Will our messing with evolution finally put God to rest?

@Alan McDougall,

lol. No.

The more we understand about DNA and it's vast mind-boggling complexities, the less likely it seems that so many biological structures could develop by random chance over slow, gradual selections for benefit and survivability. DNA at it's very essence is information. There is no empirically reasonable source of information than an intelligent designer. Just like software and literature, you're prohibitively unlikely to come up with the complex DNA structures that make up even the simplest genomes. It's been commonly likened to trying to compose Hamlet, or even a coherent sentence if you randomly threw a box of scrabble pieces on the floor, or chose them out of a hat.

Modern discoveries in DNA are actually reviving the God hypothesis.

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@Alan McDougall,

Evolution still doesn't explain the beginnings of the universe or why the cosmos is as it is. God still has a role to play, until we finally empirically once and for all discover all there is to know.

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@Victor Eremita,

Hey Alan,

No, I don't think our understanding of (and fiddling with) the human body is going to change much. It's my feeling that most god concepts come from either a place of 'need', hope or from that gut-feeling that lives in the hearts of believers.

I don't see either of these changing as a result. We'll always want to hope for more and the question "Is this all that I am?" will forever haunt us. Maybe not, but I think just so.

Thanks

1 Reply

@Khethil,

Alan if he created us he would have realised our capabilities and known the outcome, don't blame the bomb, blame the bomber. If it results in what you assume, he has extinguished his own reality.

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@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;59186 wrote:

Thus humanity can free itself from evolution, and consciously diect the evolution of our species.

Would the need for God vanish,i f there is a god would he allow it?

I think this would be one way of finding out if God exists.

Two points. First, you are probably aware of the logic fallacy known as "composition" where one assumes because the parts and/or makeup of something has been discovered/explained that the whole something has been accounted for. So, for example, someone might assume because a car is entirely mechanical parts, a car is wholly explained by mechanical principles. But a purely mechanistic accounting of a car leaves out what designed and organized the thing, so composition alone isn't always a complete explanation. Similarly, just because we can explain how life works, and manipulate it, doesn't mean we've accounted how it got organized like that in the first place; it seems to me we still need an organizing force to explain the origin of life (and though many disagree, the organization behind the evolution of multicellular and, especially, CNS life forms).

Secondly, why must "evolution" be limited to physical evolution? Possibly with humans another type of evolution has been/is occurring. I have postulated in writings, for example, that individuals like the Buddha, Jesus, Kabir, Nanak, et al are evolutionary harbingers, the first of a new breed of human emerging like the first kernels of popcorn appearing in a big popper. On the scale of evolution, the last 3000 or so years such individuals been "popping up" is a mere speck on the time scale of evolution, and evolution does takes its sweet time. It also makes sense we'd misinterpret these evolutionary forerunners at every turn, since we'd be interpreting their new, evolved state of consciousness using our usual mental frame of reference. So different do they seem to us we deify them, worship them, make up myths to explain why they are different; but really they've just moved into a new realm of consciousness we are all headed for . . . just maybe Smile

1 Reply

@Aphoric,

Aphoric wrote:

lol. No.

The more we understand about DNA and it's vast mind-boggling complexities, the less likely it seems that so many biological structures could develop by random chance over slow, gradual selections for benefit and survivability. DNA at it's very essence is information. There is no empirically reasonable source of information than an intelligent designer. Just like software and literature, you're prohibitively unlikely to come up with the complex DNA structures that make up even the simplest genomes. It's been commonly likened to trying to compose Hamlet, or even a coherent sentence if you randomly threw a box of scrabble pieces on the floor, or chose them out of a hat.

Modern discoveries in DNA are actually reviving the God hypothesis.

Thanks I like your reply, the universe is just too young to have produced the huge unimaginable complex DNA code of life, by random selection and change these dead amino long chain molecules morphing into a living entity

Quote:

Secondly, why must "evolution" be limited to physical evolution? Possibly with humans another type of evolution has been/is occurring. I have postulated in writings, for example, that individuals like the Buddha, Jesus, Kabir, Nanak, et al are evolutionary harbingers, the first of a new breed of human emerging like the first kernels of popcorn appearing in a big popper. On the scale of evolution, the last 3000 or so years such individuals been "popping up" is a mere speck on the time scale of evolution, and evolution does takes its sweet time. It also makes sense we'd misinterpret these evolutionary forerunners at every turn, since we'd be interpreting their new, evolved state of consciousness using our usual mental frame of reference. So different do they seem to us we deify them, worship them, make up myths to explain why they are different; but really they've just moved into a new realm of consciousness we are all headed for . . . just maybe

LWSleeth hey Sleeth

If humanity can consciously alter the path of evolution, then as far as this little planet we will become demigods directing our own future and direction
We could change the human body to live in very alien places, maybe alter our genes so that they could survive on the bleak world of Mars etc etc

This might be the way we can escape the earth and seed the empty universe with life

Maybe we are the only intelligent life form in our universe and our combined consciousness is God

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@Aphoric,

Aphoric wrote:

Modern discoveries in DNA are actually reviving the God hypothesis.

