The following exchange is under "Intelligent Design I Could Get Behind":-MATT: That works great for traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish ideas for "Intelligent Design" but it doesn't account for deistic (as in deism) or maltheistic approaches. Though one would ask what the point would be in worshipping either of those kinds of Gods...-DAVID: That is why my 'third way' is so comfortable. God is not what religions describe, or atheists attack. A universal mind may not have beneficence, may or may not be all-knowing, or 100% in total control. Yet whatever created the universe and then life, used information and laws, as a universal intelligence would obviously have to use to create.-MATT: And I've mentioned it before, but even your third option doesn't have an answer for the question 'why?' as in 'why conceive of' or 'why respect' or 'why worship?'
Looked at another way, we always have lived without our apathetic creator... so why even bother? (no pun intended... BUT...) The "questions" said deity answers, aren't really answered. It's perhaps an emotional satisfaction and nothing more.-This dialogue seems to me so fundamental to many of our discussions that I'm opening a new thread for it. Matt's final question is: why even bother? If there's no God, or an indifferent God, I see no point either, apart from satisfying our intellectual curiosity about our own origins and the nature of the universe we live in. Whether there has to be a point is another matter which I'll return to later. Matt is also quite right, though, about the emotional satisfaction that most religious people seem to derive from reading various attributes into their God's mind. From my position on the fence, I can see no evidence for any of them ... beneficence, omniscience, omnipotence, as listed by David ... since the world as I see it could just as easily reflect the opposite. And so if there's no God or an indifferent God, that's fine with me. I live my life with no reference to or dependence on religious beliefs anyway, and I'm very happy without them.-The temptation, then, is to shrug one's shoulders and drop the subject altogether. But it won't go away, and not just because of the human compulsion to have answers to unsolved mysteries. For me a major consideration is the 
possibility that we are not just bodies, and that the mind and identity might move into different dimensions once the body dies. This is not something I hanker after ... a peaceful sleep is nothing to fear (though I do fear the manner of its happening) ... but it's not an idea I can ignore, let alone dismiss. Here my views diverge from Matt's, because OBEs and NDEs and other psychic phenomena are things I take seriously. There are simply too many examples in our own and in other cultures for me to dismiss them. Some kind of afterlife, as envisaged by Christianity or Islam, or by mystics, or as hinted at by those who have returned from NDEs, would quite literally add new dimensions to the whole discussion. This is an important reason why the subject can't be shrugged off.-Another is that despite the impossibility of knowing (a) whether God/a UI exists, and (b) what may be its nature, that very impossibility leaves room for endless speculation. And because we are human, and humans since time immemorial have come up with their own versions of what may or may not be the same creative power(s), I find it impossible to dismiss every variation as fantasy. The ancients were far closer to Nature than we are. Does that mean they were more or less ignorant than we are? Science has clearly brought us infinitely greater insights into the material world, but has that been at the cost of - for want of a better word - a "spiritual" world? Matt's explorations of Eastern mysticism suggest that for him too this is a reason for "bothering".-Finally, let me return to the question of a "point". I must confess to huge respect, almost veneration, for certain humans whose work seems to me to reach heights that are almost superhuman. I'm thinking of figures like Shakespeare and Beethoven, though we will all have different heroes. There is no point to my admiration ... it's simply what I feel. Even allowing for its cruelties and tragedies, the miraculous variety of life on earth (which incidentally would be impossible without the very real passage of what some of us call "time") transcends by an infinite amount the achievements of those heroes. Awe, wonderment, veneration...no, there are no words that can even begin to capture my feelings towards whatever may have brought life about, whether it's impersonal Nature or a conscious intelligence. I don't have the faith to make me bend the knee, but I have to acknowledge that even if there's no point, there's still good reason to 'conceive of', 'respect' and even 'worship' the great whatever-it-is.

And so if there's no God or an indifferent God, that's fine with me. I live my life with no reference to or dependence on religious beliefs anyway, and I'm very happy without them.-I'm also very happy without religious pronouncements on the nature of God or the expectations from him. -1) We cannot know His personality. If we are made in His image in our minds, then He is like us as you observe, but even of this we cannot be sure.-2) BUT, we are alive, and we are given the gift of life, of thought, of Mozart. I find life a joyous gift. Dayenu! It is enough, by itself to say thank you to a universal intelligence.-3) I feel (not know) that I communicate with the universal intelligence, of which I am a very small part. I do receive emotional pleasure from that. And for some reason I am very satisfied with that position.-4) And I receive pleasure from continuing to present my position to fence-sitters and others. It is a shame they cannot feel what I feel.

Again dhw cuts incisively to the point:-> This dialogue seems to me so fundamental to many of our discussions that I'm opening a new thread for it. Matt's final question is: why even bother? If there's no God, or an indifferent God, I see no point either, apart from satisfying our intellectual curiosity about our own origins and the nature of the universe we live in. Whether there has to be a point is another matter which I'll return to later. Matt is also quite right, though, about the emotional satisfaction that most religious people seem to derive from reading various attributes into their God's mind. From my position on the fence, I can see no evidence for any of them ... beneficence, omniscience, omnipotence, as listed by David ... since the world as I see it could just as easily reflect the opposite. And so if there's no God or an indifferent God, that's fine with me. I live my life with no reference to or dependence on religious beliefs anyway, and I'm very happy without them.
> -There's very little to comment on in your post... well-spoken as usual. As I've continued to ponder, many of my original points back from when I first came on board are coming back into light. This may seem OT at first... but it will come back. -I recently watched a pair of lectures that Dennett gave, which completely revised my view of his work and his position, and injected new life into my overall skepticism. I once said that a last refuge for God resided in the consciousness... I find this less and less true. -The lectures I watched were in dealing with the topic of Free Will. Something that we've spent some time on in the past few months. He completely eliminated determinism as a viable option; while on the physical level cells behave as determined automatons, it turns out that this is inconsequential regarding the question of free will. (I can post the lectures for those interested...)-Suddenly... about 40% of my usual arguments to support free will simply vanish... this is a mathematician's dream, to be able to simplify while gaining more insight. So this returns to a common criticism I've had involving God talks:-Why invoke what we stated we can't fathom? Nietzsche said (and I've quoted before) "Man should not reach beyond his creating will!" It seems to me that all attempts at invoking creators are attempts to dodge the act of actually trying to solve hard problems. Most of David's points have been "Life is too complex to arrive by chance..." Which can be rephrased as "We can't untangle the mess, so we might as well forget about it, it's above us!" Invoking a deity throws dirt on problems and calls them solved when clearly--they're not. For a few examples: All approaches to Intelligent Design to date have not resulted in anything that can be empirically tested--nor have such tests been proposed via thought experiments. What utility is an explanation that you can't subject to correlation and causation? I posit none. When you read Dembski and Behe... you have reinterpretations of evidence, but nothing you can take to a lab. What use is a reinterpretation that doesn't allow you to advance?

--
\"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.\"

From my position on the fence, I can see no evidence for any of them ... beneficence, omniscience, omnipotence, as listed by David ... since the world as I see it could just as easily reflect the opposite. -I don't list those characteristics, religions do. I'm not sure of God's characteristics. 
 
> I once said that a last refuge for God resided in the consciousness... I find this less and less true. -When you can explain consciousness to me, then I will accept your statement. 
> 
> The lectures I watched were in dealing with the topic of Free Will. Something that we've spent some time on in the past few months. He completely eliminated determinism as a viable option; while on the physical level cells behave as determined automatons, it turns out that this is inconsequential regarding the question of free will. (I can post the lectures for those interested...)-Please do.
> All approaches to Intelligent Design to date have not resulted in anything that can be empirically tested--nor have such tests been proposed via thought experiments. What utility is an explanation that you can't subject to correlation and causation? I posit none. When you read Dembski and Behe... you have reinterpretations of evidence, but nothing you can take to a lab. What use is a reinterpretation that doesn't allow you to advance?-What if the reinterpretation is correct? I believe Behe has suggested some real testing. I'll have to look for it.

