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Ex-Bluelighter
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The bible itself refers many times to itself as allegorical. Apparently. But of course people pick and choose what they want to hear.
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Is Evolution or Religion right?
- Thread starter emilseine
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The bible itself refers many times to itself as allegorical. Apparently. But of course people pick and choose what they want to hear.
anastasius
Greenlighter
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Literary hermeneutics (the art of correct interpretation) teaches that the context of the text determines the meaning of specific words. Meaning and literary type is not determined by the reader. It's descovered by careful examination of context. If I say "duck", you would not know whether the word by itself is a noun or a verb. If I say, "Duck before the brick hits you in the head", your hermeneutical skills would quickly respond by correctly interpreting what was said. Same with literature in general, and the Bible in particular. We often spiritualize a text, when context demands otherwise. It's also true we often make literal what was meant by the context to be nonliteral.
ParappaTheRapper
Ex-Bluelighter
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rickolasnice
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Well yes it is one short of what was predicted.. until they realised:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
CoffeeDrinker
Bluelighter
This point of view simply allows you to coddle all the naive creationists in your life, while never having to take a real stand for yourself. Grow up and have enough respect for your fellow man to call them an idiot when they are being one. The world might just be a better place.
The Bible is FAR LESS right than evolution. For one thing evolution can be proven to happen on a real, practical, level. Something which no miracle in any bible has ever been able to claim. Evolution also explains ALL the facts of our current biological landscape. The fact that it hasn't been ruled out yet when it so thoroughly shook the moral foundations Western Civilization was based on is enough evidence for me. I'm sure the first Post-Darwin Pope would've given his left pila et pendente to thoroughly bury Darwin's theories into the ground. The fact that we need to pretend to allow the Bible in Science class is proof that we are all gilty of coddling the creationists in our lives. Humans are still afraid to fully embrace the products of their own creations.
The bible is just one collective myth that history and happenstance has sifted down to us. Many millions of equally meaningless and equally incorrect myths have been sifted out of our collective consciousness over the years. Isn't it ironic that the organization responsible for the martyrdom of its founder is also solely responsible for the contents of the book its believers twist themselves in knots trying to defend?
Did Emperor Constantine make chumps out of all of you?
EDIT: That last question is directed towards the State of Alabama. Texans and Georgians can also choose to be offended if they want.
Vurtual
Bluelighter
That's a bit of a misleading summary of Stephen Jay Gould (from memory). He put forward the idea of punctuated equilibrium (i think it's called) as opposed to the then common gradualist idea of evolution. The idea being that nature quickly develops to fill all available niches, after which it becomes stable for long periods, so over time it's mostly stable periods with no big evolutions. When this balance is changed by a catastrophe of some sort (asteroid or climate change) the few animals that manage to survive very quickly (relatively) spread out and evolve to fill the empty niches; eg the mammals spread from a few lemur-type things to fill the vast number of niches available (from bats to dolphins) after the dinosaurs died out.
This view of evolution is pretty much the mainstream view of how it happens now i think, and gives no credence to creationism as far as i can see.
There are obviously some problems with the idea of microevolution randomly adding up to coherent macro changes (though i seem to recall there are some specific examples of this) - however, the work done on HOX genes (i think they're called - the ones that make flys grow legs out of their heads) certainly seem to leave room for large macro changes resulting from small genetic differences. I also think that the work done on complex adaptive systems showing how novel systems can emerge in certain conditions could have a bearing on why evolution can produce 'intelligence' or intelligent designs in general from less intelligent starting materials.
And i'd argue with you about non-humans not being 'intelligent' - i don't see why the various mammals mental capacities don't already show a gradation of 'intelligence' which ours is the latest development; the capacities for self reflection to me are a relatively small addition to the complex brain and behaviour shared by lots of mammals (and crows for that matter)
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CoffeeDrinker
Bluelighter
Every increase in knowledge humans gain shows just how little we actually know. The examples are everywhere in history, but just consider the shifting world view of Ancient Man from Geocentric > heliocentric > galaxy centric > Galaxy-cluster > the observable Universe > possible evidence of multiple universes. Each time we expanded our knowledge we saw the vast shortcomings of what we had previously believed to be "everything". Just consider how grossly inflated the concept of infinity became over the few millennia Humans have had such a concept, yet the idea never really changed. It was always the idea that you're referring to something that transcends rational value. People from Ancient Jerusalem preaching their apocalyptic philosophies probably never considered the idea that something could even BE 13.7 billion years old when they were screaming about burning alone in a lake of hell-fire "forever and ever." There's no way they could possibly know what the truth of the afterlife really is, I don't care HOW much hash oil and wine they've been anointed with. Religion is the placebo of the masses. Opiates are still the opiates of the masses.
