FallentoReason 2.0

[The Grand Nudger]

Since we're both at the same place with the inability of gut feelings to make a compelling case for a god, I guess the best way to continue might be to explore what parts of the "majesty of it all" you found compelling. Now keep in mind, as I mentioned before...I find the whole bit pretty majestic too.....but I find it majestic without ignoring the rougher edges and without assuming a creator.

It sounds like you're trying to have your cake and eat it. Water is essential for life, but even that is fatal if too much is consumed (and I'm not vaguely referring to drowning but literally properly consuming water until you die. My dad told me someone at his university got bullied to that extent. Anyways..). I don't think it's reasonable to say that (and therefore conclude) that it's actually inconvenient to have the sun. You wouldn't be here to say that if it wasn't for the sun so I beg to differ that it's "inconvenient" for us.

I'm eating the only cake on offer. Sure, it's edible, but if there were a choice of flavors....... A great many things have this sort of Janus relationship with regrds to ourselves. Essential on the one hand but lethal on the other. In the case of water, it's a question of chemistry (and biology-little physics.). Armed with a little bit of knowledge about both it becomes easy to understand how this happens, but why? Well, the lazy answer (but inline with your proposal mind you) is that godwilledit. Another answer would be that -given the chemistry and physics involved- this was the most likely outcome (one needn't assume a creator for this, but if you do assume the creative tinkerer, setting things the way they will them..it might become troubling).

Water is leveraged by organic chemistry on this planet for a variety of reasons. It's use as a solvent is the most pressing for this example though. Because water has been leveraged as a solvent (used to transport this and that to where it needs to be) alot life developed around a process called osmosis. In a nutshell, water outside of a cell contains a far lesser amount of solutes than water inside a cell, which causes the water to seek to dilute the cells solution. The "osmotic pump" that we use is such, however, that cell walls are permeable on the intake, but selective with regards to allowing water to escape (if at all). Essentially, our cells are a "water trap", they are adept at exploiting the process of osmosis but essentially they are dumb systems which don't know when to quit. Unfortunately, when their are excessive amounts of water (containing far fewer solutes in comparison with our cells) this has the effect of causing our cells to swell to dangerous levels. Of special interest in this process are the cells in our brains. This swelling leads to the symptoms of onset (water intoxication) and begins to interfere with our central nervous system (which starts to cause problems a little more pressing than just being water "drunk").

Now, in this example, if I wanted to apply your notion of a tinkerer I could call into question the properties of water. Some changes water (which of course would have been trivially easy if you were "setting the parameters" for life at a level below evolution - at the level that affects physics and chemistry) would make the osmotic process a hell of alot more convenient in that while it might still be essential to our biology - it wouldn't kill us as well because of a tick in our biology (or in this case, because of a tick in water exploited by our biology).

Now, one thing I want to mention here is that you just mentioned the type of reasoning that forms the entirety of this "finely tuned parameters and too convenient to be chance" type of argument. If things where not as they are, we would not be here to ask the question. This is known as anthropic reasoning. The anthropic principle you've so casually referred to here might actually undermine the idea of fine tuning or any sort of intelligent design or designer in that it offers another explanation (one requiring fewer assumptions and very well evidenced) for "why we're here at all". If anthropic reasoning holds then why assume a creator where none is required? "The Creator" would be those laws of nature themselves. Clearly not the kind of creator you're looking for though eh?

Relative to our species' lifetime, the sun's countdown timer has been set to "eternal". I would have thought that someone with your intellect had already heard some of the Four Horsemen talk about how evolution isn't perfect and we will eventually die out from the very process that refines us.

It's a similar situation (to the above) with regards to the sun. Sure, we require the energy it puts off, but our requiring it doesn't change the destructive nature of that energy and process (destructive even on a small scale mind you, even before we discuss that day when the sun says fuck you - it's steadily damaging all of your cells requiring them to be constantly repaired and replaced. If there were any other flavor on offer............

Now sure, the sun will outlast you and I, and perhaps (or more likely) all of humanity as is. That still doesn't affect what the sun is composed of, what it's doing, and how it will eventually come to an end itself. Hell, why you would even bring up our demise by any other means is baffling. Now you've shortened the clock, adding yet more inconvenient shit to the mix. You're excusing the sun (as part of this creators plan - a plan that entailed the desire for life) for the inevitability of it offing us by referencing some other thing that will kill us first? Tell me, what other part of this god-willed universe -intended for life- isn't friendly to us?

The elliptical orbit was what I was referring to when I said "basically the same distance". It's clearly a negligible triviality because the extra distance isn't fatal to life on Earth.

It's fatal to a great deal of life on earth.............I think this is just an example in which you've chosen to "eliminate the negative..accentuate the positive". Or, if you prefer, count the hits- ignore the misses.

I can't make sense of this because I don't know what you mean by "licked to us".

Sorry, typo I didn't catch. "Locked to us". I was observing the in-hospitability of some portion of this rock due to the very orbit you invoked. Some of it constant, further from the poles it's variable. Something you may want to look into, since we're on the subject, is just how inhospitable the earth actually is. The vast majority of this planet is not suitable for human life.

I think it's the fact it all works so well. I mean, I can agree with all the stuff you've said about how imperfect/blunt it all is, but as a mechanism it works -- from the exploding ball of gas to the terraformed planet.

