Einstein On Religion
Out of context: Reply #38
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- gramme0
All viewpoints are a result of some philosophy, all philosophies have a metaphysical take on reality. That is, a stance that is in and of itself foundational but unprovable and assumed. We call these world views. Such world views are necessary to our existence.... existence is an assumption one that I believe is not such a leap of faith. But how can you prove existence, if there is no argument that can put forth to convince one who does not believe that you do indeed exist? Much of philosophy is devoted to this topic. Christianity as well as other religions postulate the existence of a god, this statement is categorized in theology, theos (god) ology (study of). Any claim or statement with regard to a divinity is a claim confined to theology. Atheism is as much a theological study as Christianity; the major difference is the depth. How far can you delve into a study if there is nothing to study? We look to philosophy to help us analyze the consequences (or results, if you don't like the word consequence). This is an interesting point—all sciences, whether they be social, hard or squishy (as my physics prof said of biology), are tools with which we humanity use to analyze the world around us. I have found most sciences to be merely the pursuits of very curious persons.
Returning to the consequences of holding an atheistic standpoint vs. a Christian perspective. The God of Christianity is not only existent but also active; and it is not a stretch to say that God created the world according to the way outlined in the Bible. Atheism requires a naturalistic (without god) mode of origin. To do otherwise is to falsify it’s own belief system. Darwinism is an outworking of a naturalistic mode of thought, it is really no different than Christianity's pursuit of creationism. I am a Christian, and am fully convinced of the existence and work of God; but how can I intrinsically prove to one who does not believe that an invisible all powerful being exists, when I am unable to prove even my own existence beyond a shadow of a doubt? I can be fully convinced I exist, but I am truly unable to prove to you that I exist. I see the work of God in many places, but I cannot make you see the same thing.
Now, one might cry “intellectual heresy!” at this point, saying it is not scientific to play the god card—for then god is the cause of everything, and that is simply intellectual laziness. However, if you understand the implications of chance theory, then to play the chance card makes one guilty of the same heresy. In an infinitely large universe as is necessitated by the current big bang hypothesis, according to the probability law of big numbers, if there is any probability greater than zero for something to happen—it will happen. More clearly stated: anything that can happen will happen. So that pink unicorn holding up those clouds could possibly happen in another part of the universe. Heck, even a super intelligent race of extraterrestrials could have come down and planted civilizations in some part of the universe. How do we know that that didn't happen here....? Given the chance, how do we even know there isn't a god-like figure with many of those powers that Christianity has endowed upon their god in existence? With an infinitely large universe, it is almost certain that there is such a being. So where Yahweh is the God of my reality, Chance is the god of an evolutionist reality governing all that happens.
So when you said “I don't particularly have a problem with religion—people are free to believe whatsoever they wish as far as I'm concerned, but when religion is dressed up as science, it's a different story” I must say that it wasn't very well thought out. Philosophically speaking, the reality is that nothing is devoid of theology, and if religion is founded upon theological statements then even science can be religious. Unless, of course, you hold that science is only that which you believe it to be (I have actually met some who think that) then there really is no point in discussing anything. And I mean “anything” too; your world is self- contained in your mind. However, that is problematic: the fact that I can do something to affect your being is highly problematic to that stance, and death is the ultimate problem or absurdity... This sounds similar to existentialism.
But that is another problem with Darwinian evolution. Life is meaningless; your life is worthless once you die; you become dust; you’re eventually forgotten—if not within your generation, then within the next few, and if not even then, people will eventually go away all that we have striven for and sought after will disappear. I am reminded of a Shakespearian saying “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” If you die tomorrow nothing really will change, you may be missed, you might not be but it really doesn't matter one way or another. It’s all a process of chemical reactions, which in the end is meaningless—unless you see that survival is the meaning which makes things go—but then death is still meaningless for it is the end of survival, which is the end of meaning. This is a depressing outlook and by no means a necessary one. In the end, evolution is no more scientific than creationism, for both are fundamentally grounded in theological statements. For if “Intelligent Design is a simple re-branding of the Creationist movement, whose roots are firmly planted in fundamentalist Christianity”, then evolution is firmly planted in atheism and secular humanism, or at best deism. (By the way, I partially agree with you that ID is re-branded creationism; however, the difference is that ID does not intrinsically rely on the Bible, which is a big difference). For those theistic evolutionists, I have to ask that if God could, then why didn't he make it all in 6 days? Long drawn out age/days are not only theologically problematic, but the theory really doesn't make much sense. God could have figuratively snapped his fingers and made it all in an instant. The language of the Old Testament is such that the delineation of creation is 6-24hr days while resting the seventh. I will admit that with modern observations a 6-24hr creation has its problems but we do not know everything. We still have our own missing links.