How could one, simple, story-book image out of Dante's inferno, or Revelations, or Genesis, possibly capture the truth of the universe as we now know it? Sure, maybe God arbitrarily gave us a Son to become a Martyr so he could constantly guilt trip us into worship, or maybe God doesn't want us to take his words too literally but only to invoke his name when it makes us feel better, or maybe a brutal Roman Emperor adapted an old Egyptian story, mixed in a little Jew, and forced it on the world to be believed without question, and without interpretation, and, maybe, the fact that this Catholic Empire was the only remotely comforting aspect of an otherwise shitty life allowed its roots to grow deep and strong in our collective conscious, maybe it was simply the right myth at the right time, and we're still dealing with the irrational fall-out it's created. People move the goal posts with respect to religion all the time, whenever they need to, in fact. Not the sign of a good philosophy.
Science moves its goal posts as a rule, expansion of the known is encouraged and appreciated. The Bible is just an old book that hasn't changed in 2000 years, and if it has changed, it was most likely to best suit the needs of those in power at the time. Religion was good for man kind at one point seemingly, back during the Middle Ages when the world was always bleak and dangerous, and before the Geocentric model was proven wrong, but it's still a myth, and I don't believe clinging to empty myths is a healthy way to deal with Life.
Most psychiatrists don't either.
Another note, arguing about micro vs macro evolution doesn't even seem like a meaningful discussion considering everything that is alive experiences space and time in its own way. The time it takes a bacterium to evolve is a blink of an eye compared with monkeys, but that's simply a matter of population and resources and conditions. Bacteria evolving inside a few days PROVES the concept of evolution. That should be the end of the discussion. Instead of worrying that bacteria are only small things and small things don't matter, people should be grateful we have access to such a great demonstration of the theory. The thing with science, is that it's true no matter what your understanding of it is, and, if it is true, it is guaranteed to have a train of thought behind it which anyone, using logic, can follow.
There's still no way to know if God booted up a computer program which created our universe, had sex with a giant turtle and jizzed out the universe, or IS the universe, or if God knew a guy who knew a guy who sold universes and he's just our landlord. It's a question that I comfortably ignore, and will continue to ignore, barring some unforeseen new evidence for, or against. The concept of an afterlife is also something no one has a way to prove or disprove, and the jury's still out on the Nature of Consciousness, AFAIK.
TL:DR Common sense is your friend.
How could one, simple, story-book image out of Dante's inferno, or Revelations, or Genesis, possibly capture the truth of the universe as we now know it? Sure, maybe God arbitrarily gave us a Son to become a Martyr so he could constantly guilt trip us into worship, or maybe God doesn't want us to take his words too literally but only to invoke his name when it makes us feel better, or maybe a brutal Roman Emperor adapted an old Egyptian story, mixed in a little Jew, and forced it on the world to be believed without question, and without interpretation, and, maybe, the fact that this Catholic Empire was the only remotely comforting aspect of an otherwise shitty life allowed its roots to grow deep and strong in our collective conscious, maybe it was simply the right myth at the right time, and we're still dealing with the irrational fall-out it's created. People move the goal posts with respect to religion all the time, whenever they need to, in fact. Not the sign of a good philosophy.
Science moves its goal posts as a rule, expansion of the known is encouraged and appreciated. The Bible is just an old book that hasn't changed in 2000 years, and if it has changed, it was most likely to best suit the needs of those in power at the time. Religion was good for man kind at one point seemingly, back during the Middle Ages when the world was always bleak and dangerous, and before the Geocentric model was proven wrong, but it's still a myth, and I don't believe clinging to empty myths is a healthy way to deal with Life.
