Posts by Viviane

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

If you have evidence for the assertions you make why not include it in your post?

I did, try reading.

You imply I am not familar with the source I cite without explicitly saying so, a neat rhetorical trick. However I have read Betley Hart's book and this was a quotation from it. The link was to a review of the book that includes the quote. What distinction do you make between naturalism and materialism?

I in no way implied that. If you felt the sting, it was one of your own making.

They are different things. If you conflate them, you must separate them. Let me be clear, materialism is NOT naturalism. If you feel that they are the same, then it is up to you to make that argument. If you are unable to do so, then YOU show that YOU are unfamiliar with the material, not me.

I consider myself an agnostic. Lots of labelling there, not much (or anything) in the way orf argument or evidence.

Agnostic means "without knowledge". I agree that is an apt description.

1. Cofty asked how theists might respond if scientists manage to demonstrate how life can arise from non-life. I pointed out that the view that scientific discoveries can tell us anything about God or his existence involves a particular philosophical stance and is not a given.

Cofty never suggested it was. You made a strawman and then argued against it.

2. I pointed out that the optimistic view some people have of science, that it will be able to answer ultimate questions, such as about God, at some time in the future, resembles the belief JWs have that the final truth about reality will be established at Armageddon. That looks like fantasy, or wishful thinking, in both cases.

Ah, the "some people" argument. There's your problem. As was pointed out to you, science doesn't seek to answer questions about God. Your argument is with people that misunderstand science, it has nothing to do with Cofty's OP. Again, you are making a strawman and then arguing against it.

3. Cofty claimed that JWs teach scientists will never be able to create life from non-life because there is a "theological barrier" rather than a technical one. WT publications say the opposite, that scientists may be able to create life at some point in the future. For most people a quotation from the WT saying that scientists may create life at some point would be enough to convince them that's what the WT teaches. But not Cofty. A strange position for someone who claims to believe in facts.

And you're wrong again. the WT uses weasel words all over the place to hold 5 different views at once. Just because they say and teach one thing doesn't also mean they don't teach something else as well. As someone who is claiming to be versed in philosophy, strange that you wouldn't grasp that and know it.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201501/origin-of-life/

LIFE COMES ONLY FROM LIFE. “With you [God] is the source of life.”—Psalm 36:9.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

SBF seems to automatically want to introduce the philosophical whenever he sees Cofty present a position.

Very true. However, philosophy is, at it's core, thinking about what we think, how we think about those things and why. It's a way to understand why we think what we do and see if there is a way to improve that. It's not mystical, it's not obfuscation, it's not even esoteric in the generic sense, it only becomes esoteric with the subject matter we are applying philosophy to is an esoteric subject matter. We could apply it to baking a cake, writing music or investigating the nature of reality.

Interestingly, philosophy emphasizes critical thinking, reason, logic and rationality. It absolutely allows for assumptions, in fact it requires them in many cases. Having said that, as with everything, the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. If the assumptions are demonstrably false or unprovable, then the end result of the thinking is either unprovable, wrong, or right for the wrong reasons.

In this case, philosophy is being used as cudgel, not as a tool. Mixing up of materialism and naturalism, making statements about incorrect assumptions, using biased sources interested in proving a point (that themselves use bad logic and incorrect assumptions) as legs of the logic stool (let the reader use discernment) are absolutely the wrong way to go about philosophy.

It reminds me of Mortimer J. Adler's book, "How to Think About God", in which he claimed he could absolutely use a philosophical argument to prove the existence of God, you know, allowing for multiple unprovable assumptions required to make his logic work and rejecting any argument that showed the flaws.

7

Does God communicate with humans today?

by deegee in

there seems to be confusion within christianity regarding whether or not god communicates with humans today and if he does, how does he do it?.

- does god still insert thoughts into people's minds today or is that something which he only did in the past?.

- some maintain that god is no longer giving persons dreams/visions or speaking directly to them or sending angels to speak with them today but he will nevertheless insert thoughts into their minds to guide them.

Viviane

How does a person - whether psychotic/delusional or not psychotic/delusional know whether it is god who is inserting thoughts into his/her mind or speaking with him/her, if God does not make it unequivocally, unambiguously, explicitly clear up front whether it is he who is inserting the thoughts into a person's mind/speaking to them or whether it is just the unconscious dynamics of the person's mind at work?

They don't.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

From my own perspective sometimes SBF raises interesting points and invites thinking out of the box however other times the comments come across as being esoteric, even obtuse, just for the sake of being so.

Many times he is conflating things and mislabeling them, for instance materialism and naturalism. I've no use for someone being intentionally obtuse.

He'll extend the conversation beyond the pure scientific method to include more esoteric and abstract thinking.

Science includes abstract thinking and esoteric knowledge and discussions. The problem comes with SBF clearly not understanding some of the things he is quoting or discussing.

On the other hand I think that SBF is one of the few posters on here that can argue for a different but still non-theistically based position. It's a shame that the engagement often leads nowhere.

If only he didn't post in an intentionally obtuse manner, we might know what that position is.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

So I was not previously familiar with your style of going through others' posts and declaring right and wrong with apparent confidence and authority, but not much argument. I'm not sure how to respond to that. For example, you are welcome to your opinion that I mischaracterised materialism as involving circular reasoning, but I don't agree. I don't know there is much more to say about it unless you elaborate.

