Religion and evolution

[MarkCharles]

27. On Collins' very WEAK 6th argument:

Conclusion

"I don't know of any other Theistic Evolutionist with such a superb defence of evolution and such an unambiguous rejection of YEC and ID. Collins does not claim a supernatural origin of life. Theistic Evolution is a more science-friendly form of religion then YEC and ID, although Collins has strong disagreements with the Darwinian explanation of altruism. He needs to rethink his Moral Law argument, which is not a coherent argument and ignores animal behaviour research as well as a lot of modern theoretical research in the evolution of altruism. If God did instil the Moral Law into humans, He failed to teach us an unambiguous and powerful Moral Law. The historical record shows that humans are very confused about what exactly the Moral Law tells us to do. And besides altruism, humans are surely endowed with a capacity to hate. However, Collins and evolutionary biologists seem to agree on one issue and that is that humans are not universal altruists, often behave selfish and as Jerry Coyne has put it: "evolution built us a brain capable of allowing behavioural flexibility, and we can use it to consciously override our genes to teach virtuous behaviour.". What we need now is a discussion of the merits of a list of moral behaviour codes which benefit the whole planet, irrespective of their supposed religious or evolutionary origin."

http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof83.htm#TE