Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 08:16:00 -0700 From: "Brian Holtz" To: "Brian Holtz" "Netcom jimhumph" : > > if certain religious > explanations have been offered in the past for naturalistic phenomena, > and those explantions have been shown to false in the light of modern > science - something I fully accept incidentally- it by no means follows > that theism is false and that naturalism obtains. I didn't say it did. I said roughly that the argument from design is a sinking ship, and asked a) are you on it? and b) do you have a lifeboat? > Again note that current science does not endorse naturalism > when it presents explanations for such things as the origin of the > Universe. But science does whittle away at the argument from design, and I was asking you roughly "does your theism depend on the argument from design?". > My argument is that theism is not ( and should never have been) > in the business of plugging gaps in the first place. I take it, then, that your theism does not depend on the argument from design, and that even if there were no unexplained design in the universe you would still be a theist? > It is a metaphysical explanation, not an an empirical one. Is there then no possible pattern of empiricial evidence that could dissuade you from theism? Is your theism empirically unfalsifiable? If we thawed you out in the year 9000, and you found that science had explained all apparent design, and that theism was only a faint memory, and that even aliens contacted by radio were all atheists, would you still say we all just have our metaphysics wrong? (For what it's worth, I'd be happy to repost the empirical evidence it would take to make me a theist.) > What questions can theism answer which science cannot? > One example would be that it can explain the highest > level scientific laws. [..] Here the atheist flounders- > he can only offer the non-explanantion that such laws > "just are". Whereas the theist saying "God just is" is _not_ "floundering"? :-) Science is of course not a replacement for metaphysics, and it's silly to pretend that atheists fall off the end of their epistemological world when you ask what explains the deepest scientific laws. As you surely know, science can be given a nice foundation of metaphysical naturalism and materialism. This is not to say that materialist naturalism _can_ answer the Big Why (why does god/universe/anything exist?). However, that theism pretends to have the answer is a bug, not a feature. :-) > > such losers as the Ontological, Cosmological [..] Arguments? > > > I don't think that the first of these ( maybe the first two ) > are by any means losers as presented in some > modern versions. That doesn't > mean that I think they provide a compelling argument for > theism, but they are at least plausible. Hmm, you seem not depend on the Teleological Argument, and you decline to endorse the Ontological and Cosmological Arguments. Are you sure you're a theist, and if so, can you remind us why? :-)