such “utopian” stories of altruism without much critical analysis of the data. Below is a similar article that points out that the popular hype about “talking trees” and altruistic fungal networks which was based on a couple of papers in the lab by researchers like Suzanne Simard, has run wild in the public perception, but alternate explanations for the data have not been ruled out. There is actually little solid evidence that individual trees act in the interest of other trees in the forest:
Karst et al. 2023 " Positive citation bias and overinterpreted results lead to misinformation on common mycorrhizal networks in forests link is below: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-01986-1
Or why does an entire hiking party of five deserve to spend an hour laboring with ropes and ice axes because one person slipped on a loose chip of rock leading to a fall over a short cliff onto a scree slope, a fall that resulted in a slide that half-buried the person? (real event on the Pacific Crest Trail)
Billy Graham noted this once, commenting that the flesh, the world, and the devil are responsible for our evil – in that order, and that the world has little to do since our flesh is plenty capable of steering us into evil, and the devil has even less to do since between our flesh and the world humans are capable of great evil already.
And since none of us is the Son of God Himself, it is very sensible and biblical to presume that Satan and/or demons hardly play a central role.
Attributing our failures to the Adversary himself is pretty arrogant – doubling arrogant, in ascribing such righteousness to ourselves that it take the ultimate bad guy to get us off track and in considering ourselves so important as to necessitate his personal intervention.
Yes, but – whether that single act was like throwing a switch or like knocking loose the first pebble of a landslide isn’t stated.
I can’t stop laughing here – “lay down” is transitive and requires something being put down, so that image that popped into my mind was a lion and a lamb playing poker, and the lamb says, “Okay, lay 'em down”.
Then it struck me that Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb . . . .
In terms of evolution there is no such thing as “less desirable” or even “superior traits” – there is only what works for a situation and what doesn’t.
This brings to mind something one of the off-beat ancient church writers once suggested, that pain is a result of existence that stems from the fact that to have Creation God had to suffer the existence of something not Himself, and thus pain and suffering are expressions of God’s character in sacrificing His own comfort in order to have us (my memory is thinking this may be something that Origen commented on but I won’t swear to it).
I think this is a serious misunderstanding of evolution – it seems to assume that animals could (and should?) have been “better” somehow.
This assumes that there was not meant to be a different programming applied. The more I think about the Garden, the more I come to believe that the real problem was that the intended program of maturing was interrupted and thus humanity was forced to face our animal programming without the intended training in overcoming it, that the Tree of Experience/Knowledge of Good and Evil was there not merely as a test but because it was intended to become available at some point in the future – and the error was demanding the “diploma” without having reached graduation.
Which is where a gene for altruism would not necessarily be weeded out. A gene for self-sacrifice at the slightest provocation would be, but if it’s a gene that only triggers in heavy crisis the population can carry it on. In other words, it isn’t necessarily binary; a gene that triggers self-sacrifice at a level-two crisis on a scale of one to ten isn’t as likely to get passed on as a gene that leads to self-sacrifice at a level-nine crisis.
You quoted me and followed up blinding those who don’t believe. I do believe. I just don’t believe your interpretation. To start I would suggest reading the books by Michael Heiser on demons and then reading John Walton’s book on demons. Then continue to read 4-5 different books by different people with different views. I asked the same question you are asking now 10 years ago. Read a bunch. Changed my opinion. My opinion I believe is better aligned with the Bible and is definitely realigned with reality.
There is zero proof of demonic entities. Just like there is zero proof magic and so on.
It is an open case. Anyhow, such ‘behaviour’ could be beneficial for the trees although it would not be altruistic behaviour. Trees do not think in the same way as animals but natural selection may filter strategies that may be compared to those in animals.
There are much roots in the forest soil and contacts between roots are inevitable, unless the species secrete strong allelopathic biochemicals. It could be compared to a multispecies flock of birds. Individuals in a flock can benefit from a situation where there are many vigilant individuals that can observe predators and behave in a ‘tit-for-tat’ manner. Birds are not always honest in their signalling and the same can be expected in the case of trees, although the concept of ‘honest’ is somewhat questionable in the case of plants that cannot think. They just react to cues that they experience.
