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oneirophreniaMan...my previous post concerning logical proofs for God's existence has been blowin' up thanks to the awesome intellects of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rapier1, popejeremy, and beeporama! You guys fuckin' rock. I'm always happy to toss up a topic which engenders lively debate, and it's great to see folks on all sides of the bench checking in on the issue of the existence of Higher Powers, intelligent design, and so forth....Keep it up, gentlemen!
In the meantime, though, rather than weigh in via individual comments that mayhap only one or two of y'all might witness directly, I'm going to post my thoughts on the subject here as a whole new thread....Read 'em and weep, boys!
I am a stonecold materialist. I do not believe one bit in a "spirit" world or a "transcendental plane" inhabited by any form of "god" ever acknowledged by human fancy...but that doesn't mean that I am opposed entirely to the concept of "higher powers" or mysterious occurrences such as time slips or some so-called "spectral" phenomena which may very well operate via physical laws we just haven't deduced or fully understood yet. But whatever these phenomena or entities may be, I am certain that they will turn out to be physical phenomena in the literal sense of being produced according to natural laws and functions of the universe itself. Human understanding of how the universe works increases every year, and it's ridiculous--and unwarranted--hubris to assume that we've already figured out so much that we can explain away everything we encounter according to the limited set of physical rules we've deduced so far. Science must naturally keep an open mind to any and all possibilities...but there are certain possibilities which just do not warrant pursuing (at least at this point and time) because they are, simply put, completely unnecessary.
Intelligent design is one of these. Could life on earth have been started off by...say, a roaming god or a race of interstellar terraformers interested in seeding simple lifeforms in any remotely-hospitable environment they could find? Certainly! Half a million science-fiction stories, movies, and so forth have been founded on this concept...and it's a neat way of thinking about things. In fiction. But in reality, is it necessary to invoke a designer to explain the complexity we currently see in the biological world around us and, for that matter, in the universe as a whole? No. The data does not in any way require the presence of a designer to allow it to make sense. Natural selection is a ridiculously simple concept: we may not know--or even have the means to fully know--the exact ways in which it has worked over the past (slow, gradual change...or punctuated equilibrium...or anything like that), but the data clearly shows that natural selection has taken place in a general sense over the past billion years. We have enough data taken from the fossil record, genome backtracking studies, mitochondrial DNA, and simple phenotypical analysis to see that there are clear patterns of relationships between lifeforms from a billion years ago up to and including today. Birds and reptiles are both clearly related to dinosaurs, insects derive from any one a hundred thousand different Cambrian lifeforms, contemporary palm trees derive at some remove from Carboniferous cycads, and so forth--we may not be able to figure out every little twig and turning in the evolutionary tree, but we sure as hell can identify the major branches with amazing accuracy! Is there a need for a belief in God, alien uplift specialists, or anything of the sort to explain the data? Not at all. There are plenty of mathematical models showing exactly how complex lifeforms can evolve over a sufficiently large span of time (such as the BILLION years complex chemistry--that is, life--has existed on this planet) from incredibly simple basic forms. Life itself is nothing more that complicated chemistry: one doesn't need a belief in the Christian God or ANY kind of designer(s) to see how complex hydrocarbons and replicating molecular systems can--and do--arise from any random pile of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon (give or take a few heavy metals and more complicated atoms here and there to act as catalysts) churning about in a sufficiently energetic environment.
God or anything like him/her/it is completely unnecessary and therefore I have no reason whatsoever to include or recognize the presence of such a being in my own understanding of the data. However...does this necessarily mean that other folks are inherently WRONG in believing in the existence of a God? Not one bit. Provided they acknowledge that attempting to justify their beliefs by scientific method is guaranteed to fail and therefore a worthless endeavour.
