Why bother with God? (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, May 26, 2011, 01:25 (4740 days ago) @ dhw

You and Pigliucci fail to take into account that for evolution to occur, not only must the first living matter have been able to reproduce itself, but it must also have borne within itself the mechanisms for ADAPTATION and for INNOVATION. If those mechanisms had not existed, life would quickly have died out or simply stayed in its most primitive forms (after all, bacteria have managed to survive unscathed). Atheists expect us to believe that ALL these mechanisms were assembled by blind chance. Once they were in place, then of course the adaptive processes were no longer random. However, innovation, which Darwinism explains as being due to random mutation and which you don't even bother to mention, is crucial: without it, we would not have the vast variety of organs that bacteria don't have. You and Pigliucci cling to the same old atheist line of focusing on Chapter 2 of the story, and dismissing Chapter 1 as a kind of minor irritant. (I haven't read Pigliucci, so that's a bit unfair. I can only go by your representation of his arguments.)
> -No they don't. There are certainly SOME. You ask any atheist scientist--he will tell you that we don't have a solution for origins. But that's not an admission of guilt, or coverup, or of "dodging the question." We don't know. When I participated in atheist forums, generally the answer you would get is "we'll see." Some expect science to give them an answer, others might be more skeptical, but it's kind of unfair to say "you say it all hinges on chance!" when they really don't. My own atheism was founded upon the principle "I withhold belief in God until such time that enough evidence can corroborate his existence." That isn't exactly a statement of "It's all chance!" There are atheists that declare themselves that way. Technically, I would still consider myself an atheist under the definition "does not believe in God." I don't. The belief ceases to be, this does not mean that I claim he doesn't exist, only that I don't believe. Is your characterization of atheists accurate?-As for your other claim, it is certainly appropriate to NOT consider something that I don't have any answer for. I don't have an answer for origins, so all I've got is what I DO know, which is certainly not nothing.-> dhw...your negative judgement on ALL matters relating to the paranormal ... including the acquisition of otherwise inaccessible knowledge during NDEs ... remains a puzzle for me.
> MATT: The USAF researcher's model accounts for all of this. We could discuss this further if you wished.
> 
> If you are convinced that the USAF researcher has accounted for all the paranormal experiences related by Pim van Lommel, David, BBella and myself, plus a few hundred thousand others, I doubt if there would be much point.-That the world we see is actually a model presented to us by our brain? It accounts for NDEs, and OBEs. It accounts for things we also DON'T see. A prime example: I witnessed a car accident about 11 years ago. The story of my wife and I completely contradicted the story from 2 other witnesses at different angles. My wife and I were sober, in good health, had good sleep--all of that. -SO who was right? Us, or the other 2 people at the scene? My wife and I did the only logical thing and recanted. Maybe our minds were more on our conversation at the time. We looked up at the wrong instant. Who knows? But clearly we didn't see what we thought we saw.-Not tonight, but this weekend I will start a post called "Killing the Watchmaker," where I work with Dr. Pigliucci (through his books) on attacking the notion of chance; specifically, is Intelligent Design the ONLY form of design? Your wonderful Hume made a chilling argument here.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"