It's not, actually. It's a scientific classification.Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 5:21 pm"Species" is just a term in an artificial categorisation system.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 4:11 pm
Except it's not. Evolutionism requires trans-species transformations, not variations within species, no matter how many there are.
"Species" means essentially that the individuals within a given group are interfertile -- which, of course, is absolutely essential for any "evolution" to take place at all: no fertility, no future generations, no mutations, and no survival of the kind.
It's not why they went there, sure; but it's what they end up doing, when the theory upon which they depend gets threatened by data.I doubt that many who go into science do it with the aim of performing parlour tricks.This confusion is one of the ways Evolutionists have succeeded in pulling off their parlour trick of making Darwin's finches or dark moths count as "evidence" for something of which they actually provide no evidence at all.
Would that all scientists would simply act like scientists, and treat every piece of evidence as relevant and deserving of testing. But scientists are human beings, and they do things for multiple reasons: Thomas Kuhn is most famous for pointing this out, but it's been pointed out by many others as well, such as Polanyi, Livingstone, etc. So that's not even a particularly "Theistic" insight. It's just how things are.
Evolutionism doesn't eliminate God, though.[/quote] Well, you can still posit a kind of Deistic "god," of course; but then you've got to wonder what the point is of having any reference to God at all. And that's a fair criticism of that sort of compromise.The incentive is simpler. Eliminating God from the universe maximizes what they want: moral freedom for humanity,
But the chief problem is that it, rather incoherently, makes man merely an animal, and one that has no particular moral orientation or duty, and no Fall from which to be saved. So salvation itself becomes unnecessary, and we get the kind of C of E compromise, in which theology no longer matters at all, really.
Oh, that's easy.I really don't see what implications evolutionism has for morality.
In a universe created by accident, there is no such thing, objectively speaking. Whatever "moralities" people may proposed, whether Kantian, Millian, Habermasian, Rortian, Nietzschean, Randean, Humean...and so on, are all merely "feelings" people have, but are unrelated to reality. There is no moral truth "out there" to be discovered anymore. Morality becomes merely a human invention, or an odd intution purposelessly thrown up by accidental processes of nature. And as such, it's no longer at all binding...and can only be made binding by the use of power.
In other words, the alternative to morality grounded in God is morality purely based on power. And power...well, what's moral about bullying people into doing things they maybe don't want to do?
He's not that courageous. But he does come very close to it.I'm sure that even that arch villain Dawkins doesn't suggest that a benefit of dumping creationism and God would be our freedom to lower moral standards.
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” (quoted from River Out of Eden)
Nietsche was much more courageous. He just said that if God is dead, morality is, too.
Oh, that's terribly easy to demonstrate.How on earth did you come to dream that up? What possible justification is there for sucha bizarre claim?The human race in general wants to believe it has no moral responsibility
Look at it this way: did you want to have a discussion with me about the possibility that there's a God to whom you owe morality, One who judges the world? Did you want to be bothered with matters of moral judgment regarding your own life, or does the very suggestion of it raise your hackles and make you say, "Mind your own bloody business, IC"?
In this sense, we are all like children, who are only too glad when their parents go out and leave them alone. We are delighted by the chance to flout the "house rules," and have ice cream for dinner, and put our feet on the coffee table while we surf stuff our parents wouldn't want us to see.
Did not Freud say he thought relgion was about wanting a father-figure? Then what is Atheism about, except wanting to klll that same father?
We're not doing very well on that, actually. How did the COVID crisis strike you? We messed about with genes, giving no moral thought to gain-of-function research, and we reaped a taste of what we sowed. That's not the first time, and certainly won't be the last.These things are not freedoms of secular society, they are subjects of secular law, which seems to function okay without reference to God.So we can practice abortion, euthanasia or eugenics, or call men "women," or sexually exploit or even murder our children, or manipulate other people as much as we want,
The cases are too easy to multiply.
No, of course it doesn't give us TOTAL control...just MAXIMAL control, meaning "the most we (think we) can get." It lets us meddle with things without compunction and without due fear of consequences. And that has always been a great temptation for mankind.Dismissing the idea of God would only lead a fool to think it put him in total control of his fate and the future.or declare ourselves "masters of our own fate" without fear, or expect the future to bend to our will and none other, if we can only find a way we can bring ourselves to believe there's no God.
