Atheous

[Wads42]

Oh really? Why then do we have the phenomemon of convergence? For example, why did the eye evolve independently 40 times over? Cumulative natural selection is pretty orderly, you know.

ps to my answer. Of course convergent evolution occurs, because similar environmental changes occur repeatedly in different places, producing multiple homologues of phenotypic results.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Read my post again. Ir explains what logic is and therefore how your “statement” ignores and denies logic, and therefore you cannot argue rationally. You have to "compartmentalize " in order to distinguish one topic, person, fact or idea from another. Your computer is using logical binary machine code as its basic language; that is how we are able to communicate. But as you seem to deny this, you are just being incoherent; and also using the “Tu quoque” fallacy; (you too- sucks boo, so there!)

No, I understood your post perfectly, and I don’t deny its content about logic. But I also pointed out that it has nothing to do whatsoever with the usual talk about ‘compartmentalization’. That is, for intellectual believers, having your supposedly ‘irrational’ beliefs in one corner of your mind and your rational and scientific thinking in another, and avoiding intellectual meltdown only by neatly separating them. Or so goes that idea brought forward by atheists as an ‘explanation’ how you can be intellectual and a believer '‘nonetheless’.

 

[Al_Moritz]

ps to my answer. Of course convergent evolution occurs, because similar environmental changes occur repeatedly in different places, producing multiple homologues of phenotypic results.

Precisely. Natural selection is just as little random as the inexorable grinding of a glacier on its way down from a mountain. Just like a glacier carves out the landscape according to the niches presented by the softer material, natural selection follows the niches that the environment presents. Nothing random about that.

 

[Wads42]

He is Super-Natural; in you, He is present in the little voice of your conscience through which He guides you for as long as you wish.

Me: You are just making this up.

If there is one logical All-powerful God then there is no other, logically.

Me: indeed,–IF.

He thought it into existence. All matter disappears at a sub-quantum level into what one particle physicist described as ‘a dream’. Or thought, as you wish.

Me: How do you know this?

He designed the qualities of the system for His own purposes, in His own way. Evolution is not inevitable, it is, if it is true, possible only because it was designed so.

Me: We are always hearing that God has a purpose, but are never told what it is. Surely you must know, as you seem to be an expert on God otherwise?
Any system that changes over time, necessarily evolves. That is wht evolution means.

What do these humans need above all else to live as they can and like to live. They need a planet full of sorted, collected, obtainable resources - chemical, mineral resources gathered up under the ground waiting for intelligent creatures to exploit. No other planet or moon I know of has this type of necessary resource. Its quite a trippy coincidence that sentient, industrious creatures occur on such a planet with perfect arrays of resources to hand.

Me: Don’t you think that with all the new observations of our own solar planets and their moons, like Europa and Titan, and hundreds of new extra-solar planets being discovered, that at least one of them might be Earth-like? In fact only a couple of weeks ago, this was actually announced, in a star system 600 light-years away,-I forget the name.
It looks as though Europa has a vast water ocean, and Titan has lakes of methane. Our Universe is made of the same stuff throughout. Our own moon has vast Titanium ores
–very useful for making large aircraft, if it could be got here economically. I wonder why God doesn’t deliver it to us? Fine-tuning is only partial; we evolved to adapt to conditions as they are, -we were not put here first with nothing to stand on.

Not only the whole world but also the whole universe exists within Him and His presence still continues to infinity and eternity beyond this universe. We live in Him. Such is His power.

 

[Al_Moritz]

It depends upon your level of explanation. There are many such levels. Variation occurs due to random mutations and randon sex chromosome recombination (unless you think marital partners (including the animals) are chosen and matched together in Heaven).
Natural selection fine-tunes phenotypes so that they retain the characteristic they need to survive.
But taking a God’s Eye view (Ha-ha), the whole process of natural selection can be seen as essentially random, because the environment does the selecting, and it is full of random occurrences; eg rising mountain chains which divide a species into two groups which then evolve separately in different directions,-and so on.

Well, if you view that as random or not indeed depends upon your level of explanation – also when applied to the God’s Eye view.

 

[Wads42]

No, I understood your post perfectly, and I don’t deny its content about logic. But I also pointed out that it has nothing to do whatsoever with the usual talk about ‘compartmentalization’. That is, for intellectual believers, having your supposedly ‘irrational’ beliefs in one corner of your mind and your rational and scientific thinking in another, and avoiding intellectual meltdown only by neatly separating them. Or so goes that idea brought forward by atheists as an ‘explanation’ how you can be intellectual and a believer '‘nonetheless’.

