E. Coli vs. Linux (Humans)

by dhw, Thursday, May 20, 2010, 15:00 (5109 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't think you have to give up reason. Adler and Flew, as two examples did not do that. Neither did I. The first issue is recognizing that whatever is God is unknowable, and unimaginable. Religions try to fill in the blanks but they are guessing just as much as the rest of us. God is not going to be revealed to you, or anyone, in any way. You and I agree that the accidental origin of life is an impossible concept to accept. The only logical next step is that it was caused by something. Now you are stuck; you don't want to accept the unimaginable, but what else can you do? The pickets on the fence, irritating your rump should make you want to do something. Perhaps you don't like answers, unless they are satisfying. I don't like the pickets, and I do feel satisfied. I have no real idea of what I am accepting, but it makes me feel good, like the love of my wife does, or when I think about my guardian angel, my first wife's Mother. I 'know' she is watching over me; the tingle inside tells me. I have gone to faith, because it feels good, not because I have forced myself to faith.
 
I don't think it's possible to believe something BECAUSE it makes you feel good. If it were, I could believe I was a reincarnation of Shakespeare, had scored a hundred centuries for England, and was heading for BBella's "ideal ultimate truth". One believes something because one has an inner conviction that it's true. You have told us that you abandoned agnosticism because your scientific studies convinced you that life had been designed, and so there had to be a designer. However, your scientific studies and your powers of reason could not have taught you that the designer was still there, cared for us, and had provided us with an afterlife and guardian angels. These convictions come from some kind of intuition, mingled with personal experience: i.e. what you have graphically described as "the tingle inside". My own "spiritual" experiences (such as are engendered by emotion, music and literature, and those occasional, indescribable moments of one-ness with Nature) are integral to my life, and I remain open-minded about other people's experiences, but I simply don't have that tingle.-As far as "the only logical next step" is concerned, the argument is just as applicable in reverse: namely, that the concept of your unknowable, unimaginable, hidden intelligence is impossible to accept. The only logical next step is to embrace the concept of life originating by accident. But I can't embrace that either. The pickets, however, are not so irritating to my rump that I need to jump off. I am cushioned by the realization that in due course I shall either find out some of the answers ... and these might present me with lots of Turelly tingles ... or I shall go to sleep forever, grateful for the unique experience of having lived a life. Either way, I'm in no hurry!