Why bother with God? (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, May 22, 2011, 16:08 (4932 days ago) @ dhw

MATT: "But for me the fallacy is based on deciding that we HAVE to judge."
> 
> ... although for some reason you do not acknowledge that attributing life to chance is no more and no less of a cop-out. (Incidentally, one of the stupidest arguments is that of "bad" design, glanced at in David's post "Backwards retina". It proves nothing, and until humans have cracked all the codes and come up with an improved version, it's just about on a par with "yah boo!")
> -I've said before this is a false dilemma. That's why I don't raise it. You don't agree with me that its a false dilemma, we discussed it at length probably 3 years ago. I'm rereading Pigliucci to help throw some (possibly) new ideas out there...-As for the eye, Hubble was a much better eye than the human eye. It can see Gamma, UV, "normal" light, Infrared, and microwave light. (IE, the entire spectrum of light.) We can deliberately choose bands. We can set its precision arbitrarily, and further, it was built to be built upon. (It was modular.) In comparison, the human eye sees only a tiny segment of light, and detects peripheral motion. I would say that in terms of design, Hubble outclasses the human eye in every categorical fashion except in cost, and of course, the lack of peripheral vision. (But this could be fixed quite easily.) More importantly, Hubble can do all of this without needing to take an extra step of flipping the image around. -> As for rolling up our sleeves and wrestling with the problems of abiogenesis and cosmology, the vast majority of us simply don't have the tools for such a task. We are forced to rely on the experts, and since they can't agree among themselves, I personally feel no compulsion to make a judgement either way. However, I see no difference between a theist scientist and an atheist scientist trying to unravel the mysteries of life and the universe: the one will claim to be studying how God did it, and the other how chance did it. ...
> -The difference is in that in general, theist scientists are looking to prove something, notably that it is acceptable to believe in God. For the most part, atheist scientists (with notable exceptions such as Dawkins) could care less about that entire subject. Pigliucci discussed something of this before--while underlining that ALL scientists check their religious baggage at the door if they're going to be taken seriously. The atheist position is such that they have nothing to prove; The current state of affairs is that there are open questions to be solved. (Abiogenesis, etc...) I remember my atheist days; the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. If you claim God exists, it's up to you to demonstrate it. This is how the game has always worked. On close examination Atheists make one less argument about the world than a theist. My break with atheists only comes when one makes a positive statement "God does not exist." Though, you can always preface that with "The notions of God thus far have lead me to conclude God does not exist." This is safer. -You charge that by strongly or weakly rejecting God, atheists implicitly accept chance as the cause of everything. Pigliucci denies this. He writes "For some reason, many people--not just creationists, seem to think that if something is natural then it must also be random (in the sense of being undirected and therefore, in the minds of those with a misunderstanding or ignorance of natural selection, clearly not designed).-He then posits a simple formula, that Adaptation is the result of at least two forces:-Adaptation = Mutation + Natural Selection-David's theory would simply add another term:-Adaptation = Mutation + Epigenetics + Natural Selection -Only Mutation is random. Natural Selection is NOT random. Epigenetics would not be random either. (Both NS and Epigenetics require environmental causes.) 
Dennett clearly calls natural selection design. -All of this (though relating to evolution) is a demonstration that overall—the whole process is NOT random, and by not knowing what caused abiogenesis, we don't know how "random" it was in the first place, either. ->...your negative judgement on ALL matters relating to the paranormal ... including the acquisition of otherwise inaccessible knowledge during NDEs ... remains a puzzle for me.
> -The USAF researcher's model accounts for all of this. We could discuss this further if you wished.-> ... I don't care what you call them - my question is whether you dismiss them as "mental masturbation".
> -Until tests we can perform are devised--1 & 2 definitely are. I'm starting to take a stab at your chance argument (see Pigliucci above.) -> ... There is no logic behind the assumption that Chance could have created it, and there is no logic behind the assumption that an even more complex force created itself or has existed for ever. There is no solution ... hence agnosticism. Thank you for that!-Logical insomuch as they are valid. Soundness is what is at question, so again we're not too terribly far off.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"