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Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Interbane what evidence do you have that Planet Earth is older than 6,000 years old?

And in response to your comment that "This sort of delusion is crippling to education in our country". With all due respect my friend. You may not be aware of this fact however America was built by teenagers and the vast majority of those teenagers had nothing more than an eighth grade education. Moreover the foundation of their eight-grade education was built upon Christian morality not moral relativism which states ‘I’m the god of my own Universe’. The inconvenient truth Interbane is that the religion of evolution, which teaches our children that they evolved from a rock billions of years ago, has been responsible for the decline of our educational system. Ever since Christianity was removed from public schools in the 60’s violent crime has risen more than 1,000%. There have been 29 school shootings since 1996 (170 students wounded/killed). Consider the fact that the teenage shooters at Columbine (Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold) were self avowed atheists and Nazi’s. So enamored with Hitler were the boys that they intentionally carried out the shootings on Adolf Hitler’s birthday. 1 out of every 10 boys in public schools today are threatened with a weapon. Teenage pregnancy has exploded along with an increase in abortions. The kicker here Interbane… Christian schools in the United States of America out perform all public installations in math, science, reading, writing, etc. So please enlighten how has the religion of evolutionism progressed society? If you’re going to be intellectually honest here Interbane you have to admit the religion or evolution has achieved absolutely nothing. Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle described the state of the ‘Big Bang’ theory upon which evolution is tethered stating:

“I have little hesitation in saying that a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory.” - Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer, cosmologist, and mathematician, Cambridge University)
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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O’Connor the basis for evolution or humanism, the belief system in which we’re discussing, is in fact based upon a conviction that is scientifically impossible, namely that billions of years ago all matter condensed into an area smaller than a dot, then it exploded and from this explosion all things came into existence. Question: As it relates to the first law in thermal dynamics e.g., matter cannot be created or destroyed. Where did all the matter for the Universe and all in it that is (humans, apes, earthworms, finches, etc.) come from?
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Interbane nice try my friend. I didn't say that The King James Holy Bible reads "branches of a cedar" the Bible reads: 'Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; He moveth his tail like a cedar" in others words his tail is the size of a cedar tree not the size of a cedar branch.

"The translation of behemoth includes a rhino."

Answer: The King James Holy Bible is the most accurate collection of what is commonly referred to as the 'majority text' discovered in the dead sea. It was researched and written by 50 of the top historians/Linguists/theologians, etc. over a 7 year period. In point of fact the King James does not make mention of rhino's, hippos, etc. however the revisionist new-age NIV bible owned by Rupert Murdoch does take out and add many man-made interpretations. The most heretical of these is that the NIV turns Jesus Christ into Satan a goal of the emerging One World Government and One World Religion.

"Dinosaurs? How could that possibly be, if the newest dinosaur fossils are millions of years older than the oldest human fossils? Is carbon dating a conspiracy?"

Answer: Interbane if the first dinosaur bones were discovered in the early 1800's how then is it possible that ancient man was drawing detailed pictures of these creatures even describing their skin thousands of years ago, skin images which have been recently discovered and verified. Also please explain the recent discovery of a T-Rex skeleton which still contained soft, transparent, flexible T-Rex tissue. We cannot deny all of the scientific evidence which states DNA breaks apart very quickly if it is not repaired and maintained in a biological system. What this means is Dinosaurs are not billions or millions of years old, they're just a few thousand years old. As an aside I personally have an original drawing of my Family Coat of Arms c. 900 A.D. from Scotland which features a 'dragon' a.k.a. dinosaur which was discovered a few years ago and named Dracorex Hogwartsia which means "Dragon king of Hogwarts" after the mythical storyline of the Harry Potter series. Lastly the very idea that we have fossil evidence proves that these creatures were buried very quickly, as in a flood. The simple truth is the mineralization or fossilization of a species will not occur less it's buried rapidly. I know it's a difficult reality for some however there are over 300 flood legends around the world, all of which describe the Biblical account of a global flood.

