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Glark
Guest
A Catholic who doesn’t believe in intelligent design - how does that work? Isn’t God an intelligent designer?
Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true
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Glark
Guest
You can lead a horse to water …
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edwest211
Guest
Yes, He is.
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Glark
Guest
Or is it that God is so disinterested 
in creation that He subcontracted that task out to mindless chemicals? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense 
in creation that He subcontracted that task out to mindless chemicals? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense
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edwest211
Guest
Now that’s the kind of storytelling I’m talking about.
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Glark
Guest
Thank you for the link, but I remember covering this topic in Grade 2 of primary school. By Grade 3 I was thoroughly bored with theoretical science; I much prefer the empirical stuff.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
If it bothers you to think of things that way, then just look at those “mindless chemicals” as being directed, microsecond by microsecond, by the mind of God. Then they are not mindless. They are merely God’s tools, and God’s mind is directing them. I don’t see anything theological problem with that.Or is it that God is so disinterested in creation that He subcontracted that task out to mindless chemicals? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense
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Hugh_Farey
Guest
Wheee! Hard hats, folks! Quote-bomb incoming. Never mind the views of the author; never mind taking the quote out of context, let’s just hope it bounces around the trenches and somehow devastates the opposition.
Sorry, mate; no chance.
How very profound. Could you be a little more specific? We’re dealing in maths here, not idle speculation. if something is impossible, indeed it “will simply not happen”, if something is possible, however remotely, then it might.
Yes it is. It’s not a fantasy.
I used to think so, until I started reading the Creationist views on this thread…
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rossum
Guest
He has 10 fingers, which will get him up to 2^10 - 1 = 1023. Depending on how prehensile his toes are, there is a possibility of reaching 2^20 - 1 = 1,048,575. See here for 0 to 31 in finger binary.
rossum
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Hugh_Farey
Guest
A Frenchman recently won the lottery for the second time, against odds of about 1:16 trillion. Only about 100 billion people have ever lived on earth. Then there was the Australian, who won twice against odds of 1:3 trillion. Both these achievements would no doubt be considered ‘impossible’ by Creationists.
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Aloysium
Guest
They are directed, being what they are. And, microseconds is a feature of their being events happening as parts of the larger framework of time and space, which is also a property that makes them what they are; they possess a velocity along with other qualities such as mass and charge. God’s mind can be said to bring them into existence in every moment that occurs since their initial appearance at the beginning.
Summarizing some basic chemistry, molecules are formed and interact to form the structure and processes that we find in life, because of their electrochemical forces that bind or repel - electrons and protons. This gives them a particular geometric shape - carbon is tetrahedral and water is a sort of v shape which is positive on top and negative at the bottom. This polarity is what makes magnetic resonance imaging possible as the water in the body is directed by powerful magnets from a chaotic configuration to one that is all in line and then back again, affecting sensors which read the change. It is the bonds that keep atoms together that makes for the hardness, softness, liquid or gaseous nature of things.
To make a thing made of chemicals requires their being brought together into specific configuration. The formation of crystals, composite materials such as granite, the atmosphere and such is something they do spontaneously. To arrive at a protein requires a complex machinery that includes DNA, RNA, other pre-existing proteins to act as enzymes in the formation of the energy source of ATP utilizing glucose and oxygen. It is quite an elaborate process, highly structured to produce a protein with a specific molecular shape that determines whether it is another enzyme, a structural feature like a cell wall, a chemical receptor, a sensor such as those found in the rods and cones of the retina, a hormone or neurotransmitter found in our nervous system, which “processes” everything that is perceived, felt, remembered, imagined and done.
For living systems to work, to be themselves requires an organizing principle beyond that of that inherent in the chemicals alone. That organizing principle is the “soul” of the specific creature - an essence that makes it what it is. Beyond the mindless chemicals, encompassing them as it’s substrate, is the mind of the animal, a feature of its soul weaving into one unit, one being in itself, composed of instinctive sensations, emotions and behaviour, made possible through the chemical activity that is its physical form.
As mindless chemicals were created in the sense that they began with the beginning of time, and are maintained in the sense that they are brought into existence in their moment, so too were the next levels of creation, involving bacteria, plants and animals and finally we ourselves, who can contemplate this wonder and He who brings it forth from eternity.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
I can agree with everything else you wrote. But this one statement gives me pause.
