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"Darwinism"

Before the thread progresses too far, we should establish what is meant by “Darwinism”. I assume we’re taking it to mean the evolution of living creatures through the course of natural selection. However, some people seem to attach so many other ideas to the term, including concepts that have little to do with evolution, or even biology, such as the “big bang” theory. So it may be good practice to define exactly what context we intend to interpret from this term.
 
drkitten said:
Let's instead ignore him for the lying troll that he has stated himself to be -- and return to the thread itself and whether there's a relationship between "Darwinism" and atheism and the rest of the Homeric catalog of social ills.
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The Trojan War only lasted ten years.

If Homer could have seen what Eris can do when she really sets her mind to it, he'd have handed in his stylus and taken up chicken farming.
 
I less than three logic said:
Before the thread progresses too far, we should establish what is meant by “Darwinism”. I assume we’re taking it to mean the evolution of living creatures through the course of natural selection. However, some people seem to attach so many other ideas to the term, including concepts that have little to do with evolution, or even biology, such as the “big bang” theory. So it may be good practice to define exactly what context we intend to interpret from this term.
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well, this was of no help.
 
I less than three logic said:
Before the thread progresses too far, we should establish what is meant by “Darwinism”.
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I suspect it's being used (incorrectly) as shorthand for methodological naturalism in general, which some idiots cannot distinguish from ontological naturalism.

Obviously "Darwinism" in any sense remotely associated with Darwin himself cannot be "the foundational belief in humanism, secularism, atheism whatever you want to call it," since atheism was well-established long before Darwin himself was even born. Darwin was born in 1809. Voltaire was a famous atheist who died in 1778, Benjamin Franklin a famous atheist who died in 1790. Gallileo, Napoleon Bonaparte, Denis Diderot,.... the list goes on and on. Similarly, I can trace "humanism" back to the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam without much effort.

Even "secularism" dates to well before Darwin; the phrase "separation of church and state" dates back to the writings of Jefferson, and the equivalent French phrase "laïcité" to the French Revolution.

I suspect that the problem can be traced back at least to the famous quotation "I had no need of that hypothesis." If you accept that an explanation for some phenomenon can be offered that does not include God, then the case for God is thereby weakened. But Darwin is in the relatively unique position of offering a hypothesis-free explanation of one of the areas that has been a favorite of undereducated clergy (and laity) for a long time as an illustration of the necessity of God.
 
There were a couple of on-topic thoughts amid all that whining & caterwauling crap:

I less than three logic said:
.. it may be good practice to define exactly what context we intend to interpret from this term.
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Indeed. And my aim is to point out -- in this thread -- the underlying problem; Physicalists who are logical are atheists, and that is a logically coherent and defensible position. Various flavors of idealism are also logically defensible ( I prefer objective idealism). Since idealism at least to me at best can say it is unknown if god exists, the remainder of the position is as a ~Physicalist who does not categorically deny god.

drk has mentioned the 'epsilon' problem, and I continue to suggest that one's interpretation of the class of reality that is addressed by epsilon has two valid choices; for physicalists, atheism (or we could say, just more physical stuff); for ~physicalists, ~atheism. Any other choice for a physicalist is dualism of some sort.

jj said:
we can use those external beings to help confirm the nature of our surroundings, and so on.
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Your choice of physicalist vs ~ physicalist defines this nature apriori.
 
blutoski said:
This is because the majority of religious people in these countries are Catholics. (Something like 70% of Canadians who are Christians are Catholic, in the US it's about 55%, last count)
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Do you have a cite for that? Last I heard Catholics were still a minority in the US, somewhere around 25 % of the population.
 
TonyL said:
Do you have a cite for that? Last I heard Catholics were still a minority in the US, somewhere around 25 % of the population.
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25% of the US total population, or 25% of the US Christian population? I think you two may be talking about the same thing with different numbers. Catholic could make up 55% of the Christian population and still only be 25% of the total population.

I don’t know the exact numbers, just stating this is possible.
 
drkitten said:
Obviously "Darwinism" in any sense remotely associated with Darwin himself cannot be "the foundational belief in humanism, secularism, atheism whatever you want to call it," since atheism was well-established long before Darwin himself was even born.
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Using the Pali canon, the oldest Buddhist scriptures, it's hard to say wether Gautama Buddha was an agnostic, an atheist or a theist. The evidence points to him being agnostic, since he sometimes said 'if there are gods, then...' (on the very rare occasions when the subject came up). He does invoke the names of some gods at times, though, but wether he believed in those gods or just used them as symbols are up for debate.

However, Gautama Buddha does meet, and debate with, quite a few atheists in the Pali canon, so we know there were atheists around at that time.

So atheism certainly predates Darwin.
 
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I think the theory of evolution, if properly understood, is pretty much incompatible with theism.

Catholicism doesn't endorse the ToE - it endorses its own bowdlerised version of it which claims that natural processes are inadequate, in themselves, to fully explain the natural world and the guiding hand of God is required. The real ToE is a naturalistic theory that has no place for supernatural entities. If a scientific theory has a god-shaped gap in it's mechanism then it is just not a properly formulated theory.

Now, one can believe that God set the conditions for evolution to happen and then just sat back and watched while it took a random walk (complete with dead ends and mass extinctions) through biological complexity space and eventually, by chance, ended up with us. But does any established religion actually advocate this?

It would be an odd way for a "creator" to behave when he could just create a world exactly the way he wanted it, in one go.
 
hammegk said:
Nothing from my viewpoint.

Per The Op "So, if you believe in evolution, you're an atheist. Discuss.".
I am; it's true. Either that, or you don't know what you are. ;)
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Wait. So if I do believe in God, yet I also believe in evolution, then I must be an atheist and not realize it?
And if so, am I hard atheist, soft atheist, crunchy atheist . . .?
 
SuperCoolGuy said:
Wait. So if I do believe in God, yet I also believe in evolution, then I must be an atheist and not realize it?
And if so, am I hard atheist, soft atheist, crunchy atheist . . .?
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hammegk appears to be saying that you are a hard atheist or else you are simply irrational. The crunchy part is up to you.
 
Upchurch said:
hammegk appears to be saying that you are a hard atheist or else you are simply irrational.
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Why Uppie; I can actually agree with that statement! Well, in the sense that 'irrational = illogical'. Maybe you ought to change it.

Or maybe you don't understand what you said? ;)
 
chriswl said:
I think the theory of evolution, if properly understood, is pretty much incompatible with theism.

Catholicism doesn't endorse the ToE - it endorses its own bowdlerised version of it which claims that natural processes are inadequate, in themselves, to fully explain the natural world and the guiding hand of God is required. The real ToE is a naturalistic theory that has no place for supernatural entities. If a scientific theory has a god-shaped gap in it's mechanism then it is just not a properly formulated theory.

Now, one can believe that God set the conditions for evolution to happen and then just sat back and watched while it took a random walk (complete with dead ends and mass extinctions) through biological complexity space and eventually, by chance, ended up with us. But does any established religion actually advocate this?
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There is deism- it's not exactly an established religion, but it was once a popular philosophy based on the idea that God created the Universe, but then has had no influence on it since.

And unlike hammy thinks, deism and dualism are NOT the same thing. Nor are physicalism and skepticism the same- and yet he accuses most of the forum of "calling themselves physicalists."

Conclusion- Don't give any regard whatsoever to any philosophical terms that hammy uses. They exist only as their own entities without any relation to anything outside of hammy's mind.
 
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