Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Free excerpt from Steve Meyer’s new book, Return of the God Hypothesis

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Here: And from the excerpt:

My own interest in what scientific discoveries show about the possible existence of God germinated over thirty years ago when I attended an unusual conference. At the time, I was working as a geophysicist doing seismic digital signal processing for an oil company in Dallas, Texas. In February 1985, I learned of a Harvard historian of science and astrophysicist, Owen Gingerich, who was coming to town to talk about the unexpected convergence between modern cosmology and the biblical account of creation as well as the theistic implications of the big bang theory. I attended the talk on a Friday evening and found that Gingerich had come to Dallas mainly to speak to a much larger conference the next day featuring leading theistic and atheistic scientists. They would be discussing three big questions at the intersection of science and philosophy: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin and nature of human consciousness.

Fascinated, I attended the Saturday conference at the Dallas Hilton. The organizers had assembled a world-class lineup of scientists and philosophers representing two great but divergent systems of thought. I was not surprised to hear outspoken atheists or scientific materialists explaining why they doubted the existence of God. What shocked me was the persuasive talks by other leading scientists who thought that recent discoveries in their own fields had decidedly theistic implications.

Here’s the site: The Return of the God Hypothesis

Steve Meyer is also the author of Darwin’s Doubt.

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Comments
Jerry: Just received my Kindle copy of Meyer’s new book. I also purchased the course that goes with it for $27 and so far it is just a rehash of what is commonly known here. Welcome to the world of ID. The Discovery Institute is very good at getting the faithful to spend money on the same old stuff. Perhaps next time you'll wait 'til you read a review?JVL
March 30, 2021
March
03
Mar
30
30
2021
09:42 AM
9
09
42
AM
PDT
Just received my Kindle copy of Meyer's new book. I also purchased the course that goes with it for $27 and so far it is just a rehash of what is commonly known here. I am uncomfortable with the claim that ID is a theory which Meyer is pushing. I believe it is much more than that. It is a set of conclusions based on reason and evidence. And nearly all if not all of the evidence is supplied by science. Is ID what Kf (actually Cicero) would call an example of right reasoning?jerry
March 30, 2021
March
03
Mar
30
30
2021
07:14 AM
7
07
14
AM
PDT
Jerry: Don’t have any. Nothing? You understand how everything happened? Or: you don't care how it all happened? I find that reaction very strange for someone who is pro-science and clearly has an analytic mind. There's so much we don't know, surely there's something in the ID realm you'd like to have cleared up.JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
10:38 AM
10
10
38
AM
PDT
What questions do you have?
Don’t have any.jerry
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
10:35 AM
10
10
35
AM
PDT
Jerry: The process by which the first human appeared is unknown except that it was probably sudden. There is such a wide expanse separating humans from anything else that it could not have happened gradually or else there would be a forensic trail of hundreds or thousands of intermediaries around at various stages of the process. Since there aren’t, the likelihood that it was unique and sudden is most likely. Okay, so the designer figured out that Earth was at the right point for the emergence of humans . . . you'd need a viable breeding population so it would have to be a lot more than two individuals . . . what about this . . . just a suppose . . . The designer thought: Okay, we're good now. Let's release the humans. So they trigger a change/modification in several (maybe a lot of) unborn foetuses so that they all are born as Homo Sapiens? And they'd all have to be in the same tribe/area so that they could create a viable population . . . OR . . . Maybe most pre-human pregnancies, all over the planet, were tweaked to create humans? What do you think? Is there some way to check these ideas? Are these hypothesis falsifiable? How far can the designer go in any given step? Why weren't humans brought forward a few million years before? What questions do you have?JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
10:02 AM
10
10
02
AM
PDT
