tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post1715075454300601940..comments2023-10-10T07:33:49.482-07:00Comments on The Tree: The Premise of God (a follow-up)Dr. Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-30552514342625287582008-08-28T18:02:00.000-07:002008-08-28T18:02:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-20352257272618978172008-01-24T16:29:00.000-07:002008-01-24T16:29:00.000-07:00So are you going to respond to him?So are you going to respond to him?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-58819963546805870252007-11-22T04:29:00.000-07:002007-11-22T04:29:00.000-07:00lol, I could use an outside editor for my blog, to...lol, I could use an outside editor for my blog, too; no worries—I won't hold it against you.<BR/><BR/>I admit my distaste for metaphysical explanations comes close to being merely intuitive, but I feel it is justified nevertheless. You say that physicalist explanations have been overrun—this is true, but never by metaphysical ones. Physicalist explanations are always “overrun” by other physicalist explanations and phenomena attributed to metaphysical explanations are being overrun by physicalist ones all the time. (And no, dark matter is not in any way a metaphysical explanation.)<BR/><BR/>You advanced the argument (if only indirectly) that God is a simpler explanation and hence is at least qualified to be a viable cosmogony according to the second law of thermodynamics. However, you also (rightly) assert that the second law applies only to physical systems; you must recognize then, that by definition, the law can say nothing meaningful about the veridity of a non-physical claim. Therefore, once again, while we cannot disprove the God hypothesis, this method of invoking him is invalid.<BR/><BR/>American Protestant Christians are funny when it comes to evolution. It is one of the most documented theories in the history of science, and yet they bumble about nitpicking at it because they are conditioned to hold on to literal interpretations of their holy book. Of course this is nothing new; there is no significant difference between the American Protestant Church's current rejection of evolution and the Catholic Church's historic rejection of heliocentricity; both are scientifically valid but not immediately supported by literal interpretations of Scripture.<BR/><BR/>If you'll forgive me: Let us propose a third version of my analogy. Two omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly reasoned unicorns composed of jellybeans residing in neverland simultaneously sneezed to create the Christian God. The Christian God then went on to do all the things you think he did. I could also write a fourth version of this analogy by copying the entire text of the Bible and replacing instances of “God” with jellybean-unicorns. Such propositions are not disprovable but would provide (according to you) an adequate explanation for our ethical nature, search for meaning, etc.<BR/><BR/>Why are either of these versions of the unicorn story wrong or improbable?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-87265604477525217322007-11-20T07:05:00.000-07:002007-11-20T07:05:00.000-07:00The final paragraph proposes a new teapot. Unicorn...The final paragraph proposes a new teapot. Unicorns do not explain such issues as the universal human experience of what Lewis call the "numenous"; they cannot explain why people search for meaning beyond themselves; they do not explain the development of ethical systems that run counter to issues of self-preservation. These are the issues that God explains that pure naturalism does not.<BR/><BR/>As for absurdity surviving only for familiarity, this is true of neo-darwinist evolution as much as it is true of anything.Dr. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-75100831743875581602007-11-20T07:00:00.000-07:002007-11-20T07:00:00.000-07:00Evolution designs nothing.I understand that the li...Evolution designs nothing.<BR/><BR/>I understand that the literature about evolution, both technical and non-technical, uses design language pervasively, but the use of design language proves nothing except that the evidence of design is pervasive in nature. There is no mechanism proposed to explain how it is that evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, especially its form as stated by information theorists.Dr. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-87411471979485428822007-11-20T06:57:00.000-07:002007-11-20T06:57:00.000-07:00I was not dodging the question of the complexity o...I was not dodging the question of the complexity of the designer. I was simply responding to your assertion that my analogy had anything at all to do with the complexity of the designer. I spent a part of my post discussing the issue of the complexity of the designer. However, the 2nd law of thermodynamics only applies to physical systems; I say that God is not a part of the physical system, so we cannot say whether the 2nd law applies to him in the same way. As I said before, this is a necessary part of his nature; if he exists, he must be this way.Dr. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-47750517234403813442007-11-20T06:53:00.000-07:002007-11-20T06:53:00.000-07:00In the fourth paragraph, you contend that physical...In the fourth paragraph, you contend that physical explanations are preferable to metaphysical ones because metaphysical ones are always being overrun. Of course they are, but so are physical explanations, I have my own long list: the interstellar ether, the planet inside the orbit of Mercury, every form of the big bang up to the current models, etc. The truth is that all human explanations run up against the simple fact that the universe appears to be much more complex than our brains can handle, so our explanations fall short. You may prefer non-metaphysical explanations, that is your prerogative. But they are not better. The best explanation is the correct one, not the one that meets some arbitrary external criterion.Dr. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-7860850322157956452007-11-20T06:46:00.000-07:002007-11-20T06:46:00.000-07:00Your third paragraph makes a compelling argument f...Your third paragraph makes a compelling argument for the existence of an outside editor! I re-read that section multiple times, and never paid attention to what I wrote. The actual argument states "everything that begins to exist has a prior cause." Here the tautologic nature of the argument is no longer present. Thanks for noticing.Dr. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198275455277380927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34974370.post-74470138140278780522007-11-20T04:39:00.000-07:002007-11-20T04:39:00.000-07:00You say “It is irrelevant whether the actual desig...You say “It is irrelevant whether the actual designer is simple or complex, it is not the nature of the designer that I am calling simple, simple, it is the fact of the designer as an explanation that is simple.” Assuming the corollary of the second law of thermodynamics that a cause will always be simpler, given an event y, the possibility of x being its sufficient cause is entirely dependent on the nature (complexity) of x; that is the whole point of the corollary(!), yet you assert in this case that an inquiry into the cause of y can ignore the nature (complexity) of x. That is absurd.<BR/><BR/>You say the naturalist says “life is too complex to have been designed” and you are “not sure how that follows...”; it is clear this is because you have a deficient understanding of evolution. Evolutionists say life around us has been designed—by evolution by natural selection. It most certainly did not happen by accident, as you mistakenly suggest.<BR/><BR/>It is much easier for me if you wish to subscribe to the statements with the “built-in, necessary limitation to the regression,” i.e. “everything that is caused has a prior cause” etc. because by doing such, you have shot yourself in the foot and no longer have cosmological or design arguments; you have rather redundant statements about causality. Of course everything that is caused has a cause(!); that's like saying everything painted green by green paint was painted by green paint—it does not make the point (to translate the discussion into this example's terms) that all green things are painted by green paint which is exactly what the design and cosmological arguments try to establish. You say later “to land on your presuppositions at the end of an argument is not logic, it is fallacy.” I could not agree more—and that is precisely what this argument does.<BR/><BR/>You say “ I believe that the design hypothesis is of the same sort as the dark matter hypothesis: it is a good fit, given the data we have, for explaining a phenomenon which we cannot otherwise explain.” In fact the explanations are in two entirely different categories: one posits a physical explanation while the other posits a metaphysical explanation. And metaphysical explanations have been consistently overrun by scientific physicalist ones (e.g. consider the god of fertility or the god of the wind—neither of which we need anymore now that we understand microbiology and meteorology) and, to me, this puts metaphysical explanations on much less probable footing than physicalist ones.<BR/><BR/>Finally, you make a good point that the teapot analogy is flawed because belief in the teapot doesn't really solve anything. Very well, I propose a new analogy: a rogue faction of jellybean-composed unicorns in neverland got together, sneezed at the same time, and the universe was created. Why is that any less probable than the traditional understanding of God? As I am fondly in the habit of saying, absurdity survives only for familiarity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com