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

by dhw, Thursday, January 28, 2016, 18:22 (3220 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I can't give you a rational discussion about the evolution of the universe, when I cannot discern God's method. -Billions of solar systems coming and going, millions of exploding stars...possibly for ever...It is BECAUSE it all seems so impersonal and undirected, i.e. BECAUSE there is no discernible “method”, that some of us doubt the existence of a God. Your starting point is that God exists and so the seeming disorder must have a purpose. My starting point is the seeming disorder, and this sheds doubt on the existence of a purpose and a God. It is the same with the seemingly disorderly history of comings and goings and lifestyles and wonders of biological evolution, for which again you struggle to “discern God's method”. -To restore the balance, however, this does not detract from the rationality of your biological design argument, to which you hastily and understandably return in the rest of your post and in your addendum:
 
DAVID: Fred Hoyle commented that it appeared someone "monkeyed with the inner works" to paraphrase him, and with his discovery he left atheism, but I don't believe he ever joined theism. We have a carbon-based life, and it seems ideal for the job it does in the way protein molecules can be created with such variable function based on shape and folding. As even Dawkins said, study of biology makes teleology and design look real. Why can't it be real?-It can be real! By all accounts, Hoyle saw both sides and became an agnostic. Agnostics allow for both interpretations of the facts. Like Dawkins, though, you have made up your mind, and prefer to ignore the huge gaps in your interpretation of life and the universe. Unlike Dawkins, however, you have many times acknowledged that ultimately your beliefs are a matter of faith and not reason, and this I respect. One of these two faiths (in an originating god or in originating chance) must be close to the truth, and there are powerful arguments for and against both, so I am wrong one way or the other!