Continual Creation

[tof]

1. It is also scientifically acceptable that some of the mutations are casued by deity. See below for quote from Dawkins about this.

2. It is also scientifically acceptable that theistic evolution replaces "random" by "God ordained". See Eugenie Scott at the end of the post.

3. Theistic evolution does not make God directly responsible for genetic diseases, because not ALL mutations have to be caused directly by God.

First Dawkins. (note that Dawkins in the last sentence also mistakenly uses evolution as being atheism)
"Darwinism is widely misunderstood as a theory of pure chance. Mustn't it have done something to provoke this canard? Well, yes, there is something behind the misunderstood rumour, a feeble basis to the distortion. One stage in the Darwinian process is indeed a chance process -- mutation. Mutation is the process by which fresh genetic variation is offered up for selection and it usually described as random. But Darwinians make the fuss that they do about the "randomness" of mutation only in order to contrast it to the non-randomness of selection, the other side of the process. It is not necessary that mutation should be random in order for natural selection to work. Selection can still do its work whether mutation is directed or not. Emphasizing that mutation can be random is our way of calling attention to the crucial fact that, by contrast, selection is sublimely and quintessentially non-random. It is ironic that this emphasis on the contrast between mutation and the non-randomness of selection has led people to think that the whole theory is a theory of chance. ...
One could imagine a theoretical world in which mutations were biased toward improvement. Mutations in this hypothetical world would be non-random not just in the sense that mutations induced by X-rays are non-random: these hypothetical mutations would be systematically biased to keep one jump ahead of selection and anticipate the needs of the organism ...
Darwinians wouldn't mind if such providential mutations were provided. It wouldn't undermine Darwinism, though it would put paid to its claims for exclusivity: a tailwind on a transatlantic flight can speed up your arrival in an agreeable way, and this doesn't undermine your belief that the primary force that got you home is the jet engine." R Dawkins, Climbing Mt. Improbable, pp 80- 82.

"...scientists can be more careful about how they use terms. For example, evolutionists sometimes confuse the evidence we have for considerable contingency during the course of evolution with evidence for a lack of ultimate purpose in the universe. Fuytuma writes, 'Perhaps most importantly, if the world and its creatures developed purely by material, physical forces, it could not have been designed and has no purpose or goal...Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and it the product of more material mechanism -- but this seems to be the message of evolution.' (20) GC Simpson is regularly quoted with dismay by creationists as saying 'Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.' (21) A theist might respond that we do not know what God's purpose is or what he planned. It is possible that if there is an omnipotent, omniscient deity, it was part of its plan to bring humans and every other species about precisely in what seems to us the rather zig-zag, contingency-prone fashion that the fossil record suggests. Of course, this would be a theological statement, but that, indeed, is the point. Saying that 'there is no purpose to life' is not a scientific statement. We are able to explain the world and its creatures using materialist, physical processes, but to claim that this then requires us to conclude that there is no purpose in nature steps beyond science into philosophy. One's students may or may not come to this conclusion on their own; in my opinion, for a nonreligious professor to interject his own philosophy into the classroom in this manner is as offensive as it would be for a fundamentalist professor to pass off his philosophy as science." Eugenie Scott in the essay Creationism in The Flight from Science and Reason, New York Academy of Sciences, volume 775, 1995, pg 519.

Thanks for your explanations. I was mistaken in thinking that the OP implied that all mutations were caused by God.
I was not aware of this kind of belief, it may be a cultural thing.
The Christians I know don't think that God acts directly on genes, but that the universe he created allows for mutations to happen, and that's it. This removes the difficulty of finding which mutations are caused by God, and which are not, because in the end, all mutations are caused by God, as he decided that they would be random.
After your post, I'm not sure which is the most theologically sound, I'd like your view on this, please.

This said, these Christians believe that God acts directly upon us on a spiritual level, through the soul that he gave humans. There's no disagreement between us on what science discovers, we just don't share the same beliefs, and science has nothing to do with it.

On another note, I found that some regions of the chromosomes are more prone to mutations than others, they're called hot-spots (one example is given here).
Does that mean that in fact mutations are not random?
TIA

 

[Ratjaws]

from: Lucaspa

"ALL knowledge is personal experience. Science deals with a SUBSET of personal experience called "intersubjective". That is, it is personal experience that is the same for EVERYONE under approximately the same circumstances. What the atheists are doing is defining ONLY intersubjective experience as valid. This is what you states as: 'The problem with the atheist perspective is that the evidence required is so strict that most of what the average person knows is disqualified by the method.'"