I'm not sure that those elusive periods of time where things aren't being destroyed would constitute "working". I would certainly wonder what it would mean if all of this was "working as intended" (ie GodWilledIt™ ). What was it intended to be, a meat grinder? Certainly seems to be the case.

The only thing I could think of that would give a fallible human some sort of idea about an infallible creature's plan is along the lines of nailing a criminal to a plank of wood. Aside from the theistic response that would satisfy your query, I don't really know what to say.

Well, you did offer up that your observations of the natural world would seem to you to imply that a creator wanted there to be life. What I'm doing is exploring those observations to see if we could reach a different conclusion about that creator. Say, for shits and giggle, that this creator was powerless to "create" anything any other way, a bungling idiot, immensely malicious, or just maybe...didn't actually "create" anything at all.

It's like if I had a car but no car company told me it was to get from A to B, I could eventually deduce (from it's internal workings) that I can use it to my advantage to travel great distances, but I could also come to the conclusion I could use it to chop down small trees by driving into them. Now, the car company wouldn't advice that, so I'm inclined not to do that. But the person who doesn't believe in the creator of this car I would think would be more inclined to use it in whatever manner, because they don't acknowledge the company's suggestion(s).

Where to begin.........

1. You may actually never deduce this at all. Hand a neolithic farmer the keys to a tractor and see if he plows his fields with it.

2. If you could chop down trees with the car why wouldn't you chop down trees with the car? In your example about drugs you offered some negatively valued outcome as an effect of improper use. Here in this example you haven't. History is replete with inventions beings used to far better purpose than the initial designers originally intended. You're using one such example right now (your pc). This is ignoring that we've already assumed a creator - by a created thing- and what I'm asking you is specifically whether or not a creator is required. In the case of finding some object in a field that's useful for some task it clearly isn't. The neolithic farmer is another great example of that. Look at all the tasks they accomplished with rocks.

Unless you're also willing to propose that the intended use of a rock was to plow a furrow (or kill a pest).....well....the example is DOA. Even assuming a creator the assumption isn't required to explain the utility of a tool for any given task, a tool may be useful for some "unintended task" and the only intent that's actually being leveraged here is the intent of the user. It doesn't really matter how the object found it's way into the field if our only point of reference for drawing a conclusion is it's application to work. Our conclusions will all be based on the work and the user, not the "creator" if it existed.

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants here, but maybe you can answer your own question. I say this because I sincerely believe it's up to the individual whether it's necessary or not.

Sure I could, but that would be an echo chamber in my head-I find it far more interesting to see how others might answer a similar question. Of course, remember, it may be that neither of us answers the question correctly...and we might even realize this by reference to each others various answers. Then again we may not.

I guess I was concluding what can be deduced if one doesn't believe in a deity. Of course, what I wrote isn't the end of it. Clearly meaning can be made from life without believing in a deity.

Bit like the intent of the user..eh?

Back when I had a more atheistic mindset, I would occasionally smoke at parties even though I perfectly knew what the science had to say. Now with this new mindset that's more on the Deistic side, I just won't smoke even one cigarette because I've decided to take the advice from the universe that came from my presupposed Creator.

Again I'd say you're probably taking advice from medical health professionals and yourself. It's good advice though, if you don't want to deal with all the shit that smoking entails. I still smoke. It's part of "the majesty of it all" to me.

Yeah, overall in our discussion, I can definitely see some problems with Deism and why you're not convinced. I don't mind if you're not convinced because I don't think I'm required to go out and convince the world of a god. I'm not saying that the burden of proof isn't on me, but rather that I don't have any motivation to hand out the "proof" in the first place.

No, you certainly don't have to prove god to me, and you may lack the motivation, but it's also important to point out that you lack the proof to begin with. You're having trouble with evidence, let alone proof.

I guess the agnosticism of it all is what makes it possible.

You may not want to state that uncertainty, or not knowing makes your deism possible. Aggressive folks might explain how this amounts to arguing for a proposition from a position of ignorance. While I'm absolutely certain that in some way this (your statement) is true ,because you seem to be referencing your ability to hold your beliefs.. that doesn't make the contents of those beliefs any more compelling -even if we grant such a friendly reading-. Quite the opposite. As I mentioned a few posts back, this isn't just an issue of "proving god" to me, but also of subjecting your beliefs to your own criticisms. To find "the right reasons" for your deism. One's that stand up to scrutiny not just from others but also yourself. In the end you may decide that what you've offered thusfar does exactly that - that's your decision- I'm just offering grounds for criticism where it seems apparent to me that none has occurred.

In my humble opinion, it seems to me that the examples you've offered so far as evidence or reasons to believe in this god all begin by assuming that it exists. The suitability of this rock for life (however suitable it may be) is inconsequential as evidence until you've assumed a creator to begin with. If you assume a creator it's entirely unsurprising to find that you conclude a creator....don't you think? Is the evidence that you've inserted between the assumption of creator and the conclusion of creator actually all that important in your beliefs? If it isn't, or if you are unprepared, incapable of, or unwilling to elaborate upon the evidence in detail -at length- and how it support your position..... then perhaps when people ask you why you believe you should avoid a nod to evidence (at least until something changes with regards to what you are willing to or capable of adequately explaining). I do like the way you've mentioned how deism has affected change in you (even if you can't really explain why you attribute this change to deism per se) and if I was going to argue my position to a hostile audience (I qualify as that, btw..lol) I would probably focus more on how deism was useful to me, and less on how "correct" I felt that it was.