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Evolution And Racism


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BG, even if mankind finally learning that evolution was a fact somehow would turn people into raving cannibal zombies has nothing to do with it's validity.If you are trying to make a case that a lack of belief in evolution turns people racist I am failing to see your evidence.
I have already said many times that you guys are blessed to have been born in countries that have Judeo-Christian undertones to all of society so you are lucky enough to have a sense of morality raised in you that allows you to be moral people regardless of what you believe.I never said that if you are an evolutionist, then you must be a rapist murderer democrat. ( Just that being a rapist murderer democrat isn't any different than being a caring tree hugger or a venture capitalist. )What I am pointing out is that once you allow for the notion that evolution is true, you are stuck with the fact that supporters of anarchy, eugenics and racism have valid arguments.Natural Selection teaches us that the gene pool's preservation trumps all forms of compassion and morality. The weak get eaten/killed off. The strong continue, and their existence can only be ensured by killing off the weaker competition.If you guys want to live in that world, quit lying to yourselves about it's true face, or it's inevitable results.
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In fact since we have easily pointed out that atheist are for the most part parasites on society, there can be a very easy to make case that killing all atheist would be within the goals of evolution.Not contributing, while your counter parts are contributing left and right should be a signal that your side is not useful to life.

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In fact since we have easily pointed out that atheist are for the most part parasites on society, there can be a very easy to make case that killing all atheist would be within the goals of evolution.Not contributing, while your counter parts are contributing left and right should be a signal that your side is not useful to life.
Nice sequee into the the Christian/Witch Hunt principle.1.Stick fingers in ears and deny facts.2.Create fear.3.Find a way to kill people that don't believe like you do.-Jesus
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I have already said many times that you guys are blessed to have been born in countries that have Judeo-Christian undertones to all of society so you are lucky enough to have a sense of morality raised in you that allows you to be moral people regardless of what you believe.I never said that if you are an evolutionist, then you must be a rapist murderer democrat. ( Just that being a rapist murderer democrat isn't any different than being a caring tree hugger or a venture capitalist. )What I am pointing out is that once you allow for the notion that evolution is true, you are stuck with the fact that supporters of anarchy, eugenics and racism have valid arguments.Natural Selection teaches us that the gene pool's preservation trumps all forms of compassion and morality. The weak get eaten/killed off. The strong continue, and their existence can only be ensured by killing off the weaker competition.If you guys want to live in that world, quit lying to yourselves about it's true face, or it's inevitable results.
So if your daughter caught a rare disease and gene therapy would save her you wouldn't do it? You would scold the doctor for messing with God's territory and let her die?
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Natural Section isn't a random dog fight, it is the purpose behind all life according to Evolution.
Do you think you could say some new stupid crap? We've already beat this one to death. Please see all of the religion forum archives for appropriate responses.
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I was right.You have accomplished nothing but muddy up the water because you either can't understand, or refuse to understand what the issue is.Natural Section isn't a random dog fight, it is the purpose behind all life according to Evolution. Without it you have nothing but 15 legged spiders and birds that have 6 wings that hit each other when they flap.Eugenics is nothing but man implementing natural selection instead of waiting for it. In order to speed up what Natural Selection is going to do anyway..which is kill off any race of man that isn't as evolved because of the need for resource preservation, mating opportunities, and the pretend motive that reproduction is a purpose.The people that support Eugenics, ( all atheist/evolutionist ) understood clearly that this is the entire point of life. You are just trapped because you've stolen Christian morality and have lied to yourself about it's source. This double life makes you all irrational.Trying to mix morality with Natural Selection shows you guys are lying to yourself about what Natural Selection is. Or trying to change the rules of a game that's been running for 4 billion years because you cried when Old Yeller got shot.
Let's remember that artificial selection was practiced long before the theory of natural selection or eugenics. It was employed in agriculture and animal breeding since ancient times. Let's also remember that the success of artificial selection essentially proves evolution. Now, the difference of course is that in natural selection, the organism becomes better suited to its environment, whereas in artificial selection it becomes better suited to our ideal. Why do you think the fact that we can mold things to our ideal justifies our ideals?
