The one where I defend evolution
...all by myself. We talked about Creationism. Again. In more depth. CSC may be fairly diverse, but my theo class sure isn't. In a class of 23, there are two science majors (that made themselves known, at least) - me and Nouchi. Near the beginning of class, he asked if there were any scientists in the room. My hand shot up. From then on, I was put on the spot, basically being forced to defend evolution and what science says about how the universe/world/life was formed. In one way, it was kind of fun. I reached my breaking point about two minutes into class and decided I'll just play around and see what happens and *ahem* what I can get away with, without starting a huge argument. I'm fairly certain he thinks I don't believe in God and am hardcore science, but that's really okay for now. A) I don't really know what I believe right now (although not in Creationism, that's for sure), but b) it means more fun for me.
So, today's class was all about how there are "essence" and "existance", and while not every "essence" actually exists, if something does exist, it has an essence. Since the world exists (I almost brought up the Matrix here...), therefore it has an essence, and something must have brought this essence into existance, and that something is God. How this proves there is a God, I don't know. His argument was that since we are here, something must have created us, and that thing is God, and therefore God exists, becuase we are proof of God's existance. Except that puts you into a feedback loop that you can't get out of unless you just believe God exists, which doesn't really seem to prove much of anything, other than you have faith in God, and that is not proof of his existance. The other argument he presented was the whole "architect" argument we discussed the other day - everything has a creator, and the universe's creator is God. Either way, you are presupposing God exists, which does not do anything for me. I am a scientist, and I like my evidence. PROVE.
There was also something about sin, and how it clouds people's reason, and therefore we have doubts about God and Creation and related things. Apparently, only people who know God can reason clearly, at least in "traditional Christianity" (Catholicism?). This completely does not make sense to me. If God gives us the ability to reason, but we can only reason "clearly" if we know God, how is that the ability to reason? It argues against logic and my definition of "reason." How is it reasonable to condemn people who don't believe in God to never being able to reason clearly? It would make sense and be logical if we were given the ability to reason and pick if we believe or not, and have one be "right" and one be "wrong" (with, from a Christian standpoint, "right" being belief in God, and "wrong" being disbelief or unbelief), but to totally disqualify people's reason and logic based on not believing in God?! Um, no... I tried to bring this up, but, much to my amusement, he brushed past it and went on to the next topic.
We finished discussing what he wanted to with five minutes to spare, so he asked me what I thought of the whole discussion, since he was "basically dissing science." I said I wasn't happy with it, and that for everything he's saying, it seems you have to presuppose, or just have faith, that God exists, and that neither of those proves anything. He disagreed, and said that he'd used science and reason to try to prove that God does exists, and that science is all about facts and random chance, and nothing is all fact or random chance. Um, no. 1.) Theology and philosophy are not science. Especially not theology. 2.) You are not showing me empirical evidence of God's existance, you are expecting me just to believe. 3.) Science is not all fact. Almost everything is a theory, becuase there is always the chance that we will learn something new that could disprove a theory. 4.) Science is not all about random chance. Far from it. Almost everything has a reason for happening, and even if there is not necessarily a reason, we have an understanding about why it happened. Somehow this brought up the "chicken and the egg" paradox, becuase according to the one older woman in the class, "evolution can only go so far." Well, you can't have evolution before there were organisms, obviously. She wasn't amused by that answer, and thought the chicken came first. I explained that the ancestor to the modern chicken had a mutation that she passed on in an egg to her offspring, thus giving rise to the modern chicken, and proving that the egg (with the mutation that proved beneficial enough for the modern chicken to evolve) comes first. By this point the entire class was arguing with each other. But no, she and the teacher wanted me to go farther back and tell them why we came into being. Why not? Why can't we just accept that we don't yet know why the Big Bang happened? Just becuase we don't know why does not mean that there's not an answer, and is definitely not a proof for God's existance. I pointed out, again, that for everything he's saying, you have to assumed/have faith/believe that God exists, and that you can't just call that "proof" of God's existance. He shook his head "no" and ended class.
We're talking about this more on Friday, and I'm looking forward to it in, as Rov said, a "puckish" sort of way.
So, today's class was all about how there are "essence" and "existance", and while not every "essence" actually exists, if something does exist, it has an essence. Since the world exists (I almost brought up the Matrix here...), therefore it has an essence, and something must have brought this essence into existance, and that something is God. How this proves there is a God, I don't know. His argument was that since we are here, something must have created us, and that thing is God, and therefore God exists, becuase we are proof of God's existance. Except that puts you into a feedback loop that you can't get out of unless you just believe God exists, which doesn't really seem to prove much of anything, other than you have faith in God, and that is not proof of his existance. The other argument he presented was the whole "architect" argument we discussed the other day - everything has a creator, and the universe's creator is God. Either way, you are presupposing God exists, which does not do anything for me. I am a scientist, and I like my evidence. PROVE.
There was also something about sin, and how it clouds people's reason, and therefore we have doubts about God and Creation and related things. Apparently, only people who know God can reason clearly, at least in "traditional Christianity" (Catholicism?). This completely does not make sense to me. If God gives us the ability to reason, but we can only reason "clearly" if we know God, how is that the ability to reason? It argues against logic and my definition of "reason." How is it reasonable to condemn people who don't believe in God to never being able to reason clearly? It would make sense and be logical if we were given the ability to reason and pick if we believe or not, and have one be "right" and one be "wrong" (with, from a Christian standpoint, "right" being belief in God, and "wrong" being disbelief or unbelief), but to totally disqualify people's reason and logic based on not believing in God?! Um, no... I tried to bring this up, but, much to my amusement, he brushed past it and went on to the next topic.
We finished discussing what he wanted to with five minutes to spare, so he asked me what I thought of the whole discussion, since he was "basically dissing science." I said I wasn't happy with it, and that for everything he's saying, it seems you have to presuppose, or just have faith, that God exists, and that neither of those proves anything. He disagreed, and said that he'd used science and reason to try to prove that God does exists, and that science is all about facts and random chance, and nothing is all fact or random chance. Um, no. 1.) Theology and philosophy are not science. Especially not theology. 2.) You are not showing me empirical evidence of God's existance, you are expecting me just to believe. 3.) Science is not all fact. Almost everything is a theory, becuase there is always the chance that we will learn something new that could disprove a theory. 4.) Science is not all about random chance. Far from it. Almost everything has a reason for happening, and even if there is not necessarily a reason, we have an understanding about why it happened. Somehow this brought up the "chicken and the egg" paradox, becuase according to the one older woman in the class, "evolution can only go so far." Well, you can't have evolution before there were organisms, obviously. She wasn't amused by that answer, and thought the chicken came first. I explained that the ancestor to the modern chicken had a mutation that she passed on in an egg to her offspring, thus giving rise to the modern chicken, and proving that the egg (with the mutation that proved beneficial enough for the modern chicken to evolve) comes first. By this point the entire class was arguing with each other. But no, she and the teacher wanted me to go farther back and tell them why we came into being. Why not? Why can't we just accept that we don't yet know why the Big Bang happened? Just becuase we don't know why does not mean that there's not an answer, and is definitely not a proof for God's existance. I pointed out, again, that for everything he's saying, you have to assumed/have faith/believe that God exists, and that you can't just call that "proof" of God's existance. He shook his head "no" and ended class.
We're talking about this more on Friday, and I'm looking forward to it in, as Rov said, a "puckish" sort of way.