Conversations: Prophecies

Zoe
There are people who think that their sacred texts predict the future by means of prophecies. Is this so unreasonable?

Sappho
It is. Consider the Bible, Christians regularly assert that the Bible predicts future historical events. For instance, Deuteronomy 28:64 says, “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.”

Helena
Furthermore, Jesus says, in Luke 19:43-44, “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Now, we are meant to believe that these utterances predict the subsequent history of the Jews with such uncanny specificity so as to admit of only a supernatural explanation.

Sappho
But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy would be, if it were actually the product of omniscience.

What about Intelligent Design?

‘Here is what we know. We know that the universe is far older than the Bible suggests. We know that all complex organisms on earth, including ourselves, evolved from earlier organisms over the course of billions of years. The evidence for this is utterly overwhelming. There is no question that the diverse life we see around us is the expression of a genetic code written in the molecule DNA, that DNA undergoes chance mutations, and that some mutations increase an organism’s odds of surviving and reproducing in a given environment. This process of mutation and natural selection has allowed isolated populations of individuals to interbreed and, over vast stretches of time, form new species.

There is no question that human beings evolved from nonhuman ancestors in this way. We know, from genetic evidence, that we share an ancestor with apes and monkeys, and that this ancestor in turn shared an ancestor with the bats and the flying lemurs. There is a widely branching tree of life whose basic shape and character is now very well understood. Consequently, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that individual species were created in their present forms. How the process of evolution got started is still a mystery, but that does not in the least suggest that a deity is likely to be lurking at the bottom of it all. Any honest reading of the biblical account of creation suggests that God created all animals and plants as we now see them. There is no question that the Bible is wrong about this. Many Christians who want to cast doubt upon the truth of evolution now advocate something called intelligent design (ID). The problem with ID is that it is nothing more than a program of political and religious advocacy masquerading as science. Since a belief in the biblical God finds no support in our growing scientific understanding of the world, ID theorists invariably stake their claim on the areas of scientific ignorance.

The argument for ID has proceeded on many fronts at once. Like countless theists before them, fanciers of ID regularly argue that the very fact that the universe exists proves the existence of God. The argument runs more or less like this: everything that exists has a cause; space and time exist; space and time must, therefore, have been caused by something that stands outside of space and time; and the only thing that transcends space and time, and yet retains the power to create, is God. Many Christians like yourself find this argument compelling. And yet, even if we granted its primary claims (each of which requires much more discussion than ID theorists ever acknowledge), the final conclusion does not follow. Who is to say that the only thing that could give rise to space and time is a supreme being? Even if we accepted that our universe simply had to be designed by a designer, this would not suggest that this designer is the biblical God, or that He approves of Christianity. If intelligently designed, our universe could be running as a simulation on an alien supercomputer. Or it could be the work of an evil God, or of two such gods playing tug-of-war with a larger cosmos.’

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 23-24

Power of Prophecy

‘Christians regularly assert that the Bible predicts future historical events. For instance, Deuteronomy 28:64 says, “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.” Jesus says, in Luke 19:43-44, “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.” We are meant to believe that these utterances predict the subsequent history of the Jews with such uncanny specificity so as to admit of only a supernatural explanation.

But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy would be, if it were actually the product of omniscience. If the Bible were such a book, it would make perfectly accurate predictions about human events. You would expect it to contain a passage such as “In the latter half of the twentieth century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers—the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus—and this system shall be called the Internet.” The Bible contains nothing like this. In fact, it does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century. This should trouble you. […]

Why doesn’t the Bible say anything about electricity, or about DNA, or about the actual age and size of the universe? What about a cure for cancer? When we fully understand the biology of cancer, this understanding will be easily summarized in a few pages of text. Why aren’t these pages, or anything remotely like them, found in the Bible? Good, pious people are dying horribly from cancer at this very moment, and many of them are children. The Bible is a very big book. God had room to instruct us in great detail about how to keep slaves and sacrifice a wide variety of animals. To one who stands outside the Christian faith, it is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.’

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 20

Evolution 101

‘Consider Darwin’s original phrase natural selection: everything from Cuckoo Birds that lay their eggs in the nest of other birds, to giraffes whose long necks are good for reaching food in high trees, to humans whose brains make up for their fragile bodies, are selected for, naturally.

An even better phrase would be non-random selection or maybe even non-random elimination. While all genetic mutations are generated by a random copying error or random variation completely beyond the animal’s control, the selection of those traits is not random.

Successful variations that allow you to survive and reproduce are determined by the very specific circumstances of your environment, where elimination – death – might not be far away.

So, the selection of your traits is done by a very specific and sometimes brutal list of criteria. This is why people who say that they don’t understand how all animals could have “evolved by chance” don’t really understand how evolution works.

Here’s another phrase that doesn’t get it right: “evolution is just a theory”. In everyday speech, theory means guess; but in science, a theory is something that was tested time and time again, explains many different observations and is backed up by a mountain of evidence.

Evolution is a theory like gravity is a theory, and you don’t go jumping out your window because gravity is “just a theory”.

Why are we so certain? Emily knows:

Evolution is one of the most tested, most utilised and most widely accepted theories in science. It’s backed up by literally tonnes of fossil evidence which can show us shared traits with species that no longer exist, and help us map out lines of descent for creatures that are around today.

DNA sequencing further tells us about lines of descent and you can measure the commonality of the DNA possessed by two animals to tell how closely related they are, and when they may have split off from a common ancestor.

Radiometric dating allows us to assign dates to various fossils, further helping us map out lines of descent.

Then there’s the simple fact that extinct species are always found in the same rock layers you’d expect to find them. Which is why you don’t see a bunny skeleton in Cambrian rock layers from half a billion years ago. That’s also how we know that Dimetrodon is not a dinosaur.

Closely related species are often geographically distributed near one another. That’s not to mention that we can see evolution happening before our very eyes: whether it be the discovery of a new species that recently moved into a different environment, the development of newly adapted bacteria into superbugs, the evolution of new breeds of rapidly reproducing insects, or the almost constant changes in gene distribution in animal populations all over the world.’

– Green. H., Graslie. E. (2014, October 29) The Evolutionary Epic: Crash Course Big History #5

Exogamy

Exogamy has two related definitions: biological and cultural. Biological exogamy is the mating of non-related beings. Cultural exogamy is the marrying outside of a specific group.

There may be a drive in humans as in many non-human animals to engage in exogamy – out-breeding – because procreating with individuals who are more closely related means any children will be more likely to suffer from genetic defects caused by inbreeding.

The genetic principles involved apply to all species, not just humans. Individuals who breed with more exotic partners and thereby avoid incestuous relationships tend to have healthier offspring due to the benefits of out-breeding. There are many conditions that are more likely where inbreeding takes place, one example being cystic fibrosis when a couple of primarily European genetics have children, another being sickle-cell anaemia when a couple of primarily African genetics have children. Therefore, the drive to reproduce with individuals genetically different from oneself[citation needed] may derive from an innate drive to seek the healthiest combination of DNA possible for one’s offspring by out-breeding. However, that offspring may also imply in losing specific geographic adaptations.

Exogamy is the custom of marrying outside a specified group of people to which a person belongs. In addition to blood relatives, marriage to members of a specific totem, clan(s) or other groups may be forbidden. The opposite of exogamy is endogamy.

Linguistic exogamy is a form of cultural exogamy in which marriage occurs only between speakers of different languages. The custom is common among indigenous groups in the northwest Amazon, such as the Tucano tribes. Also used to describe families in Atlantic Canada with a Francophone and an Anglophone parent.