[net.origins] Reply to Jake

lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (03/27/85)

First, I would say it is not the complexity of artificial objects which
provides the clue to their artificiallity.  I think a button is as obvious
an artifact as a watch.  Aside from our familiarity with buttons, it is
our inability to imagine a natural process producing such an object which
leads us to believe in its human manufacture.

Second, I should think it most obvious that humans and other animals are not
"created". That is, they reproduce themselves.  Even creationists admit
that this process has been going on over hundreds or thousands of
generations without the overt intervention of any higher intelligence,
and without violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Well, "All the more marvelous!" you say. But is it reasonable to view
life as a supernatural intruder in the natural world? On the contrary,
the life processes are very much a part of nature, both in their internal
workings and external relations.  If you want to say that the complexity
of nature itself compels a belief in an underlying intelligence, I won't
argue, being something of a pantheist myself.  I will argue against the
necessity (or even the attraction) of believing that life is superposed
on nature from without.

		Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihlpa!lew