OK apologies; we are discussing different definitions of “compartmentalization”. Yes, according to your use of the word scientists can also hold religious beliefs, eg Francis Collins. But I do not agree with Stephen J. Gould’s NOMA concept, because religion does make scientific claims, and is not therefore a separate magisterium. These claims therefore should conform to scientific discipline instead of just claiming them to be true a priori,-end of discussion. That is not how science works.
Basic science can be done by religious scientists without cognittive dissonance; if they are just mixing chemicals in a test-tube-maybe;or maybe not, if even at this basic level they pray over the results and think hey can influence the results by asking God to mix the molecules. Of course at the cutting edge of Cosmology or biochemistry, the religious scientist will go badly askew if he abandons rational theoretical models, measurements and observations, in preference for a bald statement of fact that God-did it. Scientists would accept such a result if it turned out to be true, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

 

[Al_Moritz]

OK apologies; we are discussing different definitions of “compartmentalization”.

No problem.

Yes, according to your use of the word scientists can also hold religious beliefs, eg Francis Collins.

Or less famously, me.

But I do not agree with Stephen J. Gould’s NOMA concept, because religion does make scientific claims, and is not therefore a separate magisterium. These claims therefore should conform to scientific discipline instead of just claiming them to be true a priori,-end of discussion. That is not how science works.

Which scientific claims does religion make?

Of course at the cutting edge of Cosmology or biochemistry, the religious scientist will go badly askew if he abandons rational theoretical models, measurements and observations, in preference for a bald statement of fact that God-did it. Scientists would accept such a result if it turned out to be true, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

Of course the God-did-it argument is not scientific procedure. However, in particular cosmology has limits of observation, due to the particle horizon: the maximum distance from which particles (i.e. also particles carrying information) could have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. It represents the portion of the universe which we could have conceivably observed at the present day.

These observational limits make a multiverse, for example, no less philosophical speculation than the God concept. Yes, the multiverse is a concept from science, but due to the observational constraints it is not a scientific concept proper – science depends on (the possibility of) observation (and theoretical models are no substitute for that).

 

[tonyrey]

Precisely. Natural selection is just as little random as the inexorable grinding of a glacier on its way down from a mountain. Just like a glacier carves out the landscape according to the niches presented by the softer material, natural selection follows the niches that the environment presents. Nothing random about that.

Natural selection is not random but it cannot progress unless it is supplied with random mutations…

 

[Al_Moritz]

Natural selection is not random but it cannot progress unless it is supplied with random mutations…

Sure, but consider the following: I can heat up my house in a controlled manner, to a temperature set exactly on a thermostat. But the kinetic motion of the air molecules, a measure of heat, is completely random. So is steering the temperature of the house a random act that is not precisely controlled? Of course not.

 

[You]

@wads42

He is Super-Natural; in you, He is present in the little voice of your conscience through which He guides you for as long as you wish.

Me [wads42]: You are just making this up.

You: You have no conscience?

If there is one logical All-powerful God then there is no other, logically.

Me: indeed,–IF.

You: Glad you agree!

He thought it into existence. All matter disappears at a sub-quantum level into what one particle physicist described as ‘a dream’. Or thought, as you wish.

Me: How do you know this?

You: How else would He do it? Matter is just a dream - said the particle physicist.

He designed the qualities of the system for His own purposes, in His own way. Evolution is not inevitable, it is, if it is true, possible only because it was designed so.

Me: We are always hearing that God has a purpose, but are never told what it is. Surely you must know, as you seem to be an expert on God otherwise?
Any system that changes over time, necessarily evolves. That is wht evolution means.

You: Gods purpose for us? To know Him and to love Him. Glad I could help there.

What do these humans need above all else to live as they can and like to live. They need a planet full of sorted, collected, obtainable resources - chemical, mineral resources gathered up under the ground waiting for intelligent creatures to exploit. No other planet or moon I know of has this type of necessary resource. Its quite a trippy coincidence that sentient, industrious creatures occur on such a planet with perfect arrays of resources to hand.

