Just some thoughts
I chanced upon this article and suddenly had a lot to say. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
They accept that God used evolution to do his creative work (“theistic evolution”), but think that, even so, he had to step in and provide special ingredients at some point. Perhaps the most commonly cited ingredient is the human moral sense - the sense that there is such a thing as right and wrong, along with some intuitions about which is which. Even some believers who claim to be Darwinians say that the moral sense will forever defy the explanatory power of natural selection and so leave a special place for God in human creation.
Since Lewis wrote - and unbeknown to many believers - evolutionary psychologists have developed a plausible account of the moral sense. They say it is in large part natural selection’s way of equipping people to play non-zero-sum games - games that can be win-win if the players cooperate or lose-lose if they don’t.
So, for example, feelings of guilt over betraying a friend are with us because during evolution sustaining friendships brought benefits through the non-zero-sum logic of one hand washing the other (“reciprocal altruism”). Friendless people tend not to thrive.
*
The story involves William Paley, a British theologian who, a few years before Darwin was born, tried to use living creatures as evidence for the existence of a designer.
If you’re walking across a field and you find a pocket watch, Paley said, you know it’s in a different category from the rocks lying around it: it’s a product of design, with a complex functionality that doesn’t just happen by accident. Well, he continued, organisms are like pocket watches - too complexly functional to be an accident. So they must have a designer - God.
As Mr. Dawkins pointed out, we can now explain the origin of organisms without positing a god. Yet Mr. Dawkins also conceded something to Paley that gets too little attention: The complex functionality of an organism does demand a special kind of explanation.
The reason is that, unlike a rock, an organism has things that look as if they were designed to do something. Digestive tracts seem to exist in order to digest food. The heart seems to exist in order to pump blood.
1. Doesn't "reciprocally altruistic" sound rather like an oxymoron? How is it true altruism if in practicing it, you expect some sort of selfish return? I guess my stand is that the evolutionist theory definitely does not account for the existence of the entire human species, or the universe (I don't think any scientific theory can...least of all the Big Bang Theory) and perhaps the evolutionary mechanism was part of God's creation plan but I certainly don't think His work ended the moment natural selection was unleashed. And I think our innate sense of morality (that is also present in some animals) is pretty undisputable evidence that God exists and to try and put it in the context of Darwinism/natural selection seems rather contrived. But that's just me and there is obviously a lot more about this debate that I need to read up on before I can make a comprehensive judgment.
2. "And theology would have done what it’s done before: evolve - adapt its conception of God to advancing knowledge and to sheer logic." It really should be the other way round. If God is perfect and almighty, which He is, He is not an idea that can be conceived by us. In accepting the assumption that God represents a higher order that is infinitely superior to us, we cannot reject the fact that our logical faculties are relatively limited and that ultimately, there is a cap placed on the advancement, or even the reliability of our self-obtained knowledge. So how can we adapt something that is true and all-encompassing to something that is constantly changing and limited? But of course the perspective taken by the article treats God as a human concept of supernaturality and so constant modification to the "concept", as with all other concepts, is perfectly acceptable and generally encouraged. Atheists also probably take the complete opposite standpoint of mine. While it is good to apply our biblical knowledge to the world around us, which would then necessitate adapting to newfound knowledge, I think there are definitely points where we would have to consider if the new things we have learnt or hypothesized contradict the cornerstones of Christianity, especially when we are trying to validate the truth of newly-formed inferences. But my point is problematic because even when we want to keep to core biblical principles in a way that complements our pursuit of knowledge, we don't know for sure if what we see as our core biblical principles are really what God wants - they exist but we are only as close to them as what we make them out to be and we have to work on the assumption that whatever current understanding we have of God is correct...I guess that's where faith comes in (and on a separate note altogether, this faith can really go a long way both positively and negatively, like in extremism). Anyway, I was also prompted to think about how we shouldn't allow theology to limit our attempts to understand or explain God and that whatever knowledge we obtain through theology is imperfect; we can never hope to get a complete picture of who God is, regardless of the amount of thinking and reading up we do. As much as rational thought is very useful and important (both in being a universal, objective medium of communication between different groups of people, e.g. atheists and theists, and in being what our interpretation of the Bible is founded on), I don't think we should ever allow it to legitimize any compromise on Faith. Although hmm, it can be argued that our construct of what Faith means is essentially fueled by reason and logic.
3. Excuse the rhetoric but I really want to say this. How could anyone expect such a complex world, with all its complementary details, and such complex beings like ourselves to just exist by chance? And well, if you think you are very intelligent or you have friends who are very intelligent (and I'm sure we all do), does it make any sense that this intelligence simply happens to be there and to be capable of functioning at such impressive levels?
4. I like the last paragraph very much: William James said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony - and in that adjustment, too, may lie a supreme good.
I find this all very fascinating and sometimes I just wish we could learn/talk more about such things in school. Haha...not a chance! & no, the Bio curriculum in early sec 3 doesn't count.
