And I could say to you, “Came from natural processes? You’re guessing.”
We know that natural processes occur. The guess and leap of faith would be to say that only natural processes are presently or have always been involved, but we don't need to make that claim. We say that there is insufficient evidence that anything more was or is involved, and we don't add supernaturalistic elements and explanations to our scientific narratives (or even naturalistic elements) if they are not needed to account for some observation. Dark matter and dark energy are good examples of natural elements introduced into astronomy and cosmology when new findings surfaced that required the positing of something new. Maybe dark energy is God. Maybe it's conscious, purposive, and volitional. If so, we'll wait for some observation to arise that requires such a hypothesis to account for it.
what pressures could exert such an evolutionary change from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction?
What could stop it if it were possible to occur and conferred a survival advantage?
To transition from a less-energy-consuming act with vastly more offspring (asexual), to an energy-expending act with a smaller reward (ie., fewer offspring)… evolution would not do it.
I'm not sure what that means, but I'd say that you're guessing again. You don't know that and can't know that.
Not when He can suspend those laws.
The fine-tuning argument implies that there was only one way or perhaps only a few very precisely constrained ways to set the physical parameters for nature such that a universe capable of generating life and mind, and that this required an intelligent designer to set up the universe. The counterargument is that if this is true, one is not describing the source of those physical constraints, but rather, an entity that discovered them and used that knowledge to fashion a universe.
While that seems logically possible - who can say that it didn't happen? - it's not the only logical possibility or even the most likely one according to Occam's Razor, but it does describe a god that is less than omnipotent. It also means that it is inappropriate to call such a deity supernatural, since it would be subject to the laws of nature just like we are, not its author.
Life is incredible, with its diversity & intricate machinery.
Yes, but only in a metaphorical sense. It inspires awe, but here it is, so we know that it exists. But when one uses the phrase incredulity fallacy, he is not claiming that anything is literally incredible. In fact, he's proposing the opposite - that it is credible that life arose spontaneously and naturalistically because the possibility cannot be ruled out and it appears to be possible. The fallacy is to say that life looks too complex to not have been designed, therefore it was.
And one introduces a special pleading fallacy when he claims that living cells are too complex to exist undesigned and uncreated, and then posits something more complex that was allegedly uncreated and undesigned to account for it.
Hello IANS, hope you and your family are well. How’s the weather down there? My wife and I are thinking about moving to Central America somewhere… we’re sick of the cold!
Hi, HC. The weather is good. We're going through a cold snap now, where the lows are getting below 50 deg F.
People who move to Central America generally tout Beliz and Costa Rica, and a little further south, Panama and Ecuador. seem to appeal to expatriates. Mexico has been good for us. It's been almost fifteen years now. Good luck in your searching. Where are you now?
