No such thing as God.

[iconoclast]

Solace, quote: What I mean is, we don't consciously evolve...

Yes, we do. Humans do. That's exactly what the concept of God is. An evolutiuonary shortcut that boosted human development. But it's run out of validity - and is dragging us down. We need to find the next conceptual boost, and science is it.

[Solace]

Okay, you're the one promoting science here, so please provide me with some scientific evidence that humans consciously evolve. Evolution, by the very term of it, suggests a species wide change.

You're absolutely wrong about the concept of God being an evolutionary change within the species, even, because if that were true every member of the species, including yourself, would believe in God. But you don't, and neither do a good many, and in every instance of history, and prehistory, there were plenty of people who didn't believe in God or any other religious concept. The only way that religious beliefs could possibly, even conceivably, be caused by evolution is if there are two different species of homo sapien walking around on the planet, one that developed a belief in God and one that didn't.

Your message, in and of itself, wasn't an ill conceived one, but you're burying it in this evolutionary basis of religion nonsense. You've perverted the meaning of evolution, and until you can get that right, you don't have much hope of getting the rest right either.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Solace

Okay, you're the one promoting science here, so please provide me with some scientific evidence that humans consciously evolve. Evolution, by the very term of it, suggests a species wide change.

Humans certainly adapt their behaviors and practices, and this becomes incorporated into culture. Evolution strictly speaking is genetic change over time. But adaptive behaviors CAN affect genetic evolution because it can induce differential survival or fertility of one group over another, it can result in isolated populations with founder effects (i.e. a genetic expansion that comes out of a small genetically nonrepresentative subpopulation), and it can alter mate selection. If you're looking purely at gene frequency changes over time (Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium) one thing you have to assume is infinite populations with random mating. But in the real world populations are finite and mating is NOT random. Ashkenazy Jews (my own personal ethnic group) have higher gene frequencies of a number of genetic diseases than other ethnic groups from the same geographic place (these diseases include Tay-Sachs, Gaucher, Niemann-Pick, Familial Dysautonomia, and others). This is because Jews in eastern and central Europe were more likely to have offspring with other Jews than with their non-Jewish neighbors.

Is this extrinsically imposed by ghettoization? Is this self-imposed because of cultural mores and marital beliefs? It's probably both, but the thing is this is not self-conscious evolution -- it's a genetic side effect of cultural practices and human behavior.

[Solace]

In a sense what you're saying could be used to assert that religious beliefs can/have influenced evolution, but I don't see it being used to assert things the other way around. If so then we run into a "chicken and the egg" kind of paradox.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Solace

In a sense what you're saying could be used to assert that religious beliefs can/have influenced evolution, but I don't see it being used to assert things the other way around. If so then we run into a "chicken and the egg" kind of paradox.

Hard to avoid. I mean when you break it down all we KNOW is that 1) humans have religion and 2) humans evolve.

As I point out above religion CAN indeed affect evolution, but I very much doubt that this is self-conscious (except in the case of events like the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, which in both cases were justified on the grounds of 'contamination'). That said I it's far more likely that overall evolution has been inadvertently influenced by religion, which has much less abstract dictates and ends than the modern idea of evolution.

But I also think it's accurate that religious beliefs are a product of our evolution, just as all other abstract thought processes are. The ontogeny of religious belief probably rests in a combination of human inquisitiveness, emotion, and abstract reasoning. Obviously this has to be potentiated by our biological and cognitive capacity to actually have these qualitites!

That said, I don't think it's a simple cycle of religion affecting its own evolution. Other cultural things affect religion much more quickly than evolution will. I mean human evolution doesn't change much on the 5000 year time scale that has seen the development of all extant religions.

[Didymos Thomas]

Didymos Thomas, i have explained and explained these ideas to you, and yet you persist in misunderstanding them.