And ARGH stop it stop being so grossly blind and insensitive and proud and self-centred; stop provoking her!!! What were you thinking or are you even thinking?? I wish you would wake up ):
And unrelatedly, please CLICK HERE
Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks :)
They accept that God used evolution to do his creative work (“theistic evolution”), but think that, even so, he had to step in and provide special ingredients at some point. Perhaps the most commonly cited ingredient is the human moral sense - the sense that there is such a thing as right and wrong, along with some intuitions about which is which. Even some believers who claim to be Darwinians say that the moral sense will forever defy the explanatory power of natural selection and so leave a special place for God in human creation.
Since Lewis wrote - and unbeknown to many believers - evolutionary psychologists have developed a plausible account of the moral sense. They say it is in large part natural selection’s way of equipping people to play non-zero-sum games - games that can be win-win if the players cooperate or lose-lose if they don’t.
So, for example, feelings of guilt over betraying a friend are with us because during evolution sustaining friendships brought benefits through the non-zero-sum logic of one hand washing the other (“reciprocal altruism”). Friendless people tend not to thrive.
*
The story involves William Paley, a British theologian who, a few years before Darwin was born, tried to use living creatures as evidence for the existence of a designer.
If you’re walking across a field and you find a pocket watch, Paley said, you know it’s in a different category from the rocks lying around it: it’s a product of design, with a complex functionality that doesn’t just happen by accident. Well, he continued, organisms are like pocket watches - too complexly functional to be an accident. So they must have a designer - God.
As Mr. Dawkins pointed out, we can now explain the origin of organisms without positing a god. Yet Mr. Dawkins also conceded something to Paley that gets too little attention: The complex functionality of an organism does demand a special kind of explanation.
The reason is that, unlike a rock, an organism has things that look as if they were designed to do something. Digestive tracts seem to exist in order to digest food. The heart seems to exist in order to pump blood.
1. Doesn't "reciprocally altruistic" sound rather like an oxymoron? How is it true altruism if in practicing it, you expect some sort of selfish return? I guess my stand is that the evolutionist theory definitely does not account for the existence of the entire human species, or the universe (I don't think any scientific theory can...least of all the Big Bang Theory) and perhaps the evolutionary mechanism was part of God's creation plan but I certainly don't think His work ended the moment natural selection was unleashed. And I think our innate sense of morality (that is also present in some animals) is pretty undisputable evidence that God exists and to try and put it in the context of Darwinism/natural selection seems rather contrived. But that's just me and there is obviously a lot more about this debate that I need to read up on before I can make a comprehensive judgment.
2. "And theology would have done what it’s done before: evolve - adapt its conception of God to advancing knowledge and to sheer logic." It really should be the other way round. If God is perfect and almighty, which He is, He is not an idea that can be conceived by us. In accepting the assumption that God represents a higher order that is infinitely superior to us, we cannot reject the fact that our logical faculties are relatively limited and that ultimately, there is a cap placed on the advancement, or even the reliability of our self-obtained knowledge. So how can we adapt something that is true and all-encompassing to something that is constantly changing and limited? But of course the perspective taken by the article treats God as a human concept of supernaturality and so constant modification to the "concept", as with all other concepts, is perfectly acceptable and generally encouraged. Atheists also probably take the complete opposite standpoint of mine. While it is good to apply our biblical knowledge to the world around us, which would then necessitate adapting to newfound knowledge, I think there are definitely points where we would have to consider if the new things we have learnt or hypothesized contradict the cornerstones of Christianity, especially when we are trying to validate the truth of newly-formed inferences. But my point is problematic because even when we want to keep to core biblical principles in a way that complements our pursuit of knowledge, we don't know for sure if what we see as our core biblical principles are really what God wants - they exist but we are only as close to them as what we make them out to be and we have to work on the assumption that whatever current understanding we have of God is correct...I guess that's where faith comes in (and on a separate note altogether, this faith can really go a long way both positively and negatively, like in extremism). Anyway, I was also prompted to think about how we shouldn't allow theology to limit our attempts to understand or explain God and that whatever knowledge we obtain through theology is imperfect; we can never hope to get a complete picture of who God is, regardless of the amount of thinking and reading up we do. As much as rational thought is very useful and important (both in being a universal, objective medium of communication between different groups of people, e.g. atheists and theists, and in being what our interpretation of the Bible is founded on), I don't think we should ever allow it to legitimize any compromise on Faith. Although hmm, it can be argued that our construct of what Faith means is essentially fueled by reason and logic.
3. Excuse the rhetoric but I really want to say this. How could anyone expect such a complex world, with all its complementary details, and such complex beings like ourselves to just exist by chance? And well, if you think you are very intelligent or you have friends who are very intelligent (and I'm sure we all do), does it make any sense that this intelligence simply happens to be there and to be capable of functioning at such impressive levels?
4. I like the last paragraph very much: William James said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony - and in that adjustment, too, may lie a supreme good.
I find this all very fascinating and sometimes I just wish we could learn/talk more about such things in school. Haha...not a chance! & no, the Bio curriculum in early sec 3 doesn't count.
And ARGH stop it stop being so grossly blind and insensitive and proud and self-centred; stop provoking her!!! What were you thinking or are you even thinking?? I wish you would wake up ):
And unrelatedly, please CLICK HERE
Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks :)