The second post has descended upon this platform with undeniable alacrity.
To maintain consistency and continuity, I respectfully request that the esteemed reader engage with this second post as soon as possible after reading the first. Hopefully, this will help with comprehension. It is to be remembered that the human brain is a vain and frail vessel and responds well to prompt succession, as an aid to ultimate understanding. Only then can a man succeed on the path to wisdom and, mayhap, enlightenment. Delay will foster mind lapse, and the connection between the two posts will be lost in a web of synapses that often misfire. Do not fall into the trap of delay and procrastination, as this will foster a slothful mind and, dare I say, a laggard, indolent countenance. Brook no delay and engage the posts in dogged sequence. Only a fool would digest the second before the first. Remain diligent for distractions and those who will divert you from my noble/ignoble composition. Remember, detractors and wastrels abound, ready to pounce and endeavour to veer you from your august literary quest.
Some say I'm an unrequited genius. Why others aver that I'm a mad old man with a tenuous grip on reality who bothers check-out girls in Tesco. Only you can decide!
We have an evolutionary mechanism that thrives on waste and inefficiency. It is hard to square these problems with the Christian conception of god. Could god not have come up with a mechanism that negated universal suffering and waste? Mayhap god has limitations on his powers and must follow natural laws. This explanation does not sit well with the theologian, but they are unable to offer a solution that is satisfactory to both the biologist and the theologian.
There is a common misconception that evolution is working toward 'perfection'. This would imply that evolution is somehow a directive process seeking a final goal. However, this is not the case; organisms are not optimal for many reasons. Often, structural limitations lead to suboptimal solutions for a specific function. Examples abound. Let us take the human body, for instance, and examine an anatomical feature that, from an engineering perspective, could be improved. I chose this particular example as it is the bane of many older men. Recently, I had a PSA test, due to my age, and luckily, I'm fine, for now.
The male prostate provides fluids for the ejaculate. It is a walnut-sized organ that surrounds the urethra, which conducts urine from the bladder to the outside. The prostate contributes nothing to the urinary process, yet there it sits. Unfortunately, not only is this organ prone to cancer in older men, but it also has a propensity to enlarge as we age, with the obvious adverse symptoms as it slowly strangles the urethra. Surely, god in his infinite wisdom and love could have devised an alternative anatomical location. A good engineer would have placed the prostate within the scrotal sac, next to the sacred/sacral testes. The products that leak from both organs act in concert to ensure the proliferation of the next generation. The prostate's position is notably sub-optimal. Why the prostate is positioned thusly is hard to fathom. Mayhap there was no selective pressure in the past to remedy the situation, as men did not live long enough to suffer the consequences of natural selection that could effect change. Perhaps it provides evidence that god is female with a wicked sense of humour. This example is just one of many instances where there is room for anatomical improvements in the human body. This is also true for many animal species. A quick Google search will reveal a plethora of such examples.
The above shows that evolution is capricious and often defies logical analysis. Optimisation is not a quest. Natural selection may produce a solution that, while not perfect, is good enough for the circumstances and purpose. The critical point to make is that if an Intelligent Designer had a role in the process, he did a piss poor job. In the final analysis, it makes it difficult to square theological evolution with naturalistic evolution. There is no need for a supernatural guiding hand, as nature has the whole situation covered. The theologian must either accept the evidence and suffer the consequences or retreat into the presbytery, and confront matters best suited to their temperament and intellect, and leave science to the scientists. What say ye?
I'll leave the last word to Darwin. Take note and heed.
“what a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!” & “there seems to be too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”
Fine words indeed, Mr D.
Methinks, Sir Flaxon, that your conflict with your mother’s JW faith could have somewhat flavoured this argument. Christianity predates Mr Darwin’s book by 1859 years, so it has had plenty of time to peddle it’s message of a beneficent deity enough for it to become embedded in the ‘western’ psyche; both then and of course even now. There is no other reason to assume that a deity has to be kind, or even omnipotent.
ReplyDeleteIf we were to put religion on one side and view evolution in a purely rational way, then the idea of some kind of intelligent design, maybe coming from another dimension we aren’t aware of, still will not go away. The rules of probability see to that.
