In a debate with Alister McGrath, Dennet proposes that, far from being beneficial to humans, religion is a virus to which we adapt. It occurs to me that Dennet, like Dawkins recognizes that religion is part of the human condition but doesn't want to grant that it is beneficial. But if one can argue that religion is a virus, can't someone else argue that democracy is one as well? At which point, we need to drop meme talk and rely on an insightful discussion of the evidence for/against belief in God.
Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological...
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