Carcano
Valued Senior Member
We could also use the phrase 'hereditary lineage'...if thats less ambiguous.
Created by vs. Descended from?
- Thread starter Carcano
- Start date
That's a ridiculous argument. "Descend" in the context of evolution or genealogy does not imply lesser value or status. What kind of idiotic logic is it to suggest that a word with multiple, context-specific meanings must imply one negative meaning across all of its usages?
Carcano
Valued Senior Member
The Hebrew paradigm upholds a deity who creates man as an amusement or plaything...in the same way a child makes a toy of lego to play with for a while, later to be flung into a corner where it shatters into a hundred pieces.
Eventually, this deity creates another being...a women...to serve as plaything to the man.
A culture forms where men and women see each other only as instruments bound to the will and whim of some otherworldly entity...who is never seen or heard except through the myth-whispered legends and omens of the ancients.
Where is the LOVE in that???
How much more LOVABLE is a neighbour who is seen as part of one's extended family tracing its ancestry back to the immortals at the gates of dawn.
Where is the love in the selfish gene?
Why should we limit ourselves to Abrahamic notions of theism?
How much more lovable is a neighbor (or one's own child, for that matter) who is seen as a competitor in the struggle for survival, or who is seen as merely the product of the selfish gene ...
Carcano
Valued Senior Member
I agree with you that there is no basis for ethics in the context of the selfish gene. Even Richard Dawkins believes he is a highly ethical person himself...but admits he cant account for it through his own scientific paradigm.
Science currently makes two assumptions I dont support.
1. That the first truly self-replicating life form must have appeared by random chance because tiny evolutionary changes occurring by random chance are currently observable.
2. That matter must have formed a state of absolute contraction at some point in the past, because the expansion of matter in space is currently observable.
However...this thread isnt about Abraham versus Darwin...its about religious notions of human origins and their psychological implications.
I've noted that you require the qualifier "merely" in order for your point to have any thrust whatsoever. Naturally, no one who understands that we are a product of evolution via natural selection believes were are "merely" the product of a selfish gene. Nor is any theistic philosophy required to view our neighbors and family as something more than competition. For that, all we need to do is live our lives.
As opposed to what, exactly? Design?
And what does quantum theory show us if not that the foundation of the entire universe is random chance?
This is not an assumption. It's a theory that has been supported through observation, and not simply of the expansion of the universe. It successfully predicted the CMB, for example.
You sure see things that aren't there.
:shrug:
Sure, and "living our lives" is completely devoid of any philosophical outlook; instead, it's "how things really are", no thinking required.
Sure, but there is that issue of the concept "descent", because the term has several meanings, as I already noted.
Even if instead of "descent" we go for "hereditary lineage," that still doesn't automatically imply some kind of superiorism, other than perhaps for people who have live very sheltered lives and have thus never experienced any significant effects of aging, illness and death (by death here - death of family members and other important figures in one's life, or one's own close encounters with death), or people who have experienced those, but are so numb and in delusion that those things don't register in their minds as anything but perhaps an offense to them.
Everyone else is less or more acquainted, and painfully so, with aging, illness and death, with human imperfection. So for such people, to think one is a kin to God or gods, requires an inferior understanding of divinity, in which God, too, is plagued by the same problems that humans are plagued by - namely, aging, illness, death, greed, anger, delusion.
By all means, explain what you meant when you said:
you said:
I'd love to hear what you "really" meant when you warned him against using words that have negative connotations when used in other contexts.
I doubt you believe "living your life" equates to non-thinking, and this is just a desperate bait-and-switch because you literally never admit you're wrong about anything. How else are philosophies formed if not through experiencing life?
Lady Elizabeth
Registered Member
We definitely weren't created - male nipples hold the key. If some super-being had engineered us, he'd have to be a spectacular imbecile to have added this design to the male of the species.
Case closed.
Case closed.
Its not clear in what way male nipples establish a serious design flaw ...We definitely weren't created - male nipples hold the key. If some super-being had engineered us, he'd have to be a spectacular imbecile to have added this design to the male of the species.
Case closed.
Lady Elizabeth
Registered Member
Go and have a brain transplant and then think about it again.
It appears you are the one who hasn't thought about it.
