Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[AAA]

AAA:

It's clear that your approach to this discussion is driven by several concerns.

1.  denying science, primarily in the form of denying evolution.  It's clear that evolution provides a model for how complexity can arise from simple beginnings, so you resist it at every step.  If evolution can explain how single celled organisms can give rise to humans, the goo to you story becomes much more plausible.  Do you have a pre-existing belief that all life was created essentially as it now stands?  What is that belief based on?

2. god of the gaps, primarily in the form of concentrating on the weaknesses in abiogenesis.  It's true that the search for a solution has been proceeding for some time, but that doesn't mean we should consider the search "closed" to further enquiry.  When determining when to stop looking, one has to take into account the difficulty of the question and how long science has been researching it.  On both scores, it seems premature to close off enquiry at this stage.  One should always prefer to await rational explanations for things, and remain agnostic toward the subject in the meantime.  You don't appear agnostic to the question of abiogenesis.  What drives your desire to close off enquiry?

3. negative arguments, primarily of the form "Not X, therefore Y."  You most certainly realize that this undermines not only those arguments you share with us, but also the arguments you have adopted to support your pre-existing beliefs.  Doesn't the fallacious nature of your negative arguments bother you?

This is the strategy of a creationist.  Call yourself an intelligent design advocate all you want, the truth is you are no different from a creationist in the way you go about your argument.  Do you believe that your God created all the forms of life that exist?  Is that belief rooted in a literal interpretation of Genesis in the bible?

I do not deny science, evolution is not empirical. Just because we see mutations and natural selection is no reason to suggest that we are the product of a common ancestor undergoing this process. We don't know how much information it produces, how much information it is said to have produced, or how many generations it has had to produce it. Yet you have no problem calling the acceptance of this as scientific. And yes it provides a model, but it's so largely speculative that it is sad that people like you don't understand the difference between speculation and empiricism. Also the model has not had very good predictive power. And my belief that life was designed is largely based on the fact that intelligence is the only known cause of the type of information found in cells.

I hate it when people say that an argument is a god of the gaps. It's like you people think that because God is not involved in everything, it is illogical to think He was involved in anything. In other words "because we have seen in the past that weather is not caused by God, all things seeming to be the product of intention and mind are illusory. Therefore appealing to the mind as a causal force is automatically wrong." Why is this logical? Moreover, it is not because we do not understand any forces capable of producing information, it is because intelligence is exactly what fits the bill. And you can wait for a "rational" answer to abiogenesis if you want to, but don't conflate rational with undirected. Intelligence is the rational explanation for some observations.

Once again, negative arguments (alongside positive arguments) are necessary to vilify the claim that I'm making. If I claim that A is the only known good idea, then I have to show that ideas B, C, and D are bad ideas. I also have to show that A is a good idea. There may be a good idea F, but nobody's found it yet. Do you see the analogy to the claim that I'm making? Intelligence is the only known cause capable. Chance and necessity and a combination of the two are not capable (read Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer). Intelligence is capable. There are no other known explanations. Therefore the claim has been supported. And why does everyone here think I have some pre-existing belief that I can't get rid of? So do all of you. So does every scientist who ever lived. My beliefs have changed dynamically since I've been in college, and I think it is unfair for you guys to assert that I have some sort of mental barrier because of them.

No, I do not take Genesis literally. The difference between creationism and ID is that creationists state that the Bible is scientifically accurate. They must shove all facts into this narrow bubble. Similarly, the evolutionist has a (slightly more flexible) bubble where the facts must conform to the previously described materialistic worldview. The ID community has not drawn a bubble. They have simply stated and argued that some features of the universe are best explained as a product of intelligence. Do you take Aleister Crowley's book of the law literally? Quit stereotyping and making assumptions about what I believe.