Does evolution require more faith then belief in god
Offline The answer is yes according to Jason Taylor who wrote on another forum:
"So, what science are you talking about? The theory of evolution? Seriously, anyone who believes that has way more faith than I do. Come on? Some blob of matter out in space blew up and created the universe, then, somehow life happened? Then, series of small changes happened in a single celled organism that eventually led to human beings? Wow, talk about a fairy tale. Pieces of Darwin's theory get disproved fairly often, but does that stop anyone from believing him? No, they just redefine what evolution means.
Really, I can understand the reluctance to believe in God. It makes you accountable for your actions. If there is no God then I can do whatever the hell I want with no fear of repercussions in the life beyond. But, honestly, God doesn't stop me from doing anything I would do otherwise. Living by, or at least attempting to live by, the moral code set forth in the Bible has actually made me a better person. So, even if I were wrong I don't think my life has been wasted.
I'd really like to see this discrediting that you seem to know so much about, but don't reference at all. If you, or someone you know of has disproved the Bible I would like to know about it."
I don't agree but you respond I will reply to him with your response!
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Jason,
First off, there's evidence for evolution, so it doesn't require faith. Faith (in the religious sense) entails believing in something without evidence or even in spite of evidence to the contrary. For example, saying that the bible is all, completely, literally true despite the fact that insects don't have 4 legs and bats are not birds requires faith.
Secondly, you're conflating a bunch of things into "evolution". The Big Bang is not about evolution. Abiogenesis is not about evolution. You've been listening to too much crap from Kent Hovind and needs to do a little research outside of ID and creationism websites. Additionally, you needs to do some research about how the scientific method works. You see, if a scientific theory is wrong about something, they change it based on the new findings. This contrasts heavily with religion, which, when proven wrong, takes a course of action ranging from plugging its ears and going "lalalala!" to going out and killing people who disagree with them.
Thirdly, you leap from that into the "morality" argument which is a bit of a non sequitur. People are held accountable for their actions without god. They have to answer to the other people around them. If you need a moral code handed to you with the threat of eternal torture, then you are likely a sociopath. Morality comes from the society around you. If people were so immoral before the god of the bible (who is a psychopathic bully) revealed himself, we would never have survived long enough for him to reveal himself to us. If the people of Moses were really so barbaric that they needed god to say "Thou Shalt Not Kill!", they would have murdered each other long before that. If you do some research into evolution and natural selection, you'd understand how a moral code can arise based on what allows a species to survive. In our case, not killing each other allows the species to survive so it becomes a standard rule.
Leviticus has some great advice on how to deal with disobedient children. It says to stone them to death. Stated pretty plainly, drag your kid in front of city hall, tell all the people there what he has done, then begin to smash his head with rocks. Is this a good thing? Well, if you are going to claim that all morality came from god, you have to say "yes, this is good." Why? "Because god said so." So god can change the rules whenever he likes? "Yup." How is this not arbitrary?
Furthermore, using faith to claim what is good and what is not allows anyone to claim any behavior as good. Religion, not humanism, allows people to claim that heinous acts are good and just.
Please, feel free to join us at the forums at rationalresponders.com but make sure to separate your arguments and do some basic research on the subjects you are arguing against. You wouldn't want to come across as an ignorant fool, would you?
( http://www.talkorigins.org and wikipedia have some good info on evolution. Here's a good piece on the morality argument: http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_argument_from_morality )
-Triften
Anybody who believes this has never learned what the theory of evolution is. I recommend either "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" or "The Blind Watchmaker" or "Climbing Mount Improbable."
Or all three.
The theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the beginning of the universe. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
If he wants to know about the beginnings of the universe, he's going to have to spend many years studying theoretical physics.
Precisely!
That's why science works. Little bits and pieces of Darwin's theory have been disproven, but that's because we discovered the way the bits and pieces really worked. For instance, Darwin himself was completely unaware of the fundamental unit of evolution -- the gene. He was at a loss to explain diversity because his version of natural selection would have mathematically tended towards less diversity and more homogeny. It wasn't until the 20th century when the gene was discovered that we were able to put a mathematical model on evolution and get diversity to work properly.
