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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (27110)	6/13/2012 10:43:01 PM
From: Solon	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

"atheism has dogma too: "The universe is self-existing and self created, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, life began as a result of spontaneous generation, Mankind is a result of organic evolution, Morality is an artificial construct of humans-there is no transcendent moral standard, religion and religious belief/dogma is harmful to human development, religion is antithetical to reason, etc" NOT! Atheism has no dogma. You were stating beliefs. The fact that many of them are accepted scientific ideas does not have anything to do with atheism. There is no law which says an atheist must follow science. An atheist does not even require to be rational. An atheist simply does not believe in a supernatural creator. Nor does an atheist need to believe in Evolution. Irrelevant. An atheist is an A Theist. PERIOD.

To: one_less who wrote (27110)	6/14/2012 5:46:11 PM
From: 2MAR$	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

not sure what is meant by "American Fundamentalism" but it seems to me "Religious Dogma" is a term closer to your target. Dogma is a fixed belief or set of beliefs people are expected to accept without any doubts . That is where most systems of thought are problematic, because certainty is not a natural condition of human thinking. You see fundamentist thought generally rising out of solid pockets in regional rural America where there's high ethnic concentrations , originally more Protestant, Puritan & later the literalist Baptists which was all part of conflicts of doctrines going back to 1600 England completely caught up with the poilitics too . That was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical "truth" had been discovered, just as it was 2000yrs ago & before , caught up in trifles of rituals & interpretation relative always to the times . Arguing over who had the right interpretations & who could trace lineage back to the original source intentions & to the archetype "Christ" & Biblical teachings . As with all things we note theology was shaped relative to the the economics & conditions of the times , Southern Baptists in powerful state conventions back in 1845 gave reasoning to their way of life founded in large part on the premise that the Bible sanctions slavery and was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. They believed then slavery was a human institution which Baptist teaching would somehow make better , but here an open mind sees just how underlaying base economics rules ultimately over some 'divine ethic"? Come 130yrs later came the great apology by the Baptist coalitions in 1995 , a long time coming ...

To: one_less who wrote (27110)	6/14/2012 6:14:40 PM
From: 2MAR$	1 Recommendation Respond to of 69300

Declarations of certainty always expose weakness. Lest atheists get too cocky over this, atheism has dogma too: "The universe is self-existing and self created, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, life began as a result of spontaneous generation Well there are many people that do hold a theist position that embrace many of the scientific data points of Evolution , deep age & size of the Universe , in fact the majority of religious people mostly do now days . We could say it is possible to describe the other planets in the Solar System as revolving around the Earth, but that explanation is unnecessarily complex compared to this current consensus that all planets in the Solar System revolve around the Sun . You can see that the contemporary model with the Sun as large gravitational warp in space/time responsible for holding the orbits of all the planets seems to be the more probable of the two. We could say that God is Gravity & be correct in so far as we do not know what creates gravity, somehow think they will still go one to search for more detailed answers than this .

To: one_less who wrote (27110)	6/14/2012 6:33:29 PM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Mankind is a result of organic evolution, Morality is an artificial construct of humans-there is no transcendent moral standard, religion and religious belief/dogma is harmful to human development, religion is antithetical to reason, etc" Well there certainly is the theory of evolution Tree of Life with the fossil records of human prehistory & ancestry found in many different parts of the planet & up to you to consider them & determine for yourself . There is the more marveous recent DNA research that has been done on human migrations & family tree that just makes the Bible look like a nursery ryhme by comparison to the true lengthy story of man , but that story is the tiniest fragment of time compared to the age of planet . Some people want to hide on a cave on pluto , thats fine a long as they dont expect us all to join them . There's one underlaying idea one can see all ethical & moral considerations rising out of too , that would be something called beneficial mutual reciprocity. This idea of "do unto others " we find surfacing & expressed on a larger contemporary stage from 500bc , clearly a thesis thats gained expession from Greece to India & over to China simultaneously and quite sure it has its roots going much farther back . Its always interested me that primitive tribes in many cases opted for solving conflicts by more scaled down ritual "mock battles" keeping the casuality rates down , helps minimize greatly preservation & loss of valuable tribal numbers . So the case for morality laws of ethics rising up out of a combination of reason & natural necessity can strongly be made looking far back to dawn of early human history & as numbers of tribes grow & populations start to swell in civilizations so comes the addition of all that increasing complexity which is mirrored in challenging man's ability to reason out with more complexity , thus supporting a non "supernatural view".

To: one_less who wrote (27110)	6/14/2012 6:39:53 PM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

As for moral developement , consider just how long humans have been around predating the Bible that in many cases had already been discovering the base universal root for all ethical & moral considerations . And some rightly think this would be innately in the realization of that which is good for you is good for another & what you would not like done to you , so you would try to refrain from doing to others . Does this make sense, then if it does why would this have to have some divine interlocutor enforcing it ? I would easily call this "innate" because its something one can easily envision happening & dawning long ago in the natural minds of humans as it dawns in yours or my mind today from early ages of youth on . There's always a bigger monkey out there to beat you up & take away your bannana , even the lion or tiger are not unaware that always committing to violence & savagery is the best path , for if they take a horn or get paw bitten by a fierce little badger they too have a very bad day ! Brilliant study here done just in the nick of time , detailing the long history of all human migrations thru DNA sampling in 100's of 1000's of people in 1000's of locations . Human family tree drawn by gene sequencing effort Stanford University news.stanford.edu