Most psychiatrists don't either.
Another note, arguing about micro vs macro evolution doesn't even seem like a meaningful discussion considering everything that is alive experiences space and time in its own way. The time it takes a bacterium to evolve is a blink of an eye compared with monkeys, but that's simply a matter of population and resources and conditions. Bacteria evolving inside a few days PROVES the concept of evolution. That should be the end of the discussion. Instead of worrying that bacteria are only small things and small things don't matter, people should be grateful we have access to such a great demonstration of the theory. The thing with science, is that it's true no matter what your understanding of it is, and, if it is true, it is guaranteed to have a train of thought behind it which anyone, using logic, can follow.
There's still no way to know if God booted up a computer program which created our universe, had sex with a giant turtle and jizzed out the universe, or IS the universe, or if God knew a guy who knew a guy who sold universes and he's just our landlord. It's a question that I comfortably ignore, and will continue to ignore, barring some unforeseen new evidence for, or against. The concept of an afterlife is also something no one has a way to prove or disprove, and the jury's still out on the Nature of Consciousness, AFAIK.
TL:DR Common sense is your friend.
Seems to be an assumption that Christianity is the only religion with something to bring to the table in this debate. Strange.
It's easy to laugh at creationism and then just throw out the entire religion as worthless. Judging the religion by the merits of people today who interpret it their way is a pretty narrow minded view to hold really, or judging it solely with a preconceived notion of expecting to find something prior to actually investigating it. Then there's the stuff that's missing from the Bible, the fact it's translated, and so on. Personally I believe there are psychological and spiritual truths within the text, but if all you're going to see is a whale and water to wine then you may miss that bit.
I find those who mock religion and hail science as the be all end all of understanding just as irritating as religious fundamentalists. Both sets of people have failed to really investigate their own paradigm and the opposite paradigm, and think original thoughts about it all. Science is dandy and I like it, but it's ultimately still composed of people who are just as feeble as those involved in religions. Money and politics influence science as much as in religion.
So which is right? Well personally I think evolutionary theory explains a lot but is still missing a few pieces, that it can't all be explained biochemically/genetically, especially in regards to form.. in particular the evolution of flying creatures. I do enjoy seeing pro-evolutionists getting all twisted up trying to demonstrate why that's no big problem, the fear is quite evident in them that at some level they too know there's a missing piece in the theory.
I think science will change quite dramatically in the next 100 years. The Big Bang Theory will be discarded, along with inflationary theory, the role of electricity in space will be finally acknowledged, and the concept of the aether will be re-investigated. This may lead to filling in the missing pieces of evolutionary theory too. And I think religion will undergo a big shift too.. the rubbish will be discarded and the core values reinstated, the quest for truth etc.
It's easy to laugh at creationism and then just throw out the entire religion as worthless. Judging the religion by the merits of people today who interpret it their way is a pretty narrow minded view to hold really, or judging it solely with a preconceived notion of expecting to find something prior to actually investigating it. Then there's the stuff that's missing from the Bible, the fact it's translated, and so on. Personally I believe there are psychological and spiritual truths within the text, but if all you're going to see is a whale and water to wine then you may miss that bit.
I find those who mock religion and hail science as the be all end all of understanding just as irritating as religious fundamentalists. Both sets of people have failed to really investigate their own paradigm and the opposite paradigm, and think original thoughts about it all. Science is dandy and I like it, but it's ultimately still composed of people who are just as feeble as those involved in religions. Money and politics influence science as much as in religion.
So which is right? Well personally I think evolutionary theory explains a lot but is still missing a few pieces, that it can't all be explained biochemically/genetically, especially in regards to form.. in particular the evolution of flying creatures. I do enjoy seeing pro-evolutionists getting all twisted up trying to demonstrate why that's no big problem, the fear is quite evident in them that at some level they too know there's a missing piece in the theory.
I think science will change quite dramatically in the next 100 years. The Big Bang Theory will be discarded, along with inflationary theory, the role of electricity in space will be finally acknowledged, and the concept of the aether will be re-investigated. This may lead to filling in the missing pieces of evolutionary theory too. And I think religion will undergo a big shift too.. the rubbish will be discarded and the core values reinstated, the quest for truth etc.
