How much is too much evolution?

Out of interest, how do you separate naturalism from nihilism (as from my understanding of philosophy, naturalism leads to nihilism most of the time)?

But if someone strongly advocates the belief that life must have been created since something so complex requires a conscious creator to bring it into existence, and you've been promoting this for page after page, surely it's reasonable to take such a proposition and place it firmly within the context of all 'creation'?

I'm using creation in a naturalistic sense to refer to everything of a physical nature.

If you insist that a purposeful, guiding hand caused life to emerge, then I think you need to tackle the quite difficult context in which that happened.

I had in mind the nature of this thing called 'God' rather than any powers, abilities or attributes. For example, of what kind is it? And how does something that has neither form nor substance think?

I've only ever heard people of faith address these questions in the vaguest terms.

'nihilism' in the sense of? Are you referring to the slow death of all stars until no light remains in the Universe?

I had in mind the nature of this thing called 'God' rather than any powers, abilities or attributes. For example, of what kind is it? And how does something that has neither form nor substance think?

I've only ever heard people of faith address these questions in the vaguest terms.

Actually, you've seen lots of things.  You've just ignored or rejected them.  Your view can only be maintained by ignoring the clear Ancient Near East historical/cultural context and Egyptian background.  The pre-scientific cosmological view presented in Genesis 1 also shows that whatever it is it is not an accurate description.  Your rejection of the historical/cultural context also leaves you with a number of predicaments.  For example, you say Genesis 1 is an accurate description, but then you're unable to expound further and bring any clarity to the meaning of those words, which begs the question of how useful your approach is.  By contrast, the historical/cultural context tells us quite clearly what is meant, for example, by Genesis 1.2, or the 'firmament' or the 'waters above', while you've only been able to say, 'I have no idea'.

Well please keep it simple for me, I'm slow. How does what happen on days three, four, five, and six as written all change due to "historical/cultural context" into something like millions of years and a common ancestor. It doesn't I don't see millions of years with a common ancestor for all life in the text?  Nor do I.  Why do you keep suggesting otherwise?  Why do you keep trying to bring modern science into it?  That's the whole point of the Ancient Near East historical/cultural context of Genesis: IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE.  

I just take the text as written I don't even see an issue to be concerned about there is nothing tricky going on. There was water on the earth, and now the sky above didn't seem all that difficult to me it was as I always read it.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse[a] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made[b] the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.[c] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Clouds, sky, gravity allows the vapors to go up so the water can come down, the cycle begins. Some have even said, in the beginning, there was a canopy of water above the earth that was destroyed when the rains came in the flood that started the process of rain.

Not really, because that would involve theological/religious speculation that would be useless to you.  Plus, I've never spoken of a 'purposeful, guiding hand' with regard to the origin of life much less 'insisted' on that.  I do believe you added that.  I've simply stated the facts as we currently know them.  We currently have no naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and everything we do know about natural processes suggests that biological entities can't spontaneously self-assemble from scratch or write executable algorithmic programs to direct biological processes, much less invent the requisite information processing machinery and arbitrary semiotic codes needed to decipher them.  In our experience, life only comes from life and prescriptive information only arises via intelligence and intentionality, so there's nothing irrational with drawing the conclusion that the origin of life would require the same.  As far as 'context', you mean the rational, logical, intelligible universe we find ourselves in?  That context?  I would think that more problematic for your view to explain than mine.

If I'm not mistaken, analytical philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and even the late Antony Flew have addressed such questions.

I’m referring to metaphysical nihilism and/or ontological nihilism (maybe existential nihilism as a less extreme alternative).

To begin with, God is not a thing, but three persons in One Being, a little more complex than one of us. I would say God thinks like you do but your the one made in God's image, not the other way around. God is Spirit not physical, until Christ we couldn't relate to Him we had no reference points we could understand. God's nature, well God is perfect, which is why He doesn't change, the ultimate in righteousness, mercy, goodness, love, justice, and so on. He is bound to behave in everything He does keeping those attributes in perfect harmony. When it is said God is One, it means just that there isn't any division or fracture in God's being or all of His actions and judgments.

To start with there're many millions of people on the planet who sincerely believe in this entity you refer to but completely reject the concept of three natures in one, i.e. the trinity.

So if fervent believers in 'God' have nothing to do with your description of him, why on earth would a person of no belief?

And what precisely is 'spirit'? Can you explain how anything without physical form can think?

