Why I am not an atheist.

[John D. Brey]

I'm clearly not the only one who's having trouble comprehending your points, if you even have any.
So I don't think it's me.

I wasn't leveling any accusation against you. It's just that every thinker who attempts to share his thoughts must deal with the nuances of the message vs. the messenger. Each person must decide how much responsibility they want to load on the back of pack mules, words and sentences, who've proven untrustworthy servants and companions on other excursion on the path to a particular summit.

The path to a sublime truth is always slippery as ice. Even given snowshoes with spikes words and sentences slip and slide so egregiously as to give any serious thinker vertigo.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Isn't that just a cheap jibe though? Natural selection is about the process of how life evolves (the mechanism for such), not about how life has arisen or about life itself, . . .

Rocks and water never, through natural processes, developed eyes and brains. And using our eyes and brains, it seem like they're peculiarly out of sorts with the sort of things that exist in non-living things so that the question is how something as stupendous as a human brain wiggled and writhed its way out of mud and sludge by the same processes that in the same amount of time led to a hunk of coal or a stone rolling down a stream?



John

 

[ratiocinator]

...so that the question is how something as stupendous as a human brain wiggled and writhed its way out of mud and sludge by the same processes that in the same amount of time led to a hunk of coal or rolling stone?

Which is a question that has largely been answered. The outstanding problem simply relating to how the process of replication with inheritance and variation started out - and we aren't short of hypotheses for that.

 

[John D. Brey]

Success is measured by an outside observer. It's something like being humble. That is, others may call us humble, but we can't brag that we are.

We can't stomp our feet and declare ourselves correct or make arguments against Darwinism that no one else accepts.

Even when the masses insist that something is correct, there is no guarantee. For example, Hitler had millions of supporters wildly cheering.

Absolutely. Which is why in this thread and the one on the science of God I'm appealing to a criteria for truth, or viability, that doesn't rely on metaphysical assumptions as the foundation for truth or viability.

Atheists tend to believe that since their metaphysical assumption is that God doesn't exist, they can use that as a sound and trustworthy prism for examining what does exist. Correspondingly, theists tend to believe God exists and that they can therefore use that metaphysical assumption as a trustworthy prism for examining what exists in God's world.

If you throw out the metaphysical assumptions of the atheist and the theist you might establish a criteria for truth, or viability, that can move knowledge forward at a pace unimaginable when the body of knowledge is wrapped too tightly in the straitjacket of dualistic metaphysics.



John

 

[Audie]

I agree it would be impossible to disprove the theory that living organisms evolve. Nevertheless, imo, it's equally impossible to deny that living organisms exhibit design characteristics that because they're exponentially more exquisite than anything in the non-living sphere thus require an explanation that goes beyond the physics that circumscribe non-living things.

Neither "natural selection," nor Darwinism fill the bill. And imo, you're sadly mistaken if you think educated people, even Phd. biologists, don't still believe in and talk about Darwinism.



John

Who knows. Your grammar is impenetrable.
Try short declarative sentences.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I wasn't leveling any accusation against you. It's just that every thinker who attempts to share his thoughts must deal with the nuances of the message vs. the messenger. Each person must decide how much responsibility they want to load on the back of pack mules, words and sentences, who've proven untrustworthy servants and companions on other excursion on the path to a particular summit.

The path to a sublime truth is always slippery as ice. Even given snowshoes with spikes words and sentences slip and slide so egregiously as to give any serious thinker vertigo.

John

If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.



(I assume Stargate SG1 fans will get the joke)

 

[MikeF]

Dear Mr Mike,

I am 100% certain you have looked at all religious beliefs except Islam. I am always curious as to why Nonreligious people look at all beliefs and paint them as the same. It's virtually impossible to make an informed decision and conclusion without studying ALL faiths.

I find it quite fascinating that you would have such high confidence that I would go through all the trouble of examining every world religion except Islam?

I find quite interesting parallels to the way Jesus seems to be reacting to the hypocrisy of many Jews (in Jesus's mind), the sectarianism, and financial interests of religious authority in Judaism, to that of Mohammad, who also seems to be reacting to the division and sectarianism inherent in the dominant polytheism of the Arabian peninsula of the time, and the financial interests of his own tribe in preserving their control on the Kaaba and the prosperity gained for Mecca by polytheistic pilgrimages to the Kaaba.

Both Jesus and Muhammad are advocating the rejection of the authority of the religious elite and their financial interest in the status quo, and called for the unification of all believers under a revamped religious belief system. For Muhammad, that meant adopting the Judeo-Christian monotheism yet adapting it to conform to the culture of the Arabian peninsula at the time.