CoffeeDrinker
Bluelighter
Christianity is one of the more relevant religions of almost any Human arena of the past 2000 years. So I don't see why it's strange to focus on the religion that predominates the society I'm in, nor the ridiculousness of its modern practitioners. No one is bitching about what Buddhists are doing/advocating because they, on average, are very well-adjusted people, and I'm keeping spirituality separate from this discussion because everyone decides that for themselves based on experience. I'm just pointing out how arbitrary the body of knowledge of any given religion is. They are all made up of basically the same fundamental human truths cloaked in fables and parables and, of course, Divine Mandates, to me that points to the likelihood that these religions were all invented for the same psychological reasons. Community, comfort, faith, fear of the unknown, etc. There might be fewer godless heathens if people had something meeting those basic psychological needs that wasn't a complete fairy-tale.
Science certainly is dandy. The good thing about science, though, is that it's an amalgam of the best contributions of the brightest minds in our society. So it doesn't really matter how feeble the people are, as long as they contribute valid stuff. It doesn't matter what their lives or motives are, the body of knowledge speaks for itself. The only thing money, or politics, or religion, can do is dissuade some people from the truth by overriding logic with some form of emotional pressure. The demands of the marketplace place arbitrary constraints on the research needed to advance science, and it's obvious that the most in-demand sciences get the most funding, therefore the most research, but the reason why they are being paid in the first place is to find answers we don't already have. The answers exist on their own, science is merely a tool of getting there.
And...are you really saying that the best hypothesis currently available for flying creatures is "intelligent design"?
Science certainly is dandy. The good thing about science, though, is that it's an amalgam of the best contributions of the brightest minds in our society. So it doesn't really matter how feeble the people are, as long as they contribute valid stuff. It doesn't matter what their lives or motives are, the body of knowledge speaks for itself. The only thing money, or politics, or religion, can do is dissuade some people from the truth by overriding logic with some form of emotional pressure. The demands of the marketplace place arbitrary constraints on the research needed to advance science, and it's obvious that the most in-demand sciences get the most funding, therefore the most research, but the reason why they are being paid in the first place is to find answers we don't already have. The answers exist on their own, science is merely a tool of getting there.
And...are you really saying that the best hypothesis currently available for flying creatures is "intelligent design"?
Well you say this (feeble people..) but it doesn't work out that way completely and I don't think downplaying the role of politics and money in science is correct either, in fact I think those pressures are far greater than people give credit for. Far greater. The truth is the truth in science yes, but it takes people to bring it forth and that is where the weakness is. You only need to look to the whole global warming "science" movement of the past 10 years to see how pathetically shallow it can be, and yet people are eating that shit up left right and centre. And like a lot of in-demand sciences it is often tied to either what the government wants, or some institutional group composed of elitist wankers, or to the military industrial complex or corporations. Gone are the days of the lone inventor and those who wish to try to advance us practically.. it's all about serving the interests of powerful groups/people now.
And yes to a degree I was insinuating intelligent design in regards to flying creatures. I really do not see what the problem is with that position.. it doesn't need to involve a supreme being or anything, just an organizing intelligence without a retarded human ego. Everywhere you look in biology there is geometry, proportion, and form/function that just screams intelligent design. There was an article recently about plants being able to calculate/ration starch stores over night until morning using arithmetic computation, that is intelligence and what I refer to with intelligent design, not some supreme being or form of ego. You can have intelligent design without the need for a Christian god.
I think people fear the idea of intelligent design because it means we're no longer the top dog and not because it doesn't have merit. In actuality I think the observational evidence for intelligent design is pretty strong and what prevents people from seeing it is a certain materialistic-atheistic anti-god/spiritual paradigm we have now that just blinds people to what is right in front of them.
Vurtual
Bluelighter
You'd be naive and blind not to notice the political and corporate influence on science, but to me that influence is mostly short term and connected with immediate profit; it doesn't really have as much influence on the overall knowledge that science accrues over time, because that overall knowledge has to convince many more unconnected people who can't be bought off so easily in a monolithic fashion (that's not to say there's no influence). I suppose we have to agree to disagree, but man made global warming to me is an example of science overall being able to go against the most powerful corporate/political interests, which afaik are mostly in the 'burn baby burn' camp (notwithstanding the mainstream 'left', who might be in the 'burn a little less, but don't stop the burn' camp).
