Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 16:31 (5498 days ago) @ dhw

"Now that you've rejected Dawkins after all..."-Now, now, let's not overstate your case. As long as Dawkins talks about what can be scientifically observed, I agree with him. He just goes too far in making claims that nothing can exist outside of what is scientifically observable.-"though you still haven't said if its infinite consciousness arises solely from the physical"-That's because I'm not convinced that making that decision is necessary for my theology, especially when you take into consideration that "there always was and always will be" God and his life, which is manifested in material creation. Why should we be surprised if there are aspects to God's essence that will forever lie beyond the intellect of any creature to conceive, let alone understand?-"I see no difference between these statements and the theory that God set up the original mechanism for life and evolution and then sat back (figuratively) to see what would happen."-I don't make the statement that God simply "sits back" and watches the proceedings dispassionately. That's Deism, a position that seems vacuous to me. From the beginning, God is passionately interested in every event, from atoms sticking together to human beings experiencing mystical union with him. It's just that God's influence beyond the point of initial creation doesn't really come into its own until consciousness arises in evolution.-"The strings ... to each of which he even gave its nature ... would not have stuck together if he hadn't made them in such a way that they could stick together."-Agreed. That's all that's necessary to get everything going.-"Well, if God (who you say is in fact out there and within) created the strings that were complex enough to reproduce and combine, and if he knew they were going to evolve, he must have created the codes that enabled them to evolve!"-Define "codes." If you mean genetic codes, your statement is a non sequitur.-"So he does have a mind which can conceive complex forms, and he did somehow "force" them (the strings) into existence according to his will."-Absolutely. My theology depends on that. But the "forcing" is simply "spawning" tiny reflections of himself, breaking off "pieces" from himself. So there is never any "creation from nothing," which is an illogical and incoherent notion, and according to Griffin, isn't even Biblical.-"Even if he created them in such a way that he couldn't control their evolution, thus allowing himself to be "surprised", he's still responsible for designing them in the first place."-Whether he does self-consciously choose the portion of his nature that goes into each fundamental particle or whether the fundamental particles just have their nature because they are essentially a part of God is irrelevant to my theology.-'I find this a very coherent scenario, but it could hardly be further away from the belief (27 October at 15.45) that "life and the codes for evolution" came about "by accident"'-I don't see that, if you're talking about genetic codes. Those are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create, given the complete lack of control that God has over his fundamental particles once he "cuts them loose."-"In case you haven't realized it, George would say that the ungraspable is ungraspable because there's nothing to grasp."-That's his religious belief and he's welcome to it, but it doesn't cut any ice with me.