It isn't a vote for truth; we don't vote on the facts we may argue about them, but they are facts we can come up with wrong ideas about, we can even deny them, but once we have the truth about them, the only thing that will occur is that they will be validated. I believe in a spirit as I believe in energy; I can explain neither. I cannot explain what gravity is; I know what it does, but I cannot tell you what it is. Why should my limited knowledge suggest something that affects my life isn't real if I see the effects?

Well about the only thing we can positively say is 'a fact' is that we have no way of explaining at the present time how life emerged. You may feel that it's a fact that life could not possibly have begun by any natural process but that's open to debate I think?  'Facts' in science are always tentative and never set in stone.  All conclusions are always tentative as well and based on current knowledge.   The current facts as we know them tell us that stochastic physio-chemical processes don't write executable algorithmic genetic programs or spontaneously organize autopoietic systems.  If future research changes that, then it changes that.

At least I think we have to adopt that position until researchers in the field abandon all hope of finding a naturalistic explanation. Like it or not that hasn't happened yet.  As I've said repeatedly before, science by its very nature can never 'abandon' naturalistic explanation because its assumes a naturalistic framework.  It has nothing to do with 'adopting a position' or 'hope'.  Science is strictly a statement of our current knowledge and currently we have no naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and everything we know about natural processes suggests that biological entities can't spontaneously self-assemble from scratch or write executable algorithmic programs to direct biological processes, much less invent the requisite information processing machinery and arbitrary semiotic codes needed to decipher them.  Like it or not that is the current state of our science.  If future research changes that then it changes.  Future 'hope' is irrelevant to the current status of our scientific knowledge now.

As for a 'purposeful, guiding hand', isn't that what you have in mind by the creator of life that you're suggesting is needed? I have nothing specific in mind.  I separate my personal beliefs from my science.  In our experience, life only comes from life and prescriptive information only arises via intelligence and intentionality, so there's nothing irrational with drawing the conclusion that the origin of life would require the same.  I do not see how we can go further than that.  Haven't you made a direct connection between such a creator and the 'God' reflected in at least the Christian religion?  With regard to the specific topic of the origin of life, no.  That is you who keeps wanting to make that connection, or rather you keep wanting to say that connection can't be made.  I've never claimed that it can.

Even if you haven't, many people of faith do and I've tried to point out that it isn't necessarily justified because such a creator might well be very, very different from any deity depicted in religion.  You keep preaching to the choir here.  I keep telling you we can't go much further than intelligence and intentionality.  As I said above in our experience, life only comes from life and prescriptive information only arises via intelligence and intentionality, so there's nothing irrational with drawing the conclusion that the origin of life would require the same.  But as I also said and have said before, I do not see how we can go further than that. 

Then there's this:-

"..biological entities can't spontaneously self-assemble from scratch or write executable algorithmic programs to direct biological processes, much less invent the requisite information processing machinery and arbitrary semiotic codes needed to decipher them"

Has anyone in the field of OOL research ever claimed this is the case? Uh, yeah!  Stochastic physio-chemical processes and mass action chemistry are all we have to work with on the naturalistic side I doubt it. And what has "writing executable algorithmic programs to direct biological processes" got to do with life?  Seriously???  It has EVERYTHING to do with life.  Like Paul Davies has noted, 'the living cell is best thought of as a supercomputer – an information processing and replicating system of astonishing complexity. DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are best described, not in terms of material stuff – hardware – but as information, or software. Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won’t work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level.'

It may be useful to describe certain life processes as if they are executable algorithmic programs, as a metaphor but such things don't literally exist in living forms. Actually, they literally do!  Astonishing, but true I think you may be confusing the description with the thing being described?  Sorry, you're behind the times.  It's no metaphor.  It's reality, and the entire field of biosemiotics is devoted to it.

"..life only comes from life and prescriptive information only arises via intelligence and intentionality" - I understand this is your opinion but I've never heard anyone with specialist knowledge in the field even hint at such a thing.  Actually, this is not my opinion this is our experiential reality, and numerous technical papers and books exist on the subject

And by 'context' I meant the huge sweeps of time from the Big Bang until the formation of our Solar System and the emergence of life and then the billions of years that followed before (a) life evolved beyond the single cell and (b) we arrived on the scene.

Practically everything that followed from the start of our Universe can be explained in purely naturalistic terms, with the OOL question still open. That's the 'context' I had in mind.  But as I've said before it doesn't explain the existence of nature, naturalistic processes, fine-tuning of physical parameters and constants, or the origin of material properties and regularities we call 'natural/physical laws' by which the universe is structured and develops

Perhaps but I was thinking more of the way members in this and other clubs describe the image or concept they have of their 'God'.

For my own part I find it beyond belief that something that has no form or substance, no corporeal existence, could possibly be conscious.