Natural Selection teaches us that the gene pool's preservation trumps all forms of compassion and morality. The weak get eaten/killed off. The strong continue, and their existence can only be ensured by killing off the weaker competition.If you guys want to live in that world, quit lying to yourselves about it's true face, or it's inevitable results.
Natural selection has taught us that compassion and empathy are beneficial traits. Weak vs strong is a pretty crude distortion of what makes an organism best suited to its environment. Sometimes it pays to be weak if you have other advantages. For instance, you can survive being really wrong if you also happen to be funny.
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Nice sequee into the the Christian/Witch Hunt principle.1.Stick fingers in ears and deny facts.2.Create fear.3.Find a way to kill people that don't believe like you do.-Jesus
So if your daughter caught a rare disease and gene therapy would save her you wouldn't do it? You would scold the doctor for messing with God's territory and let her die?
Neither of these 'points' make any sense or are in any way related to the discussion.
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Do you think you could say some new stupid crap? We've already beat this one to death. Please see all of the religion forum archives for appropriate responses.
I am fine with the old stuff, and like the Bible, I am unchanging.
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Let's remember that artificial selection was practiced long before the theory of natural selection or eugenics. It was employed in agriculture and animal breeding since ancient times. Let's also remember that the success of artificial selection essentially proves evolution.
Only if you can point to one Creationist who claims that no animal will ever change or adapt in any way ever.Otherwise you are only proving that God made animals with the ability to breed new traits.Which would come in useful should you ever find yourself needing to say...bring all the animals onto an Ark to preserve them, without having to bring each and every slight modification of the animals. What a time saver that skill-set would be..
Now, the difference of course is that in natural selection, the organism becomes better suited to its environment, whereas in artificial selection it becomes better suited to our ideal. Why do you think the fact that we can mold things to our ideal justifies our ideals?
A good point, man of course would have to either believe:A. It is incapable of making the decision of what is best for the future and therefore should leave it all to nature.B. Man knows whats best for itself and can't wait to try out it's new God-like powers.Which one do you hold out hope for, and which one do you fear will come about?
Natural selection has taught us that compassion and empathy are beneficial traits.
Apparently only in some instances, because the other millions species of animals..not so much running that program sub routine.
Weak vs strong is a pretty crude distortion of what makes an organism best suited to its environment. Sometimes it pays to be weak if you have other advantages.
So it would be 'better' to lose the heightened sense of smell, strength and endurance to temperature change if you get a larger brain. I think a reasonable argument could be made that it would in fact be better to keep those traits, AND get the bigger brain.
For instance, you can survive being really wrong if you also happen to be funny.
Which is why I like you so much.
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Only if you can point to one Creationist who claims that no animal will ever change or adapt in any way ever.Otherwise you are only proving that God made animals with the ability to breed new traits.
aka "evolve".
A good point, man of course would have to either believe:A. It is incapable of making the decision of what is best for the future and therefore should leave it all to nature.B. Man knows whats best for itself and can't wait to try out it's new God-like powers.Which one do you hold out hope for, and which one do you fear will come about?
I would hope that we know that our intelligence can be very useful but also have the humility to know its limits. These are certainly interesting questions that we are going to have to start facing more and more. For the right price, you can choose the sex of your child now -- should you?
Apparently only in some instances, because the other millions species of animals..not so much running that program sub routine.
Which animal is it that you think lacks compassion?
So it would be 'better' to lose the heightened sense of smell, strength and endurance to temperature change if you get a larger brain. I think a reasonable argument could be made that it would in fact be better to keep those traits, AND get the bigger brain.