In a now-famous paper, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin emphasize that we should not immediately assume that every trait has an adaptive explanation. Just as the spandrels of St. Mark's domed cathedral in Venice are simply an architectural consequence of the meeting of a vaulted ceiling with its supporting pillars, the presence of nipples in male mammals is a genetic architectural by-product of nipples in females. So, why do men have nipples? Because females do.
as I said, its not clear in what way male nipples establish a serious design flaw ... unless we are of course to accept that your myopic view of reality born of a poor fund of knowledge is the key factor in determining fundamental necessities for design.
:shrug:
I pointed out that "descent" has several meanings, and that in the context of the OP, the other meanings may be adding things one doesn't intend to mean.
Like I said the first time around.
:shrug:
Geez. Sarcasm travels poorly online, I guess, even among people who've known eachother for a while ...
You said:
Experience itself is just that, experience, it's just neurons firing. There is no evaluation, no philosophy in it.
You are probably referring to interpreting experience - and for that, some kind of philosophy is necessary to begin with.
IOW, your "all we need to do is live our lives" involves a lot of philosophy to begin with, although you will probably deny that.
Another way to address this is by looking at the two sides of the brain. The right brain is more spatially integrated and would therefore be connected to the original instinctive integration of the pre-humans with nature; paradise when the gods ruled. I would define the pre-humans as having human DNA, but not a human mind which could allow civilization. The contrast would be analogous to domesticated and wild animals of the same species. The DNA is close but temperament is vastly different, with the domestic much more open to learning from humans.
For humans (domestic analogy) and the human ego to differentiate from the instinctive pre-humans, they would need more conscious access to the left brain so they can feel and build a sense of uniqueness (differential side of the brain). This is also the side of the brain needed for advanced cultural language. Creation by the gods, would be aspects of the personality firmware, engraining the left brain, by way of the right brain. Whereas the right brain is 3-D or spatial, the personality firmware are more like 4-D; integrated with a time element. For example, falling in love animates the mind and heart toward a future goal of two humans integrating. Once the firmware is animated it is beyond the ego to control, rather one becomes carried along by the fate of the gods at 4-D.
Picture a 3-D ball, which is being approximated by a large number of 2-D circles, all with the same center as the ball, but each circle at different angles so they fill in the 3-D. The right brain is the ball (human nature common to all), creation appears when one of the 2-D planes starts to differentiate within the left brain; unique human culture. The 4-D from the personality firmware creates a time projection allowing this to assemble (seven days of creation).
Descended would mean, based on the 2-D circle that was originally created early in civilization, the left brain circle continues to undergo change, both due to further firmware action (involvement of the 4-D gods using time cycles) and the impact of the differential ego (humans putting their imprint on culture).
Christ was begotten and not made. He was not created but evolved from earlier beginning. Because Christianity is alive, it continued to develop and evolve as times went on. For example, the Catholic church is still malleable enough where changes such as women priests remain on the table for the future. But they wait for 4-D approval, not 2-D approval of man. The reason is 2-D cannot express 3-D to make it integrated like instinct. It could lead to division instead.
For humans (domestic analogy) and the human ego to differentiate from the instinctive pre-humans, they would need more conscious access to the left brain so they can feel and build a sense of uniqueness (differential side of the brain). This is also the side of the brain needed for advanced cultural language. Creation by the gods, would be aspects of the personality firmware, engraining the left brain, by way of the right brain. Whereas the right brain is 3-D or spatial, the personality firmware are more like 4-D; integrated with a time element. For example, falling in love animates the mind and heart toward a future goal of two humans integrating. Once the firmware is animated it is beyond the ego to control, rather one becomes carried along by the fate of the gods at 4-D.
Picture a 3-D ball, which is being approximated by a large number of 2-D circles, all with the same center as the ball, but each circle at different angles so they fill in the 3-D. The right brain is the ball (human nature common to all), creation appears when one of the 2-D planes starts to differentiate within the left brain; unique human culture. The 4-D from the personality firmware creates a time projection allowing this to assemble (seven days of creation).
Descended would mean, based on the 2-D circle that was originally created early in civilization, the left brain circle continues to undergo change, both due to further firmware action (involvement of the 4-D gods using time cycles) and the impact of the differential ego (humans putting their imprint on culture).
Christ was begotten and not made. He was not created but evolved from earlier beginning. Because Christianity is alive, it continued to develop and evolve as times went on. For example, the Catholic church is still malleable enough where changes such as women priests remain on the table for the future. But they wait for 4-D approval, not 2-D approval of man. The reason is 2-D cannot express 3-D to make it integrated like instinct. It could lead to division instead.