Faith and science are two totally different fields with their own unique, and prettymuch mutually exclusive, formal systems of proof-building. A theological proof and a scientific proof are two completely different things. Does that mean that they are inherently opposed to one another, or cancel each other out? HELL no! Albert Einstein had a rock-solid belief in God...and did it in any way hamper his scientific work? Well...yeah, actually it did--in terms of his accepting quantum physics and its indeterminacy. But Einstein's faith did not in any way wreck his special or general theories of relativity! Did the fact that Gregor Mendel was a Catholic monk influence or degrade his work in genetic inheritance? Nope. There are thousands of scientists in the world today who profess a myriad of different religious beliefs: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Jainists, Gnostics, Omega Pointers, atheists, agnostics...you name it--but in most cases their faiths do not influence or damage their scientific work because they clearly keep their faith separate from their equations. Scientific study does nothing more than analyze and explain how the universe works physically. How it works metaphysically is up to the theological prowess or understanding of the individual. Scientific data just states how the universe works, and as such is open to logical debate and analysis. Theological or metaphysical concerns explain why things happen in a much more holistic, universal sense that interprets that scientific data in light of beliefs generated within the human mind. You can choose to believe as the Roman Catholic Church officially does that God manipulated evolution behind the scenes to produce the cosmos and life as we know it--that does not contradict the scientific data one bit: it only interprets it according to a certain belief system. You can choose as I do to just focus on the material evidence of science and regard theology or other teleogical explanations of the data to be completely unneeded. There is no logical way whatsoever to prove that I'm right or you're right--that battle would have to take place in the realm theological debate, which I won't even bother to engage in since I see no validity in it at all. But that doesn't mean that other people can't find validity there! Just don't try to mix the two worlds, because if you do, you become a creationist or an intelligent-design weenie...which is tantamount to saying you're a closet creationist.
Creationism is a load of shit simply because it mixes the two complementary--but not logically interconsistent--worlds of theology and science by attempting not to interpret scientific data according to a belief system, but to actually use that belief system to generate so-called scientific data. Einstein's beliefs no doubt inspired him to pursue certain avenues of scientific inquiry, but he did not (for the most part...until quantum physics came along) let them determine ahead of time what he was going to let the equations and the data tell him: he left his mind open there knowing that whatever he found, that was part of God's creation. He did not seek to let his beliefs determine his research; his research explained his beliefs, to some degree. Creationists like Duane Gish and Morris and that whole idiotic crew do not begin with a general hypothesis such as...say, "Let's figure out exactly how old the world is, but we suspect it to be about 6,000 years old" and then look for data to either confirm, deny, or revise this hypothesis--they set out with a theologically-determined end result already in mind, "We will prove the world is 6,000 years old exactly" and then bend, mutilate, and fabricate whatever data comes their way in order to fit that exact, predetermined solution. That's not science. That's applying theological teleology and eschatology to the data, rather than letting the data explain or help determine the reverse. There's simply no room whatsoever for theological speculation in science. But there's nothing wrong whatsoever with theological speculation based on scientific data!
So in the final estimation...there's nothing at all wrong with being a theistic evolutionist. But you cannot logically prove that theistic evolution is the best explanation for natural evolution because there's no info in the scientific data whatsoever that either confirms--or denies--that proposition. Believing that god is the tinkerer behind evolution is a matter of faith, and it does not contradict the data in any way--it just interprets it according to a person's belief systems. Teaching theistic evolution in a general highschool wouldn't make sense because you'd be mixing the theological and the scientific, and including unnecessary theological speculation in with raw data: that just doesn't cut it. To teach or even acknowledge "alternate views" in a classroom is ridiculous: all a classroom can teach is what data science has accrued over the years; any individual has complete freedom of conscience to believe in whatever he or she likes concerning the data learned...but no one should ever be forced to swallow someone else's theological views by inappropriately framing them within the logical framework of scientific theory. God may or may not exist, and that is a completely individual decision one has to make...but in terms of logic, and scientific understanding, God is unnecessary. So, as that great logical thinker Dave Coulier said, quoting Occam: Cut. It. Out. :)
OK. Go nuts!
rapier1, popejeremy, and beeporama! You guys fuckin' rock. I'm always happy to toss up a topic which engenders lively debate, and it's great to see folks on all sides of the bench checking in on the issue of the existence of Higher Powers, intelligent design, and so forth....Keep it up, gentlemen!In the meantime, though, rather than weigh in via individual comments that mayhap only one or two of y'all might witness directly, I'm going to post my thoughts on the subject here as a whole new thread....Read 'em and weep, boys!
