What do we need a deity for? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 22:59 (4854 days ago) @ broken_cynic

KENT (b_c): My frustration comes in when it seems that you want to ask of science/rationalism a complete and airtight description of the entire universe from start to finish before you will accept that its account carries more weight than that of unsubstantiated stories which just happen to parallel in nearly all respects, stories we know for certain were made up.
 
This whole post is depressing. Only a madman would expect a complete and airtight description (I plead sanity), and I have not at any time offered any defence of or given any weight to "unsubstantiated stories" of creation. The choice for me, as I have emphasized repeatedly, lies between chance and design, and what we do know of the birth of the universe and the origin of life can be made to fit in with either theory.You are firing arrows at a target of your own making.-I had thought we'd moved onto a more rational level through my post of 9 August at 15.59 in reply to your (far more constructive) one of 9 August at 01.05 under "Abiogenesis". I'm wondering if perhaps you've missed this, since it makes most of your post here irrelevant. I'll repeat it now in the hope that it will put an end to this line of argument, and I would suggest in any case that we transfer this discussion here to avoid further overcrowding on the "Abiogenesis" thread. I'll highlight one or two passages, in the hope of getting the message home!-******-"This post is a big step forward in our understanding of each other. Your main beef is clearly not against God (more in a moment) but against the "designers that the religions posit". We can't discuss them all ... that would fill several books ... but I share your scepticism. However, most religions centre on this idea of an intelligent being (or beings), not necessarily in an outer universe, but perhaps even consciously within this universe ... in my earlier post I described it as some unknown form of energy. The religions personify it and load it with all kinds of attributes which you and I object to. The key here, though, is consciousness (or intelligence), and you say it isn't out of the question.-That is precisely the discussion that you and I are having ... but it can't be about definition. No-one can define something they haven't a clue about, and none of us has a clue about the forces that have brought life out of non-life. We (you and I) can only say what we DON'T think it is (e.g. a loving father who will beat the hell out of us if we don't love him back). The situation as I see it is that we are here and something must have put us here. That something may be unconscious chance, or it may be some unknown form of consciousness, which humans reduce to forms and figures they can understand. The hypothetical unknown form is where I put my full stop, because I can go no further (though that doesn't stop me speculating!) Since the alternatives are equally irrational and, I think, equally unprovable, I sit on what David calls my picket fence.-KENT: From a scientific perspective, no hypothesis that doesn't contradict the data is off the table until one has enough evidence to cobble together a good theory (and even then, it remains happily vulnerable to an improved theory with greater accuracy and predictive power.)-Once again, we are in agreement. No-one, in my view, has yet cobbled together a convincing theory: you lean heavily towards chance, while David leans heavily towards design, and I sit but do not lean. From a scientific perspective there is absolutely no evidence to corroborate either theory, but under "What do we need a deity for?" Matt has rightly pointed out that the scientific perspective is not the only one."-************-A few comments, however, on your latest post:-KENT: I don't need to know about all of the deities humans have ever described to dismiss them as a class. Do you need to know the back story of every character in the DC or Marvel (comics) universes before you can confidently describe the entire group as fictional characters?-What is this obsession with stories and characters? What, for instance, are the stories associated with pantheism, or panentheism, or the various modern forms of deism?-KENT: You seem to give equal weight to sober analysis of the evidence on one hand and slightly re-worked versions of Bronze Age myths on the other.-Please find me a quote in which I give weight to any version of Bronze Age myths.-KENT: It's the insistence on labeling ideas as absolutist, black and white beliefs that makes me keep saying 'No!'-One could scarcely be more black-and-white absolutist than dismissing ALL deities as "utterly ridiculous", and all forms of psychic phenomena as trickery and anyone who thinks otherwise as a fool.-KENT: You haven't answered my question about what difference you see between the ancient stories and the recent ones [...]-You have even quoted me: "a force that lies beyond our current concepts of Nature. Call it God, Yahweh, whatever you like (but forget the attributes imposed on it by the various religions ... that is a different matter)." I'm not arguing about stories (fascinating though they may be), characters, attributes, or even religions. I'm interested in whatever it is that has given you and me life. Full stop.