Puberty blockers - no parental consent.

[Apostate]

I have what I believe to be a salient question. What does this end of the conversation have to do with the power of a person of sixteen or fewer years to provide informed consent to a prescription of puberty blockers?

[Immanuel Can]

I had you down as someone who'd never been beyond the edge of the swamp and only ever read the Bhaaaable!

I wonder how you got that impression.

I think there's pretty good evidence that's not the case, some of which you generously noted earlier. And if you've read many of my messages, you'll find references to Nietzsche, Hume and Camus, on the one hand, and things like the Koran, the Gita, the Tao and the Dhammapada, on the other. If you know American diction and spelling, you'll find mine's a bit different from that: for example, I write "humour," not "humor."

So what does all that tell you?

But yes, I sure do read the Bible. That much, you've got right. Why shouldn't one read the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time? How could one consider oneself educated if one did not?

[Vitruvius]

I had you down as someone who'd never been beyond the edge of the swamp and only ever read the Bhaaaable!

I wonder how you got that impression.

I think there's pretty good evidence that's not the case, some of which you generously noted earlier. And if you've read many of my messages, you'll find references to Nietzsche, Hume and Camus, on the one hand, and things like the Koran, the Gita, the Tao and the Dhammapada, on the other. If you know American diction and spelling, you'll find mine's a bit different from that: for example, I write "humour," not "humor."

So what does all that tell you?

But yes, I sure do read the Bible. That much, you've got right. Why shouldn't one read the s? How could one consider oneself educated if one did not?

The fact that you are quite learn-ed was the point of the joke. I did think you were American though, I don't know why. Maybe it's that the UK is pretty darn secular these days, and the determined faith that would see you reject the argument I set before you for an evolutionary explanation of morality - somehow evokes burning crosses, banjo playing and inbreeding. The mind works in mysterious ways!

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time' - and I'm not going to argue that, but do you think the Bible is true? I'm led to believe many Christians these days consider the Bible metaphorical in nature, and that doesn't necessarily clash with your claim it's the best book ever written!

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes in multi-tribal social groups, and regardless of whether they are pointing toward something real; I don't if God exists or not, are really the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens, all bundled together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to serve a political purpose.

So herein lies the difference between us; I accept science as valid knowledge of reality (maybe Creation) while you seem to worship an old book about Creation. Why not a new book about reality/Creation, like Origin of Species?

[Immanuel Can]

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time'

I'm speaking factually.

...do you think the Bible is true?

Of course.

I'm led to believe many Christians these days consider the Bible metaphorical in nature,

There are metaphors IN the Bible, for sure. And they're indicated as such by the speakers or by the context. For example, when John referred to the Pharisees as the "brood of vipers," there's no doubt it's a metaphor. But if somebody speaks of the Bible in its entirety being nothing but a metaphor, then you can be quite reassured that they are no Christian at all. For in that case, even being a "Christian" is merely a metaphor, and has no objective reality supporting it.

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes

"In order to"? You're anthropomorphizing Evolution. But an "evolutionary perspective" does not have a place for intention. Evolution itself does not arrange teleologies or assign roles to things, or aim at the survival of anything. It's an utterly impersonal process.

So if you actually were explaining using "an evolutionary perspetive," what you should say about that is merely that "religions occured accidentally, and merely fortuitously may have united tribes; but that their doing so was utterly contingent and by no design at all, had no reason to happen."

I don't if God exists or not,

Well, that's an honest statement. But there's no more important question, of course.

are really the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens, all bundled together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to serve a political purpose.

Well, that's actually an extremely weak theory. For one thing, it's not "the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens." There are a lot more of those around, and most of them are not Biblical. Secondly, the Council of Nicaea was convened long after the Scriptures were already written and known, and three centuries after the first Christians existed. More than half of the Bible is Torah, which predates all that by many more centuries, and is uniquely Jewish in literary content. So if it all had to come together at the Council of Nicea, the counsel was too darn late, and by a long time; and the "political purpose" to be served would also come far too late.

I accept science as valid knowledge of reality

As do I.

But I do not call something so speculative, transient, and poorly established as "the ascent of man" by the name "science." It hasn't earned that honorific. Rather, I regard both the scientific evidence before my eyes and the testimony of Scripture as harmonious on the point that man is a unique creation of God. It's pretty obvious that mankind is something really special, and not at all some sort of cosmic accident. Even an Evolutionist has to think so, if he thinks we humans owe ourselves the truth. Other animals have no such claim.

Remember the old "monkey-to-man" charts? Does anyone point out nowadays that they were all bunkum? At one time, they were the orthodoxy taught in school science classrooms; but nowadays, no reputable evolutionary theorist even mentions that embarassing theory. Remember the Piltdown Man scandal, for example? If the so-called "evolutionary science" can so easily drop an embarassing failure like that, and not even own it afterward, it's pretty wise to ask yourself in what other ways it might be lying. For not all that arrogates to itself the name of "science" really is science at all. Sometimes, it's just nothing more than ideology.

Anyway, that would be a suitably critical, sophisticated and genuinely scientific question to ask, would it not? For real science does not believe just-so stories about how simians turn into people without submitting them to scrutiny, does it? It demands evidence.

But on that question, the evidence has already appeared, of course. The monkey-to-man theory was a hoax. You'll still find it in the old textbooks, though; and I've never read an official retraction from anyone. Have you?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time'

I'm speaking factually.

...do you think the Bible is true?

Of course.

I'm led to believe many Christians these days consider the Bible metaphorical in nature,

There are metaphors IN the Bible, for sure. And they're indicated as such by the speakers or by the context. For example, when John referred to the Pharisees as the "brood of vipers," there's no doubt it's a metaphor. But if somebody speaks of the Bible in its entirety being nothing but a metaphor, then you can be quite reassured that they are no Christian at all. For in that case, even being a "Christian" is merely a metaphor, and has no objective reality supporting it.

