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Do you believe in Darwinian evolution?

Do you believe in Darwinian evolution?

  • Yes

    Votes: 46 50.0%
  • No

    Votes: 32 34.8%
  • Unsure

    Votes: 7 7.6%
  • Need more information

    Votes: 7 7.6%

  • Total voters
    92

Isaih

Registered User
Chemicals do not have a gene code. How is that relevant?

You refer to a code.(lettuce)
How does a code write itself?
How does a machine more complex than a NASA computerised space vehicle, design and build itself?

Science explains this process as occurring through the mechanism of time. "million and millions of years."
Is that a logical explanation? Not to me.
It is a scientific explanation.



I don't confuse science with logic.
Logic is the underlying justice of this creation. Science is a religion created by man.


A lettuce is a more complex machine than the NASA spacecraft. Science cannot hope to build a lettuce from the raw materials. Can't you grasp how incredible life is?

Why didn't evolution produce NASA spacecrafts? They're a much simpler machine than a lettuce. Surely they'd have evolved in prehistoric time because machines design and build themselves. Its scientific afterall.

Science observes what is there. Has no appreciation for what is not there.
Indeed takes the rule of logic itself for granted. Logic itself need not exist.
And like all forms of religion can be perverted for use by men for their own ends.
And evolutionary theory is proof, to me, that that is exactly what has happened with the religion of science.
 
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Aeelorty

Registered User
Chemicals do not have a gene code. How is that relevant?

You refer to a code.(lettuce)
How does a code write itself?
How does a machine more complex than a NASA computerised space vehicle, design and build itself?

Science explains this process as occurring through the mechanism of time. "million and millions of years."
Is that a logical explanation? Not to me.
It is a scientific explanation.

So again it's back to your lack of knowledge on the topic. You take some general idea that you understand as evolution and then use that very limited data to reach a conclusion that with more data you would have avoided. I personally have always look for information to disprove my ideas rather than supporting evidence because we have a bias towards ignoring things that go against what we believe. By looking to be wrong I found that bias to be minimized and my mistakes to be corrected more quickly and efficiently. I would charge you to look into evolutionary theory more so that you can understand it better and will lose many of the misconceptions you have. It may be that you find better stronger evidence in your mind against it rather than the weaker ones you have given.

Chemicals are what makes life, which is essentially a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions are what cause the mutation in genes and at the same time drive life functions. Biomolecules are used as evidence to support evolutionary theory. So when we refer to the DNA code we are using short hand to describe the arrangement of DNA molecules and how they can transfer data. This data being generally the synthesis of different biomolecules. The example I gave was to show that you can actually select for molecules that bind to certain things with increasing levels of affinity. So nature did evolve flying organisms with a great diversity in locomotion. There is no real benefit for the cost of space going for an organism to go there, ie it cost prohibitive amount of energy to go into space and their is no obvious benefit for an organism to do so. When spend energy going to space when there are energetically cheaper methods of what ever it is an organism would gain by going to space?

Back to the issue of a DNA code. We call it a code because we focus on the information that it passes along and we find that to be a convenient nomenclature. We focus on the information capacity of DNA but RNA is also a very important nucleic acid that does more actual work than DNA. Many Viruses actually use RNA exclusively as its genetic material and there are multiple theories that claim with support that life originally used RNA over DNA. RNA can form multiple different shapes but has less stability than DNA. So the idea goes roughly along the line that certain molecules had shapes that allow for replication. These molecules have been shown to be synthesized by high energy impacts and lighting. Now these molecules can react with each other and the ones with the best ability to replicate are the ones that continue the cycle until we start getting more complex systems of reactions that we call life. At a much later point RNA is replaced by DNA as the molecule for storing this information on replicating because it lacks an -OH group that makes it more stable thus better able at maintain the info. Of that is the rough idea behind the RNA world. It's not a very accurate description dues to the lack of detail, but should suffice. I would note that prions are proteins that affect other proteins causing them to take on the prions shape, Mad Cow diseases is an example.