Bornagain77: Whatever JVL, I’m not going to play games with you. I’ll let unbiased readers judge for themselves who is being fair with the evidence and who is not. Fine. But there is something I'd love to hear your opinion on: Science is about understanding reality and answering questions about reality that we don't know the answers for. So . . . from an ID perspective . . . what unanswered questions would you be interested in having answered? What ways could your questions be explored and examined? What experiments could be done?JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:53 AM
9
09
53
AM
PDT
The process by which the first human appeared is unknown except that it was probably sudden. There is such a wide expanse separating humans from anything else that it could not have happened gradually or else there would be a forensic trail of hundreds or thousands of intermediaries around at various stages of the process. Since there aren’t, the likelihood that it was unique and sudden is most likely. I suggest those interested read Stephen Meyers’s books.jerry
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:50 AM
9
09
50
AM
PDT
Whatever JVL, I'm not going to play games with you. I'll let unbiased readers judge for themselves who is being fair with the evidence and who is not.bornagain77
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:45 AM
9
09
45
AM
PDT
Bornagain77: JVL, I hold God, specifically Jesus, to be the author of life. Okay!! But, on the other hand, lest you be accused of blatant hypocrisy, can you tell me exactly when unguided Darwinian processes will ever be capable of producing information? ANY information? Gosh, I think it already has. Again, your criticism as to when information might be created is much more aptly directed towards your own Darwinian worldview than it is towards intelligent Design. We know for fact that intelligent minds are capable of creating information whenever they so desire. Whereas nobody has EVER witnessed unguided material processes creating ingformation. I think the data is clear, especially since I see no credible evidence of a designer around at . . . what time was it? Who did what exactly? So again, JVL, exactly when did unguided material processes create immaterial information? And exactly what were these unguided material processes that created immaterial information? Please be explicit in your answer. I think Dr Dawkins book The Ancestor's Tale is an excellent introduction to this topic. I'd start with that.JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:41 AM
9
09
41
AM
PDT
Jerry: Creation of humans. So, how did that happen? Did a couple of precursors sit around waiting for a child who turned out to be a human or was it a slow, step-by-step process with the designer guiding mutations and changes over thousands (or maybe millions) of years, directing the progress towards the ultimate goal?JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:38 AM
9
09
38
AM
PDT
JVL, I hold God, specifically Jesus, to be the author of life.
Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
Isn't it interesting that the Bible 'predicted' that life had an author two thousand years before the information in DNA was even discovered? Shoot, Darwinists tried to deny that information was even in DNA for decades after it was discovered.,,, I myself, right here on UD, debated Darwinists who tried to deny that information was even in DNA. But, on the other hand, lest you be accused of blatant hypocrisy, can you tell me exactly when unguided Darwinian processes will ever be capable of producing information? ANY information? To repeat Pauli,
Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf
Again, your criticism as to when information might be created is much more aptly directed towards your own Darwinian worldview than it is towards intelligent Design. We know for fact that intelligent minds are capable of creating information whenever they so desire. Whereas nobody has EVER witnessed unguided material processes creating immaterial information. EVER! So again JVL, exactly when did unguided material processes create immaterial information? And exactly what were these unguided material processes that created immaterial information? Please be explicit in your answer.bornagain77
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:27 AM
9
09
27
AM
PDT
Otherwise, you seem very good at dodging some basic questions. Why is that?
Most of the comments here are at best superficial. This is an example of one. This comment is anything but serious. I have made thousands of content full comments over the years. I don’t dodge anything serious. I have been extremely consistent. That is anything but dodging.
Can you give us an example of a moment when you think design was definitely imposed?
