Reconciling faith and science

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Isn't it possible that both evolution happened and that a higher power had something to do with it? It seems to be a somewhat black and white issue with most people on here. Either one or the other. God or science. I believe evolution happened (at least microevolution, I'm not 100% convinced of macroevolution) but I also believe in God. I find it hard to fathom that the whole process of evolution could come this far unassisted.
I'm sure I'll get the standard "God is a fairytale" type responses, but I look forward to any real comments.

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I was going to say yes, they can co-exist - that so long as you don't take away my evolution, you can keep your intelligent designer. But, I think it would end up not working. Because you'd want him to have too much control.

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I'm not pushing for any type of official sanction here. This has nothing to do with politics or what is taught in schools. I just want your personal opinions. Thanks for the comments.

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John,

If micro evolution is possible then so is macro evolution. You can't separate them. It is a common thought for people who do not understand it to simply not believe it. In that case, I suggest you educate yourself on the subject so that you understand it...and then you will see that there is nothing to quesiton.

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stuh505 wrote:

John,

If micro evolution is possible then so is macro evolution. You can't separate them. It is a common thought for people who do not understand it to simply not believe it. In that case, I suggest you educate yourself on the subject so that you understand it...and then you will see that there is nothing to quesiton.

I didn't say that it isn't possible, I just said that I'm not 100% convinced of it.

Why can't you seperate them?? I think it's perfectly reasonable to agree that each species evolves, but have doubts that humans are essentially descendants of parameciums.

There is plenty to question. Ultimately you are taking a leap of faith when you say that man is descended from single celled organisms. There are many missing links in the chain called evolution. I'm not saying, "it must be a supernatural explanation" but I'm not saying "it must be an evolutionary explanation" either.

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Quote:

Why can't you seperate them?? I think it's perfectly reasonable to agree that each species evolves, but have doubts that humans are essentially descendants of parameciums.

Ah, but all I said was that if you believe in micro is possible then you should also believe that macro is possible...because with micro changes occuring broadly, you eventually get a disparity between two extremes where interbreding can no longer occur, and this becomes a macro change.

From this evidence, you can abductively infer that man evolved from parameciums...but this obviously is not truth preserving assumption, abduction never is...just because one has established that it is possible to evolve from parameciums does not evolve that man did...you might believe that although it is possible, it didnt happen, and that God just did it. I don't like to believe that, because I find that this possible solution is more difficult to explain than the problem of evolution to begin with

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John, your position seems quite reasonable to me. since i'm agnostic, i certainly have no problem with it. i think Deists, if there still are any, would have no problems with it either. even macroevolution doesn't preclude a creation of an original lifeform, from which other lifeforms descended. i do think evidence for macroevolution is quite strong, whereas abiogenesis, or development of life from inanimate matter, is mostly speculation.

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It's not speculation, it's possible...and what's possible, given infinite time, happens.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

I'm not saying life on Earth started this way...it could have started somewhere else and then came here, I dont know

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but time's not infinite, if the big bang occured. or, if anything's possible, then an intelligent designer is also possible. any unambiguous evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system, say on Europa, not to mention evidence of a technological civilization elsewhere in the galaxy, would would tilt the odds in favor of abiogenesis in my mind at least.

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Faith and science cannot be reconciled.
They are temporally descrete.

Science is concerned with what is.
Faith is concerned with what we would like.

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stuh505 wrote:

Quote:
Why can't you seperate them?? I think it's perfectly reasonable to agree that each species evolves, but have doubts that humans are essentially descendants of parameciums.

Ah, but all I said was that if you believe in micro is possible then you should also believe that macro is possible...because with micro changes occuring broadly, you eventually get a disparity between two extremes where interbreding can no longer occur, and this becomes a macro change.

From this evidence, you can abductively infer that man evolved from parameciums...but this obviously is not truth preserving assumption, abduction never is...just because one has established that it is possible to evolve from parameciums does not evolve that man did...you might believe that although it is possible, it didnt happen, and that God just did it. I don't like to believe that, because I find that this possible solution is more difficult to explain than the problem of evolution to begin with

I see. I admit that macroevolution might have very well happened. If it did, that still doesn't rule out the existence of some force guiding it or at least setting it all in motion.

Quote:

Faith and science cannot be reconciled.
They are temporally descrete.

Science is concerned with what is.
Faith is concerned with what we would like.

I don't even know what descrete means and I still know your wrong. Last time I checked, science is yet to prove the non-existence of God.

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John Creasy wrote:

Last time I checked, science is yet to prove the non-existence of God.

Science has yet to prove the non-existence of leprechauns, fairies, ghosts or goblins. I could go on and on. It is not the job of science to prove a negative. It is up to the people who believe, to supply the proof, if they can. The work of science is to prove what IS, not what ISN'T.

