by googlemagoogle 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
As a subcategory to this post, I've always found the origins of God fascination. I do believe in the God gene withing all of us. Not something put there by an omnipresent super being, but as part of the evolution survival factor of the species.
Has anyone heard anything like this before, and if so, care to share?
steve
Fairmind, if God created God, the who created God?
steve
BD,
i am not really sure about that, BD. i have not done the reading on the stuff, so it's hard for me to say. with m-theory or big bang theory, we do not have any pre-bang data to work with, that i am aware of. so, it's more like CSI, where we hypothesize about the big bang based on data that is currently around us. so in this sense i would say that in a way they are testable. testable in a CSI sort of way.
of course, i could be wrong. most of my reading has been on bio and anthro, two disciplines not really concerned with origins at all.
That makes sense, that's where I was thinking the idea of God as an origin should go for the most, though I might go so far as to at least mention it in a cosmology class with advice to sign up for a philosophy class for further study.
ya. and you know, for all my bitching and whinning about creation in science class, i am fully aware that in so many schools, creationism is already taught by xian science teachers, if even under the radar.
i will keep debating the issue. but for all intents and purposes, i think it's a lost cause for the short term in the USA. perhaps the next generation will evolve intellectually faster than the current one.
in the long run, science will win if it keeps offering up biological solutions to every day problems, like sickness and death. people may not currently see it this way, but if they use vaccines or anti-bacterial soap, they already subscribe to the theory of evolution whether they agree with it or not. perhaps future generations in the USA will start to see the issues like this, and get on board with science education.
but by then, other countries like korea and china will already be the bio-superpowers of the world. the USA, and it's majority attitude towards natural sciences, will have spelled it's own loss.
TS
Not something put there by an omnipresent super being, but as part of the evolution survival factor of the species. Has anyone heard anything like this before, and if so, care to share?
I also believe there is some innate tendancy to worship within humans, and that it serve[d|s] some useful purpose toward survival. Particularly in light of most religions tending to make their members obey laws that (if obeyed) would generally result in a collective benefit toward survival. (excepting the odd cult that forbids medical care <cough, cough>)
In fact it was likened to a language. Snowflakes in all of their beauty do not carry instruction that results in the type of replication DNA does.
DNA is very cool. It's structure allows it to make copies of itself. That's really awesome and I truly stand in awe of it. The more you know, the more you realize how very little you know.
But that doesn't change the fact that what you're seeing as a "code" isn't a code at all. It's a series of patterns. Those patterns are able to replicate because they made up of simple, complementary chunks.
Here's a cheesy example that you wouldn't offer to JW's on the TMS after the memorial, but I'm gonna toss it out anyway:
Imagine you have some of those toys that are essentially sticks with magnets on both ends. If you throw those down into a pile, chances are exceedingly good you will get some triangles. (I know, Zach has them and I've done it) Now suppose someone walks through the house with muddy shoes and steps on your pile of pegs. He could easily walk away with triangles stuck to his shoes. As he walks away, he will leave perfectly triangular marks on the floor. Would a person coming behind him -- unaware of the origin of the triangles -- think that the triangles just happened by chance? Probably not. They'd probably assume they were a pattern on his shoe, placed there intentionally by Nike.
There's an exceedingly bad example of how a seemingly intentional pattern could form and be copied without there being any true intent.
Dave
steve,
As a subcategory to this post, I've always found the origins of God fascination. I do believe in the God gene withing all of us. Not something put there by an omnipresent super being, but as part of the evolution survival factor of the species.
Has anyone heard anything like this before, and if so, care to share?
there is a book called The God Gene, but it has not won much support from biologists at all, and i tend to agree.
i don't really think that genomes work in such specific ways. specific thoughts and beliefs are not coded into genomes, but rather only potential and predisposition are coded into genes.
so the fact that young children are naive, means that it helped them survive in an object oriented world of preditors and survival.
cultural evolution, however (in my view), has surpassed and hijacked biological evolution in certain ways. and i think one is cultural belief in god that exploits the biological/genetic predisposition to believe what you are told at a young age.
so in a sense i agree with you. but i call it cultural evolution on top of biological evolution. this is the evolution of memes, and not so much genes, although genes help as described above. i call it the god meme.
and ironically, and perhaps paradoxically, i see the belief in god as a type of annectodal evidence for evolution. the very fact that people believe in a god like jehovah, is testament to the fact that we really don't have a clue as to what is going on. and we don't have a clue, why? because we evolved, of course. if we were designed, in a designed world, things would probably make perfect sense. but they don't, and so we culturally evolved god.
