Chance v. Design Part 2 (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, August 19, 2012, 17:13 (4477 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Just out of curiosity, why does God have to be supernatural? Hell, for that matter, why do ghosts, spirits, ESP, OBE's or NDE's need to be any more supernatural than dark matter or dark energy, neither of which can be observed any more than God?
In fact, I would argue that there can not be anything at all that is unnatural if you are a proponent for intelligent design, because in order for a designer to implement the natural world then the designer itself must in fact be natural. 
People misuse that word. Science says that dark matter and dark energy exist even though we have no direct evidence for their existence on the simple assertion that we observe something that doesn't make sense unless we ASSUME that they do exist. We mere mortals of the non-scientific realm, though less than dust beneath their academic heals, are expected to take that as the gospel truth. Yet, when someone says aliens, esp, NDE, OBE, God, or any other thing that can not be observed DIRECTLY we label it as supernatural and label the person a quack. -This is an extremely important observation, and I too dislike the word "supernatural", as it presupposes that we know what is natural. David earlier drew our attention to two articles relating to brain research. The assumption is always that the different brain cells are the source of thought and even of a "switchboard" that selects and controls our thoughts. Although the latter researcher does use the word "mysterious", there is no hint that the controlling power might be anything other than the cells themselves. This suggests that we have all kinds of living physical beings inside our heads, each co-operating with the other, and all of them in some "mysterious" way combining to create an identity which has no will of its own.
 
Precisely the same argument can be applied to the existence of a universal intelligence. The manipulation of physical forces (the universe, living cells) is done by what? Themselves ... i.e. intelligently functioning mechanisms that magicked themselves into existence? Or by an overriding identity which some people call God? The unanswerable question of how this overriding identity can have come into existence does not invalidate the unlikelihood of chance working such magic. We are simply faced with two huge improbabilities, plus the fact that we understand so very little about the nature of the universe we live in.-Evidence? Nothing conclusive either way, of course. But the materialist's refusal even to consider NDEs and other so-called psychic experiences, even while acknowledging that consciousness is an unsolved mystery, is no less prejudiced than the religious fundamentalist's refusal even to consider the possibility that the universe is the product of impersonal Nature.