Kin selection is also possible in the case of plants, although mother plants may restrict the growth of seedlings beneath the mother plant. Long-lived plants have usually many seeds and reproduce many times. In such cases, selection may favour seedlings that do not compete with the mother and thereby risk the future reproduction of the mother. Yet, saplings growing in the vicinity may be more related than the saplings far away.
Insect herbivores seldom kill the host, so the level of future damage is important for the plant and its offspring. Reducing the growth of herbivore populations would be beneficial for the individual. Signalling to the other plants about the presence of herbivores may help in that goal.
Many trees live in a symbiosis with root-inhabiting fungi. The fungi are not necessarily species-specific and they may benefit by mediating information from one host to another. This mechanism can potentially spread information from one plant to another even when the plants would not communicate.
I recall someone around here (probably more than a year ago), explaining that something like ‘kin selection’ could be viewed more widely than just immediate family even. I.e. even if someone is self-sacrificing toward an extended relative (still would be of biological relation as far as genes go) or even just their own ‘tribe’ or ‘community’ (still more likely to have closer genetic relation than just any random stranger from far away places) - that all of this could still be seen under the rubric of natural selection for populations. I.e. - even if I never had children of my own, I am still, in a way, promoting ‘my own’ genetic line by seeing to the welfare of, say, my nephews and nieces. And I suppose that to the extent that it is, it would then fail the more ‘purist’ definition of altruism that I think you (or biologists then) are using. That purist way of looking at it does seem to mirror or reinforce the Christian sense that we should most highly esteem (aspire toward) acts of love and generosity toward those “least likely to ever be able to pay us back.” I.e. - while nobody is going to gainsay love toward family and community, we should most highly esteem the love that demonstrates itself toward the complete stranger and even the enemy! (Truest altruism indeed! - and entirely rejected by some elements of our popular ‘Christian’ culture here in the U.S. in recent years, revealing how anti-biblical those proponents have become.)
Christian teaching of love and mercy is indeed something that is against current understanding of natural selection. If we would have a semi-closed religious community, kin selection and reciprocal altruism might explain apparently altruistic behaviour within the community. Loving acts towards strangers and even enemies is something that should reduce fitness, assuming there is no payback (tit-for-tat). Natural selection should work against such forms of Christianity.
There have been claims for ‘meme selection’ that might explain the spread of some cultural ideas. Meme selection might work in an evolutionary context if adapting the cultural features would bring benefits to self or kin, or the cost would be small relative to the speed of spread of the meme. This kind of explanation might explain the spread of some type of religious ideas. It might even explain the success of some Christian cultures where behaving according to the rules of a semi-closed community might bring benefits to self or kin while behaving against the rules would bring a punishment.
However, the teaching of Jesus & apostles goes strongly against the current guided by natural selection. In the pure form, the teaching to love strangers and even enemies is so much against selfish interests that meme selection is not enough to explain the success of such an altruistic model.
Following Jesus includes a choice to obey God more than the selfish interests favoured by common natural selection. In that sense, following Jesus is a choice that has a price.
Well, innumerable hypotheses are “open cases” when they haven’t been tested yet, so that’s not saying much…
Did you read the critical review paper I linked? People of course know that there are mycorrhiza in forests but according to the review paper, no experiments W.R.T. transfer of stuff via root networks has been done in forests, to scale. Only some experiments with small plants in the lab. And even then, proper controls usually have not been done so it is hard to interpret what is happening with the diffusion through soil.
That “someone” was probably me, trying to explain that yes, kin selection may be operating more widely than many recognize. I think @knor gave an excellent summary so I won’t repeat. But yeah…basically the command to “love enemies and strangers” goes beyond what kin selection would favour and so it would be a command for true altruism…“outside of our tribe”.