In regards to 'Carbon Dating' it's not a conspiracy it's just woefully inaccurate. There is an enormous amount of scientific data which calls into question the accuracy of carbon dating. If you're interested in the truth about Carbon Dating, etc. check out my brothers website: https://answersingenesis.org/geology/ca ... the-bible/ Nice talking with you Interbane.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Interbane wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:Again, I think the ethical question of whether faith is good is at the heart of why so many believers have trouble believing in evolution. Believers in God see comments from Dawkins about faith being a vice, and find that attitude so repugnant that they reject the entire scientific worldview.
You're saying that people have an emotional connection to the concept of faith, and when that concept is attacked, they feel attacked? Therefore they reject evolution? Perhaps there is some truth to this, but I hope this isn't the line of reasoning you use to conclude that faith is a virtue. I'm sure you see the inherent fallacy.
That fallacy doesn’t follow at all from what I said. Of course the fact that people are stupidly hostile to reason does not make their views virtuous. Any virtue in faith is entirely separate from its deficiencies, of which hostility to reason is a primary one.
Interbane wrote:
I think the harsh tones used by atheists is one reason many people reject evolution, absolutely. This is true even if the harsh tone is justified. This is why your tone with ant will never elicit anything but the same. This is why I have always had the utmost respect for DWill. He could say darn near anything without ruffling feathers.
If you look at my conversations with ant, the general trend is that ant makes stupid, deceptive and rude faith-based arguments, which I challenge. I accept that my view that faith and reason are compatible is hard for both scientifically and religiously motivated people to engage with. But that is why I am interested in drilling down with some precision and detail. This is unlike ant who insists on keeping his propaganda at a superficial level, using faith to reject reason.

If you don’t want to ruffle feathers, then stay out of the debate on religion and evolution. Ant is constantly pushing an irrational rejection of modern scientific ethics, so he deserves to get his feathers ruffled. And ant habitually accuses people of exactly what he does himself, which is a very strange and hypocritical and slippery style of argument, difficult to engage with by usual standards of logic and politeness where we assume common interests.
Interbane wrote: I see some types of faith as beneficial. Faithfulness to a wife, or faith in a hard-working boss to steer you in the right direction. But this is a different concept from epistemological faith. Social faith has a different feel to it. If you say that it is a virtue to have faith in information (a theory/idea/belief), rather than to justify the information, I'd ask why? Why would that be a virtue?
Saint Paul said the three greatest virtues are faith, hope and love. Jesus Christ said that faith can move mountains and enable miracles such as walking on water. I don’t believe that either of these claims should really be viewed as promoting a view of faith that is in conflict with science. Rather, Christ’s point is that a sense of total confidence is central to inspiration. I agree that total confidence is a risky and dangerous thing. When our confidence is misplaced, we follow the pied piper into the mountain. But when people have a shared vision, and implicit trust in each other, they can achieve great things. Without such shared vision, it is hard to see how anything can get done. Faith is about the stories that give us meaning and direction.

The virtue of faith is about a sense of shared loyalty, trust, direction and belonging. That has been corrupted by the church into adherence to impossible doctrine. But this corrupt faith in impossible things really is just a political degraded reflection of the real virtuous content of faith.
Interbane wrote: Or are you saying that the process of justification is sometimes impossible or impractical, so we should use faith as a heuristic? Again, I'd ask why? Why not suspend judgement?
People have to go with their instincts in order to live. If we all just suspended judgment where we were not completely sure, we would find ourselves in a state of suspended animation, refusing to act. The greatest sporting, musical and scientific achievements come from inspired genius, from people who have faith in their own vision and ability. These inspired examples may be just a drop in the ocean compared to the number of uninspired people, but the point is that people should follow their star, sketching the vision so others can then test if the faith stacks up.

Another aspect of social faith is people’s acceptance that they are a part of a bigger whole that they do not understand. Belonging to a team or a company or a nation often means putting one’s own judgment to one side and having faith in the corporate view. Without such shared identity society would grind to a halt.
Interbane wrote: Or are you saying that at the fringes of our knowledge, there are concepts too distant to justify, but belief is better than no belief, so we should pick something and have faith in it?
There is both difference and overlap between social and personal faith on the one hand, which I think is really where the Biblical sense of faith as a virtue comes from, and epistemological faith on the other hand, at the fringes of knowledge.

Faith is belief in things for which we lack evidence. Hebrews 11 says "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Regarding science, evidence provides grounds for confidence, but if we ever claim that an opinion is certain, for example that the universe exists, this rests on faith.

The problem here, which gives rise to some long-winded philosophical debates, is that if we say faith is illegitimate as a basis for truth claims, we have no basis for any claim to be certain that the universe exists in reality, and fall back upon our confidence that things appear to be consistent. Maybe it is just my personal philosophical attitude, but I think we should be able rank scientific claims regarding their level of certainty, and take it as axiomatic that some abundantly corroborated information is certainly correct.