This is simply one of my take-aways from my look at Islam.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Rocks and water never, through natural processes, developed eyes and brains. And using our eyes and brains, it seem like they're peculiarly out of sorts with the sort of things that exist in non-living things so that the question is how something as stupendous as a human brain wiggled and writhed its way out of mud and sludge by the same processes that in the same amount of time led to a hunk of coal or a stone rolling down a stream?



John

Not a satisfactory answer. And the unnaturalness of life is a bit premature, given that it is only a few decades since we discovered how plentiful planets are, and hence can't conclude either way as to how rare life is or isn't - at the moment.

 

[John D. Brey]

Not a satisfactory answer. And the unnaturalness of life is a bit premature, given that it is only a few decades since we discovered how plentiful planets are, and hence can't conclude either way as to how rare life is or isn't - at the moment.

It's not a matter of life being rare or not rare. It's a matter of how it (life) turns dirt into a human brain, and then using that human brain, turns dirt into an I-phone 12, and a vehicle sent to Mars to send back selfies.

Coal and granite haven't been observed doing those kinds of things. And neither has gold, or diamonds, even though they are rarer kinds of earth.

I've aimed a video camera at a rock for quite some time and all I can tell you is that he's the laziest dammed thing I've ever seen. He don't even seem motivated to mount another rock? He just lies there basking in the sun with a sly grin on his dumb face.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.



(I assume Stargate SG1 fans will get the joke)

. . . See how presuppositions, prerequisites, and knowledge already on the launching pad, impact experiences and thoughts attempting to be shared.


John

 

[John D. Brey]

Who knows. Your grammar is impenetrable.
Try short declarative sentences.

I agree it would be impossible to disprove the theory that living organisms evolve.​

You implied that it might be impossible to prove that living organisms don't evolve. The statement above, notwithstanding the impenetrable nature of the prose, was trying to agree with you.

Nevertheless, imo, it's equally impossible to deny that living organisms exhibit design characteristics that because they're exponentially more exquisite than anything in the non-living sphere thus require an explanation that goes beyond the physics that circumscribe non-living things.​

Having conceded that things most surely evolve (we're on the same sheet of music to this point), the impenetrable statement above implies that notwithstanding the surety of evolution, nevertheless, the high level of obvious design characteristics evident in say a human brain (or other living things that evolve), suggests that some process far different than all the normal processes that existed for billions of years prior to life on earth seems to be in play regarding living organisms.



John

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'd say a greater feat than disproving the theory of Darwinism is making persons understand that you've disproved Darwinism.

Btw, fwiw, I believe in evolution. Darwinism is different that natural selection or evolution in general. I don't believe in Darwinism. Most serious biologists don't either.



John

Technically correct. Darwin's theory was not perfect. It was never meant to be and no one on the evolution side thinks so. What was amazing is how accurate Darwin was with the limited knowledge available at that time. So today we have advanced past Darwin's early theory because for one thing how traits were passed on was not well understood in his time.

It is nice to hear that you accept the fact of common descent. And common descent does not "disprove God". No one has claimed that. It only disproves the "creationist God". It is these creationists that usually try to claim that "evolution is an attempt to disprove God". Only their skewed God,

By the way, have you justified your position in the OP yet? All that I could see was a bunch of word salad at best.

 

[ratiocinator]

It's not a matter of life being rare or not rare. It's a matter of how it (life) turns dirt into a human brain, and then using that human brain, turns dirt into an I-phone 12, and a vehicle sent to Mars to send back selfies.

Coal and granite haven't been observed doing those kinds of things. And neither has gold, or diamonds, even though they are rarer kinds of earth.

This simply doesn't amount to an argument. I was going to say argument from personal incredulity but it isn't even that 'good' because coal and granite are such a silly comparison. We have perfectly good explanations for most of the process. It's only the very beginning of getting replication with variation and inheritance that is, as yet, unknown.

 

[John D. Brey]

"Step outside the circumscription of the principles and ideas that make Darwinism and scientific materialism appear to be viable in the first place..."

You mean reality?

Yes, I suppose that if you were to imagine that there was something outside reality, evolution would look strange.

However, since whatever you considered to be outside reality would in reality be nothing more than a figment of your imagination, you'd find that evolution would certainly fit in with whatever your preconceived notions about the universe were. And thus, if you considered evolution was wrong, your conclusion based on stepping outside reality would also support that.