So Science does avoid using the supernatural to explain anything because it often times is used as a way to stop a line of questioning and reasoning. Think about the contentious history or astronomy and the church. Or think of diseases and how it was blamed on sin or demons. Scientific method is designed to get at the heart of the universe we live in and avoid those lazy "God made it that way" explanations. To me knowing how evolution works and the intricate details of the chemistry and how it all ticks, knowing where the mistakes happen, knowing how truly complex the process is but more importantly how it operates by a only a few simple rules really shows how beautiful the world is. See to me science allows me to get into what the world truly is to appreciate it more and the God that created it. I understand why science avoids appeals to God because in a very real sense these attempts at faith are often blocks to viewing the world in more detail. These details show the true beauty of the world. I don't feel the need to reject science on religious grounds because to me science is just another way of viewing God's creation.
 

Isaih

Registered User
Evolution theory has been constantly altered since it was originally proposed simply to suggest the superiority of the white races . It is now an explanation of the origins of life itself.
So forgive me for not keeping up to date with current dogma.

Aeelorty, I don't think you are making logical connections in your reasoning.
This is why I use the NASA spacecraft as anaology.
If you agree to use it , you may discover the flaw in your logic.

By saying science has proved that mutations occur through lightning or bacteria, is like saying a rock hit the spacecraft and caused a dent.
It does not explain how the spacecraft was designed or built. Nor can the dent likely improve the design.
Would you agreed with that?

How could lightning create a machine? How can just the mechanism of time do it?
Its a very simple point, and doesn't require complex casuistry to answer the question.
It cannot.
Going into the complexities of how the spacecraft's engine works does not explain away the origins of existence of the engine itself in the first instance. An engine of enormous complexity that works.
It only serves to confuse the points of conflict.

Science has an agenda which is god does not exist. It is the foundation of sand on which much scientific theory is based. Including medicine.
Is it scientific to assume god doesn't exist? Yes
Is it logical ? no

The reason science calls DNA a code is because that is precisely what it is. Recorded information with very exact meaning and purpose.

Modern medicine incidentally seems to be created and under the control of the knights of St john. Who apparently took over the Templar secrets , certainly their possessions in the 14th century.
And the use of caduceus symbol has become synonymous with that monopoly of medical dogma.
It bears a remarkable similarity, to me, to the double helix. Which of course wasn't discovered until long afterwards.
I wonder if this isn't part of the Kabbalistic knowledge of the Templars.
I think the men who created and control science, and western medicine know damn well god exists and are indeed religious orders. And evolution theory is promulgated with full knowledge that it is false, to help the canaille become atheists. In line with their esoteric religious agenda.
This is why I am shocked that so many masons here, believe in evolution.

cadeceus.jpg
double helix.jpg
 
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BryanMaloney

Premium Member
ALL OF SCIENCE is "constantly altered". That's one of the things about science, it's not just a received dogma. Science has no agenda at all regarding God. None. No agenda at all. The idea that it has any sort of agenda on this topic is just propaganda promulgated by those who would keep us all ignorant (and, I might even daresay, bound to the decrees of an out-of-control religious hierarchy). Science is part of what makes up the Enlightenment ideal behind Masonry. Faith is another part.
 

Aeelorty

Registered User
First the rod of asclepius is what is supposed to be used in medicine but some ignorant people use the caduceus. Typically it's businessmen who never learned the difference and confused the two, insurance companies are notable for this.

By saying science has proved that mutations occur through lightning or bacteria, is like saying a rock hit the spacecraft and caused a dent.
It does not explain how the spacecraft was designed or built. Nor can the dent likely improve the design.
Would you agreed with that?

How could lightning create a machine? How can just the mechanism of time do it?
Its a very simple point, and doesn't require complex casuistry to answer the question.