From my position on the fence, I can see no evidence for any of them ... beneficence, omniscience, omnipotence, as listed by David ... since the world as I see it could just as easily reflect the opposite. 
> 
> I don't list those characteristics, religions do. I'm not sure of God's characteristics. 
> 
> > I once said that a last refuge for God resided in the consciousness... I find this less and less true. 
> 
> When you can explain consciousness to me, then I will accept your statement.-I think that it stands to reason that we've never witnessed a disembodied consciousness. A simple argument, but reasonable. 
 
> > 
> > The lectures I watched were in dealing with the topic of Free Will. Something that we've spent some time on in the past few months. He completely eliminated determinism as a viable option; while on the physical level cells behave as determined automatons, it turns out that this is inconsequential regarding the question of free will. (I can post the lectures for those interested...)
> 
> Please do.-http://vodpod.com/watch/4950028-dan-dennett-free-will-responsibility-and-the-brain-the-situationist-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cSgVgrC-6Y-Block 2.5hrs for these. They cover some identical material, but they are different enough (one was targeted towards law students, the other towards philosophers). If you only choose one, i'd choose the second, its the most comprehensive.-> > All approaches to Intelligent Design to date have not resulted in anything that can be empirically tested--nor have such tests been proposed via thought experiments. What utility is an explanation that you can't subject to correlation and causation? I posit none. When you read Dembski and Behe... you have reinterpretations of evidence, but nothing you can take to a lab. What use is a reinterpretation that doesn't allow you to advance?
> 
> What if the reinterpretation is correct? I believe Behe has suggested some real testing. I'll have to look for it.-A reinterpretation that can't be tested has no hope of ever being verified or falsified. Therefore it's--as you once put it--mental masturbation.-Also, how many instances in life have you been presented with situations in which *reason alone* sufficed for an answer? I agree, (extremely) educated guesses as they exist in medicine CAN be right, but... how do you determine if your guess was correct?

--
\"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.\"


> Also, how many instances in life have you been presented with situations in which *reason alone* sufficed for an answer? I agree, (extremely) educated guesses as they exist in medicine CAN be right, but... how do you determine if your guess was correct?-I've been there in medicine, and it is not difficult to know why. You cure the patient.-By the way please review 'the odds for God', posted over four days ago. Your comments are called for.

Matt has referred us to two lectures by Dennett, which have clearly revitalized his own scepticism.-It may take me a while to find the time to view these lectures, but in the meantime you have as usual come up with some stimulating (provocative?) statements:-"It seems to me that all attempts at invoking creators are attempts to dodge the act of actually trying to solve hard problems. Most of David's points have been "Life is too complex to arrive by chance..." Which can be rephrased as "We can't untangle the mess, so we might as well forget about it, it's above us!"-The belief that life is too complex to arrive by chance is based fairly and squarely on human experience: we do not know of any machine capable of even a fraction of our own faculties that has not been consciously designed. The conclusion that the life machine has been designed is therefore no more an act of dodging than the conclusion that chance must have done it. Your rephrasing is either totally inapplicable, or equally applicable to theists and atheists. In fact, I would say it's more suited to agnostics than the other two categories.-You go on: "Invoking a deity throws dirt on problems and calls them solved when clearly they're not."-What problems are you referring to here? I agree to the extent that invoking a deity creates a new set of problems (e.g. how did it come to exist, what is its nature?) ... and from that angle, there's no question that the atheist faith in chance is far simpler. However, it is still faith, which I for one cannot share. You are right that Dembski and Co reinterpret evidence, but so do Dawkins and Co. Atheists may take their reinterpretations to the lab, but so far they have come up with zilch, because no-one has yet succeeded in proving that chance can assemble the machinery of life and evolution. Our scientists can't even assemble it by conscious experimentation. If God is not the solution, nor is chance. That's why some of us remain agnostic.-You are heading towards rejecting consciousness as a last refuge for God: "I think it stands to reason that we've never witnessed a disembodied consciousness. A simple argument, but reasonable."-You have chosen the wrong pronoun. "We" needs to be replaced by "I". There are hundreds of thousands of people who swear that they have witnessed a disembodied consciousness ... in the form of paranormal experiences. No doubt some are fraudulent, some delusional, some explicable in material terms...but there are countless such experiences that remain unexplained. Your argument is only reasonable if you make the assumption that consciousness is completely and utterly dependent on the brain cells. However, even our greatest scientists remain baffled by this phenomenon, and so your assumption is as faith-based as that which attributes life to chance or to a creator.-You say: "A reinterpretation that can't be tested has no hope of ever being verified or falsified. Therefore it's ... as you once put it ... mental masturbation."-Do you believe we can test/verify/falsify the hypotheses that nothing existed before the big bang, there are/were universes beyond our own, chance assembled the mechanisms of life and evolution? I am not defending the God hypothesis. I am merely pointing out that atheism is just as blinkered as theism. I would also point out that the alternative to these unverifiable, unfalsifiable theories is to cry out: "We can't untangle the mess, so we might as well forget about it, it's above us!"


> This dialogue seems to me so fundamental to many of our discussions that I'm opening a new thread for it. Matt's final question is: why even bother? If there's no God, or an indifferent God, I see no point either, apart from satisfying our intellectual curiosity about our own origins and the nature of the universe we live in.if there's no God or an indifferent God, that's fine with me. I live my life with no reference to or dependence on religious beliefs anyway, and I'm very happy without them.
> 
> The temptation, then, is to shrug one's shoulders and drop the subject altogether. But it won't go away, and not just because of the human compulsion to have answers to unsolved mysteries.-Now a College in California is offering a degree in Atheism! Most Bachelor degrees are an A.B. or a B.S. I'm sure the religious will favor BS. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman runs this new department, and has an agnostic/atheist website. I doubt this professor will offer odds for God during his course, as my previous entry showed (about 5 days ago). But will his students end up more secular or more religious? -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576333454244079630.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion

