The "Problem Of Evil" does not exist

[Sair]

Give me a break … the goodness of love will never change … regardless of all other needs … it is our greatest need as human beings …

Yes, I am trying to get you to acknowledge the reality of Objective Love … because if you look around you … and take your head out of the sand … you would realize the greatest Evil around you … is the poverty of Love … when humans DO NOT love each other … the devastation of lives all around you … and the terrible poverty of loneliness … and selfishness … and greed …

but then again … your subjective experience of the world might differ from MILLIONS of others … i realize that when you have your head in the sand … or up another place where there is no sunshine … I can understand why you might not be able to acknowledge the REALITY OF EVIL … because you can’t acknowledge Objective Good. Evil only has meaning in context of Goodness. Without the ability to acknowledge goodness, no wonder you have problems acknowledging the reality of evil as well. Didn’t they teach you in math class that the number ‘two’ comes after the number ‘one’? Ooops … that might not be true come to think of it … if you were upside down looking at those numbers … the number 1 would come after the number 2 … you aren’t hanging upside down are you? lol

Talk about demonstrating one’s true colours. You talk about the objective goodness of love, but instead of engaging in reasonable conversation, attempting to understand where I’m coming from, and showing, if not love, at least common decency and rudimentary respect, your posts have degenerated into a petty, childish barrage of personal abuse.

In order to suppose that goodness and love are objective entities, you would need to be able to pin down a definition for both, and good luck with that, since everyone understands and experiences goodness and love in different ways - as ought to have become apparent from your (admittedly fairly patronising) attempt at a dialogue with me. It’s easy for theists to simply define goodness and love as being synonymous with their god, and easy for you to say that love is ‘our greatest need as human beings’ - but love of what? There’s plenty of harm perpetrated in our world by people who love their religion or their political ideology more than they care about anything else. Love to what degree of intensity? Is it still good if it’s unrequited and makes us miserable? Is it still good if it makes us do stupid, detrimental things? Or is its goodness only to be found in its consequences? And is love the same thing as compassion, or empathy? There’s an obvious lack of those things in the world as well.

I don’t acknowledge an entity in the universe called ‘goodness’ - this is a subjective assessment we make based upon observed and experienced consequences of actions and emotions, on the extent to which lived experiences are compatible with our happiness. To claim that goodness exists apart from subjective experiences (one of which is the collection of feelings we call love) is a delusion.

 

[jkiernan56]

Talk about demonstrating one’s true colours. You talk about the objective goodness of love, but instead of engaging in reasonable conversation, attempting to understand where I’m coming from, and showing, if not love, at least common decency and rudimentary respect, your posts have degenerated into a petty, childish barrage of personal abuse.

I am not pretensious as some. I am a straight shooter and I let people know when they are talking sheer non-sense. You cannot acknowledge objective evil because you must be able to first acknowledge objective good - which you clearly can’t.

 

[jkiernan56]

… easy for you to say that love is ‘our greatest need as human beings’ - but love of what?

There ya go … sheer non-sense. You can’t even see the nose on your face. Do you have to parse everything? Sounds like you have a good case of analysis - paralysis. Love of what? Give me a freakin break …

By the way, I don’t pretend to be perfect or that I’m holier than thou. But when it smells like “" and looks like "” … and tastes like “****” … I call it for what it is … sorry if you can’t handle the truth … easy for me to say 'love is our greatest need as human beings" … good golly miss molly … please don’t respond to anything i write … unless you want me to tell you what it smells, looks, and tastes like …

I have never belittled you as a person … just the horse “****” that you write …

 

[Oreoracle]

I am not pretensious as some. I am a straight shooter and I let people know when they are talking sheer non-sense. You cannot acknowledge objective evil because you must be able to first acknowledge objective good - which you clearly can’t.

There’s a huge difference between being a “straight shooter” and just being narrow-minded. You clearly don’t understand moral relativism, so why bother with it? Watching you criticize relativism is like hearing a blind person critique the visual effects of a new film.

