Yes I subscribe to determinism and reject libertarian free will just like many Calvinists do.
I was brought up in a deeply religious christian family, but Christianity never made sense to me. Eventually I just accepted that I didn’t believe any of it was true
Christianity and the Bible certainty doesn’t equate eating meat with evil. Then why should burnt offerings be considered evil? Are you a vegetarian?
Adam and Eve were two homo sapiens God adopted and spoke to – giving them ideas which brought the human mind to life. “Divine breath” is the very meaning of the word "inspiration.
The genetic evidence tells us that 10,000 individuals is likely the smallest the human gene pool ever became. And that was likely between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
But our biological parents are often the least significant of our parents. For our genetic inheritance is not the most important inheritance we receive.
They were the first humans because our humanity is more than just a biological species and genetics. The ideas which gave birth to the human mind come to us by human communication to spread over the world much faster than biological descent.
Nope.
Some aspect of human behavior and morality is evolved and a lot of it is not. A great deal of it is just some fashionable idea which became widely popular.
Indeed it is. I’m reading “Evolving in Monkey Town” right now and loving every page of it thus far. Really hits home with my former conservative ideology coming out of high school.
Yes but I meant as a package deal for them. Most pew-warmers don’t think 75% of the narrative is mythological and 25% is historical or claim to be able to decipher which is which. I’d suspect many of them would find that practice strange.
Vinnie
You rely on faith and feelings. Many do. Very interesting.
But we’re aren’t discussing killing where the primary purpose was for food. Instead we’re discussing the ritualized slaughter of animals as an offering to god. Why would god ask his followers to inflict pain and suffering on animals where he didn’t think it was necessary? Or do you think god doesn’t care about animal welfare? Do you think such actions are consistent with omnibenevolence?
Can you give an example of a feature that is essential to our humanity and which has no genetic basis?
Don’t you think emotions such as greed, jealousy, anger, hate etc have a genetic basis? And do you think that without these intense negative emotions, that there would be any evil in the world today? If god used evolution to give humans these negative emotions, isn’t he at least partly responsible for the evil that humans do?
Yes i agree that some are culturally acquired. But without the influence of culture, do you there are any morals that are central to the teachings of Christianity and which you think are important that they would lack?
Cool! Trivia: There are others, in addition to the Calvinists, who subscribe to determinism and reject free will. I’m a monergistic Christian, and a fan of Martin Luther, who exchanged views on free will with Erasmus. Unlike Sam Harris though, I think his claim that Luck plays a role in why he’s not vile Mr. X is ludicrous. . What is luck that all our swains commend her?
I won’t speak for others around here but in my case, reconciliation is easy/easier when I view Genesis 1 through 3 as an allegory for something like “Catastrophe Theory”. If the eventual death of humans in the Garden was not a possibility before the Fall, the placement of “the Tree of Life” in the Garden seems silly to me. There’s no need for it.
How many heterosexual couples does a 2nd-1st millennium Near Eastern author need to come up with a nonscientific version of human origins, written in a society that is resistant to the possibility that the Cosmos is infinite and eternal? That theoretical resistance would suggest to me that the author figured his story needed to start somewhere, so he picked Earth, and he figured all of humanity must have had a beginning on Earth, and two Most Recent Ancestors in Common is easier to describe than a bunch of couples spread over the known earth at the time.
In other words, I think the hypothetical skeptical evolution experts are surprisingly demanding of Genesis’ author. More so, since paleoanthropology is still trying to figure out when and where the earliest humans began to breed.
I totally accept that including the scientific details of our evolutionary origins in the bible was unnecessary considering its intended purpose and audience. However what really amazes me is that the mythological explanation of our origins in the Bible bears no resemblance to our scientific understanding. I would expect any divinely inspired creation myths to be consistent with science. Instead the bible tells us things like:
Any science teacher could explain the basic concepts of our origins to 5 year olds using analogies and allegories that are both easy to understand and consistent with science. Why couldn’t god do the same?
I happen to think that a lot of things are more important than food, including helping people to overcome all types of self-destructive behavior. That is a purpose which is very much worthy of repurposing cultural traditions like animal sacrifices from the appeasement of imaginary gods. Yes it is consistent. You know, (hushed voice), I even think it is consistent with benevolence for trained people to cut into people with sharp knives in order to remove tumors and such.
Yes. words. All kinds of words for abstract concepts like justice, love, reason, logic, person, …
LOL Arms and legs are a product of evolution also and evil would be close to nonexistent without them. What has this got to do with the price beans in China? I think you are inserting some of your own premises here since these questions have NOTHING to do with what I said, as far as I can see.
