Vatican backs Darwin, dumps creationism

[Darth Wong]

That's idiotic. There was never a certain "Eureka" moment where humans would have suddenly realized that there is a code of morality. Even subhuman primates already have certain primitive moral codes. Morality is something that started in a very primitive state a long time ago and gradually developed over time.

There is NO WAY to rationalize the Genesis story with science. It's just a stupid mythology designed to teach children that they should blindly obey and not ask questions.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Exactly. In fact the idea that the whole bible including the Genesis is literally truth instead of allegory or parable is rather young and emerged in the 19th century as a religious counter-movement for modern geology and theory of evolution.

So why is it 5769 in the Hebrew calendar?

OK, I went a little too far. More correct would be to say that the idea of Genesis being an allegory was not a new one and it was already considered by the early "Church fathers". Since evidence to the contrary did not really exist before the 19th century, most theologians still thought that much of the Genesis could be taken literally. However, geological evidence for an "Old Earth" existed much before Darwin's theory, but it did not raise too much objections from the Christian churches, since it did not question the special creation of Man, even if it contradicted with the literal interpretation of the Genesis.

[Samuel]

I'm sorry, but this discussion is errily parralleling this one:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9&start=50

Lets twist canon until it screams because there are parts we don't like is occuring in both!

[kinnison]

That's idiotic. There was never a certain "Eureka" moment where humans would have suddenly realized that there is a code of morality. Even subhuman primates already have certain primitive moral codes. Morality is something that started in a very primitive state a long time ago and gradually developed over time.

There is NO WAY to rationalize the Genesis story with science. It's just a stupid mythology designed to teach children that they should blindly obey and not ask questions.

Actually, I agree with you. What I set out, however, is a way that the religious might use to justify and "explain" some of the irreconcilable differences between religious dogma and scientific fact. Always with the proviso, of course, that scientific fact is mutable; for example the law of conservation of mass was found to be an approximation to part of a deeper conservation law.

Also, this is yet another example of something with a continuous variation, and a definitely grey area in the middle, being forced incorrectly into a binary choice. To use the example I put in my last post; it is clear that a male lion killing cubs not sired by him, when he takes over a pride, in order to leave room for his cubs to be conceived and born is just doing what lions do; there is no aspect of right and wrong in it, although it might make us humans uncomfortable. It is also clear that a man doing exactly the same thing definitely would be doing wrong and and the rest of us would be entirely justified in subjecting him to harsh penalties. So far, so good. Now; what if a chimpanzee, or a dolphin, or a killer whale, does it? We don't really know, but it appears that all three of these species have at least some sort of crude moral code among themselves. Is a murderous chimp doing evil? I submit that this question is related to the question of whether a chimpanzee has a soul or not.

Of course, there is another related question. How low down the scale of animal intelligence do you have to go before you find one that can't really suffer? Dogs, cats, chimps, whales - yes. Mice and rats - maybe. Frogs - maybe not. Flies - no. (These are entirely my opinions.) And therefore how low do you have to go before finding something that it isn't evil to torture? And what if you have a good reason, such as medical research?

[Akkleptos]

There is NO WAY to rationalize the Genesis story with science. It's just a stupid mythology designed to teach children that they should blindly obey and not ask questions.

Yes, pretty much what Richard Dawkins said when it came to explaining religion as an adaptive evolutive treat, in his book "The God Delusion".

In short, Dawkins believed (we'd have to ask him if he believes that now or whether he has switched to a better hypothesis) that religion was a byproduct of an adaptive tendency (since in humans most knowledge is acquired through experience rather than passed on via DNA) to accept and adopt all beliefs passed on by our elders while we are in our childhood. It would be good towards the general survival-of-the-species goal, except that it would also make it easy for what we call "brain-bugs" here to persist as well (being one of these brain-bugs -he calls them "viruses" religion itself, as in irrational, non-empyric, unfalsifiable beliefs).

Of course, there is another related question. How low down the scale of animal intelligence do you have to go before you find one that can't really suffer? Dogs, cats, chimps, whales - yes. Mice and rats - maybe. Frogs - maybe not. Flies - no. (These are entirely my opinions.) And therefore how low do you have to go before finding something that it isn't evil to torture? And what if you have a good reason, such as medical research?

I'd say all mammals (that includes your mice and rats) because of their highly developed brain cortex. With insects, I'm inclined to agree (seeing as supposedly a cockroach, having its head severed off, dies of starvation, rather than anything else). But any other vertebrate, more complex than a fish, I would have a problem with. I once saw someone selling iguanas (that's forbidden now, thank... uh... "the universe") and claiming -upon slamming the poor lizards on the floor and they not audibly "complaining"- that they felt "no pain".

[Kanastrous]

The salvage-the-nonsense game I've seen played at first-hand, is the spraying of great sticky globs of "allegory." But somehow this usage of "allegory" doesn't mean okay it's allegory so it's not true, it means okay it's interpretable in any old way you like because the language is allegory but still describing somehow somewhat some kind of real things.

When Genesis says the Earth was created in six days, it doesn't state specifically what "days" means! A "day"could have been of *any* length of time; a "day" could be an eon, it's allegorical.

Of course when you ask for corroborative evidence from the text itself that the use of words like "day" are allegorical rather than literal, you meet with silent stares.

You see how this works. Rationalize away the clearly non-factual stuff as being the 'allegorical' part while insisting that whatever kernel is perceived to remain, is part of some larger truth.