Maybe. Usually advantages come at a cost. For example, bigger brain means greater energy requirements1. An organism can be successful by being very simple or by being very complex. There's not necessarily one best way to thrive. 1our brain size has been limited by the size of the birth canal. Our heads could only get bigger to a point before it started to be quite a disadvantage, since you couldn't get out of the womb. Interestingly, the folds of the cerebral cortex are nature's clever way of increasing the surface area of the brain without enlarging the head further. Our brain differs from our close relatives mostly in the amount of folding it shows2.2"our" here refers to atheists, of course. religious people have much less cerebral surface area.
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Natural Section isn't a random dog fight, it is the purpose behind all life according to Evolution. Without it you have nothing but 15 legged spiders and birds that have 6 wings that hit each other when they flap.Eugenics is nothing but man implementing natural selection instead of waiting for it. In order to speed up what Natural Selection is going to do anyway..which is kill off any race of man that isn't as evolved because of the need for resource preservation, mating opportunities, and the pretend motive that reproduction is a purpose.The people that support Eugenics, ( all atheist/evolutionist ) understood clearly that this is the entire point of life. You are just trapped because you've stolen Christian morality and have lied to yourself about it's source. This double life makes you all irrational.Trying to mix morality with Natural Selection shows you guys are lying to yourself about what Natural Selection is. Or trying to change the rules of a game that's been running for 4 billion years because you cried when Old Yeller got shot.
I think I've made this argument before, but I think it's important to keep in mind that natural selection and survival of the fittest aren't philosophies. They're descriptions of natural phenomena. This was sort of the point I made with my gravity analogy. Evolutionists don't believe that natural selection is "good," or "bad," or "just," or anything like that. Rather, they simply describe the world, and show how this description explains how we got from point A to point B.Someone who practices eugenics wrongly believes that evolution is a philosophy. They misinterpret Darwin. They believe that being unfit to survive is bad, and therefore they should eliminate those that are unfit. Furthermore, they are the ones who define what it means to be fit or unfit. Eugenicists wrap a twisted morality around Darwinism. Now, from your post, I anticipate this thread quickly going into the territory of trying to define morality. I guess that's one of your central tenants: that the only morality that makes sense is one that is presented by God, and any other system of morals cannot be shown to be anything but arbitrary (a tenant I somewhat disagree with). But that sort of discussion belongs in the morality thread (a thread that I'm admittedly afraid to enter). So, yeah, what was I saying? Evolution is not a morality, etc.
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aka "evolve". I would hope that we know that our intelligence can be very useful but also have the humility to know its limits. These are certainly interesting questions that we are going to have to start facing more and more. For the right price, you can choose the sex of your child now -- should you? Which animal is it that you think lacks compassion?Maybe. Usually advantages come at a cost. For example, bigger brain means greater energy requirements1. An organism can be successful by being very simple or by being very complex. There's not necessarily one best way to thrive. 1our brain size has been limited by the size of the birth canal. Our heads could only get bigger to a point before it started to be quite a disadvantage, since you couldn't get out of the womb. Interestingly, the folds of the cerebral cortex are nature's clever way of increasing the surface area of the brain without enlarging the head further. Our brain differs from our close relatives mostly in the amount of folding it shows2.2"our" here refers to atheists, of course. religious people have much less cerebral surface area.
Did you really just footnote your footnote?
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I think I've made this argument before, but I think it's important to keep in mind that natural selection and survival of the fittest aren't philosophies. They're descriptions of natural phenomena. This was sort of the point I made with my gravity analogy. Evolutionists don't believe that natural selection is "good," or "bad," or "just," or anything like that. Rather, they simply describe the world, and show how this description explains how we got from point A to point B.Someone who practices eugenics wrongly believes that evolution is a philosophy. They misinterpret Darwin. They believe that being unfit to survive is bad, and therefore they should eliminate those that are unfit. Furthermore, they are the ones who define what it means to be fit or unfit. Eugenicists wrap a twisted morality around Darwinism.
Wouldn't our philosophies be just evolved beliefs that become real right along with morality? After all, VB and others are arguing that morality evolved, wouldn't the same reasoning for that prove that philosophy evolved as well?
