I actually agree, there is no explanation going on, it’s vacuous to say that the explanation for something is that it just is. Of course that doesn’t make it untrue; while we have a psychological preference for explanation(something that says why something is a certain way), that does not entail all things have explanations. What we want or what we desire does not dictate to reality. I think the most honest answer we can give to a question about why the fundamental nature of the universe is the way it is, is we don’t know.
But the problem then also applies to God’s nature. Why is God’s nature to be perfectly good, or to be omnipotent, or why does God exist? Some say it’s because God’s existence is a brute fact, others say it’s because his existence is necessary. That God is a necessary being. Okay, why is God necessary? … brute fact? Or you don’t know? Well if you don’t know why God is a necessary being, how do you know that he is a necessary being?
Not quite nothing. We can at least assess the justifications you mentioned and see that they don’t apply. Of course if all bets are off, justifications are meaningless anyway.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, Michael. Things got busy.
I referenced Calvinism because it presents God as orchestrating every event in a way that makes free will meaningless and must look for unique meaning in every disease, natural disaster or tragedy that results from human evil. I don’t think that’s the story that the Bible tells.
You didn’t have Calvinism in mind (my bad), but I thought you were attributing the presence of disease, or the existence of a particular gene in some humans, to God in a way that a Calvinist would (except they’d still say “God is good”). I don’t think God micromanages evolution or human choices. I think he has created a world where bacteria and viruses cause disease, where genetics do not evolve perfectly and then also, where humans selfishly hurt and destroy each other. All of these things are what I referred to as challenges. I think that the story the Bible tells is one where God wants us to face and overcome challenges. The Bible claims that God is good even while going into great detail about the challenges humans face.
You may reject this, which is fine, but the point of my post was to say that the Bible tells a story that’s different from the conclusions you are drawing.
I agree. I think the story that the Bible tells is that human evil added greatly to the violence and death present in the world. I also agree that the story doesn’t incorporate human evolution into the picture, but that’s because the authors of the Bible were making use of the history and stories that they knew in order to do theology. They didn’t know about human evolution so they couldn’t have made use of that history. But I believe that the theology is good even if the history they had access to was incomplete compared to our current knowledge base.
I believe that he wants to have relationship with us that fits your description. But relationship and micromanaging aren’t the same thing. I don’t believe the Bible presents God as micromanaging anything (individuals, nations, nature) except his rescue plan.
I’m not attempting to make a case for what you should believe. The intent of my post was (and still is) simply to present what I think the story of Bible says about whether God is good and how that relates to things like disease, natural disaster, and human evil.
Regardless of what you think about how I present the story that the Bible tells, I appreciate the interaction.
Yeah, I know that you may think the Bible is a basis that’s the same as “no” basis (not sure if Michael thinks that or not), however, since I consider the Bible a basis for my life, I’ll continue to regard it as a basis that is a basis for any who will consider it as such, including hard working Bible scholars. Fortunately, human existance is such that our difference in basis doesn’t have to prevent us from enjoying friendship and conversation!
No real quarrel, I think, but I would just point out one thing in relation to this:
I think that there is a distinction between considering something a “basis for my life” and considering it as providing evidentiary support for a proposition of fact. I have known people who do seem to derive life-guidance from Dickens, but who are not usually under the impression that finding guidance in that way corresponds to Nancy really having been murdered by Bill Sikes near London Bridge.
So when @Michael_Okoko suggests that Biblical scholars have little or no evidentiary ground, in their scholarly work, for making claims about the supernatural, I’d think that’s pretty clearly correct. It’s correct for the “hard working Bible scholars” you mention, and it’s even correct for the lazy and indolent ones. That isn’t a condemnation of anyone’s felt experience of faith, but it is sometimes important to understand the difference between knowing and feeling.
The evidence in the video did not support your claim of Behe taking evolutionary science to task. I am not sure you answered why you think this might be the case.
Is it possible his arguments might be an add to evolutionary theory if one is to accept the ideological implications of the design argument?
The evidentiary ground is based on their cognitive filter. A filter that starts with a created universe.
