In church we have a small discussion group exploring issues of faith and reason. A few sundays ago, we invited a friend who read stuffs by Dawkins+Dennett, a sharp guy who graduated from Oxford to give us a talk on evolution in church, followed by
some discussions. The face to face interaction helps and he's gracious enuff to do a good job at it.
During the discussion, I concentrated more on is 'Suppose all Darwinists claim is true, granting for the sake of discussion that human life can emerge from big bang to the formation of a life-suitable planet like earth to abiogenesis to evolution etc, how does that lead you to the conclusion that God does not exist? Could he not have supervised this whole process?'
It doesnt appear conclusive that one has to be an atheist if one is a evolutionist, aka theistic evolution is a possible option.
Basically I'm granting all the evolutionary evidence and data and say "Where does this lead? Does it lead to the 'proof' that God is not?"
The best shot one can give is the God hypothesis doesn't explain anything, it's unnecessary. But why think so? Suppose that I am driving to Singapore along the PLUS highway on a rainy day and i can observe lightning strike a tree, which fell causing a landslide, and as the rocks and waters rush down formed the word "Welcome to Singapore", I wud still infer to the best explanation that there is a 'mind' involved because there is information (despite the fact that i observed these words forming 'naturalistically')
When we compare that phrase to the complex programming info we find in the DNA, it makes the analogy much more compelling.... Bill Gates look at the DNA and says it's like programming codes. And he knows to have such you need to hire intelligent programmers, not lightning and amino acids alone.
At least thats how i see it :)
some discussions. The face to face interaction helps and he's gracious enuff to do a good job at it.
During the discussion, I concentrated more on is 'Suppose all Darwinists claim is true, granting for the sake of discussion that human life can emerge from big bang to the formation of a life-suitable planet like earth to abiogenesis to evolution etc, how does that lead you to the conclusion that God does not exist? Could he not have supervised this whole process?'
It doesnt appear conclusive that one has to be an atheist if one is a evolutionist, aka theistic evolution is a possible option.
Basically I'm granting all the evolutionary evidence and data and say "Where does this lead? Does it lead to the 'proof' that God is not?"
The best shot one can give is the God hypothesis doesn't explain anything, it's unnecessary. But why think so? Suppose that I am driving to Singapore along the PLUS highway on a rainy day and i can observe lightning strike a tree, which fell causing a landslide, and as the rocks and waters rush down formed the word "Welcome to Singapore", I wud still infer to the best explanation that there is a 'mind' involved because there is information (despite the fact that i observed these words forming 'naturalistically')
When we compare that phrase to the complex programming info we find in the DNA, it makes the analogy much more compelling.... Bill Gates look at the DNA and says it's like programming codes. And he knows to have such you need to hire intelligent programmers, not lightning and amino acids alone.
At least thats how i see it :)
Comments
One 'problem' with the intelligent design movement (of which I'm a big fan) is that it can be seen to take the problem one step backwards. Whereas in the past, "no one could explain" how lifeforms arose, now it seems that "no one can explain" how the code can emerge by itself. Yet perhaps one day someone shall?
Still, it'd be interesting to hear what your friend had to say about the evidence raised against evolution by Phil Johnson & co. I still think 'Darwin on Trial' is the be-all and end-all of anti-evolution books!
But having said that, I dun think the ID case is a just version of the 'god of the gaps' argument ie a case for design based on our (current) ignorance. The way its proponents argue it is based on what we do know and things we increasingly know more about are pointing to an intelligent design