Now, from your post, I anticipate this thread quickly going into the territory of trying to define morality. I guess that's one of your central tenants: that the only morality that makes sense is one that is presented by God, and any other system of morals cannot be shown to be anything but arbitrary (a tenant I somewhat disagree with). But that sort of discussion belongs in the morality thread (a thread that I'm admittedly afraid to enter). So, yeah, what was I saying? Evolution is not a morality, etc.
If evolution is true; you don't get to decide that evolution is no longer relevant. The argument vb and others want to make with regards to morality is that evolution has brought us here after only 4 billions years of work, but after a couple hundred years of thinking about it, we are ready to disregard evolution's methods and apply new schools of thought.Resources are disappearing and it's clear that the planet can only support a finite number of humans, but we should do nothing to stop them from procreating at unchecked rates because we no longer need evolution to guide us, we have a better way. Being compassionate and caring towards those that contribute nothing but are a drain on resources has been found to work better, even though it's logical conclusion is brighter than a neon sign in Carlsbad's Caverns.Comparing this to gravity would better be done by saying that the evolutionist are now living on the tops of really high trees and are arguing that we no longer need to worry about gravity because the air is cleaner up here.
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Wouldn't our philosophies be just evolved beliefs that become real right along with morality? After all, VB and others are arguing that morality evolved, wouldn't the same reasoning for that prove that philosophy evolved as well?
No one is arguing that a particular morality is correct because it evolved.
The argument vb and others want to make with regards to morality is that evolution has brought us here after only 4 billions years of work, but after a couple hundred years of thinking about it, we are ready to disregard evolution's methods and apply new schools of thought.Resources are disappearing and it's clear that the planet can only support a finite number of humans, but we should do nothing to stop them from procreating at unchecked rates because we no longer need evolution to guide us, we have a better way. Being compassionate and caring towards those that contribute nothing but are a drain on resources has been found to work better, even though it's logical conclusion is brighter than a neon sign in Carlsbad's Caverns.
The mind you have that allows you to weigh these various interests and make a beneficial decision is itself the product of evolution. Using our minds to make good decisions does not 'disregard evolution's methods' at all. I guess you are used to thinking of your own will as separate from god's will (as I have argued before this is the real tragedy of christianity), but your mind is a biological organism just like any other. It is part of nature's process, not separate from it. Anyhoo you are still conflating the description of how life changed forms with some kind of rationale for how things should work. Evolution is not a rationale for how things should work, it is simply a description of how life changed from one form to another. I originally pointed out the adaptive value of morality in social animals because you incorrectly tried to use compassion as an example of something that evolution should not select for.
Off topic, for vb.
lol :club:
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No one is arguing that a particular morality is correct because it evolved.
In fact you are stating that all morality is correct only because it evolved.
The mind you have that allows you to weigh these various interests and make a beneficial decision is itself the product of evolution. Using our minds to make good decisions does not 'disregard evolution's methods' at all. I guess you are used to thinking of your own will as separate from god's will (as I have argued before this is the real tragedy of christianity), but your mind is a biological organism just like any other. It is part of nature's process, not separate from it.
It does 'disregard' when it overrides basic principles of evolution. Using compassion to justify keeping a virus alive because it looks like a puppy even though that virus will eventually kill us all would be a fitting analogy.
Anyhoo you are still conflating the description of how life changed forms with some kind of rationale for how things should work. Evolution is not a rationale for how things should work, it is simply a description of how life changed from one form to another.
So survival of the fittest is just a description? It's not an action happening every second of every day somewhere to something?
I originally pointed out the adaptive value of morality in social animals because you incorrectly tried to use compassion as an example of something that evolution should not select for.
An adaptive value would be a condition that must fit into the condition of the issue, correct?
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In fact you are stating that all morality is correct only because it evolved.
I... can't even make sense of that, so I'm definitely not holding that position, whatever it is.
