tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post6347037776549201106..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: Science, religion and the problem of evilUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-12430731787917494032008-05-10T14:12:00.000-04:002008-05-10T14:12:00.000-04:00“As floods and drought were a necessary consequenc...“As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world,..."<BR/><BR/>I am perplexed as to why Ayala would even try to assert this. If there were an omnipotent designer God, I see no reason why he or she could not design climatic systems that are more or less in stable equilibrium, so that humans could avoid floods and draughts. <BR/><BR/>Seems like he could design continents so that they are not floating around on plates, crashing and colliding and causing massive tsunamis that indiscriminately kill people who are the most vulnerable, the poor and their children (think Indonesia and Sri Lanka).<BR/><BR/>Seems like he is just trying to avoid the best and most likely inference, that no designer God exists.<BR/><BR/>p.s. Hooray on the no more anonymous posters!Sheldonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03743116454273042629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-41380627865882257872008-05-08T10:01:00.000-04:002008-05-08T10:01:00.000-04:00These arguments remind me of the old computer apho...These arguments remind me of the old computer aphorism: GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. We have no clue about the attributes of a supposed designer. Some religions call It omniscient and omnipotent. Others don't. Some ascribe various human attributes to It such as wrathful, vengeful, loving, etc. Without knowing if the designer is omniscient and omnipotent we can't possibly know if It did the best job, a mediocre job, a botched experiment, or what. Maybe the designer is omniscient but not omnipotent, e.g. It knows the best design but doesn't have the power to implement it. Maybe the designer is omni-everything and just gets a kick out of disease and disaster: "Whoa, look at those little toads squirm. Ha, ha, ha."<BR/>The world appears to operate as if there is no God, no guiding hand, but without a verifiable definition of God or any other designer, it's garbage in, garbage out.Die Anywayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10632857696534495049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-34327399966841951812008-05-08T00:59:00.000-04:002008-05-08T00:59:00.000-04:00@Congressive:I have a dream. I have a dream that s...@Congressive:<BR/><I>I have a dream. I have a dream that someday all men and women will be judged by the true content of their character and not by how passionately they worship great bearded boogie-ghosts in the sky.</I><BR/>The problem with this is that the fundie brigade will immediately retort that worshipping the One True God (TM) IS the greatest example of good character there is. If a Xian does good, it is because they are living their lives in Christ, whereas if an atheist does good (a notion that may be rejected <I>a priori</I> by some fundagelicals), it is merely an accident with a happy outcome. As Bertrand Russell said, the problem with Xians is that they don't believe morality has anything to do with increasing the sum total of human happiness.Kimpatsuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06156184889287692016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-45671481921862381422008-05-06T07:41:00.000-04:002008-05-06T07:41:00.000-04:00Well, the question is whether there is anything th...Well, the question is whether there is anything that can legitimately be called 'indirect design' in such a case at all; Ayala, I think, would deny it. (And it's true that even in the human case we don't regard every consequence of an action as being either directly or indirectly designed, even when foreseen.) But that does make the need for an alternative way of looking at it more pressing; and it's possible, of course, that Ayala's vagueness here comes from not working through the logic of his position, as you say.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-91444019421136675842008-05-06T07:07:00.000-04:002008-05-06T07:07:00.000-04:00Brandon,for once I think Dembski is right: God is ...Brandon,<BR/><BR/>for once I think Dembski is right: God is responsible (perhaps to different degrees) whether he designed things directly or indirectly. I suspect the vagueness you detect in Ayala is a reflection of poor thinking on his part when it comes to facing a logical reality he doesn't like.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-83772184307337404552008-05-05T23:05:00.000-04:002008-05-05T23:05:00.000-04:00I'm not really sure Ayala's view is clearly enough...I'm not really sure Ayala's view is clearly enough laid out to say much about it. Ayala's view, I take it, is that design, understood literally as 'design by a designer', is simply not the right way to look at the things usually identified as natural evils: it does no serious work in either science or theology, and is misleading in either realm. Given that, one approach, which won't do, is to argue as Dembski (e.g.) does in <A HREF="http://www.designinference.com/documents/2007.09.Ayala_Potemkin_Village.pdf" REL="nofollow">his review of the book</A>, that God "is as responsible in one case as the other" because he is setting up the conditions that allow bad designs. Ayala's argument seems to be that it is wrong to think of these things as designs in the above sense at all (they are just the sort of things you get when evolution happens, and we know that because they are, in fact, the sort of thing that we find