In what way is love a part of evolution?

Yes I think it is possible. If not for mankind specifically for sentient beings like us.

The rate and way that humans are evolving has changed from any other organism on the planet. Since we are now a global community, lacking any real predator, where the weak and diseased have as many offspring as the strong and healthy; are evolution is not particularly guided in any way. The only place are evolution can go is to eventually mix all the races. So essentially we are what we are going to be unless we impose some selection on ourselves.

My definition of God is a single supreme entity that is beyond our understanding. An entity that has the ability to create beyond our understanding. An entity that has attempted to connect and communicate with mankind.

Thats just it. It is not IMO. There is altruism in nature but typically the altruistic individual is still passing on their genes by kin survivorship. Only humans are capable of giving their life for another who is not a relative (sharing genes). Their is no advantage for such a behavior that I can think of. Unless individuals with those character traits are more likely to have kids early before giving their lives.

So the fact that literally a googleplex of living organisms have walked, crawled, slithered, swam, or randomly bobbled around on this planet for over 2 billion years and we are the only (known) critter to be able to contemplate our navels about the nature of god does not in anyway effect the idea that this is all for us or some other navel pondering sentient being?

I think large brains are an extremely rare event in the course of evolution, in my humble opinion the data, statistically speaking, is just not there to support the notion that evolution drives toward Sentience . . or really toward anything.

I think in order to argue that, you would have to take away free will, and/ or make god the great environment tuner.

How would you describe God's interaction with the physical?
As in - consistent and ongoing, simply a designer and observer, in other words to what degree is God's will (interaction)a part of the chain of evolution?

Also, with regards to "the rate and way that humans are evolving..."
You have chosen an extrememly limited selection to qualify your argument. In a discussion of evolution I would expect a very broad and far reaching examination. For example - in a universe of billions of solar systems, if intelligent life was the purpose or even a goal for the design to attain, could it have fallen short? It seems that forty years of scientific exploration and discovery is a long time and includes a lot of planets in a vast array of solar systemns not to have found evidence of other intelligent life like our own.

For your statement to have any valdity then there would have to be some limitations set for the discussion of evolution. Like - are we only discussion evolution on planet Earth?

firstly, science supports nothing. evidence supports a theory but not science or scientists. science questions everything including well established and highly plausible theories such as evolution. it is a theory and as such is still being questioned and tested when new evidence arises. secondly, i see no evidence that supports evolution that likewise supports creation, intelligent design, genesis or whatever. there's the rub. after thousands of years of ranting about a god, not one shred of evidence that can withstand the scrutiny of scientific methodolgy has ever been produced.

I agree with that. However, I think it's a moot point. I don't think it is possible for the scientific method to result in a conclusion about the existence of a god, simply because the creation itself cannot prove it's creator. As with the final result of the "Evidence for creation" thread, a first person cause cannot be proved from a third person perspective. It can only be disproved.

(But then I guess you've been saying that very thing all along. Salud! )

People go on and on about this, yes we all know there is no being called science that can support ideas.

I always understand what people mean when they say science supports so and so, its really synonymous with the scientific community accept such and such as true, or fact, or whatnot.

Lets not beat people up for using colloquialisms.

Evolution is random and it is driven. After mass extinctions there are always explosions of new species spreading out to fill the voids left. If you look at the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) It is a large predator that looks very much like a dog. Its ancestry is that of a opossum. A hyena another dog like animal is more related to cats. Clearly this form for mammalian predators is selected in nature.

As far as sentience you must define it.



Yes when I used the word science I did not mean it to be taken so literally. I used it to mean that all of the scientists and all of there data support the theory of evolution. Nobody is questioning or testing the theory of evolution. It is so well supported that you would not be able to get funding to add to its support. They instead take it as fact and study and experiment to understand more about it.

As for god. Science can only support what you can test. Since god is unavailable to come into a laboratory and let scientists experiment on him/her they cannot possibly support his/her existence.



I believe that god may be able to interact with humans during prayer or meditation. I believe that the man known as Jesus may have been more then just a man. I believe that god may have created angels and may use them to interact with humans. Can I prove this absolutely not. I just am open to the possibility. I am also open to the possibility that there is no God.



Since life outside the planet earth is unverified maybe we should only argue considering the life here on earth.

Thanks NR for your responce. Have you ever considered Deterministic Chaos as a way to integrate eveolution with the concept of God?

Most of your responces on this thread seem to point in that direction, with the exception of personal communication with God and possibly angels. I don't think there is any way to integrate religious dogma with any scientfic theoryies.

Redy,

I have not looked into that but will. Integration of science and religion is messy but necessary if you believe in both.

I don't know... I like your way of thinking, and I have no argument with you against god, since you said it so aptly, beleiving in god is a choice.