 

[Oreoracle]

There ya go … sheer non-sense. You can’t even see the nose on your face. Do you have to parse everything? Sounds like you have a good case of analysis - paralysis. Love of what? Give me a freakin break …

By the way, I don’t pretend to be perfect or that I’m holier than thou. But when it smells like “" and looks like "” … and tastes like “****” … I call it for what it is … sorry if you can’t handle the truth … easy for me to say 'love is our greatest need as human beings" … good golly miss molly … please don’t respond to anything i write … unless you want me to tell you what it smells, looks, and tastes like …

I have never belittled you as a person … just the horse “****” that you write …

I stand corrected. Make the first sentence of my last post “simple-minded.” That’s just poor form, sir. uch:

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey
From my point of view, of course, the sentience of the entity is dependent upon brain activity. Nowhere is there any evidence that sentience occurs independently of brain activity.

Not if you restrict evidence to **physical **evidence.

Rational agents cannot so easily equated with brains. How can a lump of tangible

tissue discover intangible facts, philosophical principles, legal presumptions, mathematical proportions and logical relations? You are leaping from the concrete to the abstract as if there is no gulf between the two. The mind-body problem has preoccupied philosophers for well over 2000 years. It is hardly likely to have such an easy solution.
You have neglected a far more important fact. Our ability to imagine is also rooted in what we observe happening within ourselves… which is an occupational hazard for the materialist!
Before hypnosis was discovered most people thought it was impossible to control our body by the power of suggestion - let alone the thoughts and actions of others. I believe we grossly underestimate the power of the mind. We may well be able to develop other abilities like telepathic communication, healing physical and mental disorders - and possibly even some degree of telecontrol. There is plenty of evidence that some of these feats have already been achieved by gifted individuals - which, as so often, is rejected by cynics, sceptics and materialists.What you are doing, whether you realise it or not, is employing a form of ‘god-of-the-gaps’ reasoning - you are essentially saying, "Clearly, the powers of the mind and human consciousness have no natural, physical explanation, therefore they must be supernatural and separate from our physical bodies.
There are problems with this approach. Firstly, it’s not at all clear that there is no physical explanation for conscious experience. We have no obvious reason to suppose that the causes of these phenomena will not one day yield to scientific enquiry.

I’m afraid you are resorting to a “matter-of the-gaps” explanation, pinning your faith in science as the ultimate source of all knowledge.

Secondly, if these things were supernatural in origin, how would we know?

From all the evidence for Design and from the spiritual development of humanity.

How could it be discovered and verified? Internal awareness, contrary to your assertion, presents no problem to the materialist, who is quite capable of attributing ideas, emotions, mood swings, etc, to the physiology of the brain ( for one thing, this is why antidepressant drugs work - they affect the chemical reactions taking place in the brain, which in turn affects subjective experience).

To be capable of attributing **all **the activities of our mind to the physiology of the brain and to be justified in doing so are two different things! Where there is interaction between the mind and the brain such effects are to be expected.

You rightly say that sceptics - who prefer to suspend their credulity until they have solid, persuasive evidence - dismiss many reports of psychic powers, telepathy, telekinesis and so forth. And why, I would ask, should they not? Why should not these things be held up to the same rigorous standards of proof that apply in a scientific context?

Do you believe all your personal experiences can be verified scientifically? Do you expect others to do so? Do you ever trust their account of what they have experienced without demanding rigorous scientific standards of proof?

The assumption that they are supernatural actions does not excuse them from being verified as such. Remember that professional illusionists make their living by fooling people’s senses. How are we to decide whether claims of psychic abilities are more than just smoke and mirrors?

Do you reject everything that cannot be proved scientifically on the ground that it could be deception?

Having said that, I am well aware that many abilities of human brains - and by extension, minds - are only just beginning to be discovered and understood. We still have a long way to go before we have ourselves figured out. However, slotting in a supernatural ‘explanation’ doesn’t really help us to understand what’s going on here.

How do you define “natural”? It seems a nebulous term which changes to accommodate new discoveries. Hypnosis is one example.

You seem to feel that there is a yawning gulf between the physical structures of our brains and what we experience as consciousness, thought, imagination, etc. I have no difficulty with the notion that these things are the result of physical and chemical interactions in the brain. To return to the analogy of computers, the text, images and movement we see on the screen bears no practical resemblance to the millions of tiny transistors that store all the information, or to the components that process it. Yet we know there is a direct causal relationship here. Consider how vastly more complex is the human brain compared to the average computer. Are you seriously convinced that such a sophisticated biological machine could not naturally give rise to conscious self-awareness?