Creation of humans.jerry
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:26 AM
9
09
26
AM
PDT
Jerry: Answer: All the time from my experience. It is just when there is no credible naturalistic process that it looks for other alternatives. Stephen Meyer goes over dozens of possible naturalistic explanations in his books. So, you think the 'designer' is tweaking the system frequently? Can you give us an example of a moment when you think design was definitely imposed? Otherwise, you seem very good at dodging some basic questions. Why is that?JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:19 AM
9
09
19
AM
PDT
Bornagain77: If JVL would have bothered to click on, read, and actually comprehend, the link I posted, he would have realized that the ‘Exactly when,,,” question that he poses is far more problematic for Darwin’s theory than it is for Intelligent Design. My point is that ID proponents are adamantly against even trying to suggest a time when design was implemented. You may disagree with the current consensus of evolutionary theory (and, let's be honest, the dates do change sometimes) but at least evolutionary biologists offer and opinion as to when. You don't. Why is that? That is to say, Darwinists have no clue when anything will ever happen within their theory, Whereas, in ID we know that information will be created when an Intelligence wills it, whenever that might be. Why don't you have some idea of when that happened? Why aren't you even trying to suggest times? Is ID science or not? Thus JVL, it looks like you are, very much, suffering from the ‘pot calling the kettle black’ syndrome. ,,, Even more so, since you don’t even have any empirical evidence that unguided material processes are ever capable of producing immaterial information. i.e. You, as a Darwinist, are trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, and you don’t even have a hat to pull it out of. ? No designer means no design. Propose to me a sensible suggestion of a designer that was around . . . when exactly? Who did what exactly? And I'll have another think about what you propose. At the moment it's hard to even know what you are supporting. Design happened . . . sometime, we're not sure when.JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
09:15 AM
9
09
15
AM
PDT
IF there was an intelligent designer around at . . . what time was it again? Who is capable of doing . . . what was it again?
Here the response I have given to these stupid remarks over the years. The first time was 12 years ago. ----------- The following is a reply I have made more than once to this ridiculous question starting with another ridiculous question by a frequent anti ID commenter here at UD
Question: Yes, I agree that it could be a naturalistic process, but does ID ever ask if it actually was?
Answer: All the time from my experience. It is just when there is no credible naturalistic process that it looks for other alternatives. Stephen Meyer goes over dozens of possible naturalistic explanations in his books.
Q This is something else you should know from all your years here. “what caused…?” and “what could have caused…?” are subtly different questions.
A: Yes, but before one gets to what caused, one has to consider what could have caused and then eliminate the improbable ones. Which is exactly the process ID uses. I answered the silliness of the question about the designer with sarcasm over 11 years ago.
Someone actually wants the laboratory techniques used 3.8 billion years ago. You talk about bizarre. I say a thousand as hyperbole and Mark in all seriousness says there is probably only a dozen. Mark wants the actual technique used a few billion years ago. Mark, I got word from the designer a few weeks ago and he said the original lab and blue prints were subducted under what was to become the African plate 3.4 billion years ago but by then they were mostly rubble anyway. The original cells were relatively simple but still very complex. Subsequent plants/labs went the same way and unfortunately all holograph videos of it are now in hyper space and haven’t been looked at for at least 3 million years. So to answer one of your questions, no further work has been done for quite awhile and the designer expects future work to be done by the latest design itself. The designer travels via hyper space between his home and our area of the universe when it is necessary. The designer said the techniques used were much more sophisticated than anything dreamed of by current synthetic biologist crowd but in a couple million years they may get up to speed and understand how it was actually done. The designer said it is actually a lot more difficult than people think especially since this was a new technique and he had to invent the DNA/RNA/protein process from scratch but amazingly they had the. right chemical properties. His comment was “Thank God for that” or else he doesn’t think he would have been able to do it. It took him about 200,000 of our years just experimenting with amino acid combinations to get usable proteins. He said it will be easier for current scientists since they will have a template to work off. Hope this answers your question about the designer.