Well, first, I don't "declare" you wrong. I simply point out that you are based on evidence. It's no different that if you were claiming 2+2=5.

Second, I didn't make any claim that you mis-characterized materialism. I said, quite accurately, that what you claim were assumptions inherent in Cofty's arguments are nothing of the sort.

Third, your quote refuting that obvious fact was, in fact, a snippet from an article on naturalism, something very different, which also is based on an incorrect premise, namely this: " Naturalism’s claim that, by confining itself to purely material explanations for all things, it adheres to the only sure path of verifiable knowledge is nothing but a feat of sublimely circular thinking: physics explains everything, which we know because anything physics cannot explain does not exist, which we know because whatever exists must be explicable by physics, which we know because physics explains everything."

That's one of the most absurd things I have ever read. And it's wrong. It's little more than an attempt to undermine science by making the same mistake you did, mis-labeling what circular reasoning is and being far less than honest about what science is and how it works.

How can science ever "show" that life doesn't come from God?

Ooh, ooh! Strawman alert! Science doesn't seek to show that, nor was that in any way Cofty's point.

Not content with misrepresenting your own OP, you now deny the plain meaning of WT comments on the feasibility of scientists creating living cells from non-living matter

Oh my, you are accusing Cofty of doing EXACTLY what you are doing. This is what happens when you use pseudo-intellectualism and dishonesty to try to make a gap to wedge god in. SBF gets caught. Again.

You apparently misunderstood JW teaching as meaning there is a theological barrier to scientists ever creating life from non-living matter.

What is a "theological barrier"?

In any event, all of your arguments, ever-changing as they may be, are based on wrong assertions, mislabeling and outright untruths. So, that's why it's easy to say "you're wrong". Next time you try this, you might want to know something about the subject and not try it on people who actually know something about science and philosophy.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

Here you are talking of God, don't you know?

Which God? What's this God made up? Where can I see this God? Can I test to see if it's alive? Tell me some basic properties of this God. Is it visible? Invisible? What does it look like? Is this God alive? If so, what created it?

Sorry, I've no idea what you are talking about unless you can describe it to me in some objectively verifiable manner.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

Your point is is wrong. If theology says that life comes only from his and it turns out otherwise, that's an impact.

In fact, in many area of science,scientific breakthroughs have confirmed a model of reality.

Perhaps history, evidence, logic and reality showing your posts to be nothing but, as you put it, fantasy, is why you feel than languag accurately describing them is abusive?

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

Viv if you go back and read what I wrote, I did not say that science itself involves the assumption that its results can tell us about God. I say that some people, using science to undermine God, rely on the assumption that science can tell us about and whether there is a God.

You did write it. You wrote " I am pointing out that this approach to understanding reality rests upon various assumptions that are difficult the establish. Such as the assumption that scientific discoveries can tell us anything about the nature or existence of God. Also the assumption that human rationality is the measure of what is real and exists in the world."

Cofty's comments don't rest on that at all. Please explain what point you are making without a central tenant of your argument.

Science itself relies on methodological materialist assumptions in order to operate. There is no problem with that. The problem is when people use the results of relying upon those assumptions as evidence for a philosophical materialist position. That is circular reasoning.

Well, so far you've not shown an example of one of those assumptions. Please do so. (and that's not cuircular reasoning, BTW)

. A river can be cold, it can be blue, it can be rough, it can be clean, it can be amazing, it can be ugly, it can be ancient, it can be artificial. What makes no sense whatsoever is to pit different kinds of descriptions against one another as if they are in competition. Like if someone was to say, the river can't be rough because it's ancient, or it can't be majestic because it's cold. Just because we can talk about life and how it arose in naturalistic terms does not exclude other ways of talking about it. It is not a competition.

First, you make a classic category error. "A river" is many things. It can be both cold and hot at the same time, much in the same way "a house" can have both a bathroom and a kitchen. Unless an entire river shares all properties at all places all the time, the proper way to speak of it would be "this section of the river at this point time has properties X, Y and Z".

So, now that you know you've made at least three fundamental errors in attempting your argument to denigrate others, please reformulate and get back to us.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

That's my belief from what I gather from the evidence, nothing more, nothing less. In order to disprove my rule, you must come up with contrary examples, with evidence that refutes the rule. So far there's no takers, so the rule stands (until such time as the scientists prove me wrong).

As I said, had you been a microbiologist as you claim, you would know that you've just gotten it 100% wrong. But, you weren't, so you don't.

This would be similar to Newton's law of gravity being rewritten by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Gravity is not an ordinary force but a property of space-time geometry. The apple is not being pulled down by the mass of the planet. Its fall causes a gravitational wave and is pushed down by causing a ripple in the space-time continuum. So, there goes Newton's law out of the window.

This is also 100% wrong. However, in an attempt to prop up your wrongness, Newton failed to continue because, ironically, much like you are doing, he posited "God did it". It took someone not using God as a prop to get closer. Interestingly, your attempt to show yourself wrong only shows how wrong you are.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

Viviane

If you ask how a certain scientific discovery would impact believers in God, and how would they "respond", this reasonably involves the assumption that such a scientific discovery would pose a challenge to belief in God in such a way that some "response" from believers is required or expected.

What does that have to do with your incorrect comments about science and attempt to denigrate others with your incorrectness?