Natural Selection Seems Insufficient

[Angrboda]

This is the main problem in a nutshell.  You have this grand explanation which is predicated on reductionistic explanations being insufficient.   You even made a brief stab at why you think so in your OP.  However, at the end of the day, you can only demonstrate the insufficiency of known reductionistic explanations.  Which means by dismissing reductionistic explanations as a whole, you are also dismissing reductionistic explanations which are currently unknown.   This is a textbook appeal to ignorance as you are basing your dismissal on our being ignorant and unaware of good reductionistic explanations for these things, by focusing on a subset of those explanations, namely ones that are known, and more precisely that are known to you.  T

When Christians say, "God has a hidden purpose for creating this kind of dark world," atheists regard this as a copout.

Likewise I regard your post as a copout. You are basically saying, "Reductionism has some hidden tenets that would resolve it's apparent deficiencies."

That's not a reasonable position, because reductionism is what it is. It cannot be more than the deterministic reality that it defines itself as. Once you go beyond that boundary, you've plunged into panpysychism. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Whether you regard it as a copout is really immaterial to whether your argument is or isn't fatally flawed. All you're basically doing is showing that you aren't arguing based on reason in good faith.

A simple example. Before Darwin, theologists thought divine creation was a reasonable explanation because naturalism couldn't explain the diversity of life. Then came Darwin. It isn't the case that the theollogists were temporarily right, no, they were always wrong. They were wrong before and after, no matter how much they might have declined to accept the consequences of simple logic, just as you do.

Misapplication of the law of the excluded middle is a fallacy, your fee fees notwithstanding.

[Jal]

Again, I did  not ask anyone here to accept Christianity. What I HAVE done is:
(1) Argued for the insufficiency of reductionistic Natural Selection to explain the present order. 
(2) In passing, I have mentioned my Christian beliefs and challenged observers to identify anything unreasonable there. I haven't seen anyone on this thread convincingly rise to that challenge.

As to rocks being partially conscious, once you empty out the set of qualities a paradigm case of consciousness possesses, self-awareness, ability to reason, experience, memory, and so forth, it becomes clear that you're just applying the word consciousness to things regardless of whether they display the traits and qualities of consciousness.  You want to inherit the larger set of traits where you have evidence, and assume a minimum supposed set where the traits are absent.  This is using the word consciousness in different cases within the same argument as if they referred to the same thing, the same qualities, and the same processes when they clearly do not refer to the same phenomenon.  This is basic equivocation.  Consciousness means one thing when applied to a human, and something else when applied to a rock or a potato, or to undifferentiated matter.  This is the fallacy that grounds most panpsychism: the problem that the word and concept of consciousness is being used inconsistently, and therefore much of the claims are simply unsound.  Whatever it is that I am doing is definitely not the same thing that the rock is doing.  The only way around this is to assert it without evidence, that the rock and I share something even if you have no evidence for the claim that we do.

I am not getting your point here. You don't believe in differing degrees of self-awareness? Do you believe that plants are alive?
(A) Are plants as sentient as we are?
(B) Are plants the same as rocks in terms of sentiene?

You may disagree with my beliefs about sentience, but you haven't shown them illogical, implausible, or impossible. You just don't like my beliefs.  But I'm not sure why you think that your dislike of my beliefs is relevant to this debate.

[The Grand Nudger]

But there is no good faith answer to that? Our new friend does not believe in panpsychism. Our new friend believes that arguing for "panpsychism" is useful to his supergay christianity.

[The Grand Nudger]

I am not getting your point here. You don't believe in differing degrees of self-awareness? Do you believe that plants are alive?
(A) Are plants as sentient as we are?

Yep.

Are plants the same as rocks in terms of sentiene?

Nope.

[Jal]

When Christians say, "God has a hidden purpose for creating this kind of dark world," atheists regard this as a copout.

Likewise I regard your post as a copout. You are basically saying, "Reductionism has some hidden tenets that would resolve it's apparent deficiencies."

That's not a reasonable position, because reductionism is what it is. It cannot be more than the deterministic reality that it defines itself as. Once you go beyond that boundary, you've plunged into panpysychism. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Whether you regard it as a copout is really immaterial to whether your argument is or isn't fatally flawed.  All you're basically doing is showing that you aren't arguing based on reason in good faith.

And your attitude seems to be, "All things are potentically explicable exhuastively by science even when simple reasoning suggests it is illogical to presume so."

[The Grand Nudger]

Hunger isn't all things. It's just one thing. One pretty explicable thing......with no need of gods or panpsychism.

[Ravenshire]

It needed pointing out because you based part of your ideas on shit you simply don't understand, making them self refuting.

