1. Merely asserting that evolution does not have a direction does not change anything. It is plain that evolution does have a direction. The journey from DNA strands and unicellular organisms to modern humans....IS the direction. Its not anyone's imagination...its actually happened that way!
That it has an historical path does not mean that, when the process started, it was 'aimed' along that path. Evolution has not only occurred from unicellular organisms to humanity, it's branched into millions of forms of life, it may well have gone back and forth between unicellular and multicellular forms in various branches, it's been in and out of the oceans in various paths.
As we have seen in the thread on 'A new discovery about evolution' .....it takes just one mutation to make the jump from unicellular to multicellular. A one in a trillion trillion chance! This 'chance mutation' has to happen in millions of organisms for it to become a planet wide phenomenon.
No, the mutation has to happen in one and then be passed on to others through reproduction.
From there it takes millions of other 'chance mutations' for additional complexity and emergent properties to arise.
Yes, and with billions of bacteria (say) reproducing multiple times per day for millions of years, you have many, many opportunities for one of those one in a trillion mutations to occur.
This is the direction that evolution has taken. Its not speculation. The fine tuning and tweaking all along the way is obvious.
The 'fine tuning' is still only evident if you presume arbitrarily that we are somehow significant, that we are the 'purpose' of evolution. You have no reason to presume that, we are just the outcome - a different path would have led to a different species, perhaps without the capacity to consider themselves the point of existence, or perhaps without the hubris.
Now...why and how exactly this tweaking happens is a different argument which we can talk about as long as we want. No clear and ready answers are available. However merely mocking the God argument doesn't help.....nor does it help to attribute it all to 'chance'. The answer doesn't have to be either of these two extremes.
It doesn't have to be at either of these two extremes, but we have evidence for one of them, and models based on one of them that have made successful predictions.
Using 'survival instinct' as the answer don't help either...because 'survival' then becomes the objective and purpose of evolution.
No, it becomes the purpose of the individual, and it's become their purpose because it's the trait that's most likely to survive and be passed on. Competition for resources - which is inevitable in a system of limited energy input - inevitably leads to survival of the fittest.
Why should anything survive?!
It shouldn't, it's good fortune on our part that it has. Who knows how many places in the universe life has emerged and then faltered? How many species on Earth have died away over time?
From where and why did that 'instinct' come in?
From natural selection of random mutation, just like all the others.
That all these millions of improbable mutations and emergent properties happened entirely due to random variations and chance environmental factors....is the biggest lie ever sold!
Your personal incredulity doesn't invalidate the explanation. We know that mutations happen. We know that organisms - the expression of those genetic mutations - compete in nature, and that fittest at a given moment are more likely to survive and reproduce, and therefore pass on those mutations. We can show the genetic trail of all the life we're aware of, chart the divergence of various groups based on common genetic traits. We've watched evolution occur in organisms. Evolution is a fact, and the theory of evolution is by far and away the best supported explanation for how it occurs.
2. Religion has authority ...yes... but it is only authority that helps people to obey and follow the rules. More so when most people are unlettered and driven more by instinct than by reason. Following the rules over several generations is what leads to a civilized society eventually. Like educating children in school.
And like children in school, and society at large, you quickly get to the point where you expect people to behave without the threat of the big stick hanging over you, without someone watching your every move. Religion has served its time as a social watchdog, particular because it's failed to update its social mores from the relatively primitive ones instituted when they were invented.
So...putting down 'religious authority' is as bad as putting down school authorities and rules.
There is a time for people to leave school, and leave that sort of authority...
Secondly 'scientific authority' can be no less draconian than religious authority in many cases. It can sometimes be as misleading and rigid as the other.
There have been examples of people rigidly sticking to old ideas in the face of new evidence, yes. That is, though, diametrically opposed to the principles of scientific enquiry - it's human failing in an otherwise robust system. Religion is not self-reflective or self-updating in that fashion, change has to be forced into the system despite the evidence, because religion is built upon the presumption that it's 'THE' correct understanding.
3. Religions are certainly not obsolete. You may not need religion but you cannot speak for 7 billion people worldwide. Many billions of people still need religion and will always do. Primary schools and nursery rhymes will never become obsolete. Same with religion.
People don't need religion. We can establish that from the perfectly satisfactory lives that people without religion lead. Whether people want religion or not is irrelevant to that, and whether they want it or not is not directly related to whether it is good for them individually or for society at large.
Both of those are irrelevant to whether the claims of religion are correct.
O.
