Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Saturday, March 06, 2021, 13:31 (1356 days ago) @ David Turell

The first entry on this thread concerned the illogicality of David’s theory of evolution, which we have already covered ad nauseam on other threads.

Your gut has a big brain

dhw: Fascinating, and yet further evidence of the intelligent cell communities which cooperate in forming all organisms including ourselves.

DAVID: They just follow a series of God given instructions.

dhw: So every single interchange between the billions of bacteria inside the almost infinite number of individual humans (not to mention other life forms) was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or possibly dabbled at various intervals in history. Curiouser and curiouser.

DAVID: Lack of understanding. We are discussing gut cells, not the biome.

What has the biome got to do with it? We are talking about the cell communities that contribute to our behaviour! According to you, the gut cells communicate with the brain cells – and no doubt with other cell communities – by following God’s instructions, which can only have been issued 3.8 billion years ago or dabbled whenever he felt like dabbling. I am sceptical. I think it more likely that if your God exists, he would have given ALL cells/cell communities the autonomous ability to communicate and cooperate in making their contributions to their host’s behaviour.

Multiverses

QUOTE: What atheists have done is invoke a concept of multiverse that is conceptually unintelligible and scientifically unobservable. This unintelligible unobservable probability landscape is convenient for atheists, who can merely assert that it accounts for fine-tuning without providing even a shred of evidence or logic. The “multiverse” theory frees atheists from real science, which is the only condition in which atheism can survive."

DAVID: We've been over all of this before. The conjecture is unproveable and therefore worthless.

dhw: I agree completely, but this is the AgnosticWeb, and we specialize in balanced arguments. What theists have done is invoke a concept of a being that is conceptually unintelligible and scientifically unobservable. This unintelligible and unobservable being is convenient for theists, who can merely assert that it accounts for fine tuning without providing a shred of evidence or logic. The “God” theory frees theists from real science, which is the only condition in which theism can survive.

DAVID: Only a mind can create fine tuning, which is why atheists have to invent unproveable multiverses. And agnostics follow their tune, dhw admits to be hung up on the need for design.

dhw: No they don't follow the atheists' tune. Agnostics can’t commit themselves to the tunes of the unscientific, unprovable, unintelligible, unobservable theories of atheists and theists alike. You are right, though: the need for design counterbalances the incredibility of a designer who didn’t have to be designed. One way or another, I am left acknowledging that there are mysteries which cannot be solved.

DAVID: You will never have absolute proof of God. But logic says He must exist.

And your equally rigid atheist will say you will never have absolute proof that life was the product of a chance combination formed from a virtually infinite number of combinations, but logic says it must have happened. Pots and kettles.