Let's look at this idea of knowledge a little closer. What is it? What is involved in obtaining knowledge? We know being with our mind. Our mind is made for truth (truth is conformity of the mind to reality). Knowledge of being comes through our sense perception and is conceived with our intellect (in our mind). The substance of our mind takes on the form of that being we perceive with our five senses. We call this "being informed" and what informs the mind "information." There is a one to one correspondence between our mind and that being in reality we perceive through our five senses. Thus it cannot be said that our knowledge is just "personal experience" because that implies we are not all the same. Taken far enough it undermines objectivity of knowledge. We are all human beings, different in personality, but like in nature. The function of our being is human in that we all are rational creatures... we have use of intellect and will. By our process of intellection we come to know each being we perceive whereas the form of that being we perceive through our senses is impressed upon our mind with it's form. In other words our mind takes on the form of that being it receives through the bodily faculties in a different mode called thought. When we know a tree we do not know "something of it" or just have a surface understanding (it's changing accidens) rather we ingest all that tree is in the way or mode of our knowing. This is to say we not only know it's color and shape and odor, etc... but it's "treeness." We perceive not just the particulars but the universals of each being.
Therefore, what you call "the same for everyone under approximately the same circumstances" alludes to only a surface knowledge of being. These "circumstances" can and do change constantly and this is what is called accidens (the accidental categories). Yet each of us is capable of knowing the deeper abiding nature of any given being and this knowledge as I've said before comes through or after the "scientific" (is a posteriori) since science and philosopy depend on observation. We are said to abstract or pull from being this knowledge through the accidentals. If this were not possible either because we had no faculty to do so (a spiritual power) or because this depth of nature were not in being then we could never know an individual being. Thus study even on the scientific level would not be possible since we must study specific beings. That is why all this is so important and while philosophers have discovered this ability is common to man most of us never realize we participate nor do so this deeply. We don't consciously go around thinking or saying "I'm going to see what's abstract in this being" yet we do know to a greater depth than the changes in front of us. Each of us pulls out of being to some degree it's abiding aspects, of course depending upon how much this ability has not been taught out of us. And here lies the problem with atheism which tries to reduce nature to the accidentals. This is what lies behind materialism and what has been called "scienticism" or "scientistic belief," where the scientist seeks to eradicate all knowledge of substantial being. One way is to say metaphysics is unimportant to the scientific discipline. And this problem (we both agree is there) is not just rooted in "personal experience" because we all personally experience our world. We all just don't do so to the same degree or consciousness. More to the point within this experience each of us is capable of having we either penetrate being deeply in our understanding or we don't. The latter case can be willed by us or so to speak taught out of us by a poor understanding of human nature and it's powers to know being with the mind.
A scientist does not have to acknowledge the deeper essence of the being he studies in his work but as a person it's folly to insist only these secondary aspects of nature exist. My point is that we are all persons first, and some of us scientists secondarily, and we don't just give up our humanness to do science. In our society we have persons in the field of science and other well meaning but ignorant people going around convincing others that all we need to know our world is science... and this is false! As I've said before our tools of science give us useful knowledge to manipulate nature at the surface level (yes, smashing atoms is a secondary quality of nature we've learned to control) but we must know nature's essence in order to properly understand why we are here and what is ethical.

