Searching for GOD...

[ProfessorDavey]

From the wiki article:
The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes

My contention is that due to the increasingly complex steps involved, the process was more likely to have been intentionally guided rather than driven by the unintended consequences of random events.

That may well be your contention, but there is no evidence for this. There is, on the other hand, ample evidence that basic chemical and physical processes can self-organise due to fundamental energetics in a manner that would produce what we describe as 'life'. Lets not forget that the simplest forms of life are little more than compartmentalised chemical reactions.

[Nearly Sane]

From the wiki article:
The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes

My contention is that due to the increasingly complex steps involved, the process was more likely to have been intentionally guided rather than driven by the unintended consequences of random events.

As so often on statements like this using the term 'likely' is based on methodological  naturalism. So your post is inherently contradictory.

[Outrider]

My contention is that due to the increasingly complex steps involved, the process was more likely to have been intentionally guided rather than driven by the unintended consequences of random events.

1 - what evidence do you have that any of the steps was particularly more complex than any other?
2 - if you want to hypothesise a guide to evolution, fine, but you need to find evidence to support your hypothesis.
3 - even if you somehow demonstrate that the current understanding is somehow limited or incorrect, all that does is revert us to 'we don't know', it's not a validation of your god hypothesis.

You've suggested 'increasing complexity' but you've given no reason for anyone to think that this understanding is correct. Thy system, over all, could be considered to be more complex, but each individual step on that pathway might well have been relatively minor - indeed, it's almost certain that there were steps which reduced complexity, either over all or within particular organisms or subsystems.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

From the wiki article:
The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes

My contention is that due to the increasingly complex steps involved, the process was more likely to have been intentionally guided rather than driven by the unintended consequences of random events.

Others have already explained to you where you went wrong here. As you’ve just ignored another problem though, just look at that word “guided” a bit more carefully. “Guidance” is directional – it’s steering events toward a pre-determined goal. For that to be the case you insert a designer god to determine “His” intended outcome (ie, us) ab initio. Then you decide that it’s too unlikely that unguided evolution could by co-incidence have delivered this god’s design, therefore there must have been a god to do the guiding. And you then conclude that the necessity for a guiding god to achieve the plan "god" intended all along is therefore proof that there is a god.

Can you see anything wrong with that reasoning?

Anything at all? Here’s a clue: your premise ("God") and your conclusion (also "God") are the same.

"Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving";[1] also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning#:~:text=Circular%20reasoning%20(Latin%3A%20circulus%20in,are%20trying%20to%20end%20with.

[torridon]

From the wiki article:
The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes

My contention is that due to the increasingly complex steps involved, the process was more likely to have been intentionally guided rather than driven by the unintended consequences of random events.

So many problems with this way of thinking.

Earth formed 4.54 bya, and the simplest life forms appear 3.5bya.  So, it seems that it took 1 billion years for the simplest biology to emerge from the geo/biochemistry present on early Earth.   Was God really struggling with his project, that it took him a billion years to achieve it through 'guidance' ?  If you have unlimited creative powers, why not just 'will' it into existence in an instant. ?

I fail to see how the long history of life on this planet with its innumerable excursions, missteps and extinctions is suggestive of divine planning. Some being with unlimited powers would have made a far better job of it doncha think ?

[Alan Burns]

So many problems with this way of thinking.

Earth formed 4.54 bya, and the simplest life forms appear 3.5bya.  So, it seems that it took 1 billion years for the simplest biology to emerge from the geo/biochemistry present on early Earth.   Was God really struggling with his project, that it took him a billion years to achieve it through 'guidance' ?  If you have unlimited creative powers, why not just 'will' it into existence in an instant. ?

I fail to see how the long history of life on this planet with its innumerable excursions, missteps and extinctions is suggestive of divine planning. Some being with unlimited powers would have made a far better job of it doncha think ?

In the end you need to consider whether the end result was an intended consequence of the billions of events which brought it into existence - or was it just an unintended accident emerging from purposeless random events.

It is not up to me to question God's methods or timing.  Time is irrelevant to God.  He can take as long as He wants with as many steps as it takes to manipulate the energy of the Big Bang to form the world as we know it.