I certainly am - without a shadow of doubt. Why should an increase in complexity give rise to conscious self-awareness? Complexity has no magic power. A machine remains a machine no matter how complex it becomes. Do you imagine computers will eventually have conscious self-awareness, free will, responsibility, purposes, ideals and the power of self-determination? Be capable of emotions like awe, wonder, delight, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, regret, disappointment, hope and love? If there is no “yawning gulf” that is the logical outcome of your faith in matter…

 

[jkiernan56]

I stand corrected. Make the first sentence of my last post “simple-minded.” That’s just poor form, sir. uch:

Excuse me? Where and when did I call you or any one else simple-minded? I have been commenting on Sair’s non-sensical parsing of love. And where do you exactly fit into this discussion between Sair and I?

Was there something I said that makes you think I called you simple-minded?

 

[Oreoracle]

Excuse me? Where and when did I call you or any one else simple-minded?

You didn’t. You called yourself a “straight shooter,” i.e., someone who gets to the point, but I pointed out that you aren’t being straightforward, you’re just using childish remarks to criticize a position you obviously don’t understand. Again, hearing someone critique an ideology they don’t understand is like hearing a blind person comment on a movie’s visual effects.

In other words, I’m saying that you’re not a straight shooter, you’re just ignorant and narrow-minded (meaning that you aren’t interested in correcting your ignorance).

I have been commenting on Sair’s non-sensical parsing of love.

And this discussion of love was a tangent caused by your failure to acknowledge even the rudiments of objectivity, subjectivity, and their relevance to moral relativism.

And where do you exactly fit into this discussion between Sair and I?

This is a public forum, so I hardly need a reason to butt in wherever I like.

Was there something I said that makes you think I called you simple-minded?

No, that was actually my assessment of you. If you want to change my opinion, you can either start by learning what “objective” and “subjective” mean or you can stop judging for yourself things you are completely ignorant of.

 

[Sair]

There’s a huge difference between being a “straight shooter” and just being narrow-minded. You clearly don’t understand moral relativism, so why bother with it? Watching you criticize relativism is like hearing a blind person critique the visual effects of a new film.

I may not believe in the objective existence of love, but I sure think I love you right now

 

[Sair]

Not if you restrict evidence to **physical **evidence.

          I'm afraid you are resorting to a "matter-of the-gaps" explanation, pinning your faith in science as the ultimate source of all knowledge.

Of course, from a materialist perspective, any evidence that’s able to be discovered is physical, natural evidence. The ‘source’ of knowledge is not science, but the universe - science is the means by which knowledge is extracted from the source, metaphorically speaking. I have absolutely no doubt that scientific enquiry will continue for as long as the human race lasts as a species, and those of us who are seriously interested in finding out how the universe works, and how we work, will look to science - not religion or pseudo-science - to show us the way.

Do you believe all your personal experiences can be verified scientifically? Do you expect others to do so? Do you ever trust their account of what they have experienced without demanding rigorous scientific standards of proof?

Now you’re getting confused over objective and subjective, has seems to have frequently occurred on this thread. If a friend tells me that they’re upset or depressed, I will take their word for it, simply because they are far more aware of what they’re going through than I am, and they are entitled to interpret their feelings in any way that seems correct to them. I’m not going to say to them, “Oh, don’t worry, it’s just chemicals in your brain telling you that you’re depressed”, because there is no practical distinction there - the chemical interactions in the brain are what produce our subjective experiences, and the two can’t be treated as separate phenomena. Furthermore, in terms of everyday parlance, I have no practical reason to demand ‘proof’ every time someone tells me what they’re feeling. That would just make me an irritating prat, and ultimately no-one would talk to me.

I certainly am - without a shadow of doubt. Why should an increase in complexity give rise to conscious self-awareness? Complexity has no magic power. A machine remains a machine no matter how complex it becomes. Do you imagine computers will eventually have conscious self-awareness, free will, responsibility, purposes, ideals and the power of self-determination? Be capable of emotions like awe, wonder, delight, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, regret, disappointment, hope and love? If there is no “yawning gulf” that is the logical outcome of your faith in matter…

Given a couple more millions of years of development, I don’t know what computers will be capable of doing. If they are able to grow, reproduce, and exhibit properties such as consciousness, then we may need to revise our understanding of the words ‘sentient life’.

Also, look closely at your first couple of questions - it betrays your implicit belief that consciousness is supernatural, and that complexity must somehow be ‘magical’ in order to give rise to consciousness. Doesn’t follow at all. The yawning gulf that you are missing is that between the complexity of computers as we currently know them, and the complexity of brains and nervous systems in sentient creatures.