What I wrote were possibilities (hypotheses) derived from the theory of evolution. As you wrote, they have not been tested properly but there are no theoretical reasons why the possibilities could not be true. Everything that is possible does not happen in reality, so it will be interesting to see what kind of results the future experiments will get.
Even if there are such phenomena in forests, the scales of effective communication through root systems may be relatively short. Relatively short would mean tens, possibly hundreds of meters because the roots of large trees extend tens of meters from the trunk. Species with vegetative spreading through root system might have somewhat wider ‘communication’ networks. Aerial ‘communication’ through volatile compounds that are released in leaves when a larvae eats the leave would operate at comparable scales, so it might be difficult to determine if the ‘communication’ (or signal exploitation) is mediated through air or roots.
Edit:
There is also the difficulty that the signalling may not be originally intended for plant-plant communication. For example, the volatile compounds that are produced in the leaves when larvae eats leaves may be a ‘cry for help’ targeted to the natural enemies of the larvae. Although the chemical communication is intended for the predator or parasite of the larvae, other plants may react to the same compounds, especially if the concentration is relatively high - a high concentration indicates that there are plenty of larvae eating many leaves, in other words a high risk of herbivore attack. The stuff that roots or the fungi living in the root secrete or leak may also be something that the other plants utilize even if the stuff would not have been intended for plant-plant communication.
Thes reason why Theistic Evolution and the Character of God do are at odds is because Evolution as understood by survival of the fittest is bad science and theology as understood as a two tier universe is bad theology.
Life does indeed change as change is the basis of Creation. We and all of life is continuously changing and being created. Change is good for it comes from GOD, if we accept it as from God.
No, it is good science but bad theology and not part of theistic development.
Actually decay is the basis of the Universe not development or progress, Toe flies in the face of this. Within Nature there is no good reason for things to improve. Adapt yes, improve no. ToE does not just adapt, it develops. There is no scientific reason for flight. It is not a void and insects were at it long befor any dinosaur, bird or bat. It is all very well to claim that to catch a fly you need to fly, but that reasoninng does not work in science. Once flight is established it can then b weighed as advantageous. Wanting it? We built aeroplanes!
I think that is a two edged sword. Current UK politics would seem to refute it and Trump seems that way inclined as well rebuilding the Mexican border defences.
(I have not interest in whether plants can communicate)
This is a misunderstanding of what entropy means. The fundamental issue is that the biosphere is not a closed system, which means that the entropy of the biosphere can decrease, so long as it increases somewhere else in the universe.
It’s an open niche.
But insects max out at about 100 grams, given the current atmosphere. They also don’t function super well in very cold climates, and “eating large flying insects” was an open niche.
How does it not? If it’s useful to be able to either catch things in the air, or to jump between trees at longer distances than is easy, then flight will provide an advantage.
Although it may be kin selection or tit for tat cooperation, cooperation is an effective evolutionary strategy. Survival of the fittest is not accurate. The fit enough survive. This can be through outcompeting, cooperation, or avoiding competition.
Think about flying fish. They cannot fly but are able to make long jumps in the air. There are risks in the air (especially frigatebirds) but being able to make long glides in the air can save them from being eaten by predatory fish. The structure that makes the flying fish able to ‘fly’ (glide in the air) are enlarged pectoral fins. Fish have pectoral fins, so it is not a big evolutionary step to have larger fins that help to glide longer distances after a jump from the water.
The difference between the flying fish and the first gliding birds/reptiles is that birds/reptiles had arms that could develop into wings and a breastbone where stronger muscles needed for flight could attach. Feathers or feather-like structures in birds made the glides and flight easier. That is why the gliding ability of birds/reptiles could develop to powered flight and why birds are the dominant flying group in the air during daytime. Frigatebirds can catch flying fish while fish seldom eat flying birds (fish can eat small swimming birds but that is a different story).
We did not watch the development but we have snaps of the development: fossils of birds and their ancestors, showing some of the intermediate stages.