Chance v. Design Part 4 (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, June 26, 2009, 20:29 (5427 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: I have sufficiently given examples where a creator is invoked but doesn't require the abandoning scientific abiogenesis. [...] You present a false dilemma when you say it must be abandoned at large if you assume a creator. There is only one instance where this is true, and that's if you assert man's existence is due entirely to a supernatural being, but then we enter into the problems I've been talking about with theology. As for the deism part ... we'll just be arguing semantics. - I find your line of thought very hard to follow, so please forgive me if I recap on the discussion up to the point at which I had to leave it. And please bear in mind the subject of this thread, which I consider central to the argument for agnosticism. - Initially, you challenged my use of "chance", and urged me to read Jason Rosenhouse's article. This was so foot-shootingly illogical that it presented just as much evidence for design as it did for chance. You then wrote: "In order to argue for a creator, you have to be able to define its limits...and how do you do that?" I saw and see this as a complete non sequitur, and commented that one precondition for belief in a creator was rejection of the theory that life came about by accident. In other words, if you argue for a creator, you must argue that it created something ... in this case, life. One might quibble that it created the special programme that led to life (which could be called "natural laws"), but for me that amounts to the same thing. You referred to deism, and when I suggested that you wouldn't find many deists who believed in a God that didn't start life, you told me how ignorant I was and your view represented mainstream deism. - I do not regard this part of our discussion as "arguing semantics". If a deist God created and fine-tuned the universe and set up the laws of nature, either he knew he was creating life (= design) or he didn't (= abiogenesis, by the definition I gave you last time). If he didn't know, and if he never intervenes, I wonder why deists down through the ages, right up until the present, have talked of their God-given reason. Did he make an exception? "Oops, I've gone and accidentally created life, and now there are humans, so I'll just pop down and give them reason." But you are the expert, so enlighten me: do "mainstream" deists believe that their God (a) knew or (b) did not know that he was starting life? - You continued: "There are many theological positions that would allow this scientific abiogenesis to happen, Deism, Process theology, and in fact, even judeo-christian theology allows it when it is followed non-literally." (It's not clear to me what has to be "followed non-literally".) You're certainly right when you say I "haven't explored theology deeply enough", so I'd be most grateful if you would let me know any relevant passage in the Bible that allows for a God that did NOT create life. You might try Genesis 1, 25 & 26, and John 1, 3 for what I take to be a "mainstream" Jewish and Christian view. And let me know too if you meet any practising Jews or Christians who believe that life came about by chance and not by their God's design. I don't know enough about process theology to discuss it, except that I always thought it was much the same as David Turell's panentheism, and David has already explained the scientific background which led him to the conclusion that life is the product of design. - With regard to the so-called "problems of theology", of course there are forms of religion which "completely abandon the mechanics of the universe to science". You would have done better to give examples such as ancestor-worship, cargo cults, or perhaps even the teachings of Siddhatha Gotama ... the Dhamma, with which you will be familiar ... but none of these are concerned with a creator, i.e. a supreme being that designed life. They are therefore irrelevant to a discussion centred on Chance v. Design (which requires a designer), and not on Chance/Design v. Religions That Aren't Bothered Either Way. - I don't understand your point about the one instance being if man's existence is "entirely due to a supernatural being". If a god created life, all existence is due to him. If there's no god, all existence (life) is due initially to chance and then to chance plus natural processes. Evolution, of course, is compatible with both scenarios. - It all boils down to what we as individuals can and can't believe. For me personally, the sheer complexity of life (not just human) is one of the main factors that make me unable to embrace atheism, i.e. to exclude the possibility of a conscious designer. I find it equally difficult to believe in such a designer, but I can't find even the slightest glimmer of justification for believing in a designer who doesn't design ... or a creator who doesn't create. Sounds to me like a can of beans without any beans. However, I'm sure you will be able to set me right.