Belief in evolution begets belief in God

by yadda yadda 2 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  yadda yadda 2

  A strange statement I know. But consider...

  If humans evolved, and humans are a relatively recent evolution, then would it not make sense to believe there might be other far more ancient intelligent beings (who would appear to humans to be like gods/a god) who began evolving long before humans?

  In a sense, to believe in human evolution hardly refutes God's existence, unless you believe that us humans are the only thing in the entire universe that has evolved into a salient, intelligent, self-aware being.

  What are the odds of that?
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  GeneM

  /cracks knuckles

  I'm finishing up a biology degree and have a Darwin tattoo so this is a topic near and dear...

  Humans evolved from the other apes 'recently' only when you consider massive time scales. Anatomically modern humans (people who could pass as current humans with a shower and some plucking) have existed for 250,000 years. The issue with far more intelligent beings being on earth in the past (to appear as gods to earlier humans) has at least three problems.

  1) if they evolved here they would have left an obvious archeological trail. such an intelligent species can only get to such a level after a global civilization with everyone working together scientifically as we are now.

  2) if they evolved elsewhere, the galaxy is really really really really big. they would have to travel here on a massive muli generational ship, only to frak with some apes religiously and then leave.

  3) they would have zero resistance to our bacteria

  I think there is other ET out there but signal strength drops with the square of the distance... so its all static until we have larger arrays.
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  yadda yadda 2

  GeneM, I didn't mean far more intelligent evolved beings here on terra firma earth. I meant in the universe (and who could have visited humans in the past and been called 'God' or gods). Naturally humans would be the only advanced evolutionary being on this planet.

  If you admit there are other ET out there then why could there not be one or more that are incomprehensibly more evolved than us, even in a way that trascends time and space as we know it? Why could this not be what 'God' is, ie, an incomprehensibly ancient evolved being whose evolution began untold eons of time way before even this planet was formed?
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  THE GLADIATOR

  Why do humans feel a need to believe? We can take in facts, knowledge and then just say uh-hu.

  I don’t believe in the sun - I see it. I don’t believe in thunders storms - I witness them, therefore I know they can occur. I have never been outside of the Solar System but I know there are other galaxies because I have seen the evidence.

  I can study evolution, visit a natural history museum and see that evolution is supported by evidence. Details have yet to immerge but scientists are on the right track. No belief is required.

  There is no need to refute the existence of ‘God.’ I have seen no evidence that such a concept exists. The same goes for demons, devils, imps, pixies, leprechauns and so on. Once we start to imagine what might exist, our imagination can run wild.

  Sticking with the facts and adding to our knowledge as new information is presented does not require belief, just patience.
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  GeneM

  ' transcends time and space as we know it' does not really mean anything. I know they are all English words, but strung together in that order they lose their meanings. :p can god then also divide by zero?

  Seriously though, If there were something that transcends time and space as we know it that evolved, it would be a reproducing something, it would be a race of something’s, and if ancient then it would be a race of trillions or more. So much for monotheism.
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  IsaacJ22

  I think a lot of things have to happen for your idea to really be workable. It's great science fiction fodder, but really, what's more likely? That all the problems that have already been discussed (like the distance between habitable worlds) were overcome just to screw with primitive cavemen only to leave us alone forever after? Or that we just invented gods for our purposes and continue believing in them to this day?

  It's not that your suggestion is impossible or inconceivable. It's just that the second answer just seems far simpler and far more likely.
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  mindseye

  The Gladiator wrote: Why do humans feel a need to believe?

  Because that is what humans do. Ritual and mythopoeic thought evolved along with humans.

  We can take in facts, knowledge and then just say uh-hu.

  I agree that questions of God and 'belief' are not empirical and should be regulated to domains such as theology (except for anthropological and biological arguments for the basis of such beliefs). To me, religion is like aesthetics or philosophical metaphysics. In other words, you can't put it in a lab and take measurements.

  Yadda yadda, I would call the sort of ancient beings that you describe extraterrestrials or super-beings. I don't think they have the all-encompassing attributes of what humans commonly call 'God'. But that would depend on how we would further define 'God'.
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  NewChapter

  I'm finishing up a biology degree and have a Darwin tattoo so this is a topic near and dear...

  WELCOME TO THE BOARD! WELCOME TO THE BOARD! WELCOME TO THE BOARD!

  I stand by my theory that we are a highschool experiment of a teenage extraterrestrial who was thinking about the girl he was crushing on as he mixed chemicals in his science class. Unknowingly he created life as we know it, but threw the petrie dish into the garbage when the class bell rang. The janitor dumped the trash and it was taken to the dump, where those first few cells flourished and took hold, eventually evolving into the breathtaking variety of species we see to day. In the absence of the knowledge of the pimply faced teenage boy with a crush, we have created glorious gods.

  The boy knows not what he has done. He's moved on and has probably finished college by now, (time moves differently for him). Could he be our god? I suppose, but he is unaware of our existence. In other words, HE doesn't belief in US. We have ventured out into this garbage dump. We gaze at it through telescopes. We are quite concerned with it. My hope is that one day we find some other Who's. In the meantime, we could raise our collective voice and let out a faint but distinct call, "We Are Here, We Are Here."

  I may be working from the wrong scriptures.

  NC
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  THE GLADIATOR

  NewChapter I don't know what you are on today - but I want some!
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  Miles3

  Why do you feel the need to call such species "God" instead of extraterrestrials, or tooth fairies?

  If they're intelligent, they certainly wouldn't want to be worshipped. As a parent, would you want your kids to worship you and live the live you want for them? What kind of sick parent wants that?

  Thinks about the kind of garbage that went to another continent/country, and got the native to worship them because said natives thought they were gods. Those people are the lowest beings you could find among a species - that certainly will make them anything but Gods.

  And I agree with Gladiator, you imagine a situation that you don't even have the tiniest shred of evidence to build upon. What kind of thinking is that? Bad boy, bad boy Yadda Yadda, Mom isn't proud of you!