"'When it comes down to definition only an immediate observation by a person is permissable which means common knowledge such as the existence of Galileo, Newton or Einstein's is disallowed.'
Actually, the atheists aren't being this strict, since they are admitting that past events not under immediate observation -- such as evolution -- are valid. What they do say is that the past event must have intersubjective evidence today. For these three individuals that is available in the form of historical documents. For your grandparents, that may or may not be true depending on record keeping and all the evidence may be only your memories and your personal experience."
I'm sorry, you seem to have misunderstood my point. Allow me to put it another way. The problem is we (Christians) are required to adhere to a strict surface or secondary knowledge of being while those who accuse us of forcing religious dogmas on science are not. The truth be known even Christians make this mistake under the worldview of biblical fundamentalism. The problem is therefore more in an inconsistancy with language and action. That Galileo existed in this world is a reality. Whether history preserves this truth or not is unimportant to the reality and therefore truth itself. If we are to know about the existence of persons and events in the past (or present for that matter) there must be a way to transmit the information. And as I've laid out above the very nature of our humanity makes it possible that history and science be done by the handing on of information. The method, whether it be scientific or historic (through secondary experience or indirect evidence) or actual experience on our part is not as important as that of our ability to know by any of these means, and to know surface categories or essential being. When a person says only "scientific evidence" or "fact" is admissible they mean I have to approve of this as being true by their own direct sensible experience. They don't hold to this criteria always because it's impossible to do in their everyday life and my point is it's also unnecessary to the scientific method, and furthermore a hindrance to science itself. It constrains science because it convinces persons who may or may not be scientists that the method of observation brings us to know essential nature which it does not. As I've pointed out above the scientific method can not do this nevertheless it does point to what is essential in nature if it is done and interpreted correctly. If science is taught wrong and/or we are taught science has capabilities it has not then we will mistake it's product for what is substantial (IE. thinking our discovery of subatomic particles is the same as knowing nature's essence). A whole multitude of other errors come out of this mistake in thinking such as assuming mathematical formula are synonymous with nature's essential workings. We see this all the time in publication and discussion today so it's not as if I'm speaking of a problem in the future. It's a problem now that hinders the progress of science and the other disciplines (philosophy and theology) now.
"So, the problem is not "revelation overriding all observation" but rather a false worship of the Bible as inerrant on all matters. Or rather, a false worship of THEIR interpretation of the Bible."
I agree the problem is an exaggerated emphasis on the bible's importance in matters of science and the way Christian fundamentalists claim their interpretation as "God's word." But I also know it does override all observation. All of this is true at once and needs to be recognized and corrected by balance which does not go to the other extreme and call revelation unnecessary and human observation and reason the ultimate route to all knowledge.
"So, science cannot comment on whether God exists or whether God created. Science CAN comment on HOW God created, since any mechanism of creation leaves evidence in the physical universe we can study. The mechanism of creation that is creationism is NOT how God created. The error of creationists is linking the method of creation to the existence of God. Militant atheists make the same error because it is the only way they can scientifically "falsify" the existence of God."
Let me be more explicit... reason tells us God exists and science uses our faculty of reason therefore in some sense science tells us God exists! As for "any mechanism of creation leaves evidence in the physical universe we can study" this is not absolutely true. Assuming God created all that existed in the beginning "in an instant" there are no mechanisms to study. I'm not insisting this is how God called creation into existence but it is a possibility the human mind must consider and therefore the tool of science must used accordingly. I've heard some mock the idea of God creating Adam with signs of age but this kind of comment merely overlooks what age really is. Age in being is a function of time and biological maturation. It's not irrational to suggest Adam as being formed fully mature and not "aged" as if the two were the same. Not to mention the breakdown and deterioration of our body is a result of Original Sin and it's effects known as loss of the preternatural gifts. These gifts kept Adam and Eve from suffering and death as we know it including what's termed aging in the detrimental sense. There is no reason to assume Adam and Eve's children, had they been conceived and born prior to the Fall, would not have aged in the sense of growth and maturity both on the biological (material) and mental (spiritual) level. We also are subject to this but with the further "curse" of physical breakdown and deterioration that Adam and Eve and their progeny need not experience had they not sinned. This latter development we all experience called growing old need not have been a part of God's original plan. Likewise if Adam had somehow been brought into existence in the "shell of an ape" it's quite possible no aging took place. In this scenario we can only speculate that Eve was in some way mysteriously pulled from Adam thus a true human generation as her source was. The "mechanism" in these cases may be beyond the purview of science and all our instruments which extend our powers of observation even into the past. This idea can be more properly called a mystery of which all miracles are and are apart from the ordinary which science studies. Of course maybe neither of these cases are true and some other true "mechanism" of nature was used by God? In which case science must assertain this by it's method which at the same time cannot outlaw these first two probabilities. We can never forget that science is NOT alone and must acknowledge that human reason is the cause of our ability to do science in the first place. Thus along with the scientific method we must entertain philosophical conjecture and musing as we try to solve these profound mysteries. Furthermore your insistance that God's work must be mechanistic falls prey to atheism's claim of naturalism and the error that nature is substantially analogous to mechanical artifacts. On the contrary, the difference between artificial mechanisms and nature is as great as the difference between nature and her Source... infinity! That God is not bound by mechanisms or laws of nature only serves to complicate our discovery of "how God did it." Development of being after the creation is discernable as you suggest so I don't disagree with you in all matters.