 

[jkiernan56]

You didn’t. You called yourself a “straight shooter,” i.e., someone who gets to the point, but I pointed out that you aren’t being straightforward, you’re just using childish remarks to criticize a position you obviously don’t understand.

The best defense is a good offense huh? Is all reality “just in your head” too? LOL

I understand enough to know there is such a thing as objective reality. I can try to fool myself and others all I want by telling myself Gravity “is just in my head”. Yeah … right. When I smell “****”, see “" and hear "” … you will get a straight response from me.

If you can’t acknowledge the reality of objective good, no wonder you can’t acknowledge the reality of objective evil (which so happens pertains to the title of this thread). Evil only has meaning in context of Good - just as a Lie ONLY has meaning in context of Truth. One points to the other. One HAS TO EXIST before the other CAN EXIST. (Actus -vs- Potential).

The “Problem of Evil” does not exist? Its all “just in our head”? Good god man … wake up … pull your head out of the sand … stop fooling yourself. Watch out for that DOG “****” you are stepping in … or is that just in your head too? LOL

Oreoracle - keep fooling yourself I am clueless about this subject.

If a person is truly insane, would they be able to know that? If one is truly insane, common sense tells me they would be unable to know they were. A FOOL CANNOT KNOW THEY ARE A FOOL. In the search for understanding, don’t forget common sense. Oreoracle - are you picking up what I am putting down? You don’t have to guess what I think of you as well …

 

[Sair]

The best defense is a good offense huh? Is all reality “just in your head” too? LOL

I understand enough to know there is such a thing as objective reality. I can try to fool myself and others all I want by telling myself Gravity “is just in my head”. Yeah … right. When I smell “****”, see “" and hear "” … you will get a straight response from me.

If you can’t acknowledge the reality of objective good, no wonder you can’t acknowledge the reality of objective evil (which so happens pertains to the title of this thread). Evil only has meaning in context of Good - just as a Lie ONLY has meaning in context of Truth. One points to the other. One HAS TO EXIST before the other CAN EXIST. (Actus -vs- Potential).

The “Problem of Evil” does not exist? Its all “just in our head”? Good god man … wake up … pull your head out of the sand … stop fooling yourself. Watch out for that DOG “****” you are stepping in … or is that just in your head too? LOL

Oreoracle - keep fooling yourself I am clueless about this subject.

IIRC, you jumped into this thread fairly late, and may have missed reading the OP - Warpspeedpetey’s argument, I believe, was that there is no problem of evil (ie: how to account for the presence of evil in the world if God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent) because we can’t possibly understand the mind of God, and he just might have really, really good reasons for letting bad things happen. If you think there is a problem of evil, you should take it up with the OP.

 

[jkiernan56]

IIRC, you jumped into this thread fairly late, and may have missed reading the OP - Warpspeedpetey’s argument, I believe, was that there is no problem of evil (ie: how to account for the presence of evil in the world if God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent) because we can’t possibly understand the mind of God, and he just might have really, really good reasons for letting bad things happen. If you think there is a problem of evil, you should take it up with the OP.

Sometimes the most “loving” thing you can do is tell someone they are full of “****”.

You are fooling yourself if you are unable to acknowledge objective good and thus its resulting corruption - evil (corrupted good). Got that Oreoracle? Reality, goodness, and evil are not just “all in your head”. Objective good is totally OTHER (independant of whether you and I exist to subjectively experience “it” or not).

 

[MindOverMatter]

Again, I’m not sure how you arrive at your interpretation of what I have thus far written. At what point am I ‘ignoring the reality of life’? Try as we might, none of us can avoid death in the long run, and I certainly don’t see my eventual death as a barrier to achieving an existentially fulfilled life while I am alive.

Your subjective fantasies as an atheist leaves you unable to consider otherwise. If people faced a Godless reality for what it really is, who would say that life is worth living? You claim to be objective but you are not looking at it objectively at all. You’re living on hope and cussing others for doing the same. You tell yourself that you’re better than those who choose to put their hope in God. You are claiming that you are more rational in accepting death. But your claims are no more than meaningless fantasies, value statements with no existential value; nothing more than an attempt to boost up your ego in the face of what you perceive to be a threat to your self imposed self invented value as an atheist.This is how you see yourself isn’t it? You think that you are better than Christians? In reality it is you who has come on this forum to share your thoughts about how irrational we are; perhaps because it makes you feel good. My response has been to simply show the irrationality of an atheist world view driven by desired “belief” rather than “necessity”.

