The Nature of this Conflict (Humans)

by dhw, Thursday, January 21, 2010, 15:45 (5419 days ago) @ George Jelliss

DHW: I don't see the alternative to abiogenesis as a "spiritual miracle", but as a conscious mind working scientifically.
GEORGE: This is exactly what I mean. You are presuming the pre-existence of "a conscious mind". i.e. a life-form, to explain the origin of life, and later the emergence of consciousness in that life. This is a simple logical fallacy.-First of all, I'm not presuming anything. It's all pure speculation, as with your equally speculative materialism. Secondly, you have created a logical fallacy by an equivocation with the expression "the origin of life". Of course if we meant ALL life, we could hardly argue that ALL life originated in a different form of life! In our discussions, however, you know very well that we're talking about the origin of life on Earth.-Nevertheless, the above would still be a logical fallacy if one of two basic premises were true. The first is your own: namely, that life on our planet began spontaneously. If you're right, then of course there is no pre-existing life-form to account for life on Earth. If you're wrong (i.e. if life on Earth is the product of design), then there has to be a form of life that created ours. Simple logic, no fallacy. And that life-form may very well be vastly different from ours. If you're going to ask where it came from, no-one can answer, and that's one of the reasons why I'm an agnostic and not a theist. Substituting one mystery for another merely shifts the problem, but that doesn't change by one iota the problems linked to the quasi-religious faith of materialism. -The other premise is the assumption made by many theists that God knows exactly what he's doing all the time, is all-powerful and omniscient, and humans with their extreme consciousness are the be-all and end-all of his creation. In that case, why did he bother with the whole rigmarole of evolution? Answer by some theists: he didn't. Read the Bible. Well, if I did believe in a God, that would not be my image of him. I would see him as a scientist, consciously experimenting and refining his creation, while at the same time leaving a lot to chance because that would be essential to the entertainment value of his work. I'd be inclined to embrace David's idea of God learning as he goes along. Just like the origin of life, the origin and refinement of consciousness would therefore be part of God's experimentation ... possibly with the aim of creating a creature close to his own image, much as scientists are trying to create robots in the human image. Again, there's no logical fallacy. Only a different basic premise.