And just the same I have explained my objections to you again and again, yet you do not address them directly. Instead you attribute our disagreement to assumptions you make about my personal views. As far as I can tell I have never on this forum given an account of my own spiritual views.

perhaps this is because your idea of man as a creation of god is under attack, and thus you refuse to think in other terms. This may be the source of your misunderstanding of everything i say.

Misunderstanding is one thing, but what causes you to ignore my objections? Perhaps if I am misunderstanding you, you could respond to my statements so as to explain why said statements do not hold water. Telling me that I'm just too close minded to understand you really isn't productive.

can you, just for a moment, entertain the idea that man is an evolutionary being.

Entertain? I embrace the notion that man changes over time, that his society changes - everything changes.

then you cannot fail to understand the idea of conceptual development. it's in this context that the archetype occurred, but then developed as it was applied and re-applied through time, and by different peoples.

Right, the only problem is that I have addressed the shortcomings of your suggested archetype. Reasserting the truth of your claims does not help anyone understand them.

The archetype relies on a duality, which not all notions of God fit. The archetype is an oversimplification and therefore not representative of god-notions actually worshiped by man. For these reasons criticism of the archetype in question is useless if you intend to criticize the belief in God.

i am not critsizing the archetype. it was an important idea - allowing man to form societies by acting as an objective authority for law. but it has passed it's sell-by date. we now have better explanation for our existence, and thus a better objective authority for law.

That's exactly the problem - your archetype was never the explanation for our existence. The archetype is an over simplification of a variety of explanations for our existence.

[Ruthless Logic]

Then you will probably adapt well to survival in the new environment. But seriously, important point. Might I refer you to the answer I gave to Ruthless Logic on the question of equality? This has been widely misunderstood. The emphasis must be placed on environmental sustainability.
The global government will require a monopoly on the legitimate use of force – and so will not allow guns to be manufactured or owned other than by the global government. You don’t have a right just because you think you have a right – and so there is no removal of your rights requiring justification.

Iconoclast- Increasingly your rhetoric has revealed patterns of claims based on the appeals of hyper-vigilance towards your grandiose conjectures and auspicious oversight abilities. Your claim for equality is just a manifestation conjured from your over-indulgence in idealism, which is simply you way of reconciling the unsettlement you experience by viewing the indifferent feedback you receive from your ruthless, yet beautifully engineered natural world. I simply challenge you to find ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE in our dynamic natural world that reflects the static quality of equality. Our world is based on the tension of survivability, and all the uncertainty that encompasses the human position within this Reality. I submit to you, a world based on equality, is a dead world (ironically, it produces the self-fulfilling prophecy you fear most).Without an empirically measurable example to indicate process credibility, your self-indulgent claim of equality will be systematically relegated to the ash-heap of problematic ideals.

On the topic of legitimate use of force ( kinda sounds like elitism, better yet, Divine Direction), the natural diversification of individual self preservation (right to bear arms) serves as the best deterrent to the completely predictable corruption of absolute power. Your propensity to advocate for global consensus is indicative of your flawed concepts that dismiss the inherent function of self-interest, while allowing you to over-indulge in your own prescribe self-interest, by virtue of a position within or advocating for, the elite enlighten global government (p.s. you will never escape the accusation of self-interest, that is why it is best to allow access to everyone).

[iconoclast]

The YUXI Problem.

Suppose there’s a being, (i) belonging to a species, (u) headed for extinction because (u) believes in, and acts on the basis of x, rather than y.
(i) knows x to be the cause of the impending demise of (u). (i) knows y to be more valid than x. (i) believes that acting in accord with y would allow (u) to continue to exist.
(i) has tried to make (u) understand y – but to no avail.
What should (i) do?

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

What should (i) do?

Easy -- (i) should discuss it with others on a philosophy forum.

[de Silentio]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

(i) knows x to be the cause of the impending demise of (u). (i) knows y to be more valid than x. (i) believes that acting in accord with y would allow (u) to continue to exist.

Sounds like (i) has an inflated view of his/her knowledge.