Some of the original commenters here will recognize who Mark is. Maybe he reappears here occasionally under a different name. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/from-barren-planet-to-civilization-in-four-easy-steps/#comment-666216jerry
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
07:25 AM
7
07
25
AM
PDT
JVL asks, "IF there was an intelligent designer around at . . . what time was it again?" If JVL would have bothered to click on, read, and actually comprehend, the link I posted, he would have realized that the 'Exactly when,,," question that he poses is far more problematic for Darwin's theory than it is for Intelligent Design. That is to say, Darwinists have no clue when anything will ever happen within their theory, Whereas, in ID we know that information will be created when an Intelligence wills it, whenever that might be. To clip from my link,,, As Wolfgang Pauli noted, “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf
Thus JVL, it looks like you are, very much, suffering from the 'pot calling the kettle black' syndrome. ,,, Even more so, since you don't even have any empirical evidence that unguided material processes are ever capable of producing immaterial information. i.e. You, as a Darwinist, are trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, and you don't even have a hat to pull it out of. :)bornagain77
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
07:18 AM
7
07
18
AM
PDT
Bornagain77: And thus, that makes Intelligent Design just as scientifically valid as any other scientific theory is that is based solely on a law of nature. IF there was an intelligent designer around at . . . what time was it again? Who is capable of doing . . . what was it again? And not leaving any detected trash or machinery or living quarters or tools. Oh, by the way, would this be a tinkerer intelligent designer who continues to tweak things without leaving behind any other trace of their existence? Or would it be one that did their thing (whatever it was, whenever it was) and then skeddadled back to ID world wherever that is. Why don't we discuss the when bit first? You've all had lots of time to 'study the design' by now; what conclusions can you draw about when design was implemented? ET seems to think that biological systems on earth were designed to evolve which could mean that design was implemented many moons ago and then left which does help explain the lack of other evidence an intelligent designer was present. But Dr Behe seems to think that the invisible hand of the invisible designer is still active on occasion. So, which best explains the data and evidence? Is there some experiment that could be done to determine if we're talking about a front-loaded system or one that's getting upgrades once in a while?JVL
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
06:55 AM
6
06
55
AM
PDT
Of related note:
March 2021 - In other words, the ability of an intelligent Designer to create information in this universe is now shown to be, scientifically speaking, on the same level as a law of nature is. And thus, that makes Intelligent Design just as scientifically valid as any other scientific theory is that is based solely on a law of nature. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/horizontal-gene-transfer-as-a-serious-blow-to-claims-about-universal-common-descent/#comment-727002
bornagain77
March 29, 2021
March
03
Mar
29
29
2021
05:24 AM
5
05
24
AM
PDT
Seversky: the theist offers God as an explanatory principle in spite of having no idea how or why He breaches natural law to create miracles. Why? Maybe "he" wants to tweak the system to go in a certain direction sometimes after the initial conditions have been set up. How? What difference would that make, but one obvious path would be thru quantum superposition reduction. Although I imagine "God" would not be limited to that. If I made a virtual reality with interesting things going on, I may want to tweak the state of information sometimes (which would constitute "miracles" in the system) to effect a desired outcome. Even lowly human engineers do that sort of thing when using genetic algorithms to get efficient designs: set up some rules, let the system run, then override occasionally to guide the effects in a certain direction after the algorithms have run for a while. We call those "heuristics." It's fun. And can be profitable.Concealed Citizen
March 28, 2021
March
03
Mar
28
28
2021
09:37 PM
9
09
37
PM
PDT
When you’re talking about the mechanisms of evolution, please use “evolutionary theory” instead of “the theory of evolution.”
From what you selected it appears certain that the author of your post left out the only mechanism that can explain the fact of evolution. Guess what that mechanism is? All of the other mechanisms mentioned only explain small changes in evolution. Actually the quote from Wikipedia I posted explains more than your author has and it’s still BS. So combining the two do we get BS squared? You are endorsing ID with this post and so is the author of your piece.jerry
March 27, 2021
March
03
Mar
27
27
2021
05:17 AM
5
05
17
AM
PDT
Seversky wrote:
How else would you describe the laws of nature other than as “natural”?
In order to properly hold the belief that the laws of nature are natural, then a bottom-up explanation for the laws from the level of matter, let’s say fermions, must at least be conceivable. However, if an X-amount of fermions would give rise to law A, then an Y-amount of fermions would give rise to law B, and so on. In other words, if the laws of nature arise from matter, then there are countless ever-changing laws. But this is not what we find. Paul Davies: “Physical processes, however violent or complex, are thought to have absolutely no effect on the laws. There is thus a curious asymmetry: physical processes depend on laws but the laws do not depend on physical processes. Although this statement cannot be proved, it is widely accepted.”Origenes
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
11:42 PM
11
11
42
PM
PDT
Jerry/11
Where has it moved to? The modern synthesis was just Darwin’s ideas updated and was popular a short time ago. So what replaced the modern synthesis?