And intelligent design does exist in this universe, as demonstrated by mankind's ability to conceive of objectives and intentionally manipulate the forces of nature to bring about man made creations - using God's gift of free will.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

In the end you need to consider whether the end result…

What “end result” would that be, and why in any case do you think that evolution will now just stop rather than continue such that new species will emerge over time?

…was an intended consequence of the billions of events which brought it into existence - or was it just an unintended accident emerging from purposeless random events.

The evidence indicates the latter.

It is not up to me to question God's methods or timing.  Time is irrelevant to God.  He can take as long as He wants with as many steps as it takes to manipulate the energy of the Big Bang to form the world as we know it.

Blind faith claims.

And intelligent design does exist in this universe, as demonstrated by mankind's ability to conceive of objectives and intentionally manipulate the forces of nature to bring about man made creations…

Teleological argument fallacy – see Paley’s watch:

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

- using God's gift of free will.

And the self-contradictory blind faith claim to finish.

Do you have anything even vaguely coherent, intelligent or interesting to say?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is not up to me to question God's methods or timing.

But it is up to you to question whether your reasons for thinking there's a god at all are sound.

So far, none of them have been.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

But it is up to you to question whether your reasons for thinking there's a god at all are sound.

So far, none of them have been.

I see you as using your God given freedom to think of reasons to dismiss any evidence put forward for the existence of God or your own spiritual nature.
I hope and pray that you and others on this forum will one day come to realise the truth and experience the immense joy which comes with discovering God's love.

[Nearly Sane]

I see you as using you God given freedom to think of reasons to dismiss any evidence put forward for the existence of God or your own spiritual nature.
I hope and pray that you and others on this forum will one day come to realise the truth and experience the immense joy which comes with discovering God's love.

oh look, telling people they are lying again

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I see you as using you God given freedom to…

No, you don’t “see” that at all – you just declare it to be so.

…and moreover  think of reasons to dismiss any evidence put forward for the existence of God or your own spiritual nature.

I don’t just dismiss “any evidence” – I falsify the claim of it being evidence at all when your arguments for it are unsound. 

I hope and pray that you and others on this forum will one day come to realise the truth and experience the immense joy which comes with discovering God's love.

You can hope and pray for anything you like, but – so far at least – you’ve never managed to produce an argument to justify your faith claim “god” that isn’t hopeless, let alone to indicate that you have the faintest idea what “the truth” might be.

Try to remember this in future.

By the way – a few posts back I took the time to explain to you why beginning with the same premise as the conclusion you want to end with is a mistake called circular reasoning. Have you just ignored that so you come back later to make exactly the same mistake again as if that hadn’t been explained to you? 

[Sebastian Toe]

If I am hypnotised, I am no longer in conscious control.  The hypnotist will have taken over control.

How does the hypnotist even do that given your robustly reasoned and evidenced soul-model?

[Alan Burns]

How does the hypnotist even do that given your robustly reasoned and evidenced soul-model?

Is it not obvious that the hypnotist has the ability to overrule the will of the person he is hypnotising?

[Sebastian Toe]

Is it not obvious that the hypnotist has the ability to overrule the will of the person he is hypnotising?

But not surely in your soul-model reality.
How could he overrule your will when he's nowhere near you?
What is it that could possibly overrule your not-in-this-universe soul?
Something physical or non-physical?
Think about it.

[torridon]

In the end you need to consider whether the end result was an intended consequence of the billions of events which brought it into existence - or was it just an unintended accident emerging from purposeless random events.

..

If it was intentional, then it was planned that countless numbers of species and organisms would strive to survive only to succumb to extinction.  Don't know about you, but this doesn't strike me as a well thought out plan.  Why guide evolution towards creating Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Velociraptor and Stegosaurus only to have them go extinct thanks to a big space rock.  If this world is the product of careful design then why is there no evidence of this ?  It seems this planner has gone to all conceivable lengths to hide his hand, making it seem as if the natural world we observe, is in fact, eerm, entirely natural.

[Sriram]

Even in human creations (through evolution) there is considerable wastage and redundancy. Why create an Impala if you wanted a Ferrari......?! 

The problem is that the moment we talk of intelligent intervention...you immediately go on to religious ideas of God..

