Evolution vs Creationism

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Chimpanzee dont eat as much fruit as they eat each other and small animals. Bonobo are almost entirely frugivore, with a small percentage of their diet comprising of insects and sometimes small animals.

 

Well, that's me told

 

I'm going to answer differently than Chandos. Because of the divine origin of Religion, it is a beneficial sociological phenomenon in it's purest form. In it's purest form, it teaches us that there is something greater than us in control of the universe, it gives us a basic sense of where we came from (extremely brief on topics like creation and the histories), and several guidelines for our conduct that will not only on how to live as to benefit those around us but to make is wiser in our stewardship of the world around us. Where Religion gets a bad rap is in the impurities that have infiltrated the various faiths over the last 6 millenia...

In it's purest form, it doesn't. But as I mentioned before, someone with some power doesn't like or understand something and makes a little change here and there, and it's likely these changes that are constantly reformed over the centuries. When these mortal custodians lose sight of the real purpose of religion--the care for the souls of the people, all manner of abuses will creep in and polute the whole. AS a result, new groups will splinter off and try to regain what was lost among all the modifications...

Can you point to a specific inaccuracy in Genesis 1? Remember that the origin of man is one area where faith and Science will disagree. Even then, it would seem that Modern Humans would have been one of the last species to exist in it's current form. In the thousands of chapters in the Bible, only one is dedicated to the process of creation. The inclusion of Creation is more to say "God made this world for us, now lets get on with what He expects of us". Genesis 1 is an oversimplified generalization of the process. Science is finding most of the details that were left out of the process...

Dumb and annoying, sure, but it's funny as hell!

And as Human understanding continues to grow, such a reconcilliation between faith and science will be possible, but we need people with an objection to religion to lay off so we can view the facts for ourselves and reach that understanding. By pushing small portions of the whole on us and getting it horribly wrong, all these people do is convince us that they are morons...

No, it just calls into question the quality of the translation that you read from...

Not to mention it would be a lot longer than one chapter devoted to creation...

Bingo! The Bible was never intended to teach science, but to teach ethics and morality, and to pass wisdom from one gneration to another. It bears witness to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our sins may be forgiven. It's not meant to describe the finches on the Galapagos Islands and how their beaks changed over 20 years...

No arguement here. Replace eating an endangered animal with rape and I agree!. And even then, if there's another viable alternative to eating an endangered species, it should be pursued...

In my experience with Tourette Syndrome, the tics and other symptoms are the result of action on the neurological level. But I do have some ability to suppress more problematic symptoms for short periods of time (like not bursting out into a string of obscenities during a church service, keeping my hands away from a spinning blade). I may still have to "release" those held tics at some point, but I can wait until a better time (like when I can get privacy or away from the blade in question).

 

Haha...well, yes, then you should be a hindu, since it is the oldest currently practiced religion, and it predates Indo-Aryan settlement in the Indian Subcontinent, and since I assume you are Indo-European, it is the religion of your ancestors. You cannot say that North-Americanized Europeanized Afro-Asiatic mythology is religion in its purest form, only arrogance or ignorance would lead anyone to such a conclusion. I dare not even say those things about Sanatana Dharma. It is true however that there is something greater than us controlling the universe, but it certainly is no god of any sort, no matter how cool or awesome your mind creates them to be. The laws of physics that govern the universe contradict immensely the petty and limiting views expressed in ANY religious doctrine.

And what a great teacher of ethics and morality it is too, simply amazing and up to date with all its amazing insights into life. Live a life strictly according the the bible for a year, I dare you to. Do everything it says, everything. And at the same time try to live a normal life in the 21st century. Kudos to you if you succeed. The bible has very little insight and wisdom to pass from any generation to the next. The god of the old testament is angry, very very angry, jealous too. He tells people to slaughter whole nations of people, including their livestock. He is vengeful in the extreme. By the time the new testament comes around he seems to have relaxed a whole lot, and suddenly became all peace and love. In other words the history of the jewish god is the history of the jewish understanding of the universe. It matured as they matured, grew as they grew. Imaginary friends tend to do that...

