God and Evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 20:15 (2060 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony: ...we think things should be done one way, and then question why he didn't do things OUR way. DHW would create cellular intelligence so he didn't have to do anything else. David would pre-plan, and possibly incorporate some mechanism for change through common descent. Well, why should God care what WE would do?[/i]

DHW: We are not saying what WE would do. If God exists, he must have had a method of creating the history of life as we know it. We are trying to work out what that method might have been.

Tony: Most of what I see is people trying to prove God doesn't exist, not trying to actually figure out what happened. Most of the assumptions they start with are precluded with 'God doesn't exist'. Most of the language used to describe their observations have 'God doesn't exist' as a foregone conclusion. Here, that is less of an issue, but I was speaking in generalities. Still, you don't reverse engineer something by starting at the beginning. You start at the end and work your way back, and you start with pure observation without an over arching narrative. Once you include a narrative, you are predisposed to confirmation bias.

You have described how I started from a position of soft agnosticism. In my 50's I did a get deal of reading about particle physics and the new standard theory of cosmology and changed my mind. Studying pure science can do it.