given that evolution happens); and such an argument just re-introduces the literalistic design thinking that Ayala dismisses as confused in the first place. It leaves obscure, of course, 'why did God create a world with evolution like ours rather than something else'; this, it has to be pointed out, is simply a different question from 'why did the designer design a bad design rather than good design' (answer: the only meaningful sense in which, say, a flagellum can be said to be 'designed' is not a sense that involves a designer designing it). But since Ayala seems to leave it more or less at that (simply throwing in a version of Gould's NOMA), we are simply left with a great big question mark if we ask what he thinks the alternatives are. <BR/><BR/>It's not clear to me whether in criticizing Ayala's position you intended to make Dembski's argument or this latter one.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-19999013605269099302008-05-05T00:04:00.000-04:002008-05-05T00:04:00.000-04:00I have a dream. I have a dream that someday all m...I have a dream. I have a dream that someday all men and women will be judged by the true content of their character and not by how passionately they worship great bearded boogie-ghosts in the sky. I have a dream that someday all children will be taught the truth about their universe - physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, sociology and responsible resource management to ensure not just the survival, but the success of mankind, and NOT that some wish-thinking spirit chatter to some fictitious, testicled manifestation of delusional ancients high on acacia bark will solve all their problems.<BR/><BR/>I have a dream. I have a dream.congressivehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10790894644594724263noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-20174992533341045422008-05-04T09:22:00.000-04:002008-05-04T09:22:00.000-04:00Done. Wish I could filter out comments from certai...Done. Wish I could filter out comments from certain users automatically, you guys know whether there is a way to do that?<BR/><BR/>Notice that I am now requiring at least "open registration," no more "anonymous" posting...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-23777856890879445352008-05-03T16:55:00.000-04:002008-05-03T16:55:00.000-04:00I agree completely (and second the motion!)I agree completely (and second the motion!)John Farrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18280296574996987228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-31790533545869807742008-05-03T12:21:00.000-04:002008-05-03T12:21:00.000-04:00This David Mabus character has been going around t...This David Mabus character has been going around threatening scientists and philosophers and posting that same trashy post. You should probably just delete it.Kyle Szklenskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03837443487933011691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-48940480761814684052008-05-02T16:51:00.000-04:002008-05-02T16:51:00.000-04:00OK, but doesn’t a God who picks the laws of physic...<I>OK, but doesn’t a God who picks the laws of physics and biology bear some responsibility for their outcome, however indirectly?</I><BR/><BR/>Good point. I think Ayala would suggest, and this is probably the hardest part of Christian theology to understand, is that suffering is built into the program. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, I also know Catholic philosophers who wonder why the problem of evil is a problem at all?<BR/><BR/>Let me give you two links.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://problemsofevil.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Mike Liccione</A>.<BR/><BR/>and <BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://examinelife.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-problem.html" REL="nofollow">Scott Carson</A>.<BR/><BR/>Bear in mind, they are philosophers, not theologians, although they are Catholics.John Farrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18280296574996987228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-71422389602608652752008-05-02T14:52:00.000-04:002008-05-02T14:52:00.000-04:00laneman wrotePerhaps we are an unintentional creat...laneman wrote<BR/><BR/><I>Perhaps we are an unintentional creation? Born out of some super collider experiment in another universe.</I><BR/><BR/>Judging from the relative proportion of biomass occupied by the various sorts of critters on earth, <I>bacteria</I> are the intended goal of creation and we're merely unintended by-products that have the incidental (but desirable from the bacterial POV) property of serving as a host to 10 times as many bacteria as human cells in our bodies.RBHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13562135000111792590noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-19339327106446797822008-05-02T13:27:00.000-04:002008-05-02T13:27:00.000-04:00Perhaps we are an unintentional creation? Born out...Perhaps we are an unintentional creation? Born out of some super collider experiment in another universe.LCShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06230899522753297278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-6084931537872902572008-05-02T12:07:00.000-04:002008-05-02T12:07:00.000-04:00It is my understanding that engineers often build ...It is my understanding that engineers often build in safety factors on the order of 30-to-one or higher for structures like bridges. So the question could arise why the Designer who stood at arm's length from his creation couldn't do the same.paul01https://www.blogger.com/profile/06306440944379183875noreply@blogger.com