In other words, it's a self-reinforcing delusion.

Your point rests on how you and I are using the word "reality." Those who've responded more on point realize I'm discussing two kinds of reality: subjective, versus objective.

A huge problem is when people confuse their subjective reality with objective reality; the latter being the whole of all that really exists whether it's perceived or not.

Bishop Berkeley moved us quantum leaps by revealing that our subjective reality goes with us when we leave a room so that even the chair that we supposed was objective reality doesn't exist in anything like our subjective reality presented it once we leave the room.

Most people would consider Berkeley's argument "impenetrable." But those who got what he said realized it seemed to support Kant's theories, such that they kept devising experiments to see of Kant and Berkeley could possibly be correct that a chair doesn't exist as it does for us subjectively once we leave the room.

For your information and edification, those experiments led to the theory of quantum physics. Which in effect says the chair doesn't exist in anything like the subjective way it does when we're in the room once we leave the room.

Naturally that's a bridge too far, impenetrable nonsense, for the majority of the good people of the world.



John

 

[ratiocinator]

Having conceded that things most surely evolve (we're on the same sheet of music to this point), the impenetrable statement above implies that notwithstanding the surety of evolution, nevertheless, the high level of obvious design characteristics evident in say a human brain (or other living things that evolve), suggests that some process far different than all the normal processes that existed for billions of years prior to life on earth seems to be in play regarding living organisms.

But evolution is a (kind of) design process - albeit a basically algorithmic one that does not require an intelligent designer.

 

[Audie]

I agree it would be impossible to disprove the theory that living organisms evolve.​

You implied that it might be impossible to prove that living organisms don't evolve. The statement above, notwithstanding the impenetrable nature of the prose, was trying to agree with you.

Nevertheless, imo, it's equally impossible to deny that living organisms exhibit design characteristics that because they're exponentially more exquisite than anything in the non-living sphere thus require an explanation that goes beyond the physics that circumscribe non-living things.​

Having conceded that things most surely evolve (we're on the same sheet of music to this point), the impenetrable statement above implies that notwithstanding the surety of evolution, nevertheless, the high level of obvious design characteristics evident in say a human brain (or other living things that evolve), suggests that some process far different than all the normal processes that existed for billions of years prior to life on earth seems to be in play regarding living organisms.



John

You went off the rails with your whole ' design "
spiel

 

[MikeF]

It's not a matter of life being rare or not rare. It's a matter of how it (life) turns dirt into a human brain, and then using that human brain, turns dirt into an I-phone 12, and a vehicle sent to Mars to send back selfies.

Coal and granite haven't been observed doing those kinds of things. And neither has gold, or diamonds, even though they are rarer kinds of earth.

I've aimed a video camera at a rock for quite some time and all I can tell you is that he's the laziest dammed thing I've ever seen. He don't even seem motivated to mount another rock? He just lies there basking in the sun with a sly grin on his dumb face.
John

I thought it hinged on how complex carbon based molecules in the primordial soup began to exhibit self-replicating properties, not how dirt became a human brain. Wouldn't you agree? I would think the incredulity for that to occur would be dramatically less than for dirt to become a human brain.

 

[John D. Brey]

You went off the rails with your whole ' design "
spiel

One of the bugga boos of scientific materialists is "design." They realize that to have design requires a designer.

Not necessarily a sentient designer, though the existence of sentience implies that, but at least some kind of designer able to guide evolution from single-celled organisms to something as stupendously designed as the human brain.


John

 

[ratiocinator]

They realize that to have design requires a designer.

Not necessarily a sentient designer, though the existence of sentience implies that, but at least some kind of designer able to guide evolution from single-celled organisms to something as stupendously designed as the human brain.

Nonsense. Variation and natural selection does the job perfectly well without any sort of designer.

 

[John D. Brey]

I thought it hinged on how complex carbon based molecules in the primordial soup began to exhibit self-replicating properties, not how dirt became a human brain. Wouldn't you agree? I would think the incredulity for that to occur would be dramatically less than for dirt to become a human brain.

Some pretty world renown scientists have said that to have replication, you first need replicators; though they (replicators) can't exist without replication.

Noam Chomsky is no slouch when it comes to science. And he said truisms like that are just a part of reality.

When people asked him how he could believe that replication arose when you need replicators for replication, and replication for replicators, he asked his interlocutors if they believed the theological proposition that man transcends nature? When they said no, he ask them then, why they think man should somehow be capable of knowing all that can be known, or figuring out logical impossibilities, as though he, man, is what the Christians say he is?



John