As to the second point, if you're saying that intelligence and order emerges in nature, you're not talking about design it seems to me - you're talking about complex system dynamics, which is current science i think. It doesn't require design, just recognition that novel and more complex systems and behaviours can emerge from simpler ones given enough free energy and connectedness/feedback (or something). There still seems to be some mystery aroud this area of 'emergence' (to laymen like me) which you could conflate with some universal propensity for order somehow balancing with entropy (like hindu creator/maintainer/destroyer tropes). But as with chaos theory itself it seems to be grounded in firm deterministic realities.
As for flying creatures, i wondered about that recently with similar thoughts to you about how it could have started off, and so read up a bit; i don't know, but the basic ideas i read about something evolving rudimentary gliding abilities at first, and then evolutionary pressure pushing that towards the obvious developmental attractor of better and better flight seem totally plausible to me - the analogy of something like a flying squirrel being an intermediary stage towards something like a bat also seems convincing. Plus there are many fossils now of dinosaur proto-birds with feathers and rudimentary wings, less refined than bird wings (even one with four wings) which provide further suggestive evidence.
I do think there is more to learn about how larger forms develop with such seeming perfection of design, but it seems that the main reason it's hard to understand (for me) is probably inability to comprehend evolutionary timescales very well, or given the engine of cellular adaption as a base, think about how much change could be possible over a few million years; including refinement of 'designs' to the marvel of engineering that they are in the relative blink of an eye that a million years is in that timescale.
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I can't accept that intelligence simply emerges out of nothing in the physical dimension, that just seems like a play on words/using language to hide a mystery that requires an answer. Like DNA for example, this idea that it simply just emerged out of a soup of primordial molecules for no reason what so ever and formed complex software/hardware like properties is ridiculous to my mind, as is the Big Bang idea where the whole Universe seemingly just emerged out of nothing for no apparent reason. Underlying both of those, and evolution/life, there clearly seems to be a motivating force of some kind. And yet on the flip side there are people who believe that AI machines will develop motivation and intention seemingly out of nothing at some point in the future, and yet would probably deny what I've just said in regards to the Universe/life!
I'll admit that I can understand why the case presented is believable, as I've read around on the topic too. But again it just doesn't cover it for me, there's lots of dot connecting but it's still missing a certain 'x' factor. Again I can believe the evolution involved over time, there's no disputing that it's happened, what I'm not convinced of is the form/function involved and how that seemingly arose out of nothing. Flying is damn complicated behavior on its own, let alone the form needed to actually stay in the air. The falling squirrel idea just seems like wild stab at answering the problem to me and failing to convince, but that's just my opinion.
I can appreciate large time scales, but simply reducing it all down to "oh, it just needed time to evolve" seems like incredible sophistry to me. Sure it works for a lot of things in biology, but not all of it in my opinion. I could say the same thing about the evolution of the Universe too and how all that is needed is time and gravity (but requiring a miracle/creation event first, the big bang).
Vurtual
Bluelighter
Emergence as a phenomena is pretty well attested. The example of an ant colony as a 'superorganism' - there's no central control, just a small set of chemical rules which when repeated by lots of interacting ants, causes seemingly coherent colony behaviour to emerge (such as finding food efficiently, decisions to move home, even farming). Also, city development has properties which are difficult to design in (people try), but in certain circumstances they emerge in pretty efficient manner. (other examples are numerous). Emergence has some mystery, but it can be replicated on computers (game of life) so is a thing. (to me these ideas provide just as much wonder and mystery as i might get from more 'religious' ideas about the universe)
I get where you're coming from and have similar reservations about simplistic neo-darwinism ideas (what do i know, but...). I feel there's more to it than a simple genetic mutation model - the new ideas of epigenetics and the new understanding of the role of 'junk' dna seem to me (as a lazy layman) to potentially add complexity to the process of evolution which could start to answer some of the developmental questions better, ie the genetic evolution can seemingly now be influenced by the animal's actual life (phospate switches on the backs of the dna?), which wasn't allowed before (namely, lamarck raising his head...). In general though, the diversity of mammal body shapes, the flying squirrel and the bat obviously all coming from a small lemur within a few 10s of millions of years is pretty convincing to me - that's emergence, or evolution - they didn't come from nothing, they provably inherited all their features from all previous ancestors.
