From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Thu Aug 14 2003 - 09:46:52 EDT
Blake Nelson within a long outpouring of frustration wrote:
> BTW, what evidence is there or on what basis would one
> say that God has hard-wired only humans to perceive
> Him? I wouldn't presume that to be the case, and the
> pan-experientialists and process theologians certainly
> wouldn't either (although I do not fall into those
> categories).
>
I'm not quite sure what you are asking here? Are you thinking
that animals can have faith too. Or intelligent life on other
planets (if there is any)?
At any rate, it seems that "natural selection" has "decided" that
to believe in God is wiser than not. If we go on Glenn's
view that Neanderthals also believed in God (probably more like
gods to our thinking of course), then there is an excess of
500,000 years for evolution or natural selection to weed out
useless and unnecessary skills. So why is God still around?
We cannot seem to kill him off, can we? I think a sound
conclusion is that there is some kind of "selective advantage"
to believing in God.
Now, exactly WHY natural selection has favored belief over
non-belief a matter that is debatable. It may be possible
to argue why we should stop believing in God, because religious
experience is just "neurons firing in the brain", but then all
imagination including profound mathematical discoveries, great
scientific discoveries, and much literary and musical genius are
also mere "neurons firing in the brain". Should we dismiss these
because we can find a spot to pin them down in functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis?
So the presence of a "God module" if you will, is probably no less important
than an ear, or an eye. You can live without them, but not particularly well
and your life is much poorer for it. Hmm,... so let those with ears hear,
and eyes see.
On a more technical note:
It greatly depends on the way the brain functions in the long run.
For the most part it probably is "meat", which is the position that these
atheists cling to. On the other hand, whereas I do not support Penrose's
quantum brain as the full scale running machinery (that is the meat in
my opinion), I do think he may have a point. The imagination, the
discoveries,
this is the SALT that makes life meaningful. That is probably the quantum
mechanics rearing its head in the process. Flashes of inspiration are rare,
but they join many concepts together sort of like a wave moving through the
mind. I think if you take away the "salt", you have only the "meat" left,
which
is not very interesting, imaginative, or particular enriching for the
universe,
ourselves and whatever we were made for.
In the end, it is faith and faith alone that saves us. (Isn't that Luther?)
Maybe in the end, evolution does say more about what is true than
the atheists. We will only know the answer at the last judgment. That,
or there is basically nothing we can do about it anyway.
I think on these issues, you just have to chose what you think is right,
and run with it. Even if there is no "well done my faithful servant" at the
end of the road, will you really regret having done Godly things? I think it
is
better to live in faith (as a personal choice) and accept the consequences.
And, evolution, in some ways, seems to be saying the same thing.
By Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom
what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing
better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone
may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil --- this is the gift
of
God. I now that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be
added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere
him.
Ecclesiastes 3.11-14
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