I don't follow you. I am not claiming that life was designed by any designer, so why should I be interested in providing evidence for the same, especially when no objective evidence exists.
No one claimed that you claimed life was designed by a creator. What was noted was that you don't have a basis for saying "Where is the evidence?!" and saying others are speculating when you already did just that claiming that life doesn't have a designer. That's equivocation.
Claiming no objective evidence exists doesn't show at any point that objective evidence of design does not exist. It is an opinion without any real case - and thus, there's no reason one should be concerned when you speak on "evidence" since you've not kept to your own standard. That's no different than what occurred when s
peaking on the George Zimmerman case and claiming the man was justified in shooting simply because he shot Trayvon (as has been discussed before).
Evidence showing a God doesn't exist? Are you serious? When have a claimed to have evidence of this? Do you have evidence to show any of the many Gods produced by man don't exist?
Distracting from the point that you really have no arguments to show that God objectively doesn't exist - but still wish to claim that science doesn't show theism to be true. That's not really a good foot to stand on...and an emotional argument doesn't objectively show why God doesn't exist. As it is, much of science was already begun by others believing in God.
I believe I have done so earlier already - but in the event it was missed, I will say it again: There's an excellent work that addresses the issue of God and Science by Ravi Zacharias entitled "Beyond Opinion"... In the book, Brother Ravi discussed the myth of conflict between science and religion...discussing the many scientists who are believers in God. Notable examples of scientists at the highest levels who believe in God would others such as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Bill Phillips and the director of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, who are convinced Christians. As Ravi noted, the gulf between the two groups of scientists has little to do with conflict between science and religion but everything to do with worldviews. For one group espouses naturalism, whereas the other espouses Christian Theism. Naturalism, often citing David Hume, denies the miraculous in the name of science...whereas Theism does not. Naturalism denies creation, holding that the universe is ultimately self-explanatory and that human beings are nothing special in the schem of things---since, in fact, there is no scheme of things. Theism, however, says that there is an eternal/self-existent and personal God who created and upholds the universe while also being distinct from it (Genesis 1:1, John 1:1, Col 1:16, etc).
Ravi discussed in the book how the conflict others often talk about with science/religion is really one that is a worldview conflict...and therefore, the key question would be which worldview does science fit most comfortably? In light of the history of science and the methodology of science (as well as discoveries of science), I'd go with Theism. Nobel Prize winner in biochemistry, Melvin Calvin, is someone who has spoken much on the issue....
As C.S Lewis said, "Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver." Galileo (1564-1642), Kelper (1571-1630), Pascal (1623-1662), Boyle (1627-1691), Newton (1642-1727), Faraday (1791-1867), Babbage (1792-1871), Mendel (1822-1884), Pasteur (1822-1895), Kelvin (1824-1907), and Clerk-Maxwell (1831-1879) were all theists, most of them Christians. Their belief in God, far from being a hindrance to their science, was often the main inspiration for it....for as Johannes Kepler wrote, "The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics. " ( Astronomia Nova De Motibus )
And leaving God OUT of the picture has often led to a lot of problems - especially as it concerns evolution when defended from an atheistic perspective. There are a few honest individuals who admit that evolutionary theory does (if holding it from an atheistic worldview) influence attitudes and morals in an manner leading to arbitrary values. Social Darwinism claims that all the behaviors we do we do because they provide some selective advantage to the individual or the species. For example, evolutionists can explain reciprocal altruism ("I scratch your back, you scratch mine"), but have had difficulty explaining altruistic acts done by humans that are not likely to be returned by the recipient. However, in a 1999 issue of Nature entitled "Give and Ye Shall Be Recognized" , Nowak and Sigmund attempted to explain why such behavior can pay off in the long run and so be evolutionarily stable. According to their main idea, whether an individual helps others determines his or her social status in the group. Indirect reciprocity can evolve if the others take this information into account in future social interactions. Therefore, evolutionists are attempting to explain all behavior (even that done at sacrifice to the individual) in terms of evolutionary theory
In a recent book,
A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, authors Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer claim that rape is "a natural, biological phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage," just like "the leopard's spots and the giraffe's elongated neck." In other words, rape is a biological "adaptation" that allows undesirable males the opportunity to pass on their genes. According to Randy Thornhill, "Every feature of every living thing, including human beings, has an underlying evolutionary background. That's not a debatable matter." According to the anthropology department at the University of California Santa Barbara, "That rape might be an adaptation is a reasonable hypothesis to pursue, and the proper framework is intersexual conflict." If rape is just an evolutionary adaptation, then how can it be immoral?
Nature is not an ethical agent. Nature has no cognitive functions. Nature does not care to assure the survival of any particular species. Moreover, nature would not logically or necessarily support, our basic view of, ethics such as compassion since the strong would be helping the weak survive and would therefore dilute the species with the genes of the less fit (although reciprocity may play a par here). Nature is quite please if you propagate your species while eating others.
As Professor Richard Dawkins said in support of that statement:
In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
There's no logical way to escape the reality that one needs a Supernatual reality to make sense of the natural one.
Why I Am Not an Atheist
Again, one cannot talk on the subject of facts when seeing what plays out in science and ignore the other side as it concerns morality being an issue of fact as well - one that we ALL suscribe to when it comes to seeing what takes place in reality and then making a worldview out of it.
We have the TOE to explain how we have evolved to where we are and it is loaded with objective verifiable and empirical evidence in it's explanation.
Obviously - and seeing that no one was speaking AGAINST TOE, it is a moot point - and one that has already been shared on ( (As noted before
here,
here and
here and
#277 when the issue came up ). I am already aware of the history of TOE - so it's not really an issue. That has been in place for a long time -
other works on the issue have come out ....
The Phenomenon of Man was one of the first systematic attempts at a theology we now call "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creation" and ties the phenomenon of evolution to redemption in Christ. It was published in 1953
What is an issue is where you cannot show where the facts in science show that God doesn't exist - nor can you show where it's NOT a fact that your life has significance and isn't on the level of something to be discarded easily simply because one feels so.
And by the way, Francis Collins thinks the evidence for evolution is pretty strong too. If you want to add a God to the TOE, be my guest, but the theory works just fine without one.
Not really about adding God to anything - as the fact of the matter is that it was already understood that Francis Collins supports evolution. That's why he's a Theistic Evolutionist - and as said before, has noted how life cannot be explained without God being present before. One needs to catch up if missing that very simple fact that Francis has gone out of the way to make plain multiple times...
This is basic when it comes to his work
at Bio Logos... And as he has said already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5sMva2ydoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoS-OG7R5cM