Posts by slimboyfat

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in 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

Where does the WT say scientists will only be able to make "lifeless" cells? It makes no such distinction. It says that life arising from non-life is a "challenge" for scientists but If they manage it it will be "something truly amazing".

Can you quote where JWs have ever taught there is a "theological" barrier to scientists creating life from non-living matter? That's what you claimed above but I am not aware that they ever taught this, Maybe they did teach this at one stage I don't know. Their recent publication have no problem with the idea. In fact they incorporate it into their argument for an intelligent .creator.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in 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 show me where the WT has said that creating life from non-life is "theologically" impossible for humans?

Read it for yourself, page 6. It's talking about humans making life from non-living matter. It's the whole point of the discussion.

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_books/d0/lf_E.pdf

See also the Creator book page 37 that talks about scientists attempting to create life from non-life. It does not say it is theologically impossible. Instead it asks the question:

If the gas mixture represents the atmosphere, the electric spark mimics lightning, and boiling water stands for the sea, what or who does the scientist arranging and carrying out the experiment represent?

JWs argue that the chances of life arising from non-living matter spontaneously are remote, they do not say it is theologically impossible. They allow for the possibility that scientists may manage to do it some day, but they argue this only goes to prove that intelligent beings need to set the conditions for it to happen.

Your thread is based on a misunderstanding of what JWs teach.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in 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

Oh dear. Not content with misrepresenting your own OP, you now deny the plain meaning of WT comments on the feasibility of scientists creating living cells from non-living matter.

You claimed that for JWs there is a theological not simply a technical barrier to scientists creating life. However JW publications as far back as I remember have always talked about life arising from non-life as a technical and statistical problem, not a theological impossibility. Anyone acquainted with the blue Creation book, the Creator book, or their various brochures on the topic knows this.

Where did you get the idea that JWs teach there is a theological barrier to scientists creating life in the laboratory? I guess it is possible they taught this at one stage but I don't know how far back you would have to go.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in 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

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?

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in 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 in

in 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 in

in 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 in

in 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 in

in 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 in

in 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.