The universe itself is evidence of supernatural events including the Big Bang along with the origin of the forces of nature, the origin of living species and a world that is ecologically balanced.
Reasonable people can conclude this is evidence of a created universe and relative to creating a universe like ours a Divine prophet rising from the dead is a chip shot.
Your version of knowing is based on a cognitive filter that supports a specific worldview. Change that filter and the interpretation of evidence changes. I have experienced seeing the world through both filters and know the evidence looks very different depending on which one you are interpreting evidence through.
You can try save your argument with a tu quoque all you want. It won’t obscure the fact that you have admitted that your creationist position is based on a begged question (that the universe was “created”) and, therefore, fallacious.
Nah. Not really. It’s just based on evidentiary support. But I do appreciate you going full Derrida here. I hate it when postmodernism hides in the shadows.
This makes no sense considering God wants to get rid of disease, unnecessary pain and suffering in the future. If these things are worthy of being eliminated, it makes no sense to have created a world filled with them in the first place. That’s why the Bible seems to consistently emphasize there was a time when goodness prevailed but ended with the actions of selfish humans.
God created and placed us on a world where earthquakes, storms, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, asteroid strikes etcetera happen and expects us to overcome these challenges, how please?
Would you call yourself good if you intentionally put your kids in a playground filled with explosive landmines?
I don’t think so. The Bible never talks about an earth with unbridled suffering and pain, but one that was serene before humans came along. That world was corrupted by humans and will be restored in the future. The book of Isaiah talks about lions eating grass, and whether you take it literally or not, it sure tells you what the inspired writer expected under a world fully led by God.
Please quantitatively support this statement?
Failing to incorporate details of our evolution is a huge pitfall. There was violence and injustice long before Homo sapiens came along.
I disagree. Theology which the omits our evolutionary details to explain human death and violence (which can be sinful) is faulty. Romans 5:12 (NIV) says:
In the light of our natural history, that makes no sense. The fossil record indicates death has always been with us and ever since the earliest Sapiens emerged in Africa that did not change. Stealing, raping, killing were part of nature a long time before we appeared.
That’s fair.
Thus, our evolution proceeded unguided. If God was truly micromanaging our emergence we would not have some really crappy features like GULOP.
All I am saying too is that it makes no sense for a God said to be the epitome of love to create a world rife with death, undue pain and suffering.
Our back and forth is simply based on a different understanding of what the Bible is saying. I don’t want to continue to rehearse our differences, so I’ll just say this. I know that some Christian traditions teach some of the things that you’re saying, I just don’t think those traditions represent a reading that best fits the text. I could support what I’m saying (rather than just offering summaries) by creating a post that works through some passages (and would enjoy doing it), but I’m sorry to say that can’t offer that kind of time at the moment. I’ll end by just saying that the idea that God is good is a major theme that’s traced through the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testemant. So, any tradition that makes choices about the text that puts that theme in jeapordy, in my opinion, is not being faithful to the story that the Bible tells.
By asking this question I would assume you don’t consider there is any positive evidence that God created the universe as I know you have thought about this. Am I correct?
I could start to list evidence but if you don’t recognize that as evidence then we are at an impasse. This is why understanding cognitive filters is important to reaching any common ground.
It seems we’ve now totally and completely left the subjects of Michael Behe, common descent, irreducible complexity, and The Edge of Evolution - and you instead want to start a debate about theism and the existence of God. I recommend you start a new thread about that.
There’s only one cognitive “filter” relevant here, and that’s yours. And common ground will, because of it, not be reached. You can po-mo the thing to death and insist that reasoned scrutiny of empirical evidence is just another “cognitive filter,” no better or worse than any other, but you’re not likely to fool anyone that way.
At the end of the day your argument appears to require you assert what someone believes is evidence is indeed not evidence. As far as “reasoned scrutiny” I have yet to see any but I must admit that may be my own cognitive filter.
This is the exercise @T_aquaticus wants to go through. I agree that it is not worth the back and forth at this point and I agree with @Rumraket we have veered off the topic of the thread.
