Ken Miller: scientist and believeing Catholic

[Taraz]

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If someone wants to call the first cause of our universe God, that's fine with me. I don't think that we have good evidence that God exists, but I also don't think we need to make overzealous claims to prove our point.

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The problem is that what most people refer to as "God" earns all these extra attributes like omniscience and an interest in our lives. If you stripped that stuff away and just called this god "Universe Entity", I don't think atheists would necessarily have a big problem with it.

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The whole series of posts I made was in response to Hexag saying that Biology proved that any God-like entity must have evolved like "everything else". I wouldn't argue against the claim that science casts doubt on a meddling God who performs miracles.

[Taraz]

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What kind of evidence are you looking for exactly? What would be sufficient?


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I don't know, it's not my hypothesis. What would be sufficient to prove creation to you?

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Hypotheses can never be proven. I think I'm actually going to start a thread on the subject.

Similarly, you can't prove creation. All you can do is cast doubt on all the other theories until creation becomes the one that explains the most and deals with all the problems the best. Unfortunately for you, macroevolution does a far better job of this than creation does.

[Taraz]

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Evolution is falsifiable.


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Christianity is falsifiable. Produce the bones of Christ.

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How would anybody be able to prove that a set of bones belonged to Christ?

What if I told you to produce the bones of Gilgamesh? How could you prove it even if you had them?

(Just so we don't go off on a tangent, I'm not implying Christ is a fictional character.

[qwnu]

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How can you be a non theist if you think the evidence for evolution is weak? You could I suppose be convinced that there is a non god like creator but I would venture to say that almost anyone who rejects the evidence for evolution has to think that a divine creator now becomes somewhat likely.

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I see what you're saying but I think you're setting up a false dichotomy. If the evidence for evolution were really so bad, secular people would come up with all kinds of alternative theories that did fit the available evidence. They wouldn't be forced to turn to God as some kind of default.

NR is the one who wants us to believe that his rejection of evolution was arrived at purely through examination of the evidence, and totally independent of his religiosity.

If this is true, why would I be so confident that I'd lay 20:1 or better that the "qualified scientists" he refers to above are Christians?

[Taraz]

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hmmm this is getting sticky.
How do I know that we are not part of some multiverse? I don't, but since there is no evidence of it, I have no reason to believe. I'm an atheist with respect to the multiverse.

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Then how can you make claims about what can and can't be in one of these parallel universes? How does Biology have anything to say about them?

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Sure, the laws of physics could be different in the 99.9% of the universe that we can't see, but we have no reason to believe that they differ. Maybe God could exist out there, in the unknown.

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But you were claiming that we have direct evidence that God couldn't have come about by any process other than evolution.

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But all we can see is that the laws of physics are universally true.

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In our observable universe this is true. But we can't observe this for other universes and anything that may be beyond what we know.

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For this reason, I think that biology -can- tell us about life outside the observable universe. The laws of physics are universally applicable, and these laws are the foundations of biology. Biology tells us that a complex being like God can only arise from a long, evolutionary process. Since the existence of the universe is a prerequisite for such a process, a creator God cannot exist.

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But this doesn't follow. These laws seem to hold for all that we can see. That doesn't mean that they hold for everything else that we can't see and it especially doesn't hold true if there is something beyond the bounds of what we could ever see.

If you want to say that there is no good evidence to believe in God, I wouldn't argue with you. The science we have is sufficient to explain most of the natural world. But you're overstating the claim.

[hexag1]

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The fossil record is more consistent with creation than evolution.

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Are you really prepared to defend this statement? In what way does the fossil record uphold your creation story?

I can already hear your argument: you will say that the lack of transitional forms between one species and another undermines the story painted by evolution. Since no one has witnessed the creation of a new species, then we have to assume that God did it.
Never mind the fact that fossilization is exceedingly rare.

Here's the real problem for your side. What fossil record -wouldn't- support the creationist view? There isn't one. Creationists like yourself have the ultimate BS trump card, because any inconsistency or contradiction in the evidence can be washed over by saying "God did it".

Imagine a paleontological anachronism.
If we went back and found fossilized human skeletons in a layer of rock a billion years old, the theory of evolution would collapse. All of the works of Darwin, Wallace, and all the other biologists, paleontologists, and geneticists would come to naught. We would have to go back to the drawing board.
For you, creationism would still be consistent. You could look at this astounding find and just say "God did it". You could say "God put it there to prove you evolutionists wrong."
Since no such fossil has been found, we can be confident that our theory is sound. The picture of life that is shaping up is as clear and consistent as any knowledge that mankind has. We can say that evolution is true with the same confidence that we can say that the earth is round, or that the sun is hotter than the moon.
I wonder if there are any theists out there going "why would God try so hard to deceive us? All these transitional forms, DNA evidence, why would God put all this stuff there just to deceive us?"

Oh yeah, Ken Miller touches on this exact point in his lecture: "I don't believe in a deceptive God"
Did you happen to watch it?

[Brad1970]

In this video, why would you need a priest to give an opening prayer before hearing a lecture ripping into intelligent design? Why would any true man of God even agree to that?

FWIW, that 'prayer' was the most bland, uninspired, pathetic one I think I've ever heard.

[tpir]

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In this video, why would you need a priest to give an opening prayer before hearing a lecture ripping into intelligent design?

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Because there are religious people in attendance who also believe that biological evolution happened? You do realize that ripping into ID is not the same as ripping into God/Christianity, right? If you think that it is, on what grounds?


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Why would any true man of God even agree to that?

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Probably because they are reasonable and came to the conclusion that biological evolution happened. And since they believe in God, and he created the entire universe, including the forces/energy/?? which led to biological evolution, they say a prayer to Him.


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FWIW, that 'prayer' was the most bland, uninspired, pathetic one I think I've ever heard.

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There were lots of people in attendance across all kinds of cultures and religions. Not everyone needs a speech on Jesus' feet being washed to get the idea.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

he was a believing Catholic

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that evolution was the mechanism by which God performed creation.

Thus practicing Catholics find no contradiction between evolution and faith.

[tpir]

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As to human evolution you may find a concensus that it happened but utter chaos concerning the family tree, which changes every time someone finds a new tooth or skull fragment.

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This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Science adjusts as new information comes in, as opposed to standing steadfast on top of a musty book and forcing all new information to either fit comfortably within it's covers, or be written off as atheist propaganda.