I think you need to make more effort to connect this up with your question so we can expose whatever premises you are assuming in order to do this.
I don’t know. Morals has very little to do with why I believe in this stuff.
Im not sure what you mean here? Are you saying that without someone being taught these words in a language, that humans would be unable to devise a way to communicate these concepts to eachother or that they wouldnt be able to understand these concepts in the first place? I think the consensus among scientists is that the ability to speak, understand and hear language is genetic. There have been many documented cases where people who lack certain genes or have certain faulty genes also lack the ability to learn and use language like normal people do. Also monkeys can understand the concepts of fairness, reciprocation, they can solve logical puzzles, mothers will defend their young with their lives, they can empathize with the pain that other monkeys feel etc. Just imagine what they would be capable of if they had human level intelligence? I dont think they would be all that different from us in terms of moral behaviour
Your analogy isnt exactly relevant to what I said. There is a big difference between a person being unable to do something and not having the desire to do something. You’re treating them as the same. Here I’m just following the logical implications of your beliefs. Please answer the question… Do you think emotions such as greed, jealousy, anger, hate etc have a genetic basis and are the product of god-directed evolution? And do you think that without these intense negative emotions, that there would be far less (if any) evil and sin in the world today?
Ahah! Got it …
Look on the bright side: you weren’t raised in an orthodox Moslem household and taught to believe that every word of the Qur’an is literally a word given to Mohammad by Allah via the Archangel Gabriel, and where turning your back on your childhood faith can be severely punished.
Are you sure your beef with the Bible isn’t some sort of payback for the misfortune of being born into a deeply religious family? Rattling Christian cages to watch the dogs bark, so to speak?
Don’t get me wrong: far be it from me to try to be the one to teach you how to treat dogs, but–writing as a Christian who has been the beneficiary of the Christian faith of others who loved me more than I deserved, I don’t share your beef, if that is your beef.
I am intrigued though. Correct me where I go wrong.
Genesis 2-9 are retellings of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. You have to look for differences between the narratives to determine meaning. Genesis 1 was by a different author and presents an omnipotent deity which contrasts starkly with how other gods did things.
So if you concede including details of evolution are unnecessary and recognize that God was not trying to gove us an accurate scientific description of reality, what is the issue?
The issue is you have an incorrect understanding of how scripture was inspired as do countless Christians. You are thinking God went into his theology lab with a pen and a pad and wrote us some stories. What may have actually happened id some humans, in a very specific context, chose to write or were inspired to write and God moved over them as they wrote in their own specific time and context.
God didn’t choose every single word and letters of scripture. Verbal plenary inspiration is untenable. Inspiration was much softer than God forcing the authors to write exactly what he wanted, word for word, letter for letter. Too much has to be accommodated to accept this. Rather He worked through them and simply moved over them urging them one way or another or inspiring a thought here or there. If God sat down and gave us a history of the world outside of humans in a specific historical context then we can assume it would have what you expect and be 100% accurate in all it states down to the very words and letters. We don’t have that. I’d suggest we have humans writings stories and their history in prescientific times and God moving over them.
Vinnie
I dont have any ‘beef’ with Christians and I’m not seeking any payback. I’m just curious how Christians reconcile Genesis and Evolution. Generally when interacting with Christians about their beliefs, I try be friendly and respectful towards the person. But I dont see why some beliefs are so sacred that they cannot be challenged. If you or I hold a belief we think is true, we should welcome it being challenged because if we can counter any challenges to our beliefs, then our confidence in them will increase. And if we hold any false beliefs, having them challenged might prompt us to change them - isnt that a good thing too?
Much appreciated!
Some of us (after our growing out of cultural and familial misappropriations of these things) have taken a fresh look at scriptures and stepped back to a point before the alleged conflict was in place to realize there never was any real conflict. By creating the problem of a conflict, the additional problem also springs into existence of needing to resolve it - a “twofer” if you will. But by realizing there never was a problem in the first place (except in the minds of those who imbibed the materialist presuppositions, but wanted to retain something of spiritual religion), I’ve stepped back into a position where there is no problem to solve. Science (among some other things - but science is probably best at it) tells us how creation works. Religion is our philosophical context for it all. Worrying about reconciling them is kinda like worrying that the cookbook in your kitchen and the car owners manual in your garage contradict each other and should be reconciled. Or that the Bible is in conflict with your mechanics manual. That’s oversimplifying it, of course, to make a point. Because religion isn’t hermetically sealed off into some spiritual realm away from empirical physical realities. Religion very much includes the physical reality too. And so to the extent that one’s religion is used to make claims about physical reality, then of course there is the potential for conflict. But for those of us that accept Truth as a seamless whole, all of reality (including what science touches on) is there to help inform us. So if that reality informs me that the sky is blue or the earth is round, then any religious understandings I have would of course be informed by that. Science, as well as scriptures, and other things besides are all handmaidens to good and true religion. Religion that neglects any aspect of reality begins to be misinformed religion or perhaps even bad religion - though that latter judgment is based on much more important things than the mere “getting one’s physical facts all correct” - which is more the bailiwick of science. If science is doing its job, religion benefits. When good religion does its job, science is given a context and fits within a larger mission that makes it worthwhile.