For Christians though, the centre of their faith is the idea that Jesus Saves. Jesus is imagined as a mediator, connecting earth and time to heaven and eternity. The centrality of Adam’s fall to the Christian myth of salvation through Jesus makes it very hard to construct a coherent Christianity that is compatible with scientific knowledge of evolution.

Evolution just seems to throw out the whole ethical framework of worship and ritual, and science has as yet not come up with anything with the emotional power and social comfort of religious tradition.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Silvanus wrote:"This sort of delusion is crippling to education in our country". With all due respect my friend. You may not be aware of this fact however America was built by teenagers and the vast majority of those teenagers had nothing more than an eighth grade education.
This is what's called non-sequitur logic, my friend.

Premise: Non educated people helped to form our country.
Conclusion: YEC isn't harmful to education.

That's a fallacy.
Interbane what evidence do you have that Planet Earth is older than 6,000 years old?
The scientific geographic model, put together by thousands of scientists from all different disciplines that converges on a date around 4.5 billion years old. For them all to be wrong, in all the relevant fields, they each need massive and independent mistakes that somehow are all mistaken in the same exact way to converge on the same mistaken pattern. The odds of this happening are near zero. All the evidence points to an age that is much older than even a billion years, and to withhold consent on this conclusion is delusional. I'm not casting aspersions. It's by definition a delusion.
If you’re going to be intellectually honest here Interbane you have to admit the religion or evolution has achieved absolutely nothing.


If we're speaking of intellectual honesty, we'd admit that evolution is a theory, and that it remains a theory regardless of whether or not some individuals follow it religiously. So when you speak of the religion of evolution, whatever you think that might be, you aren't speaking of the theory of evolution. I know it's an attempt to score some sort of ideological debate point, but it's technically false.
Question: As it relates to the first law in thermal dynamics e.g., matter cannot be created or destroyed. Where did all the matter for the Universe and all in it that is (humans, apes, earthworms, finches, etc.) come from?
We don't have enough information to know how the universe came to be. A book written by ancient Romans is not a valid alternative, either. As for the law of thermodynamics, the theory is that all laws break down at the point of singularity.
In regards to 'Carbon Dating' it's not a conspiracy it's just woefully inaccurate. There is an enormous amount of scientific data which calls into question the accuracy of carbon dating. If you're interested in the truth about Carbon Dating, etc. check out my brothers website: https://answersingenesis.org/geology/ca ... the-bible/ Nice talking with you Interbane.
Carbon dating is one of many methods of radioisotope dating, and all the methods converge on the same dates where there is overlap. So if there is a mistake in method or assumption, each of the methods must have equal yet different mistakes and assumptions, which is incredibly unlikely. Just like in determining the age of the Earth, to withhold consent here is delusional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating
Also please explain the recent discovery of a T-Rex skeleton which still contained soft, transparent, flexible T-Rex tissue.
Explain what about it? That it didn't decay even though it is 68 million years old? Let's say that iron didn't act as a preservative, and I have no freaking clue. This lack of explanation does not leave a gap to be filled by any other explanation. That would be a classic argument from ignorance. It doesn't matter if the soft tissue isn't yet explained.
Interbane nice try my friend. I didn't say that The King James Holy Bible reads "branches of a cedar" the Bible reads: 'Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; He moveth his tail like a cedar" in others words his tail is the size of a cedar tree not the size of a cedar branch.
Emphasis mine. He MOVETH his tail LIKE a cedar. How does a cedar move? Does it dance like a troll? :troll:

To interpret the passage as SIZE rather than MOVEMENT is an error. Read it again, carefully.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Robert Tulip wrote:If you look at my conversations with ant, the general trend is that ant makes stupid, deceptive and rude faith-based arguments, which I challenge.
I didn't say it wasn't justified. I believe much of Dawkins' harsh rhetoric is justified. What I'm saying is that sometimes, the delivery undoes what the words seek to do. The way a message is delivered renders the content polarizing regardless of it's rational direction.
Saint Paul said the three greatest virtues are faith, hope and love. Jesus Christ said that faith can move mountains and enable miracles such as walking on water. I don’t believe that either of these claims should really be viewed as promoting a view of faith that is in conflict with science. Rather, Christ’s point is that a sense of total confidence is central to inspiration. I agree that total confidence is a risky and dangerous thing. When our confidence is misplaced, we follow the pied piper into the mountain. But when people have a shared vision, and implicit trust in each other, they can achieve great things. Without such shared vision, it is hard to see how anything can get done. Faith is about the stories that give us meaning and direction.
You blur the boundaries of this concept until I can barely tell what you're saying. How is faith about stories that give us meaning and direction? Isn't that purpose? Speaking of the inspiration of a musician or artist, that is confidence. It's common usage to say "I have faith in myself", but that's social faith. The same as faith in cohorts to a cause. If we seek to change our community through cause driven initiatives, faith in the group is a good thing. Social faith is more like trust. Trust or confidence.
The problem here, which gives rise to some long-winded philosophical debates, is that if we say faith is illegitimate as a basis for truth claims, we have no basis for any claim to be certain that the universe exists in reality, and fall back upon our confidence that things appear to be consistent.
Does the universe exist in reality? Why not unreality? What are you saying here? That the universe certainly exists? It can be argued that this is analytic, and we can be certain of it. The connotations of 'universe' and 'existence' overlap, referring to precisely the same thing. The statement doesn't do anything for me.