This is a completely different question, and has nothing to do with natural selection. Nevertheless, natural selection demonstrates and predicts that we are accountable for our actions. In fact, theism removes responsibility for our actions by ascribing our nature to some external force. Christianity is particularly bad about this, because we can simply slough off our sins on Jesus and never worry about them again. That's not responsibility!
Go right ahead and do anything you want. The odds are very good that you will reach the non-existent hereafter faster than me. I prefer to live, so I try not to do things that will hurt myself unnecessarily, or make others want to hurt me.
You've just contradicted yourself.
Some parts of the bible do match up with the moral code predicted by natural selection and the newly forming science of evolutionary psychology. This is predictable. Even though the authors of the bible were ignorant of science, they were not blind to their environment. They could see that there seems to be a moral constant in all of humanity. They didn't know about natural selection, so they attributed it to god.
But Pascal's Wager is incomplete. What if Allah is the true god? You have not only wasted your life, but you're going to burn in Allah's hell. What if Zeus is the true god? What if it's Marduk? What if Buddhism is true? What if, and this is a hard pill to swallow... what if the true god has never revealed himself to man, and doesn't care to?
You've picked one out of literally thousands of possible "correct" gods to follow, and many of the ones you've rejected have promised nasty things if you don't choose them.
What do you mean, disproved the bible? I can disprove the god of Christianity for you right now.
1) The word "supernatural" is incoherent. Read are broken concepts">this essay for the proof of this premise.
2) Any concept defined as supernatural is necessarily nonexistent, for supernatural literally refers to nothing.
3) The god of the bible is defined as supernatural.
4) Therefore, the god of the bible doesn't exist.
Now, did you mean prove that there are untruths in the bible? Read this.
Hope my response helps. Stick to your guns if he keeps asserting things without knowing what evolution is. Until he can properly describe it, he's got no business arguing against it.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
"It takes more faith to believe in evolution"
Just the oposite. It takes faith to believe in Marvel Comics.
We can PROVE that earlyer primates share a huge linage of DNA with Homo Sapients.
You merely have a book that CLAIMS with no verifyable testable falsifyable evidence that "POOF, ABRAKADABRA....ADAM CAME FROM DIRT" You want me to believe that "HOCUS POKUS....I KNOCKED YOU UP MARY".
I think I'll hedge my bets on sceince and not myth. I dont base the mechanics of electricty on faith in Thor and I certainly am not going to buy some bullshit story about zombie gods surviving rigor mortis after 3 days when we can go into any morgue on the face of the planet and observe a 3 day old dead body STAYING DEAD!
It takes faith to buy Santa. It takes faith to buy Ouiji Boards. It takes observation and study WITHOUT FAITH to know that evolution is fact.
I'm sorry for this guy if they dont want to face their delusion and accept that they believe in a Santa for adults.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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It amazes me (though I suppose it shouldn't) how often theists use this tactic of attacking the original ideas of prominent scientists from hundreds of years ago, and transposing those ideas onto the present as if nothing has changed.
Unfortunately, theists are confusing science with their own Holy Bible. It is they who are clinging to centuries-old writings as if nothing has changed.
Science is way ahead of anyone who is still mulling over Darwin's original work and disproving pieces of it. The theory of evolution has itself evolved as technology and research methods have improved over the centuries, fixing mistakes and filling in holes present in Darwin's original work.
Why don't theists go back and try to debunk Sir Isaac Newton's original work on the theory of gravity? Clearly you could find something wrong his early thoughts on the subject. But the presence of gravity doesn't really question the existence of God. Evolution, however, is a different story.
I doubt there are any theists (outside of perhaps Jehovah's Witnesses) who would want to go to their doctor if the doctor was strictly using medical techniques and research from the 18th or 19th centuries. Theists understand the concept of scientific advancement, and take full advantage of it. Except when it threatens to render their great god in the sky irrelevant.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?