God & Evolution: Where the Conflict Really Lies

Dr. Alvin Plantinga argues (1) that contemporary evolutionary theory is not incompatible with theistic belief, (2) that the main antitheistic arguments involving evolution together with other premises also fail, and (3) that naturalism, the thought that there is no such thing as the God of theistic religion or anything like him, is an essential element in the naturalistic worldview (a sort of quasi-religion in the sense that it plays some of the most important roles of religion) and that the naturalistic worldview is in fact incompatible with evolution. Hence there is a science/religion (or science/quasi-religion) conflict, all right, but it is a conflict between naturalism and science, not theistic religion and science.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Evolution
• God
• Darwinism
• Atheist
• Atheism
• Theism
• Christianity
• Science
• Alvin
• Plantinga

[samuellis]

I love this man he is brillant...! Thanks for the post!

[rogerbaconistheman]

Man, I'm still laughing at that letter, hahaha.

[mrdokma]

@Coastlinewalks Really? Can you explain to me where do you derive the laws of logic that you so blatantly misuse from? From your random chance brain? How do you know that your random chance brain can be relied upon? Maybe you have some chemical glitch that causes you to not be able to understand basic laws of logic? Please educate your self on the elementary errors of logic because you managed to cram so many of them in few sentences that I fear it is hopeless to argue with you.

[Coastlinewalks]

There are three simple requirement for believing in God .. the first is that you must be uneducated; knowing nothing of what has been learned and understood in this context. Secondly, you need to be very stupid; blind to what is obvious in this context. Thirdly, you need to be lazy; unwilling to make an effort to understand what is obvious. If you score on all three points, then believe in God, you of no intellectual loss to humanity.

[wfpylori69]

The ability to figure out the truth is selected for, and beliefs do have bearing on behavior. Say I'm a caveman who believes rocks are food. I'll die, of course, and my mechanism of forming and verifying beliefs, i.e. my neurological setup, will be selected against. Only beliefs that have no bearing on behavior that is selected against/for will fail to be selected against/for. P(R|N^E) may not be as low as he thinks it is. This question was posed at 1:29:00, and he gave no satisfactory answer.

[mina319]

@ObjectiveBob Well in my opinion its because he could easily create us by snapping his fingers if he wanted to, but he deliberately took millions of years to create us because he wanted to put hardwork and effort into creating us so that we could be that much more special, like how you build a model airplane from scratch all by yourself, its hard work and may take some time but in the end its much more special than just buying an already made plane because you put work and effort

[ObjectiveBob]

Evolution is not incompatible with belief in God, true. BUT evolution does make the existence of a benevolent God highly improbably, in my opinion. After all, why would a good and wise God create through such a painful and wasteful process?

[metalsusa1]

@AtheismKills And how does show Gods inspired word through men's writings? Call me crazy, call me irresponsible, but I think the bible was a collection of books written by men, voted on as inspired by men, and believed by men. And forced on others at the point of a sword.

[AtheismKills]

@metalsusa1 No original manuscripts of ANY manuscripts have ever been found to date. All manuscripts were copied as the originals deteriorated. No one thinks this makes any difference except when it comes to the Bible. I wonder why... In addition to the 5 complete copies of the New Testament, there are also thousands of early fragments including NT quotes in letters from the Early Church Fathers. They're dated to before the 4th century.

[77musica]

Science means knowledge. Mathematics, biology, etc. How come we are living in a world under circumstances that are revealed in the Holy Bible? The Bible exposes all the human kingdoms that would rule mankind and affect the country of Israel, for instance, Egypt, Syria, Babylon, Medes-Persians, Greek, Roman and now the Anglo-American empire.

[metalsusa1]

@rusty2029 EDIT: To clarify my statement about the 5 complete copies of the New Testament. I didn't mean there are only 5 copies, I meant these 5 copies were the earliest known in existence from the 4th century. All the rest are from the 8th century to the 12th century. No original manuscripts of the New Testament have ever been found to date.