Why Darwinian evolution is just another religion or faith and why you should stop making assumptions about the nature of reality

5 stars for common sense and truth.

Excellent. This is how they keep enfeebled minds busy and distracted...always enforcing a duality, one vs. the other, dem vs con, creation vs evolution, endless arguments of pointless duality. Until you realize there are other scenarios that are not promoted...

it can be quite a depressing experience at first when you go trough with it.

Yeah and just to add, its a 1-way ticket...you can never go back to sleep.

Last Edited by v0rtex666 on 06/23/2009 07:23 AM

You dont need to make assumptions when something is as obvious as evolution. You could say it has nothing to do with god, which is ok to me since god is only a metaphor for the universe. But evolution is obvious and simple. Just as the "assumption", that if one walk over a cliff, he *might* fall down and die.

And as the other poster said. Fuck duality. If you separate "the creator" form "creation", you'll never understand anything. My 2 cents. Back to work.

I'm talking about Darwinian evolution here, evolution by natural selection, the humans come from the monkeys story. How is that obvious and simple, except when you already have a worldview in which it is plain and simple? Then look where that worldview comes from. Read my original post again, it's all there.

I've read your post otherwise I wouldn't have responded.
To every child that has not been poisioned with the lies of religion it is clear as daylight, easy to understand, simple, elegant, makes a lot of sense.

I meant to say evolution is clear as daylight. We do *not* *come* from monkeys. We share ancestors. If you look at anatomy and fossils this is just absolutely irrefutable and, let me say it again, obvious to any child that hasn't been brainwashed with religions nonsense.

'Dialogue... Mortal Self and Soul In Time'

Ah love
this stubborn mortal self,
determined, angry, outraged,
bleary, dizzy, loved,
holding its own in flesh and blood
amid the dazzling legislature
of the soul.

"There is no time or pain or death, "
the soul says,
and the mortal self shouts out,
"Ah, not for you. But I'm enclosed
in this body that decays.
At least it lives and loves
and laughs and cries for now.
Do you?

You keep immaculate distance,
yet through me you peek
into the time you say is such a myth,
so my mortality must serve
your ends as well as mine.

I'd like to have less constant comment,
and if you can't say something nice
then shut up please.

And more:
Perfection isn't human
and here all creatures die.
The leaves fall downward, not up
for all your holy talk,
and I've never seen
one small corpse of a bird
pick itself up and fly.

When I'm hurt, I don't need
your reminder, gentle or not,
that pain's an image in the mind.
Dreaming in this fragile stuff
of flesh and seasons since my birth.
I've coped in the thickly webbed world of
living thought
into which you plunged me, after all.
Amen."


The soul,
astounded, clears its throat
and waits, stunned,
for the mortal self to settle down.

"Oh my, what metaphysical conceit.
You want bird corpses to fly,
(and in good light, I suppose,
not once or twice, but often enough
so you can be sure)
and the dead to speak, I've no doubt,
of their afterlife in the rosy glow.
Dear me. Now hear:

Your thoughts are like paintings in your head,
only you fill them in with flesh,
frame them in the world of time
where each brush stroke comes alive,
and all the clouds really move
and all the houses have insides.
Even the tiniest smudge mark lives,
and ants teeter-totter
in the wiggly grass.

The living picture of the world
is painted by each and all.
Microbe, scholar, idiot, frog--
nail stuck in a sunny wall--
each to its own degree
stands up inside itself and shouts
and launches its image into space,
and each artist comes alive
in the world his thoughts have made.

Even the distance is built-in,
so that the corners really turn
and the people walk up and down
on paths they make as they go along.
Each birth and death happen in the mind
long before the church bells toll.
I try to give you good advice
but you twist around everything I say,
and do what you want to anyway."
(thanks ever S&J)

w/luv,
just me

Exactly, I'm amazed every day again by the new parts of reality that unfold before me since I went trough. It's just truth, plain and simple. You can't go back in one sense, but you must be very carefull not to slip into illusions, always stay in the center so to say.
I like to present things in a logical manner like this to make it more accessible, provoking others to really start thinking, with the added benefit it often leads to very interesting discussions.

