Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

You are not getting the point. 'Filling in the gaps' does not mean these are not miracles. How does our 'understanding' of these laws make them any less of a miracle?!

We are part of creation and part of the natural world. We are not outside it.

If we can explain something then it is not a miracle.  If we label something as miraculous then that is tantamount to giving up trying to explain it.  Something miraculous is definitionally inexplicable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle

[Shaker]

We are part of creation and part of the natural world. We are not outside it.

Odd coming from someone endlessly wittering on about the supposed need to get away from our "lower animal nature". 

[Alan Burns]

Religious beliefs that involve miracle claims, are based on anecdotal stories in holy books dating from antiquity that have uncertain provenance and are indistinguishable from fiction ......

But can you not acknowledge the miracle of life itself, the miracle of us coming into existence, or the miracle of our awareness of our own existence?

Sure, we have discovered a few things about how things work - but can you not conceive that this is all God's design?

[Shaker]

No. I have no need of that hypothesis.

[torridon]

But can you not acknowledge the miracle of life itself, the miracle of us coming into existence, or the miracle of our awareness of our own existence?

Sure, we have discovered a few things about how things work - but can you not conceive that this is all God's design?

That makes no sense to me.  God is inconceivable, by definition, so all you are doing here is trying to explain something difficult by invoking something impossible.  A backwards step.

[Shaker]

Ignotum per ignotius, as they don't say round my way.

[torridon]

Oo err.

Worth squirrelling away for future use

[ippy]

But can you not acknowledge the miracle of life itself, the miracle of us coming into existence, or the miracle of our awareness of our own existence?

Sure, we have discovered a few things about how things work - but can you not conceive that this is all God's design?

The stuff you keep on coming up with Alan, it's magic now?

Then as if that's not enough you're invoking magic as the source of life and self awareness and then  you're still going on about a Mr Magic designed it all that way, as well?

I reckon most psychologists I know of would find an interview with you very interesting.

By the way did you look up Dorothy Rowe the Australian psychologist, she's written several books that might be of interest to you?

Commiserations Alan, ippy 

[Sriram]

If we can explain something then it is not a miracle.  If we label something as miraculous then that is tantamount to giving up trying to explain it.  Something miraculous is definitionally inexplicable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle

That is a very narrow way of defining a miracle.

We may know how a DNA replicates but it is still a miracle. We may know that a DNA strand contains codes for producing life, but it is still a miracle. We may know how an embryo produces stem cells and a baby forms. But it is still a miracle.

How does knowing a process or mechanism change anything?

We are all sitting here on a piece of rock speeding through the universe and communicating across continents through a piece of hardware.   That is a miracle itself.

Miracles are not about breaking laws. The laws themselves are miracles....something like the Anthropic Principle in which the constants seem to be fine tuned to produce life and consciousness. 

[Sebastian Toe]

That is a very narrow way of defining a miracle.

We may know how a DNA replicates but it is still a miracle. We may know that a DNA strand contains codes for producing life, but it is still a miracle. We may know how an embryo produces stem cells and a baby forms. But it is still a miracle.

How does knowing a process or mechanism change anything?

We are all sitting here on a piece of rock speeding through the universe and communicating across continents through a piece of hardware.   That is a miracle itself.

Miracles are not about breaking laws. The laws themselves are miracles....something like the Anthropic Principle in which the constants seem to be fine tuned to produce life and consciousness.

Using that arguement, everything is a miracle and the word loses it's meaning!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If we can explain something then it is not a miracle.  If we label something as miraculous then that is tantamount to giving up trying to explain it.

...AS Bertrand Russell and Dawkins have done re: the origin of the universe.

[ippy]

That is a very narrow way of defining a miracle.

We may know how a DNA replicates but it is still a miracle. We may know that a DNA strand contains codes for producing life, but it is still a miracle. We may know how an embryo produces stem cells and a baby forms. But it is still a miracle.

How does knowing a process or mechanism change anything?

We are all sitting here on a piece of rock speeding through the universe and communicating across continents through a piece of hardware.   That is a miracle itself.

Miracles are not about breaking laws. The laws themselves are miracles....something like the Anthropic Principle in which the constants seem to be fine tuned to produce life and consciousness.

Sorry Sriram you've lost me I'm not a great fan of jugglers I've seen one, nor am I particularly a fan of seeing magicians at work I've seen one, they leave me cold.