In regard to entropy and sin. The consequences of sin are not what entropy entails. The first and second laws of thermodynamics are referencing the nature of energy and energy flow. The first, being that energy is conserved; the second, that entropy or disorder either stays the same or increases. When a chemist adds heat to something we can also say that he has made the entropy of that system to increase. Microscopically, it’s more a reference to molecular and atomic conditions. That is how fast they’re moving, and a way to track the first law if energy is conserved where is the energy going. Macroscopically is where it can get a little hairy. In a closed system, entropy stays the same—it just may shuffle around a bit. Fundamentally, according to the big bang postulate, the universe is not only infinite but also closed. This is used to displace the fact that the evolutionary build up of proteins and other biological information is contradictory to the second law. It is viewed as a balancing act: evolutionary build up of order occurs here at the expense of degradation elsewhere. I might add that this is yet to be proven. Many creation advocates seem to put forth an open universe—that is, the notion that matter is not homogeneously spread through out the universe. In an open system entropy increases. That is where the consequences of sin could come in, possibly, but to say so I can't help but feel like I am using a Spanish to English dictionary to try and understand Japanese. We are speaking different languages. The way I see it is that God the creator and sustainer of all things is the ultimate and infinite source of energy. Once the fall of mankind took place, the curse changed how God sustained us. He limited the outflow, but even now to some extent sustains us. Consistency is part of His nature as is justice and mercy. Theologically death is the judicial result of sin, mercifully postponed. But other things also happened such as the introduction of thorns in the ground and Adam's having to work the soil. This possibly implies a second creation but that is problematic, although handy to explain viruses and parasites. The bible is not clear on many issues or perceived issues as some cases may be, to say our understanding is complete is not only foolish but a lie. But that is not to say it is wrong, but that our current understanding is incomplete. One must remember our history, in the late 1800s early 1900s a man once said that everything which has been invented will be invented. History teaches of man's arrogance. It is my belief that Christianity is more right than any alternative, and that the bible has yet been proven to be incorrect despite many efforts. Sure there are things that I am confused about but I am not a god my knowledge and understanding are limited.
Your declaration that there is overwhelming evidence of evolution may be correct for you, but there is yet to be evidence that is sufficient for my doubts. There are too many missing links to give evolution credibility. Fossil-ly they must contend with the Cambrian explosion that points to Darwin's tree only upside down which is cogent along with the entropy law, that is a progressively diminishing genetic record. Also geologically speaking there is too much time given for fossils to form. To form a fossil requires some rather unique conditions least of all a very speedy burial, the geological time frame is overly generous and it is a pure miracle that fossils formed under the currently held circumstances. The fossilized forest also presents some rather unique problems for evolution. Where trees grow up through what was said to be millions of years of sediment deposit is problematic. There is no easy way to resolve this issue with current geological understanding but to give credence to the implications is to under gird the whole concept of the geological time frame.
Now time is a fickle friend, it both serves my arguments as well as can hinder them. When it comes to isotopic dating such as carbon dating the basic principle of half life rules out millions of years. If carbon dating is the source of age then that object can be no older than approx: 50 thousand years (which is a generous approximation) no matter how much of the stuff you originally had. I always laugh when I hear a so called scientist say an object is X million years old by carbon dating standards, there is simply no way in our knowledge of chemistry that allows that as a possibility. In mineralogy there are other isotopes who's half life give credence to older histories but those tend to be too rare to bother with. However even in the time frames actually dealt with by isotopic dating there is an underlying assumption that that isotope from the moment of death is only decreasing by the regular half life pattern which is characterized in closed systems. Which is the problem, a rotting corpse is not a closed system but is very much breathing or rather those organisms which are decomposing it are breathing which could conceivably add more carbon 14 to the system. Even after complete decomposition, the process of fossilization which is the replacing of the organic substances with in-organic minerals could also add more c14. The fact that c14 is already in rather small quantities in a living organism would mean that any addition to that quantity could have very significant effects.