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[Ratjaws]

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"It doesn't work that way. Science has NO outside limitations on what hypotheses it can formulate ABOUT THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. Since man's "innate being" as in the theological relationship of humans to God is NOT part of the physical universe, science can't legitimately comment. However, science is NOT constrained by the "dust of the ground" statement to saying that humans were literally formed from dust. Instead, if the physical universe contradicts a particular interpretation of the Bible, then the interpretation must be changed. This has been the rule in Christianity from the beginning. Creationists simply don't want to obey that rule but instead want, like you, their interpretation to restrain science."
On the contrary, "the soul expresses itself through the body" as Pope John Paul II has said (an ontologically Thomistic statement). The pagan Greeks knew this truth even if in partial understanding. While science may study "about the physical universe" it indirectly studies the spiritual universe precisely because of what the holy Father and Greeks say. Without it's form a physical body cannot exist. The accidens must inhere to some substantial being or they cannot exist. Color of a body cannot "be" without the substantive body. In other words when we die our body ceases to function as a living human being because the soul no longer forms that body. A soul that does not form a body cannot express itself through that body in the way of life. Therefore science is limited by spiritual realities and again here is where ethics come into play. It is wrong to kill a person not because it causes pain or in some way harms (their body) but because the soul has a dignity that is affected by the body. This is seen from the moral level as a disgrace. At a lower level, say for a plant, it's soul is the cause of why it's matter forms into red petals and a long green stem. It's non-rational soul is why the plant vegetates and and does not think. So any hypothesis that says, for instance, an animal has use of reason, is flawed in principle because it violates understanding at this fundamental level of substantial being. The principle is found in the spiritual nature of the soul and NOT in the physical nature of the body. Thus the soul limits what science can say about the matter forming the body of any specific individual being. Hypothesis or not, what you've done is take on Descartes thinking in your understanding of the world. It was Descartes who gave us this split between the spiritual and physical natures found in all being. And contrary to popular belief orthodox Christian teaching has never bought into this bifurcation of nature that the so called Enlightenment thinkers gave us. The spiritual realm is intimately "connected" to our physical world even though science cannot directly experiment on it. Nevertheless, scientists must take into account this reality when interpreting the datum of scientific research. The soul limits body so it also puts limits on what science can do to or tell us about that body which it studies.
However, at the same time as this is said I partially agree with you that science is not constricted by fundamentalist interpretations of biblical texts. The truth resides in those Genesis texts and must be heeded if science is not to go astray in it's speculation over nature. That God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life simply means what I've said above. God is the ultimate principle of cause for man who being composed of the same matter found in nature comes to life by the soul caused by "God's breath." No soul and you have only a corpse! Science can see the difference!!! Science is affected by the spiritual realm even though it cannot test for soul and this is why I've brought up quantum theory in the past. At this level of nature funny things happen to known laws such as Einstein exposed in his theory of Relativity. That a "particle" of matter acts both as a particle and a wave is an anomaly to known physical laws of nature. Adjustments in thinking about nature's essence came about because scientists could no longer account for these quirks. There would be no need for such changes had there not been this bifurcation I've spoken of before. The modern scientific world sees nature at fundamental levels as though it were the same as what our eyes perceive daily which is why atoms were once thought to be planetary systems. Now the language in quantum physics has become more and more ambiguous to compensate for these mysterious realities that make nature unpredictable at a microcosmic level. The problem is not the physics but the metaphysics being used. The world view is flawed, not the scientific method. The physical world is accidental to the spiritual and cannot exist without it. Take away the form and it's not that the body would be formless but that it would cease to exist. So not only does a grain of sand have it's own form (you could call this "soul" but it's not normally termed this) but even an atom or subatomic particle must have something to form it or it could not exist. In other words form and matter are necessary to being even though science only can study matter. No form, nothing to study! The visible realities science studies must therefore point to the invisible realities that cause and therefore account for all bodily matter.
"Quote:
With this said I can move on to the subject of God's existence. Can we know of this apart from divine revelation and faith? The answer to this is in the affirmative! As St. Thomas Aquinas states we can know with certainty that God exists by reason alone.
Sorry, but all of Aquinas' logical arguments have been shown to have flaws. Also, remember that after he made these arguments, Aquinas said that he had personal experiences of God that made all the logical arguments worthless!