I reason that a slight of observation may be lying off in the background from where this statement has arrived. Perhaps the following had been intended:

[INDENT]Modern discoveries in DNA are actually reviving the god hypothesis
[/INDENT]
This is because the English "God" is the English "YHWH," or "Yahweh," or "Jehovah," or the Christian Trinity model built from that Jewish model. To see god in nature, is to see nature as it is, in the first instance. Our understanding of evolution (among a number of other things) more than our messing around with life forces/substances has already put the YHWH model to rest-not to assert that all have accepted that better understanding, however.

[INDENT]
[/INDENT]

1 Reply

@KaseiJin,

Aphoric wrote:

Modern discoveries in DNA are actually reviving the God hypothesis.

Not that I've heard. Of course, there are pseudo-scientists who take modern discoveries in DNA and warp them in such a way as to support a scientific hypothesis that includes God, but this is vastly different from peer-reviewed articles and academically respected scientists "reviving" a scientific hypothesis which includes God. Injecting God into a scientific hypothesis just isn't science.

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@xris,

xris wrote:

Alan if he created us he would have realised our capabilities and known the outcome, don't blame the bomb, blame the bomber. If it results in what you assume, he has extinguished his own reality.

Exactly xris thank you?

But maybe it remains a good philosophical argument

All the other comments are also great!

Peace

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

The problem with scince is that it is so often misused. It limits itself to the purely observable, and does not prove things, but rather observes patterns- which are sometimes misleadingly called 'laws' (though this is pretty much an outdated newtonian world view) So to say that scince proves or disproves the supernatural or the divine is ridiculous. Scince provides us with information about how material things work- this has a bearing and is useful in plenty of areas, but attempts to call sociological and phisolophical viewpoints 'scientific' are highly misleading. For instance eugenics was popularised as 'scintifically proven' but all this really meant was that the scientific establishment of the time supported it because of world views that may have drawn them to scince, but most certainly did not come from it.

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@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

The problem with scince is that it is so often misused. It limits itself to the purely observable, and does not prove things, but rather observes patterns- which are sometimes misleadingly called 'laws' (though this is pretty much an outdated newtonian world view) So to say that scince proves or disproves the supernatural or the divine is ridiculous. Scince provides us with information about how material things work- this has a bearing and is useful in plenty of areas, but attempts to call sociological and phisolophical viewpoints 'scientific' are highly misleading. For instance eugenics was popularised as 'scintifically proven' but all this really meant was that the scientific establishment of the time supported it because of world views that may have drawn them to scince, but most certainly did not come from it.

Yes often when science states that something is impossible, it often later becomes a scientific empirically proved fact

Isaac Newton would have been horrified to learn that his structured ordered concept of the universe and universe flow of time where incorrect, and time flowed at different rates on objects on different mass. In fact sometimes 2+2=0 or 2=2= 6, Theory of general relativity (now fact)

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@Alan McDougall,

Or that his theory of gravity was so very nearly right. But not quite.

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@Alan McDougall,

I would suggest that we do make every effort to exercise the control that would be needed in the tempering of what would otherwise come across as emotional blanket statements.

The statement:

[INDENT]The problem with scince is that it is so often misused.
[/INDENT]
needs to supported, as it most easily appears to be a great stretch of emotional bias.

It might be necessary to define and describe 'supernatural' before saying that scientific method neither proves nor disproves it (or any application of that term towards any single event/occurance). Also, I am pretty sure we will still find the deparment of philosophy in the humanities branch at the local university--in the technical sense, it is not a science.

We must also keep in mind, that science, is not an individual, and that one prime purpose of scientific method is correct towards the more accurate understanding of states and processes within known and knowable nature.

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@Alan McDougall,

If there is no God, then tinkering with our genome is just like tinkering with anything else -- we have only our own moral sensibilities to contain us.

If there is a God, then tinkering with our genome is one of the variables he has allowed us to change in this world. And we will thus need to contend with his moral sensibilities.

If you believe in God, and you believe that tinkering with our genome is "playing God", then you are forced to admit that God's powers can be displaced by our own inventiveness. And I don't think many theists believe that.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

If you believe in God, and you believe that tinkering with our genome is "playing God", then you are forced to admit that God's powers can be displaced by our own inventiveness. And I don't think many theists believe that.

If we were incapable of doing things God didn't want us to do we would a) have no free will and b) have no real good or evil in the world.

KaseiJin wrote:

I would suggest that we do make every effort to exercise the control that would be needed in the tempering of what would otherwise come across as emotional blanket statements.