dhw,
> "It seems to me that all attempts at invoking creators are attempts to dodge the act of actually trying to solve hard problems. Most of David's points have been "Life is too complex to arrive by chance..." Which can be rephrased as "We can't untangle the mess, so we might as well forget about it, it's above us!"
> 
> The belief that life is too complex to arrive by chance is based fairly and squarely on human experience: we do not know of any machine capable of even a fraction of our own faculties that has not been consciously designed. The conclusion that the life machine has been designed is therefore no more an act of dodging than the conclusion that chance must have done it. Your rephrasing is either totally inapplicable, or equally applicable to theists and atheists. In fact, I would say it's more suited to agnostics than the other two categories.
> -But for me the fallacy is based on deciding that we HAVE to judge. That's the way this battle has gone on since time immemorial... I'm still agnostic, mind you, only I'm getting a little cranky, lol. -It IS dodging. Because instead of rolling up your sleeves (not meaning you, personally, dhw) and directly attacking and wrestling with the problem of AI in your example, most of mankind simply latches on to the next, most convenient solution. Also in Dennett you'll hear him directly refer to evolution AS design... -> You go on: "Invoking a deity throws dirt on problems and calls them solved when clearly they're not."
> 
> What problems are you referring to here? -Abiogenesis. Cosmology. Just to name two. If the cause is Intelligent Design, it becomes socially and intellectually safe to hide behind its robes and not continue to attack these problems. The lack of laboratory output from Behe is one example. If he's right, he should be able to produce some results...-> 
> You are heading towards rejecting consciousness as a last refuge for God: "I think it stands to reason that we've never witnessed a disembodied consciousness. A simple argument, but reasonable."
> 
> You have chosen the wrong pronoun. "We" needs to be replaced by "I". There are hundreds of thousands of people who swear that they have witnessed a disembodied consciousness ... in the form of paranormal experiences. No doubt some are fraudulent, some delusional, some explicable in material terms...but there are countless such experiences that remain unexplained. Your argument is only reasonable if you make the assumption that consciousness is completely and utterly dependent on the brain cells. However, even our greatest scientists remain baffled by this phenomenon, and so your assumption is as faith-based as that which attributes life to chance or to a creator.
> -"Baffled" is probably the wrong word. Dismissive is the one you seek. The model posited by the USAF researcher--which ended up studying OBE, was that the brain is responsible for creating all of what we see. It *models* the world for us. This makes sense going back to what I discussed previously about our bodies & brains doing the work of rejecting most of the input we can receive in the world. The brain takes all the input it is receiving, and creates a picture for us; the subjects in the Air Force experiments reported walking behind--themselves. This lead the researcher to posit that the brain was processing the world incorrectly. (Either too quickly or too slowly--either of which could be falsified.) -> You say: "A reinterpretation that can't be tested has no hope of ever being verified or falsified. Therefore it's ... as you once put it ... mental masturbation."
> 
> Do you believe we can test/verify/falsify the hypotheses that nothing existed before the big bang, there are/were universes beyond our own, chance assembled the mechanisms of life and evolution? -Not a hypothesis.
Neither is that one.
Jury is obviously still working on that one. For at least you and I.

--
\"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.\"


> > Also, how many instances in life have you been presented with situations in which *reason alone* sufficed for an answer? I agree, (extremely) educated guesses as they exist in medicine CAN be right, but... how do you determine if your guess was correct?
> 
> I've been there in medicine, and it is not difficult to know why. You cure the patient.
> 
> By the way please review 'the odds for God', posted over four days ago. Your comments are called for.-Eh... you probably won't like them. I feel like I'm circling the drain here anymore... we haven't moved this discussion at all, really, you and I...

--
\"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.\"

MATT: "But for me the fallacy is based on deciding that we HAVE to judge."-As an agnostic, of course I prefer NOT to judge, but I'm not sure that people like David and George feel under a compulsion to do so. David has told us that he changed from being a Jew to being an agnostic to being a panentheist as a result of his research. I don't know about George's background, but I respect his views enough to assume that they are also based on his own studies. You yourself are constantly passing judgement, e.g. on the paranormal, and on David's design argument ... which you regard as "dodging", although for some reason you do not acknowledge that attributing life to chance is no more and no less of a cop-out. (Incidentally, one of the stupidest arguments is that of "bad" design, glanced at in David's post "Backwards retina". It proves nothing, and until humans have cracked all the codes and come up with an improved version, it's just about on a par with "yah boo!")-As for rolling up our sleeves and wrestling with the problems of abiogenesis and cosmology, the vast majority of us simply don't have the tools for such a task. We are forced to rely on the experts, and since they can't agree among themselves, I personally feel no compulsion to make a judgement either way. However, I see no difference between a theist scientist and an atheist scientist trying to unravel the mysteries of life and the universe: the one will claim to be studying how God did it, and the other how chance did it. They are still confronted with the same materials, and their findings will still be subject to the same scrutiny. The God versus Chance debate is (or should be) irrelevant to the scientific study of how life and the universe originated, although all too often our scientists allow their personal opinions to colour their utterances.-I wrote that our greatest scientists were "baffled" by the phenomenon of consciousness, but for some reason you thought I should have said "dismissive". You confine yourself to the single example of the USAF researcher. I can only quote David here: "When you can explain consciousness to me, then I will accept your statement". Although you remain an agnostic (albeit "a little cranky") your negative judgement on ALL matters relating to the paranormal ... including the acquisition of otherwise inaccessible knowledge during NDEs ... remains a puzzle for me.-I asked if you thought we could test/verify/falsify the hypotheses that nothing existed before the big bang, there are/were universes beyond our own, chance assembled the mechanisms of life and evolution. Your answer is that the first two are not hypotheses, and the jury is out on the third. I don't care what you call them - my question is whether you dismiss them as "mental masturbation".-In your post under "The Odds for God" you have brilliantly ALMOST summed up my own brand of agnosticism. You wrote: "two equally logical claims coming from the same evidence simply points to the lack of a solution." In applying this to faith in Chance or God, I would only substitute "illogical": life with all its complexities is the "evidence". There is no logic behind the assumption that Chance could have created it, and there is no logic behind the assumption that an even more complex force created itself or has existed for ever. There is no solution ... hence agnosticism. Thank you for that!


> Do you believe we can test/verify/falsify the hypotheses that nothing existed before the big bang, there are/were universes beyond our own, chance assembled the mechanisms of life and evolution? I am not defending the God hypothesis. I am merely pointing out that atheism is just as blinkered as theism. I would also point out that the alternative to these unverifiable, unfalsifiable theories is to cry out: "We can't untangle the mess, so we might as well forget about it, it's above us!"-This is a good spot to drop in an article about the Pope, Catholocism, evolution and Catholic scientists who seem to twist their faith to accept the atheism of science:-http://www.philly.com/philly/health_and_science/121486989.html-Is the article biased? IMHO the author is Jewish!

MATT: "But for me the fallacy is based on deciding that we HAVE to judge."
> 
> ... although for some reason you do not acknowledge that attributing life to chance is no more and no less of a cop-out. (Incidentally, one of the stupidest arguments is that of "bad" design, glanced at in David's post "Backwards retina". It proves nothing, and until humans have cracked all the codes and come up with an improved version, it's just about on a par with "yah boo!")
> -I've said before this is a false dilemma. That's why I don't raise it. You don't agree with me that its a false dilemma, we discussed it at length probably 3 years ago. I'm rereading Pigliucci to help throw some (possibly) new ideas out there...-As for the eye, Hubble was a much better eye than the human eye. It can see Gamma, UV, "normal" light, Infrared, and microwave light. (IE, the entire spectrum of light.) We can deliberately choose bands. We can set its precision arbitrarily, and further, it was built to be built upon. (It was modular.) In comparison, the human eye sees only a tiny segment of light, and detects peripheral motion. I would say that in terms of design, Hubble outclasses the human eye in every categorical fashion except in cost, and of course, the lack of peripheral vision. (But this could be fixed quite easily.) More importantly, Hubble can do all of this without needing to take an extra step of flipping the image around. -> As for rolling up our sleeves and wrestling with the problems of abiogenesis and cosmology, the vast majority of us simply don't have the tools for such a task. We are forced to rely on the experts, and since they can't agree among themselves, I personally feel no compulsion to make a judgement either way. However, I see no difference between a theist scientist and an atheist scientist trying to unravel the mysteries of life and the universe: the one will claim to be studying how God did it, and the other how chance did it. ...
> -The difference is in that in general, theist scientists are looking to prove something, notably that it is acceptable to believe in God. For the most part, atheist scientists (with notable exceptions such as Dawkins) could care less about that entire subject. Pigliucci discussed something of this before--while underlining that ALL scientists check their religious baggage at the door if they're going to be taken seriously. The atheist position is such that they have nothing to prove; The current state of affairs is that there are open questions to be solved. (Abiogenesis, etc...) I remember my atheist days; the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. If you claim God exists, it's up to you to demonstrate it. This is how the game has always worked. On close examination Atheists make one less argument about the world than a theist. My break with atheists only comes when one makes a positive statement "God does not exist." Though, you can always preface that with "The notions of God thus far have lead me to conclude God does not exist." This is safer. -You charge that by strongly or weakly rejecting God, atheists implicitly accept chance as the cause of everything. Pigliucci denies this. He writes "For some reason, many people--not just creationists, seem to think that if something is natural then it must also be random (in the sense of being undirected and therefore, in the minds of those with a misunderstanding or ignorance of natural selection, clearly not designed).-He then posits a simple formula, that Adaptation is the result of at least two forces:-Adaptation = Mutation + Natural Selection-David's theory would simply add another term:-Adaptation = Mutation + Epigenetics + Natural Selection -Only Mutation is random. Natural Selection is NOT random. Epigenetics would not be random either. (Both NS and Epigenetics require environmental causes.) 
Dennett clearly calls natural selection design. -All of this (though relating to evolution) is a demonstration that overall—the whole process is NOT random, and by not knowing what caused abiogenesis, we don't know how "random" it was in the first place, either. ->...your negative judgement on ALL matters relating to the paranormal ... including the acquisition of otherwise inaccessible knowledge during NDEs ... remains a puzzle for me.
> -The USAF researcher's model accounts for all of this. We could discuss this further if you wished.-> ... I don't care what you call them - my question is whether you dismiss them as "mental masturbation".
> -Until tests we can perform are devised--1 & 2 definitely are. I'm starting to take a stab at your chance argument (see Pigliucci above.) -> ... There is no logic behind the assumption that Chance could have created it, and there is no logic behind the assumption that an even more complex force created itself or has existed for ever. There is no solution ... hence agnosticism. Thank you for that!-Logical insomuch as they are valid. Soundness is what is at question, so again we're not too terribly far off.