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes

"In order to"? You're anthropomorphizing Evolution. But an "evolutionary perspective" does not have a place for intention. Evolution itself does not arrange teleologies or assign roles to things, or aim at the survival of anything. It's an utterly impersonal process.

So if you actually were explaining using "an evolutionary perspetive," what you should say about that is merely that "religions occured accidentally, and merely fortuitously may have united tribes; but that their doing so was utterly contingent and by no design at all, had no reason to happen."

I don't if God exists or not,

Well, that's an honest statement. But there's no more important question, of course.

are really the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens, all bundled together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to serve a political purpose.

Well, that's actually an extremely weak theory. For one thing, it's not "the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens." There are a lot more of those around, and most of them are not Biblical. Secondly, the Council of Nicaea was convened long after the Scriptures were already written and known, and three centuries after the first Christians existed. More than half of the Bible is Torah, which predates all that by many more centuries, and is uniquely Jewish in literary content. So if it all had to come together at the Council of Nicea, the counsel was too darn late, and by a long time; and the "political purpose" to be served would also come far too late.

I accept science as valid knowledge of reality

As do I.

But I do not call something so speculative, transient, and poorly established as "the ascent of man" by the name "science." It hasn't earned that honorific. Rather, I regard both the scientific evidence before my eyes and the testimony of Scripture as harmonious on the point that man is a unique creation of God. It's pretty obvious that mankind is something really special, and not at all some sort of cosmic accident. Even an Evolutionist has to think so, if he thinks we humans owe ourselves the truth. Other animals have no such claim.

Remember the old "monkey-to-man" charts? Does anyone point out nowadays that they were all bunkum? At one time, they were the orthodoxy taught in school science classrooms; but nowadays, no reputable evolutionary theorist even mentions that embarassing theory. Remember the Piltdown Man scandal, for example? If the so-called "evolutionary science" can so easily drop an embarassing failure like that, and not even own it afterward, it's pretty wise to ask yourself in what other ways it might be lying. For not all that arrogates to itself the name of "science" really is science at all. Sometimes, it's just nothing more than ideology.

Anyway, that would be a suitably critical, sophisticated and genuinely scientific question to ask, would it not? For real science does not believe just-so stories about how simians turn into people without submitting them to scrutiny, does it? It demands evidence.

But on that question, the evidence has already appeared, of course. The monkey-to-man theory was a hoax. You'll still find it in the old textbooks, though; and I've never read an official retraction from anyone. Have you?

You mean the charts that gave a very simplified depiction of human ancestors evolving into modern humans? You think we just suddenly appeared out of nowhere do you?
Monkeys are modern animals. They evolved just as we did.
'Humans are special'. Wow, that's deep
I you don't accept what humans have painstakingly learnt over millennia then you don't really deserve to call youself human and you are no better than the other animals that you seem to think aren't as 'special' as you claim to be. What makes humans 'special'? It wouldn't be knowledge and science now would it?

[Vitruvius]

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time'

I'm speaking factually.

I'm sure you're expressing an honest opinion. But value judgements are subjective. This is a philosophy forum and we have to think correctly.

...do you think the Bible is true?

Of course.

I'm led to believe many Christians these days consider the Bible metaphorical in nature,

There are metaphors IN the Bible, for sure. And they're indicated as such by the speakers or by the context. For example, when John referred to the Pharisees as the "brood of vipers," there's no doubt it's a metaphor. But if somebody speaks of the Bible in its entirety being nothing but a metaphor, then you can be quite reassured that they are no Christian at all. For in that case, even being a "Christian" is merely a metaphor, and has no objective reality supporting it.

It would seem to me, your claim the Bible is the greatest depends largely on its influence, as the central coordinating mechanism of Western civilisation. A faithful member of a Christian community, one might argue, does not have to believe Adam and Eve, for example - is a valid explanation of the origin of life, in order to be a Christian person. If you say you believe Adam and Eve is literally true; you are necessarily saying science is tosh. And there we must part ways. I would say, there are truths in the Bible, for sure! The flood really happened way back when. Noah, not so much! Noah is how the flood is remembered in oral tradition - then incorporated into the Bible.

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes

"In order to"? You're anthropomorphizing Evolution. But an "evolutionary perspective" does not have a place for intention. Evolution itself does not arrange teleologies or assign roles to things, or aim at the survival of anything. It's an utterly impersonal process. So if you actually were explaining using "an evolutionary perspetive," what you should say about that is merely that "religions occured accidentally, and merely fortuitously may have united tribes; but that their doing so was utterly contingent and by no design at all, had no reason to happen."

No, I'm not. Human beings evolved. Human beings have intentions. One of those intentions was for tribes to join together, and to do this they needed to overcome the barrier posed by kinship hierarchies, which they did by adopting the same God, as an objective authority for social laws. Without an objective authority for law, the least dispute over conduct, food, sex, would split the fledgling society into its tribal components. That's why, in my view, religions are important but not necessarily true.

I don't if God exists or not,

Well, that's an honest statement. But there's no more important question, of course.

That should read, "I don't know if God exists or not." I'm agnostic, because I think it important to reason correctly, and there's no non-circumstantial evidence. Faith is not valid reason. Faith is a political requirement, that follows from religion's role as objective authority for social laws.

are really the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens, all bundled together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to serve a political purpose.

Well, that's actually an extremely weak theory. For one thing, it's not "the collected wisdom and folk tales of homo sapiens." There are a lot more of those around, and most of them are not Biblical. Secondly, the Council of Nicaea was convened long after the Scriptures were already written and known, and three centuries after the first Christians existed. More than half of the Bible is Torah, which predates all that by many more centuries, and is uniquely Jewish in literary content. So if it all had to come together at the Council of Nicea, the counsel was too darn late, and by a long time; and the "political purpose" to be served would also come far too late.

