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Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…That's incorrect because you CAN’T do something morally right if you can't do something morally wrong
….
(my emphasis)

What?
Did I say you CAN do something “morally right”?
I didn’t say/imply/claim this nor do I believe it.
I think you must have somehow misread my post.

…If you make mistakes then is that morally wrong?
...

...[text shortened]... omehow misread my post and I think you will see this if you read my post again very carefully.[/b]
Here's what you said "Whenyou say "right" here, do you exclusively mean MORALLY right?
If so, then that is correct.
If not, then this has no relevance to my claim but the answer would be no because I make mistakes".

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Originally posted by daniel58
Here's what you said "Whenyou say "right" here, do you exclusively mean MORALLY right?
If so, then that is correct.
If not, then this has no relevance to my claim but the answer would be no because I make mistakes".
Yes -I said this in response to your question:

……if you can't do anything wrong then can you do anything right?
….


Sorry! -just noticed I had misread your question and read it kind of back-to-front.
-I apologies 🙂

So I should have said (and I say it much more clearly this time so there can be no misunderstanding) :

“IF that’s what you mean by “right” above (i.e. exclusively MORALLY right)
then that is incorrect i.e. the answer to your above question is “no” (i.e. you can NOT do anything “right” because there is no “morally right&ldquo😉.
But IF that’s NOT what you mean by “right” above (i.e. NOT exclusively MORALLY right) the answer to your above question would be “yes” (i.e. you CAN do something “right&rdquo😉 because I may fail to make a “mistake” and for me to fail to make a mistake can be said to be me doing something “right” using the more general meaning of the word “right” that doesn’t necessarily mean “morally right”.

Sorry for the confusion -hope that fully clarifies
(and this confirms that I can make a ““mistake” 😛 ).

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Umm... why can't evolution be the way God created everything, except perhaps humans? ?_?

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Originally posted by LinkHyrule
Umm... why can't evolution be the way God created everything, except perhaps humans? ?_?
No absolutely, god could have instituted the messy, wasteful, inelegant process of evolution thereby unleashing untold suffering on countless generations of organisms, whilst at the same time bypassing this process completely for humans. Makes perfect sense 🙂

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Originally posted by Lord Shark
No absolutely, god could have instituted the messy, wasteful, inelegant process of evolution thereby unleashing untold suffering on countless generations of organisms, whilst at the same time bypassing this process completely for humans. Makes perfect sense 🙂
"Think of the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap yet your Heavenly Father feeds them, and how much more you, oh ye of little Faith?"

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Originally posted by LinkHyrule
Umm... why can't evolution be the way God created everything, except perhaps humans? ?_?
…why can't evolution be the way God created everything,
….


In what way would Darwinian evolution require divine intervention? Answer, it doesn’t.
To say that “God” is behind evolution is like saying that thunder mean that “the gods are angry!” for both are processes that don’t require any intervention from a deity to occur.

……except perhaps humans?
….


All the evidence suggest otherwise.
For example, we have many of the same flaws in our anatomy as other primates (such as blood vessels being in front of our retinas instead of behind them etc) which clearly indicates no intelligence was involved (or at least if there was an intelligence then that intelligence makes stupid mistakes! -that doesn’t seem logically consistent with the hypothesis of there being a flawless all-knowing “god” involved) and also we have most of our genes in common with other primates and the very young human embryo has gills showing our evolutionary link with fish etc etc.

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*facepalm* I'm speaking to a brick wall here...... lol

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Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…why can't evolution be the way God created everything,
….


In what way would Darwinian evolution require divine intervention? Answer, it doesn’t.
To say that “God” is behind evolution is like saying that thunder mean that “the gods are angry!” for both are processes that don’t require any intervention from a deity to occur.

……except ...[text shortened]... ates and the very young human embryo has gills showing our evolutionary link with fish etc etc.
So you Believe in evolution?

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Originally posted by daniel58
So you Believe in evolution?
Yes -for it has been scientifically proven.

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Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Yes -for it has been scientifically proven.
By who Darwin? You? Michael Jackson? I'm talking about God.

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Has God come down and said it is not true? I don't think you could quote scripture that would give perfect evidence of that, since much of the scriptures are written in symbolism

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Originally posted by daniel58
By who Darwin? You? Michael Jackson? I'm talking about God.
……By who Darwin?
….


Only partly. Who gathered the evidence is pretty much irrelevant to its scientific validity.
Many people were involved in gathering the mountain of evidence for evolution and the evidence is still coming in. That mountain of evidence already amounts to proof.

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Originally posted by daniel58
So you Believe in evolution?
It's not a question of belief, it's a case of accepting the evidence. Evolution isn't a 'belief system' like religion, it's a fact.

The question i put to people who don't 'believe' in evolution is - you do so because you have read, digested and refuted all the scientific papers on evolution over the last 150 years? Or simply because it contradicts your faith?

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Originally posted by CalJust
There have been 245 threads on evolution since 2004.

Just kidding - I haven't actually counted them!!

But I am somewhat curious - after all those innumerable discussions, is anyone from either side willing to confess that they have been - even a little bit - influenced by the opposite point of view?

C'mon, be honest!!
I was influenced enough by the ID movement to investigate it. Unfortunately there was no real science behind it.

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Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…It seems to me that—if Aristotle is right about eudaimonia, and if eudaimonia can be generalized at least somewhat with regard to a bundle of natural human traits—then there is some “natural” conjunction here between “is” and ethics.
….


I don’t know what you mean by “if eudaimonia can be generalized at least somewhat with regard to a bun ...[text shortened]... sed with what is the “moral” thing to do -perhaps it should be called the “wise“ thing to do? ).[/b]
You’re right: that phrase is confusing, and I’ll rethink it.

You’re also right about the conventional conflation of ethics and morality. But they are not always so conflated by philosophers. And I think there can be some confusion there. For example, my impression is that most people, using either the word ethics or the word morality, have in mind some deontological system—i.e., based on the idea that there are objectively recognizable obligations, and that a moral/ethical person is one who fulfills those obligations (or at least has the intent to do so, even if one is prevented from actually doing so). I am not a deontologist, which always seems to me to reduce to “one ought to do what one ought because one ought to”—at least if one is a rational agent.

But that is not the only ethical/moral view. So, I think my attempt to find some way of making distinctions is valid. And, I am not inventing the particular distinction I made.

If I were to speak of virtue ethics, I also would have to make clear that that word “virtue” was also not used by the Greek philosophers in the same way that it is generally understood today—which, again, I think would have something to do with “morality”. Aristotle considered wisdom to be a virtue, because it is necessary to attain the value of eudaimonia. So, a virtue would always be (as I understand it) a virtue vis-à-vis its contribution to some value.

So, to act wisely—as you used it here—would be part of a “virtue ethics” aimed at living a life of flourishing well-being.

However— Well, while I find the conflation of such terms as ethics, morality, obligation and virtue to be confusing, I obviously am not doing well at being clear myself. As usual, I doubt that you and I are far apart on our thinking. But I will go back to the drawing board for awhile…

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