[Gordon]

If it was intentional, then it was planned that countless numbers of species and organisms would strive to survive only to succumb to extinction.  Don't know about you, but this doesn't strike me as a well thought out plan.  Why guide evolution towards creating Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Velociraptor and Stegosaurus only to have them go extinct thanks to a big space rock.  If this world is the product of careful design then why is there no evidence of this ?  It seems this planner has gone to all conceivable lengths to hide his hand, making it seem as if the natural world we observe, is in fact, eerm, entirely natural.

Quite, and you'd also have to ask, if our species really is special to this designer, why it chose to desgn and add in all those biological bits that are threats to our individual survival - from rattlesnakes to Covid.

[Alan Burns]

But not surely in your soul-model reality.
How could he overrule your will when he's nowhere near you?
What is it that could possibly overrule your not-in-this-universe soul?
Something physical or non-physical?
Think about it.

The hypnotist is using his own free will to effectively program the person's physical brain to react to his commands.  So the automated, physically driven reaction will override the person's own will after the hypnotist has managed to disable the part of the brain which communicates with the soul by putting it to sleep.  It is a good example to illustrate the reality of human free will - both in the hypnotist and in the person being hypnotised.

[Gordon]

The hypnotist is using his own free will to effectively program the person's physical brain to react to his commands.  So the automated, physically driven reaction will override the person's own will after the hypnotist has managed to disable the part of the brain which communicates with the soul by putting it to sleep.  It is a good example to illustrate the reality of human free will - both in the hypnotist and in the person being hypnotised.

Super - so whereabouts, anatomically speaking, is the "part of the brain which communicates with the soul", and do neuroscientists know about this?

[Sebastian Toe]

The hypnotist is using his own free will to effectively program the person's physical brain to react to his commands.  So the automated, physically driven reaction will override the person's own will after the hypnotist has managed to disable the part of the brain which communicates with the soul by putting it to sleep.  It is a good example to illustrate the reality of human free will - both in the hypnotist and in the person being hypnotised.

That's interesting.
You have never mentioned up until now this "part of the brain that communicates with the soul".
I suppose that means that all of your physical functions eg what you are seeing, hearing, tasting...everything physical, must first be processed via this "part of the brain"?
Is it all channeled through as raw data or is there some pre-channeling processing going on?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Even in human creations (through evolution) there is considerable wastage and redundancy. Why create an Impala if you wanted a Ferrari......?!

You're confusing "human creation" being imperfect but nonetheless goal-directed with evolution, which isn't goal-directed at all.   

The problem is that the moment we talk of intelligent intervention...you immediately go on to religious ideas of God..

No, the problem is there there's no evidence for "intelligent intervention" at all whether or not such a thing would be divine in character if there was. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

As you’ve just ignored the correction you were given about circular reasoning, have you now abandoned trying to use a claim of a designing god to justify a claim of a guiding god?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

As you’ve just ignored the correction you were given about circular reasoning, have you now abandoned trying to use a claim of a designing god to justify a claim of a guiding god?

To implement what you have designed, you need to guide whatever forces are available to fulfil your design.

[torridon]

To implement what you have designed, you need to guide whatever forces are available to fulfil your design.

And where does the desire to guide your designs come from ?  Must come from somewhere otherwise our designs would be random, incomprehensible.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

To implement what you have designed, you need to guide whatever forces are available to fulfil your design.

A bizarre piece of casuistry (why wouldn’t “god” just magic it all to happen as he planned anyway?) but in any case you’ve missed the point.

Your argument for “god” goes like this:

1. People exist.

2. The number of evolutionary events that must have occurred for people to exist is unfathomably vast…

3. …so unfathomably vast that it beggars belief that they could have happened just so without guidance.

4. Therefore there was guidance.

5. Therefore God.

This argument only works though when you also install a designer god at the outset to intend people to be the outcome. In other words, you’re using your premise “god” to justify your outcome, which is also “god”. You’re starting and ending with the same thing, and that’s called circular reasoning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning#:~:text=Circular%20reasoning%20(Latin%3A%20circulus%20in,are%20trying%20to%20end%20with.

Do you understand your mistake now?