Constantine I, was the first Christian Roman Emperor. 306-337AD. The Council of Nicaea was 325 AD. It's true that Christianity itself predates this, but until Constantine the official religion of Rome was Sol Invictus. As General Constantine was moving on Rome, apocryphally, he had a vision round about the Mulvian Bridge - that told him "In this sign you will conquer" and he ordered his men to paint fish symbols on their shields, and he moved on Rome and won. What he was doing was appealing to the masses, because Christianity was the religion of the people, relative to Sol Invictus, which was the high society religion. So his army faced less resistance, because essentially he promised not to slaughter the masses. The Council of Nicaea gathered the various writings of early Christians, and compiled them into the Bible we know today.

I accept science as valid knowledge of reality

As do I.

So Adam and Eve is tosh?

But I do not call something so speculative, transient, and poorly established as "the ascent of man" by the name "science." It hasn't earned that honorific. Rather, I regard both the scientific evidence before my eyes and the testimony of Scripture as harmonious on the point that man is a unique creation of God. It's pretty obvious that mankind is something really special, and not at all some sort of cosmic accident. Even an Evolutionist has to think so, if he thinks we humans owe ourselves the truth. Other animals have no such claim.

I agree humankind is a special animal; that intellectual awareness is qualitatively distinct, and unique and precious. But at the same time we evolved, and are animals; related to the animal kingdom. There's nothing speculative about this. Darwin's thesis is confirmed by genetics. The neo Darwinian synthesis (of evolutionary theory and genetics) is true.

Remember the old "monkey-to-man" charts? Does anyone point out nowadays that they were all bunkum? At one time, they were the orthodoxy taught in school science classrooms; but nowadays, no reputable evolutionary theorist even mentions that embarrassing theory. Remember the Piltdown Man scandal, for example? If the so-called "evolutionary science" can so easily drop an embarrassing failure like that, and not even own it afterward, it's pretty wise to ask yourself in what other ways it might be lying. For not all that arrogates to itself the name of "science" really is science at all. Sometimes, it's just nothing more than ideology.

I'm not sure what you're alluding to with the monkey to man charts. It's not invalid per se. It's a very impoverished view of the evolution of man, but it's not untrue. The actions of Dawson in promoting his museum are such a minor detour in the grand scheme it's clutching at straws to bring up Piltdown Man. You don't seem to understand how science works. Its not faith. It doesn't bend its mind to claim Adam and Eve is true - as I imagine, you will have done in your reply. Science works by rejecting bad ideas, and adopting better ones. That's why it's true.

Anyway, that would be a suitably critical, sophisticated and genuinely scientific question to ask, would it not? For real science does not believe just-so stories about how simians turn into people without submitting them to scrutiny, does it? It demands evidence.

Think of a tree, starting at the base of the tree, moving up into the branches. There were many hominid branches; but only one human branch. The monkey to man chart excludes all the other hominid branches - and traces the evolutionary path of homo sapiens, ignoring all the rest, including interbreeding between these various branches, at various stages.

But on that question, the evidence has already appeared, of course. The monkey-to-man theory was a hoax. You'll still find it in the old textbooks, though; and I've never read an official retraction from anyone. Have you?

You're a straw man, pitching at windmills with that monkey to man chart thing. It's not now, nor was it ever intended to be definitive. It's a pop culture representation of evolution. The nearest credible scientific image is this:



And science would stand by that. You think the similarities of skeletal structure are ______?

Coincidence?
God's botched attempts to create man?
A scientific fraud?

[Immanuel Can]

If you don't accept what humans have painstakingly learnt over millennia...

What would that be, V? The Scientific Method isn't even a third of one millenia old, and Evolutionism is barely a hundred years old, changing constantly since Darwin...so you must mean something else...but I can't imagine what it is.

[Immanuel Can]

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time'

I'm speaking factually.

I'm sure you're expressing an honest opinion....

No, factually.

What book has sold more copies? What book has proved more influential in human history? What book has shaped not just other books but whole societies? What book has been studied more? What book is ethically superior?

The Bible is the world's masterpiece statistically...by orders of magnitude. Whether one likes it or not changes nothing: it's really nothing to do with opinion.

It would seem to me, your claim the Bible is the greatest depends largely on its influence, as the central coordinating mechanism of Western civilisation.

That's only one of the metrics I listed above, but that's certainly an obvious one.

A faithful member of a Christian community, one might argue, does not have to believe Adam and Eve, for example - is a valid explanation of the origin of life, in order to be a Christian person.

He'd be wrong.

But actually, this is one of the few points on which Evolutionism and the Bible are completely in agreement: that there must have been an original mating pair of homo sapiens. For the Theory of Evolution does not posit that humans developed without sexual reproduction, or that a great mass of pre-humans suddenly made the jump to homo sapiens at the same time. It posits that a mating pair, one more "fit" than others, must be at the bottom of the "tree" of homo sapiens.

So the existence of such a pair is a point on which we have no need to argue. No tenable theory says otherwise.

If you say you believe Adam and Eve is literally true; you are necessarily saying science is tosh.

As above, no.

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes

"In order to"? You're anthropomorphizing Evolution.

No, I'm not.

Oh? So you're not saying "Evolution intended that religions should organize hunter-gatherer tribes?" Then you're saying what I said: that it was nothing but (for us) a lucky accident it happened at all, if it did.

But that's a weak theory anyway. What "stake" (an anthropomorphic idea anyway) would "Evolution" (as if it were some kind of impersonal "intender") have in the collecting of any "tribes"?

Human beings have intentions.

Sure: but that's not remotely important, in this matter, for the very obvious reason that we're discussing origins: and unless you want to say "human beings intended their own origin," that objection doesn't really even address the question.

One of those intentions was for tribes to join together

Oh. So you're not saying it's not Evolution that's "intending" tribes to join together? It's some human with such foresight already in place (correction: it must be many such in many places, all at the same time) "intended" tribes to join together? One would have to ask, "if that 'intention' were not already in place prior to this development, what made all these visionary humans in different locales come up with exactly the same strategy, but using such wildly different content?

