I claim I do not understand what ‘alturistic’ means. If it is a misspelling of what I think it is, survival of the fittest is certainly not ‘alturistic’! That definitely would lead people to claim that you do not understand evolution!
1 Like
al·tru·is·tic
[ˌalˌtro͞oˈistik]
ADJECTIVE
- showing a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others; unselfish:
IOW there is no providence in it.
RIchard
Said the shark as it ate a fish. Survival of the fittest is certainly altruistic.
I don’t have any other words except to say there you go again, conflating science and theology, just like Richard Dawkins.
1 Like
Maybe there is a misunderstanding here. If we assume that evolution is one of the methods of creation God has used, processes that drive evolution are not irrelevant.
Driving force of evolution is not random, it drives the population towards a situation where an average individual is better adapted (produces a larger amount or more accurately, a larger proportion of grandchildren). Stochastic events and drift may play a role but that is not the same as claiming that the driving force is random. Maybe you meant that there is no final goal in evolution?
Teleology is an interesting question in the context of evolution. If we think that there is no Creator or that God always keeps hands off, then evolution does not have a goal or long-term direction. Populations just change in response to current environmental conditions. A bacteria is as likely endpoint than an intelligent being.
If God has a long-term plan and uses evolution as one of the mechanisms of creation, then there probably is a long-term direction in evolution. As the natural mechanisms of evolution do not provide the direction, God must influence evolution either by creating very specific conditions or making occasional interventions, or both. If the first alternative is true, conditions should be such that starting the evolution again from scratch would lead to the same endpoint - the direction of evolution would be highly predictable. If God affects the direction of evolution by making occasional interventions, it would be nice to know what are the ways how God does it. Does it happen at the level of individuals or is it something happening on a wider scale, like guiding an asteroid to collide with Earth, or both?
Nice to think but largely speculation that is not necessary information for us. If God acts on need-to-know principle, we may not learn the answers before our death.
3 Likes
You still don’t get it: God controls everything in accordance with the rules He established.
Ditto for mutations.
Stop telling me what I do or do not understand, or even worse what I must understand!
You are not my teacher and you are not the fount of all knowledge and understanding I do not have to understand as you do!
The moment you include God you have left TOE and your claimed scientific superiority goes out the window. And no VFB or VFA will change that.
I am fed u[ with your arrogant attitude towards me. Show me some respect or stop talking to me.
Richard
Clearly you misunderstood. Altruistic means neutral. Neither selfish nor providential.
Survival shows no bias other than success. And it neither weeps nor rejoices at the outcome.
Richard
Having recognized God’s omnitemporallity and that time-based and tensed language cannot be applied in the ‘VFA’, and noting the miraculous nature (interesting to use that word here ; - )… the nature, the M.O., of his providential interventions into the lives of his children, I would have to contend that that ‘the ways’ of our inscrutable God are unknowable.
Yes, if God is in control of evolution, survival is irrelevant. That is why God is not in control of evolution. The universe is not determined, but God has constructed it so we can exercise our God-given freedom within its limits.
I am afraid that you do not get it either. If God controls everything in accordance with the rules He established, then GOD would be a legalistic God. Even though Leqalism is in vogue these days Jesus the Messiah exploded that myth long ago.
Through ecological evolution GOD made a way to govern the universe without being controlling, without being coercive.
Yes, God did give the universe a meaning and a purpose, which is to create a home for humankind and our fellow inhabitants of planet earth. Of course that does not keep us from polluting our home with hatred, CO2, injustice, war, and selfishness.
We have a language problem, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the King’s English.
Altruistic does not mean neutral – it means the opposite of selfish. Do you see the word concern bolded above? How about the word selfless (not bolded ; - )? It does not mean neutral either – it means not selffull, again the opposite of selfish. And look up disinterested, please – that could be a little deceptive and maybe what put you wrong. It does not mean no interest at all or neutral, as you took it – it means no interest in self in this context. The definition you cited even says unselfish. Does that mean neutral?
1 Like
Everywhere I look I see providence. I see providence for which I am thankful in my looking, that my eyes work as well as they do.
1 Like
Yes, that is the VFB, scientific, methodological naturalism, without a divine-o-meter, neither purpose nor plan. (And I like your waxing poetic. ; - )
Phil,
Thank you for the reference. BioLogos needs to do more of this. There is so much good reference material on the web it is absurd that some people refuse to find out the facts.
I particularly appreciated the fact that this treatise took a holistic comprehensive approach to the changes required by the need to breathe air.
Do you really want me to believe that you do not care if you and yours live or die? If so, what kind of person are you?
1 Like
I was not talking about what I believe. It is simply a statement of fact. If you are going to extol survival then you are showing no interest in the results.
But it is not me who promotes survival of the fittest, or any other scientific mechanism
Richard.
When you make ridiculous statements I darned well will tell you what you don’t understand! Your reaction to my simple statement above betrays the bizarre and unscriptural notion you have about God: you have repeatedly made assertions that indicate you consider God to be capricious and thus undependable, as well as ones that portray Him as cruel.
“Scientific superiority”? I didn’t mention science!
LOL
The highest arrogance in these threads is yours: despite being open to learning from people who know various subjects far better than you do, you continue to insist that you are correct.
This latest is a good example: that God controls everything in accordance with the rules He chose is Old Testament theology 101, something that anyone doing theology should know. Yet your statements show that you don’t even understand such a basic concept.
No, He would be a faithful God as opposed to a capricious one. If God didn’t control everything in accord with the rules He selected, He would be undependable and we would see that because there would be no “natural laws”, no predictability in the universe. There would be no way to write equations for gravity or light, for radioactivity or motion.
If you want to call having a universe where science works “legalistic”, fine – but in that case we should be thankful for a “legalistic” God because the alternative is a whimsical, untrustworthy God!
Jesus never talked about science.
If God were not controlling the universe in accord with a set of rules, evolution wouldn’t be useful for explaining anything! The only reason that the theory of evolution is possible is because God dependably runs the world in accord with rules.
Evolution rests on mutations. Mutations are new things, by definition. And where do new things come from? According to Paul and John, they come from God: both of them wrote that nothing comes into existence unless God makes it.
Bringing new things into existence is a form of control, but so is upholding all things. The only question is whether God upholds all things and brings new ones into existence in an orderly fashion, i.e. in accordance with rules, or whether He is capricious – and that is a choice between a God who is faithful and one who cannot be trusted.
1 Like
Yes that just about sums you up
Richard
“No providence” shows a very strange view of God, at the least a mechanistic one where God is a watchmaker rather than the sustainer of all existence Who is the source of all new things from molecules to mutations.
Along with more than a few sages, I would rather a God whose control of the universe brought about my disintegrating hips that led to needing replacements than one Who disinterestedly just stood back and watched Auschwitz and Treblinka – and that is the view of more than one who lived through Auschwitz and Treblinka!
God as Παντοκράτωρ (pan-toh-KRA-tor), “All-ruler”, tells us the He rules all. Yet along with that is faithfulness, which tells us that He rules according to rules and is thus trustworthy. After all, God being one “who is over all and through all and in all” is not just an observer!
2 Likes