Can The Atheist Do Good?

[Doug Shaver]

Why do we wish to be other than we are?

Our discontent with our present condition is an observable fact. And it is logical, for any creature capable of such reasoning, to try to identify the cause of any discontent and try to eliminate it. The question is how we account for the discontent.

Christians have their account, and they like to think it’s the only credible account. Naturalists think the Christian account assumes facts not in evidence. They think their accounts is as credible as it needs to be so long as no one can offer a reason us to expect the world into which we are born to have been lacking anything we would find unpleasant.

I wonder if the ape or dog, if they could communicate to us, would have this same disconnect.

They often act as if they are distressed by the situations in which they find themselves, and in those situations, they exhibit behaviors clearly intended to effect changes that a creature of sufficient intelligence would expect to diminish their distress.

Why not just declare yourself morally perfect?

Because you can’t change these things just by saying they have changed.

I thought that was Plato and his forms, but it has been a while.

Plato and Aristotle had their disagreements, but both were committed to a transcendental metaphysics.

[seer]

Our discontent with our present condition is an observable fact. And it is logical, for any creature capable of such reasoning, to try to identify the cause of any discontent and try to eliminate it. The question is how we account for the discontent.

Christians have their account, and they like to think it’s the only credible account. Naturalists think the Christian account assumes facts not in evidence. They think their accounts is as credible as it needs to be so long as no one can offer a reason us to expect the world into which we are born to have been lacking anything we would find unpleasant.

I'm really only saying that it is an interesting question. I think it does suggest that there is some moral reality out there that we seem to be aimed it, trying to move towards.

They often act as if they are distressed by the situations in which they find themselves, and in those situations, they exhibit behaviors clearly intended to effect changes that a creature of sufficient intelligence would expect to diminish their distress.

Perhaps with simple pain or hunger. I don't know if the Chimpanzee, who often kill each other and steal from each other, would ever come to the conclusion that those were moral wrongs. Or just see it as a perfectly natural state of affairs. Like CS Lewis quipped - would the fish ever complain because it is wet?

Because you can’t change these things just by saying they have changed.

But you can, why not just change your moral ideals to fit your actual behavior and declare moral perfection? Why try to live up to a standard, personal or cultural, that is relative?

[Sparko]

What the NPR article does, along with virtually every scientific commentary on the Adam and Eve story, is present the argument that the notion all of humanity being descended from that single pair is biologically impossible.

1. I never claimed my beliefs were "scientifically proven"
2. Logically and scientifically all modern humans do have a common ancestor. They have to. There had to be a first human born. Just like any other species. Evolutionarily there had to be a point where the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was born.


Unless you are saying that evolution, a process that depends on random mutations, somehow produced 100,000 biological homo sapiens sapiens from non homo sapiens all at one time? One hundred thousand identical random mutations? That would be quite a miracle, eh?

[Adrift]

1. I never claimed my beliefs were "scientifically proven"
2. Logically and scientifically all modern humans do have a common ancestor. They have to. There had to be a first human born. Just like any other species. Evolutionarily there had to be a point where the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was born.


Unless you are saying that evolution, a process that depends on random mutations, somehow produced 100,000 biological homo sapiens sapiens from non homo sapiens all at one time? One hundred thousand identical random mutations? That would be quite a miracle, eh?

More to the point, the article, again, does not claim what Tassman claims it is claiming. It does not "present the argument that the notion all of humanity being descended from that single pair is biologically impossible." That's not at all the goal of the article. The goal of the article is to point out the rift between Theistic Evolutionists (by citing senior fellows at BioLogos like the biologist Dennis Venema), and six day creationists (like president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler).

The closest that the article comes to anything like what Tassman is suggesting is in two paragraphs summarizing Venema's view,

Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population — long before the Genesis time frame of a few thousand years ago. And given the genetic variation of people today, he says scientists can't get that population size below 10,000 people at any time in our evolutionary history.

To get down to just two ancestors, Venema says, "You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence."

The article later suggests that Venema's view is anti a literal reading, but as I mention above, there are those who hold both a literal reading of the creation narrative, and also accept the current scientific explanation of human origins. In fact, in one of my hyperlinked posts above, I link to an article by one of Venema's fellow Biologos fellows who makes just that suggestion.

[shunyadragon]

More to the point, the article, again, does not claim what Tassman claims it is claiming. It does not "present the argument that the notion all of humanity being descended from that single pair is biologically impossible." That's not at all the goal of the article. The goal of the article is to point out the rift between Theistic Evolutionists (by citing senior fellows at BioLogos like the biologist Dennis Venema), and six day creationists (like president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler).

The closest that the article comes to anything like what Tassman is suggesting is in two paragraphs summarizing Venema's view,

Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population — long before the Genesis time frame of a few thousand years ago. And given the genetic variation of people today, he says scientists can't get that population size below 10,000 people at any time in our evolutionary history.

To get down to just two ancestors, Venema says, "You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence."

The article later suggests that Venema's view is anti a literal reading, but as I mention above, there are those who hold both a literal reading of the creation narrative, and also accept the current scientific explanation of human origins. In fact, in one of my hyperlinked posts above, I link to an article by one of Venema's fellow Biologos fellows who makes just that suggestion.

I believe Tassman's view is justified, because Venema's summary indeed reflects the overwhelming consensus of science concerning the origin of the human species. Yes, the article presents different views, such as the Theistic Evolutionist, but the TE would classically agree with Venema's summary if the TE considers his/her view compatible with science.

Sparko's conclusion that there must have been a 'first person' is an incorrect assumption based on the science of evolution. The evolution of all species result in the genetic drift and isolation of groups or populations of individuals, and not one or two individuals.