Also, in science, logic and reason are not enough to make a statement true. Reason alone is NEVER enough in science. Instead, one must ALWAYS have direct experience of the universe."
Seems to me now you are changing your tune, Lucaspa, since you've said indirect evidence or experience in the form of information passed on from person to person is acceptable to the scientific endeavor. If not we are back to the same old problem of each of us having to reinvent the wheel with our personal experience of every scientific claim made. Each of us would have to use a telescope, microscope, particle accelerator, radio spectrometer, etc., in order to obtain the direct evidence needed in every case to fit this materialist doctrine of strict observation alone. This supposition is wrong and it's not scientific! In all I've been saying I've been trying to make clear that both the scientific method and metaphysics (philosophical inspection and reflection) are based on observation, direct and indirect, of the universe. Both are valid means to knowledge and both supply a different understanding of reality found in being all around us. As for St. Thomas Aquinas' logical flaws you should back up your statement with them. But be careful you don't assume that one error in judgment makes all judgments wrong... this is not necessarily true. As for the fact that St. Thomas had direct experience with God I can see no reason this would disqualify his logical arguments but instead I see that the two could support each other. This is true because Aquinas' philosophical arguments and experience of God are directed toward the same reality. God being the source of all reality including that of creation means our study of the created order in some way informs us of God's nature and power, something St. Paul knew well and immortalized in scripture to the Romans (chapter one). I'd ask you, that something has been put down on paper so to speak, does this disqualify it's veracity? Is any truth disqualified simply because it is written down or communicated in some other way or experienced directly? No! Truth is truth and will always remain so whether we experience it for ourselves or through the experience of another person, oral or written, or both! Truth is transferable, knowable, and certain, always and everywhere. On the other hand our own understanding of reality may be flawed but this just means we don't have the full truth (not that we have no truth). If we have truth to the degree we do our mind is in conformity to some real being, including God, who is the source of all contingent being. The fact that God must be continually present to all natural being science studies means as we look at nature we are looking at God as though through a mirror. This reflection is not as perfect as the Examplar itself nevertheless there is a correspondence between the reflection and the Source.
My point concerning logic and reason was to be taken in relation to metaphysics and not just physics. Both have need of this fundamental intellectual order and power but each ends in a different type of knowledge about the same being under scrutiny. Reasoning from the scientific method gives us insight into the changing nature of being while reasoning from metaphysics gives us deeper insight into essential being. The two inputs come togehter in knowledge to give us a whole picture of each being and therefore reality and God who is behind all that is. Science alone gives us a partial view of reality but let it also be said that philosophy alone gives us a partial view of reality too. We need them both as well as the insight drawn from divine revelation under the form of theological doctrine and dogma. I reject none! Atheists and Christian fundamentalists reject different aspects of these three important sources of knowledge which is what puts them in the classification they are in and is why they cannot see and understand particular and certain aspects of reality that exist in front of them. Both have a blindness that is cureable if only they will it to be so. All of us require humility if we want to know all of reality and to it's fullest. Not even I am exempt from this prerequisite!

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[Ratjaws]

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"Quote:
This philosophical deduction starts with the same matter science works with... observation of the world around us ...and works from there. The scientific method is an effective tool because as we look at all things in our universe we see one effect is caused by another. As we look back through cause and effect we ultimately must end in either a first Cause or infinitely regress.
The problem here is that there is more than one candidate for First Cause, and the other candidates give us a universe without having to have God create it. See the thread "First Cause" if you want to continue this further.[QUOTEFrom this we show that knowledge of God's existence is a reasonable proposition known through reason."
Ok, I'm game! What are the other candidates for first Cause? What else is self-sufficient? What other "first cause" has within itself all the various beings, their attributes and natures, all their perfections, that we see so numerous in our universe, and to an infinite degree? You can't call it "evolution" because by definition this is a process and not a being. The first Cause must be a being because being comes from it (as well as process). You can't call it chance or randomness since these don't have within themselves order and law... yet we see all four in our universe. You can call it nature but then this begs the question once again... what is nature's cause? When it comes right down to it science must have specificity in order to exist. The scientific method cannot work on universals, although it categorizes being into classes based on their universal physical characteristics. Still science does not study the whatness of being in terms of "catness" or "leafiness" or "orangeness" or "triangleness." Science may bisect a line or draw up relationship between the sides and angles of a triangle but it cannot tell us what makes a triangle three sided and a square four. These kinds of questions are left for the philosopher. Scientific study can tell us that there are biological differences between male and female but only metaphysics can explain what makes and why a human being is male or female. This is true because male and femaleness go as deep as the soul so that one can change their physical body all they want and never eradicate their maleness or femaleness. When they try they end up being mutants, they become like a handicapped person whose soul cannot fully express itself through their defective body. Only the cause of a person's handicap is a mistake of nature while one who has mutilated his/her body has willfully, albeit ignorantly, attempted to change what cannot be changed. The male and female genitalia exist because an immaterial soul caused their body matter to form genetically the way it has. Change the soul and you can change the essence of matter's form! But alas science cannot work with the soul as has been said over and over in these dialogues. A woman carries the egg for human reproduction while a man the seed. Changing human genitals can never cause a reversal of this natural order, the organization simply becomes disorganized and the agent infertile. We cannot change the nature of being we can only work within it.
"What we show from this is that the HYPOTHESIS of the existence of God is reasonable. That is, when you ask the question "Why does the universe exist?" a reasonable answer is "Because God created it". But this is not PROOF of God because there are other possible answers. Since none of the possible answers have been falsified, all are considered by science as viable answers. God CAN exist by science, but science won't tell you that God DOES exist. Science is still agnostic on the question."
Again, it's not proof if the only allowed evidence is that of direct observational experience alone. But according to what you've said in the past this type of evidence is not the only kind of proof for reality. We can obtain our proofs from reason alone... TOO! This is why I brought up St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle to name but a few. God is known by reasoning from what we sense, to be the cause of ourselves and of what we sense. God is the first Cause, the uncaused Cause of all that exists and science works with the visible portion of all that exists. Thus God is known indirectly through use of the scientific method precisely and unequivocally because He exists in behind and maintains the existence of all being... of all created things that have matter and energy as their visible and physical basis. We know God indirectly through use of science because it reflects His nature and power just as we know an artist through his art. If science were agnostic as you say it would be blind, incapable of observation, yet observation of cause and effect is at it's basis. Science is not blind any more than faith is blind. Science sees the visible universe while pointing to (begging) the existence of invisible substantial being. Invisible substance points to God as the first uncaused Cause and sustainer of substantial and accidental being.