Me: Don’t you think that with all the new observations of our own solar planets and their moons, like Europa and Titan, and hundreds of new extra-solar planets being discovered, that at least one of them might be Earth-like? In fact only a couple of weeks ago, this was actually announced, in a star system 600 light-years away,-I forget the name.
It looks as though Europa has a vast water ocean, and Titan has lakes of methane. Our Universe is made of the same stuff throughout. Our own moon has vast Titanium ores
–very useful for making large aircraft, if it could be got here economically. I wonder why God doesn’t deliver it to us? Fine-tuning is only partial; we evolved to adapt to conditions as they are, -we were not put here first with nothing to stand on.

You: As I said, I know of no other planet with these resources. Man cannot live on titanium alone. BTW do you think it would be interesting to find a huge titanium ore deposit on the moon, very handily placed on the way out from Earth for building big interplanetary spaceships which could not be launched from Earth.

 

[tonyrey]

Natural selection is not random but it cannot progress unless it is supplied with random mutations…

I agree but your heating system is designed whereas natural selection per se is not!
So it leads to random results in the sense that they “have no definite aim or purpose” are “not sent or guided in a particular direction”, “made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard.” - wiki

Of course if natural selection exists within the context of Design it is a different story.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

IOf course if natural selection exists within the context of Design it is a different story.

When I’ve seen it used in the context of design it is usually (though not always) called by a different name. For example, when used in the context of creating software it’s called “Genetic Programming.” The details vary by technique, but in some implementations after a set of software solutions are thrown at a fitness landscape the ones that have the best success “survive” and then pass on their “genes” to following generation. A descendant may get it’s genes from one or more parent and along with some random change being made.

Reference: Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection (PDF)

 

[Al_Moritz]

Of course if natural selection exists within the context of Design it is a different story.

Precisely, that’s the crucial point. Where do the exceedingly special laws of nature come from that make evolution possible in the first place?

 

[JDaniel]

I think “controls” may give the wrong impression, JD. God certainly knows and permits all events but He is not the **direct **cause of all events. Otherwise He would be directly responsible for all evil, whether it is physical or moral! He ensures that the final outcome is good and just - and in the meantime intervenes as often as possible - but we have to pray that His Will be done and play our part in fulfilling that prayer.

Tony:

This by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure, from his Essay, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, 1 THE WILL OF GOD MADE AND GOVERNS ALL THINGS, p. 2:

"Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. ‘Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives’ is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, 'and God intervenes everywhere.'

I am the Lord, He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. (Is. 45:6-7) It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them, He said to Moses. (Deut. 32:39) 'The Lord killeth and maketh alive, it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth. (1 Kings 2:6-7) Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done? (Amos 3:6) asks the prophet Amos: Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God Solomon proclaims. (Ecclus. 11:14)

And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.

Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action, the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if, you will object, someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me, how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God who far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame, you will conclude, can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission.

It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word that in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission."

The rest of the essay goes on to tell us why the concerns you have are not particularly disastrous to God. Powerful stuff. Let me know if you want a copy of the essay.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Perplexity

***On a side, but related noted, I think for many atheists, their atheism is a properly basic response to suffering and evil. **

I don’t agree. I was an atheist and I never used that as a reason to be one. It’s a cop-out.

Bottom line … no one can prove there is not a God, so that too is not falsifiable.

Charles:

I agree. I too was an atheist. Suffering had nothing to do with taking me there. I do not recall ever thinking about it.

It was Pride: my belief that I was smarter than any theist, and my belief that “God” was a crutch for those who did not have the stomach to stand in the universe, in their last moments, in abject solitude.

God bless,
jd

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Precisely, that’s the crucial point. Where do the exceedingly special laws of nature come from that make evolution possible in the first place?

What do you think of this?

1. Physical objects are subject to physical laws that don’t necessarily have to exist. (There is a possible world where no physical objects exist)
2. The objects which express these laws are contingent and finite.
3. Contingent finite physical objects cannot be the cause of that which they are subject to, and thus neither can they be said to be the reason for why those laws are what they are, instead of something else.

Conclusion: Something intelligent and non-physical created those physical laws, because that which is not predisposed to be intrinsically ordered can only be put in to order by an intelligence.

I could be wrong, but i dare say its a good foundation to a strong argument depending on what we mean be physical laws.

What say ye?