From somebody who knows more about the subject than either of us:
Don't call it "The Theory of Evolution" By now, we all know that a "theory" in science is much more than idle speculation, a point that has been made repeatedly over the past century. With respect to evolution, the most famous essay is by Stephen Jay Gould: "Evolution as Fact and Theory" and the latest explanation is an article in the New York Times by Carl Zimmer: In Science, It’s Never ‘Just a Theory’. Unfortunately, it's not that simple and there are many scientists who use "theory" in the sense of hypothesis or speculation [see Facts and theories of evolution according to Dawkins and Coyne]. That's not what I want to talk about today. What do scientists really mean when they refer to "The Theory of Evolution"? There is no single theory of evolution that covers all the mechanisms of evolution. There's the Theory of Natural Selection, and Neutral Theory, and the Theory of Random Genetic Drift, and a lot of theoretical population genetics. Sometimes you can lump them all together by referring to the Modern Synthesis or Neo-Darwinism. These terms are much more accurate than simply saying "The Theory of Evolution" as long as we all understand what those theories mean. The problem with "The Theory of Evolution" is not only that it's ambiguous but it's misleading. It implies that there's only one theory to explain evolution. Another problem is that it sounds too much like we're talking about the history of life and saying that it's a "theory" that can be explained by evolution. Instead of using the phrase "The Theory of Evolution," I think we should be referring to "evolutionary theory," which may come in different flavors. The term "evolutionary theory" encompasses a bunch of different ideas about the mechanisms of evolution and conveys a much more accurate description of the theoretical basis behind evolution. Douglas Futuyma prefers "evolutionary theory" in his textbook Evolution and I think he's right. It allows him to devote individual chapters to "The Theory of Random Genetic Drift" and "The Theory Natural Selection." Here's how Futuyma explains the concept of theory in his book Evolution 2nd ed. p. 613.
So is evolution a fact or a theory? In light of these definitions, evolution is a scientific fact. That is, descent of all species, with modification, from common ancestors is a hypothesis that in the past 150 years or so has been supported by so much evidence, and so successfully resisted all challenges, that it has become a fact. But this history of evolutionary change is explained by evolutionary theory, the body of statements (about mutation, selection, genetic drift, developmental constraints, and so forth) that together account for the various changes that organisms have undergone.
He makes the same point in the opening pages of his book where he uses both terms when discussing the history of evolutionary theory. (Note that when Darwin used the word "theory" to describe natural selection he was not using it in the same sense as Gould and Zimmer to describe a modern scientific theory. That's why Futuyma uses "hypothesis" in the quote below.)
We now know that Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection on hereditary variation was correct, but we also know that there are more causes of evolution than Darwin realized, and that natural selection and hereditary variation themselves are more complex than he imagined. A body of ideas about the causes of evolution, including mutation, recombination, gene flow, isolation, random genetic drift, the many forms of natural selection, and other factors, constitute our current theory of evolution, or "evolutionary theory." Like all theories in science, it is a work in progress, for we do not yet know the causes of all of evolution, or all the biological phenomena that evolutionary biology will have to explain. Indeed, some details may turn out to be wrong. But the main tenets of the theory, as far as it goes, are so well supported that most biologists confidently accept evolutionary theory as the foundation of the science of life.
When you're talking about the mechanisms of evolution, please use "evolutionary theory" instead of "the theory of evolution." I wish the proponents of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis would agree that the version of evolutionary theory they wish to extend is the one described by Douglas Futuyma. This would make it easier for them to explain what's wrong with that version and why their proposals are an improvement
Seversky
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
08:29 PM
8
08
29
PM
PDT
Bornagain77/10
Seversky at 8, I will gladly let unbiased readers judge for themselves who is being fair to the evidence and who is just uttering nonsense.
