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Originally Posted by calgaryrocks
semantics i guess, it is random in that there isn't a guided purpose, but that in evolution things over time changed and old things died out, but there wasn't a plan or something to create a being.
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Not semantics, I think it's an important thing to understand about evolution that really trips up people who don't understand it.
Evolution isn't directed, isn't guided to arrive at a specific result (i.e. humans), and I think that's what you are getting at.
But be careful to understand that it isn't random at all, things change over time as a result of a very non-random process and which things die out and which do not is very non-random.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgaryrocks
i guess i struggle with how evolution explains something like an eyeball, how do all the parts slowly appear over time without having the others (what advantage would it be for a being to have just one of those parts without the others)
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And that's fair, not everything is immediately obvious. However with respect to an eye (for example), if you took two organisms that were otherwise identical except one had a patch of light sensitive skin, it's not difficult to see how that patch of skin might convey an advantage to its owner over the other one. And if there's an advantage, there's a non-random selection that occurs which promotes the genes for the light sensitive patch of skin to spread throughout the population.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgaryrocks
i guess, its something we just can't answer, but its not like big bang theorists have a leg up, they can't explain why the bang happened, people believing in God can't explain how he came to be. trying to understand time is beyond what we can understand, so i agree it isnt meaningful in itself, but just in relation to neither side having factual evidence. its belief in a religion/God or in experiments. people used to believe in a flat earth (unfortunately some still do) and it was commonly accepted 'fact'.
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I get what you are saying. I have fewer qualms with deists and there are days I myself would like to be one.. as you say as things are right now there's little difference between some unknown natural process which spawned our universe and a deist god that created our universe.
Except I throw a big "at this time" at the end. While science says "I don't know", saying "therefore some kind of god" just seems unnecessary and puts me in a position where I could have to backtrack later if it is found that the universe is a result of a black hole in a parent universe, or whatever. And given the history of the ever shrinking role of god in the workings of the physical universe I think there's good reason to withhold judgment for now.
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Originally Posted by peter12
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Oh man, I doubt I have the chops for that, sounds like a book where each page I'd be having to go to 5 other books to understand the context!
But the Monadology thing sounds interesting, if a bit metaphysical. Théodicée actually sounds interesting too!