Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Spendy i know i'm taking this one sentence out of context, but its just an example of how you come across as both thought provoking and difficult to make sense of at the same time.
you say
1. Evolution is amoral
2. All significant aspects of evolution have to do with morality.

Combine these two contradictory statements and you have your opening sentence above...see what I mean?

Steve, The following makes more sense.

BONUS QUESTION ON CHEMISTRY EXAM
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so
"profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying
it as well.

Bonus Question:
Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some
variant.


One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we
need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate
at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a
soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.


As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different
religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions
state if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.
Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do
not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls
go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of
change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order
for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of
Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during
my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep
with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last
night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure Hell is
exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it
follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore,
extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine
being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting,
"Oh my God."


THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY A IN CLASS

And rightly so.

Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer.
The A is for the style which is an amalgum of suprise,wit,imagination,self confidence and irony with some juicy bits thrown in.

And Teresa marked the paper

And shared it with the other professors.

steve wrote-



Evolution is amoral.It isn't really even that because it exists outside of the human capacity to use words to discuss it.

Once we begin to discuss it and the principles we see in it,which might be a very superficial view anyway and most likely is, it connects with our systems of morality in certain sensitive areas.Our discussing it doesn't affect its amorality but our applying its principles,as the strong will tend to do in seeking justifications for their actions, it then has everything to do with morality and particularly significantly within the certain sensitive areas which religious codes are,ideally,intended to govern.

That such governance is often inefficient,or even corrupt,says nothing about the intention it is in the service of.To blithely assume that religious codes are exclusively in the service of some vested interest at the expense of the rest is an attempt at the cynical exploitation of lower intelligences and only meets with success in such situations.

Maybe I ought to have written-

Evolution is amoral and everything significant for society about it has everything to do with morality.

As language is a function of society,or vice versa, I took it for granted that readers would not need me to interpolate the two added words.

Of course evolution is amoral. So are wall paint, lawn furniture, evening wear, mountains and anything else not sentient.

It is arrogant and afoundational, nought but hubris, to contend morality be dependent upon and indivorceable from relgion, religious faith, or sprituality of any sort. Morality is inherent to the human condition, a set of precepts on which is based the origin, development, and continuance of huan society, culture, and civilization.

The word "precept" derives from the Latin præcipere, "to teach", which itself dreives from praecipe, essentially which embodies the concept of to enjoin, direct, or command. That there be organized society, permitting culture and engendering civilization, entails general societal approbation of and enjoinder against that which is not condusive the the function and propagation of society. Such things as murder, rape, incest, theft, deceit, and disregard for authority do not serve the interest of society. The primitive mind was incapable of differentiation between religion and rightful, righteous authority; some minds still fail to recognize the two neither are the same nor concommitant.

timber wrote-



Thanks timber.The "evening wear" is a perfect example of what I mean.It is amoral as you say but its connection with morality in actual social settings is self-evident. It is a heap of material with zips and buttons and things and,as such,amoral but the wearing of it depends for its morality connections on the design and the moral attitude of the wearer. The "evening wear" of the waiters in the scene in Footballer's Wives when the hen-party took place with the team playing in another country was of the type,and congruent with attitudes,that would have exercised the wit of the Dover newspapers had the scene taken place there and news of it had leaked out bolstered by appropriate evidence of a scientific nature such as a discreetly taken video.

There was very little of it actually and I'll agree it wasn't sentient although there was probably an attempt to make it look as if it was.

That's great.It makes the precise point I've been making about evolution theory.

As a church is also not sentient but put to a moral use so also can be "evening wear" and evolution which two can be put to moral or immoral usages as,of course,can a church.

I have to go.But thanks.

I'm out the bath now.

On the news just now was an item about scanners at London Tube stations to detect knives.

Knives are like wall-paint;not sentient.It is the nexus of knives with society that impingies on morality.There won't be scanners in operating theatres or food preparation facilities.

In what way could a moral application of evolution be deemed "good" except in a society in which the fittest did best and who would declare it be and insist upon it.

Wouldn't the growth of evolution teaching and the diminishment of religious morals tend to cause a drift in a direction towards such a society.