[JimL]

1. I never claimed my beliefs were "scientifically proven"
2. Logically and scientifically all modern humans do have a common ancestor. They have to. There had to be a first human born. Just like any other species. Evolutionarily there had to be a point where the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was born.


Unless you are saying that evolution, a process that depends on random mutations, somehow produced 100,000 biological homo sapiens sapiens from non homo sapiens all at one time? One hundred thousand identical random mutations? That would be quite a miracle, eh?

There was no first human Sparko, thats not how evolution works. A first human wasn't born of an ape if thats what you mean to say.

[Sparko]

I believe Tassman's view is justified, because Venema's summary indeed reflects the overwhelming consensus of science concerning the origin of the human species. Yes, the article presents different views, such as the Theistic Evolutionist, but the TE would classically agree with Venema's summary if the TE considers his/her view compatible with science.

Sparko's conclusion that there must have been a 'first person' is an incorrect assumption based on the science of evolution. The evolution of all species result in the genetic drift and isolation of groups or populations of individuals, and not one or two individuals.

I didn't argue against genetic drift Shuny, just that there had to be a first homo sapiens sapiens at one point in time unless you believe in miracles.

[seer]

I believe Tassman's view is justified, because Venema's summary indeed reflects the overwhelming consensus of science concerning the origin of the human species. Yes, the article presents different views, such as the Theistic Evolutionist, but the TE would classically agree with Venema's summary if the TE considers his/her view compatible with science.

Shuny do you believe in a literal Adam?

[Adrift]

I believe Tassman's view is justified, because Venema's summary indeed reflects the overwhelming consensus of science concerning the origin of the human species. Yes, the article presents different views, such as the Theistic Evolutionist, but the TE would classically agree with Venema's summary if the TE considers his/her view compatible with science.

Sparko's conclusion that there must have been a 'first person' is an incorrect assumption based on the science of evolution. The evolution of all species result in the genetic drift and isolation of groups or populations of individuals, and not one or two individuals.

Tassman's view was not justified. Not that I'd expect you to figure that out with your reading comprehension. In the post that Tassman was replying to, Sparko never said a thing about "the science". The context of the conversation had Sparko discussing the relative nature of "good" in Christian contexts. Sparko pointed out that as sinners, Christians believe that everyone is "tainted". Tassman wanted to know when humanity became tainted. Sparko replied that it was when Adam sinned. Sparko could have been speaking for any number of Christian views on the subject, including TE/OE, YEC, literal, non-literal, or any number of other models/views, but Tassman seemed to assume for no good reason that Sparko was specifically inferring some sort of Young Earth Creationist view. He then trotted out an NPR article that had nothing to do with the context of the conversation and made the ridiculous claim that "the science is against you". Not only had Sparko not been discussing science, but the article in question isn't even focused on "the science". It's focused on possible rifts between Christian literalists and non-literalists. If Tassman was actually concerned with "the science", he could have chosen any number of scientific articles that spoke directly to "the science", but even then he'd be burning straw, because Sparko said nothing about "the science".

As an aside, it should come to no surprise that "the TE would classically agree with Venema's summary" seeing as Venema is a TE (as I mentioned in the post you were quoting). That's neither here nor there, though.

[Sparko]

Whut Adrift sed.

[Tassman]

1. I never claimed my beliefs were "scientifically proven"
2. Logically and scientifically all modern humans do have a common ancestor. They have to. There had to be a first human born. Just like any other species. Evolutionarily there had to be a point where the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was born.

There was no one time that modern man suddenly appeared; it was a gradual process via genetic mutations through to our immediate predecessors, Homo erectus. The Homo erectus then gradually evolved into the Homo sapiens c. 80,000 years ago, of which there were two sub-species, namely the primitive humans known as Homo sapien neanderthal and the modern man who is called Homo sapiens sapiens...with the latter interbreeding with Neanderthal man. From all of this modern man, as we now know him slowly emerged. There was no first human as such.

[Leonhard]

Or are you going with the literal Garden of Eden scenario with the forbidden fruit and the talking snake?

Catholics are allowed to have various interpretations on the meaning of the Garden of Eden and the 7-day narrative in the Old Testament, as the Church has always had, and the Church Fathers themselves entertained many different readings of those.

However as per Humani Generis by Pope Pius XII, Catholics may not doubt the historical reality of Adam and Eve, and that all humans descend monogenetically from them. As you later point out this does present some interesting problems with modern phylogenies, but there are possible ways of reconciliation depending on what 'humans' mean in the end. Read the article "Monkey in Your Soul" by Ed Feser, and "Adam and Eve and Ted and Alice" by Mike Flynn.

My current view allign mostly with Ed Feser and Mike Flynn.

[Leonhard]

There was no first human as such.

That depends precisely on what you mean by 'human'.

[Sparko]

There was no one time that modern man suddenly appeared; it was a gradual process via genetic mutations through to our immediate predecessors, Homo erectus. The Homo erectus then gradually evolved into the Homo sapiens c. 80,000 years ago, of which there were two sub-species, namely the primitive humans known as Homo sapien neanderthal and the modern man who is called Homo sapiens sapiens...with the latter interbreeding with Neanderthal man. From all of this modern man, as we now know him slowly emerged. There was no first human as such.

sure it was gradual, but there had to be a first modern human born. Even if everyone else was birthing 99% humans, there still had to be a first 100% human born. That is how it works, Tassy.

[Leonhard]

In a few moments, Tassman will probably say something about humans just being a clade defined by us sharing such and such a common ancestral clade. That this is science, and therefore what it means. Proving that modern day scientistic materialists don't merely deny the existence of God; They also deny the existence of man.