It implies that there is some inherent property or principle in the chemicals alone, independent of the mind of God. That need not be the case. It could be the case that every property of chemicals, from the simplest to the most complex, and all called into existence, moment by moment, by God. They are never outside of God’s creation, or doing something on their own without God knowing it and willing it. So saying that the chemicals must have some organizing principle beyond what they have inherently is a null statement, because they have nothing inherently. The only thing they have is what God wills them to have each instant of creation.
I don’t actually disagree with the statement above. It’s true trivially.
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Aloysium
Guest
Quite the contrary, it is beyond the chemicals - the existence of the thing in itself as it is brought into existence, a manifestation of the kind of thing that it is. You and I would be examples, having a free will by which we are able to participate in the creation of who we chose to be in eternity. We are at the same time a pretty much infinitely complex collection of chemicals which do their thing as they have been created by God under the direction of our spirit. There is nothing independent of God who is the ultimate Other to everything that He brings into existence.
Everything that makes them what they are is inherent to what they are, as created by God. I’m not entirely sure of the point which you are trying to make, so I can’t say I would fully disagree. Perhaps it would clarify to remind ourselves that chemicals are not a form of God’s existence. They come about as willed by the “mind” of God, and through them we can come to know Him, but they do not constitute the mind of God.
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Aloysium
Guest
. . . How so?
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Aloysium
Guest
What makes for an atom or molecule involves pretty much all the properties found in nature, reflected in the laws we have formulated, to which as an individual component, it is subject to.
Likewise, animals and we ourselves are subject to and expressions of the physical universe.
A lion roaring, expressing the anger, fear or desire for dominance is a collection of atoms and molecules, mindless in themselves, but participants in that which forms the lion’s being. This being is an expression of a kind of being that was created at the beginning and through time has been moulded, the result of pre-existing capacities to do so, as part of its environment into the present ferocious form that includes its instinctive behaviour.
“Mindless chemicals” are like an unpopulated pile of bricks beside a cement mixer, surrounded by measuring sticks, strings, shovels and trowels. By means of there intrinsic behaviour alone, they cannot spontaneously create a home. A home requires a plan, hard work and loving persons to occupy it. Likewise any living being, especially ourselves, exists because we are created as a particular kind of thing that is so much more than its physical and also psychological parts.
Likewise, animals and we ourselves are subject to and expressions of the physical universe.
A lion roaring, expressing the anger, fear or desire for dominance is a collection of atoms and molecules, mindless in themselves, but participants in that which forms the lion’s being. This being is an expression of a kind of being that was created at the beginning and through time has been moulded, the result of pre-existing capacities to do so, as part of its environment into the present ferocious form that includes its instinctive behaviour.
“Mindless chemicals” are like an unpopulated pile of bricks beside a cement mixer, surrounded by measuring sticks, strings, shovels and trowels. By means of there intrinsic behaviour alone, they cannot spontaneously create a home. A home requires a plan, hard work and loving persons to occupy it. Likewise any living being, especially ourselves, exists because we are created as a particular kind of thing that is so much more than its physical and also psychological parts.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
What I mean is that your statement amounts to A > B. (Where A is the organizing principle involved in living systems, and B is the organizing principle, or characteristics, of the chemicals involved.) But A > B is true trivially if B=0. What I mean by B=0 is that the chemicals have no organizing principle that is inherent to them, and by “inherent” I mean something they possess independent of the continuous maintenance of existence by God. The regularities we observe in chemical reactions are not due to something inherent in the chemicals. We are simply observing a pattern that God, for His own good reasons, placed there, mostly for our convenience, so that we would have an easier time making sense of the world. He could have made chemicals behave differently on Tuesdays than on Thursdays, but thankfully He didn’t. (Or doesn’t, since it is an ongoing process.)LeafByNiggle:
. . . How so?
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Bradskii
Guest
Thanks for rubbing it in about the Aussie. He bought the tickets at the newsagents about 300m from my place. Where my wife buys hers every week.
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buffalo
Guest
If your read and heard Paul Davies you would not have posted this.
He also thinks that God does His work in the quantum voids.
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buffalo
Guest
No, the would be considered improbable and the lottery process should be audited against any fraud. If he wins again, what will you say? And if he wins again, how many times will you suspect it is rigged?
1.3 trillion is a very small probability number compared to 10^150
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buffalo
Guest
Like something with the odds of 10^-1000?
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