--
\"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.\"


> As for the eye, Hubble was a much better eye than the human eye. It can see Gamma, UV, "normal" light, Infrared, and microwave light. (IE, the entire spectrum of light.) We can deliberately choose bands. We can set its precision arbitrarily, and further, it was built to be built upon. (It was modular.) In comparison, the human eye sees only a tiny segment of light, and detects peripheral motion. -Of course Hubble is a machine. The eye has life. I'd rather be the eye just to throw consciousness into the equation. And .Hubble has no free will. -> (Abiogenesis, etc...) -Abiogenesis will never be solved. Even if some scientist creates a form of living matter, no one can ever know if his way is the real way.
> 
> He then posits a simple formula, that Adaptation is the result of at least two forces:
> 
> Adaptation = Mutation + Natural Selection
> 
> David's theory would simply add another term:
> 
> Adaptation = Mutation + Epigenetics + Natural Selection 
> 
> Only Mutation is random. Natural Selection is NOT random. Epigenetics would not be random either. (Both NS and Epigenetics require environmental causes.) 
> Dennett clearly calls natural selection design. 
> 
> All of this (though relating to evolution) is a demonstration that overall—the whole process is NOT random, and by not knowing what caused abiogenesis, we don't know how "random" it was in the first place, either. -Here is a lecture by James Shapiro, in which he imputs much more control over changes by individual cells than most scientists have stated. Warning, he is a terrible lecturer, but his material is fascinating. This is taking epigenetics far beyond neoDarwinism.-http://vimeo.com/17592530


> > As for the eye, Hubble was a much better eye than the human eye. It can see Gamma, UV, "normal" light, Infrared, and microwave light. (IE, the entire spectrum of light.) We can deliberately choose bands. We can set its precision arbitrarily, and further, it was built to be built upon. (It was modular.) In comparison, the human eye sees only a tiny segment of light, and detects peripheral motion. 
> 
> Of course Hubble is a machine. The eye has life. I'd rather be the eye just to throw consciousness into the equation. And .Hubble has no free will. -Free will and consciousness have nothing to do with the eye--you're pulling a red herring here. All eyes in nature are automata--they do one thing, transform light into a signal. Hubble performs an identical function. From a design perspective, we don't need to consider the machinery interpreting the signal, because that is a different component altogether. -The question raised by many atheists, is that we can (and do) have *better* eyes. In every functional category, Hubble is superior to the human eye. -
> 
> > (Abiogenesis, etc...) 
> 
> Abiogenesis will never be solved. Even if some scientist creates a form of living matter, no one can ever know if his way is the real way.
> > -This is identical to saying "Because we found an equation that describes projectile motion, that equation doesn't solve the problem of motion because we can't be certain some other equation was used to describe the impact that caused Uranus to flip its side." You're using selective Agrippan skepticism. The identical argument could be used against your deity vs. Horus. Or Chronos. Hell, even Christ could be taken as superior to your disembodied consciousness, because at least Christ had eyewitnesses! (There's nuance, subtext, a tiny bit of sarcasm, and undertone here... interpret before responding... I said that to make you dig.)-It is true that if we discover abiogenesis that we won't know if it is THE mechanism. But that said, we also didn't know the mechanism for urea until Friedrich Wöhler manufactured it. That single discovery launched organic chemistry in the first place...-You're right--if my logic is followed and they invent life in any way, it probably won't be THE way. But when you find A way, then you can begin to constrain the problem; work backwards towards life as we assume it was 4.5Bn years ago. I won't make any fanciful predictions, but if the constraints can be pulled back to 4.5Bn years ago, it won't really matter anymore if you decide to be an Agrippan skeptic or not. Man will have an answer, and that will be enough for almost everyone. It'll be written down like the "Big Bang," as something that happened and "this is how." Literalist theists will boo and hiss, agnostics will nod and then say "But--" and atheists will win a major coup de grace.-
...
> 
> Here is a lecture by James Shapiro, in which he imputs much more control over changes by individual cells than most scientists have stated. Warning, he is a terrible lecturer, but his material is fascinating. This is taking epigenetics far beyond neoDarwinism.-A little late for me now, but if it's not heavy on pictures I can listen to it tomorrow morning at work. 
> 
> http://vimeo.com/17592530

--
\"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.\"

Matt thinks that belief in design is a way of dodging hard problems. I maintain that if this is so, one can level the same criticism at belief in chance.
 
MATT: I've said before this is a false dilemma. That's why I don't raise it.-The hard problem in this context is: How the heck could inanimate, unconscious matter just happen to form itself into living self-replicating, adapting and innovating matter? The answer "sheer luck" might as well be: "It just did" ... and that is "dodging". (But neither theism nor atheism need prevent or influence the scientific quest for knowledge ... see below.)-MATT: As for the eye, Hubble was a much better eye than the human eye. [...] I would say that in terms of design, Hubble outclasses the human eye in every categorical fashion. -Hubble, I gather from one of the websites, is 508.5 inches long and weighs 25,000 lbs! Let me be a little more precise in my objection to the "bad design" argument: when humans have designed a machine weighing let's say 140 lbs, which can reproduce, repair itself, see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think, imagine, remember, learn, feel, reason, take decisions etc., they can start criticizing. Until then their criticism, in my view, proves absolutely nothing.-DHW: I see no difference between a theist scientist and an atheist scientist trying to unravel the mysteries of life and the universe: the one will claim to be studying how God did it, and the other how chance did it. ...
MATT: The difference is in that in general, theist scientists are looking to prove something, notably that it is acceptable to believe in God.
 
