Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Friday, November 06, 2009, 12:42 (5495 days ago) @ Frank Paris

Frank: "I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being 'out there' or even 'within' that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow 'force' them into existence according to his will." There's a logical 'and' in that statement. All parts of a statement with parts connected by 'and' must be true or the statement as a whole is false. "and somehow 'force' them into existence" is the part I deny, and that makes the whole statement false. There is no contradiction here with what I've said elsewhere.-I don't know where you get such rules from, but I'm sure Dawkins will be surprised to learn that, thanks to his use of a logical 'and', he now shares your belief that there is a conscious being out there, though not a conscious being who forces things into existence. If you're with Dawkins at the beginning, syntactically I'm afraid you're stuck with him all the way.-I wonder what syntactical rule you would call on to explain your acceptance (24 October at 19.10) of Dawkins' belief that "there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural intelligence lurking behind the observable universe...", followed by your subsequent rejection of it (30 October at 21.30). But this is a barren discussion, and if you truly believe you have not contradicted yourself, we should drop it. All that matters is that we clear up the misunderstandings.-You have stated categorically that you have "no trouble whatsoever believing that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." But God created the "fundamental particles". You go on: "If by "life" you mean that which metabolizes and reproduces with slight errors, the fundamentals have the potential to hook up in various combinations that eventually exhibit the properties of life."
Let me ask you three direct questions. According to your theology:
1) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that they would hook up and produce life?
2) Did God create these particles in the knowledge that when they hooked up and produced life, they would metabolize and reproduce with slight errors (which in my view leads to evolution)?
3) What do YOU mean when you say life and the codes for evolution could have come about "by accident"? (The only way I can link your two statements is by saying that if life came about by accident, but God created the life-giving particles, he didn't know what he was doing.)-You objected to my saying "If the universe is God...". On 24 October at 19.23 you wrote: "All is One." And: "All there is is the physical [though you now leave the physical nature of God's consciousness open to question] and all there is is the divine." If All is One, then God is all and all is God. So God is the (multi)universe, and the (multi)universe is God. I understand your distinction between pantheism and panentheism, since the latter = both within and without the universe, but if all there is is the divine, and the universe is NOT God (plus whatever is meant by "without" the universe), what do you mean by "the divine"? Along similar lines, you don't understand the concept of a "conscious universe", although apparently your theology depends on God having a mind. All is One, God is the universe (plus), the universe (plus) is God, God is (infinitely) conscious, so the universe is conscious. Or are you now saying that All is not One? (I need to stress that I don't have any theology of my own to push here ... I'm just trying to understand yours.)-I tried unsuccessfully to give a clear summary of what I thought you believed. Let me try again, sticking as closely as I can to your statements. All there is is the physical. God has an infinite consciousness which may or may not be physical. He is within and without the universe, and his purpose is to see himself reflected in it. He accidentally/deliberately (please delete appropriately) created the mechanisms for life and evolution out of his own materials, does not have the conscious ability to design genetic codes, but knows chance will come up with these eventually and organisms will evolve that reflect him. He has no control over how evolution develops, and watches every event with passionate interest. If that's no good, perhaps you could give us your own summary.-I'm glad you have not taken my criticisms in the wrong way. Which of us is failing to communicate properly is immaterial so long as we get there in the end. I'm going to be away for three or four days, but will look forward to resuming the quest for coherence when I return!