I'm very sorry my friend, but you are just as brainwashed as those who believe in religions nonsense. Just to clear that up, I'm not religious at all myself, I'm just a free thinker in (I hope) every possible sense. Let me try to explain it in a different way

You mention anatomy and fossils, I also mentioned genetics and embryo's in my original post. You say it is absolutely irrefutable evidence, I said it is only irrefutable evidence because of the view of reality you already have. Let's take for example the fossils. Take two worldviews, first a certain fundamentalistic christian, second yours. If I'm not mistaken some fundamnetalistic christians say that those fossils are put there by God to mislead us and test our faith.
Now lets consider for a moment the possibility that their worldview is correct. I mean REALLY consider it, this might be a very enlightning experience actually, to experience how profound the effect of holding a different paradigm is on your view of reality. Imagine for yourself what it would REALLY mean if it was actually all true.
Offcourse there is nothing that can be brought against this fundamentalistic christian view of reality, it COULD be true, except for that it sound illogical and probably just plain stupid to you. Why does it sound illogical and stupid to you? Because of the worldview you already have! To the fundamentalistic christian it sounds reasonable and true, and he feels good that he has avoided satan (probably).

So you see, it is only evidence for a certain worldview, when it is considered with the assumption that that worldview is already true. There are a million other ways you could interpret fossils, anatomy, genetics, embryo's etc to be evidence for a completely different thing.

There is nothing wrong with holding it as evidence for the Darwinian worldview, just as you acknowledge to yourself that it is faith, that you "believe in Darwin". Not that "Darwin is right because it is proven irrefutably and everybody who doesn't acknowledge this evidence is stupid or illogical".

WOW, that is profound and lovely at the same time

:) Thanks Gooder

Give me a break.

God having put fossils there is not illogical because of any other existing world view, but because it is highly improbable (and quite laughable)

Ok, fossils. We find the skeleton of an animal. Now it's quite easy to assume, it died, lay there, and as time passed, was buried under layers of soil. That's just what is obvious and everyone would think. You don't need a previous world view to arrive at this simple solution of the problem.

Nobody would assume the following though, had they never
heard of the fairytales of religion:

Some invisible, intangible, benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, mysterious being who does not intervene in our worldy affairs, because he loves us oh so much, and allows to happen what happens on earth here, child rape & murder, hunger, war.. put those fossils there just to confuse you.
I cannot even start to point out the logic fallacies in there, just some pointers: benevolent, omnipotent, confusing us, allowing suffering. There are major weak points in the chrsitian "god" concept itself and in this right-out-insane assumption he put those fossils there to confuse you. Well, he succeeded.

It is not impossible, it is just highly improbable (and quite ridiculous).

To a problem there are always many, if not infinite solutions. Some are simple, some are complicated. The simple wins, unless disproven. Simple as that. Evolution hasn't been disproven. Most concepts of god don't withstand logic. (Some do, but certainly not the traditional arabic-judeo-christian god)

Sorry.

You need to learn something about logics first before you try to apply them.

The world works perfectly without "god". That's why we don't need a god to explain things. It only makes everyhing more complicated and ridiculous.

Oh and by the way teh word "Darwinism" in this context is solely used by creationists pejoratively. It has nothing do do with evolution. This gave you away, or at least your sources, resources.

... boy, you are for sure welcome ma'am, and really, me too... tingly like goosebumps to the max... I just loves them deep-ly felt like groking sorta well-springings.

Last Edited by gooderboy on 06/23/2009 08:42 AM

I'm very sorry AC 510707, but I have already pointed out two times why everything you say here doesn't amount to anything. As I already said, you should read my previous posts again as it's all there, I'm not going to try a third time.

You probably aren't aware of how profound the influence of the paradigm you hold is on how you think and what seems logical or normal to you. As a result of this you consider that what is normal to think for you should be normal to think for anybody, which obviously is false.

This is offcourse not meant as a personal attack, an argumentum ad hominem, so let me try to substantiate this:



This quote and it's bolded parts pinpoint the problem exactly. It is quite easy to assume this (as in the quote), depending on your paradigm or worldview! As I said, you probably aren't aware of how profound the influence of your worldview is on how you think, else you wouldn't have said this. That's also why I asked you to REALLY consider "what if the fundamentalistic christian's worldview was actually true?", so that you could experience that.

Considering you don't need a previous worldview to arrive at this solution (as in the quote), offcourse you do! Else you would've arrived at a completely different solution that would seem equally as normal to you! If you held no worldview, you'd probably notice the fossil, think "that's nice", and move on!

0 stars for you. And that is why:



You are wrong. Let me correct you.

FAITH doesn't require proof, SCIENCE does, how is that for a difference. Science verifies their assumtions and they become FACTS. Religion never verifies anything and all religion is assumtion.


