The conversation below is a continuation of the debate that I shared in my previous blog post. Other than one random post of a meme, all three of the previous atheists dropped off the debate at this point. Perhaps they chose to simply watch the ongoing debate, because this is where MV joins the discussion. Rather than using personal attacks and false accusations, MV constructs intellectual arguments. I find these discussions to be the most interesting and productive. Below is Part 2 of 4 of my debate on the Friendly Atheist Facebook page.
MV: We currently don't know how life emerges, and we don't know what was "before" the big bang. We don't know, and that's fine. If you appreciate science you should understand that filling the gaps in your knowledge by supernatural reasons doesn't help anything. As an engineer in your daily job I doubt that if you don't understand something, if for instance a part of your design doesn't behave the way you think it should behave, you just assume that god or the devil or a ghost is making that happen. You investigate it. And sometimes the problem is very complex and it takes you a long time to find the answer. Well that's the situation we are in with the origins of life - we don't know yet. But one day we probably will understand. Just assuming that "god did it" is lazy and doesn't teach us anything about the universe. It shuts off curiosity and our desire to investigate and understand reality.
Me: MV, thank you for your honesty in confessing what you do not know. As an engineer in my daily job, if I used the evolutionary worldview, then perhaps I would find a random assortment of wires and metal and throw them together in a large bucket and hope that it somehow forms aircraft avionics. However, you and I know that wouldn’t work. Engineering requires intelligence and design. When we as humans, made in the image of God (Gen 1:27), use our minds to design and develop things, we are using principles of creation, not evolution. The challenge of engineering makes me appreciate our Creator. In fact, a friend of mine looked to creation for inspiration in developing micro air vehicles. I got to help him with his research.
Me: http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA558934
I didn’t get around to explicitly mentioning this in the debate, but I disagree with the premise of MV’s statement that I am “filling the gaps” of knowledge “by supernatural reasons.” I am not merely “filling the gaps” with my biblical beliefs, because it is my strong belief that the evolutionary worldview cannot explain a single thing! There are no "gaps" to fill, because the evolutionary worldview cannot fit a single puzzle piece onto the board. I did not explicitly say that in my response, but perhaps the concept is implied both in my above response and in subsequent responses.
My last comment above links to an academic research paper authored by my friend Alex. If you read his “Acknowledgements” section, you will see where Alex thanks me for my help in developing a finite element analysis model of the hawkmoth thorax. This research is an excellent example of looking to God’s handiwork for design and engineering inspiration. MV thanked me for the link and mentioned that he enjoys biomimicry. I will share that in Part 3 of the discussion. Parts 3 and 4 of the debate encompass an interesting discussion concerning genetics. I will share those portions in my next two blog posts.