In trying to discover how life - or the universe - originated, neither theist nor atheist scientists will get away with falsifying data (we hope). In this respect, God's existence is irrelevant, so I still see no difference. Were Newton's discoveries invalid because he believed in God? We agree, though, that people like Behe and Dawkins should not pretend that science supports their personal agenda.-MATT: [...] the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. If you claim God exists, it's up to you to demonstrate it. This is how the game has always worked. On close examination Atheists make one less argument about the world than a theist. -I made the same point myself: atheism is a far simpler choice. But that doesn't prove anything, and the same burden of proof lies with the claim that chance is capable of assembling the mechanisms of life and evolution. This is where, in my view, you and Pigliucci totally misunderstand the argument:-MATT: You charge that by strongly or weakly rejecting God, atheists implicitly accept chance as the cause of everything. Pigliucci denies this. He writes "For some reason, many people--not just creationists, seem to think that if something is natural then it must also be random (in the sense of being undirected and therefore, in the minds of those with a misunderstanding or ignorance of natural selection, clearly not designed).
He then posits a simple formula, that Adaptation is the result of at least two forces:
Adaptation = Mutation + Natural Selection
David's theory would simply add another term:
Adaptation = Mutation + Epigenetics + Natural Selection 
Only Mutation is random. Natural Selection is NOT random. Epigenetics would not be random either. (Both NS and Epigenetics require environmental causes.) 
Dennett clearly calls natural selection design. 
All of this (though relating to evolution) is a demonstration that overall—the whole process is NOT random, and by not knowing what caused abiogenesis, we don't know how "random" it was in the first place, either. -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.)
 
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.

David,
> Here is a lecture by James Shapiro, in which he imputs much more control over changes by individual cells than most scientists have stated. Warning, he is a terrible lecturer, but his material is fascinating. This is taking epigenetics far beyond neoDarwinism.
> 
> http://vimeo.com/17592530-Took me a couple days, but I finished this. I... struggle with what exactly you think he's pointing out that isn't already known. He seems to characterize modern "Evolution" as "a bunch of random stuff happens (mutations) and then selection happens when the environment changes." Which is Darwin's original synthesis--and I'm sorry--modern biologists don't really agree with Darwin's original synthesis. Shapiro's lecture covers that, really. The only problem is, that all the stuff I learned in microbiology and biochem is really covered here, it's just lumped into that subcategory of "mutation." -For example, we learned about how stress causes organisms to undergo changes. Often this reflects on what gets passes in the the genome. -This is materially no different to me than any other definition of mutation that I've heard of. "Natural Genetic Engineering" is simply another phrase for "How a cell lives." -Note the question, discussing Lysenko: "...that is an epigenetic phenomenon controlled by exposure to the cold."-This doesn't materially change the current picture of the world. If an organism responds in its lifetime with an epigenetic change, so what? Selection simply acts on it during ITS lifetime instead of its offspring. And if this change is NOT transmitted to its offspring, guess what? You don't have evolution. Evolution requires changes to be passed on in the genome, as Shapiro himself describes at ~time 1:34:40. Further, as I've criticized before, epigenetics still only responds to stimuli, meaning that cells are still essentially deterministic "information processing machines," which doesn't seem to add to (or take away) from anyone's case.

--
\"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.\"

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.

--
\"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.\"

With reference to life, reproduction, adaptation and innovation, I stated that "atheists expect us to believe that ALL these mechanisms were assembled by blind chance."-MATT: 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?-You don't seem to make any distinction between atheism and agnosticism. An atheist believes that God does not exist. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God. Withholding belief but NOT claiming that God does not exist is agnosticism, not atheism. In the context of the origin of life and of the adaptive or inventive mechanisms of evolution, if you say categorically that there is no designer (atheism), what alternative is there to chance? Of course your atheist scientist doesn't know HOW the mechanisms were formed. Nor does your theist scientist. Nor does your agnostic scientist. They can all say "we'll see" and they can all have varying degrees of confidence in their ability to find out. They are all engaged in the same research, and whether they believe in God or chance, or they have no beliefs, is (or should be) irrelevant to that research. What question, then, do theist scientists dodge that atheist scientists don't dodge? And to get back to your original statement: what "hard problems" are dodged by belief in design that are not dodged by belief in chance?
 
I complained that you (and Pigliucci?) misrepresented the argument against chance by focusing exclusively on the workings of evolution and disregarding the origin of the mechanisms that have made evolution possible.-MATT: 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.-If it is appropriate for you NOT to consider the problem of origins, then clearly you are in favour of "dodging" the issue ... which is precisely what you accuse theists of doing! (You introduced the term ... I didn't!) And by ignoring the problem, you continue to misrepresent the argument against chance.-dhw: 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 [in further discussion].-MATT: 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.-I am not questioning the fact that perception is subjective, or that eye-witness accounts are notoriously inconsistent and unreliable. However, this does NOT explain, for instance, how people acquire information to which they have no known access and which is subsequently confirmed by third parties as being true, e.g. the death of someone far away, the location of an item that is out of sight, scenes that no longer exist. Your explanation seems to be that the people concerned and the third parties were all deluded. I would hesitate to make such a blanket judgement. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not asking you to believe. I'm asking you to withhold belief and disbelief until a satisfactory explanation has been found.

dhw,
> You don't seem to make any distinction between atheism and agnosticism. An atheist believes that God does not exist. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God. Withholding belief but NOT claiming that God does not exist is agnosticism, not atheism. In the context of the origin of life and of the adaptive or inventive mechanisms of evolution, if you say categorically that there is no designer (atheism), what alternative is there to chance? Of course your atheist scientist doesn't know HOW the mechanisms were formed. Nor does your theist scientist. Nor does your agnostic scientist. They can all say "we'll see" and they can all have varying degrees of confidence in their ability to find out. They are all engaged in the same research, and whether they believe in God or chance, or they have no beliefs, is (or should be) irrelevant to that research. What question, then, do theist scientists dodge that atheist scientists don't dodge? And to get back to your original statement: what "hard problems" are dodged by belief in design that are not dodged by belief in chance?
> -The distinction is getting blurred, dhw. I know you're using dictionary definitions of the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" but many atheists are identifying themselves under exactly the definition used by agnostics--for precisely the reason that they feel that the "agnostic" label gives unnecessary weight to the supernatural. Part of why I wish to complete our epistemological framework is because I myself simply don't know how to give weight to things like the paranormal. Five people who saw the same thing are only giving an eyewitness account of something, and that simply isn't enough for me to make a positive claim for its existence. The best I can do is say "They think they saw something!" If there isn't direct evidence, there's nothing for me to study. The best I can do is smile and nod when someone brings it up.-In terms of "dodging," remember that "God did it!" is a conclusion. I understand that science is essentially religionless and I still say there needs to be more religious scientists--though I'm not holding my breath. (At least not in the States. We inherited your Puritans, remember?) -> I complained that you (and Pigliucci?) misrepresented the argument against chance by focusing exclusively on the workings of evolution and disregarding the origin of the mechanisms that have made evolution possible.
> 
> MATT: 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.
> 
> If it is appropriate for you NOT to consider the problem of origins, then clearly you are in favour of "dodging" the issue ... which is precisely what you accuse theists of doing! (You introduced the term ... I didn't!) And by ignoring the problem, you continue to misrepresent the argument against chance.
> -How? Be explicit. If we don't have an answer for something, how am I supposed to bring it into a discussion on evolution? You don't need to know how abiogenesis happened in order to study life, or clearly biology wouldn't exist. The question of origins is separate from the question of evolution. One studies life after it happened, one studies how life came to be. One analogize that evolution is identical the Standard Model of Physics. We can take you right up to the singularity, but not before. Before the Big bang = before life. -> dhw: 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 [in further discussion].
> 
...
> I am not questioning the fact that perception is subjective, or that eye-witness accounts are notoriously inconsistent and unreliable. However, this does NOT explain, for instance, how people acquire information to which they have no known access and which is subsequently confirmed by third parties as being true, e.g. the death of someone far away, the location of an item that is out of sight, scenes that no longer exist. Your explanation seems to be that the people concerned and the third parties were all deluded. I would hesitate to make such a blanket judgement. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not asking you to believe. I'm asking you to withhold belief and disbelief until a satisfactory explanation has been found.-That's the whole thing--for me its not disbelief, but being in a situation where...-I have no frame of reference. How about that? There's nothing for me to believe because there's nothing for me to study--objectively they're just words on paper. What's the difference between paranormal stories and Christ's resurrection? If I give weight to a guy who said he was abducted by aliens, or saw a ghost--how am I to treat the Resurrection?-This podcast deals with "The Placebo Effect," unfolding the idea that the mind is capable of impacting healing. One includes a shaman who was convinced his rituals were lies... but they worked.

