Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 15:45 (5293 days ago) @ dhw

"My view ... just to avoid any misunderstanding ... is that I haven't a clue. I don't believe that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident, and I don't believe in a designer."-I'm not altogether certain that your view as expressed here is coherent. If something doesn't happen "by accident", then how does it happen? What do you mean, "by accident"? One understanding of "by accident" is strictly through the laws of nature working themselves out. If "life and the codes for evolution" could not have come about strictly through the laws of nature, then what other alternative is there than that something outside the laws of nature brought about their development?-I'm more likely to believe that you don't believe in a designer, in which case I have to say that your belief "that life and the codes for evolution" could not have come about by accident is, frankly, nonsense. Personally, given my understanding of chemistry and the way evolution works, I have no trouble whatsoever believing "that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." No one familiar with canonical science will have trouble believing this, and it seems to me that it is only unfamiliarity with the richness of chemistry and the workings of evolution that would prevent someone from seeing how all that could arise perfectly naturally.-Nevertheless, because of my own religious experience, I have to postulate the existence of some kind of absolute reality as the ground of all being, a ground I openly name, God. It's just that canonical science does not leave any room for that God to have efficient causes on brute matter. God only "comes into his own" when consciousness finally evolves in the universe.