TS
I for one do not think that this thread has degraded. It is refreshing to hear all sides of what truly is a matter of opinion. Am I angry with those who ignore God in support of the theory of evolution? No, and I hope they are not angry with me. I am merely a simple man who has a hard time believing that a complex universe with amazingly complex life forms and ecological systems came, not only from nothing but also without Intelligent Design!
fairmind,
i wasn't trying to pick on you, but to be fair, you didn't express yourself as evenly as above in your first few posts. all opinions are of course valuable, but what is an enlightening conversation (or even debate) can quickly become a fruitelss argument if REASONS are not given for your opinion. what you presented above is your reason for belief in creation and that's cool, but simply making assertions doesn't contribute much.
anyway, sorry if my comment offended.
TS, thanks for the response. Do you have any pointers on the net where I could further some research. I know I should get off my lazy ass and do it myself self, but hey, it Friday for crying out loud.
steve
DNA is very cool. It's structure allows it to make copies of itself. That's really awesome and I truly stand in awe of it. The more you know, the more you realize how very little you know.
i was just reading about this yesterday. it was regarding the various theories explaining the leap from amino acids to RNA, and finally to DNA. it is amazing, but what's even more amazing to me is the amount of hard lab evidence that, given the early earth's environment, these amazing jumps were totally feasible and actually very likely.
I do not feel that something as specific as monotheistic God Worship or even polytheistic is neccessarily a genetic quality in us. However, I feel that with our superior cognitive abilities, we need to know to stay alive. It is genetic that if we feel that we are not contributing to a bigger cause than ourselves, we will essentially shrivel up and die. Depression takes years off of a person's life, and what is a convenient way to push depression away for a while and having yourself feel as if you know; religion. Religion is (in my opinon was) highly neccessary in the early advancement of human beings. We did not know why fire balls seemingly fell out of the sky, and we were scared shitless by it. We did not know why our great grandfather died when he was the leader of the tribe. So what did we do? We ascribed gods to the causes of these things. I have yet to see a more convinient way to temporarily subside the feeling of not understanding the world around you and not feeling a part of something.
However, though that this has helped in keeping us alive, it has also, in many areas, been our detriment. To identify yourself as a particular genetic group in early human life, they used simplistic things such as having the ability to throw rocks accurated, or making sharp knives. Word of mouth and demonstration spread this, giving groups of humans identity and a feeling of being a part of something. However, us being the sort of animals we are, we continually needed to advance mentally. There needed to be more tactics to seperate ourselves from our enemies. We started wearing clothes, identifying simplistic cultures, and made our own God's. Now, since God-thought is highly influential and can travel much quicker than say, showing another human how to throw a rock, it travelled like wild fire. Civilizations had reason to stay on top because they had God's on their sides. History shows this to be the case hundreds of times over. Religion helped us advanced, and helped us kill each other.
However, now in these days, religion still has the ability to help a human feel worthwhile and a part of something but we have other things to help us in this same way (Many times, safer ways and more reasonable ways). We can explain many of the phenomenon that surrounds our everyday life and we have applied sciences to help with those when God-Thought wouldn't suffice. We have careers, education, and a seemingly endless amount of existence to experience to keep ourselves feeling worthwhile and helping us feel like we have a purpose. But, religion is also still doing it's other job. Religion in the early days of humans essentially had no reasoning. Besides some simple sciences and observation that seemed to complement their belief in God (such as having certain God's do certain things at different seasons. After observing which God did the best at which time of harvest, they instilled this God thought to other individuals), however beyond that, Gods were nothing more than imaginary creatures.
In my deep, heartfelt opinion, I feel that religion is still doing this. Giving excuses for ignorance and impeding progress because us humans "Know" we are right. The atributes of religion have been observed since we began recording history. I see no difference in them that stands on a supernatural level.
We can do better, and everyday we prove to do better.
if God created God, the who created God?
Stevenyc, who says God was created? God is not a creature, He is the Creator, the "first cause". He just is and always has been and always will be. God's existance is as the scriptures say proven by His creation. To deny creation is to deny God. Can you explain to me how the first particle of matter/energy came into existance from nothing? Another good question is who created the Godless ones and will evolution be their salvation?