There's maybe an argument about the first cells/dna having time to evolve by random knocking together (but they could always from space-sperm). I tend to think this isn't needed and that life will arise again and again everywhere there's the raw materials - i see it as a natural property that stufff like that happens - like the whirlpool forming in the bath more efficiently distruibutes the water, a flame emerges when there's the right materials, a star forms and balances perfectly between light and gravity etc etc. You could call that property of emergence something cosmic like god i suppose, but i don't think it needs anything non material particularly (it doesn't in the ant analogy, or the game of life). Just like quantum mechanics averages out on our scale to fit classical laws, what's actually simple and deterministic on a small scale in a complex system displays emergent properties when averaged out on a much bigger scale.
I wasn't saying that all it needed was lots of time, i was saying that big changes could happen on such a relatively short timespan as to not even register on the fossil record (giving seeming sudden appearance of species noted by gould). Have you read stephen jay gould's book about the burgess shale? the huge variety of animals with different body designs of the cambrian explosion and the small number of 'design' of animals that ended up dominating the world (about 5?) thereafter fits best with animals messily adapting rather than perfect design being inherent (or else why weren't they designed properly from the start so they had to be whittled down?).
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anastasius
Greenlighter
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- 12
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I had no intentions in what I said to imply such a position. I would agree that some non-humans (even some plants, evidently) demonstrate an incredible degree of intelligence. I was thinking more along the lines of the observations done by Leslie Orgel in The Origins of Life:
"Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.”
All things or events scientifically observable are marked by one of three qualities: 1) specificity without complexity, 2) complexity without specificity, or 3) specificity with complexity.
A string of letters with a repetitive arrangement such as "thisthisthis" is an example of #1. It's the kind of repetitive order you would find in a snowflake.
A string of random letters such as "mnvbzcxdasjhfglk" is an example of complexity with no specific order (#2).
An arrangement of words such as "This is a complete sentence" is an example of #3. It has both specific order and complexity. And no nonintelligent cause can produce specified complexity. It takes intelligence to produce information, whether that information is a meaningful sentence on a page, or a single strand of DNA. And by way of the law of uniformity (the kinds of effects produced today are brought about by the same kinds of causes of the past) we have enough reason to verify that even the very first strand of DNA to exist on earth was caused, not by a mere natural cause, but intelligent; this, I believe, is empirically verifiable through science. Speculations of what might be only puts us back in the realm of an unconfirmed hypothesis.
both are right, in different ways
I feel that religion is a product of mind. The most successful faiths involve groupthink by millions. The most important faith one can have is in oneself, even if that "faith" is superimposed on a godlike figure.
Evolution is also right, as has currently been proved by many scientists who invest much in the rigors of their fields of expertise.
So, this is a non issue for me.
I can certainly live with both.
I feel that religion is a product of mind. The most successful faiths involve groupthink by millions. The most important faith one can have is in oneself, even if that "faith" is superimposed on a godlike figure.
Evolution is also right, as has currently been proved by many scientists who invest much in the rigors of their fields of expertise.
So, this is a non issue for me.
I can certainly live with both.
The greatest story ever told.
1. Egyptian God Horace, Born on dec 25th, Born of a virgin. Accompanied by a star in the East, Adored by 3 kings. At the age of 12 he became a teacher and Baptised by a figure named Annep and began his ministry at the age of 30. He travelled around with12 disciples performed miracles healed the sick and walked on water. He was known as the truth the light, the lamb of god. He was crucified dead for 3 days then resurrected. This records back to 3000 BC
2. Attis of Fridgea. Greece 1200 BC born dec 25th, Born of a virgin,crucified dead for 3 days resurrected
3 Krishna of India 900 BC born of a virgin Divakki there was a star in the east had disciples performed miracles and upon his death was resurrected
4. Dionysus of Greece born of a virgin on dec 25th. Was a travelling teacher who preformed miracles,turned water into wine was referred to as the king of kings Gods only son was referred to as the Alfa and Omega. and upon his death was resurrected. 500 BC
5. Mithra. Born of a virgin on dec 25th in Persia 1200 BC. He also had 12 disciples performed miracles was dead for 3 days then resurrected. He was known as the truth the light and many others also the sacred day of worship for Mithra was Sunday.
