Evidence for Design?

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reggieM said:
How do I know that you aren’t prejudiced?
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Let me ask you something reg; is it your position that no natural evolution has ever occurred by chance? Is it your belief that all the biological changes in species over millions of years is in fact the direct craftsmanship of an intelligent being?

If the answer is yes, i will leave you alone. I have better things to do. If the answer is no, and you are willing to allow just one evolutionary event to happen by chance; then surely you have no good reason to exclude the possibility that the whole system of events is a natural arrangement of secondary causes.
 
reggieM said:
It’s not just that … it’s that you expect an appeal to chance to be convincing. You haven’t done any probability studies to see if chance is even possible in that situation.

It seems clear to me that you’re not ready to address the serious criticisms of origin of life research. I posted commentary from a scientist who actually does the research – he was an atheist, by the way and not favorable to ID – and he had severe reservations about **any **abiogenesis claims to date.

You just compiled some selective writings which you claimed offer a “feasible” solution to origin of life – at the same time, ignoring some massive problems with every step of the “lucky chance” solution.
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Fine, you have the last word.

Perhaps my posts will have made other readers of this thread think a little more about these issues. And obviously, I invite everyone to read my article, which simply summarizes the cutting edge of origin-of-life research, with an open mind. For some it may be too technical, for others not.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Let me ask you something reg; is it your position that no natural evolution has ever occurred by chance? Is it your belief that all the biological changes in species over millions of years is in fact the direct craftsmanship of an intelligent being?

If the answer is yes, i will leave you alone. I have better things to do. If the answer is no, and you are willing to allow just one evolutionary event to happen by chance; then surely you have no good reason to exclude the possibility that the whole system of events is a natural arrangement of secondary causes.
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It’s quite a leap from one to all! 😉
 
reggieM said:
From your article:
What about the difficult issue of a genome which holds all genes together? It might have been that in the first primitive cells **RNAs were ligated ‘by accident’ **step by step, one by one, into forming a genome precursor and that each such step conferred an advantage in natural selection over competitor cells, since genes would not have been lost anymore during cell division, and replication would have been synchronized.Sure, but lucky accidents aren’t much of an explanation. You should consider doing the math here – what are the probabilities?
The RNA genome could, bit by bit, have been replaced by a DNA genome, a selectable advantage that primordial cells would have encountered by chance.Again, you’re appealing to lucky chances. But notice this …
From a theistic philosophical perspective, the actual findings of science suggest a much grander idea of God: the Designer who laid out an elegant and self-sufficient set of laws of nature that accomplish the unfolding of his creation by inducing self-organization of the material world.If you have to appeal to luck, then that is not an elegant design of the laws of nature. There are no scientific laws you can invoke in the supposed change from RNA to DNA.

So, how do you explain “luck” from a theistic perspective? How is that different from a miraculous intervention from God? How would you know the difference?
much of the origin-of-life scenarios is still hypothesis. Experimental models are needed that are both realistic and of some appreciable complexity. Were it possible, for example, to show that a primitive RNA organism could be built in the laboratory (Szostak et al. 2001), it would be a significant step forward.What I saw in your paper was wildly speculative. You haven’t addressed the many criticisms of origin of life research either.
Again, through the use of human intelligence and all the power of modern science, nobody can create a primitive RNA organism.
But at the same time, we’re supposed to believe that such an organism emerged by chance?

I don’t find that convincing at all.
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You’re far from being the only one! 😉
 
Daedelus76 said:
I doubt it… the scientific evidence for the origin of life doesn’t contradict Buddhist doctrines. If anything, Dawkins idea that we are merely DNA survival vehicles fits with the Buddhism teachings of the self as consciousness bound up in conditioning.
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Where does Buddhism explain the origin of the self?
How does it explain reality?
“I was born into the womb-prison through blind lust”, from Shan Tao’s medieval liturgy. The conditioning of our biology limits our freedom and robs us of peace. Only by using the power of our minds can we transcend that. That’s worth more than all the mythology about gods and gardens you can muster.
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The power of the mind remains unexplained like so many other Buddhist doctrines… Everything exists in an infinite void…
I disagree. The human condition should be plain to scientific understanding. Psychology and sociology can inform us better than religious clerics.
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That’s quite a leap from Buddhism! How do you relate them?
 
tonyrey said:
It’s quite a leap from one to all! 😉
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True, but if you agree that it has happened at least once, then isn’t it more reasonable to think that if God is going to make a system of secondary causes with specific natures then surely he would allow these natures to express themselves without restriction or intervention? Otherwise what is the point of creating physical laws, quarks, atoms, and all the other complex natures that comprise the physical if he is going to interfere with their natural ends? Why not just design the whole thing top to bottom immediately instead of farting about over millions of years? The design model doesn’t make sense of the data. It seems to me that God created a system that he intended to evolve naturally according to its nature.

This ID evolution thing seems that it might be heading in the direction of a heresy.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
True, but if you agree that it has happened at least once, then isn’t it more reasonable to think that if God is going to make a system of secondary causes with specific natures then surely he would allow these natures to express themselves without restriction or intervention? Otherwise what is the point of creating physical laws, quarks, atoms, and all the other complex natures that comprise the physical? Why not just design the whole thing top to bottom immediately instead of over millions of years? The design model doesn’t make sense of the data. It seems to me that God created a system that he intended to evolve naturally according to its nature.