The machine to body analogy is a poor example because the body is a set of chemical reactions not a machine. They have similarities but your mistakes are introduced to carrying the analogy beyond its limits. If you look at bone formation and destruction you will find that it is a balance between two types of cells osteoblast and osteocytes. One lays bone down the other "eats" it for the calcium to use in other areas. Single cells have this same principle of equilibrium and all through the ecosystem you will find this pattern. As above, so below. A spaceship does not have this same characteristic, the engine for instance is not a equilibrium reaction, it goes till there is no more fuel and can be controlled by that. So see there is a difference

My point about lighting was that organic molecules can be generated by a source of high energy and abundant molecules in the atmosphere. These molecules have an interesting characteristic of forming shapes and combining together without further energy input. Isolated phospholipids will form a bilayer when introduced into water. They do this naturally because it is energetically favorable. Many biomolecues have this property and since they can be made in a natural environment they can "self assemble". It is an important counterpoint.

Is it scientific to know god doesn't exist? Yes

This here is not true for an already stated reason that I will again repeat. Science cannot test the supernatural. I cannot test for God and I can not test for his intervention. Since it is unable to be tested it falls completely outside of the realm of science. If a person ever suggest that science either proves God's existence or denies God's existence, that person should be ignored because they are not qualified to speak on that subject. All any scientist can say is their opinion on the existence of God and how they might personally not find need for God to exist. But that's their opinion alone and not "Science." What can be done within the limits of scientific inquire is only that which can be tested, like how do things change, what causes that change, when did the change occur, what species changed into these other species. What one really does when they say they don't believe in evolution is to say they don't believe change is possible. But change does occur, we can see it happen in a lab, we can make it happen, we can predict what causes change, when something will change, how long it will take for that change to spread to other individuals in the group. That is the power of science, it have explanatory power and the ability to make predictions.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Back to the issue of a DNA code. We call it a code because we focus on the information that it passes along and we find that to be a convenient nomenclature.

Much like the biological term "cell" was adopted because a sample of cork looked at in an early microscope had "chambers" that reminded the observer of monks' "cells". We don't presume that every living organism is filled with tiny monks, though, and then invent flights of fancy upon such a presumption.
 

Isaih

Registered User
ALL OF SCIENCE is "constantly altered". That's one of the things about science, it's not just a received dogma. Science has no agenda at all regarding God. None. No agenda at all. The idea that it has any sort of agenda on this topic is just propaganda promulgated by those who would keep us all ignorant (and, I might even daresay, bound to the decrees of an out-of-control religious hierarchy). Science is part of what makes up the Enlightenment ideal behind Masonry. Faith is another part.

Well I'm a protestant, not catholic. so its unfair to tar my beliefs with that brush.
Religious dogma /accusations of heresy are a completely different ballpark to the simple assumption that we created by god.

Aeelorty if my analogy of the spacecraft is too flawed to be useful, can you suggest another one. Because this is the most effective way for me to make sense of complexities.

Again I'd suggest there is all the difference in the world between a chemical compound and a lifeform . This is just dust of the earth.
 
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Aeelorty

Registered User
Again I'd suggest there is all the difference in the world between a chemical compound and a lifeform . This is just dust of the earth.

Yes but unfortunately you can't prove that. Not everything needs to be inspected at all times under the scope of science. Science has it's limits and knows those limits. I think there is great beauty in knowing that our bodies, like are lives, is a mass of equilibria. We are meant to stay the golden mean.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Religious dogma /accusations of heresy are a completely different ballpark to the simple assumption that we created by god.

Protestants have PLENTY of dictatorial clergy who want the people to remain ignorant and blindly follow their various dogmatic pronouncements. An out-of-control religious hierarchy is not automatically Catholic. It can be 100% Protestant, even if the "hierarchy" consists of no more than a pastor and some deacons.

Religious dogma: Insisting that, if a scientific model changes, it means that it MUST be false. This is religious dogma because it demands that science (an empirical and self-adjusting process) is wrong specifically for being empirical and self-adjusting. By such "logic" one should reject all modern medicine and demand that one be bled and given laxatives for every illness, since "germ theory" (for example) is a change in medical models. Therefore, since there was a change, it must be false, and we must never, ever, ever, ever, under any circumstance take any medication for any purpose nor consult a doctor.
 

pointwithinacircle2

Rapscallion
Premium Member
Science has an agenda which is god does not exist.
This sentence seems to be the entire basis for your argument. I dismiss this statement as mere conjecture. I know, I know, you can quote dozens of scientists and pseudo-scientists who do not believe in God. This does not prove that science has an "agenda" to prove that God does not exist. It merely proves that some people who went to college are Atheists.