If evolution is true and we share a common ancestor with the other modern great apes and are therefore just another animal species who have no souls or spirits, then nothing we ever do is good or evil, our actions are only right or wrong, socially constructive or socially destructive. Therefore, the delusional world view that separates and makes distinctions between 'us' and 'them' in the animal kingdom is redundant.

Natural-Born Liars
Why do we lie, and why are we so good at it? Because it works

Yes, we have Machiavellian intelligence. Scientific...fact.

 

I really did not answer the question, Gnarff. Because for me, much like Jung, religion is a personal experience. For Jung it's not really something one can attain from a priest or a church, but from building a personal relationship with God. Jung is often misunderstood, mostly intentionally by chruch fathers, that what he really said was that all people "imagine" God. But anyone who reads his personal account _Memories, Dreams and Reflections_, it is clear that Jung believed that God is real, not imagined. In fact, he experienced several supernatural instances during his lifetime, and he documented them his last book.

Because he made an attempt to understand the nature of evil outside of the simplistic notion of just Satan as the "cause," he is often misrepresented as a dabbler in the occult. He has even been accused of being the founder of the new age movement (and you know what THAT means to chruch fathers). IMO, nothing could be further from the truth. Still, people often take his early work with Frued as examples of his "true" atheism. But later in his life Jung came to fully realize that God is indeed real.

Although some have commented that he was a prophet because some of his predictions (which were very specific) came true, he was really a visionary more than a prophet. I don't think Jung would be comfortable with that notion of himself as one. But his work is so vast and encompassing that one can pretty much read into it whatever one chooses to believe.

So now I will answer the question: Yes, I believe that the nature of religion is divine.

 

So you dont actually 'know' that the nature of religion is divine, you just assume that it is?

 

Nataraja - As I commented in an earlier post, knowledge should be approached with a degree of humility. For me, it's enough that God knows.

 

You missed the point, I was making a distinction between belief and knowledge, since they are mutually exclusive and one does not necessarily lead to other. You only believe the nature of religion to be divine, you dont actually know whether it is or isnt, or else you would have said 'I know that the nature of religion is divine'. But you cant make such a claim, and Im glad you didnt. Even if you consider the nature of religion to be divine a JTB then it still doesnt qualify as being knowledge of any sort.

 

I didn't really miss your point, Nataraja. I was just being evasive. But you spotted me out. As I remarked, all knowledge is fallable to a degree. However, there comes a point where conviction has to take over. I know that some here certainly won't share my views, so rather than beat them over the head with them, I'd rather qualify them by making them personal on my own behalf. In other words, they work for me, but you may have a different path and that's fine too.

 

Chandos it seems like you have taken the standard position of moderate religious people in a discussion. Which is that you believe that there is something bigger out there, something divine we can't know. This is a pretty reasonable position and it sure is attractive for most humans even those that are not religious. It is to that point people discussing with you can concede that it is a fair idea, there might be something out there who knows. The argument I have met many times is that, you agree that there might be something "more" than we can know? Good, then everything in the bible/quran/torah is true. Or at least the bits the person making the argument believe in. It is the same kind of argument as: Jesus may be a real historic person thus Jesus was the son of god.

Now the reason I am making this post is that you have previously claimed to be a practicing Christian. Now you explain your more Jungian philosophy (which I need to take your word for, my knowledge of Jung consists of knowing that he was a philosopher and psychiatrist) my question here is then, how do you deal with the leap of faith from the belief that there is something greater into accepting Christianity as the true image of the universe? Is it "just" a leap of faith as everyone I have encountered or have you given it some serious thought?

 

Really? So what instinct does a perfectly sane man with a religious bend starving himself naked on a frozen mountain top serve? What instinct does a man building a multi-billion dollar company and becoming world famous forever, yet never having children and never improving his community serve? What instinct is served when a spouse dies and the widow/widower never remarries because (s)he loved the spouse so much (remember, humans don't naturally mate for life, and men aren't even naturally monogamous)? No, I think if you really look at mankind honestly, you'll find that, while we generally do follow our instincts, the most interesting people are those who don't.

