Re: Irony

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 16:18:06 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/01/2025 4:17 am, Martin Harran wrote:

On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 13:13:50 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
 
[…]
 

"simple self replicators" is an oxymoron.

 
So what? Even if your argument is valid, how does that take us closer
to God which is surely the only thing that matters for a religious
believer?
 
I asked you a number of similar questions in another thread but you
walked away from them The answers to those specific questions don't
really matter - they were just my attempt at being Socratic. What is
really important, and what I think you should think long and hard
about, is why you find them so hard to answer.
 
In some ways, you remind me of myself when I came to TO about 15 or so
years ago. At that time I was a committed religious believer who knew
nothing about evolution or OOL. I came here on the recommendation of a
friend who was the first person I heard to hear use the expression
"God of the Gaps" and tried to convince me that science shows my Faith
is badly founded. I had no qualms about my Faith but I regard myself
as a rational person and didn't like to think that I might be
believing stuff that science had shown to be nonsense, so I decided to
explore this further.
 
Initially, I did find it a struggle. I never had too much bother
reconciling evolution with my beliefs but OOL did seem to pose a major
problem for me. I always, however, try to make sure I study all sides
of an argument. My early reading was mostly on the pure science side
of the fence but then I discovered writers like Teilhard de Chardin
writing a hundred years ago or more recent authors like Ken Miller,
Francis Collins and John Polkinghorne. These were highly qualified,
highly regarded scientists who had no problem reconciling their
scientific knowledge with their religious beliefs. The more I studied
it, the more I came to understand that there is no inherent conflict
between science and religion, is manufactured by people on both sides
who persist with a narrow viewpoint, often with very extreme views.
Fifteen or so years later, I can honestly say that my exploration of
science has made my religious belief even more intense and committed.
 
I seriously advise you not to get hung up on areas where science has
no answers or answers are incomplete. You will only tie yourself up in
endless knots and you are on a proverbial hiding to nothing if you try
to justify your beliefs by proving other people wrong where they have
tangible evidence and you don't. You will gain far more by taking what
science does tell us and figuring out how that fits in with your
religious beliefs, how you can use what science tells us to deepen
your religious understanding of God.
 

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Btw, thanks for this summary of your personal journey.
>
Like you, I don't believe there's a conflict between science and
Christian faith. And my own faith does not depend on science.
>
I believe though that there is for many an a priori commitment to the
faith of metaphysical naturalism, and this leads to a misuse of
scientific evidence

There are likely just as many who have an a priori commitment to a
faith based on a literal reading of scripture and who reject out of
hand any scientific evidence that they think contradicts it. Opposite
sides of the same coin.

--as per my thought experiment of say 10,000 years of
OoL research failure etc.

The problem with your thought experiment was that it assumes there is
a finite time period after which research should be discarded.

>
And as I previously explained, I've not responded to your "Socratic"
questions not because I "find them so hard to answer", but because your
response to my thought experiment reveals we simply don't appear to have
a necessary common foundation for debate. I don't say this dismissively
or rudely, just as a statement of fact as I see it. But happy for you go
to back to that and convince me otherwise.
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