Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 14:57 (5288 days ago) @ dhw

'To say that "the natural laws are "smart enough" on their own" and "the natural laws are grounded in the divine nature", and "everything is "made out of" God-stuff" explains nothing about the process that led to life and evolution.'-What kind of an explanation are you looking for? The kind of talk I use is not intended to be scientific explanation. It's mythological. Are you looking for scientific explanations? Kauffman attempts those sort of things and I think he makes some pretty good attempts, but the jury still seems to be out.-'The simplest, earliest forms of life were so complex that they could not only reproduce themselves, but they also contained within themselves the potential to change and adapt, reproduce those changes and adaptations, and eventually even "invent" new organs. We all agree that it happened. Some say that the early forms were simple enough to assemble themselves. Others, myself included, find this incredible and wonder why, if it's all so simple, our conscious, intelligent scientists are still unable to figure out how it happened.'-Read Kauffman for serious attempts to figure it out. Just because there isn't a scientific consensus about his explanations, doesn't mean that canonical scientific explanations will not eventually be formulated. This is where "faith" in the scientific enterprise comes in, and where perhaps Dawkins' atheism becomes dogmatic and another form of religious (or anti-religious, if you will) belief. In a way, belief that fully scientific explanations for the origin of life will eventually be forthcoming is "religious." But the march of science has been relentless and discussion in the direction of origins is getting more and more promising. I think "faith" that science will eventually fully explain the origin of life is not at all unreasonable, given its historical relentless progress on all fronts. Science is still the best methodology that human beings have ever discovered for finding out how things really are.-'If your mystic "All is One" has no consciousness of itself, I see no alternative to belief that life and potential evolution were initially the product of random combinations. In that case, what is the role of the "divine"?'-This is why full disclosure has to be "piecemeal" on a forum such as this. Limitations of space prevent full exposition in a single post. Each post would then be a book!-First of all, the God in my theology is infinitely conscious and personal. It's just that he is not omnipotent. The role of the divine is to provide the foundations of existence with the potential to evolve into conscious creatures that can know (and love!) God, even in the Christian senses of knowing and loving. I have this belief strictly from my own mystical experience, and I haven't been able to discover anything in science that contradicts that belief. It is a "theory" I have formulated about my personal experience, a theory that it seems to me best explains that experience that at the same time is not contradicted by any canonical science with which I'm familiar.-In any case, don't bother asking me to "prove" that God knows and loves us, because my only "proof" is personal experience, and I believe that that is the only "proof" that could ever persuade anybody. If that's not part of your personal experience, then we don't have anything to talk about. -I might add that the rampant injustice and evilness we witness in the world is not an argument against the knowledge and love that God has for us, because God is not responsible for evil. In fact he does everything possible to work against it, but the only power he has is the power of persuasion through the exposure of himself to conscious creatures, and that exposure is largely clouded over by the vain imaginings of barely conscious human beings.-I'll break this off here for fear of running into the 5,000 character road block.