In all honesty the only argument that I have come across that is really difficult to deal with in regard to an old universe is the cosmological argument. But the fallout of evolution in view of actual science leaves me convinced that the current cosmology will follow suit. In the meantime I have always been more interested in biology than physics and will pursue biology instead.Your argument against the canopy theory assumes that world looked similar to as it does today. But I think geologically there is enough evidence to say that it was not. One must ask if God provided enough water to completely cover the earth before the flood then where did all that water go. A replay I once received was very interesting... that is that the water is still here. The bible states the water covered the earth to a depth of only 20 feet above the high hills (literal translation) not mountain although can mean the same thing (Genesis 7:20). If you take the idea of a single continent and the fact that it took Noah around 100 years to build the ark you have the ease in which Noah obtained the animals as well as the idea of continental drift the flood condition becomes a bit more viable. I say continental drift with intent. That the drift really began during the flood, verse 7:11 states “....that the fountains of the great deep were broken and burst forth...” (amplified bible). Seems to give way to an idea that this was a truly cataclysmic event. The gist of my line of thought is that the water only seemed to recede, but that the ground actually came up, that Noah's landing on mount Ararat was more that Ararat came up underneath him. But given the text you could also conclude that Noah landed within the vicinity of the mountains of Ararat not necessarily on it. Now if that seems like a stretch just think that those in the Midwest US lie in a old sea bed that is a low level, low saline sea bed. The only real difference is time frames, I will admit that what I said is unlikely given our current understanding of time frames but I also showed in my above arguments that there is reason to question our current understanding of time frames.
Evolution is taught as theory because it is the fundamental philosophy of our education system not because of so called overwhelming fact. The facts of evolution are like impressionists paintings... only recognizable from a distance. Under close scrutiny the definition is lost. You can make all the assertions you like but I have yet to have read one good piece of evidence you put forth in support of evolution despite your insistence of an overwhelming amount.
Speciation, along with taxonomy, are interesting notions. With regard to either evolution or creationism: to say those notions are well defined is not being very honest. For a while a specie was defined by a group of similarly looking organisms that will naturally breed and produce fertile offspring. Now that may sound fairly specific, but nature has a way of confounding our definitions. For instance a mule, the combination of a male donkey and a female horse. There have been substantiated accounts of female mules giving birth, which is impossible according to our definition of a hybrid. You will find nature to be full of living impossibilities, such as the bumblebee, which should not be able to fly according to modern aerodynamics. I know a group of biologists who are doing a study on several species of cave dwelling salamanders that are naturally interbreeding, and if the offspring is fertile they will consider it to be a new species—which does not hold to the traditional definition of what a specie is. With their concept of specie it is not hard to say that a new specie has arisen in the last 2000 years. But with that same definition it would not be much of a stretch to say that Asians, Caucasians, and blacks are all different species, while the children of mixed races are altogether new species as well. I hold that this is absurd and rather counter productive to the process of understanding our natural history. A creationist’s view of speciation is that of kinds; now it is not just an account given to show how all the animals could fit into the ark, it is more an account to address evolutionary missing links. Hack the branch off where it doesn't connect to the tree (it’s not difficult if there is no connection), plant a new tree, and you may begin to get an understanding of speciation according to creationism. Instead of saying that all life is a continuance of preexisting life, that is to say that the dinosaurs still walk among us albeit they just look different, we say that they became extinct and there are no living relatives. The reality of such a line of arguments boils down to saying my missing links are more logical than your missing links...but is that scientific? When I say “kind” it is like referencing wolves with regard to various dog breeds. This is an instance of micro-evolution, not macro. Macro is a lizard growing wings to catch flying insects because it can survive better by doing it and slowly become a bird. Micro is where a kind reaches out into its various forms that are genetically available; the fundamental difference is that no new genetic material is gained in such a degree that it will fundamentally change its physiology to be something else, all the while maintaining its ability to survive and reproduce. This is what the irreducibly complex ideology addresses. That is, that there are certain fundamental structures that are useless with all of their parts already present; if missing any one part, the whole becomes non-functioning and useless, in some cases becoming detrimental. Let me put it this way, the ability to fly requires certain features, not the least among of which are wings or possibly small enough mass that wind energy could overcome gravitational force. Modern descriptions of winged animals boil down in effect to the notion that some lizard wanted to fly in order to catch those pesky insects (which already had flight somehow) that would torment the lizard with a flight pattern just outside of the lizard's reach. So, after many generations of jumping up and down waving it's front limbs, they grew longer, became covered in feathers, and the former lizard was now able to swoop down and seek his revenge. Now please correct me if I am building a straw man. That is not wholly my intention, but this is the best basic explanation of how birds obtained their wings that I have been given by evolutionists. I find this account doubtful at the very best. First of all, how did insects obtain wings for the lizard to desire to go fetch? Secondly, lizards survive remarkably well without wings, so I fail to see the survivability need for wings. Thirdly, what happens to the lizard that takes a bit too big a leap, say off a cliff, thus plummeting to its death? For procreating purposes, being dead is rather limiting!