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[Ratjaws]

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"The difference with God and religious experiences is that it is NOT possible for each of us to have the experience. You and I can't go back in time and put our hands in the nailholes or spear wound of the risen Jesus like Thomas did. You are not forced to trust the experiences of those who have seen the ESB, but we are forced to trust that the account of Thomas' experience in the gospel."
What you are doing is painting yourself into a corner again if you insist "You COULD visit" places like the World Trade Center after September 11th, 2001. Since we cannot does this mean it never existed and that terrorist event never happened? Of course it did and one-thousand years from now it would still have been a reality just as surely as Christ walked this earth some two-thousand years prior to our time (even if no trace of it's existence remained, for I know next you will tell me there is evidence left of the WTC that science can see - nevertheless my point is that no evidence need remain for it to have existed - thus science cannot be the source of all knowledge). What you call the "practical sense" no longer exists in either case (Christ or the WTC) therefore you've narrowed the means to proof so much that nothing of the past can be known. Furthermore the case with miracles (parting the Red Sea) is not the same as purely natural events or persons. This is because the will of a third person is involved (God) in replicating the miracle, whereas, each of us could make the same observations as Galileo did to prove his theories or trace back to his existence through all who have written or talked about him. This last option requires a degree of trust either in the historic material and/or those who present Galileo. There is an element of faith for all of this just as there is faith in your illustration of Moses parting the Red Sea. The difference is whom the faith or trust is put in... Moses trusted a divine Person while we trust human persons to accept Galileo's existence (or trust experiments and our senses to verify Galileo's claims). I point you back to what determines truth... reality! The truth is Jesus Christ, Moses, Galileo the Empire State building and the World Trade Center existed in this world at one time. No matter what you or any other skeptic believes their existence was a reality (I could go a step further and prove those persons all still exist because of their immortal soul, unlike the WTC, but this would take us away from the main point).
Concerning religious experiences, on the contrary it is possible for us all to have religious experiences but these differ in essence from putting our hand in someone's wounds since that is a purely natural act. The miracle is that Christ arose from the dead and was found with a stigmata which is not normative in nature. Yet it is possible for us to put our hand in someones wound without it being a supernatural event. Medical personal do it all the time. More importantly religious experiences are not only found in first century AD. God makes faith and consolative experiences available to all who are open. You may use yourself as an example of one who cannot have a religious experience but this only proves your close mindedness and not the possibility that it can happen to everyone. One who rejects faith closes their mind just as one who rejects reason closes their mind or one who rejects what their senses perceive closes their mind too. Our senses either work or they don't work. It's with our mind that we deny what our senses tell us or what faith "perceives." When we refuse to reason we reject faith and sense experience because both are based on our ability to reason. As I've said before faith is an extension of the mind to be able to perceive supernatural truth as compared to natural truth. Deny faith and you deny religious experience. Deny reason and you also deny faith and religious experience.