I forgot to mention that the number of waiters at the hen-party was the same as the number of ladies and that they were all young,handsome,fit and coloured. I also didn't mention that the general banter around the banqueting table was not such as to show men in a particulary enthralling light or that the "evening dress" the waiters were wearing consisted mainly of string or thong as I've sometimes heard it referred to.

Now to quench my thirst.

spendi, the only connection between religion and morality exists in the fraudulent proposition religion be the repository of morality. Morality is an absolute, a tool evolved to foster the development and growth of human society, culture, and civilization.

Interesting proposition there Timber. If morality is indeed an absolute, as you say then what is its source?

As said, george, the propagation of the species. Its the human equivalent of what in some animals is the pack instinct - far more developed, perhaps, but essentially the same thing; that inimical to the survival of the species is to be mitigated against.

I guess then it depends on what you mean by morality. I do not believe that you can construct a scientifically acceptable proof or demonstration of how such a "morality" could arise from merely evolutionary or natural selection processes - particularly one that could also explain the many, often widespread and prolongued departures from that morality that punctuate our collective history.

george, that some might behave in immoral manner - even to the point of institutionalizing immoral practice of one sort or another, rationalizing and justifying the abberance, in no way says anything about morality itself, only its perversion.

Look at what amounts to the question you just posed, but from a slightly different perspective;

How can evil exist in God's world?


See the coincident absurdity?

You are merely changing the subject.

I'm willing to believe the socialization of (say) wolves may represent an element of natural selection. However I'm not aware of any "anti wolves" that consistently demonstrate opposite indeed almost suicidal behaviors. I can imagine no evolutionary natural selection of such destructive behaviors either.

There is no doubt that natural selection is an observable, comprehensible process that occurs among self-replecating organisms, or that it is the force driving the differentiation of species The key part of this phrase is self-replecating organisms. Evolution does not even attempt to explain the origin of life or the DNA molecule, and it certainly cannot explain the concept of morality - and the observable human deviations from it - that you assert.

One needs to go to an African safari to understand the survival of the fittest.

George wrote-



The need to provide it in order to have domination over nature.

Once the need is agreed,such as,to mention only one corner,the extinction of rivals or their confinement to zoos for amusement purposes,it then becomes a simple logistical problem.

I happen to think that religious institutions are more likely to satisfy this need on the grounds that they already have done to a surprising extent and that other ideas are a bit chancy and have not proved themselves in the sweaty cauldron of life becoming.

But I do mean OUR religious institutions.I make no claim for any others which on the face of it look a bit like a dead loss.

well Darwin used a few. In fact book full.

Spendius, I like you and usually enjoy your posts, but I also think you are deliberately putting forward an incomprehensible and inconsistent set of arguments merely to prolong the debate.

If you are suggesting that human morality (in the absolute sense that Timber posited) originated out of human agreement over the need to dominate nature, then you are merely begging the question.

I also believe it is both useful and meaningful to deparate the question of religion from that of the existence of a creator.

Timber appears to assert that there is an absolute morality that is necessarily a byproduct (or even a direct product) of evolution. I find that a fundamentally flawed notion in that (1) nothing produced by evolutionis either absolute or permanent; and (2) the relatively enormous variability of human behavior, its contradictions with self-interest or the interest of the group or species, evil, etc. cannot be explained by evolution as perhaps can the cosializetion of lions or wolves.


Moreover I attempted to return to the fundamental unanswered question that confronts all materialists -- From what did the cosmos (and our existencs arise? another variant is -- How can a well-substantiated theory for the evolution of self-replecating organisms be thought to explain the origin of the first self-replecating organism?

c.i. wrote-



That's like saying that one needs to charge at a brick wall head first to understand the pain.

One needs to go on an African safari if one is bored with sitting in front of a nice fire,reading a good book with a fat tom-cat asleep on the rug and having a whisky and soda by one's side and the thermostat in working order and a few other comforting accompianments too numerous to mention in a short post such as this is.

One might see going on an African safari as a sort of boredom themometer.

Personally,I can't imagine being so bored that I would book an African safari to relieve it. I am not aware of how boredom levels requiring such dire palliatives could be reached but I do understand that those who reach such levels might try anything.

Some have been known to walk to the North Pole in winter in deep-sea divers kit without a mobile phone and sponsored by a TV channel but it's not for me.You could always walk backwards if the Guinness Book of Records was already full of those who had walked ordinarily.