You seem to believe that science and God are incompatible - that if creationism is true then evolution cannot be true. Unlike you, I am not prepared to place limits upon God and upon the techniques he may have used to fashion the universe.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
I can find Protestants who are vehemently anti-Masonic. Does that mean that Protestantism has an agenda against Masonry?
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
You seem to believe that science and God are incompatible - that if creationism is true then evolution cannot be true. Unlike you, I am not prepared to place limits upon God and upon the techniques he may have used to fashion the universe.

You don't even have to put limits upon God to do that. There is a bizarre intellectual tradition in the West that presumes without question that God only acts upon necessity, that He only does what He has no choice but to do. God chose Abraham. Does that mean that God could never have chosen anyone else, instead, that His "hands were tied", so to speak, and that He is just a helpless puppet? If God did use evolution as His mechanism, that's not a limit upon Him, it's a limit He imposed upon creation.
 

otherstar

Registered User
You don't even have to put limits upon God to do that. There is a bizarre intellectual tradition in the West that presumes without question that God only acts upon necessity, that He only does what He has no choice but to do. God chose Abraham. Does that mean that God could never have chosen anyone else, instead, that His "hands were tied", so to speak, and that He is just a helpless puppet? If God did use evolution as His mechanism, that's not a limit upon Him, it's a limit He imposed upon creation.

I think that you are pointing out one common misconception of God's causality: that God does what he must do (re-warmed Leibniz, to wit: that if God created the world, it must be the best of all possible worlds, and could not be otherwise). This does indeed put a limit upon God, and is, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, NOT the manner in which God causes things to be.

If actually, God's causality works the other way around. God is a necessary cause. If God causes X, then X exists (and could be no other way because God caused it to be). Everything must have some explanation, there must be some cause for everything in existence (this is called the Principle of Sufficient Reason). If all causes are caused by something else, then there is a simultaneous infinite series of caused-causes, which is impossible; or, there must be some first cause that is outside of the series to explain the existence of the series. A simultaneous infinite series is not possible. Therefore there must be some first cause that is itself not caused by another that explains the existence of all other causes. This First Cause we call God (paraphrasing St. Thomas Aquinas in this paragraph). God thus fulfills the Principle of Sufficient Reason for the entire Universe by explaining the existence of the same.

Thus, if evolution is the mechanism for effecting God's creation (as I think it is), then it follows that the evolutionary processes are limits upon creation that have been imposed by God.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
I think that you are pointing out one common misconception of God's causality: that God does what he must do (re-warmed Leibniz, to wit: that if God created the world, it must be the best of all possible worlds, and could not be otherwise).

Why? It's argument from necessity.

There are no limits upon God. If God is limited, then God is unworthy of being God. If God is limited, then God is just another creature--a limited "God" is not God at all.
 

otherstar

Registered User
Why? It's argument from necessity.

There are no limits upon God. If God is limited, then God is unworthy of being God. If God is limited, then God is just another creature--a limited "God" is not God at all.

What's the "argument from necessity" you are talking about? I do not think you are representing it well, so I tried to clarify the issue.

Did I put a limit upon God? Show me how I did, if that is what you are claiming. I was trying to agree with you.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Argument from necessity, the logical fallacy that a conclusion is valid because it must be as it is and can be no other way.
 

Rifleman1776

Registered User
I believe evolution is undeniable. We can see it everyday. But, I also belive it is compatabile with God's creation. He created and set the world in motion.
 

jvarnell

Premium Member
There is no such thing as "devolving" in biological evolution. There is no such thing as "better" or "higher" in biological evolution except when speaking loosely. If you think in terms of "evolve" vs. "devolve", you have no understanding of how evolution theory is used by biologists, none at all.
If we are evolving the laguage because of something we preceive and it is in the past is that not devoltion to go back to previouse scintific concepts?
 
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