The immensity of the universe (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, September 17, 2015, 09:48 (3354 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It seems to me that just as atheists wilfully close their eyes to the scale of life's complexity, theists close theirs to the scale of a universe in which our own planet is one of zillions of lumps of matter which in the course of time will disappear, seemingly with as little purpose as a grain of sand swirled away by the ocean.-DAVID: The immensity of the universe I find is of no issue. It is the site of the creation of humans, and the place for human creativity. Perhaps its size is a requirement that we do not recognize.-This is what I mean about the wilful closing of the eyes. Your “perhaps” blots out the inconceivability of a mind (for the existence of which there is no evidence beyond the speculative) that can encompass zillions of stars in billions of galaxies which have come and gone perhaps for an eternity before humans arrived, and will continue to come and go perhaps for an eternity after Planet Earth has disappeared. On the microcosmic scale, your “perhaps” also includes the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution, with thousands of organisms appearing and disappearing like the stars but somehow “perhaps” required for the production of humans. I carefully balanced my first post between the apparent impersonality of the immense universe and the apparent design of the living cell. You gaze wide-eyed at the latter, demanding an explanation for life's complexities, focusing all your powers of reasoning to draw your conclusion, and castigating those who refuse to acknowledge the rationality of your arguments. And then you close your eyes to the former, not interested in finding an explanation for the vastness and the endless comings and goings (it's simply “of no issue”), abandoning reason, content with a “perhaps” that you would ridicule if it were uttered by someone referring to the possibility of life originating by chance amid an eternal and infinite mixing of materials. -Although I am responding to you personally, this should not be taken as a personal criticism. What you are doing is what most people do in various contexts, myself included, and I finished my post with a general observation: “The human ability to keep the eyes closed is perhaps as remarkable a talent as the ability to keep them open.” It might be interesting to know why you chose to leave that out.