These are just a few people throughout history that share the same characteristics as Jesus Christ. Just too many coincidences there for me. My belief is if there is a God it cannot be proven. I for one class myself as an Agnostic.
1. Egyptian God Horace, Born on dec 25th, Born of a virgin. Accompanied by a star in the East, Adored by 3 kings. At the age of 12 he became a teacher and Baptised by a figure named Annep and began his ministry at the age of 30. He travelled around with12 disciples performed miracles healed the sick and walked on water. He was known as the truth the light, the lamb of god. He was crucified dead for 3 days then resurrected. This records back to 3000 BC
2. Attis of Fridgea. Greece 1200 BC born dec 25th, Born of a virgin,crucified dead for 3 days resurrected
3 Krishna of India 900 BC born of a virgin Divakki there was a star in the east had disciples performed miracles and upon his death was resurrected
4. Dionysus of Greece born of a virgin on dec 25th. Was a travelling teacher who preformed miracles,turned water into wine was referred to as the king of kings Gods only son was referred to as the Alfa and Omega. and upon his death was resurrected. 500 BC
5. Mithra. Born of a virgin on dec 25th in Persia 1200 BC. He also had 12 disciples performed miracles was dead for 3 days then resurrected. He was known as the truth the light and many others also the sacred day of worship for Mithra was Sunday.
These are just a few people throughout history that share the same characteristics as Jesus Christ. Just too many coincidences there for me. My belief is if there is a God it cannot be proven. I for one class myself as an Agnostic.
Vurtual
Bluelighter
I'm sorry, i misread what you wrote and subconsciously inserted what i wanted to talk about (i do it a lot - see below 
). I can sort of follow what you/he are saying in so much as there does seem to be 'intelligence' in the processes that lead to complex systems spontaneously adapting to become more complex in a way that fits its environment so well. But as i went through above, i think this emergent property is explainable without teleology or invoking universal mind or some such (and much more satisfying that way). Not to say i don't entertain universal mind ideas myself - i think it could be quite a good analogy for the complexity and interconnectedness of the universe as a whole without having to be a 'thing'; and quite a good conscious choice of cosmology for internal psychological reasons.
In terms of evolution, i suppose you could think of the concept of developmental attractors as sort of teleology in a platonic way (but just seems more like a common sense analogy to me). As i said above, i tend to think that novelty/complexity emerging in certain circumstances is some sort of universal of a similar nature to entropy (similar in that it's based on many simple deterministic processes that add up on a higher scale to an overall 'law' or macro effect). But i probably think this just becasue it's a pleasing idea and sounds good, and matches up slightly with hindu cosmology (but most theories can proabably find some matches in there). Someone conied the term 'negentropy' but can't remember if they meant it the same way as this (or who they were))
Out of interest, do you consider organic life to be different in nature from what we might call inorganic complex systems? (eg storm cells, stars, solar systems, galaxies, fire) - i tend to think of all these as basically the same novelty-creation process at different scales which balances out entropy in certain places without ever defeating it to give the universe we see (which isn't (yet) just homogenous cold dust that entropy wants).
As far as i remember (probably wrongly), this is not the way that physicists would think about information - don't some of them say that everything is information; or i think there's a suggested law of conservation of information, which i suppose you could think of as another analogy for god, or the akashic records or some other word.
fwiw - my latest personal cosmology/metaphysics (not original whatsoever): Time as a linear progression is an illusion of consciousness (maybe left brain, or just brains in general); in fact all moments that have happened and that will happen all coexist, interconnected by their 'causal' connections, as one big eternal complex waveform (this is sort of how physics describes time i think (i added the bit about the waveform)). Maybe you eternally exist in all those moments at once rather than threading through them one moment at a time as our brains make us percieve. Maybe we can experience our connection to all these infinite moments when we loosen the 'left' brain through memory, intuition, imagination, meditiation, drugs etc. (Insert quantum psuedoscience here). Aside from memories, maybe we're more likely to pick up stuff that's 'in phase' with our own mind 'wave'; this could also be why we could sometimes perceive in these states that 'we' had 'past lives' (when they were just similar 'waveforms' to our own).
