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Comment by Xcelerate | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has a keen interest in reading about evolution and artificial intelligence, I'm a bit disappointed they had to bring an anti-God slant to the article.

Other than that, I certainly believe it's possible to generate something "intelligent" (for lack of a better word). I think this will require an improvement in both processing ability -- and more importantly -- an innovative new way to create a mutation algorithm. If we just take bits and let them mutate over time, we may eventually get something like AI but I think it will take more time than we have. We'll need to use our own intelligence to accelerate this process.

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I don't think its "anti-God" per se. Its just that as science advances there's more and more that we can say about the universe that doesn't require God (or philosophy) to talk about.

Unfortunately the early western judeo-christian line of thinking biased people heavily towards a "God of the gaps" style of thinking. In this line, God is first postulated as an explanation for unexplainable observations and then later falsified. This makes science seem "anit-God" just by its nature, since it always seems to be trying to un-gap the God parts. IMHO this philosophical rabbit trail was one of Christianity's biggest mistakes.

Yeah, I can agree with that. In fact, I would be surprised that an omnipotent being would be "hiding in a crevice, just waiting to be found" by humans. It seems too much like a story. I prefer the idea of absolute physical laws that were well-designed, and from these laws everything else came about.

When the topic is evolution, there is usually an anti-God slant.

Because you don't need a God any longer to explain things. God is a literary device that has been used throughout the ages to fill in the gaps of human knowledge. It's akin to other devices, like dream sequences, flashbacks, Chekhov's Gun, just one that caught on, mainly thanks to a couple thousand years of it being rammed down the throats (often, quite literally) of uneducated peasants.

These days, we don't need the concept of a creator because we better understand the workings of the universe.

This of course doesn't have anything to do with Faith, that's an entirely personal thing that some need/want to get through life, to each their own. Fortunately in this era we mainly have switched away from executing those that don't share the same faith. Oh, wait...

So... am I the only religious person on this website who is also very scientific? I mean, I believe in evolution, and in my opinion the two concepts have always been complementary rather than exclusive (but I won't start a debate). Just curious.

I don't think they're compatible at all. I think those who think they are simply display evidence of our ability to maintain cognitive dissonance; religion and science are not compatible. The only people who think they are, are religious people who can't leg go of their faith, so they rationalize.

Science is anti-faith, religion is anti-evidence, how anyone thinks them compatible is beyond me. Faith is not a virtue in science, it's just bad thinking.

The agnost Stephen Jay Gould thought they were not opposed: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html The Catholic church has the following to say about the relationship between faith and science: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/d...

That he did, but his belief can be summed up with this quote..

"The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

And he's quite simply wrong, they do overlap as science has something to say about all of those things. Religion has no claim on the realm of morality and meaning, nor does it provide any actual answers on the subject, nor does it serve as a guiding light on the subject.

Gould is trying to play nice because he thinks religion is valuable to many people and he doesn't want to offend. I do not believe his position honest, merely political.

As for what the church thinks, they're going to rationalize no matter what, their opinions simply support my original statement.

No, I also consider myself both religious and science minded. For example I have no issue with the idea that complexity in evolution is an emergent property, like for example seen in Conway's life. My religious ideas on the soul are very much in line with for example Karl Rahner's: http://www.anselm.edu/Documents/Institute%20for%20Saint%20An...

I don't know about this website, but I know mathematicians (some of whom have made significant contributions) who are practicing christians. Not just for the social life either, but because they believe in god.

The hostility with which religion has treated science has provoked an annoyingly equal and opposite reaction. I personally have some interesting beliefs, but it's useless to wonder whether they're religious or not.

But really, there is a deeper issue that, without a testament of the nature of your personal interpretation of your religion, it is not actually possible to usefully decide if evolution and your religious beliefs are compatible.

I'd say that's rather overestimating the philosophical importance of evolution. When you look at the arguments people actually make about God's existence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God), maybe one or two of them actually involve where ducks come from.

Considering the Catholic Church finds no contradiction between evolution and the faith, I too would say evolutions importance to the existence/non-existence of God is overrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

You're rather neglecting the past thousand years or so where the Catholic Church would have you executed for thinking the earth wasn't flat. And let's not even mention their issue with women, witch hunts, and of course the Inquisition.

And you're somewhat misleadingly misrepresenting that Wikipedia article. It actually says that the no-conflict position is an unofficial stance of the Vatican.

It also (rather importantly neglected by your comment) says that their position is that humans are indeed special and need the existence of god. That's rather a conceited view of our species, but then this is coming from the same organization that spent much of the 13th century burning whole french villages...

Both protestant and catholic theology (Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Kasper, Moltmann) have largely moved past such a stop gap god. The original poster is right, me and most practicing christians in my country (arguably it's different in the US) don't see a problem with evolution. Within the framework of Catholicism (the largest organized, most developed christian denomination) believing so is no problem at all, the "deposit of faith" allows this. The seeds for this have been sown in the early part of the 20th century. Concerning the specialness of the human person or soul, and the need for God; this is first and formost meant as theological language.

As to the first point: Slavery was once legal also, but that is no longer so.

as to the second point: I would assume the Pope actually knows the opinion of the church and wrote so here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM or http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/pont...

As to point 3: see my response to 1 and yes, religions for the most part believe Humans are special. Being sentient tends to do that.

Okay, okay, I didn't mean to start one of these. Let's just get back to the AI discussion. (I do have a long paragraph about AI in the second part of my original post that has been neglected, you know).

I am not overstating, or even stating at all any philosophical importance of evolution. Evolution just is, it doesn't need, nor does it care about our human philosophies. Evolution began long ago before humans (obviously) and was working just fine with our without us giving it any thought whatsoever.

I think you have it backwards, religion very much depends (with glorious irony) upon evolution, and our human condition of attributing agency where there is none.

Meanwhile, with our without any of thinking any mythological super being, evolution carries right along, at the cellular level all the way up to who we are.

I am not saying there is, or isn't a god (I honestly don't care, what does it matter?) - but I am saying that it's time we stopped burying our heads in the sand and ignoring science, while we hack off the limbs of anyone that doesn't share our particular god theory.

Great.

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