However, I suggest that the absence God does not mean the absence of a
spiritual intelligence. This intelligence is presumed to have developed
at the same time intelligence was developing in the material world.
Religion confuses this intelligence with a God. In fact, it is simply
another consequence of evolution, but based on radiation energy rather
than matter. Of course, the spiritual intelligence is beyond ours
because it has been soaking up knowledge for billions of years from
millions of intelligent species. No wonder it looks like a God to us.
Ed
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Michael Foster wrote:
As God works in mysterious ways, I can't see why evolution isn't one
of them.
Many religious biologists agree. However, by and large scientists and
biologists in particular tend to be atheists. The best explication for
their reasoning can be found in R. Dawkins, "The God Delusion."
To make a long story very short, his main argument -- which is very
ancient -- is that introducing God is a violation of Ockham's razor;
i.e. multiplying entities unnecessarily. If the complexity and the
origin of life are difficult to explain, it is far more difficult to
explain how God might have originated. Furthermore, the laws of physics,
chemistry and Darwinian evolution satisfactorily explain all aspects of
life (so far anyway), without reference to any motivation, plan or
conscious action by any intelligent being, mortal or immortal. In other
words, there is no evidence whatever that extraterrestrials seeded earth
with the first cells, or that a cosmic intelligence guided the
development of life. There is no need to invoke such ideas to explain
the phenomena discovered thus far. Perhaps, in the future, some aspect
of biology will require such explanations, but I doubt that will happen.
Dawkins restates the argument in another thought provoking way. As far
as anyone knows, complexity and intelligence only appear as the end
product of natural forces, after billions of years of evolution. There
is no evidence that they can arise by any other means. On the other
hand, there is ample evidence that the laws of physics were operative
from the moment of the big bang on. So the forces that would eventually
drive evolution were there all along, but it does not seem physically
possible that they were accompanied by or controlled by intelligence.
The Dawkins book has attracted a lot of emotional attacks, but by and
large I think it is a quiet philosophical exposition which should not
upset any intelligent reader, even a very religious one. All of his
arguments have been around since Darwin, and many for thousands of years
before that, so any educated believer will be familiar with them. So I
can't see why they would upset anyone. I have not read the other best
selling books about atheism, but based on reviews and extracts they seem
to be more confrontational and emotional.
- Jed