Let me put it this way. I know something about coding, mostly in AutoLISP for use in AutoCad and in Python. I know fuck-all about coding in C#. In other words I'm completely ignorant of how to code in C#. You will never find me on a coding forum spouting ideas that require an understanding of C#, but that's exactly what you've done here. If you wan't to base ideas on the sciences, or refute some part of them, you have to understand them first. You clearly don't. It's not an insult, it's an observation based on your own presentations.

Your argument seems to compare two people:
1. A doctoral candidate in the sciences.
2. A person who took Philosophy 101, and no science courses. 

Your ASSUMPTION is, the philosophy student cannot reasonably questoin a conclusoin drawn by the doctor in science. 
You're wrong.  I already implied an example. The scientist might conclude, "The physiology of the body (e.g. ATP) is the sole power propelling motility".

Let's think about that. If a domino effect (ATP) is the sole power at work, then I can punch you in the face with impunity. No one has any right to indict me of assault or punish me. 

MY claim is that free will is a self-moving force, which accounts for human accountability, as well as solves the First Mover problem. That scientist is therefore incorrect. 

The point is that you cannot apriori assume, "Only the person who studies and believes the content of science textbooks can rightly opine or comment on material reality".

That's an unwise assumption.

Twisting my words, misrepresenting what I said, and speaking for me. Yet I'm the one putting on a show?

What I said is very simple. If you don't understand a subject (which you obviously do not), you cannot intelligently comment on that subject. Whether you believe (using evolution strictly as an example) that we evolved from apes has fucking nothing to do with understanding evolution well enough to refute it, agree with it, or base an argument (for or against) on it's tenets.

You seem to want to double down on ignorance as a base for argumentation so we're again reduced to pointing and laughing, with you as the only target.

[Jal]

I am not getting your point here. You don't believe in differing degrees of self-awareness? Do you believe that plants are alive?
(A) Are plants as sentient as we are?

Yep.

Are plants the same as rocks in terms of sentiene?

Nope.

Plants are sentient as we? I don't think you really believe that. Potentially as sentient? Yes. Actually as sentient? I'm pretty sure No.

[Jal]

Your argument seems to compare two people:
1. A doctoral candidate in the sciences.
2. A person who took Philosophy 101, and no science courses. 

Your ASSUMPTION is, the philosophy student cannot reasonably questoin a conclusoin drawn by the doctor in science. 
You're wrong.  I already implied an example. The scientist might conclude, "The physiology of the body (e.g. ATP) is the sole power propelling motility".

Let's think about that. If a domino effect (ATP) is the sole power at work, then I can punch you in the face with impunity. No one has any right to indict me of assault or punish me. 

MY claim is that free will is a self-moving force, which accounts for human accountability, as well as solves the First Mover problem. That scientist is therefore incorrect. 

The point is that you cannot apriori assume, "Only the person who studies and believes the content of science textbooks can rightly opine or comment on material reality".

That's an unwise assumption.

Twisting my words, misrepresenting what I said, and speaking for me. Yet I'm the one putting on a show?

What I said is very simple. If you don't understand a subject (which you obviously do not), you cannot intelligently comment on that subject. Whether you believe (using evolution strictly as an example) that we evolved from apes has fucking nothing to do with understanding evolution well enough to refute it, agree with it, or base an argument (for or against) on it's tenets.

You seem to want to double down on ignorance as a base for argumentation so we're again reduced to pointing and laughing, with you as the only target.

You seem to want to double down on creating a facade instead of addressing the arguments.

[Ravenshire]

More insults,  and no substance. Yawn.

As you can see, it's not possible to discuss theology or philosophy on this forum.

This is an insult forum. They want to use you as a "chew toy" and then make you leave, either by making you mad so you leave on your own or finding a reason to ban you.

You might have better luck at 

https://www.religiousforums.com/

At that forum they are willing to discuss different topics without requiring total conformity, and the moderators encourage discussion. Several people who used to post here have moved over there so they can discuss things.

As for the idea that natural selection is not sufficient to explain evolution, this is an idea that several prominent scientists currently agree about. I first heard of it from Denis Noble, who did research in biology at Oxford for 20 years, and has about as distinguished a career as a biologist can have. He knows more about evolutionary biology than you or I or anyone posting here. He also says that our current model of how evolution functions is mistaken and needs a major overhaul. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble

https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/

I don't know whether he and his colleagues are correct about this or not. He knows more than I do. 

His ideas have no relation to religion and do not draw on any supernatural or theological arguments.

Oh, fuck off, Bel. There is no demand for conformity at this site. Just a call for people to not talk shit out there ass as you so frequently do. As much a you bitch about this site, you'd think you'd find something more enjoyable to do with your time.