Think of the challenge facing researchers who feel that life arose by chance... Ultimately, they hope to build all the parts needed to construct a "simple" cell.... If scientists ever did construct a cell, they would accomplish something truly amazing-but would they prove that the cell could be made by accident? If anything they would prove the very opposite, would they not?
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
As a JW and then a christian my belief was that life was something ethereal that belonged only to god... On this understanding the efforts of scientists to see if life will emerge from geochemistry is an impossible task. It is not doomed to failure because it is too technically difficult, it is doomed because life comes only from the lifegiver. The barrier is theological not scientific.
Actually that's not what JWs teach. JWs argue that life arising from non-life is technically difficult and that the chances of it happening spontaneously are vanishingly remote. However they allow for the possibility that scientists may be able to create living cells at some stage. They have no theological objection to this. I'm not sure about other creationists, but as far as JWs are concerned your question is based on a false premise.
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
Your point is is wrong. If theology says that life comes only from his and it turns out otherwise, that's an impact
How can science ever "show" that life doesn't come from God? I guess what you mean is that if scientists manage to generate life from non-life you believe this some how will prove that life can arise without God. But what is the basis for the assertion?
If there is a God, and he himself made life from non-life in this way, or indeed some other way, then the experiment tells us nothing one way or another. Scientific discoveries cannot establish metaphysical questions because they are dealing with different things.
The attempt to collapse all understanding of reality into a reductive materialist framework is based on circular reasoning.
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
Viv I have not read many of your posts before, and you were apparently most prolific during a period when I didn't read the forum much. So I was not previously familiar with your style of going through others' posts and declaring right and wrong with apparent confidence and authority, but not much argument. I'm not sure how to respond to that. For example, you are welcome to your opinion that I mischaracterised materialism as involving circular reasoning, but I don't agree. I don't know there is much more to say about it unless you elaborate. From my point of view, David Bentley Hart explains well the circularity involved here:Naturalism is a picture of the whole of reality that cannot, according to its own intrinsic premises, address the being of the whole; it is a metaphysics of the rejection of metaphysics, a transcendental certainty of the impossibility of transcendental truth, and so requires an act of pure credence logically immune to any verification. . . . Naturalism’s claim that, by confining itself to purely material explanations for all things, it adheres to the only sure path of verifiable knowledge is nothing but a feat of sublimely circular thinking: physics explains everything, which we know because anything physics cannot explain does not exist, which we know because whatever exists must be explicable by physics, which we know because physics explains everything. There is something here of the mystical.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359260/god-against-materialism-edward-t-oakes-sj -
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
Again you reach for the flat earth nonsense. And this argument does not involve postmodernism, but you reach for both.
Why call me names and absuive language? Is there any way I could express my (perfectly mainstream) view that science does not impact theological issues that would be acceptable to you? You say that you intend to ignore my comments from now on, but I would struggle to tell the difference, as you have not engaged with anything.
The point I made is incredibly simple, and almost boring in how mainstream it is. You asked what impact scientific discoveries on the origin of life would have on believers and how they would respond. The question assumes that scientific discoveries impact philosophical or theological questions. What's the basis for that assumption? Some popular science writers make this assumption.
JW believers and some atheist counterparts share the same belief that at some point in the future their view of reality will be confirmed beyond doubt, once and for all. They have faith that the evidence will be so overwhelming at Armageddon/following some scientific breakthrough, that their opponents will simply have to recognise the "truth" of the situation. This is a fantasy.
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
Can you explain what you believe is the difference between a God doing something by "natural" means as opposed to "supernatural" means. I am not convinced this is a meaningful distinction.
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
Only if you think God cannot use natural means. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The distinction between natural and supernatural is itself problematic. I can't think why descriptions of God giving life, and life arising from non-life, cannot be used to describe the same phenomenon, in as much as life arising from non-life may be the means by which God gave life.
I can say I stopped the water in the sink from running. I don't need to go into the mechanics of how I turned the nozzle and how that prevented the water from flowing. "I stopped the water" and a technical explanation of the same thing are not in competition with one another. They are different levels of explanation.
-
9
Japan's branch office. began to crumble?
by nakanozzi inebina assembly hall, where the japan’s branch office is located,need to be fixed all over inside, but they have no money.
ameblo.jp/c00-c00/entry-12198348850.html.
.
-
-
slimboyfat
Publisher numbers and congregation numbers have been s.owly declining in Japan for,decades now. I wouldn't be surprised if donations are down significantly and maintenance of their properties has suffered.
-
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.
-
-
slimboyfat
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.
-
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.
-
-
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.