To desire atheism is practically irrational. Belief in God is the most natural and positive expression of the humanrace

I just don’t seek existential fulfillment in imaginary places, via the intervention of imaginary beings.

Is that what an act of faith necessarily is? A desire to believe in what we know to be imaginary beings? That’s not how i understand Christianity. But do you not create fantasy? Isn’t that what you do when you wake up in the morning, in times of unhappiness, and tell yourself that life is worth living, that your life has value, and that your eventual death isn’t so bad, even though you know that there is no objective value. Do you really walk around telling yourself that you have no more existential value than cows dung? That you are willing to settle for atheism tells me nothing about the objective or rational value of believing in God; other than that you are willing to live with out God.

In any case, what are all these objective meanings to which you refer? Love, goodness and our consciousness of being persons are all subjective experiences, no matter how universally they are shared.

So personal natures don’t exist? I’m sorry but this discussions over. To experience something subjectively does not mean that it has no objective truth or extension in reality. You perceive the universe subjectively, and the fact of other minds subjectively. So what? You accept these realities, and reject those that do not fit with your desired worldview.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m afraid you are resorting to a “matter-of the-gaps” explanation, pinning your faith in science as the ultimate source of all knowledge.

You take it for granted that the materialist perspective is true.

The ‘source’ of knowledge is not science, but the universe - science is the means by which knowledge is extracted from the source, metaphorically speaking.

Again you assume that all knowledge is extracted from the physical universe.

I have absolutely no doubt that scientific enquiry will continue for as long as the human race lasts as a species, and those of us who are seriously interested in finding out how the universe works, and how we work, will look to science - not religion or pseudo-science - to show us the way.

“how we work” is yet again equated with physical activity. You need to justify your identification of reality with physical reality, bearing in mind the OP. The Problem of Evil does not exist if everything originated in the quanta of physical energy - which, ironically, are valueless and purposeless if they are deified!

Do you believe all your personal experiences

can be verified scientifically? Do you expect others to do so? Do you ever trust their account of what they have experienced without demanding rigorous scientific standards of proof?Now you’re getting confused over objective and subjective, has seems to have frequently occurred on this thread. If a friend tells me that they’re upset or depressed, I will take their word for it, simply because they are far more aware of what they’re going through than I am, and they are entitled to interpret their feelings in any way that seems correct to them.

I am not getting confused. I have simply confirmed your belief that evidence is not confined to scientific evidence but includes personal experiences that cannot be verified scientifically…

Why should an increase in complexity give rise to conscious self-awareness? Complexity has no magic power. A machine remains a machine no matter how complex it becomes. Do you imagine computers will eventually have conscious self-awareness, free will, responsibility, purposes, ideals and the power of self-determination? Be capable of emotions like awe, wonder, delight, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, regret, disappointment, hope and love? If there is no “yawning gulf” that is the logical outcome of your faith in matter…

Given a couple more millions of years of development, I don’t know what computers will be capable of doing. If they are able to grow, reproduce, and exhibit properties such as consciousness, then we may need to revise our understanding of the words ‘sentient life’.

Your speculation implies that given enough time anything is possible. That is hardly a sound basis for an adequate interpretation of reality… For one thing it is unfalsifiable and for another it overlooks the fact that free will cannot exist in a mechanistic system. Once a machine always a machine!

Also, look closely at your first couple of questions - it betrays your implicit belief that consciousness is supernatural, and that complexity must somehow be ‘magical’ in order to give rise to consciousness. Doesn’t follow at all. The yawning gulf that you are missing is that between the complexity of computers as we currently know them, and the complexity of brains and nervous systems in sentient creatures.

1. You still have not explained how you distinguish what is natural from supernatural.
2. Since you believe sentience evolved by entirely natural means from inanimate matter why does it make any difference to the yawning gulf between computers and human beings?
   3 How do you explain the increase in complexity from chemical elements to human beings?

 

[Sair]

Sometimes the most “loving” thing you can do is tell someone they are full of “****”.