As for your Reference to D N A, I must say even the people that prefer to keep their feet on the ground as much as they possibly can often see that the drivers of evolution are inclined to look magical, as is the whole of the evidence based evolutional process.

Miracles/magic/miracles/magic/miracles/magic/miracles/magic/miracles/magic/miracles/magic?   

Regards ippy

[Maeght]

...AS Bertrand Russell and Dawkins have done re: the origin of the universe.

How?

[Alan Burns]

That makes no sense to me.  God is inconceivable, by definition, so all you are doing here is trying to explain something difficult by invoking something impossible.  A backwards step.

I perceive as impossible our coming into existence through nothing but aimless, purposeless unguided forces.

We are so surrounded by the miracle of God's creation that we just take it all for granted and deem it all to be natural.

[Gordon]

I perceive what as impossible is our coming into existence through nothing but aimless, purposeless unguided forces.

We are so surrounded by the miracle of God's creation that we just take it all for granted and deem it all to be natural.

I see the old 'personal incredulity' is getting a run out today.

[ippy]

I see the old 'personal incredulity' is getting a run out today.

I've never yet walked away from a round of banter with a Scot without laughing and licking my wounds at the same time, some things never alter, love it.

Regards ippy

[Alan Burns]

I see the old 'personal incredulity' is getting a run out today.

I make no apology for expressing my sincere belief that the real probability of life coming into existence without divine intervention is as good a definition of absolute zero as you will ever get.

[Shaker]

I make no apology for expressing my sincere belief that the real probability of life coming into existence without divine intervention is as good a definition of absolute zero as you will ever get.

As that's an entirely unjustifiable statement, you really should.

[Gordon]

I make no apology for expressing my sincere belief that the real probability of life coming into existence without divine intervention is as good a definition of absolute zero as you will ever get.

I know: shame though that an obviously clever, civil and articulate person such as yourself believes what you believe.

[torridon]

I make no apology for expressing my sincere belief that the real probability of life coming into existence without divine intervention is as good a definition of absolute zero as you will ever get.

I think that is your particular bias speaking, not a conclusion from evidence.  You aren't a professional studying life origins, geochemistry, biochemistry etc.  In other words you are speaking from ignorance and prejudice rather than any professional insight and expertise. People working in those fields don't share your prejudices thankfully.

The prejudice is illogical anyway, the implication of a god wishing to create life doing so by setting up a geophysical system that is "absolutely" anti-life in the first place is totally absurd.  A sensible god wishing to create life would create conditions favourable for life.

Thirdly, your illogical bias fails to actually answer our deepest questions about life, it merely shifts the goalposts from 'where did life come from' to 'where did god come from'.  An exercise in superficial evasion chosen in preference to an exercise in understanding.

[Alan Burns]

I think that is your particular bias speaking, not a conclusion from evidence.  You aren't a professional studying life origins, geochemistry, biochemistry etc.  In other words you are speaking from ignorance and prejudice rather than any professional insight and expertise. People working in those fields don't share your prejudices thankfully.

The prejudice is illogical anyway, the implication of a god wishing to create life doing so by setting up a geophysical system that is "absolutely" anti-life in the first place is totally absurd.  A sensible god wishing to create life would create conditions favourable for life.

Thirdly, your illogical bias fails to actually answer our deepest questions about life, it merely shifts the goalposts from 'where did life come from' to 'where did god come from'.  An exercise in superficial evasion chosen in preference to an exercise in understanding.

But you, and many others, are indulging in a huge fallacy.  That of assigning more importance to the human ideas and deductions than to reality itself. You are effectively trying to make ideas and deductions the reality and explaining away facets of true reality in order to fit in with the ideas and deductions.

[Nearly Sane]

But you, and many others, are indulging in a huge fallacy.  That of assigning more importance to the human ideas and deductions than to reality itself. You are effectively trying to make ideas and deductions the reality and explaining away facets of true reality in order to fit in with the ideas and deductions.

What method besides human ideas and deductions are you using to establish 'true reality'?

[Alan Burns]

What method besides human ideas and deductions are you using to establish 'true reality'?

God's revelations in the Christian Bible, particularly the New Testament, explain far more than human reasoning alone will ever achieve.

[Shaker]

No actual method at all, then.

[Nearly Sane]

God's revelations in the Christian Bible, particularly the New Testament, explain far more than human reasoning alone will ever achieve.

That's not a method, it's an assertion that what is there isn't human ideas. Again what method are you using to establish that your assertion is true?