Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 17:56 (3616 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You argue that intelligent life (ours) requires planning, but intelligent life (God's) does not require planning.
DAVID: As a first cause, God just IS.
dhw: The word "God" has too many associations, so let's say "Eternal consciousness just IS." 
Life just is, evolution just happens, intelligence just evolves, it's how Nature works. You would not accept such a statement, would you? It's a cop-out just like your own.[/b]-DAVID: Yes, an eternal consciousness just IS. But your next statement in no way offers an explanation of why life, evolution, intelligence are present in our reality. This is the issue of the necessity for a first cause A first cause just IS. Unless there is no cause and effect.-You left out the sentence I have put in bold. I do not object to the concept of a first cause. I object to your insisting that the first cause is CONSCIOUS. If the first cause is energy, that does not mean consciousness, and to say it just IS conscious is as much a cop-out as to say it just evolved consciousness.
 
dhw: I continue to accept a first cause. As an alternative to an inexplicable, eternal, universal intelligence whose consciousness has no source, I suggest an atheistic form of panpsychism (normally a theistic -ism) in which multiple intelligences have evolved from eternally changing matter.
DAVID: And I totally reject that as an impossible chance mechanism. 
dhw: I know you do. You prefer a mechanism that “just IS”.-DAVID: If you accept first cause and therefore contingent events, your scenario of changing matter somehow evolving into consciousness, perhaps by George's 'chance and necessity', is far away from what I can accept as a logical possibility.-Indeed. it is as illogical as that of a consciousness that just IS. There is no logical hypothesis, which is why they all require faith.-DAVID: You see flaws I do not see. I'll take my choices on faith as the best explanation.
dhw: If there were no flaws, why would you require faith?
DAVID: No flaws present, but lack of absolute proof of course requires faith. It is faith in a conclusion to the best solution for the current evidence.-I'd have thought that total absence of proof (no-one expects absolute proof) would count as a flaw in any hypothesis, including yours and Dawkins'. You each opt for what you subjectively consider the “best solution”.