Last sentance of this paragraf is a perfect example how conclution can be totaly unrelated to text above. You just pulled it out of your ass.

No. Science isn't concerned about matter more then it is concerned about waves of rorcess intercating.

Science is about finding how reality really works. Scientific facts obtained through observation are used to make up theory that explains and allows to predict the behaviour of subject.

We notic things trent to fall when in the air. We find out our planet is attracting them. We create formulas that explain gravity. We use them to build tall buildings and send probes top moon. We use them to calculate orbits of planets, and they work fine. If they don't we know we got it wrong and search for better explanation.

Faith just pulls things out of ass, never verifies them (and especialy like unverifieble things). Conclutions from religion can not be applied to solve real world problems and all it is suitable for is mind control.

If something is concradicting faith, it is ignored. (How a divine document of truth = the bible can have such errors as for example earth being flat!!!! Ridiculous, we update our science literature)





That is if you are a complete idiot, and can only assume things. See scientists CAN MEASSURE. No assumtions involved. Observations meassurments, experiments, while religotards just sit and assume things in their heads.




EVOLUTION was an assumtion at first, then more and more and more and more proof surfacted. Controled experiments were done. Each year many fossils labaeled "missing links" are found, and the are what scientiest assumed should be ther between a couple of speceis in time. There are hundreds of thousands of scientific experiments confirming evolution and zero denying it.

There are peacess of puzzle missing still, but the peacess we have fit perfectly together and make a good picture how evolution works.

Fuck assumtions. Reality can be verified using meassuring, observing and logic. Faith - faith is a mind parasite.

Get a brain.

That "gave me away"? Please, don't start making this personal, just read and consider my words, I already said I'm not religious in any sense. Also, I haven't used any "sources", what I write here is the result of a lifetime of thinking. My example of the fossils is just a random example of an extreme point of view, I could just as easely have used the jehovah's witnesses or some fundamentalistic islam for that matter, so don't interpret that as me having a creationist background.

I use the word Darwinism to prevent confusion with other ideas behind the driving force of evolution. Evolution means that something evolves, becomes better. I use Darwinism as short for "evolution by natural selection", because natural selection is the idea that made Darwin so famous, there were many other theories of evolution before him (and there still are). I wasn't aware there are any such connotation attached to that word, if so I'll just use "evolution by natural selection" from now on.

Well, I assumed the simplest worldview one needs to survive here, ie life, death, decay, bones etc. And didn't call that a worldview, because it is simply common sense. Because If you don't know that creatues die and turn to bones, you'll have a hard time.

I really can't see what you're trying to convey.

You can't use words without taking into consideration their meaning and connotation. Won't work.

Oh, and I'm outta here. This is really a waste of time.

AC 394033, before I answer to your post in more detail, there is something that needs to be cleared up. There should be a carefull distinction between what is "science" and what is a "scientific worldview".
Science is for example the theories about gravity, electricity and magnetism, quantum physics etc, the laws that describe how matter behaves. These are based on deductions from certain facts, arrived at by experiments. Note that they are not the facts, they are based on the facts, I'll get back to that.
Under the scientific worldview however, I understand the methaphysical speculation, not based on facts but based on assumptions. An example scientific worldview, just for clarity, is the classic deterministic view that there is only matter and that everything can be explained in material terms. So if we know all laws of nature, and have all information needed about all particles etc of one moment in time, we could in theory calculate everything that will happen in the future and everything that has happened in the past. This is just as an example of what I mean by this distinction.
The science is based on fact, the worldview on assumption. Everybody has to accept the results of science, as for example from classical mechanics the speed of a certain object after it has dropped a certain height, because it can all be calculated and shown. No matter what your worldview is (scientific/darwinian or christian or islamic etc), you have to accept that this theory can predict the speed of the object after a certain time.
So to summarise: "there is only matter" is scientific worldview and assumption, "matter behaves such and such" is science and fact.



I agree with you, except for that science doesn't verify it's assumptions, it verifies it's theories.
A second point is that theories never become facts, they are derived from facts. An example is in the classical mechanics from Newton. It is a beautifull system that can predict almost all motion perfectly(as evidenced by fact), so you might to be inclined to think that it is therefore fact. But Einstein showed that the newtonian equations only hold for lower speeds, at near lightspeed or relativistic speed they don't hold anymore. The equations that do hold at relativistic speeds (relativistic mechanics as opposed to classical mechanics) reduce to newton's equations at lower speeds, so you could say that the beautifull newtonian system is "wrong" or at least incomplete, true as it might seem to be at lower speeds. My point with this is that you never know, for any theory of science if not in the future something will be discovered that shows it's not "truth" in a strict sense it, like happened for the classical mechanics. So no scientific theory can ever be fact.



