Today at 09:12 PM Aaron11 said this in Post #40
This is an argument that I would not grant you. I do not believe that everything that humans have about God is based on human observation. I understand that you assume this, but I do not.
Then give me an alternative. Can there be one?
I don´t think so. Everything, really everything, that a human knows has to be processed by human thought - regardless whether it is observed, felt, been revealed, imagined or rationalised.
If it was not observed - and even feelings and thoughts are observations - it would not be known to humans. It´s this simple.
I realize this is the point of this thread. So to answer that question I would have to temporarily grant the argument that God does not exist. I do not know how life could have value when everything is said and done without God. I can't see value in biomachines surviving for a period of around 80 years. It seems that if this is the case, trees lives have equal meaning to humans.
This is exactly why I said we had to define "value" first.
Where does value come from? I would say it comes from conscious individuals. If there was no-one to "evaluate", there would be no "value".
So if people (and that could include a personal god) give values, is there some "absolute" value. Are there "true" values and "false" values?
This now is a truly philosophical question, and I don´t know if we can find a way to sort this out.
I myself would say "No, there cannot be an absolute value, because values depend per definitionem on individuals". You might say "The value God gives is absolute."
The problem I see with this "absolute" position, and a question I never recieved an answer for is: is there a way to find this absolute?
I mean, if there is an absolute truth/value/moral/whatever, there would have to be an objective way to establish it - objective meaning independent of individuals.
Another problem I see is the tendency to polarize. All or nothing, black or white. You said it yourself:"I can´t see value in biomachines..."
Why would there be
no value, just because there is no
absolute value?
If there is a difference between the value of the life of a tree and the life of a human, without God in the picture, please explain it.
It is the same difference as the value between chocolade and vanilla icecream. Perhaps you like first and hate the second. Perhaps it is vice-versa for me. And the guy next door likes strawberry best. This also is value.
And sadly we do not know what kind of icecream God favours - or if he likes icecream at all. There is no absolute value here - at least it is not known. Does that now mean that there is no value? Hey, why then do people attribute value to it?
This is the answer to your question: trees and humans have different values, because people
give them different values.
I guess it depends on what you call impossible. You can always argue that something is not impossible, but that does not show it to be possible either.
Sorry, I cannot follow you there. Basic logic: if something is not impossible, it is possible. Whether it is propable or real is another question.
No one can show natural, unguided sources to somehow organize and compose life. According to our understanding through inductive reasoning, generation of life from these natural and unguided sources have no basis.
"No basis" is not true. It is not (yet) an experimental basis, but a philosophical/logical one.
Deductive logic shows that all these causal chains have to end somewhere - and that this end is not covered by the chain. This is basically what the famous "prima cause" argument for God states.
"Every effect has a cause, except for the first, the uncause cause, which is God."
Such an exception is necessary for all such chains that have a begin somewhere. Without it, all these arguments would fail - their logic would be faulty.
But as all these exceptions are no longer subject to the original logical conclusion, they have to find another basis.
And here we come back to your statement: according to our understanding through inductive reasoning, generation of life from these natural and unguided sources has a
better basis that its alternative: generation of life from a supernatural source.
As long as God is not willing to create some new lifeforms for us, the only basis for a creation from God JHWH is Genesis - and that is, pardon my bias for scientific naturalism, not really a good basis.
