AJ Phillips

>>> For an omnipotent being, he sure was a substandard author. Imagine how a book would read if it really were written by an omnipotent being?! <<<

Exactly my thoughts from when I was ten to now. I have retested my thoughts on religion and Christianity in particular many times, only to consolidate my atheism. There is a lack of knowledge one would not expect from a deity, covered over by a reliance on the credulity of the audience of its time back then and now.

George has explained why there will never be an enlightenment for the truly devout:

>> For a theist such explanations will only see as extend our knowledge of HOW God made these things. Like when a Christian child learns how babys are made, he/she can still believe that God is behind it. <<

Even when/if we make contact with intelligent alien life from outside our solar system, religionists will still believe god is behind it. As long as they don't prevent us from further scientific discovery/knowledge/enlightenment/intellectual evolution, I can live with the religious.

However, the following is why I will always remain vigilant to the excesses of religion:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/08/2976836.htm?section=justin

Severin,
I think I am in agreement with you and David that when I accept the Bible in its plain reading, then I do so deliberately, as per the Biblical writer’s intention. I only wished it acknowledged that the Bible is sectioned into several literary genres, including: prophecy, songs, poetry, proverbs, etc. It also contains many types of speech such as metaphor and hyperbole, etc. So to say that I or anyone accepts the WHOLE Bible literally is incorrect, only partially correct, or perhaps just overly simplistic.

When you say evolution is a proven theory, you must be saying something specific. When and where was it proven? Do you have a date and place?

Or you say that evolution is ‘considered proven’. Perhaps by you but not by me.

Or perhaps you are saying that evolution must be true because it allows other areas of science (e.g. modern medicine, agriculture or space flight and the internet) to ‘work’. This is akin to the explanation of child character Piggy from the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, who says something like, ‘everything our parents told us must be true, or else things like television wouldn’t work.’

The fact is that the principles and practices forming the foundation for modern scientific reasoning and investigation were well established before Darwin came along. Darwin didn’t really add anything very useful, except for helping the Western world develop (to use David’s phrase) a tasteful ‘creation myth’.

And these foundations for modern Western science were often given by the work of Bible believing Christians (e.g. Newton – physics; Faraday – electronics, magnetism; etc.) Darwin's ideas were hardly required for medicine. Pasteur (another strong Bible believer) didn’t look to them.

You bring up space flight. I don’t know if you know that Von Braun, of Apollo’s Saturn 5 rocket fame, supported six day creation. (I’ve been around the block several times with David on this example. Before Rusty and others jump on me, reminding me that Apollo rockets have nothing to do with biological evolution, can I note that it was Severin who raised this example, not me.)

Oliver,
I must apologise for thinking you’d flipped or gone a little bit mad after I read your paragraph about Babushka dolls. I couldn’t make head or tail of it, even grammatically. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what a Babushka doll was. (I had images of British pop singer, Kate Bush, in her 7os hit music video ‘Babushka’ dancing in my head.) I’ve since asked someone what they are. I also had no idea what an ‘achetype’ was. I now realise you meant to say ‘archetype’. Also, when you were talking about little ‘a’ and big ‘A’, I thought you were using the English article, which added considerably to the confusion.

So now I’ve got my head a little more around what you were trying to say.

I think that your version of the universe coming into being is more ready made to fit comfortably with an atheist view. However, you suggest it could be made to fit a theistic view. I am not willing or comfortable (as quite a number seem happy to be) to superimpose a theistic explanation over the top of an atheistic one and then call it theistic. That speaks of a veneer of compromise, or white washing. I wish to find a more consistent or integral approach.

Though many interesting issues have been raised on this thread, I prefer to focus my discussion on the God that is (or at least the God of mainstream religion, as mentioned at the very top of this page) rather than any hypothesised God of our imagining.

The process of evolution (or in this case, ‘cosmic evolution’) is by definition unguided and natural. Yet the God that we normally speak about is a God of intelligence, action, purpose, and intention.

Hi Dan,

No problem.

Sorry too. Often , I am rapidly toggling between OLO and work deliverables, I am poor typist, tend to be dyslexic, my gingers are slower than my thoughts, while using a wireless keyboard (key strokes sometimes missed, as I a thick metal amplifier beween the keyboard and the computer tower). It may surprise you, that a textbook editor wrote to me about a case study I submitted, noting how rare it was not to have to change spelling or grammar. I really appecriate my good OLO friends accepting my hurried work.

Back to other points later.

Dear Dan,

" think that your version of the universe coming into being is more ready made to fit comfortably with an atheist view. However, you suggest it could be made to fit a theistic view. I am not willing or comfortable (as quite a number seem happy to be) to superimpose a theistic explanation over the top of an atheistic one and then call it theistic. That speaks of a veneer of compromise, or white washing. I wish to find a more consistent or integral approach." - D

Thanks for the feedback.

I think why "some" theists are willing to accept (or at least seriously consider this view) is that their God could be held to have designed the unbounded universe. Moreover, both theists and atheists can note that this argument avoids entanglement with "The Religions" or "The Scripures of the Religions (plural)". It begs the question: Does an unbounded existence require a designer? (I stiill do need to address some points raised by George on the universe or the universe + 1).

Dear George,

Thank you for keeping me thinking. I enjpoyed your last OLO post.

With doubt in the context of Lakotos (extension of) I would see best-form agnosticism not as an "intermediate" step, rather the ability to to concurrently place a weight on competing propositions.

The extropolation of n + 1 is (n + 1) + 1. The universe being say 11 dimensions + 1 (God) + 1 (God's creator). I appreciate your example is more sophisticated than this: i.e., n dimensions cannot directly experience n + 1 dimensions. A two dimensional being does not expirience a solid cube.

"I think Lakatos stays within philosophy of science, i.e. - speaking metaphorically - he analyses the proverbial (scientific) “finger”, but this analysis cannot decide whether the finger is pointing to a supernatural “moon” or just a mental “baloon”." - G

Very interesting comment. Yes. Lakatos was not addressing metaphysics, I agree. Yet, I still need reflect a little on the concurrent adopting of metaphysic and physical (not necessarily classical)constructs.

"What I am trying to say - as I did a couple of times before - is that advancements in science will move further away the “God of the gaps" but would not make a difference to what a theists or a Sagan-atheist can believe: such explanations are compatible with both the a priori held world-view orientations."

A priori fixations are arresting for the advancement of knowledge (a point I put to Sells, several times and gave up when he didn't reply). We should always test our stance.

Some of our OLO theists friends I suspect will stay with the God of the Gaps, yet, if we put scripture aside, we can bring God as a posit as a creation agent vis-a-visa, the need to have a creation agent. Here, we are not comparing Zeus with Yahweh or Genesis with cosmology.

/cont