This could allow an 'afterlife' of sorts even though it's not 'after' you die - all the moments you existed in continue to exist eternally, and through physical connection, connect with all the people you interacted with (and out through to everything that exists/will exist) - this eternal complex waveform in total could be called god, with you and i harmonics (though that's unhelpful in my view). This sounds a bit calvinist, so i chuck in 'many worlds' hypothesis too - so all moments that could have happened also exist in the waveform. This makes it big (more than 10 to the 100 universes), but infinity's pretty big i suppose. This then also allows for an illusion of free will in any particular universe you percveive yourself to be in, even though all possible choices are represented overall.
Sorry for the ot waffle
- i suppose i'm trying to say i'm maybe closer to your viewpoint than it seems from my posts (and have probably just undone any little scientific cred i built up) - i have an instinct that overall reality 'makes sense' in the stoic sort of sense, but largely trust the story that science is telling about these things in its own terms; i decide to believe that the 'sense' which ties together science and 'spirituality' would be obvious at a level of perception a normal brain can't percieve (ie from the viewpoint of the eternal complex waveform)
ComfortablyNumb95
Bluelight Crew
rickolasnice
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Nowhere in the bible does it say Jesus was born on the 25th of December.. In fact it doesn't mention his birth date anywhere..
The only clue we have is Luke saying there were shepherds tending to their sheep in the field.. In Judea.. Shepherds wouldn't have done this past Autumn.
Trust me OP read through this link: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html
The only clue we have is Luke saying there were shepherds tending to their sheep in the field.. In Judea.. Shepherds wouldn't have done this past Autumn.
Trust me OP read through this link: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html
Vurtual
Bluelighter
I think you might mean Horus
. What rickolas said about 25th dec (hi rickolas). I think it was chosen by constantine to match up with the sol invctus cult (the state religion before christianity) that he secretly continued to follow. A more 'accurate' birthday for jeebus is (i think) 8th jan, as followed by the orthodox church, who didn't change their date.However, I think the comparison between myths can only take you so far - mythic/religious literature isn't peer reviewed science; people would often knowingly add famous elements from earlier myths as a sort of mark of a genuine holy person which people would recognise ("my guy's definitely holy cos he was born of a virgin like mithras", or "found in a reed basket like horus"), or just as straight plaigiarism. Also, absorbing other people's gods into your own religion is as old as religion itself; often an aspect of cultural domination, conscious or otherwise (like Shiva or apollo?). Since monotheism this process has been a bit more difficult as you can't just keep adding gods, but elements or themes can still be absorbed it seems.
The too-literal zeitgeist style of religious comparison (not saying this is yours) is a bit flaky when you research the details yourself imo - it makes a good yarn and is sort of true in spirit, but not in messy reality, like a lot of conspiracy-type stuff. There has definitely been lots of cross fertilisation between faiths, especially in the melting pot of alexandria around 200bc to 100ad (eg there are obvious links between neo-platonism, christianity, and buddhism/hinduism). But it's much more likely that lots of indepenent people made their own religions up influenced by others (like we know still happens today (hello elron)) than there was some coordinated fake-religion creation program, even a retrospective one. I think it's like arguing in art about the difference between plaigiarism and influence (and that saying "all religions copy each other" is the same as saying "all art is plaigiarism" - true as far as it goes.
I'm also an agnostic (the 'have your cake and eat it' variety) and i want to analyse/criticse religion, but i want what i find to be as 'true' as possible; for myself and so it can hold up in a debate. It's too easy to find a simple overarching truth by giving in to confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance (talking about myself not you
); i've found in my life that simple overarching explanations of history seldom have the smell of truth, and there's some undefinable fractal messyness to real events that can sometimes be recognised intuitively (like being able to see cgi in films)
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