Sincerely, Tim (alias Ratjaws)

 

[Ratjaws]

from: Lucaspa

so you have a problem with how the universe came into being. that's nice, but there is no need to ascribe a God to the answer. [/QUOTE}

You don't kow that.

Yes, BB is the reigning theory. Ekpyrotic is challenging aspects of it, since ekpyrotic is described as a "big splat" and not a "big bang".

However, both ekpyrotic and BB are explanation of HOW the universe came into existence, not WHY.

However, for the question: "why does the universe exist?", the hypothesis "God created it" is as viable at this point as any other.

You too are stating your beliefs as fact and confusing arguments over particular theories as arguing over theism vs atheism, with you gleefully accepting the same logical error as creationists: if God didn't create in this way, then God did not create.

However, embedded in all your posts is your own statement of faith: natural = without God. That is, if you have a material, natural explanation then that excludes God. There is NOTHING in science to justify this. In fact, methodological materialism specifically FORBIDS you from making this statement as fact.

Lucaspa,
I think my most basic disagreement with you revolves around the notion that comes from some of your statements. I realize I may be misunderstanding your position but this is the risk we all take as we attempt to understand one another's mind from their words and this is precisely why we should talk. I suspect from all you've said so far that you are a Christian, either working in the field of science or having a close association with it, maybe in your studies? At times your statements seem to make you agnostic so you will have to reveal more clearly your position relative to your faith.
My greatest argument with your position I think concerns how you see the whole. As for me I understand that what we know theologically trumps all scientific knowledge but not necessarily in the way a Christian fundamentalist would conceive this. From the statement you made above to Jet Black you seem to disconnect the two in such a way as to never see scientific and theological knowledge converge. If I'm wrong I will accept correction but this is the standard position within our cultural view of reality that is steeped in what is called materialism. As I've said before materialism comes out of the atheistic position that finds no need for a supernatural realm and it has unfortunately impregnated itself in many Christian minds, I think, due to poor philosophical teaching. While this is true there are many, including my teachers, who see this perspective and reject it finding it to not be a traditional mindset. I don't agree with the slogan today that says anything new is good and whatever comes out of tradition must therefore be bad. Traditional thought is considered to be archaic, authoritarian and contrary to the welfare of individuals while the new social and moral ideas are considered refreshing and nevert to be criticized. I believe ideas traditional and contemporary can be considered true but only when they conform to reality. I reject neither and believe truth is thus built upon itself and does not change accept in areas of knowledge that pertain to the changeableness of being itself (IE what science studies).
When I say theology "trumps all scientific knowledge" I mean it sets up limits that our scientific understanding must remain within because it's source of knowledge is divine and is thus without error (God cannot lie or make mistakes in understanding). Of course since revelation comes through fallible human beings it is possible for it to be distorted either in translation or interpretation. The way I get around this is to accept the reality that God gave the world a Church which in the process of handing us doctrine is infallible (this makes certain persons in office infallible) and this assures us of obtaining truth concerning faith and morals. Of course some say this is not possible, it cannot be true that some men are infallible, even that it is arrogant of them to suggest this, but I consider this position naive and in some who hold it, a form of pride. God can and does ascertain us truth and if He does not then we are all in trouble. The kind of thinking that doubts truth can be passed on with integrity has lead to skepticism and nihilism in modern philosophers to the detriment of scientific enterprise and society as well as individuals. It simply takes an act of humility to accept there is someone who knows better than me and this Being is able to confer knowledge of reality upon anyone who would open themselves to it. As this unfolds in time it would mean there are many men who also have a degree of infallibility, at least in certain areas of knowledge, which does not make them arrogant but rather guardians of truth. Otherwise the fallibility of men would make any certainty of knowledge impossible and therefore science itself a waste of time since we could be certain of nothing it gives us. On the contrary not only is God capable of sharing His omniscience with fallible men in an infallible way but human nature as such was created for this power. Human beings were created to know and do so with certainty. We fail because of what the Christian church terms sin. Human transgression is found not only in an act but fundamentally resides in the intellect (primarily our will) since thought is the principle of all acts and therefore the cause of physical actions in the rational creatures.
So when you say "you don't know that" in connection with the statement that "there is no need to ascribe a God to the answer" it leads me to believe science is your only means to knowledge. It is not! Nor do I accept the idea that since the scientific method cannot give us direct knowledge of God that science does not point to God. It does because all that science tells us begs for a cause that is infinitely more substantial than any being we study with it's method. The perfections found in being must come from another that has these same perfections ad infinitum. This is true since none of these beings can be found to be self-sufficient. Nothing we study in this universe can account for itself as though it's own cause and sustanence are within.