And if belief in religion was good then, and led to community and survival advantages, is religion not even more important now, since we live in a very fractured, global situation, with so many different "tribes" in play? Are you arguing for some new one-world "religion" now?

Faith is not valid reason.

Then you don't know what "faith" is, apparently.

Constantine I, was the first Christian Roman Emperor. 306-337AD. The Council of Nicaea was 325 AD. It's true that Christianity itself predates this, but until Constantine the official religion of Rome was Sol Invictus.

There were Christians long before Constantine. All Constantine invented was the Roman Catholic entity, and he did it by way of syncretism with the pagan deities of the Roman Tradition in which he personally, and many of his people, already believed. The resulting mishmash was neither Roman nor Christian...nor genuinely "catholic," since that word means "universal." Constantine is a heretical figure in real Christianity.

the Mulvian Bridge

The battle of Milvian Bridge. Yes.

It's uncertain whether or not Constantine ever had that vision, or whether he simply realized he could get farther with unified troops, and calculated the best strategy for his own purposes. Either way, he's no important figure in real Christianity. Up to that point, in fact, the emperors had been rounding up real Christians and throwing them to the lions or pouring pitch over them and using them as human torches.

But Constantine helps your theory in one way: he is, at least, a good example of a person who cynically united "tribes" by manipulating a religion. That much, you can probably give him.

I agree humankind is a special animal; that intellectual awareness is qualitatively distinct, and unique and precious.

Whoa. Let's stop there, for a second.

Think about what you just claimed. You said that human beings are "special," that "intellectual awareness" is distinctive, and that something makes it deserving of the honourifics "unique" and even "precious". But if "intellectual awareness" is only an accidental byproduct of the indifferent process of Evolution, then it's no more than detritus, accidental offscouring, a chance factor, and no more deserving of honourifics than, say, our ability to breathe or eat or excrete, all of which are also said to be accidental products of Evolution.

Why are you assigning such "specialness" to anything, if Evolution is true?

Darwin's thesis is confirmed by genetics.

Actually, it's in DNA that the monkey-to-man nonsense was ultimately and finally debunked. Evolutionary theory today plugs for a "common ancestor" theory, with that ancestor being in the primordial ooze. It no longer even mentions the monkey-to-man thing.

I'm not sure what you're alluding to with the monkey to man charts.

You should be. At one time, they were everywhere. You could even buy t-shirts with versions of it on them.

You don't seem to understand how science works.

Heh. I understand it all too well...much better, I'm seeing, than you do.

Science works by rejecting bad ideas, and adopting better ones. That's why it's true.

Wait, wait, wait...

We HAVE to pause and look at what you just wrote.

You wrote, "Science...rejects BAD ideas, etc.." Then you wrote, "That's why IT"S TRUE." Those are completely opposite claims. If science is already "true," then there CAN BE no "bad" ideas in science, and science can't "reject" anything it ever says without thereby admitting it has been "untrue".

Which is it? Is science self-correcting, as your first sentence says, or not in need at all of any correction, as you second sentence assumes?

But if science corrects itself, then it admits it is neither complete now, nor is it always correct in what it pronounces. So in that sense, science only gets better by finding out the ways in which it is, itself, NOT true.

See the problem with that claim?

You said that science has nothing to do with faith. Setting aside, for a moment, that misdefinition of faith, do you mean scientists never believe in theories that later need to be corrected or rejected? What do you do with the flat-earth theory, or the four humours of the body, or the monkey-to-man theories? Are you now going to declare them all "true" simply because, at one time, some sort of "science" said they were true?

I would think not. I would think you would probablty opt now to say, "Okay, science isn't always true; it's just correctable." And then maybe your next claim would be that "religion" is not, so that makes it inferior...

Am I on the right track?

You're a straw man, pitching at windmills with that monkey to man chart thing.

That would be "tilting" at windmills, of course.

No, not at all. I neither invented the monkey-to-man theory, nor proclaimed it "science." Others did that. I just remind us of the error of the mistaken and the outright charlatans that did it. For I have noted that people who have a blind faith in whatever goes by the name of "science," however hokey and temporary such a theory might be, have a horribly short memory for the ways in which science (real science) has had to correct itself in the past. It seems like such believers in the infallibility of science never remember how the real historical course of science went.

And I suspect it's because it shakes their faith that just trotting out the word "science" will save them from having to think. They don't want to understand science; they just want an object of worship under that name, one that frees them from having to ask questions far too painful for them to contemplate.

P.S. -- One of the ways you can always tell if somebody doesn't really know what they are talking about is when they say, "Science says," instead of something like, "The archaological records from Tel Hammid have revealed..." or "The Second Law of Thermodynamics says..." In other words, they're non-specific. A similar thing happens when a person talks about there being one "Theory of Evolution," as if Darwin was the same as Jungers or Ayala on what "evolution" means, and as if it were one unchanging "theory."

Somebody who talks that way, who says, "Science has shown..." is almost certainly not a scientist, but a Scientistic person: that is, they are not somebody who understands things like Scientific Method, let alone any particular discipline or data, but rather admires the term "science" and attributes to it God-like powers of infallibility and wisdom...wisdom it assumes does not attach at all to anything not labeled in this very vague way, "science."

They are devoted acolytes of the great god "Science," not practitioners of science themselves. They know not what they say.

So maybe the best way forward is for us to speak in specifics, no?

[Vitruvius]

You say you consider the Bible ' the single greatest literary, theological and philosophical work of all time'

I'm speaking factually.

I'm sure you're expressing an honest opinion....

No, factually. What book has sold more copies? What book has proved more influential in human history? What book has shaped not just other books but whole societies? What book has been studied more? What book is ethically superior? The Bible is the world's masterpiece statistically...by orders of magnitude. Whether one likes it or not changes nothing: it's really nothing to do with opinion.