To go into your opening remark, the first sentence of my original post was "Every faith-based view of reality is based on certain assumptions". Now evolution by natural selection is also based on certain assumptions. There are a million ways that the facts that provide evidence for natural selection could be evidence for any other view of reality that is grounded under different assumptions. The Darwinian view of reality makes certain assumptions, and therefore it is faith.
Here also comes the distinction between the scientific facts and the scientific worldview into play. Science is indeed all about finding more facts, so more accurate theories can be devised, to be able to make better predictions about how matter behaves. Again, the scientific worldview, that there is only matter and humans came to be as a result of evolution by natural selection etc, is not derived from facts, it is derived from interpretaion of facts under certain assumptions!



Yes, scientists can measure, and in that way establish facts. They use these facts to create theories that have an as large as possible capability to make predictions. They should stop there, but then some do the same as the "religotards", they make certain assumptions about the nature of reality, and use those to build a worldview around their theories.


I assume you mean evolution by natural selection here, as there are many other theories of evolution. It was an assumption at first, and it still is. Certain facts have been discovered that can be interpreted in such a way that they provide evidence, the assumptions underly how you interpret.


I just want to add that I am not in any sense religious. There is a tone of hate or despise troughout your entire post, which is probably based on you thinking I'm a creationist or idiot or whatever who wants to push his own agenda onto others. I just want to put my ideas forward and have an interesting discussion about it.
I'm just someone who thinks a lot, and here are some of the conclusions I reached. I studied physics and philosophy, and concluded that neither can reach the true nature of reality, altough philosophy begins to realise it can't while science is still under that illusion. What good does it do, to swap one set of assumptions for another? You might just as well convert to islam and join in the jihad...

Think about it, let it spin around in your head and get back to it. Try really changing your worldview for a week, try thinking for a week like how for example a christian does, how retarded that may seem to you. Then you will understand what I mean by worldview and it's influence.


As I said, I wasn't aware of that connotation.


It isn't a waste of time, it's the exact opposite. What can be more important than thinking about the true nature of reality? Than stripping yourself from the illusions created by others?

Anyway, bye and have a nice day!

Here I am again.
Of course I see your intention, the validity and benefit of it, of dropping any world views or reality tunnels in order to see beyond and outside. Or of the exercise to accept a different world view in order to understand it's followers. I'm not stupid, I'm interested in reality, how it comes about. I just wasn't happy with some details in your reasoning.
Of course "science's version" is just a world view, just as is "religion's version". Both are ways to see reality, and possibly to block out all other versions. If one isn't aware of the scientific method, science's verion becomes a rigid model, not subject to any change, which it isn't for real scientists.
Also, both verions have an utterly different process of derivation.
I have believed many different, opposing things in my life. Turns out some is beneficial, some is fun, some enlightening, and some is just dangerous.

Oh and I stick to my words that evolution a la darwin, is the most elegant conceivable solution availible to the problem.
And that it is obvious to a thinking being.

Darwin(ianity) doesn't come close to explain what caused the cause of the big bang.

Why should he? It wasn't his intention. It's easy to create an invisible being in heaven and say oh it just made everything to be the way it is. Darwin was interested in why there are so many different species. And he (among others) lay the fundations to a branch of science that halped us understund very much about it.

@OP, I said it's a waste of time, because this forum is from america, a country in the dark dark dark ages.

Well, it sounds like we agree in that aspect then, you exactly describe the points I'm trying to make.
My main intention is to show the errors of those who think that the on-evolution-by-natural-selection-based ;) or scientific worldview is better than any other possible worldview because it is based on evidence and logic. It is all based on certain assumptions, and therefore equal. The only difference is that you have to dig deeper to find the assumptions, but I guess that is because it is so commonly accepted nowadays.

I created another thread about that once, maybe you'd like to read it (I had a different IP-address then though). It was aimed at atheism instead of darwinism, but the point is offcourse the same:

Thread: Some words for the atheists among us

That's the beauty of free will :p

-----------------

It's even esier to behave like brute beast and say oh that's just my true nature.

So, OP.
I'm not asking about your beliefs, but how do you *think* the universe was created? How was this planet, how are species created? I'm just curious about what you think plausible.