Religious people can accept the theory of evolution just fine.

Indeed, it's required.

Spencer, Herberrt Spencer. This or that social institution has survival value. While the change--real progress, BTW--which results from the competition between social systems has biological consequences in that some people live and some die, the process is cultural, not biological. Of course religion has survival value, even beyond tha observed above. Religion allows for minimal state coercion and thus contributes to more real progress, as we find in the case of the United States Constitution..

If it's required that religious people accept the theory of evolution, then you really should get with the program, Orrin.

Or did you just misunderstand 'theory of evolution'?

Accepting the theory is a relgious act.

Does this mean you've already retreated to your "we don't even know we exist, and to think that is to be religious" position?

My, that was a fast one.

Not that it makes much sense. While you may think that accepting the theory of evolution is a religious act (thus indicating you've seriously misunderstood 'theory of evolution'), the reverse is obviously not necessarily true - simply being religious does not require you to accept the theory of evolution.

Yes, the reverse is obviously not true. There are different religions. Darwinism is just one.

No place is more religious than India, and I wouldn't want to enjoy their health standards.

Orrin is just being obtuse on purpose, because he knows he cannot make sense.

You can change your opinion about religion. It is not under darwinian selection.

Harry:

Yes, their religion, like yours, is wrong.

There's a difference between evolution (which does not necessarily conflict with theistic religious faith) and Dawkin's evolutionism (which does).

http://www.thecatholicfaith.com/Teachings/evolution.htm

You're saying God intervenes in the individual lives of those who believe in him?

So how do you explain the numerous instances in which vociferous believers in him get diseases and die early?

I've already outlived lots of Christians I started out with.

The indecency of your position is obvious to everyone but you.

Harry:

No, He doesn't. The point is that you behave as He commanded.

How many religious people perished in the tsunami disaster?

Incidentally - note that the article does not distinguish between different kinds of religiosity, merely between religious people and atheists. There's only one kind of 'wrong religion' according to the perspective of the author, and that is the absence of one.

"The point is that you behave as He commanded."

That's a potentially very interesting point, Orrin: did you mean by this that since Harry behaved in a more Christian way than the 'Christians' he knew, he has received the Lord's favor by being allowed to live longer?

Or did you mean that Harry and the other Christians behaved as the Lord preordained, and therefore didn't really have free will?

Or something else?

Yes, at a minmum you're better off being religious than not. But the religions aren't equal either.

Incidentally, even though I don't believe in the existence of a god as defined by the major religions (as it does require some rather astounding just-so stories to accomplish this), I am not anti-religion, except for certain strains of fundamentalism/extremism.

Religion is beneficial on a local/community level, from everything I've seen, and I genuinely don't have a problem with that. The fact that some aspects of religion are beneficial is hardly a coincidence, since the tried and tested rules of the community resulted in and were encoded in religious rules - not the other way around.

creeper:

Yes, Harry like most Americans is a completely conformist Judeo-Christian. That he can' derive the morality that he follows independently matters little so long as he obeys.

Orrin,

In upbringing and behavior I'm pretty much a "completely conformist Judeo-Christian" too; I just find the notion of the Great Father Figure in the sky to be absurd for words - there can be no omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent being in the same universe as us. You've been happy to remove all those qualities one by one, but then what are you defending, and whom is it you worship?

I certainly don't understand your pride in your morality when you jettison honesty at the drop of a hat. Taking those actions should certainly give you a hint that you should re-evaluate your perspective.

As for the morality we obey - it grew out of tried and tested rules of the community and effectively encoded them.

No, it Created that community.

"Religion is beneficial on a local/community level, from everything I've seen"

A bit of a sweeping statement - I suppose I should make that "Religion can be beneficial"...

"No, it Created that community."

Either interpretation is plausible.

Unless by "it" you mean an "omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent being" that is still around today.

He gave us the dignity that is the sole basis for the morality--the rest follows.

Does a whale have dignity?

No.

Why not?