At the root of our knowledge is a necessary trust in our senses. This simple trust is altogether different than the sort of faith we would have in a proposition. If we accept assumptions and axioms to function, they are not held with certainty. They are(or at least should be) correctly seen as provisional. We should never turn a blind eye to the weak areas of our worldviews.

In the end, my trust in my senses is provisional. There could come the day when I have a legitimate hallucination, where the trust in my senses would be betrayed.
Maybe it is just my personal philosophical attitude, but I think we should be able rank scientific claims regarding their level of certainty, and take it as axiomatic that some abundantly corroborated information is certainly correct.
Why the obsession with absolute certainty? If something is corroborated to the 99.99999%th percentile, there is no functional difference.

I think I see why you believe faith to be a virtue. Because it legitimizes the leap from confidence to certainty with regards to some claims. Corroboration beyond a certain magnitude is worthy of faith on top of reason, so we can have absolute certainty in the truth of the proposition.

I disagree with it, but I can respect it. I think the need for absolute certainty is psychological. It's a form of closure, allowing us cognitively to move on to other problems.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Interbane wrote: much of Dawkins' harsh rhetoric is justified. … sometimes, the delivery undoes what the words seek to do. The way a message is delivered renders the content polarizing regardless of its rational direction.
There is a polarity here between truth and error. Evolution is true and anti-evolution views are wrong. But where the real room for debate emerges is when scientists and philosophers develop metaphysical claims on the basis of physical facts. For example Social Darwinism was the most extreme example, using survival of the fittest to justify laissez faire capitalism. In that case, evolution is used politically by analogy to support values that are not themselves evidence based.

Dawkins’ alarm is about the 40% of Americans who have consistently told polls they believe the universe was created in the last ten thousand years by God. It is morally essential to expose anyone who would give comfort to this evil delusion. Believing in the alienated fantasy of YEC opens the path to support for climate denial, nuclear war, indifference to ecology and science and various other apocalyptic dangers that threaten to cause human extinction. The situation is highly polarised, and being polite about it is like refusing to tell the coal miners that their canary has just died.

I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.
Interbane wrote: How is faith about stories that give us meaning and direction? Isn't that purpose?
Faith is entirely about stories that give us meaning and direction. For example the Christian faith is expressed in the creeds of the church. The Nicene Creed https://www.ccel.org/creeds/nicene.creed.html expresses belief in the second coming of Jesus Christ as the basis of an endless kingdom, as a framework for hope. It is about explaining why the world is bad and how to fix it. (Amazingly that linked version has a shocking typo regarding the Catholic Church).

When Jesus Christ is asked what is most important in life, he says love of God and neighbour. So faith is meant to provide meaning and purpose through the centrality of love.
Interbane wrote: Does the universe exist in reality? Why not unreality? What are you saying here?
This point about the meaning of ‘real’ is a useful example to show that atheist materialist philosophy cannot really do without metaphysics, despite the efforts of creationists to monopolize discussion of everything that is not directly scientific.
It is a simple logical point going back to the foundation of philosophy with Parmenides of Elea who held that “the way of truth" discusses that which is real and contrasts with "the way of opinion," which is illusory. “Under the "way of truth," Parmenides stated that there are two ways of inquiry: that it is, on the one side, and that it is not on the other side. He said that the latter argument is never feasible because nothing can not be: "For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are.”"

