Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Sunday, August 11, 2019, 11:20 (1929 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] Once more, it is the COMBINATION of these two hypotheses that makes no sense, but this combination is your fixed belief and you won't budge. That, then, is the point at which I think we can end this discussion.

DAVID: Fixed beliefs do make sense to those of us who believe, but not to those who cannot believe. The end.

Not quite the end, since in this case you have admitted over and over again that you have no idea why your God would choose the method you impose on him for implementing the purpose you impose on him. How, then, can you claim it makes sense to you? For clarity, a summary of the combined fixed beliefs that leave you with no conceivable explanation: your God is always in full control, and his sole purpose in creating life was to specially design H. sapiens. 3.8 thousand million years ago, in order to fulfil this one and only purpose, he provided the very first cells with specific programmes (you said you could dispense with your dabble theory) for every single life form extant and extinct – so that they could eat or be eaten by one another until the pre-human-hominin-different homos-Homo sapiens programmes clicked into action – plus every lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct, all to be passed on through the rest of time. Of course you are entitled to believe whatever you wish to believe, and to criticize those who cannot share your belief, but since you cannot find any logical explanation for this specific method of fulfilling this specific purpose, perhaps you could simply say that your fixed belief is based on blind faith. That would be the end.

Xxxx

Under “biological complexity”, but we may as well include it on this thread, since it deals with such an important unanswered question – namely, the existence of God!

DAVID: What is interesting and obvious from the comments made by dhw is that except for the very strong evidence of design, he would be an atheist. I think his early exposure to religion has caused some confusion in his thinking. The designer does not have to be religion's God as the ID folks constantly point out, but logic indicates there must be a designer. dhw can still be agnostic about who or what the designer represents while accepting a designer's existence and leave it at that. The next step is to recognize it requires a thinking, planning mind. No further step is necessary.

Yes, it is the design argument plus certain types of psychic experience that keep me from being an atheist. But you quite rightly point out that you cannot have a designer without a thinking, planning mind. There is no confusion here: belief in a God requires belief in a sourceless, infinite, eternal, immaterial form of consciousness that even you admit is “hidden” and unknowable. This requires just as much faith as belief that mindless, infinite and eternally changing energy and materials might one day produce a combination that will give rise to all the evolving complexities of life and consciousness. Nothing to do with religion, I’m afraid, though that does not stop me from discussing the logic or otherwise of people’s religious beliefs – e.g. that their God specially designed the whole of life with the single purpose of creating H. sapiens, who should admire his works and with whom he wants a relationship.