We know, for example, that to win the Euromillions Lottery, all I have to do is tick off five numbers between 1 and fifty, plus two ‘lucky’ numbers between 1 and 12 (I think). Just that simple bet has odds of 320 million to one, and I venture to suggest the odds of your fabled wasp larva successfully choosing which of the caterpillar’s organs to eat first, then second etc. in order to prolong its agony, would be exponentially more improbable than a me becoming a multimillionaire with simple lottery ticket.
Nature’s complexity is astounding and becomes ever more so with each new David Attenborough TV show, and yet science has still not found empirical proof of how amino acids were first combined to form the simplest of living cells.
I think until scientists can do that, we have to leave the God idea on the table for now.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHello Anon, no, my mom's faith has had little effect on my development. Sadly, she was an inconsequential soul who wandered throughout life without comprehending. Now, my father was a different kettle of ferrets. His influence on my early life was immense; very little of it was good, though.
DeleteBy chance and circumstance, Western cultural, social and theological development has been dominated by the Christian faith for 1600 years. It doesn't mean it is true. As for ID coming from another dimension. Not only do we have ID as a concept without rational comprehension, but you have introduced another concept- 'Another Dimension', also without informational content. Before we start multiplying entities without evidential support, we need a definition of what ID actually is. What mechanism defines this concept? Also, it is predicated on the existence of an entity called 'god'. What is god? What are its properties? How would I know your god if I bumped into him/her/it? This might seem a silly question to the believer. But few Christians, even educated believers, have any coherent conception of the deity they supposedly adhere to. And reliance on faith will not do. Based on faith, you can believe in anything. Faith does not provide informational content of any kind. When pushed into the corner, the faithful will blurt out a series of properties founded on nothing, and many of god's so-called attributes are incoherent, contradictory and without foundational evidence.
As for evolution producing a wasp with a strategy that aids its survival, it is not particularly improbable. Acting over millions of years with small adaptive changes fixed by differential survival and reproductive prowess, this would be inevitable.
I agree that our existence is bound by a whole series of improbable events. But here we are commenting on my blog post. This is a case of survivor bias. Consider this: How many grains of sand exist on planet Earth? A single small beach would contain trillions. Now add to this the grains of sand on all the beaches, all the deserts, everywhere on land and under it. Add to this all the grains that exist in the oceans. The final number would defy human comprehension. The probability of picking a single particular grain would be unfathomably low. But if I could travel anywhere on this planet and pick a single grain and hold it in my hand, there it would be, regardless of probability. To that grain of sand, would it appear improbable to be picked if it had no information regarding how many grains of sand there were on Earth?
The problem with leaving the 'god idea' on the table is that 'god' is not an idea at all and therefore is not alternative competitor.
Apologies for the delay Flaxen but I had a medical appointment yesterday in our big city which required an overnight stay.
DeleteFirst, I only posted as Anon because I’m too thick to figure out how to do it any other way. My name is Dave and, I’ve been a fan of yours for some time. I hail from the Tipton of the North, Bolton, although I haven’t lived there for nearly fifty years.
I think that you and I are broadly of the same mind on this God subject. I also wait for an empirical reason for our existence and I’m sure that an as yet unthought of eureka moment will come one day. Until then I couldn’t give a toss whether there is a god or isn’t.
Perhaps where we differ is our faith in probability, and here you have the edge on me because it is easier to persuade people to make a modest weekly investment in, say, Euromillions rather than put that same amount in a compound interest account where there would be no added excitement. But probability is that - probability - so I can’t disagree with you, however infinitesimal the odds are. Some wit once compared this to the chances of a tornado ripping through a scrapyard and leaving behind a fully functioning 747. It could happen, but really?
But having conceded that, I still think that religion should remain on the table and, now that I’m old, I’ll go as far as to say that the government should mandate that Christian Bollocks be taught in all state schools and urgently before it’s too late. It might well be bollocks, and to you and me it is, but it serves a special social purpose that none of the finest minds since before the ancient Greeks has ever been able to compete with. It’s the only way I know of that allows people to venerate the penis, without them actually realising that is what they are doing. In other words, society urgently needs a way to help men and boys feel better about themselves. Proof of why this is necessary will be in the nearest city to you, so just watch the news every night for examples. Christians, particularly Catholics, were gradually getting this gender balance right up to the middle of the last century, when it suddenly derailed.