The statement:
[INDENT]The problem with scince is that it is so often misused.
[/INDENT]needs to supported, as it most easily appears to be a great stretch of emotional bias.

It might be necessary to define and describe 'supernatural' before saying that scientific method neither proves nor disproves it (or any application of that term towards any single event/occurance). Also, I am pretty sure we will still find the deparment of philosophy in the humanities branch at the local university--in the technical sense, it is not a science.

We must also keep in mind, that science, is not an individual, and that one prime purpose of scientific method is correct towards the more accurate understanding of states and processes within known and knowable nature.

My comments as regards scince had nothing to do with so called 'emotional bias' but rather the point that scince, while a vitally important subject, is, as you point out yourself, seperate from the humanities. I was making the point that many people have backed up scintifically unprovable beliefs with the claim that they were 'scintific'. Whatever the pros and cons of eugenics, what is certain is that scince gave no indication of right and wrong, but such was the claim of many scintists, politicians and journalists of the time. I am in fact agreeing with you that scince should not be represented as more, less or other than it is.

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@Alan McDougall,

If we can do things that god doesn't want, then god is not omnipotent. If you are omnipotent, then there is no discrepancy between desire and actuality.

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@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7;59603 wrote:

Or that his theory of gravity was so very nearly right. But not quite.

That is correct and NASA only works with Newtonian mechanics and laws. The effects of time and distance only become evident at huge speeds very very close to the speed of light or in colossal gravities like a black hole or neutron star; it is then that Einstein physics are needed for complete accuracy

Back to evolution and the direct manipulation thereof by humanity, would people be able to say joyfully "God has blessed me with a child”, when they have deliberately altered their eggs and sperm to get a blue eyed boy of great intelligential potential?

That is the real point of the thread

Peace

---------- Post added at 02:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------

Aedes;59723 wrote:

If we can do things that god doesn't want, then god is not omnipotent. If you are omnipotent, then there is no discrepancy between desire and actuality.

Paul point noted , but what about ethics and morality, the possibily of a Hitler idea of a superrce etc?

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@Alan McDougall,

What about it? There are things within our control, including decimating millions of people because their lives are subordinated to the theories of an oligarch. Genetic engineering doesn't change anything except the technical aspects. Himmler got some of his racial ideas from raising crops, an ancient form of genetic engineering.

And on the subject of mass atrocities in the name of genetic idealism, it's a lot easier to exterminate and expel people in the name of 'purity' than it is to genetically engineer populations at the molecular level. So I don't think the moral conundra of genetic engineering are going to be any worse than what the world saw even in the Spanish Inquisition, which was ALSO a genetic cleansing.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

What about it? There are things within our control, including decimating millions of people because their lives are subordinated to the theories of an oligarch. Genetic engineering doesn't change anything except the technical aspects. Himmler got some of his racial ideas from raising crops, an ancient form of genetic engineering.

And on the subject of mass atrocities in the name of genetic idealism, it's a lot easier to exterminate and expel people in the name of 'purity' than it is to genetically engineer populations at the molecular level. So I don't think the moral conundra of genetic engineering are going to be any worse than what the world saw even in the Spanish Inquisition, which was ALSO a genetic cleansing.

I think genetic engineering of the human could be very dangerous , after all we are a very selfish animal . In India we must remember the hated cast system or the equally evil apartheid system of South Africa without genetic interference these ideas separated people into what the considered, higher and lower order human beings, some were even considered subhuman (of course there is no such entity)

Genitive engineering in the wrong hands , and believe me the world is full of them, could have dire future consequences for the human and what and change forever defines a true human. Of course. great great potential for the good of mankind

Hitler was a fan of the philosopher ?Neitzer? as I am sure you know, he also based much of his super- white Aryan race on Darwinian evolution and he went to great efforts to prove that his ideal of a blue eyed blond German was the real super- race and the rest of us were subhuman or worse.

If I had lived in Germany at the time, the SS Nazis would have knocked on my parents front door and removed me for extermination due to my perceived weakness as a manic depressive. I know this is a little off topic , but is it not just a crude method of genetic engineering?

The irony of Hitler and his idea of a German super race was that he did not conform to his own ideal, and it is suggested that is the reason he never had children

Think what a monster like him could have done with genetic engineering, he could have sterilized genitally all those he considered weak and useless and enhanced those he considered strong etc.

It makes me think of the plague of alien rabbits introduced foolishly by the Australian and their method of elimination them by infecting them with a bacterial or virus (I am not sure which) which resulted in billions dying

Genetic manipulation has a much greater potential for evil in a depraved persons control and of course the reverse in a person of righteous character.

Unfortunately there are still Hitlers lurking somewhere waiting to enrich themselves at any cost

1 Reply

Will our messing with evolution finally put God to rest?

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