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From: MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Irony
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 23:13:13 +1100
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On 3/01/2025 1:25 am, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 16:18:06 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2/01/2025 4:17 am, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 13:13:50 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> […]
>>>
>>>> "simple self replicators" is an oxymoron.
>>>
>>> So what? Even if your argument is valid, how does that take us closer
>>> to God which is surely the only thing that matters for a religious
>>> believer?
>>>
>>> I asked you a number of similar questions in another thread but you
>>> walked away from them The answers to those specific questions don't
>>> really matter - they were just my attempt at being Socratic. What is
>>> really important, and what I think you should think long and hard
>>> about, is why you find them so hard to answer.
>>>
>>> In some ways, you remind me of myself when I came to TO about 15 or so
>>> years ago. At that time I was a committed religious believer who knew
>>> nothing about evolution or OOL. I came here on the recommendation of a
>>> friend who was the first person I heard to hear use the expression
>>> "God of the Gaps" and tried to convince me that science shows my Faith
>>> is badly founded. I had no qualms about my Faith but I regard myself
>>> as a rational person and didn't like to think that I might be
>>> believing stuff that science had shown to be nonsense, so I decided to
>>> explore this further.
>>>
>>> Initially, I did find it a struggle. I never had too much bother
>>> reconciling evolution with my beliefs but OOL did seem to pose a major
>>> problem for me. I always, however, try to make sure I study all sides
>>> of an argument. My early reading was mostly on the pure science side
>>> of the fence but then I discovered writers like Teilhard de Chardin
>>> writing a hundred years ago or more recent authors like Ken Miller,
>>> Francis Collins and John Polkinghorne. These were highly qualified,
>>> highly regarded scientists who had no problem reconciling their
>>> scientific knowledge with their religious beliefs. The more I studied
>>> it, the more I came to understand that there is no inherent conflict
>>> between science and religion, is manufactured by people on both sides
>>> who persist with a narrow viewpoint, often with very extreme views.
>>> Fifteen or so years later, I can honestly say that my exploration of
>>> science has made my religious belief even more intense and committed.
>>>
>>> I seriously advise you not to get hung up on areas where science has
>>> no answers or answers are incomplete. You will only tie yourself up in
>>> endless knots and you are on a proverbial hiding to nothing if you try
>>> to justify your beliefs by proving other people wrong where they have
>>> tangible evidence and you don't. You will gain far more by taking what
>>> science does tell us and figuring out how that fits in with your
>>> religious beliefs, how you can use what science tells us to deepen
>>> your religious understanding of God.
>>>
>>
>> Btw, thanks for this summary of your personal journey.
>>
>> Like you, I don't believe there's a conflict between science and
>> Christian faith. And my own faith does not depend on science.
>>
>> I believe though that there is for many an a priori commitment to the
>> faith of metaphysical naturalism, and this leads to a misuse of
>> scientific evidence
> 
> There are likely just as many who have an a priori commitment to a
> faith based on a literal reading of scripture and who reject out of
> hand any scientific evidence that they think contradicts it. Opposite
> sides of the same coin.
> 
>> --as per my thought experiment of say 10,000 years of
>> OoL research failure etc.
> 
> The problem with your thought experiment was that it assumes there is
> a finite time period after which research should be discarded.

I took great care to not limit options to "research should be 
discarded"; my proposal instead was this:

If after 10,000 years of concerted OoL research (say), all known
natural explanations and pathways have been deemed implausible (say), 
would you:
1. Keep looking for natural causes only, or
2. Give up looking, or
3. Keep looking for natural causes, but consider supernatural agency
4. Give up looking for natural causes, but consider supernatural agency

Which would you choose?

> 
>>
>> And as I previously explained, I've not responded to your "Socratic"
>> questions not because I "find them so hard to answer", but because your
>> response to my thought experiment reveals we simply don't appear to have
>> a necessary common foundation for debate. I don't say this dismissively
>> or rudely, just as a statement of fact as I see it. But happy for you go
>> to back to that and convince me otherwise.
>>
>>
>>
>