Reciprocating Bill
Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006
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| Quote (Daniel Smith @ Nov. 25 2008,19:40) | | So what exact mechanism did God use? I can't say that I know, but I do know this: It is the same mechanism that you use every day - creativity channeled through some sort of natural medium. If you talk, you are using creativity channeled through your voicebox out into the air. If you write, you are using creativity channeled through your hand and your pen, onto a piece of paper. If you build a chair, you are using creativity channeled through your bodily implements and handtools, onto wood, glue, etc. If you were able to make life, you'd use creativity channeled through some means of manipulating atoms onto the molecular structures that make up life. |
And, by implication, there it is. The long awaited suggestion that there is something supernatural about human intelligence and agency that is merely "channeled" through human brains and observable behavior. Of course, this follows from the ensoulment of individual persons and the origination of "creativity" with that soul. Welcome Spatula Brain.
| Quote | | Now, is it because I don't know exactly what tool (if any) God used to manipulate atoms that you're contending I have "no mechanism"? |
You don't know approximately what tool (if any) God used. You haven't the faintest notion. You don't have a clue whether it was one God or a quadrillion competing Gods, one for each individual organism. You have no way to discern which. You have no idea whether God executed his plan by a single act of creativity at a single moment or a quadrillion tiny acts over a billion years. And so on.
Idea: I'd say that if you claim an explanatory mechanism, you should be able to say something firm about your explanation, and support that with evidence. If, conversely, you are unable to, say, distinguish between one God or a quadrillion (one for each organism), you don't really have a claim at all.
So, Daniel, what's your empirical evidence that it was one God, and not a quadrillion, that authored life like little automobiles?
(Hint: whatever you say, I can cook up an ad hoc response consistent with your fundamental assertion. Example: "I see common design in the cells throughout life, which is evidence of a single designer who reused his designs." Answer: "Gods are both lazy and omniscient, so copy one another effortlessly." And so on. Would my ad hoc responses have any support? No more or less than anything you've said.)
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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace
"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington
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