There is a common argument against the existence of God from the misuse of Darwin that says that since an amateur gardener can marshall the kind of variations that produce speciation to muster a greener kind of apple, God must not exist.
Some people would look at the exact same set of observations and say that this phenomenon serves as an argument for God.
But Dorothy Sayers cuts through the crap. It is neither. She says, “all it proves is that the same material causes (recombination of the chromosomes by crossbreeding and so forth) are sufficient to account for all observed variations”. She goes on to illustrate as follows: simply because a cat strolling across a piano can happen to play the exact thirteen semitones required to recreate the Moonlight Sonata does not tell us anything of the existence or unexistence of Ludwig van Beethoven. All such a scenario would prove is that we were unable to distinguish between a material and a final cause.
Your Correspondent, According to the gas chromatograph, he is the secret ingredient.
Feels a wee teeny tad like a straw man. I for one don’t think that Darwin’s discoveries are conclusive evidence against the existence of a god or any mystically proposed mystical deity. They are however hurtful to the OT biblical narrative. God has always been defined as the magical doer of the things which we don’t yet understand . Pre Darwin that included sparking humans onto earth with a flick of the wrist. post Darwin his role was redefined as more abstract. I always find it weird that god choose Darwin to reveal such important truths to us, rather than say, jesus or one of the apostles… now THAT would have been impressive and would have convinced and saved a lot more souls.
Why must you turn my blog into a den of non sequiturs?
rejecting the premise, isn’t the same as a non sequitur.
.
Q:How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:Fish.
Q. What did one pig in a bath say to the other pig in a bath?
A. Pass me the typewriter.
Still and all, explain the rejection of the premise or consider yourself politely ignored.
Always feel free to ignore, politely or otherwise. This type of obnoxious interjection isn’t easily offended.
The rejected premise, and the shout of straw man is at the suggestion that god must not exist because we have the ability to manipulate life, species of plant and breed of dogs. It would depend completely on your definition of god.
Unless you are a literal creationist then you have nothing which I can ably disprove? do you? I can build up evidence that the bible doesn’t stand up as historical reportage but that won’t even bruise because in an earlier comment you claimed your faith is not in the bible.
…to be fair, which is not like me, you did say ‘common argument against the existence of God’rather than ‘the argument’. so the straw man is tempered
How can Genesis 1 and 2 be historical reportage (?). There was no one around to historicize it! Sayers isn’t making any point you are fighting against. She is simply saying the “God is because X” and “God isn’t because Y” crew are missing the point entirely.
The same way people turn water to wine perhaps?
(i don’t thin i mentioned gen 1 & 2 anyway)
The thoery of evolution is quite important to atheism, but not because it is an argument against the existence of God. It is important because teaches us a lesson about what we can infer.
Before evolution, it was generally assumed that complicated and functional things cannot emerge by themselves. The richenss, variety, and innovation found in life and its strategies implied a talented supernatural designer behind it all. The process of evolution is essentially a counterexample to this rule of inference. It shows us that complexity and variety can emerge from simple, unintelligent mechanisms.
So if someone is a Christian because of their personal experience, or because they are convinced by the history of Christianity, then evolution will have no impact either way. But evolution is part of a tapestry of ideas that make atheism a consistent and valid assumption.