Junk DNA: goodbye!: Review article (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, March 22, 2015, 13:19 (3322 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Did he have to know that from the instant that he sprang into existence? You and DHW both seem to treat him like he has to be Houdini, springing into existence (or always existing) already having all the answers, and completely disregarding the possibility that maybe he didn't do any creating for a REALLY long time....
DHW: I don't treat him like that at all. I don't even know if he exists! And I have repeatedly challenged David's idea that God, if he exists, could know it all in advance. I could actually imagine him making a lot of it up as he goes along (or experimenting) - after all, he may have had eternity to mess around with different ideas and even with different universes. -TONY: Err... But you just said "dhw: Here are the real alternatives: ...the story of life began from the top with an undesigned supercolossal intelligence that always knew everything,"-Well spotted. I was of course responding to David, who holds that belief. I must be careful to distinguish between your different brands of theism. I should have written that the real alternative beginnings were an inexplicable undesigned superintelligence at the top and an inexplicable tiny intelligence at the bottom. Thank you.-Dhw: But I'd best leave the two of you to fight over what God might have known and not known, since you are a lot closer to him than I am.-TONY: I'm no closer to God than anyone else, and please do not put those words in my mouth. I do strive to cut out habits/practices from my life that I find to be at odds wit what the bible teaches, but the only one that has the right to say who is closer and who is not is God himself, and I would not presume to claim to speak for him. That is why I try to reference the bible when talking about God.-I'm sorry if I offended you. You wrote: “God says: The dead are conscious of nothing.” That suggests you know or think you know God's mind. David also thinks he knows God's mind (e.g. God planned everything in advance so that he could create human beings). As a mere speculating agnostic, I must confess I am always surprised by the confidence of such beliefs, and so I'm afraid there was a gentle irony in my remark. My apologies. Perhaps the irony would have been clearer if I had said: "I'd best leave the two of you to fight over what God might have known and not known, since you both seem to know more about God's mind than I do."