Chance v. Design Part 4 (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 01, 2009, 08:20 (5623 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: He might watch, he might not care at all. He built the computer algorithm, if you will, and from a set of ultra-simple rules complexity arose, just like in "the Game of life". In this case, it is both by design, and by random chance. The universe was designed, but everything else simply forms according to natural and random processes. Is this better? - It's a lot better! It's so much better that we are now almost in sync. But not quite. Let's concentrate simply on why we think "he" might exist or have existed. - For an atheist, there is no "he". The universe and life formed themselves. From all the events we know of throughout the Earth's history ... and particularly the history of life ... there seems to have been an almighty free-for-all. Cataclysms on a global scale, the coming and going of vast numbers of species, humans arriving late on the scene and following a pattern of apparently random good and bad, survival and destruction, comedy and tragedy. I share that vision of history, and that's why I can't believe in a personal God. - So why am I not an atheist? I can at a stretch believe that sooner or later, in the vast expanse of the universe, conditions might arise by chance that would allow (not produce) life. I can and do believe that organisms adapt to changing conditions. I can and do believe that beneficial changes survive through natural selection, though I have problems believing that chance mutations can invent even the most primitive of new faculties. But what I cannot believe is that chance could put together a mechanism that leads from the self-replication of mindless blobs of matter (complex enough in its own right) to the truly astonishing complexity of us. That is my sticking point. And it seems to me that if you can believe in abiogenesis, you might just as well believe that everything else came about by chance, so there are no hooks left to hang God's existence on. That is why for me it's either a computer programme for life or no programme at all ... i.e. design versus abiogenesis. (But not supernatural versus natural, because I haven't a clue where one begins and the other ends.) It would be interesting for me to know what evidence you see for any type of creator if the evidence isn't life. - Thank you for your fascinating character study of yourself, which helps me to understand why sometimes I don't understand!