26thOctober
ID = Panentheism
You can now watch Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed online at Netflix. As of this writing, I have watched 36 minutes of this movie. So far, it is better than expected. It is entertaining and provocative. However, it is also not as good as I would like it to be. Granted that I have watched less than half of this movie, what it lacks is evidence for intelligent design and against evolution.
If you step back and approach the question of the possibility of a cosmic designer outside of any religious perspective, whether pro or con, then you have to ask how anything can create something out of nothing. Since this is an illogical presupposition, we are left with a conclusion that the only way anything could have caused what we now experience as reality is for that thing to also be part and parcel of reality. In other words, accepting the possiblity of a cosmic creator(s) is tantamount to being a panentheist.
Timothy Aaron Whiston says 3rd November @ 14:04
The quest to define the origins of life, the universe, etc. is likely to be an unending pursuit. The premise is a little mind-boggling and appears to be a few notches beyond legitimate comprehension, doesn’t it?
Here we are. Attach whatever slant or flavor we like but the fact seems to remain… here we are.
It stands to reason to suggest the phenomenon we refer to as life must have started somewhere, somehow. But where and how do you break the cycle of tail-chasing that begins with “How can something spring forth from nothing?”
As you’ve stated, where is the logic in assuming a creator existed in the nothingness? By the same token, how does the notion of spontaneous beginning, the big bang or whatever, bear any stouter logic?
In either case we are faced with the task of accepting that nothing existed. And from this nothing came something.
It’s the kind of question that can lead to insanity if you want the answer badly enough to seriously look for it. I realize that’s a bit of a cop out but this has always been an issue I’ve been unable to satisfy myself with an answer to.