I'm not going to argue those points, but there are other religions, and other books that are just as significant to very large numbers of people.

It would seem to me, your claim the Bible is the greatest depends largely on its influence, as the central coordinating mechanism of Western civilisation.

That's only one of the metrics I listed above, but that's certainly an obvious one.

How very gracious of you!

A faithful member of a Christian community, one might argue, does not have to believe Adam and Eve, for example - is a valid explanation of the origin of life, in order to be a Christian person.

He'd be wrong.

So Adam and Eve is literally true! And anyone who doesn't believe Adam and Eve literally true is not a Christian. Is that what you're saying?

But actually, this is one of the few points on which Evolutionism and the Bible are completely in agreement: that there must have been an original mating pair of homo sapiens. For the Theory of Evolution does not posit that humans developed without sexual reproduction, or that a great mass of pre-humans suddenly made the jump to homo sapiens at the same time. It posits that a mating pair, one more "fit" than others, must be at the bottom of the "tree" of homo sapiens. So the existence of such a pair is a point on which we have no need to argue. No tenable theory says otherwise.

No, that's not correct at all. Homo sapiens developed from the gradual evolution of earlier forms that were able to interbreed. There was no original pair in evolution. Perhaps you've become confused by the idea of the mitochondrial eve - which is the most recent matrilineal ancestor of all living humans. But she evolved from earlier forms.

If you say you believe Adam and Eve is literally true; you are necessarily saying science is tosh.

As above, no.

As above, tosh!

However, from an evolutionary perspective, I would argue that religions occur in order to unite hunter gatherer tribes

No, I'm not.

Oh? So you're not saying "Evolution intended that religions should organize hunter-gatherer tribes?" Then you're saying what I said: that it was nothing but (for us) a lucky accident it happened at all, if it did.

Again, no - human being wanted to join together, and religion was the means by which they did it. A useful device to overcome tribal hierarchies.

But that's a weak theory anyway. What "stake" (an anthropomorphic idea anyway) would "Evolution" (as if it were some kind of impersonal "intender") have in the collecting of any "tribes"?

You've got more neck than a herd of giraffes. A weak theory? Magic man in the sky has kid with a virgin, and the kid grows up and walks on water - and you're telling me evolution is a weak theory? We are not playing the same game here. I'm playing chess, and you're playing with yourself!

Human beings have intentions.

Sure: but that's not remotely important, in this matter, for the very obvious reason that we're discussing origins: and unless you want to say "human beings intended their own origin," that objection doesn't really even address the question.

One of those intentions was for tribes to join together

Oh. So you're not saying it's not Evolution that's "intending" tribes to join together?

Hurrah! At last you get what I'm saying - no need to go back and correct your post in light of this revelation of understanding, just plough on regardless!

It's some human with such foresight already in place (correction: it must be many such in many places, all at the same time) "intended" tribes to join together? One would have to ask, "if that 'intention' were not already in place prior to this development, what made all these visionary humans in different locales come up with exactly the same strategy, but using such wildly different content?

Think of all the basic similarities between cultures that were geographically isolated; art, architecture, agriculture, music, pottery, jewellery, clothing, weapons, and so on, albeit done in culturally distinct ways. These occur because that's how humans relate to their environment. Assuming the idea of God occurs as a consequence of observing apparent design in nature, and wondering; I make spear - who made all this? Who made me? Who made the world? ...is it surprising that geographically isolated humans came up with the idea of God as an authority for law, as way to overcome tribal hierarchy? There's pyramids in Egypt, and also, half a world away in South America. Why? Because they are physical representations of society. It's just how things work.

And if belief in religion was good then, and led to community and survival advantages, is religion not even more important now, since we live in a very fractured, global situation, with so many different "tribes" in play? Are you arguing for some new one-world "religion" now?

Could have been, but for the mistake of adopting an antithetical relationship to science.

Faith is not valid reason.

Then you don't know what "faith" is, apparently.

I'm a philosopher. Telling me I don't know what faith is just silly. Give me some credit - I've given you plenty.

Constantine I, was the first Christian Roman Emperor. 306-337AD. The Council of Nicaea was 325 AD. It's true that Christianity itself predates this, but until Constantine the official religion of Rome was Sol Invictus.

There were Christians long before Constantine. All Constantine invented was the Roman Catholic entity, and he did it by way of syncretism with the pagan deities of the Roman Tradition in which he personally, and many of his people, already believed. The resulting mishmash was neither Roman nor Christian...nor genuinely "catholic," since that word means "universal." Constantine is a heretical figure in real Christianity.

Reeeeeal Christianity! You've just been waxing lyrical about what a great book the Bible is. It was compiled under Constantine's rule. The pigeon shits on the board again!

the Mulvian Bridge

The battle of Milvian Bridge. Yes. It's uncertain whether or not Constantine ever had that vision, or whether he simply realized he could get farther with unified troops, and calculated the best strategy for his own purposes. Either way, he's no important figure in real Christianity.

Constantine produced the Bible that you think is the greatest book ever written. If it weren't for Constantine - Christianity would be lion shit, we'd still be worshipping Sol Invictus - and probably better off if we were!

I agree humankind is a special animal; that intellectual awareness is qualitatively distinct, and unique and precious.

Whoa. Let's stop there, for a second. Think about what you just claimed.

I spent time thinking before I said it.

You said that human beings are "special," that "intellectual awareness" is distinctive, and that something makes it deserving of the honourifics "unique" and even "precious". But if "intellectual awareness" is only an accidental byproduct of the indifferent process of Evolution, then it's no more than detritus, accidental offscouring, a chance factor, and no more deserving of honourifics than, say, our ability to breathe or eat or excrete, all of which are also said to be accidental products of Evolution.

