Identity (Identity)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 16:51 (5351 days ago) @ xeno6696

My metaphysic doesn't require me to answer that question because it recognizes the question as unanswerable to any tool of investigation I possess; - Matt, I appreciate your long response. It helps me define the limits of your thinking. We have come to the 'how' desire and the 'why' desire, and that is where we have separated. I've been looking at 'how' life works for many years, and I find it amazing, and beyond belief that it popped up from many chance contingencies. 
 
> I know you have a lot of passion and thought behind your conviction, but the resistance you receive from outside observers such as myself is ultimately based upon parsimony. - I think it is less parsimonious to require all those steps of contingency, than to assume a supernatural force. A supernatrual force, if present, requires that we accept the fact that we will never know the 'how', completely. In his book, A Concealed God, Stefan Einhorn, a philosopher of religion,states: "Science has not yet been and may never be able to provide all the answers. Taking the matter to its extreme, we can say there are two (not mutually exclusive) explanatory models. Either God is a biochemical process in the human brain, the function of which is to protect the intellect from experiencing the world as insecure and meaningless--feelings that could have resulted in the downfall of the human race in evolutionary perspective--or else there is a God." - 
> Look, you've told me that your view is essentially panentheistic, and of course I can respect that, but unless you can tell me how this deity works, you're in no better position than those who support scientific abiogenesis. In fact in a great many ways you're at a disadvantage in terms of explanation, as there is no way to determine "good" theological explanations from "bad." - Einhorn, above, is an answer to this comment of yours, but I have a further thought. My approach is to expect science to continue to demonstrate increasing complexity in the coded management of life. I have indicated overtures to this complexity in past entries, briefly, epigenetic mechanisms, and RNA management of genes. Watson-Crick discovery of the coding of protein molecules is a very simplistic beginning to what is now being discovered in the management of those proteins. They just put the camel's head into the tent. My expected 'proof of God' will be exclusionary. The complexity of life will be found to be so enormous, only something supernatural can have created it. We will never fully know the 'why', because we cannot. And so a faith takes over. No one can use 'how' to get to God. Pascal's leap will always be required. For me I've taken the leap, and it feels good, just as my love for my wife feels good. Yes, this is at an emotional level, but at some point that level is required. - I was invited to join this website. I've acted as a gadfly and will continue to do so. I do understand everyone's position, and will try to continue to have everyone defend them.