Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 13, 2021, 16:10 (1019 days ago) @ dhw

Dying cells protect living ones
dhw: “your imagination” of a possible God is that he cannot or would not design anything with an inventive mind of its own, apart from us humans. Why not?

DAVID: As explained elsewhere today, it all depends on how you view God. All of life contributes to food supply for all which you constantly try to ignore.

dhw: There you go again. Yes, all life forms require and required food. That does not explain the bold. Once more: Why do you think your God could not or would not have designed anything with an inventive mind of its own, apart from humans?

You are right on one point, God can invent whatever He wishes. But what we imagine God did directly depends on one's image of God. Mine is purposeful, knows exactly what He will achieve, while yours is a humanized struggling form who needs to experiment, changes his mind in midstream and wants to watch free-for-alls. Our disagreement cannot find an end when your God and my God are so different.

BACTERIAS’ ROLE IN HUMAN BIOMES
QUOTE: "Because the research also showed the significant impact of environment on the gut microbiomes in baboons, their findings agreed with previous studies showing that environmental effects on the variation in the gut microbiome play a larger role than additive genetic effects."

DAVID: More evidence that bacteria must be here and have a strong role to play, even if some act badly at times.

dhw: I’m interested in the role of the environment, since in my view it is a key to why organisms (including bacteria) make changes to themselves. As regards your own comment, no one would deny the importance of bacteria. The problem you refuse to face up to is why your God would specially design the sort of “bad” bacteria mentioned below:

My point is the 'bad' bacteria is our human interpretation and God may have designed them as 'good'.

ROLE IN HUMAN THERAPY
Quote: "A recent trial has shown that nose drops of modified 'friendly' bacteria may protect against meningitis."

DAVID: We humans can use our God-given brains to use bacteria for our benefit.

dhw: Lucky us. This does not explain why, according to you, your God specially designed Neisseria meningitidis. Do you really think he did so in order to enable humans to use other bacteria to protect some (not all) against it?

Neisseria meningitidis lives with most of us quite benignly. The problem is our collapse of symbiotic relationship. We can solve it, can't we?

Proper Big Bang view
DAVID: If we are sure the universe had a beginning, therefore we have absolute proof of God. The space-time we live in had to have a cause. God's proof then relies upon whether one believe the Big Bang really happened, We all know the BB is not proven, but what if it is? Combined with the designed complexity of living biochemistry, the probability of His existence becomes very strong.

dhw: Lots of word games here. The issue itself doesn’t need all this messing about. We don’t know if the Big Bang happened, and we don’t know what preceded it if it did happen. If it did, I have no idea how you can possibly claim it provides absolute proof of God. You are then claiming that the cause of the bang was a conscious mind which had no source. It could just as well have been a non-conscious, sourceless combination of matter and energy, constantly changing forms and big-banging for ever and ever throughout past eternity. Why do you think a sourceless conscious before is possible but a sourceless unconscious before is impossible? But yes, the complexity of biochemistry is indeed a good argument for the existence of a designing mind or minds.

Note the bold. The issue is the problem of accepting the idea something cannot come from nothing. So you wish before the Big Bang there was something. I believe it was God. At least we both think the BB must have had a cause.