Evolution isn't accidental; that's a very shallow understanding. It's based on random genetic mutation, that for simplicity sake - either produces a beneficial effect, or the organism dies out. It gets more complicated when you consider that evolution occurs in relation to a physical and chemical environment with definite characteristics. The biological environment is not the sole selection pressure. Heat, cold, radiation, time, space, tolerance of oxygen etc, etc are also selection pressures. Consequently, one could argue that evolution is teleological in relation to the physics and chemistry of the universe; in that the organism must be correct to reality at the physiological, behavioural and intellectual level in order to survive. Only humans are intellectually intelligent - and that makes us special because we needn't walk blindly into our evolutionary fate. We can change the environment to suit ourselves. This is a high level argument you probably won't understand, but - suffice to say, I know what I mean when I say humankind is special.

Darwin's thesis is confirmed by genetics.

You don't seem to understand how science works. Science works by rejecting bad ideas, and adopting better ones. That's why it's true.

Wait, wait, wait... We HAVE to pause and look at what you just wrote. You wrote, "Science...rejects BAD ideas, etc.." Then you wrote, "That's why IT"S TRUE." Those are completely opposite claims. If science is already "true," then there CAN BE no "bad" ideas in science, and science can't "reject" anything it ever says without thereby admitting it has been "untrue".

Because, I'm talking to you - and the time for false modesty is past. Methodologically, all scientific conclusions are held to be provisional - but you think the man in the sky had a kid a virgin, and the kid could walk on water. So, comparatively, science is true. Secondly, science is no longer blundering about in candlelight. Strict methodological provisionalism is not honest to the state of modern scientific knowledge.

Which is it? Is science self-correcting, as your first sentence says, or not in need at all of any correction, as you second sentence assumes?

Both. Call it paradoxical if you like, but I'd argue that the concept of truth is at fault. It's got so many senses - it's not very useful. Everyone knows what truth is, yet philosophers are still trying to define it. So yes, science is both true, and yet subject to continual improvement. It's like this is a map of London:



This is a better map of London:



Is the first map untrue? See the problem with that claim?

You said that science has nothing to do with faith. Setting aside, for a moment, that misdefinition of faith, do you mean scientists never believe in theories that later need to be corrected or rejected? What do you do with the flat-earth theory, or the four humours of the body, or the monkey-to-man theories? Are you now going to declare them all "true" simply because, at one time, some sort of "science" said they were true?

Right, but they are ways of describing a consistent reality, and science now has developed fundamentals of explanation - like, for example the laws of thermodynamics, the periodic table of chemical elements, the neo Darwinian synthesis. They are indisputably true.

I would think not. I would think you would probablty opt now to say, "Okay, science isn't always true; it's just correctable." And then maybe your next claim would be that "religion" is not, so that makes it inferior...Am I on the right track?

No.

You're a straw man, pitching at windmills with that monkey to man chart thing.

That would be "tilting" at windmills, of course.

Well worth saying!

No, not at all. I neither invented the monkey-to-man theory, nor proclaimed it "science." Others did that. I just remind us of the error of the mistaken and the outright charlatans that did it. For I have noted that people who have a blind faith in whatever goes by the name of "science," however hokey and temporary such a theory might be, have a horribly short memory for the ways in which science (real science) has had to correct itself in the past. It seems like such believers in the infallibility of science never remember how the real historical course of science went. And I suspect it's because it shakes their faith that just trotting out the word "science" will save them from having to think. They don't want to understand science; they just want an object of worship under that name, one that frees them from having to ask questions far too painful for them to contemplate.

Which God is it you worship?

Aker – A god of the earth and the east and west horizons of the Underworld[2]
Amun – A creator god, patron deity of the city of Thebes, and the preeminent deity in Egypt during the New Kingdom[3]
Anhur – A god of war and hunting[4][5]
Aten – Sun disk deity who became the focus of the monolatrous or monotheistic Atenist belief system in the reign of Akhenaten[6]
Atum – A creator god and solar deity, first god of the Ennead[7]
Bennu – A solar and creator deity, depicted as a bird[8]
Geb – An earth god and member of the Ennead[9]
Hapi – Personification of the Nile flood[10]
Horus – A major god, usually shown as a falcon or as a human child, linked with the sky, the sun, kingship, protection, and healing. Often said to be the son of Osiris and Isis.[11]
Khepri – A solar creator god, often treated as the morning form of Ra and represented by a scarab beetle[12]
Khnum (Khnemu) – A ram god, the patron deity of Elephantine, who was said to control the Nile flood and give life to gods and humans[13]
Khonsu – A moon god, son of Amun and Mut[14]
Maahes – A lion god, son of Bastet[15]
Montu – A god of war and the sun, worshipped at Thebes[16]
Nefertum – God of the lotus blossom from which the sun god rose at the beginning of time. Son of Ptah and Sekhmet.[17]
Nemty – Falcon god, worshipped in Middle Egypt,[18] who appears in myth as a ferryman for greater gods[19]
Neper – A god of grain[20]
Osiris – god of death and resurrection who rules the underworld and enlivens vegetation, the sun god, and deceased souls[21]
Ptah – A creator deity and god of craftsmen, the patron god of Memphis[22]
Ra – The sun god
Set – An ambivalent god, characterized by violence, chaos, and strength, connected with the desert. Mythological murderer of Osiris and enemy of Horus, but also a supporter of the king.[23]
Shu – Embodiment of wind or air, a member of the Ennead[24]
Sobek – Crocodile god, worshipped in the Faiyum and at Kom Ombo[25]
Sopdu – A god of the sky and of Egypt's eastern border regions[26]
Thoth – A moon god, and a god of writing and scribes, and patron deity of Hermopolis[27]
Wadj-wer – Personification of the Mediterranean sea or lakes of the Nile Delta[28]

That's just the male Egyptian gods - there's very long lists for each of these:

Ancient Egyptian deities
Mesopotamian deities
Ancient Greek deities
Ancient Meitei deities
Ancient Roman deities
Norse deities
Hindu deities
Hindu gods
Devi
Japanese deities

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_ ... %20rows%20

But they were all wrong, and you are right?
And science is wrong because it created a pop culture depiction of evolution.

