Immunity: detecting dangerous bacteria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 03, 2017, 15:35 (2548 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Before we sign off on this, and in anticipation of the next disagreement, let’s clarify what we mean by the primary mechanism. Mine is autonomous intelligence (possibly designed by your God). Yours is a hidden, 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme containing instructions for every eventuality for the rest of time, barring those in which your God intervenes personally. Is that correct?

DAVID: Generally correct, but in my view we will eventually find by research that God's programming will be found in deeper layers of the genome and its function. As I noted in my first book increasing discovery of increasing complexity in biology requires an acceptance of God.

dhw: Understood. If the source of cellular intelligence were found in deeper layers of the “genome and its function”, biological complexity would still be such that a theist would claim it required an acceptance of God. And he may or may not be right.

DAVID: Is there any level of complexity in the biology of life that would cause you to change your opinion?

dhw: The level of complexity is such that I doubt if anything could change my opinion that one can’t dismiss the case for design and hence for a designer. However, the idea that a seemingly infinite universe – filled with galaxies that endlessly come and go for no apparent reason – contains and is contained by a single conscious mind that has no source and of whose actual presence there is no sign, demands such a leap of imagination and blind faith that I doubt if anything could change my opinion that one can’t dismiss the case for chance or for atheistic panpsychism.

A fair assessment of your position, but it doesn't explain why we exist.