I been doing a litle introspection. Why did I decide to accept a conclusion? I could still be mulling like dhw. My best guess is my medical training. A medical problem for an internist (me) can be a life-or-death issue. Most aren't, certainly, and the body heals itself 90% of the time with a little coaxing, or not. I'm not trying to be melodramatic. The issue is looking at the facts you have, making a differential diagnosis (listing best choice to worst choice)and hopefully, with your first choice, solving the problem. And that is what I did before writing the book, but I haven't quit thinking; I'm still reading. Perhaps I'm wrong. I have a good mind, but I don't know that it is the best in the world. - I've implied that I wanted to make a choice, based on the best evidence, and that is what I have done. Perhaps I needed to, but I can tell you my decision feels good, just like you know when you are in love. And the 'love' arena' just like the religion 'area' can be two pretty messy places. My decision feels 'right'. For some folks making no decision may feel right. To each his own. - Postscript: It was Clare. I remember her email. Thank her for me.

I totally disagree with his point 2) Cosmology: He says; "what has been found is the universe is meticulously designed for life". I've been reading Paul Davies' book "The Goldilocks Enigma" (Penguin Books 2006) and this is what he claims. On the same evidence however I maintain that life is just an accident. Most of the universe is hostile to life. The Earth is indeed "extremely special", but by accident not design. (If I can find the time I will try to put together a complete critique of Davies' book, either here or on another site.) - I've not read Davies' book yet. It's on my list but I know the information he is covering. What fascinates about Davies is his gradual shift from non-committal theoretical cosmologic physicist in his early books and articles to apparently accepting deism as scientific evidence unfolds. - And that is what has happened to me. What I cannot escape is that DNA/RNA is a meticulously organized code. It carries enormous amounts of information. Does George really think that chance could have done that encoding. What is 'unfolding' is that junk DNA is really in large part organizational RNA that turns human DNA that was estimated to have 100,000 genes into 25,000 actual genes. This RNA carries contruction plans as well as maintaining energy and replacement functions. As science shows how complex life is, chance becomes less and less likely. 'Chance' as a faith requires looking at the mathematical probabilities. At some point chance disappears into infinity. This I believe is my major disagreement with George.

George joined the group because he got the impression that it was a "creationist site", and his intention was to counter creationist claims. - Let me say straight away that I'm delighted you joined, and even more delighted that you stayed. There were several scathing reviews on atheist sites when this one opened, all giving the same impression. The reason, I suppose, was that the Brief Guide began with an attack on Dawkins, and the fundamentalists seem unable to grasp that an attack on one set of beliefs does not automatically mean that you espouse the opposite set. It was therefore a genuine boost when you joined in, pointing me in the direction of a number of very interesting sites, and putting the atheist case generally without the emotional ranting that mars fundamentalism of all shades. You have gone on doing so, often with good humour, and this has always made for stimulating discussion, which is the whole purpose of the forum. - Nevertheless, you continue to misunderstand the nature of my scepticism as well as (let me goad you) the nature of your own faith. I do not have "an aversion to chance", and that is a blanket dismissal which helps to cover up what I see as a degree of irrationality on your part. Life is massively influenced by chance, and that helps to make it all the more exciting. Almost every turning point in my own life has come about through chance, and indeed the very combination of genes that make me what I am is a matter of luck. But that is a long way from believing in the ability of chance to create a working, self-replicating, infinitely adaptable machine. (David argues the case far more competently than I can.) You don't even need the complications of the Boeing 747 or the monkey at the typewriter. If you found a wine glass in the desert, would you/could you believe it had spontaneously created itself out of wind, sand and sun? That is the area of my scepticism about chance, but it is a non-belief and nothing more. Agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in chance, and we neither believe nor disbelieve in a designer. And we do not tell believers that they are wrong. You dismiss the arguments against chance as "pseudoscience", but you know as well as I do that every experiment to produce spontaneous generation (a neat paradox) has failed ... and those experiments have been carried out by brilliantly intelligent, scientific minds. I have no problem when you say: "I find chance perfectly adequate." I only have a problem if you deny that this = faith, or if you argue that your faith is based on science. - The origin of life is one area on which I remain open-minded. Here is a second. You say: "There is such a thing as having a mind that is too open, to the influence of charlatans and anecdotalists and dreamers and propagandists and the simply deluded." You are right. But if you are saying there is no such thing as OBEs, NDEs, ESP, psychic phenomena ... in other words, if you dismiss every single experience, throughout thousands of years of human history, as coming under one of those five categories ... then I would point out to you that there is also such a thing as having a mind that is too closed. In fact, I would say that it takes a great deal of faith to close one's mind that tightly.