--
\"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.\"

This video tells us why we should bother with God:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/praxman-and-ditchkins-on-science/

MATT: The distinction is getting blurred, dhw. I know you're using dictionary definitions of the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" but many atheists are identifying themselves under exactly the definition used by agnostics--for precisely the reason that they feel that the "agnostic" label gives unnecessary weight to the supernatural.-Agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God. Atheists believe there is no God. You are now telling me that many atheists neither believe nor disbelieve in God because not believing and not disbelieving gives unnecessary weight to the supernatural. Time for the breathalyzer?-MATT: Part of why I wish to complete our epistemological framework is because I myself simply don't know how to give weight to things like the paranormal. Five people who saw the same thing are only giving an eyewitness account of something, and that simply isn't enough for me to make a positive claim for its existence [...]
 
I have no frame of reference. How about that? There's nothing for me to believe because there's nothing for me to study--objectively they're just words on paper. What's the difference between paranormal stories and Christ's resurrection? If I give weight to a guy who said he was abducted by aliens, or saw a ghost--how am I to treat the Resurrection?-I have precisely the same problem with the examples you have given, but I specifically drew your attention to the one area of paranormal activity which DOES have a frame of reference. I can only repeat what I said before: Pim van Lommel, David, BBella and I have all given examples of people obtaining information to which they could have had no normal access. The information has been confirmed by third parties. As a neutral observer, I focus on this form of the paranormal because it is precise and testable in so far as the information has proved to be true. No-one can explain consciousness, and these examples could imply a form of consciousness, perception and identity that is independent of the physical brain. Until a satisfactory explanation has been found, I withhold belief and disbelief.
 
MATT: In terms of "dodging," remember that "God did it!" is a conclusion.
 
Remember that "Chance did it!" is also a conclusion. I repeat: what hard questions do theists dodge which are not also dodged by atheists?-dhw: If it is appropriate for you NOT to consider the problem of origins, then clearly you are in favour of "dodging" the issue ... which is precisely what you accuse theists of doing! (You introduced the term ... I didn't!) And by ignoring the problem, you continue to misrepresent the argument against chance.
MATT: How? Be explicit. If we don't have an answer for something, how am I supposed to bring it into a discussion on evolution? You don't need to know how abiogenesis happened in order to study life, or clearly biology wouldn't exist. The question of origins is separate from the question of evolution. One studies life after it happened, one studies how life came to be.-But the discussion is not on evolution. The discussion is on the issue of Chance versus Design. You dismissed David's argument "Life is too complex to arrive by chance" as an attempt to dodge hard problems, two of which you identified as abiogenesis and cosmology. You now say it is "appropriate" not to consider abiogenesis! Ah, Matt, in the contest between xeno and xeno, who do you put your money on? Of course it suits you (and Pigliucci?) to restrict the discussion to evolution, because you can point to all the aspects that are not dictated by chance. We have no disagreement on these. But the research being done on the genome is uncovering layer upon layer of complex mechanisms. The more our scientists uncover, the greater the complexity of the mechanisms that have made evolution possible. This ... Chapter 1, not Chapter 2, of life's history ... is the core of the case for design, and for the belief that "life is too complex to arrive by chance".
 
At the risk of being a bore (a risk I take far too often ... my apologies!), let me just reiterate my own position. Like David, I find it impossible to actively believe that chance could assemble the complex mechanisms which gave rise to life and evolution. Unlike David, I find it impossible to believe in an intelligent being of infinitely greater complexity that somehow just happens to be there. This leaves me open to the possible truth of both alternatives ... chance and design ... and hence also to the possibility that a) there is nothing, or b) there are dimensions and forms of existence, beyond the material world as we know it.


> ...Time for the breathalyzer?-Many atheists go back to the root etymology of the word atheist. (I think I've used this one here before.) The prefix 'a' meaning "without", 'theism' meaning "belief in a deity." Therefore, "without belief in a deity." I remember when I first saw that definition, at delphi.com (now about.com) in 1998 and thought "a-ha!" But I never expected it to catch on. It definitely has. (I've recently cruised through some postings on other atheist forums.) Agnostics are now categorized as atheists (fitting, because most theists ALREADY do that...), with atheism spanning a spectrum from strong atheism (Dawkins) to weak atheism (myself, dhw.) I know you have your trusty (Oxford?) dictionary dhw, but humans are allowed to change the meanings of things. It's one thing we do well. Many of my initial rebuttals to you when I joined... (3? 4?) years ago were because I felt I was having my position mis-characterized. 
 
> I have precisely the same problem with the examples you have given, but I specifically drew your attention to the one area of paranormal activity which DOES have a frame of reference. I can only repeat what I said before: Pim van Lommel, David, BBella and I have all given examples of people obtaining information to which they could have had no normal access. The information has been confirmed by third parties. As a neutral observer, I focus on this form of the paranormal because it is precise and testable in so far as the information has proved to be true. No-one can explain consciousness, and these examples could imply a form of consciousness, perception and identity that is independent of the physical brain. Until a satisfactory explanation has been found, I withhold belief and disbelief.
> -Again; words on paper. How would you separate true "paranormal information event" from a correct intuition? You can't. How do you know its true? You describe something as unexplainable as when I discussed having dreams that predict completely inane futures. I think what you 're discussing is the same machinery that causes my inane dreams. If it happens when sleeping, it happens when waking too. But that doesn't mean its actually information that teleported from one mind into another, or information that came down to me from a future that doesn't exist. In my case, I'm willing to accept that this event was a "like" dream that when an event happened, my mind snaps back to the memory of a dream. -Any rationalization I try to make about yours or BBella's experience is necessarily shallow and potentially dangerous. Events like that tend to always be about something very special and personal--which is telling in regards to the source of them! -> Remember that "Chance did it!" is also a conclusion. I repeat: what hard questions do theists dodge which are not also dodged by atheists?-The atheist position (putting on my Dawkins hat) is that the question isn't dodged at all. We're working on a solution for that. We accept chance for now, because there is no other viable alternative, no scientific description that yet bridges the gap. 
This is hardly a conclusion, but I promise that Dawkins would agree with my description from what I've read. The world of the modern atheist is one of near slavish devotion to the scientific method. All explanations are provisional, and they accept that. (Consequently, so do I.) -There aren't any theist scientists studying abiogenesis over the past 60 years, nor have there been to the extent I'm aware. I would say that their absence is evidence enough. -> -> But the discussion is not on evolution. The discussion is on the issue of Chance versus Design. You dismissed David's argument "Life is too complex to arrive by chance" as an attempt to dodge hard problems, two of which you identified as abiogenesis and cosmology. You now say it is "appropriate" not to consider abiogenesis! Ah, Matt, in the contest between xeno and xeno, who do you put your money on? ... This ... Chapter 1, not Chapter 2, of life's history ... is the core of the case for design, and for the belief that "life is too complex to arrive by chance".
> -Well, you got me there. For some reason I started down the evolution hole, but why... at any rate, shove this one to the dogpile. (After the red ellipse) The Watchmaker awaits...-> At the risk of being a bore (a risk I take far too often ... my apologies!), let me just reiterate my own position. Like David, I find it impossible to actively believe that chance could assemble the complex mechanisms which gave rise to life and evolution. Unlike David, I find it impossible to believe in an intelligent being of infinitely greater complexity that somehow just happens to be there. This leaves me open to the possible truth of both alternatives ... chance and design ... and hence also to the possibility that a) there is nothing, or b) there are dimensions and forms of existence, beyond the material world as we know it.-I'm with you on "actively believe" in chance. And among atheists that parrot, I would agree you have a good argument. But for those such as Dawkins--who I don't think has that *active* belief (dangerous, having not read his books) or are among the group that is deliberately redrawing the lines for freethinkers--that line is increasingly blurred.

