On Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:06:34 -0500 you wrote:
>SJ>I find it interesting that materialists must still speak and write
>like theists! It seems they cannot bear to live out their philosophy
>consistently?
EO>Francis Schaeffer noted this tendency in Monod, too. Of course one
of the
>big themes of Schaeffer's ministry was that people are not able to live
>consistently by materialist assumptions. There's always a point in their
>thinking where an inconsistency arises. Particualrly he liked to point out
>that B. F. Skinner, after he had endeavored to destroy consciousness as a
>real entity, then talked about how we were free to determine what we should
>become -- a neat trick for creatures who only "think" they are conscious.
Agreed. There is a self-refuting quality about all such reductionism.
Dawkins writes:
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and
genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people
are going-to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it,
nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the
properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no
purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference...DNA
neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."
(Dawkins R., "God's Utility Function", Scientific American, Vol.
273, No. 5, November 1995, p67)
One wonders why, if Dawkins really believed what he wrote, he would
bother raging against God and creationists? According to Dawkins'
nihilist philosophy, God is non-existent and creationists are just
dancing to the music *their* DNA.
Indeed, on this view, if Darwin and Dawkins are just dancing to the
music of their selfish genes, why should we believe them?
If the universe is as purposeless as Dawkins maintains, why is he so
purposeful in trying to convince everyone of it? As Holder observes:
"It is Hawking and Dawkins who, in their different ways, overstep
the boundaries of science by claiming that, because God does not
occur in their science, he does not exist. They present the scientific
account, but accompany it with all kind of unjustified metaphysical
statements. For example, because the scientific account of
biological evolution does not mention purpose, Dawkins concludes
that there is no purpose, or alternatively, the purpose of human
beings is merely to propagate their genes. But, as Stanley Jaki
observes, 'His most purposeful campaign against purpose in nature
offered one more startling bit of evidence about man's ability to
know design and act purposively...every book is a tangible witness
to purpose, to final cause, which is so different from the efficient
cause as to never contradict any of the conservation laws of
physics." (Jaki S., "The Road of Science and the Ways to God",
University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1978, p294, in Holder
R.D., "Nothing but Atoms and Molecules?: Probing The Limits
of Science", Monarch: Tunbridge Wells, 1993, pp34-35)
God bless.
Stephen
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