Chance v. Design Part 4 (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 08:54 (5644 days ago) @ xeno6696

PART ONE - Matt: Astronomers do not discuss dark matter/energy as if it is a fact, only a hypothesis. - I added a quote, which you seem to have ignored: "It has been noted that the names 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the markings of early maps as 'terra incognita'." Of course it's only a hypothesis. The point of my mentioning it in the first place was to respond to your claim that "science has been utterly devastating to physical explanations of our world of a supernatural origin". I agreed that it had devastated many myths and many aspects of religion, but "science still doesn't have much idea what constitutes nature itself." But I will happily withdraw Wikipedia's figure of 96% if you like, since I haven't a clue what percentage is unknown or what the unknown consists of, and nor has anyone else. That is the whole point. - Matt: I can't see a way that a creator could exist based on both my own experience and the unfortunate knowledge that science destroyed virtually every myth about the world. - I can't argue against your experience. Nor can you argue against the experience of other people who do believe in a creator. You are clearly someone who is genuinely striving for answers, and I admire your willingness to explore lots of different avenues. Whether your subsequent experiences will lead you along the Georgian path of materialism, the Davidian path of panentheism, or the dhw path of haven't-a-clueism remains to be seen! - I wrote: I doubt if you'll find many deists who think their god started the universe but didn't start life.
Matt: ...you are just ignorant enough about deism that you don't know that the view I discussed is mainstream deism. - I must confess that I'm surprised to hear that there is such a thing as "mainstream deism", since it's an 'ism' that has so many forms. Right from the outset, however, deism has always laid emphasis on the God-given power of reason (and how does God give reason if he doesn't give life?). Matthew Tindal wrote: "God designed all Mankind should at all times know, what he wills them to know, believe, profess and practice, and has given them no other Means for this, but the Use of Reason." I looked up the website of the World Union of Deists, and found the sub-heading: "God Gave us Reason, Not Religion", and under reason is the following definition: "Deists look at reason as the second greatest gift from Nature's God to humanity, second only to life itself." Perhaps you should write and tell them how ignorant they are about mainstream deism. I thought I'd better check with Wikipedia too, and found: "Deism gives credit to the formation of life and the universe to a higher power that by design allows only natural processes to govern creation." For me, the essential point of deism anyway is that God doesn't interfere, but in this case does it really matter where we put the stop sign? If you prefer to say that the deist god created the 'laws of nature' in the sense of a computer programme designed to give rise to life, that's fine with me - i.e. on the assumption that he knew exactly what he was doing. However, this disagreement came about because you disputed my statement that in order to argue for a creator, you have to reject the theory of abiogenesis, so we'd better get onto that next.