Survival of the fittest is rather misleading for it is not always the most fit that survive—rather it should be called sex drive. Those that breed the most lead the most. This does not lead to genetic variation, but rather homogeneity. And if survivability is the end all, how do you deal with interdependent plant/insect associations? It is survival suicide to become dependent upon an outside force. All life is intertwined somehow, in what is called the grand scheme of things... or I prefer the grand design. The concept of food chains is too limiting—there are, more accurately, food webs. There is no evidence of macro-evolution and the basis that is given is overly loose with too many missing links. If the missing link is the missing evidence you can't use it as evidence, for it is missing. That is why I say that evolution is only a hypothesis. By the way that is also the position I hold with regard to creationism—that is that it is a hypothesis. In terms of what science can prove, it cannot prove either evolution or creationism to be fact or even theory.
“Science, by definition, does not allow for ID because ID is manifestly untestable and unfalsifiable. Furthermore, the "designer" is an unnecessary term, as the diversity of life on earth can be explained perfectly well by naturalistic processes that we know to exist (i.e. organic chemical processes, genetic mutation, recombination and natural selection). ID thus fails the test of logical parsimony (AKA Occam's razor). On top of this, ID cannot be used to make useful predictions about the natural universe and is therefore utterly useless as a theory. You really don't explain anything by saying "God did it" (sorry—"the designer") because you have no idea HOW God did it. Evolution theory, on the other hand, lays everything out precisely and completely, in terms of just a handful of simple, elegant principles.”
“Untestable” and “falsifiability”: I am not sure you really want to use those terms. The concepts of irreducibly complex biology and specified complexity are the heavy weight arguments for ID; those are both very testable and falsifiable. For those who wish to read more about these concepts I recommend Dr. Behe and Dr. Dembski. Occam's razor is there to prevent irrelevancy from slipping into a scientific theory. Like black cats causally producing unfortunate events that is bad luck. Both irreducibly complex structures and specified complexity point to a designer a relevant factor, and therefore no longer does Occam's razor toss the term out. In addition, life on this earth cannot be easily explained. Many have tried to prove that life could have begun in a Darwinian fashion, but have come to nothing. A scientist even once tried to show the necessary conditions in which an organic molecule could have formed; if I recall correctly it was an amino acid. Under the conditions that were held to be there during that developmental phase, he failed miserably—proving that no matter how much electricity flowed through the primordial soup, no amino acid formed. It was only through substantial manipulation and a complete change of atmosphere that he was able to get something remotely organic out of the slurry. The atmosphere that he ended up needing is toxic to known life. One must really ask: is evolution actually falsifiable? For all tests have certainly not proven it, it’s just that nothing yet has really overwhelming disproved it. So what it really comes down to is that you have no idea HOW evolution actually did it. I find it ironic that this argument took place in a forum comprising mostly of designers—for your use of Occam's razor would thus eliminate the need for any designer. In an infinitely large universe, it is a perfectly mathematical possibility that everything popped into existence—for who is to say it didn't?
“Micro-evolution, the logical consequence of which (when we extrapolate over long periods of time) is macro-evolution.” It is not a logical progression, especially with what is known of modern genetics. The use of micro-differentiation in single-celled organisms to prove macro-evolution in multi-celled organisms is like saying cancer is good for you. Should not have survival of the fittest have ruled out such genetic illnesses? Although not necessarily inherited (it can be), cancer is a result of mutant genes. And remember that even the fittest among us still get sick. What if they kick the bucket before reproducing? That is a loss of genetic information, which is what occurs at all death. If you want to use antibiotic-resistant bacteria, you must realize that every antibiotic that won’t kill you monopolizes on a natural pathway within that bacteria. If that pathway is hindered by a genetic mutation, then the antibiotic won't work as effectively. For instance penicillin, we all know, comes from a mold which was found accidentally growing in a bacteria culture. Most, if not all bacteria is naturally resistant to small doses of penicillin; it is only when penicillin is given in larger doses that it kill the bacteria. The bacteria produce a chemical that negates the effects of that small dose of penicillin, but those penicillin resistant bacteria are actually crippled in that they produce too much, at the expense of other pathways, of that chemical which resists penicillin. When the penicillin resistant bacteria culture is reintroduced to its original culture, the original culture out-competes the resistant bacteria. Such genetic mutation is in accord with creationism, that is genetic degradation.