The Case for Theism

[Drew_2013]

I think it's a profound mystery. I haven't found any proposed explanation for the existence of the universe that I find persuasive

It is a profound mystery my thinking is that the space time reality we live in is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. If we aren't the result of some transcendent being who purposely caused us to exist...then we are gods because unlike anything else we observe, we can actually decide to do something and make something happen.

I do have religious opinions and such, but in addition to being somewhat personal and private, they are likely not of interest or benefit to anyone else, and don't have any real accepted evidentiary value. I accept the evolutionary explanation for the evidence about the diversity, form, and pattern of life, while acknowledging that abiogenesis still has no adequate theory at this time. (I'm also a philosopher, specializing in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, and I have my own, unproven, physicalist model for the phenomena typically referred to as consciousness. It's certainly speculative, but my current thinking is that there is nothing particularly mysterious about consciousness, whether or not my model proves accurate.)

I have heard from other folks who are convinced that humans don't really have what we refer to as free will, they claim its an illusion. I point out to them that there is no reason for me to subscribe to their opinion because if they are right, they didn't come to the conclusion through research and study and weighing the pro and cons, they came to the conclusion because they had no choice but to come to that conclusion. If we all come to conclusions not because we used reason and logic but because a set of circumstances led inexorably led us to that conclusion then we have no reason to think one opinion is better than another.

The Panspermia I was familiar with was the belief life here was planted by alien life. I stated the existence of life as a line of evidence in favor of what I believe. I didn't refer to whether it started here or when it began to exist.

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Secondly whether or not the existence of something is reason to believe it was caused is in the eye of the beholder. When we consider that everything we can think of in existence can be traced back to a cause we have no reason to make an exception of the existence of the universe.

I believe this an example of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, but I don't feel like explaining it, both because I'm lazy, and for other reasons. If you're going to introduce a cosmological argument in support of your argument from design, I request that you do so explicitly and support it on its merits.

I don't think there is any argument one can make that can't be labeled somehow or another. Perhaps we should call it the argument from labeling arguments argument and dismiss it that way. Besides simply labeling an argument in some fashion you have to demonstrate it actually is guilty of the alleged fallacy.