So how do we get it back on track, or find an alternative way to save society (it really is that serious)? Demoting women to vassal status doesn’t work, as we can see in Kabul and Iran, but at least we can see that the competition has got the memo that something needs to be done. But the Church of England appointing a female archbishop of Canterbury and the pope recently blessing a lump of Greenland ice, are proof to me that Christianity has completely lost the plot.
Does that create a vacuum for atheists to fill? As stated earlier, if I’m too thick to log onto a comments page correctly, so I’m certainly too thick to answer this.
For your homework this week Young Flaxen: In sixteen hundred words or less, state how you would as an atheist persuade a population to venerate the penis, without them realising that is what they are doing? You are allowed to use bollocks in your reasoning, the more outrageous the better, but you will be marked down for poor grammar and any reference to ferrets.
Hello Dave. I do appreciate the name reveal. It doesn't bother me if you can't put your name at the 'Top', so to speak. I promise I won't mark you down. I would rather converse with a real named person than Anon- it makes it so impersonal. Also, I appreciate the fact that you are willing to enter into a debate. It would be a boring place if everyone agreed. I like discussing concepts, and I'm always ready to listen to alternative ideas, whether or not I agree. Since retirement, I don't have the luxury of being around very smart scientists and medics to debate with. I'm very much isolated on my farmlet. I picked my wife because she was a stunning natural blonde who looked good in tight clothes. I didn't marry her because of her intellect. This is not to say she is stupid, far from it. She is intelligent, but not in an academic way. Us men are simple creatures and easily pleased. And women say they can't understand us!
DeleteYou raise a couple of points: The tornado-plane analogy for how evolution works is just ridiculous and shows that some folk have no idea how evolution works. I won't refute it here, but it may be the basis for a future blog.
Using Christianity as a social glue certainly worked on the peasants in the bygone past. It was the classic carrot-and-stick method, loved by elite rulers for thousands of years. It was wonderfully simple. Behave yourself in this life, obey your betters, and although you are poor and have a shit life, when you die you will enter an everlasting paradise. But if you don't behave and follow the rules or rebel, when you die, you will be punished for an eternity. Powerful stuff if you are a simple, uneducated and unsophisticated serf. Many of the rulers didn't follow the rules because they knew there were no gods. Religion was an effective tool to control the great unwashed. Modern folk in Australasia and Europe are leaving Christianity because they realise that it's a complete load of ferret poo. There is no going back. The newer generations are better educated than their parents. The US is an outlier; even so, religion is in decline there, too.
As for the essay, that is a challenge. Watch this space, Dave.
Look forward to it F!!
DeletePerhaps think 'outside the box' about God.
ReplyDeleteNot a personality, he or she, but the energy of the Universe. Not an intelligence we could comprehend, but a force sustaining the structure of the multi-dimensional reality we only slightly comprehend.
The real links to the ultimate reality are the prophets: Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, etc. all who showed their disciples the way to experience some spark of Heaven. 'I die every night' said one prophet - i.e. I experience Heaven within my meditation.
On the physical scale, consider the spaces between the star and planets, which are similar the the voids between nucleus ans electrons in every atom. Lots of room for other dimensions...
Where is God? not somewhere else, but perhaps nearer than you think!
In fact here, there, and everywhere!
You are correct to think that energy is everywhere. The problem I have with this concept of energy = god is that we already have a concrete scientific conception of energy. To consider energy as an all-encompassing entity that is directive and is in some way 'conscious' is a stretch. There is no evidence or data to support this. There is nothing wrong with thinking outside the box and formulating hypotheses, as long as we see them for what they are, not as reality. All god concepts share the same problem. The ideas are muddled and not clearly stated. Regardless of conception, there is absolutely zero evidence to support any of the many constructs that supposedly are god. Ask 100 Christians in the street what god is; what god's properties are; where god is, and how he manifests and makes things happen? You will be met with blank stares or some muddled attempt to put together ideas that make little sense. Ask a priest, and he will peddle the Catholic creed. This creed is based on Greek philosophical content and has little to do with Jesus's message and Jewish thought. You may shout: "Flaxen, you are a hopeless reductionist, empiricist and rationalist without an emotional soul". And you would be right- guilty as charged, M'lud. I leave the emotionally charged stuff to my poetry and my reading of fiction. When we talk of the rational realm, we should react with reason. Without data, we have foundless speculation. Theology produces nothing but baseless concepts; science works and does not require baseless supernatural intercedence.
ReplyDelete