It does 'disregard' when it overrides basic principles of evolution. Using compassion to justify keeping a virus alive because it looks like a puppy even though that virus will eventually kill us all would be a fitting analogy.
How would that 'disregard' evolution? In that circumstance, the virus has developed an adaptive trait --looking cute-- that will increase its proliferation. There are many species that have done well by being wanted by us, for example certain tasty fruit trees that have been so good to us that we have put effort into cultivating them. From our perspective, if we take an action that kills us, that is also not counter to evolution in any way. Those organisms that make bad decisions or have traits that decrease the likelihood of their proliferation become less frequent over time. That's exactly the process of evolution. Why do you think that is 'counter' to it? It's counter to our own interests, for sure. But evolution has no particular interest in us over other organism. Interestingly, most of us don't have the kind of 'compassion' you describe for viruses... if we did, we wouldn't last too long.
So survival of the fittest is just a description? It's not an action happening every second of every day somewhere to something?
The fact that things which enable proliferation become more common is a description of nature. That fact doesn't tell us how we should act.
An adaptive value would be a condition that must fit into the condition of the issue, correct?
An adaptive trait is one that makes an organism better suited to its environment.
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I... can't even make sense of that, so I'm definitely not holding that position, whatever it is.
A clever dodge attempt.IT WON'T WORKIf you can claim that morality X evolved, and that through time we have found that X works( which is evolution) and therefore we now use X because it results in a better society, then you are claiming that all morality evolved and because of it's trial and errors workout through the obstacle course known as evolution, therefor it is to be treated as true...then you are arguing that only through evolution is any morality true.
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I think it's pretty funny that BG is telling people what their argument is, then trying to wedge rebuttals and counterarguments against specific definitions, etc.I love this thread.
too fast for me..or was it?Trying to explain the logical conclusion of their world view is just me trying to help them see the illogical position for what it is.If you look in the evolution of morality thread, one of their side admitted that true atheist are also anarchist. He was the only one truly self honest on your side that I have found to date.
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If you can claim that morality X evolved,
ok I'm with you (with qualifications. I have said that empathy and compassion were traits selected for by evolution. "morality" is really a complex set of ideas that interacts with culture, but let's say it has a basis in biology and that many of its principles are the direct result of evolution).
and that through time we have found that X works( which is evolution)
Wait, what? Some of the morality that exists works well and some doesn't. What does the 'which is evolution' part mean? Evolution does not say that we have already arrived at all the optimal solutions to everything. The Taliban's morality seems pretty wrong, for instance.
and therefore we now use X because it results in a better society, then you are claiming that all morality evolved and because of it's trial and errors workout through the obstacle course known as evolution, therefor it is to be treated as true...
This is now way off the track. The only thing that should matter to us in deciding to keep a moral rule is whether it functions to increase our collective well-being.
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This is now way off the track. The only thing that should matter to us in deciding to keep a moral rule is

whether it functions to increase our collective well-being.

Now if this line alone is taken and we get to place whatever we think fits into the spoiler, you will find the understanding of my position.You have a condition that becomes a philosophy, a religion, and a purpose once agreed upon.Once this statement is allowed, you must accept that this is evolution.And then we can quit trying to misdirect every time I say the exact same thing and you guys fall back on the " you don't understand evolution" line.
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Now if this line alone is taken and we get to place whatever we think fits into the spoiler, you will find the understanding of my position.You have a condition that becomes a philosophy, a religion, and a purpose once agreed upon.Once this statement is allowed, you must accept that this is evolution.And then we can quit trying to misdirect every time I say the exact same thing and you guys fall back on the " you don't understand evolution" line.
I'm sorry, I still don't understand. My views on morality have nothing to do with evolution. When you say "this is evolution" -- what is? I don't get it.
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I'm sorry, I still don't understand. My views on morality have nothing to do with evolution. When you say "this is evolution" -- what is? I don't get it.
Oh you get it..you just don't want to face it.
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