[Vitruvius]

p.s. you didn't answer my question:



You think the similarities of skeletal structure are ______?

Coincidence?
God's botched attempts to create man?
A scientific fraud?

[Immanuel Can]

...there are other religions, and other books that are just as significant to very large numbers of people.

None of them even comes close in sales, range and scholarship to what has been done based on the Bible. It's just how the statistics line up: there's no more influential book in history, and second place isn't even close.

It would seem to me, your claim the Bible is the greatest depends largely on its influence, as the central coordinating mechanism of Western civilisation.

That's only one of the metrics I listed above, but that's certainly an obvious one.

How very gracious of you!

There was no irony. I was just pointing out that what you questioned in one breath, you admitted in the next.

So Adam and Eve is literally true! And anyone who doesn't believe Adam and Eve literally true is not a Christian. Is that what you're saying?

Of course. And the reason is very simple: if there was no Adam and Eve, then there was no Fall. If there was no Fall, then there's no cure for the Fall...things are just wretched, and are doomed to stay that way. So everything about salvation is gone as well. And that means there's no Christ, because the purpose of the Christ is to bring redemption from sin...that wouldn't exist, because there would be none.

That would leave us both in a rather undesirable position: me, because it would undermine my beliefs, but you, because it would mean that the wretched things in the world...war, pain, death, genocide, racism, rape, suicide, addiction, family disintegration, and so on...would be permanently incurable. For neither of us would there be any hope of anything better.

Homo sapiens developed from the gradual evolution of earlier forms that were able to interbreed.

Stop for a second. Think that claim through.

What would it mean actually happened?

Perhaps we should ask, before I continue, is your version of Evolution gradualistic, or do you believe in the Punctuated Equilibrium kind of explanation some Evolutionists favour in its place? Which is your version?

human being wanted to join together, and religion was the means by which they did it. A useful device to overcome tribal hierarchies.

So many problems with that theory.

One is that "religion" does not, in fact "overcome tribal hierarchies" at all. The two most often coexist. I've lived in Africa: I can assure you that many of the people there are fiercely tribal, fiercely hierarchical, and totally "religious" as well...and have been for all of recorded history.

So that boat just does not float.

you're telling me evolution is a weak theory?

I was speaking of your "religion is a solution to tribal hierarchy" theory. It's just not even empirically tenable.

But yes: Evolutionism is a very troubled theory, actually; and completely devoid of good evidence in the case of homo sapiens. (Not that Evolutionists have always been shy about faking such evidence, of course; seek the monkey-to-man theory. They got caught on that one, for sure.)

Oh. So you're not saying it's not Evolution that's "intending" tribes to join together?

Hurrah! At last you get what I'm saying

Then you're saying something that's obviously untrue. I was giving you credit for not saying anything obviously untrue, and self-contradictory as well.

According to Darwin, a thing can only be "selected for" by evolution if it already presents an immediate survival advantage. If it does not, then not only can it not be "selected for," but the organism has a liability or "injury" to its function, and so is the first to die.

So let's grant you your idea that religion helped out in this regard, and turned out to be "adaptive" for survival: what "selected for" the impulse that allowed people to become religious, when religion itself did not even exist yet?

Get it?

"...is it surprising that geographically isolated humans came up with the idea of God as an authority for law, as way to overcome tribal hierarchy?"

I have no doubt that having a common belief system is unifying. I don't even doubt that in some cases at least, an ideology of that kind could be created deliberately and manipulatively. But again, there are serious problems with this answer.

One is that religions actually vary extremely widely. Some have gods, some have God, and some have nothing of the sort. Almost all ancient religions, save Judaism, were polytheistic. And even of those that have a "god" and who have a singular "god", they often believe in very different profiles of that "god."

So we might say that the religions impulse has shown some utility in unifying people: but if we imagine its been the same kind of religion or the same kind of assumptions worldwide, then we really need to brush up on our history of religion. It's just not how it has worked.

..an antithetical relationship to science...

You know who would say you're wrong? Francis Bacon. He's the inventor of the Scientific Method itself. He was also a theologian. Or you could ask the many, many scientists who have been Theists. But Bacon would be a good place to start, because he shows you're not even right at the beginning.

Faith is not valid reason.

Then you don't know what "faith" is, apparently.

I'm a philosopher. Telling me I don't know what faith is just silly. Give me some credit - I've given you plenty.

I'm giving you credit. I'm taking you at your word.

You said you believe that "faith" and "reason" and "faith" and "science" are antithetical. Were those not your claims? Well, I'm saying you were wrong, if that's what you thought. And the most charitable reading of that is not that you don't know what reason and science are, but that you are perhaps misinformed on faith. Can I be more charitable than that, short of lying to you?

Or would you rather I had assumed you didn't understand science and reason?

Reeeeeal Christianity! You've just been waxing lyrical about what a great book the Bible is. It was compiled under Constantine's rule.

That's incorrect. There are 66 books in the Bible, and most of them were Torah, which was compiled between by Jewish folks, in the Second Temple Period. By the time Nicea came around, there were no changes at all to Torah: and that is taken verbatim into the Christian Bible.

As for the rest of the manuscripts, they all existed and were being discussed long before Constantine. Nicea debated only those NT books that remained under dispute...which was very little of the Biblical text as a whole.

There's no way Constantine did it. He wasn't even alive when most of the Bible was composed, obviously...not unless he was some sort of immortal, and could be alive in both 500 BC and 340 AD.

Sorry: that theory's just obviously wrong.

I agree humankind is a special animal; that intellectual awareness is qualitatively distinct, and unique and precious.

Whoa. Let's stop there, for a second. Think about what you just claimed.

I spent time thinking before I said it.

Then I think you'd have chosen your words more carefully. You implied an objective value claim there. There is no ground for any such under Evolutionism.