I am a stonecold materialist. I do not believe one bit in a "spirit" world or a "transcendental plane" inhabited by any form of "god" ever acknowledged by human fancy...but that doesn't mean that I am opposed entirely to the concept of "higher powers" or mysterious occurrences such as time slips or some so-called "spectral" phenomena which may very well operate via physical laws we just haven't deduced or fully understood yet. But whatever these phenomena or entities may be, I am certain that they will turn out to be physical phenomena in the literal sense of being produced according to natural laws and functions of the universe itself. Human understanding of how the universe works increases every year, and it's ridiculous--and unwarranted--hubris to assume that we've already figured out so much that we can explain away everything we encounter according to the limited set of physical rules we've deduced so far. Science must naturally keep an open mind to any and all possibilities...but there are certain possibilities which just do not warrant pursuing (at least at this point and time) because they are, simply put, completely unnecessary.
Intelligent design is one of these. Could life on earth have been started off by...say, a roaming god or a race of interstellar terraformers interested in seeding simple lifeforms in any remotely-hospitable environment they could find? Certainly! Half a million science-fiction stories, movies, and so forth have been founded on this concept...and it's a neat way of thinking about things. In fiction. But in reality, is it necessary to invoke a designer to explain the complexity we currently see in the biological world around us and, for that matter, in the universe as a whole? No. The data does not in any way require the presence of a designer to allow it to make sense. Natural selection is a ridiculously simple concept: we may not know--or even have the means to fully know--the exact ways in which it has worked over the past (slow, gradual change...or punctuated equilibrium...or anything like that), but the data clearly shows that natural selection has taken place in a general sense over the past billion years. We have enough data taken from the fossil record, genome backtracking studies, mitochondrial DNA, and simple phenotypical analysis to see that there are clear patterns of relationships between lifeforms from a billion years ago up to and including today. Birds and reptiles are both clearly related to dinosaurs, insects derive from any one a hundred thousand different Cambrian lifeforms, contemporary palm trees derive at some remove from Carboniferous cycads, and so forth--we may not be able to figure out every little twig and turning in the evolutionary tree, but we sure as hell can identify the major branches with amazing accuracy! Is there a need for a belief in God, alien uplift specialists, or anything of the sort to explain the data? Not at all. There are plenty of mathematical models showing exactly how complex lifeforms can evolve over a sufficiently large span of time (such as the BILLION years complex chemistry--that is, life--has existed on this planet) from incredibly simple basic forms. Life itself is nothing more that complicated chemistry: one doesn't need a belief in the Christian God or ANY kind of designer(s) to see how complex hydrocarbons and replicating molecular systems can--and do--arise from any random pile of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon (give or take a few heavy metals and more complicated atoms here and there to act as catalysts) churning about in a sufficiently energetic environment.
God or anything like him/her/it is completely unnecessary and therefore I have no reason whatsoever to include or recognize the presence of such a being in my own understanding of the data. However...does this necessarily mean that other folks are inherently WRONG in believing in the existence of a God? Not one bit. Provided they acknowledge that attempting to justify their beliefs by scientific method is guaranteed to fail and therefore a worthless endeavour.
Faith and science are two totally different fields with their own unique, and prettymuch mutually exclusive, formal systems of proof-building. A theological proof and a scientific proof are two completely different things. Does that mean that they are inherently opposed to one another, or cancel each other out? HELL no! Albert Einstein had a rock-solid belief in God...and did it in any way hamper his scientific work? Well...yeah, actually it did--in terms of his accepting quantum physics and its indeterminacy. But Einstein's faith did not in any way wreck his special or general theories of relativity! Did the fact that Gregor Mendel was a Catholic monk influence or degrade his work in genetic inheritance? Nope. There are thousands of scientists in the world today who profess a myriad of different religious beliefs: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Jainists, Gnostics, Omega Pointers, atheists, agnostics...you name it--but in most cases their faiths do not influence or damage their scientific work because they clearly keep their faith separate from their equations. Scientific study does nothing more than analyze and explain how the universe works physically. How it works metaphysically is up to the theological prowess or understanding of the individual. Scientific data just states how the universe works, and as such is open to logical debate and analysis. Theological or metaphysical concerns explain why things happen in a much more holistic, universal sense that interprets that scientific data in light of beliefs generated within the human mind. You can choose to believe as the Roman Catholic Church officially does that God manipulated evolution behind the scenes to produce the cosmos and life as we know it--that does not contradict the scientific data one bit: it only interprets it according to a certain belief system. You can choose as I do to just focus on the material evidence of science and regard theology or other teleogical explanations of the data to be completely unneeded. There is no logical way whatsoever to prove that I'm right or you're right--that battle would have to take place in the realm theological debate, which I won't even bother to engage in since I see no validity in it at all. But that doesn't mean that other people can't find validity there! Just don't try to mix the two worlds, because if you do, you become a creationist or an intelligent-design weenie...which is tantamount to saying you're a closet creationist.
