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

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2009, 11:36 (5583 days ago) @ John Clinch

John Clinch to Matt: I completely agree with the thrust behind your question. - John, would you please in future give us the relevant quote. Otherwise, we have to hunt for the original post and then read it through in order to find out what you're talking about. - There is another reason for my request ... namely, that it might possibly stop you from setting up easy targets of your own that do not correspond to what has actually been said. Your post continues: The argument "life is too complex therefore there must have been a designer" is a breathtaking non-sequitur. dhw would doubtless retort that he is not saying that it must have had a designer, merely that it may have, but this doesn't get him off the hook." - There is no hook. You are trying the same trick as with your previous made-up "logical fallacy", but have now switched to manufacturing your own non sequitur. Substitute "life is so complex that I can't believe it came about by chance", and your non sequitur disappears. Add to this: "therefore I believe in a designer" and you get theism; or add "but I can't believe in a designer either", and you have agnosticism. - In order to illustrate how false your "logical fallacy" argument was, I asked you ('James le Fanu', 22 July at 09.10) to apply your formula to your own beliefs. I wrote: "Now apply the "personal incredulity" argument to your own views: you find the concept of a transcendent God "preposterous", and NDEs and OBEs "nonsense", and therefore they can't exist. Would you accept that as a fair representation? Of course you wouldn't." - In your response to this (in the 'Le Fanu' thread 07 August at 10.31) you have written: "No, I don't find your representation of my position fair. I don't think (that is a metaphysical think) that God 'can't' exist." Of course you don't. The whole point of my post was to show you the unfairness of your phrasing by applying it to your own beliefs. Perhaps such distortions are unintentional, and it will certainly help you to avoid them if you reproduce the text you are commenting on. (I will respond to the rest of your Le Fanu post on that thread.) - Your next made-up argument concerns "god-of-the-gaps", which you say was never rebutted adequately: "The gist of the response was that this gap is really, really special. This time, it's different. Oh-oh! Those seeking to shoe-horn a designer (ok, dhw, the possibility of one) into the ever-shrinking gaps in biology will come unstuck, of that we can be reasonably confident." You will find no such response anywhere on this website. On at least three occasions I have explained my objection to the gaps argument and the need for openness to new evidence, the last being on 28 June (on the Le Fanu thread) when I reminded you of my reply in March to your attack on "agnosticism-of-the gaps". I wrote: "All beliefs (and many disbeliefs) entail filling in the gaps [...], and it's only non-beliefs that leave the gaps open. So if future science fills some in, beliefs/disbeliefs/ non-beliefs may have to change. Nothing wrong with that. Agnosticism [...] isn't something you fight to defend. Its whole essence is that it's open." - Since you are clearly enamoured of the gaps argument, however, let me explain in a little more detail. All theories fill in the gaps between known information. In this case, you and I probably agree that the Earth had a beginning, initially there was no life, and then there was life. The gap is between non-life and life. One theory is an intelligent force that some folk call God. Another theory is that the process was triggered by chance. Both theories are attempts to fill the gaps between the items of information that are known, and as it happens neither theory has any scientific backing. You are of course at liberty to be "reasonably confident" that one gap-filling theory will prove to be the more likely, but until there is enough evidence, the "of-the-gaps" argument applies equally to both theories and gets you nowhere. Furthermore, I do not know of anyone on this website who is not prepared to adjust his/her beliefs if science comes up with convincing evidence, so whose "gist" are you referring to? - You conclude: "If I were a theist, I'd want something a lot less vulnerable to explanation, something far grander and more ineffable ... if only from an aesthetic point of view." I think you will find that most committed theists do indeed base their religion on something far grander. As an agnostic, however, I am searching for explanations, not looking to justify a belief. The importance of abiogenesis in this search is something I will try to explain on the James Le Fanu thread.