This ID evolution thing seems that it might be heading in the direction of a heresy.
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Precisely.

God creating a great self-sufficient process of development, that is great creation. God creating things by special creation outside of a process, that is great creation too (it holds for the spiritual domain; yet for the physical domain, the data contradict that mode of creation).

But implying that God created an insufficient process that always needs a push here and there, that makes God an incompetent creator. And that indeed heads in the direction of a heresy.
 
Daedelus76 said:
It’s not at all clear to me that rejecting the Christian or Catholic faith is at all similar to “choosing to exist for” oneself.
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The basic Christian principle is to love others as you love yourself. If you reject that you are choosing to exist for yourself.
And Christians do not in fact preach that Hell is the result of a choice offered by a “loving” God.
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You are obviously unaware of the teaching of Jesus… and the parable of the sheep and the goats…
Hell is punishment for the wicked, isn’t it?
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Self-inflicted isolation by those who put themselves first.
Regardless, its an ugly belief even to say God “respects” “free will”. It is indeed unloving to stand around and allow somebody to hurt themselves- if God allows somebody to choose destruction without intervening, he’s no better than a negligent parent.
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Do you believe parents should control their children day and night for the rest of their lives? 🤷
 
grannymh said:
The human person is worthy of profound respect.

In human eyes, you are probably right about your neighborhood or a larger area.

However, the Catholic [universal] Church looks at the teachings of St. Paul regarding Christ’s death as the Salvific event for all people. No restrictions allowable. “All people” is based on the fact that Adam and Eve are the sole founders of humanity.
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My remark was addressed to a person who rejects Christianity.
 
Al_Moritz said:
Why? I am just pointing out your mindset that you have proven extensively over months of discussion.
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Without your having refuted my arguments…

I should add that “your mindset” is another fallacy. With equal facility I could refer to “your mindset”. 🤷
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
I know that you know the answer. Stop pretending. Why do i have to be the one to explain everything?🤷
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Could it be that I am unsure of myself because my mandatory minor in philosophy is a half century old? Plus the fact that one of the classes coincided with my nap time. And as soon as a really great survey class got to some philosophers who couldn’t figure out if they actually existed or if they only existed in someone’s else’s mind,[slight exaggeration] I tuned them out. In my opinion, these so-called philosophers were a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Loved logic, but the only thing I really learned were the values of analysis and independent thinking. Loved metaphysics, but have retained only enough so that I truly appreciate the Catholic Eucharist.

From what I have learned on CAF, theology and philosophy can stray from Catholic teachings. From what I have read off line, theology and philosophy can stray from Catholic teachings especially when the issue is human nature, human origin, and the need for a Savior. This is why I first refer the “ologies” back to sound Catholic teaching.

My worldview allows for objective truth. It is now a blessing that I skipped those philosophers who apparently plunged the world into subjectivism and relativism. I may not know the terminology for philosophical links, but I sure know what objective human nature is… This is why I defend the objective human nature of non-theists because they too are direct descendents of our first parents biblically known as Adam and Eve.
 
Al_Moritz said:
Precisely.

God creating a great self-sufficient process of development, that is great creation. God creating things by special creation outside of a process, that is great creation too (it holds for the spiritual domain; yet for the physical domain, the data contradict that mode of creation).

But implying that God created an insufficient process that always needs a push here and there, that makes God an incompetent creator. And that indeed heads in the direction of a heresy.
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It** is** a heresy to affirm that God never intervenes miraculously or answers prayers.
 
grannymh said:
From what I have learned on CAF, theology and philosophy can stray from Catholic teachings. From what I have read off line, theology and philosophy can stray from Catholic teachings especially when the issue is human nature, human origin, and the need for a Savior.
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There are Catholic philosophers who are a bulwark against heresy and modernism. You can’t defend what you believe without effective weapons!
 
grannymh said:
A person who rejects Christianity is still a human being who is worthy of profound respect.
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I agree but you have to make the point I made to demonstrate the inconsistencies and limitations of their position. Not all of them regard everyone as worthy of profound respect - at least in practice.
 
tonyrey said:
I agree but you have to make the point I made to demonstrate the inconsistencies and limitations of their position. Not all of them regard everyone as worthy of profound respect - at least in practice.
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The point of the objective, universal truth that “all human beings are designed as persons worthy of profound respect” is that this truth is true regardless of what anyone thinks or does. Inconsistencies and limitations whatever they happen to be absolutely cannot change the creative power of God when He gives each person a spiritual soul. Note I used the word “design”. Doesn’t design come from God?🙂
 
grannymh said:
The point of the objective, universal truth that “all human beings are designed as persons worthy of profound respect” is that this truth is true regardless of what anyone thinks or does. Inconsistencies and limitations whatever they happen to be absolutely cannot change the creative power of God when He gives each person a spiritual soul. Note I used the word “design”. Doesn’t design come from God?🙂
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👍 Everything comes from God - including evil! But evil is an inevitable consequence of finitude and independence.
 
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