“The Problem of Evil” in atheism and in Islam

[paulpablo]

Harris said

I stick to my initial views that Assault Course has no physical properties. Instead or writing “… as it has no properties,” I wrote “… as it has no PHYSICAL properties” and for this mistake I apology.

Why assault course has no physical properties.

By definition course is the way in which something progresses or develops. It is a procedure to move without obstruction in order to deal with a particular situation. If something happens in the course of a particular period of time, it happens during that period of time.
Harris said
[quote]Everyone knows there are different types of courses say:

Navigation course, sail course, meal course, education course, medicine course, music course, architecture course, orienteering course, etc.

However, Course is an abstract object as significant parts of it appear to be about objects, which lie outside space and time, and is therefore incapable of figuring in causal relationships. Abstract objects can be neither seen nor heard, nor can they be tasted, felt or smelled. Therefore, course has no physical properties and here you are wrong in saying that assault course has physical properties.

Concrete physical objects can be being picked out ostensively, while abstract objects are those to which we can refer only by means of some functional expression. Other good example of abstract objects are numbers and sets.

Assault courses are physical and aren't outside of space and time, if you ignore that they exist within the physical realm then you will be at a disadvantage when making predictions involving them.
If subject A has to run through an assault course in a race with subject B who has no assault course to deal with and they are of similar physical and mental fitness levels I can predict that because of the physical obstacles and challenges in the way of subject A, he will lose the race.
You will be incapable of making this prediction unless you acknowledge the assault course is real.

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Selection is the action of CAREFULLY choosing something as being the best or most suitable. Most noticeable thing in the selection of things is a THING or SET OF THINGS that have been selected from a LARGER GROUP. Therefore, selection means deduction not increment.

Let us take the first fictitious living cell. That cell was struggling for the survival and on the way; it met with the natural selection. Natural selection selected the best part of that cell and eliminated the rest. However, in order to develop from simple into complex structure, addition is the requirement not the subtraction. So how comes natural selection eliminate part of the first living cell and that cell grew into more complex structure. Illogical!

Again I'm no biologist but I don't think it works like that.

Natural selection has never been used as an explanation as to how things become more complex. And I THINK it's also not relevant to speculate on the effects of natural selection on the first living cell, since natural selection is a process which effects populations as a whole, and not individual cells in the way that you're thinking of.

It's mutation plus natural selection, mutations are responsible for the complexities, and natural selection is what eliminates things like your zombie man from living.

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Harris said

For the sake of argument, I say, you are correct and conscious decisions are part of natural selection, does that means that unconscious natural selection, to which you cannot give proper scientific definition, that has no vision and no foresight is creating conscious beings who are self-aware and have tremendous power of making conscious decisions. Does that sound rational to you?

If you're asking me does it make sense that evolution, mutations and natural selection, has resulted in animals with complex, efficient, brains that are self aware, then the answer is yes.

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Selection is the action of CAREFULLY choosing something as being the best or most suitable. Most noticeable thing in the selection of things is a THING or SET OF THINGS that have been selected from a LARGER GROUP. Therefore, selection means deduction not increment.

This is a better definition of selection for the purposes of this discussion, it relates more to biology.

a process in which environmental or genetic influences determine which types of organism thrive better than others, regarded as a factor in evolution.

So when asking me do I believe if natural selection is selecting the best of the best you can look back to this definition.