 

[Perplexity]

The problem with your scenario is that, as a naturalist, you cannot even rationally affirm that naturalism is true:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/naturalism_is_true.htm

Here are some general thoughts on the linked argument:

(i) This argument seems to assume that determinism is incompatible with free-will. But, currently, the reigning position on free-will amongst philosophers is compatibilism, which says that the free-will we have is such that we’d still have it even if determinism is true. That is, our free-will is compatible with determinism. So, I’m presuming by ‘free-choice’ and ‘free-will’ you’re referring to an incompatibilist understanding.

Therefore, when you say things like on deterministic naturalism we don’t have “free-choice”/“free-will”, you’re stating a truism; because, the freedom you’re referring to is incompatible with determinism. But, that doesn’t do much for the compatibilist.

(ii) This argument seems to assume that naturalism strongly implies or even entails determinism. But, as you seem to acknowledge in the argument, the reigning interpretation of Quantum Mechanics says the laws are probabilistic. It doesn’t matter whether such indeterminacy is significant, the fact that the naturalist can say there is any at all means he’s not a determinist. (As far as I know, most naturalists are indeterminists)

(iii) Finally, this argument seems very analogous to the brain in a vat problem. That is, you’re using the possibility that our cognitive faculties are unreliable on naturalism and evolution to cast doubt upon whether they actually are. The use of mere possibilities for that end is the chief characteristic of arguments like the brain in a vat. On the one hand, I think the naturalist is entitled to respond to this as he does to the brain in a vat: Look, it’s possible, sure. But, I have no reason to think that, and in my experience we are rational. You might say “ah, but you can’t appeal to the subject we’re discerning!” just as the defender of the brain in a vat problem would. Though, the naturalist is probably going to be unaffected by this (as we all are by the brain in a vat argument), I think Putnam’s objection to the brain in a vat problem works against this problem as well.

You might be interested in Stephen Law’s recently published objection to Plantinga’s Evolutionary argument against naturalism (which your argument seems to be strongly akin to) analysis.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/08/analys.anr130.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=hm7edekWddgpNa9

 

[tonyrey]

*Of course if natural selection exists within the context of Design it is a different story. *
Precisely, that’s the crucial point. Where do the exceedingly special laws of nature come from that make evolution possible in the first place?

Do I need to answer that question?

Natural selection presupposes intelligent selection!

 

[Wads42]

***Oh no, I totally agree with you! ***Science does lead to God. But the way, I have used that Francis Bacon quote myself in discussions.

But the context of your statement:

“Any right thinking scientist will have the same experience,”

was:

“That what he had seen through his intellect was as straw compared to the revelations he experienced in his heart. Any right thinking scientist will have the same experience,”

And that is what I take issue with. Science leads to God via the intellect, and i just don’t see what “that what he had seen through his intellect was as straw compared to the revelations he experienced in his heart” has to do with that.

You do realize don’t you that top scientists are atheist or agnostic? Over 93% of them in the National Academy of Science, and over 97% of those in the British Royal Society.
So why do you persistently emphasise the handful of aberrant religious scientists as if they were representative? Presumably you are unaware of this; I would not presume to think that you might be deliberately misleading us; after all, Christians alawys tell the truth don’t they?

 

[Wads42]

Precisely, that’s the crucial point. Where do the exceedingly special laws of nature come from that make evolution possible in the first place?

I agree with many scientists, especially the cosmologist Lee Smolin, that as biological evolution occurs, (it does, don’t argue!), and as biochemical evolution (abiogenesis) also occurs, - it seems logical that it is evolution all the way down, ie cosmic evolution of the “inanimate” Universe right back to the (alleged) Big Bang. I say alleged, because the BB is now being seriously challenged (sorry La Mettrie!).
In other words the Universe itself evolved on the same Darwinian principles of random variations of possible constants,-and that these physical costants were fine tuned by cosmic natural selection so that only the values which “worked” ie could progress to the next stage of star and galaxy formation, were selected. In addition, the formation of the elements is a strict logical numerical process, with Hydrogen the simplest element having one proton for a nucleus,-and all the other elements being formed by the simple addition of another proton all the way up to about 93 protons for the heaviest element Uranium.
Natural selection stopped the process at Uranium for the simple reason that any heavier atom would be too unstable to exist.
Taking another approach, the physicist Victor Stenger has calculated that the “fine-tuned” constants are not so fine after all, but can be varied signioficantly and still give rise to long-lived stars apable of supporting planets which can evolve life.