Well, gee, and I thought I was being loving enough to point out that you might have missed the point of the thread…

You are fooling yourself if you are unable to acknowledge objective good and thus its resulting corruption - evil (corrupted good). Got that Oreoracle? Reality, goodness, and evil are not just “all in your head”. Objective good is totally OTHER (independant of whether you and I exist to subjectively experience “it” or not).

Well, yeah…if you and I didn’t exist, I guess there would still be other people around to have subjective experiences. Doesn’t make them any less subjective, though.

 

[Sair]

You take it for granted that the materialist perspective is true.
Again you assume that all knowledge is extracted from the physical universe.

I’m prepared to have these assumptions falsified - so far, they haven’t been.

I am not getting confused. I have simply confirmed your belief that evidence is not confined to scientific evidence but includes personal experiences that cannot be verified scientifically…

Which you approached rather disingenuously. The fact that I think subjective experience has a physical basis bears no relation whatsoever to the value of that subjective experience for the person experiencing it. That’s what matters in an everyday context.

1. You still have not explained how you distinguish what is natural from supernatural.

That which is natural happens without intervention from anything that breaks or circumvents the physical constraints that govern our universe. For example, if a person is able to exercise telekinesis, there is a natural explanation if this can be accounted for by means that conform to the conservation of matter and energy. The supernatural explanation would require intervention from means outside of the known universe and its physical laws.

 

[Sair]

Your subjective fantasies as an atheist leaves you unable to consider otherwise. If people faced a Godless reality for what it really is, who would say that life is worth living?

Plenty of people. I would ask, who has the greater value for life - the one who values it for its own sake, or the one who values it as a prelude to an eternal spiritual existence? It is unfortunate that because you apparently see no value to life in and of itself, you project your own desires and desperation onto others.

You claim to be objective but you are not looking at it objectively at all. You’re living on hope and cussing others for doing the same.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m afraid you are resorting to a “matter-of the-gaps” explanation, pinning your faith in science as the ultimate source of all knowledge.

I have absolutely no doubt that scientific enquiry will continue for as long as the human race lasts as a species, and those of us who are seriously interested in finding out how the universe works, and how we work, will look to science - not religion or pseudo-science - to show us the way.Yet you believe that what makes our lives worth living is our subjective appreciation of ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Is that not an objective fact? Don’t we all share that belief? It seems unreasonable to regard our**selves **as products rather than independent agents.

I have simply confirmed your belief that evidence is not confined to scientific evidence but includes personal experiences that cannot be verified scientifically…

The fact that I think subjective experience has a physical basis bears no relation whatsoever to the value of that subjective experience for the person experiencing it.
That’s what matters in an everyday context.I am referring to the** reality **of subjective experience as well as its value. You obviously subordinate it to physical reality. You deny its primacy yet you cherish it far more than the inanimate objects from which you think it is derived. In other words you believe subjective value has no objective value - even though it matters in an everyday context! And you think subjective experience has no value whatsoever as objective evidence. As I pointed out, the Problem of Evil does not exist if everything originated in the quanta of physical energy - which, ironically, are valueless and purposeless if they are deified!

I also pointed out that your speculation about computers developing sentience implies that given enough time anything is possible! That is hardly a sound basis for an adequate interpretation of reality… For one thing it is unfalsifiable and for another it overlooks the fact that free will cannot exist in a mechanistic system.

And if sentience has evolved by entirely natural means from inanimate matter why does it make any difference to the yawning gulf between computers and human beings?

That which is natural happens without intervention from anything that breaks or circumvents the physical constraints that govern our universe.
For example, if a person is able to exercise telekinesis, there is a natural explanation if this can be accounted for by means that conform to the conservation of matter and energy.

In that case you are obliged to reject free will because it does not conform to that law. Not only that. The physical constraints are not set in stone but frequently modified to accommodate new discoveries. Television would have been regarded as a preposterous idea a few centuries ago.

The supernatural explanation would require intervention from means outside of the known universe and its physical laws.

The use of the term “outside” reflects a physicalist interpretation of reality. Supernatural activity is not restricted to time and space - as we very well know from our ability to transcend time and space with our power of hindsight, insight and foresight.

BTW How do you explain the increase in complexity from chemical elements to human beings?

 

[jkiernan56]

Yet you believe that what makes our lives worth living is our subjective appreciation of ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Is that not an objective fact? Don’t we all share that belief? It seems unreasonable to regard our**selves **