--
\"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.\"

This video tells us why we should bother with God:
> 
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/praxman-and-ditchkins-on-science/-A good way to get right-wingers to reinterpret science to fit their religion (needed in this country) but a bit of a farce, lol. I say this because it constructs a strawman of science by reducing it to sense perceptions; and THAT would drastically mislead people. It's not sense perceptions.

--
\"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.\"

MATT: Many atheists go back to the root etymology of the word atheist. (I think I've used this one here before.) The prefix 'a' meaning "without", 'theism' meaning "belief in a deity." Therefore, "without belief in a deity." [...] (I've recently cruised through some postings on other atheist forums.) Agnostics are now categorized as atheists (fitting, because most theists ALREADY do that...), with atheism spanning a spectrum from strong atheism (Dawkins) to weak atheism (myself, dhw.) I know you have your trusty (Oxford?) dictionary dhw, but humans are allowed to change the meanings of things. -You do me an injustice. My half a dozen dictionaries (including Oxford) all define agnosticism in terms of the impossibility of knowing whether God exists or not. This was what Huxley meant when he coined the term. I am arguing AGAINST the dictionary definition, because as we have agreed in all our epistemological discussions, no-one ... including the most radical theists and atheists ... can actually KNOW such a thing.
 
"Agnostics are now categorized as atheists". By whom? You refer to atheist forums. Well this is an agnostic forum, and I categorically deny that I am an atheist. The blurring of distinctions through strong and weak atheism is, in my view, a diversionary tactic, because it attempts to ignore all the arguments that prevent an agnostic from being an atheist (e.g. the need for faith in chance, the mystery of consciousness, the inexplicability of certain "paranormal" experiences). As for "without belief in a deity", it is essential to distinguish between not believing and disbelieving. An atheist believes there is no deity. An agnostic has neither belief nor disbelief. Atheism is committed one way, and agnosticism has no commitment either way. The trend you have identified most certainly exists, and I am one agnostic who finds it repugnant.-MATT: How would you separate true "paranormal information event" from a correct intuition? You can't. How do you know its true? You describe something as unexplainable as when I discussed having dreams that predict completely inane futures.
 
You repeatedly ignore the type of experience I am referring to. Here is an extract from a Pim van Lommel website:-If deceased acquaintances or relatives are encountered in an otherworldly dimension, they are usually recognized by their appearance, while communication is possible through thought transfer. Thus, during an NDE it is also possible to come into contact with fields of consciousness of deceased persons (interconnectedness). Sometimes persons are met whose death was impossible to have known [= this sort of information especially intrigues me - dhw] ; sometimes persons unknown to them are encountered during an NDE. Quotation:
 
"During my cardiac arrest I had an extensive experience (...) and later I saw, apart from my deceased grandmother, a man who had looked at me lovingly, but whom I did not know. More than 10 years later, at my mother's deathbed, she confessed to me that I had been born out of an extramarital relationship, my father being a Jewish man who had been deported and killed during the second World War, and my mother showed me his picture. The unknown man that I had seen more than 10 years before during my NDE turned out to be my biological father."-I don't understand such experiences, but I am not prepared to call Pim van Lommel, his patients and his witnesses frauds, victims of delusion, or dreamers about inane futures... -dhw: Remember that "Chance did it!" is also a conclusion. I repeat: what hard questions do theists dodge which are not also dodged by atheists?-MATT: The atheist position (putting on my Dawkins hat) is that the question isn't dodged at all. We're working on a solution for that. We accept chance for now, because there is no other viable alternative, no scientific description that yet bridges the gap. -You seem to be saying that all atheists are scientists working on how the mechanisms for life and evolution came into being! An atheist, whether scientist or non-scientist, believes there is no designer, and the alternative to design is chance ... as you say, "there is no other viable alternative"! If he doesn't believe in either, he's an agnostic. As far as the origin of the mechanisms is concerned, there are only theories, NONE of which can prove whether life came about by chance or design. The hard question here is that of an unknowable, unprovable first cause, so if X says "Chance" and Y says "God", what hard question is the latter dodging that is not being dodged by the former? In fact, I don't think either of them is dodging anything! Time to move on?-MATT: "There aren't any theist scientists studying abiogenesis over the past 60 years, nor have there been to the extent I'm aware. I would say that their absence is evidence enough."
 
Of what? They are not studying the hard question of chance v. design, but of how life originated. Chance v. design is/should be irrelevant. In any case, I'd be interested to know what your "awareness" is based on. Although we learn from surveys that the majority of members of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in God (it's not clear how many are atheists and how many agnostics), there are some who do.

dhw,-When you discuss me thinking atheists "all being scientists," I spoke previously about atheism being pretty securely hinged upon the scientific method. As knee-jerks "god doesn't exist," but then the God that most atheists are talking about at all points is the Christian God and Christ on the cross--all of which neither you, David or I believe in. David has eschewed his Jewish God for one much more abstract, possibly distant. (Possibly not, soon I'll finish his book.) I could be mistaken, but I think you and I both agree with Atheists on that point. -The only point you're driving at in terms of atheists is an implicit (though sometimes explicit) belief in chance. But having spent time with those online communities, I didn't really get that sense. If anything else I think that most atheists are really not atheists but are agnostics who think they're atheists. At the same time--and I know where this comes from--there's a powerful sense of rebellion and revulsion to the Christian faith (but generalized to faith at large) and so it becomes psychologically impossible to accept anything even remotely faith-like. You pounced on chance, I pounced on a radical thought: It is metaphysically possible that man has been wrong about *everything* "God" except that it exists. -The important point above is this: Atheists are "atheist" about any God that has made its way into history, in a way that I tend to feel I share; I don't believe in Horus, God, Christ--any of that. None of it is compelling, though they're all great reads... and an absolutely excellent point they have is this: we've seen no evidence for any of these gods based on their holy texts. So we conclude that they don't exist. (We--at least I--agree with that.) David however jumps down a completely different rabbit hole when compared to these chaps, but David's arguments are doomed to be lost amid the strong voices of the right-wing socio-political group "The Discovery Institute" and Dawkins. And as long as ID advocates remain attached to political thinktanks, this situation will not improve in the United States. -Lets just put this discussion behind us, we're arguing over a group of people we don't belong with anyway, I don't know how I brought it up...-"During my cardiac arrest I had an extensive experience (...) and later I saw, apart from my deceased grandmother, a man who had looked at me lovingly, but whom I did not know. More than 10 years later, at my mother's deathbed, she confessed to me that I had been born out of an extramarital relationship, my father being a Jewish man who had been deported and killed during the second World War, and my mother showed me his picture. The unknown man that I had seen more than 10 years before during my NDE turned out to be my biological father."-I don't understand such experiences, but I am not prepared to call Pim van Lommel, his patients and his witnesses frauds, victims of delusion, or dreamers about inane futures... -In this particular case, I don't really find this compelling evidence. It's my uncle Joe in his truck accident all over again. There's 10 years between NDE and seeing that picture. WAAAAAAAAAAY too many variables to treat that as more than anecdote.-...Of what? They are not studying the hard question of chance v. design, but of how life originated.
-The question of chance vs. design is a false dilemma (as I've said before), you still can't answer it without solving abiogenesis. My greater point here was in countering the idea that there are some number of theists working in that area--they aren't. Shapiro (in his book Origins) enumerated many different scientists and in many instances discussed their various religious beliefs. Atheist popped up alot. Theist popped up--not at all. It was (and is) a very small area of research. If there are any theists researching abiogenesis, then they've certainly not expressed their religious thoughts publicly. I realize I'm in logically dangerous territory, so I close this with saying that the above paragraph is opinion after the first sentence.

