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Message:

> DAVID: [i]I'm delighted you see the miracle. What causes miracles? That brings us to the supernatural, doesn't it?[/i]
> dhw:[i] No, it doesn’t. Tony tried to play the same silly verbal game. The word miracle can ALSO mean “something very lucky or very good which you did not expect to happen or did not think was possible. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed!” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).[/i]
> DAVID: [i]Correct. The use of the word miracle has several levels, but your referred to level is a play on the underlying meaning of supernatural. Your word game avoids the underlying import.[/i]
> 
> There is no “play”, no “word game” on my part. You accuse me of not seeing the miraculousness of life, and when I assure you that I do, you pretend that the word can only relate to an act of God. You know as well as I do that the word has another meaning, as confirmed by your knowledgeable “correct”. Game over.
> 
> DAVID: [i]Of course cells can't think.[/i]
> dhw:[i] Of course those experts who tell us cells can think are wrong. David knows best.[/i]
> DAVID: [i]Those experts cannot tell us the difference: cells are simply following intelligent instructions.[/i]
> 
> Those experts who say that cells are simply following instructions cannot tell the difference. Stalemate.
> 
> DAVID: [i]Your theories are all an avoidance of considering God as the source, even your 'possibly God-given' allowances which never say God gave the cells intelligently planned instructions, which to me is the logical conclusion.[/i]
> dhw:  [i]I can understand why you are so keen to divert attention away from your own illogical dogma by manufacturing a false motive for my hypothetical but logical alternative! [/i];-) 
> DAVID:  ;-) [i]I'm doing everything I can with the facts I present to knock you off your favorite fence. I'm not illogical. Add God and it all works.[/i]
> 
> I am aware of what you are trying to do, and I appreciate our discussions more than I can ever say. However, you won’t knock me off my fence by kidding yourself that a hypothesis which allows for God is designed to avoid God. And to achieve your admirable purpose, you will need to present a more reasonable alternative to the theistic form of my hypothesis (God set it all in motion, then sat back to watch, though perhaps with an occasional dabble) than God only wanted humans and we don’t know why he specially designed the whale, the weaverbird’s nest and the monarch butterfly’s lifestyle in order to achieve his one and only purpose. (But – non sequitur – all organisms need and provide energy and belong to an eco-niche.)