What do we need a deity for? (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, August 12, 2011, 17:54 (4852 days ago) @ broken_cynic

KENT (broken_cynic): You seem to accept that science has been successful at developing and continuing to refine a working model of the universe in many areas, including a number that until relatively recently were widely expected to long (if not forever) remain outside the scope of human knowledge. Your acceptance of this is so basic that much of your overall take on the world is apparently built upon it. You also seem to agree with me that no support has been offered for the specific/concrete claims in any religion we are aware of. -Yes.-KENT: My frustration comes in when you approach an area where our knowledge is currently much more limited and you are willing to dismiss all that you will otherwise acknowledge about whether it is science or 'random stabs in the dark as to what might be' (cranes or skyhooks) which have successfully provided us with working knowledge of the universe to date and to treat the two approaches as equally valid.-The 'random stabs' quote is of course your wording and not mine. What exactly are you claiming I have dismissed or am willing to dismiss? Please be precise. Once again, in slightly more moderate tones, you are setting up straw men and ignoring the fundamental points that I keep repeating ad nauseam: the two approaches are what I would call the theories of chance and design. Yet again I repeat: whatever models science has come up with to date can be made to fit in with either theory. As for the future, if scientists prove that the big bang really happened, that life first emerged from volcanic vents, and that a clever human can create a living creature, it still won't resolve the chance v. design problem. The (extreme) theist position dismisses the chance theory, the (extreme) atheist position dismisses the design theory, and the agnostic position does not dismiss either. Theism (not to be confused with religious teachings), atheism and agnosticism are all perfectly capable of absorbing all the findings of science, because science is almost certainly not equipped to falsify either hypothesis.-KENT: It is for this reason I asked why you give religious claims (perhaps I should just say unevidenced claims) a 'free pass,' as it seems that whenever you compare two positions or potential hypotheses you automatically snap to a 'middle' position that may not always be justified.-What "free pass"? What religious/unevidenced claims? In the post to which you were responding, I reproduced my post of 9 August at 15.59 under "Abiogenesis", highlighting certain points. Here for the third time is one of them, referring to whatever gave us life:
 
"That something may be unconscious chance, or it may be some form of consciousness, which humans reduce to forms and figures they can understand. The hypothetical unknown form is where I put my full stop." Religious/unevidenced claims?-In the post with which I started the "Abiogenesis" thread, and to which I have repeatedly drawn your attention, I wrote: "There is no escaping the fact that any designer must have an intelligence far exceeding ours, so if we can believe in its own spontaneous emergence or its everlasting existence, we can believe anything." Free pass?-You have reverted to your extraordinary habit of generalizing from the particular: "it seems that whenever you compare two positions or potential hypotheses you automatically snap to a 'middle' position..." WHENEVER? I adopt the middle position only if I'm not convinced by either hypothesis (here, chance v. design). In an earlier discussion you wrote: "So long as you insist on a (false) dichotomy of being unable to judge anything in the absence of complete knowledge, you will die on that fence." You then graciously apologized for what had been "poorly and antagonistically phrased", and yet here you go again...-Finally, of course a middle position "may not always be justified"! The more proven facts we know, the less justification there will be for a middle position! However, if there are not enough proven facts to convince me that an explanation for a particular phenomenon is valid, I will remain open-minded. Exactly what middle position of mine do you adjudge to be unjustified, and what are your criteria if they are not the same as mine?