Nataraja, I have a question for you. It's kind of off-beat, but it seems to be very important to you. What is the difference between belief and knowledge?

 

Since Im lazy and tired and about to go to bed, this pretty much sums it up...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Classical-Definition-of-Kno.svg

 

Sorry, that's not working for me. Not sure what the problem is. Could you spell it out? As I see it, there are two possible distinctions between belief and knowledge. The first is one of accuracy, meaning that knowledge is absolutely true while belief need not be. This means that you cannot 'know' something that is wrong, you can only 'believe' it. The problem with this is that you can never really know if you 'know' something, not unless you claim absolute knowledge of everything, i.e. are God. The second is a degree of certainty. If you're pretty certain, but not really, you believe, while if you're absolutely certain, would stake your life on it (or at least $500), then you know. I personally follow the second distinction, in which case Chandos's statement of belief was, at most, saying he wasn't 100% certain of this, and, at the least, a continuation of word usage from what he was saying earlier. This is why I asked the question.

 

Wow, you picked some tricky ones there. The devout monk, the workaholic, the grieving widow. They are definitely impressive examples, but they are rare indeed. These people don't take advantage of their situation, but their behaviour isn't typical of humans either. Most humans do behave instinctively. The only way we can recognize non-instinctive behaviour, is if we know that there can be no benefit from this behaviour. With humans it's easier to recognize than animals, because we know about humans more.
I believe the grieving widow can be compared to the young who lost its mother. Instead of following the herd, and trying to find a new caretaker, the young will sit by its mother's corpse until it dies. Animals can be heavily griefstricken too, making them also take an unwise course of action. Heck, even homosexuality has been observed among animals.
The monk and workaholic are too typical of human culture to find analogies for among animals. I could question the sanity or emotional balance of individuals that don't behave instinctively, but that would be too easy, and rather low. Animals can exhibit non-instinctive behaviour too, but they are just as exceptional as their human counterparts.

 

It's really a bit more complicated than that. Because my approach to Christianity is Jungian, it's something like this:

Belief is fine until it encounters knowledge (this is why I tend to be evasive in my answer). Jung would say that belief, by its nature, tends to be unreflective. And the moment one begins to reflect upon which is more rational, knowledge wins and belief is shattered. Jung would say that it is our "inner experience" with God that provides the needed bridge between belief and knowledge. And I completely agree with that. Beyond that Jung and I part ways because he believes that the Resurrection is immaterial, that it could be largely symbolic, because God meant for us to be immortal from the beginning anyway. Yet, I believe the Resurrection is a real event and that the event matters, that it is in fact central for Salvation. Please note that I am not saying that a person has to be a Christian to obtain Salvation. That would be just plain irrational (yes, I have my flame suit on, Gnarff, so fire away).

 

So you bridge the gap between the ethereal idea of a greater force and the Christian worldview by your own reasoning? Is that the correct interpretation of "inner experience with god"? I must say that I do not completely follow your reasoning. You believe in the Christian god, that he created the universe and everything in it, you also believe that Jesus was this being made flesh and sent to earth to save us from our sins? You also believe (judging from other threads) in choice bits of the book that describes these events. What is the inner experience you have that makes you so sure that this is true? From a non believer you must know how preposterous it all sounds. How do you manage to have your knowledge not to shatter your belief so to speak? I am trying to grasp your post here but I must admit I can't interpret much of anything from it. What do you believe in and why do you believe in it?

It is easy to understand how faith works in people like Gnarff but you and others like you baffle me and I would really like to understand how you manage to sustain your faith. It must be under constant siege by your reason.

 

That I cannot understand, Joac. How can anyone be a slave to dogma without experiencing God in someway? I'm sure your question is how does one experience God? That would take a lot of explaining. Would you not agree?