What I don't see is what you want us to answer. Evolution is working as such. God exists or does not exist, depends on each individual's choice to believe. I sense you say that evoluion as a process is not dependent on the choices of people.

So then; evolution exists as such; god may or may not exist;

Evolution exists if god exists;

evolution exists if god does not exist;

and we are to comment whether god's creation is continuing in the evolutionary process?

If god exists, yes. If god does not exist, no.

I can't seem to see what's the issue here. I think it has to do with some current issues in theology? There is a religion forum, which, very unfortunately, have been taken over by some religion-bashers. That I find unfair and actually abhorrable. Why go after religious people in their own haven? Good Heavens. Gruss Gott im Himmel!

I'm afraid I can't do anything with your question, and I don't say that with disrespect.

In this Universe a God would be classified as any entity that can turn any thought into action by altering manipulating or cancelling out the laws of physics either using "Will" or "Their Will" aided by technology

but if one doesn't beleive in an entity God then God can be classified as being either technology or technologically money

BEHOLD my breathens..for it is prophesied that a technological savior will come and ascend man beyond the realm of gods..... funches 3:16 from the(TTT bible)

"A.I." shall replace "I AM"

indeed that is what i've said all along. it's that agnostic devil in me. god is unknowable.

after the Pope acknolwedge the possible existence of Aliens and that they are also God's creatures.. even the Pope will no longer claim that the Universe was set up for Mankind

also that the Universe was set up for life can only be deem as a religious belief... if the Universe existed before Man then the universe was set up for the Universe...Life could simply be that which was formed through happenstance circumstance ...life can be viewed as the Universe's attempt to acheive consciousness

again i suppose you don't mean to be taken litterally but which evolutionary biologists take evolution as fact? has it been proven to be fact? no theory can ever be proven. it's not proven if every experiment thus far shows similar predictable results because the next experiment might show an unpredictable result that disproves the theory. then the theory must be trashed or modified. bushido takes issue with me pointing out such things about theorizing but the "fact" is that you see such wording as "modern science supports this and doesn't support that" on dating sight forums but they don't appear on serious science forums. facts are not thrown around willy nilly as they are here when the debators are familiar with scientific methodology. hell, god rarely comes up in a theoretical physics discussion unless one of the god fearing faithful bash the party and begins to spew his crap. then for the most part he's simply ignored.



yes. god is unknowable. but you associated creation with the science of evolutionary biology not me. we can test the evidence for evolution so using the words creation and science in the same paragraph is absurd in my view. not unlike using aerodynamics to explaing the thrust from several raindeer that provides power to santa's sleigh as similar to a blue angel's airshow in six f18s.

Evolution is both a fact, and a theory.

Theories are a body of facts explained. Evolution is a complex topic, evolution as the variation of allele frequencies in populations over time is a fact. It happens, even if it changes and stops completely one day, it still happened that is a fact we can stick a label on, its been observed and documented.

Here is a good video by an evolutionary biologist where in the first few minutes he explains this distinction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_itJihgk9EA

we simply dissagree as regards facts and theory. i think it safe to say that stephen hawkings dissagrees with you as well for whatever it's worth. from page thirty one of his book, "the universe in a nutshell":

"A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested. If the predictions agree with the observations, the theory survives that test, though it can never be proved to be correct."

i suppose you might argue that he never mentions the word "fact" in how he describes a theory but i'll define "fact" as a phenomena that can be "proved to be correct". how do you define "fact" in terms of proof or provability?



i just don't do youtube here unless it's for humor. we could get into a search engine drag race lasting days posting links here in an attempt to make our point. happy to exchange views with real people but when i cannot question the subject of a youtube video i don't call that an exchange of views.

The problem is the lay persons understanding of a scientific theory. They think the word theory implies that it is still being challenged or lacks substantial support. But in fact all of science can only produce theories. Technically gravity is just a theory. On a serious science forum this would not be an issue, but here it is. When I use the word fact it is only to try to convey how scientists view the theory of evolution. It is so well supported that you would have to disprove millions of studies to even remotely challenge the theory. One experiment does not disprove a theory. You have to look at the body of all experiments and evaluate their support.

Some facts exist: DNA mutates (Fact), Some mutations can result in a phenotypic change (Fact).

Evolution is so well supported that its existence is equivalent to Fact.

As far as what evolutionary biologists (me).

You all talk about "fact" as a fact. Whereas in fact the only fact that exists is "I am." (See Descartes.) All other facts are commonplace opinions, opinions that we all accept; or opinions that are not disproven; or opinions that are commonly agreed upon as facts.

This belly-aching about "evolution: is it a fact or a theory" is completely redundant if you accept the ideas in the first paragraph of this here mine post.