So if we wish to have a coherent logical discussion about truth, we have to assume the universe is real. In answer to your question ‘why not unreality?’, that would be to accept the nihilist possibility that everything we know is false. While logically coherent, this acceptance that unreality may be true is in conflict with the common faith that the universe is real.
Interbane wrote: That the universe certainly exists? It can be argued that this is analytic, and we can be certain of it. The connotations of 'universe' and 'existence' overlap, referring to precisely the same thing.
No, the claim is synthetic as soon as we assert the universe actually has any properties such as containing space, time, matter, energy and causality. The term ‘universe’ means ‘physical universe as observed by science’. Our assumption that the universe actually exists is based on faith in the reliability of our senses in view of consistency of data.
Interbane wrote: At the root of our knowledge is a necessary trust in our senses. This simple trust is altogether different than the sort of faith we would have in a proposition. If we accept assumptions and axioms to function, they are not held with certainty. They are (or at least should be) correctly seen as provisional. We should never turn a blind eye to the weak areas of our worldviews.
Yes, it is always possible that faith could be shattered. But it is a great tragedy that Paul Simon says he doesn’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, in one of my favourite songs.

I am exploring the psychology of the provisional. When a sense of provisionality acquires too strong a status, it can create a climate of suspicion and mistrust, paralysing the ability to act. Since Popper, philosophers of science have seen provisionality as a key ethical value for a proper liberal skepticism. To a large extent I believe this was in reaction against the mad messianic certainty of Adolph Hitler, who piped the German people into a mountain like in the story of the children of Hamlin, through beguiling insane faith in dreams of racial hatred. Hitler is the great cautionary tale of the danger of certainty, poisoning the well for certainty, and I suggest leading those who should be certain to vacate this ethical field for those whose certainty is demonstrably misplaced. Yeats put it well a hundred years ago when he wrote that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Interbane wrote: I think I see why you believe faith to be a virtue. Because it legitimizes the leap from confidence to certainty with regards to some claims. Corroboration beyond a certain magnitude is worthy of faith on top of reason, so we can have absolute certainty in the truth of the proposition. I disagree with it, but I can respect it. I think the need for absolute certainty is psychological. It's a form of closure, allowing us cognitively to move on to other problems.
[/quote][/quote]
Philosophically, the problem of certainty is the question of whether what are termed ‘synthetic a priori propositions’ are possible. Kant, who I greatly admire, found in this claim the basis of his whole philosophy, resting on faith that space, time, matter and causation are real and necessary conditions of all experience.

This synthetic faith, putting things together by reason to provide systematic foundations for thought, was the only basis for Kant to refute David Hume’s observation that there is no necessary connection between a cause and an effect. This rather obscure piece of logic extended for Kant into a basis for arguing why doing duty is morally good.

The problem is that duty, what Kant called the moral law within, always seems to come back to the circular argument that we should do our duty because it is our duty. Accepting that faith is morally necessary seems to be the only way to resolve this problem of the logical foundation of ethics.

In terms of why people don’t believe in evolution, the situation is that the philosophy of science never really went through its Kantian Copernican Revolution, but remains with David Hume in a nihilist scepticism, unsure of anything, paralysed by doubt. So ordinary people compare the new atheist intellectual smugness with the simple engagement of Christian evangelists, and too often find the evangelical message more comforting and believable.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.
I like the irony of turning scripture against creationists. I think the war isn't only with them, but fundamentalism in general. Though if fundamentalism is a condition that is sometimes inevitable depending on your parenting, culture, and schooling, I wonder if we aren't simply fighting a part of ourselves. That part that is easily addicted to false memes.