I'm afraid that we are high-jacking this thread, Joac. I'm not copping out on you. If you wish to craft a thread on religion, the pysche, the unconscious, and the self, I would more than take the time to discuss these concepts, which are as much religious as they are Jungian in nature.

 

Coin, there is a strong difference between the child losing a mother and a husband losing a wife. The husband may continue to be a successful and productive member of society, even becoming a pillar of the community. The decision to not mate again is not a suicidal one, nor is there an unquestionable, instinctually driven bond, as there is between most mothers and children in the animal kingdom. It is simply a decision to deny the instinct to breed in order to honor the memory of the dead. Additionally, it doesn't matter how rare the actual even is, the capacity remains. Instincts drive animals like programming drives computers, or like the laws of nature drive nature. It is undeniable, it is unstoppable, it may be expounded and expanded by intellect, but it is the ultimate controlling device of the creature. In humans, it is more like the laws of man, and not very strong ones, at that. It's like the speed limit. It's always there, and you know it is, but it is entirely your choice to obey it or not. The fact that not many resist in their lives doesn't change the fact that the possibility is always there. There are hundreds of other more specific examples, ones that are more of an instantaneous resistance against one particular instinct rather than a lifetime devotion to it, but I figured I'd start with the big ones.

joacqin, I'd also love to take part in such a discussion, so long as it is a reasonalbe exploration of beliefs and experiences, and not the two-way attack-fest they so often turn into.

 

Since the roots of Christianity (the faith as it existed before Christ) and Hinduism both predate reliable recorded history, I don't support that claim.

What the hell are you talking about? And to get technical, Adam and Eve, being the first Humans as Christianity teaches us, were taught according to the will of God, and instructed in the faith that would become Christianity. It is not arrogance, but doctrine that teaches us this.

But I claim it is God that instituted these laws of physics and other natural laws.

Ah yes, some of the civil laws of ancient Israel recored in the history of the Old Testament. How about this for a list of commandments: No Other Gods before Him, Honour the Sabbath, Do not take the name of God to justify your vain Causes, Honour your parents, Don't lie, steal, kill, keep all sexual practices within marriage, Don't covet your neighbour's spouse or stuff. Share what you have with those in need, Love God and others around you as best you can. Let's start with that. From there, there is a lot of advise in Proverbs, Eclesiates and the New Testament too.

Again, the Scribes and Pharisees put several strange laws in place, and were extremely reliant on the death penalty to punish a myriad of offenses, ranging from sins to other laws they put in place. When Christ came, as had been promised from the beginning, He taught higher principles to the people who were now ready for these teachings. The People of the Old Testament were not ready for the message of Peace and Love that Christ brought.

I am not convinced of some extrapolations that come from the theory of Evolution. The claim that man evolved from an earlier primate is one such extrapolation that I don't buy. There is just a certain discontinuity between Humans and Animals that calls this into question, and allows for the possibility of a soul...

In it's purest form, so is religion. It is the structure that is in place to teach one generation to the next that is called into question, but for many, it is the personal, spiritual experience involved that keeps them attending church and will preserve Religion.

Again, you're right. The Priest is merely a guide and an officiator of worship ordinances to enable the faithful to observe this relationship with God. The church a building for such purposes, while the Church (note the capital C) is the organization by which the priesthood is sanctioned, and the faithful are served.

It is just the natural progression that older explanations no longer satisfy the newer generations. Jung wanted a more detailed answer than any church would give him, so he looked into it.

I know what I have experienced it. The Religious community I affiliate with has actually explained it rather than denied the possibility of such experiences as your thoughts would do.

I seem to remember from my University days that the ancient Greek philosopher, Gorgias taught that knowledge was impossible/incommunicable...

Exactly. At least one person here as posted that what we think is happening is distorted by sensation and perception (reminicent of Plato's Alegory of the Cave), calling all knowledge into question. At some point, faith must take the reigns and steer the course--even with science!

 

Thats one of your biggest fallacies, you act like you KNOW that animals don't have souls.
As i have asked you before, PROVE it with a repeatable scientific test. You can't, so please stop trying to pass your BELIEF off as knowledge.