Why is a \"designer\" so compelling? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 15:33 (5596 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: We know enough about chance to be able to say "yeah, if you have infinite time you will eventually exhaust all possibilities." - David points out that we don't have infinite time.*** As for "all possibilities", you say yeah and I say nope. Where are the limits to credulity? Given countless billions of years and stars, explosions, implosions, protons and photons, chemicals and particles, gases and masses, collisions, divisions, I still don't believe Nature would accidentally come up with a perfectly functioning computer. And yet that's the equivalent of what I'm expected to believe. But I fear we are going round in circles. - Utility: psychological frameworks that "do not give us knowledge about anything other than ourselves" are probably more useful to most people than your "exoteric" knowledge of abiogenesis (which most people would call esoteric in the normal sense of the word). However, I agree that belief in God does not advance our scientific knowledge of the outside world, although I'm not convinced by this definition of utility. I also agree that society does not need religion to set up ethical systems, and that religion often imposes "artificial limits on what it is that humans can and can't question". I'm not a defender of religion, but am merely pointing out that it does have practical uses. It's a shame that Mark has left us, but I have no doubt that his pastoral care plays a very real and beneficial role in the community. - You (and Nietzsche) have asked why we should "base our thought upon something unknowable and unthinkable". Who are "we", and what thought have we "based" on it? If this is an attack on painstaking interpretation of and dogmatic adherence to religious texts written by humans, I share your scepticism. But if your question simply means: 'Why should anyone bother to waste their time thinking about a possible unknowable prime cause?', I can only answer that if I'm confronted by a mystery, it's my nature to think about possible solutions. This seems to be a common human trait. It doesn't stop scientists or philosophers or any other kind of truth-seekers from pursuing their investigations. In short, and in relation to you, me, and the advancement of knowledge, your (Nietzsche's) question seems to me as irrelevant as your criterion of exoteric utility. The question is what is the truth, and it may lie within the various god theories. - Thank you for your gracious apology regarding your consequentialist misinterpretation. Happily accepted. - *** I've just read your reply to David. Dawkins uses a similar argument. As I've said before, I base my (non-)beliefs on what is known, not on what people think they might possibly find.