My point at the start was that if you fight such a war, you can hurt your own cause depending on how you deliver the message. This is true even if your position is justified. I do think there needs to be a leader like Dawkins for the troops to rally behind, but the environments are minds themselves. We fight in the brains of people, especially the young. They remember who is more rough handed even more than they remember the content, and that can be intimidating.
So faith is meant to provide meaning and purpose through the centrality of love.
I don't think we'll ever agree on faith. Your definition is like an amoeba, stretching all over the place. In trying to make sense of the above, you're saying that faith in a specific proposition, such as loving your neighbor, leads to meaning and purpose. Why does this require faith? Do ethics in their various modern forms require faith? There is a free floating rationale to them, where they are justified by the end on effect result. At the start, we need faith in an axiomatic value such as that our actions should maximize human flourishing. Beyond that the web is justified.
This point about the meaning of ‘real’ is a useful example to show that atheist materialist philosophy cannot really do without metaphysics, despite the efforts of creationists to monopolize discussion of everything that is not directly scientific.
The words "reality" and "existence" are synonymous the way you used them. But you're right, it's synthetic. What you say about metaphysics is confusing. Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy based on physicalism, determinism. The metaphysical part is that information is an emergent phenomenon, though always supervening on a physical medium.
Yeats put it well a hundred years ago when he wrote that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Another good one:
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
Accepting that faith is morally necessary seems to be the only way to resolve this problem of the logical foundation of ethics.
So it's not faith in general that you're saying is a virtue. It's faith in specific assumptions, a handful of them. For faith to be a virtue in general, it would be virtuous with regards to any assumption, not merely those that we determine through reason that are worthy of faith. Perhaps this is why you say "faith through reason".
In terms of why people don’t believe in evolution, the situation is that the philosophy of science never really went through its Kantian Copernican Revolution, but remains with David Hume in a nihilist scepticism, unsure of anything, paralysed by doubt.
Perhaps it's just me, but I see a perfect middle ground between these two positions. We need not be certain, but neither do we need to be paralyzed by doubt. We can admit the provisional nature of our knowledge while still being fierce advocates of it.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Robert Tulip wrote:It is morally essential to expose anyone who would give comfort to this evil delusion. Believing in the alienated fantasy of YEC opens the path to support for climate denial, nuclear war, indifference to ecology and science and various other apocalyptic dangers that threaten to cause human extinction.
Robert Tulip wrote:I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.
These delusional ravings would be hilarious if the author was not deadly serious. Creationists are opening a path to support nuclear war and apocalyptic dangers threatening human extinction. They seek to destroy the earth.It is an evil delusion.
I suppose creationists are stockpiling nuclear,chemical and biological weapons in the vaults of their creation museums? Was it the satanic creationists or the godly scientists who invented these weapons? Any fool knows that it's human greed that is the prime cause of the rape of the earth.
If it is really true that creationist's evil delusion is making them the destroyers of the earth, then of course it is "morally essential" to do something about it.
Sam Harris the compassionate,would hold that they have no real choice about what they think and do and he would do the same in their shoes. For evildoers whatever that might mean in a Dawkinsian world, such people logically, should be isolated from the healthy mass of society and treated presumably with some sort of truth serum being put in their aberrant brains.
Interbane wrote:Do ethics in their various modern forms require faith? There is a free floating rationale to them, where they are justified by the end on effect result. At the start, we need faith in an axiomatic value such as that our actions should maximize human flourishing.
If the majority shared the rationale of Robert might not the end justify the means of dealing drastically with the cancerous 40 percent for the good of the overall majority? The end justifying the means has a familiar ring to it and we are at the tender mercies of majorities and their ideologies in such scenarios.The majority are not always right.Check history.
Attempts by Harris to be robust about morality are commendable, but imagining science can determine right and and wrong and defining flourishing is erroneous and the second subjective and ambiguous.
This on Harris. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstt ... d-from-bad
Interbane wrote: Another good one:
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
Robert Tulip wrote:There is a polarity here between truth and error. Evolution is true and anti-evolution views are wrong.
Maybe, but who is being cocksure? http://www.discovery.org/a/2450
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Oct 26, 2014 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

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Hi Flann, Robert tends to take a hard tone and I've been on the receiving end of it myself. I can easily see how this ruffles your feathers. Interbane makes an excellent point that how a message is delivered will play a huge role in how that message is received.

On the other hand, there's no question that evolution is true. It's easy to see this if you're willing to look at the evidence honestly and openly. A cocksure attitude is somewhat warranted when it comes to certain scientific facts because the evidence very clearly supports them beyond a reasonable doubt (although obviously tone is still something to consider if you're interested in friendly discourse with others).

I do think Robert goes well beyond scientific fact in this post. Overall it's really quite an excellent post (right down to the Paul Simon link).

But take a look at the comments by Silvanus Publishing, who assumes an equal but opposite cocksure stance on denial of evolution and belief in a young earth. Silvanus' stance isn't evidence-based and, indeed, his position requires a rejection of all evidence accumulated by scientists trained in their respective fields across multiple disciplines. It’s astonishing really to see someone so brazenly and arrogantly dismiss all evidence in order to accommodate what is clearly a personal religious belief. It’s not that farfetched to see that such delusional beliefs can be quite dangerous. Indeed we see this right now with radical Muslims who want to kill all others simply because they don’t think as they do.

This isn’t a denouncement of religion by the way because obviously the vast majority of Christians clearly aren’t so radical or delusional. It’s a denouncement of any kind of radicalized belief that relies on distortion and lies to maintain itself.
-Geo
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