Fine by me.Seversky
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
08:20 PM
8
08
20
PM
PDT
Meyer, after keeping us in suspense for over a decade since publication of "Signature in the Cell," is now prepared to reveal that God is the intelligent designer. What a shocker....chuckdarwin
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
01:23 PM
1
01
23
PM
PDT
Jerry states "The perfect analogy is the Visa Check card commercial." :) ,,, Ha, Ha, Ha,, :) Thanks for making my day a little brighter.bornagain77
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
12:11 PM
12
12
11
PM
PDT
Only in the sense that the theory of evolution has moved on
Where has it moved to? The modern synthesis was just Darwin’s ideas updated and was popular a short time ago. So what replaced the modern synthesis?
Biologists, alongside scholars of the history and philosophy of biology, have continued to debate the need for, and possible nature of, a replacement synthesis. For example, in 2017 Philippe Huneman and Denis M. Walsh stated in their book Challenging the Modern Synthesis that numerous theorists had pointed out that the disciplines of embryological developmental theory, morphology, and ecology had been omitted. They noted that all such arguments amounted to a continuing desire to replace the modern synthesis with one that united "all biological fields of research related to evolution, adaptation, and diversity in a single theoretical framework." They observed further that there are two groups of challenges to the way the modern synthesis viewed inheritance. The first is that other modes such as epigenetic inheritance, phenotypic plasticity, the Baldwin effect, and the maternal effect allow new characteristics to arise and be passed on and for the genes to catch up with the new adaptations later. The second is that all such mechanisms are part, not of an inheritance system, but a developmental system: the fundamental unit is not a discrete selfishly competing gene, but a collaborating system that works at all levels from genes and cells to organisms and cultures to guide evolution.
Sounds like BS to me. There is nothing there. The perfect analogy is the Visa Check card commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11EwyJ5fcBIjerry
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
10:26 AM
10
10
26
AM
PDT
Seversky at 8, I will gladly let unbiased readers judge for themselves who is being fair to the evidence and who is just uttering nonsense.bornagain77
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
09:27 AM
9
09
27
AM
PDT
Jerry/2
Seversky has just said Darwin and his ideas are passé amongst current scientists.
Only in the sense that the theory of evolution has moved on since Darwin's original work. Natural selection still plays a role in evolution but perhaps no longer the leading role.Seversky
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
09:17 AM
9
09
17
AM
PDT
And there's more ...
Yet, as I went on to point out in the preceding post, David Hume, nor any other atheist, has any right to presuppose that the laws of nature are completely natural
How else would you describe the laws of nature other than as "natural"? And what right does the theist have to presuppose they are anything else?
Atheistic materialists simply have no clue why there should even be laws of nature in the first place.
Neither does the theist. Maybe they just invented their god to fill a pretty big gap?
Thus, contrary to what David Hume assumed back in the 1700s, atheists simply have no right to presuppose that the laws of nature are completely ‘natural’ with no need of God to explain their existence.
Unless theists can provide better evidence for their God then the laws of nature are just "natural".
* In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all.
In Christianity, God exists for no reason at all.
* In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as an explanatory principle.
In other words, the theist offers God as an explanatory principle in spite of having no idea how or why He breaches natural law to create miracles.
In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose.
In a theistic Universe, God is without a reason,
* Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible
Presupposing an omnipotent god who can upend the natural order on a whim would make the scientific enterprise impossible as well as being epistemically self-defeating. Atheistic materialism is the only rational and historically productive approach.
In short, and as far as I can tell, the atheist can muster no rationally coherent argument against God that is able to withstand even a modest amount of scrutiny.
In short, and as far as I can tell, the theist can muster no rationally coherent argument for God that is able to withstand even a modest amount of scrutiny.Seversky
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
09:01 AM
9
09
01
AM
PDT
15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/thursday-march-18-john-lennox-webinar-has-science-buried-god/#comment-726586 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/thursday-march-18-john-lennox-webinar-has-science-buried-god/#comment-726601 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule). https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/thursday-march-18-john-lennox-webinar-has-science-buried-god/#comment-726616
bornagain77
March 26, 2021
March
03
Mar
26
26
2021
08:25 AM
8
08
25
AM
PDT
1 2

Leave a Reply