Evolution isn't accidental

Really, now?

So you think it's a guided process? Are you a Deist now?

It's based on random genetic mutation

That's "accident." Randomness is what happens when something is devoid of purpose or direction.

This is a high level argument you probably won't understand

I don't find it particularly taxing.

You don't seem to understand how science works. Science works by rejecting bad ideas, and adopting better ones. That's why it's true.

Wait, wait, wait... We HAVE to pause and look at what you just wrote. You wrote, "Science...rejects BAD ideas, etc.." Then you wrote, "That's why IT"S TRUE." Those are completely opposite claims. If science is already "true," then there CAN BE no "bad" ideas in science, and science can't "reject" anything it ever says without thereby admitting it has been "untrue".

Because, I'm talking to you - and the time for false modesty is past. Methodologically, all scientific conclusions are held to be provisional - but you think the man in the sky had a kid a virgin, and the kid could walk on water. So, comparatively, science is true. Secondly, science is no longer blundering about in candlelight. Strict methodological provisionalism is not honest to the state of modern scientific knowledge.

Which is it? Is science self-correcting, as your first sentence says, or not in need at all of any correction, as you second sentence assumes?

Both.

It cannot be. If science is simply "true," then it cannot "reject" any beliefs. If it can "reject" it's own "bad" beliefs, then it is not already true...it's trying to get more true, perhaps, but by self-correcting the errors it already has.

Which is it?

Is the first map untrue?

Yes. That's why it has to be corrected. If it were the perfect truth about London, it would never need replacing with anything.

You said that science has nothing to do with faith. Setting aside, for a moment, that misdefinition of faith, do you mean scientists never believe in theories that later need to be corrected or rejected? What do you do with the flat-earth theory, or the four humours of the body, or the monkey-to-man theories? Are you now going to declare them all "true" simply because, at one time, some sort of "science" said they were true?

Right...,

You are?

Which God is it you worship?

I'm a Christian: there is only one.

But they were all wrong, and you are right?

They are wrong, and God is right. My rightness will be contingent on it conforming to the truth of God.

And science is wrong because it created a pop culture depiction of evolution.

Evolutionism is only one department of the larger category of Historical Biology. It's a problematic one, and one with many, many obvious flaws. Pointing that out says nothing negative about, say, Physics, or Chemistry, or even Psychology or History, if we can call them all "sciences." It certainly says nothing bad about science itself. It's merely to say that Evolutionism is not good "science."

What's clear about Evolutionism is that it has failed many, many times. Ayala, for example, who is an Evolutionist, actually says that compared to today's Evolutionism, Darwin got things "99% wrong." (His chosen number, not mine.) But he adds that he thinks that the 1% Darwin got right was really important. Be that as it may, he certainly doesn't share your view that Darwinian Evolutionism is largely right, and is good science. He can salvage only the 1% today...Again, that's HIS claim, not mine.

Thomas Nagel has gone farther. He's argued, working from a purely Atheistic perspective, that Darwinian orthodoxy has begun to choke off the progress of science itself, and has so lost its utility that it ought to be abandoned. He has pointed out that Darwinian Progressive Evolutionism has actually become an orthodoxy as stifling as the worst dictates of the Medieval Catholic Church, and that making any real progress in many areas will be dependent on us finding a new (he thinks entirely secular) paradigm to replace it.

But you have to read these guys to know all that. For you, I am pretty sure, all that will be news. And I doubt you'll be happy to hear it. But ask yourself this: why would you be unhappy?

After all, if science is once again correcting its old errors, "rejecting" its "bad" beliefs, as you put it, is that not a good thing? Is that not exactly what science should always do? On the other hand, if you love the old Darwinian paradigm, and can't let yourself think of it as anything other than "truth," what does that perhaps reveal to you about how you've been holding your beliefs?

And, if that's how it's been, is that scientific of you?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If you don't accept what humans have painstakingly learnt over millennia...

What would that be, V? The Scientific Method isn't even a third of one millenia old, and Evolutionism is barely a hundred years old, changing constantly since Darwin...so you must mean something else...but I can't imagine what it is.

Scientific facts don't change to suit your particular superstition. You can't pick and choose. Go back to your cave and gnaw on a bone, then make an offering to the moon god. It might help with the mental problems.

[Immanuel Can]

If you don't accept what humans have painstakingly learnt over millennia...

What would that be, V? The Scientific Method isn't even a third of one millenia old, and Evolutionism is barely a hundred years old, changing constantly since Darwin...so you must mean something else...but I can't imagine what it is.

Scientific facts don't change to suit your particular superstition.

Nor yours.

The fact is that the Scientific Method isn't old, and neither is Evolutionism, despite your desire that they should be, perhaps.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

What would that be, V? The Scientific Method isn't even a third of one millenia old, and Evolutionism is barely a hundred years old, changing constantly since Darwin...so you must mean something else...but I can't imagine what it is.

Scientific facts don't change to suit your particular superstition.

Nor yours.

The fact is that the Scientific Method isn't old, and neither is Evolutionism, despite your desire that they should be, perhaps.

Hasn't been around for long'? Hmm. That must mean it's rubbish, just as space exploration and vaccinations haven't been around for long. Must mean they are nonsense. You could NEVER expect humans to learn and evolve My 'desires' have nothing to do with anything. You are the one denying facts. Crawl back into your cave like a good little animal.

[Immanuel Can]

Scientific facts don't change to suit your particular superstition.

Nor yours.

The fact is that the Scientific Method isn't old, and neither is Evolutionism, despite your desire that they should be, perhaps.

Hasn't been around for long'?

Yep. Since Francis Bacon in the 17th Century, for the Scientific Method, and since the middle of the 19th Century, for Darwin.

Don't you read history?

So you couldn't mean them. Whom did you mean had "painstakingly learned over millenia? "Millenia" are multiple thousands of years...far before there was any such thing as either scientific methodology or Darwin.