That’s usually a good thing - especially for science which, as you suggest, benefits from such constant push-back. And yes - it’s needed for other larger questions of life too, but probably not all the time. There will be times in the human experience that you need to commit to a conviction despite not having complete “evidence” for it and despite people around you challenging it. If I’m convicted that I need to treat another human with dignity despite the immediate culture screaming otherwise at me, and despite my not being able to produce a shred of scientific evidence for why an individual should be sacred to me, I will do well to thumb my nose at the skeptics and declare that I choose to hold and live by this revealed truth in spite of any doubts people might raise. And of course there are all sorts of things that I can rightly or wrongly believe as doctrinal “facts” which might need to be pushed on by other believers using (in the biblical theist’s case) scriptural tools for that sort of reasoning with each other. We do need to sharpen each other in that regard, so not all religious convictions should be held above question either.
Yes this is my main point! You said it much more precisely and succinctly than I did. When speaking to Christians who accept evolution about our origins, even though they dont take a literal view of Genesis, they almost always believe that the Genesis story reveals some allegorical truth about our origins such as why humans have a dark side to their nature. My objective here is to discover what these truth claims are and see whether they can be consistent with the science.
I think (Brit. understatement) you know the answer to that.
Once you dispense with the literal, the truth claims are beyond scientific falsification or verification. That we are made in the image of God, through evolution, cannot be addressed scientifically.
In some ways, the collection of these creation stories is a human response to the problem of evil. Genesis does a good job of telling us not to expect answers but to continue fighting. It also shows the constant failure of humans. Adam fails, Noah fails, Lot fails etc. etc.
Vinnie
Here are some of my own take-away truth claims I get from Genesis (not all (none?) of which are “merely” allegorical).
All of creation (physical, spiritual, universe, multiverse, matter, life … everything) was created by God.
Humans are given a special commissioning, among all the creatures, to function as God’s “emissaries” here - to steward it in ways that help each other and the entirety of creation better thrive.
Humans are granted the dignity of freedom and choice (whatever we may make of determinism, freewill, etc.) I believe (and here is one of those cases where I cannot at all adjudicate or defend this belief on any empirical level to you, but I tenaciously will believe it anyway) that we have enough of ‘freedom’ (whatever that is) to be held morally responsible for our choices.
Humans have largely failed to live up to these moral responsibilities. We choose to sin. We choose self at the expense of others.
There are suffering and dire consequences that people face and that much of creation (on this planet anyway) experience as a result of our sin.
God has chosen to continue to relate to and call humanity back despite our failing of the high calling given us.
God (in foreshadowing, or even one could say - the beginning of the incarnation to come), chose a special people to initiate this new eventual blessing to all the people of all nations.
The aforementioned people (or the story of their ancestors Abraham and Sarah at any rate) have a very specific and historically embedded redemption story of failure, repentance, failure, etc. that is already begun to be told before the final chapters of Genesis are concluded.
I think it goes too far to suggest creation ex nihilo is part of the text. The consensus in scholarly interpretation seems to be that God formed everything of pre-existing material. Even 2 Maccabees 7:28 is questionable in this regard.
Vinnie.
Well -okay, one could argue about the all matter part not being part of the Genesis text; you’re right about that. I think there is enough implication in all of scriptures though, including Genesis to lead a modern thinker to that conclusion. If you have a god that stumbled into some pre-existing material scene, and essentially says “Well lookee here! Let’s see what we can make of this” - that’s a fairly awkward (and I should think non-scriptural) conclusion one is forced to reach. I can’t speak to any of the Maccabees books or what they say. But you are correct that a lot can be packed (or not!) into the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If it’s an aversion to a magically sudden ex-nihilo “poof” that you object to, I share in your objection. But those of us who already know that creation was unfolded over eons by God, don’t mind seeing the whole thing back to the big bang as still being from God.
That goes a good way toward meeting one of my objections. Personally I would allow that God too had no ex nihilo beginning. But neither was He whole and complete from the beginning.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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