Along this line of thought I'd add that I've looked at your thread on the different possibilities for a first cause other than God and can say they are not scientific propositions. The proposition that there is a first Cause, which can be shown to coincide with the theological notion of God, is inherently philosophical. The other propositions you've laid out are also philosophical because ideas about quantum fluctuations and membranes have to do with the essence of being and as such are ontological in nature. Likewise, as I've pointed out before, mathematics (and dimensions) cannot describe essential being because it only concerns itself with quantity which is not a substantial category of being. Therefore science cannot aid in the discernment of whether these ideas are true or not while mathematical propositions have little to do with first cause. You can see what I'm saying in statements like "you get a universe that doesn't have a beginning and therefore was never "created". It just IS." There is no scientific or mathematical test to demonstrate something "...just IS!" So no matter how sincere Hawkin's or your motive is this kind of "evidence" has nothing to do with the physical science you say is agnostic. If you insist scientific evidence is the only means to knowledge of God or being itself and then submit these kinds of metaphysical proposals then you make the error of scienticism, which in reality is to step outside the area of scientifc competence and yet claim it is where your proofs come from (and mine must also). It's intellectual and scientific dishonesty. I've talked about the idea of quantum theory before but let's look a little closer at what it proposes. One way to explain the quantum effect is by means of the double slit experiment where the results show an atomic "particle" is found to have the dual properties of wave and particle. Yet in visible nature we find no such being! Another aspect of quantum behavior is that either velocity or direction can be predicted but not both. Again where in the visible world do we find such quantum strangeness? So in light of testing Einstein's theoritical predictions we find ourselves having to give up a Newtonian view of our world as absolute law. Down at this minute level of nature where scientific conjecture says "particles of matter" exist we find these particles don't behave as visible particles do, like rocks for instance. So in an effort to explain this radical behavior scientists have come up with hypothesis that are steeped in paradoxical notions (shall I say "mystery") which apply only to subatomic levels. It seems that the "fact" based world of science becomes uncertain at this level so that we cannot trust our own senses. In reality no one has ever seen a subatomic particle except by the traces they leave in test chambers and so what we are faced with is the mystery of nature that begs for a metaphysical explanation. And this is exactly what we are getting albeit in the name of science, an explanation called "quantum" conjuring up ideas involving different "dimensions" and parallel universes and dark and antimatter, etc., etc.. and all kinds of other mathematical absurdities. The problem is we've left the realm of science when these ideas are being proposed and entertain ontological questions dealing with the nature of being. What is always assumed here is, as I've said before, that matter begets matter. The idea that all there is is matter and/or energy and everything, including the deepest nature of being must be explained within that framework. Thus, materialism is at root here, yet not in a scientific but rather a scientistic or philosophic world view done under the guise of science. It's a pretense not true to nature and begs to be exposed just as true science begs to speak to us of God behind it's subject.
"We know completely how genes and DNA have the power to do what they do, it is simple. but arriving at a soul is just an ad hoc assumption,
A soul is a HYPOTHESIS based on personal experiences of people. An ad hoc hypothesis is a hypothesis devised to save a theory from falsification. However, the hypothesis of a soul was inherent in theism from the beginning, not something thrown in later."
To Jet Black I say if you "know completely how genes and DNA have the power to do what they do" then by all means please explain? And to Lucaspa, if the "soul is a HYPOTHESIS based on personal experience" and by your definition "ALL knowledge is personal experience" and your assertion that "Science deals with a SUBSET of personal experience," then it seems science can know "soul." But I've never said science can know it directly because science is only a tool useful in obtaining direct knowledge of the material realm. It must be used in the hands of a person who has the ability to know "soul." The reality of the idea of soul can be known by anyone because it is by reason we arrive at this idea. I've mentioned before and I'll mention again that Plato and Aristotle had these notions yet they were not Christian. The idea of soul is as pagan as it is a theistic and as such proves both pagans and Christians can be rational in their thinking. Unfortunately atheism truncates this knowledge a priori while fundamentalist Christians distort the concept with "triunity" of the human person. Neither has ground to stand on for the only firm rock is found in reason enlightened by faith... NOT one to the exclusion of the other as either group maintains.
Sincerely, Tim (alias Ratjaws)