ID Censors Their Own

Swamidass · September 11, 2016, 5:13am

deliberateresult:

I do not see people as machines. It is a remarkable that you seem to think that living things are “technology”. How could that even be a Christian position? Do you think that computers can have souls and bear the image of God in the same way we do? There so much to unpack in your stunning claim here.

Aren’t we getting a bit silly here? Here’s the copy-and-paste of what I said:

“But the differences that do exist between human designs and biological systems all have to do with the fact that biological systems are far more technologically advanced than what we are capable of.”

Have you ever heard of, say, for example, a respiratory system or a nervous system? My exact words, as you can see, deal with biological systems. To point out the technological brilliance of such systems is not to say that people are machines. When I talk about the advanced data processing of living organisms do you suppose I am saying that people are data processing systems?

Honestly it sounds like you are seeing people as machines, even in this quote. Of course we make analogies between living systems and machines, language, technology, etc. That is how humans work. We reason about often this way. You, however, seem to think the there is not analogy, that this is actually describing the reality.

You say, DNA is actually a language, no metaphor, right? The only differences between humans and machines are because we are much more brilliantly engineered. Right?

I’m fine with using the metaphors, but you seem to be taking them very literally. I am not comfortable with that. It leads to very poor thinking, and in the case of calling humans and example of technology, it makes me ethically and theologically squeemish.

I don’t think I’m being silly here.

@deliberateresult, do you at least concede that in all these cases this is all just analogies? That there isn’t a this strong equivalence that you seem to be arguing for at times? If so, that would put me at ease. If not, I’m glad I raised the point, and I just can’t go there with you.