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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.\"

Matt, your post is full of the happy sound of nails being hit on heads, so I'm only going to highlight areas that seem to me to require further comment.-MATT: When you discuss me thinking atheists "all being scientists," I spoke previously about atheism being pretty securely hinged upon the scientific method. -This is true to a certain degree, but it's also highly misleading. Atheism depends on a materialistic interpretation of the world, and as science deals with the material world, atheists like to give the impression that they have scientific backing. "Scientific" implies something reliable, tested, authentic. But science simply cannot tell us whether there is or isn't a creative intelligence behind the origin and evolution of the material world, and it requires an act of faith even to believe that it will unravel the physical processes.-MATT: The only point you're driving at in terms of atheists is an implicit (though sometimes explicit) belief in chance. But having spent time with those online communities, I didn't really get that sense.-I suspect there are two reasons for this. 1) The majority of atheists probably think only in negative terms: they believe there is no God, and that's it. They do NOT think of the further implications: namely, that if there is no God, life can only have originated through chance. 2) Those who are aware of the implications need to downgrade them. That is why so many, like Dawkins, lay huge emphasis on evolution, in their attempt to divert attention from their faith in chance origins to their scientifically based observation of the non-random elements of evolution. It may not even be totally conscious. People feel threatened when you point out the possible flaws in their cherished beliefs. That may also explain the vehemence with which fundamentalists of both sides attack us sceptics. -MATT: If anything else I think that most atheists are really not atheists but are agnostics who think they're atheists.-A delightful reversal of your previous suggestion that agnostics were in fact weak atheists! It may well apply to 1) above.
 
MATT: At the same time--and I know where this comes from--there's a powerful sense of rebellion and revulsion to the Christian faith (but generalized to faith at large) and so it becomes psychologically impossible to accept anything even remotely faith-like.-Nail firmly hit on head. The man-made institutions and myths of religion have a lot to answer for. That may explain why some atheists roar like wounded tigers when you try to explain to them that atheism also requires faith, albeit of a different kind.
 
MATT: You pounced on chance, I pounced on a radical thought: It is metaphysically possible that man has been wrong about *everything* "God" except that it exists.-Another resounding clunk. Chance is a major justification for rejecting atheism, but there is no way that the thousands of different religious images of a deity can all be right! Nor can people like you and me trust in ancient texts written by humans, translated and interpreted by humans, and often forming the basis of structures that have nothing to do with "truth" and everything to do with power. You say atheists reject "any God that has made its way into history", and you and I ... and I think David too ... feel the same. But I would be very interested to hear Tony's view on this (and Mark's, if he ever reads this).-On the subject of the paranormal, we are never going to agree, but I'm sure we shall return to it.-MATT: The question of chance vs. design is a false dilemma (as I've said before), you still can't answer it without solving abiogenesis.-This is a very important subject. First, by abiogenesis I understand the hypothetical process whereby life emerged spontaneously from non-living materials. It's important to agree on a definition here, because the word does NOT mean the origin of life. We know, of course, that life originated, but abiogenesis is just one theory. However, even if scientists were able to come up with a combination of non-living materials that reproduced and ... crucially for our discussions ... also evolved, they would STILL not be able to prove that it happened by chance. The very assembly of those materials would be a conscious act. And so I maintain that it is not a false dilemma. No matter what discoveries science makes, that question will always remain open, and the most we can hope for is a shortening of the odds.


> > This dialogue seems to me so fundamental to many of our discussions that I'm opening a new thread for it. Matt's final question is: why even bother? If there's no God, or an indifferent God, I see no point either, apart from satisfying our intellectual curiosity about our own origins and the nature of the universe we live in.if there's no God or an indifferent God, that's fine with me. I live my life with no reference to or dependence on religious beliefs anyway, and I'm very happy without them.
> > 
> > The temptation, then, is to shrug one's shoulders and drop the subject altogether. But it won't go away, and not just because of the human compulsion to have answers to unsolved mysteries.
> 
> Now a College in California is offering a degree in Atheism! Most Bachelor degrees are an A.B. or a B.S. I'm sure the religious will favor BS. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman runs this new department, and has an agnostic/atheist website. I doubt this professor will offer odds for God during his course, as my previous entry showed (about 5 days ago). But will his students end up more secular or more religious? 
> 
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576333454244079630.html?mod=WSJ_... can't think of any religious people I know who would get a degree in atheism, but as for the "odds of God" as you say, most anyone who has had solid mathematical training sees the holes in the "odds" arguments left and right. I would go so far to say that ID proponents who have so far argued from mathematics, don't deserve their math degrees. That last author you posted in here didn't even make a mathematical argument. He made one that looked mathematical. Smoke and mirrors to further the cultural and nonscientific agenda of the Discovery Institute, to dupe nontechnical people into supporting a morally bankrupt cause. (Yeah, i figured out that he's funded by the DI.) What's more unsettling to me, is that I do not possess a PhD in mathematics, yet I have been able to cleave pretty quickly, any of the math-based arguments presented to me.-I'm still reading your book, but arguing from odds when you lack complete knowledge of a system isn't mathematical, its rhetorical. (Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses similar odds frequently, but remains a stolid skeptic) Or better: speculative. And anyone grounded in propositional reasoning will never, ever accept a rhetorical claim in subjects like this. -Your earlier ask "why not, a fully formed cell?" My response to that is simply this: "Because that's called spontaneous generation." A creationist argument applies equally to you here: If life can come only from life, and we must assume that God is inorganic--you arrive at a similar precipice to the atheist fully believing in chance. If you can't demonstrate it, it isn't justifiable.

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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.\"


> You earlier ask "why not, a fully formed cell?" My response to that is simply this: "Because that's called spontaneous generation." A creationist argument applies equally to you here: If life can come only from life, and we must assume that God is inorganic--you arrive at a similar precipice to the atheist fully believing in chance. If you can't demonstrate it, it isn't justifiable.-I don't know what God is, inorganic or organic. Certainly organized energy. Why and how are unknown. But we are here and very improbably discussing it.-The origin of life is very improbable as a stepwise event. Step by step from inorganic chemistry, with no driving force before life appears? Only after there is life do we see the driving force to more complexity to better handle survivability. My point is more than rhetorical. Life is a miracle. Sixty years of research and we only know what cannot be the method of life's appearance.