Re: [asa] The Patient Creator

Jim,

I think I agree with you.
On "...the natural origins of things which have low probability of
existence."

Well, I simply don't believe in the existence of things which have too low
a probability. (I dont mean ontological existence...just instantiation).
And this is perfectly reasonable because engineers make that choice every
day in their profession.

So, for Ken Miller to make an argument about his aboriginal tie-clip
pre-cursor, he would merely have to show there is a reasonable probability
for the natural production of the pre-cursor. To me that is the essence of
a rational argument from him. Sadly, I don't hear that actually being
presented. Instead it seems we are being asked to believe that
extraordinarily improbable events take place every day with regularity. And
somehow we mysteriously just cannot observe them. I am too skeptical to
blindly accept that.

Cheers,
Dave

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:54 PM, Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net> wrote:

> It is certainly no attack on God's omnipotence, only an attack on our idea
> of the omnipotence of God. Surely we have no real way of assessing either
> range or bounds in the capacity of an entity which is so "other" than
> ourselves, with capabilities so greatly exceeding anything we understand or
> can even relate to any meaningful degree. Surely, "omnipotence" must in
> reality remain a complimentary, deferential, or hyperbolic attribution. Any
> "defense" surely must be about our particular faith perspectives.
>
> [shift gears]
>
> The companion question to, "So we need to ask why it is that creation is so
> old." would seem to be, "So why is Creation so immense?" I am persuaded that
> the answer is interwoven with many/most(?) of the
> probabilities/opportunities questions [as for example, the matter of "...the
> natural origins of things which have low probability of existence."].
>
> ...or so it seemeth to me. JimA [Friend of ASA]
>
> David Clounch wrote:
>
> Thanks for that, Mike. Cheered me up today.
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:
>
>> If the Universe is 14 billion years old, and humans evolved only about
>> 300 million years ago, then Creation existed without humans for 13.7 billion
>> years. For some, this is a problem for Christian faith: “it makes no sense
>> to imagine that an all-powerful God would need to devise this vast universal
>> Rube Goldberg contrivance for the sake of creating life, rather than just
>> doing it in one fell swoop of His mighty hand.”
>>
>> This argument is essentially subjective and it targets the omnipotence of
>> God.
>>
> I see it as an attack on the omnipotence of God.
>
>
>> The idea is that a truly all-powerful God would not have to employ such
>> an immensely long, drawn out, inefficient process since He had the power to
>> bring Creation into existence in an instantaneous act. Why bother with 13.7
>> billion years of irrelevant history when what matters is the origin of
>> humankind?
>>
> It depends on the goal. The scriptures say we don't know the mind of God
> nor His ways. If we take that at face value we cannot believe we really
> understand the purpose of everything, can we? Ergo I see the whole approach
> of the quoted crtici as faulty theological thinking. I myself have always
> said I reject this form of creationist thinking on theological grounds.
>
>
>
>
>> Now, I have already noted that even Genesis does not teach an
>> instantaneous, all-at-once, creation. Certainly, God could have created all
>> of reality in one fell swoop of His mighty hand. And He could have done so
>> last Thursday. But that is not what happened. So we need to ask why it is
>> that creation is so old
>>
> You and one billion old earth creationists have asked that question.
>
> More important, are we asked by the critic to believe in a God who
> instant by instant causes the existence of every particle and pushes every
> particle around? So that particles dont really have independent
> existence? Sounds panentheistic to me. I just wonder if "reality in one
> fell swoop" goes along with this panentheistic notion. The giveaway is
> the kind of faith it takes to believe both rather than believing in
> energy/matter having ancient origins and following natural laws.
>
>
>> and why it is that creation existed as long as it did without humans.
>>
> I think we know that to get a (even one) planet (using physics) that
> sustains life actually takes that much stuff.
>
> I am afraid I still reject Ken Miller's tie clip. I just don't see the
> aboriginal formation of extruded wire that got coiled into a spring by
> being blown in a hurricane. Its nuts to think that tie clip precursors
> exist by the trillions and thus have a high probability of being turned
> into tie clips by any passerby who happens to have a tie and a shirt. Its a
> matter of disbelieving in the natural origins of things which have low
> probability of existence. Skepticism is good.
>
>
>
>
>
>> But before getting to that directly, we should also pause to consider
>> that this ancient Universe is consistent with the teachings about God.
>>
>>
>>
>> More here:
>> http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/the-patient-creator/
>>
>> Mike
>>
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Jun 18 10:48:56 2009