Not all atheists argue for atheism on the basis of evidence or science as Dawkins does in part. A different approach to the problem that I appreciate is from Raymond Tallis. He has no time for the idea that empirical evidence can decide the issue. At the same time he doesn't believe in reductive materialism either.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
Your first intervention on page 1 was outrageously stupid. You are now trying to pretend that you said something different and dishonestly twist my words.
My post on page 1 was to show that JWs and some atheists seem to share the belief that at some time in the future they will be proved right beyond all doubt, and everyone will be forced to acknowledge their version of the truth. In the case of JWs this will happen at Armageddon. In the case of some atheists they believe that scientific discoveries will confirm their philosophical position.
I have at no stage pretended to say something different and I stand by the point I made.
It's your position that has changed during the thread. In the first post you speculated on how theists would respond to the perceived challenge posed by naturalistic origins of life, explored different possibilities, but that none of them would be satisfactory in your view. Now instead you talk about "theological implications", doctrine might need to be adjusted, and that you in no way implied this has anything to do with the existence or otherwise of God.
But what is most amazing is that your materialist reductionism apparently blinds you to the fact that the same phenomenon can have different levels of interpretation. A river can be cold, it can be blue, it can be rough, it can be clean, it can be amazing, it can be ugly, it can be ancient, it can be artificial. What makes no sense whatsoever is to pit different kinds of descriptions against one another as if they are in competition. Like if someone was to say, the river can't be rough because it's ancient, or it can't be majestic because it's cold. Just because we can talk about life and how it arose in naturalistic terms does not exclude other ways of talking about it. It is not a competition.
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slimboyfat
I can't even make sense of it. What happened?
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
Viv if you go back and read what I wrote, I did not say that science itself involves the assumption that its results can tell us about God. I say that some people, using science to undermine God, rely on the assumption that science can tell us about and whether there is a God.
Science itself relies on methodological materialist assumptions in order to operate. There is no problem with that. The problem is when people use the results of relying upon those assumptions as evidence for a philosophical materialist position. That is circular reasoning.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
If you ask how a certain scientific discovery would impact believers in God, and how would they "respond", this reasonably involves the assumption that such a scientific discovery would pose a challenge to belief in God in such a way that some "response" from believers is required or expected.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
The opening post was clearly about about possible scientific breakthroughs on the origin of life undermining belief in God, and how theists would "respond" to that situation.
If that's not what it was about, then I don't know. Others can read and make up their own mind.
I would simply suggest that when you are forced to deny the plain meaning of your own words, then something has gone seriously wrong with your argument.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
The original post speaks for itself, that it was about how scientific discoveries impact belief in God.
If you don't perceive a naturalistic solution to the origin of life as a challenge to theism, then why frame the discussion in terms of how theists may "respond" to this new information?
My point is that some theists will "respond" by pointing out that scientific discoveries do not tell us about the nature or existence of God. And that, remarkable as the human mind and science are, there may be things about the universe and reality that it is not able to pin down once and for all in human categories.
I fully understand that this response does not fall neatly into the clever trap you believe you set for creationists or theists by raising this issue. It is a response to the point you made that underlines the dubious assumptions involved in the question you posed.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
The original post discusses the idea that future scientific discoveries about the origin of life may eliminate the need for God and leave theists with difficult questions to answer. I am pointing out that this approach to understanding reality rests upon various assumptions that are difficult the establish. Such as the assumption that scientific discoveries can tell us anything about the nature or existence of God. Also the assumption that human rationality is the measure of what is real and exists in the world.
These are hardly novel or particularly "postmodern" ideas in the philosophy of religion. They are common objections to a purely materialist conception of reality. That you apparently give them no consideration is not, as you seem to imagine, proof that I am talking postmodern rubbish. If you have not considered these sorts of arguments it does speak well of the robustness of your own position that you trumpet with such confidence.
Instead of trying to invent ways to embarrass creationists intellectually you could better spend time tidying your own intellectual back yard.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
In apophatic terms it could be said of God that he is both not alive and not not-alive.
Materialists see it as a cop out if theists say that God cannot be defined in terms of being alive or existent. But in a sense this could be said to be the very point of God, that he not be defined in human terms. Finite creatures are bound by descriptions. If God is in some sense infinite then he can be said cross boundaries of time, space and existence/non-existence.
It may be objected that this does not make sense in our mind. But is it a reasonable expectation that the nature of God should make sense to human thought? Because humans are endowed with remarkable thinking ability compared with animals, we may tend to imagine that our ability to understand the world and its nature is therefore unlimited. But it is obviously also possible that, while our ability to think is very good, it is nevertheless incapable of comprehending certain aspects of reality, including the nature of God.
Humanist materialists elevate human rationality to a kind of God. When presented with the situation that the human mind cannot comprehend how God could be said to be outside human categories, they conclude that therefore God cannot "exist". As if the ability of the human mind is itself the measure of what can and cannot "exist" in reality. Materialists are free to make this assumption if they wish. But it is also fair to point out that it is simply an assumption, and also that it involves making incredibly high claims for the human mind. If the ability of the human mind to make sense of certain phenomena is the measure of whether the thing exists in reality, then this is making the human mind into God, determining what exists and does not exist.
So there is a sense in which atheistiic materialism does not so much eliminate God but rather puts the human mind in the place of God.
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405
Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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slimboyfat
I expressed my total contempt for SBF's bullshit attempt to destroy the conversation before it began. I am very interested in opposing views on this topic. That is why I started it. I find Vidqun's previous post to be very honest and interesting. Basically he, like many other theists are hoping it will never happen.
My post was an attempt to further the conversation by pointing out that the idea that scientific discoveries can settle questions about the nature or existence of God is itself questionable, at the very least.
You claim you are interested in hearing opposing views, but it seems to be along very narrow lines: creationists or theists with predictable responses that you feel you can easily dispatch are welcome.
However opposing views that question your approach at a more fundamental level don't appear to be entertained at all, to put it mildly. But why call an opposing view "trolling" just because you disagree with it?