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I see no problem. The Big Kahuna is more amorphous than the anthropomorphous gawd many major religions.

The universe is a wondrous place, but it is incredibly vast and mega eons old. An anthropomorphous creator is somehow egocentric.

That is my problem with intelligent design. To accept intelligent design makes the creator all too fallible.

Personally I don't consider Homo sapiens particularly successful as a species--yet- a few more tens of million years of existence will be needed to determine that.

Rap

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

John Creasy wrote:
Last time I checked, science is yet to prove the non-existence of God.

Science has yet to prove the non-existence of leprechauns, fairies, ghosts or goblins. I could go on and on. It is not the job of science to prove a negative. It is up to the people who believe, to supply the proof, if they can. The work of science is to prove what IS, not what ISN'T.

Like I said, you can't prove the non-existence of God. :wink:

I'm not attempting to prove God's existence, but from my experience I would vote in his favor.

BTW, the whole comparing God to fairies and leprechaun thing is getting old. You might want to try something new. Thanks. Laughing

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JOhn Creasy wrote:

BTW, the whole comparing God to fairies and leprechaun thing is getting old. You might want to try something new. Thanks.

OK- How about:

Science has yet to prove the non-existence of old skateboards left on the surface of Saturn, eight foot high beings who reproduce by parthenogenesis, dinosaurs who moved by telepathy to another part of the universe, when this one became inhospitable to them, and that Shirley McLaine was not Cleopatra in one of her former incarnations.

Howzatt??? :wink:

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Re: Reconciling faith and science

John Creasy wrote:

Isn't it possible that both evolution happened and that a higher power had something to do with it?

Yes. Something could have started the Big Bang and let it all roll from there. Nothing in science excludes this possibility.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

JOhn Creasy wrote:
BTW, the whole comparing God to fairies and leprechaun thing is getting old. You might want to try something new. Thanks.

OK- How about:

Science has yet to prove the non-existence of old skateboards left on the surface of Saturn, eight foot high beings who reproduce by parthenogenesis, dinosaurs who moved by telepathy to another part of the universe, when this one became inhospitable to them, and that Shirley McLaine was not Cleopatra in one of her former incarnations.

Howzatt??? :wink:

not too shabby. Very Happy

Quote:

Yes. Something could have started the Big Bang and let it all roll from there. Nothing in science excludes this possibility.

Thank you. You at least seem like a fair-minded person. Very Happy

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The problem with positing a "higher power" is that it doesn't actually tell us anything about the origins of life or the universe. It is just a pretense that the questions have been answered: "God did it" is a way to avoid the hard questions.

What did God create the universe out of? The Jewish creation myth that claims God created matter out of nothing, simply by telling it to exist, is far less believable than the most outlandish processes hypothesized by scientists to explain the big bang.

Why did God do such a lousy job of creating life? It would take a very unintelligent (or sadistic) designer to create horrendous parasites and leave some species with serious design flaws even though other species had better evolved solutions to the problems. How do IDers explain the millions of species that have become extinct, followed by a succession of slightly different versions of the same linage? How come God ignored obvious solutions to design problems in favor of trial-and-error methods that require millions of prototypes and still have design problems? Why can't God apply lessons learned from one species to another species?

And of course the biggest question IDers ignore is: where did this intelligence come from, where did it get its knowledge and the ability to manipulate the universe, why did it create us, and what does it want of us?

Insisting that God and its powers predate the big bang is no more an answer than saying that the mindless multiverse and physical laws have always existed.

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Then where did the universe come from??? Saying that there could be a God does not equal creationism necessarily. Some force could have set in motion what we call the universe without remaining involved in it's development.

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I don't know where the universe came from. No one does, although there are some interesting theories. But claiming that it was magically poofed into existence by a supernatural force, without explaining the origins and intentions of that supernatural force, does not get us anywhere.

Ascribing everything we do not yet understand to a God who pre-existed the universe, has magical powers and can do anything - even if it violates known physical laws - is simply an excuse to stop thinking about the natural processes that may have caused the big bang and abiogenesis. Such faith is a cop-out for those who are unwilling or unable to learn enough about science to understand the work that has already been done on the hard problems, and the very real possibility that we may someday find scientific explanations for everything. Or not.

Fundamentalist faith is incompatible with science since it demands denial of all of the evidence that contradicts intelligent design and belief in things that defy logic. You can have a more rational faith while still accepting scientific discoveries, but what is the point, other than a feel-good belief that God created a universe with hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of planets, solely for the purpose of creating a succession of life-forms on this one that would culminate with creatures who could overcome their bestial natures and worship him as he wished?

So where do you suppose this God/supernatural force came from, and where did it get the intelligence or desire to make a universe?

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Reconciling faith and science

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