Creationism is a load of shit simply because it mixes the two complementary--but not logically interconsistent--worlds of theology and science by attempting not to interpret scientific data according to a belief system, but to actually use that belief system to generate so-called scientific data. Einstein's beliefs no doubt inspired him to pursue certain avenues of scientific inquiry, but he did not (for the most part...until quantum physics came along) let them determine ahead of time what he was going to let the equations and the data tell him: he left his mind open there knowing that whatever he found, that was part of God's creation. He did not seek to let his beliefs determine his research; his research explained his beliefs, to some degree. Creationists like Duane Gish and Morris and that whole idiotic crew do not begin with a general hypothesis such as...say, "Let's figure out exactly how old the world is, but we suspect it to be about 6,000 years old" and then look for data to either confirm, deny, or revise this hypothesis--they set out with a theologically-determined end result already in mind, "We will prove the world is 6,000 years old exactly" and then bend, mutilate, and fabricate whatever data comes their way in order to fit that exact, predetermined solution. That's not science. That's applying theological teleology and eschatology to the data, rather than letting the data explain or help determine the reverse. There's simply no room whatsoever for theological speculation in science. But there's nothing wrong whatsoever with theological speculation based on scientific data!
So in the final estimation...there's nothing at all wrong with being a theistic evolutionist. But you cannot logically prove that theistic evolution is the best explanation for natural evolution because there's no info in the scientific data whatsoever that either confirms--or denies--that proposition. Believing that god is the tinkerer behind evolution is a matter of faith, and it does not contradict the data in any way--it just interprets it according to a person's belief systems. Teaching theistic evolution in a general highschool wouldn't make sense because you'd be mixing the theological and the scientific, and including unnecessary theological speculation in with raw data: that just doesn't cut it. To teach or even acknowledge "alternate views" in a classroom is ridiculous: all a classroom can teach is what data science has accrued over the years; any individual has complete freedom of conscience to believe in whatever he or she likes concerning the data learned...but no one should ever be forced to swallow someone else's theological views by inappropriately framing them within the logical framework of scientific theory. God may or may not exist, and that is a completely individual decision one has to make...but in terms of logic, and scientific understanding, God is unnecessary. So, as that great logical thinker Dave Coulier said, quoting Occam: Cut. It. Out. :)
OK. Go nuts!
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Date: 2005-08-27 05:37 pm (UTC)Oh, yes, THANK YOU. On all counts.
I'm a Pantheist; I believe that all life forms part of a sentient superentity which, by virtue of being composed of the entirety of what exists, is omnipotent and omniscient. I also believe that particularly large metaphysical chunks of said entity may form themselves into beings of such power that we mere mortals would call them gods. Furthermore, I believe that several of said chunks bear uncanny resemblances to what a certain Mr. Gaiman depicted as the Endless in his seminal Sandman mythology, but that's by-the-by.
I do not believe that should have anything do with the patent ridiculosity of attempts to "defraud" science in the Light of Gawd.
Science is, as you say, an explanation of how it works. It's the rules. Who, if anyone, put the rules into place is as separate a matter as... well, as church and state. The world is the way it is, end rant; why it's the way it is, in a metaphysical sense, is the only realm in which theology should be concerning itself, not trying to make out the world is something it isn't.
This article is essential reading for theists and atheists alike, I believe. Linking. Glad I friended you, so very glad.