It's not made in the Imago Dei. We're given dominion over it, as we are not over each other. But it's part of God's Creation so we oughtn't be profligate with its life.

How do we know what God looks like?

We don't.

Then how do we know we're made in his image?

He told us. But Image doesn't seem to mean that we look like Him.

"He told us."

Either that or some folks who felt like ascribing god-like qualities to themselves made up a god that was just like them.

God isn't just like us.

If we were made in his Image, in what ways is He different, and in what ways is He similar?

He too has Free Will but He's capable of not choosing evil. We aren't. He is eternal, but denied us eternal life because without such a moral sense we're unworthy of it.

"He's capable of not choosing evil. We aren't."

Does that mean we have to choose evil?

"He is eternal, but denied us eternal life because without such a moral sense we're unworthy of it."

I see - so we have dignity that makes us better than the beast, but God also made us so we must choose evil, and because He did that, He had to give us a limited shelflife.

It's one way of looking at it, I suppose...

He made us so that we can choose Evil and because we're human -- merely made in His Image not Him -- we do choose Evil. All of us. We'll grow up eventually, but we're still just as children.

I don't choose Evil. I always root for the guy in the white hat.

Yes. You Harry, Jeff, etc. always insdst you're without sin.

Sin? I thought we were talking about Evil.

That's what sin is, choosing to do evil.

Well I guess then I am without sin. Cool!

Yes, all you guys think so. It's why you're so dangerous.

So if I choose to do evil, I'm not dangerous, but if I don't, I am. Curiouser and curiouser.

no, it's the belief that you don't choose to.

Which moral laws am I transgressing?

There's only one--to love your fellow men as God loves you. We all transgress it every day.

Oh I love my fellow men plenty, and women too, believe me.

Sounds like an elaborate ploy to impose guilt on one and all. I suppose it's useful as a way of controlling communities at some level.

Exactly. And Darwinism is just a way of assuaging your guilt. It's not science, just a competing religion. The argument is just about aesthetics and the kind of world you choose.

"And Darwinism is just a way of assuaging your guilt."

What guilt? You assume guilt as the starting point.

No, I assume Creation as the starting point. Evilddoing is the starting point for Darwinism.

Struggle for survival is the starting point for Darwinism.

Perhaps I expressed myself unclearly in my previous comment. What I meant to say was that you assume guilt as the given starting point of each individual, not something on a historical scale.

Yes, and giving yourself an excuse for whatever you do in your own pursuit of "survival". It's just about escaping moral responsibility.

Moral responsibility is merely the natural consequence of what has been figured out to be best for us to survive socially, in communities. It was worked out over generations and eventually codified in laws and religions.

Since the only moral law I appear to be transgressing is not loving my fellow men as much as some speculative supernatural being, I reckon I don't need to fish around for excuses. It's not like I'm going to stick a knife in someone's back (literally or otherwise) and claim that I had to do it to survive.

Bingo!

Uh, I am not conforming to Judeo-Christianity.

My profession did not exist prior to secularism, for example. Could not have.

Orrin, you've got it upside down. To the extent that Christianity is decent and humane, it learned that from secularists.

Before there were secularists, it was neither decent nor humane.

Harry:

It is the hilarious claim of your lot that you can arrive at Judeo-Christian morality without God, though that leaves you with no coherent reason why you desire the morality in the first place. But relax, there's plenty of room for freeloaders.

"It is the hilarious claim of your lot that you can arrive at Judeo-Christian morality without God, though that leaves you with no coherent reason why you desire the morality in the first place."

Because it is quite simply an effective way for a community to function. Adding a speculative mysterious authority figure and promises and threats of hypothetical rewards and punishments in the afterlife are also effective for some, but are not neccessary as added incentive for all.

"Bingo!"

Glad you've come to agree with me.

I haven't arrived at Judeo-Christian morality and hope I never sink so low.

Harry:

Of course you can't derive it without God, but you protest that youy follow it. That's good enough.