Cameron Bertuzzi's flim-flam

I've been listening to a debate on YouTube this afternoon while I get some editorial work done. The topic? "Why does something rather than nothing exist?" The players? Alex J. O'Connor and Cameron Bertuzzi. At one point moderator Justin Brierley says: "This is complex stuff!" Well, that right there is the big lie. And I want to spell out what I mean by that.

The use of fundamentally unintelligible terms (such as "necessary being" or "existence as a perfection") obscures the essentially casuistic nature of the "arguments" in this branch of pseudo-intellectual theology. Kudos to CosmicSkeptic for being civil, and game, but I'd rather we would deplatform these kinds of religious prattle-peddlers, rather than helping to grow their audience by engaging them in "debate."

Unless... does the skeptical/skeptical audience grow at a larger rate than the supernatural audience does, when they come together to watch these kinds of aisle-crossing discussions? If so, perhaps that's a useful function. Who is more empowered by seeing their views laid out with clarity and cogency: skeptics or believers? Ah, but asking the question in those terms suggests to be a problem with the question... for really, it is not POSSIBLE to lay out an unintelligible argument with cogency or clarity.

A moderator can't be neutral or impartial to matters of fact, or he's just normalizing fallacious views; yet the moderator in this particular debate at no point holds Cameron Bertuzzi account for an explanation of terms like "divine simplicity." If we drill down on this vocabulary, we find that it doesn't have any stable correlative. Tolerance of this kind of linguistic slipperiness isn't neutral; it helps to normalize unintelligibility and the unproductive forms of rhetoric that displace more reliable, publicly accessible (in the Rawlsian sense) forms of reason.

Going back to the idea that this is "complex" stuff, consider how this post by the "Intellecutal Honesty Forum" describes Bertuzzi and some of his fellow travellers:

In this playlist, three Christian YouTubers (Cameron Bertuzzi ... Mike Winger ... Jon McCray) respond to the 'Atheist Voice' and his '20 Short Arguments Against God.' While Bertuzzi, Winger and McCray, are autodidacts that know quite well the current philosophical, theological and historical literature on these subjects, what makes this a great resource is the deceptive simplicity with which they are presented as for any one to understand the main points.

The phrase "Deceptive simplicity" conceals much. Does their presentation of these topics seem simple on the surface, while referring to topics that are actually complex? What would "complex" here mean -- complicated in structure, convoluted in reasoning, resistant to analysis, or unstable in meaning? Is "complex" a coded term meant to be understood as "important" and, or, "impressive"? The seeming interconvertibility of "simplicity" and "complexity" strikes me as a red flag, signalling "meaninglessness." Or if not absent of meaning, then "insert the situationally useful meaning here."

In several places online, Cameron Bertuzzi describes his project as that of "exposing you to the intellectual side of Christian belief." This is, simply, not the case. He's selling himself as a paid commentator, speaker, and online pundit, and attempting to enhance his brand by adorning it in the added-value of intellectualism, while simultaneously eschewing the egg-headed academicism that, at least in the United States, is so readily denigrated by audiences in thrall to right-wing media, conservative politics, and supernaturalist institutions.

I don't begrudge young Alex his professional interest in talking with Christians, or the income he enjoys in doing so. Setting aside the nature of his views or values, he's presenting a view which is investigable, which makes his activity inherently more honest and socially benign than that of social media theologians propagating terminological flim-flam.

The more comfortable people are with intelligible terms, the more susceptible they are parasitic meme-plexes like right-wing media, anti-intellectualism, and apocalyptic political theology. That the "meaning" of words is fluid, conditional, and collaborative has nothing to do with the willfully underdetermined meaning of theological pseudophilosophy. 

Sam Harris, historical myth, and arguing against certainty

A friend interested in my opinion asked for my reply to the following. My replies, line my line, appear below. - Z

Dostoevsky said,'if there's no God then you can do whatever you want'... see this is why I have such frustration with people like Sam Harris. The sort of radical atheists because they seem to think that once human beings abandon their grounding in the transcendent that the plausible way forward is with a sort of purist rationality that automatically attributes to other people equivalent value. I just don't understand that.They believe that thats the rational pathway? What the hell is irrational about me getting from you whatever I want when I want it?... Its pure naked self interest how is that irrational... I don't understand that.... See, to me the universe that people like Dawkins and Harris inhabit is so intensely conditioned by mythological presuppositions that they take for granted the ethic that emerges out of that. As if it's just a given, a rational given.... YOU DON'T GET IT. The ethic that you think is normative is nesting in this tremendously lengthy history. Much of which was expressed in mythological formulation. You wipe that out you don't get to keep all the presuppositions and just assume that they're rationally axiomatic. To make a rational argument you have to start with an initial proposition. Well the proposition that underlies western culture is that there's a "transcendent morality'. Now you can say that thats a transcendent morality that's instantiated in the figure of God. That's fine. You can even call that a personification of the morality, if you don't want to move into a metaphysical space. I'm not arguing for the existence of God. I'm arguing that the ethic that drives our culture is predicated on the idea of God and that you can't just take that idea away and expect the thing to just remain intact midair without any foundational support.

<<Dostoevsky said... >>

Not to be pedantic, but Dostoevsky wrote it; Ivan Karamazov "said" it. And whether Ivan endorsed it is a more subtle matter.

<<if there's no God then you can do whatever you want'... see this is why I have such frustration with people like Sam Harris."

Ah, well, if there's no god, you are allowed to be frustrated with whomever you like. Ain't no referee going to call you on it. Go on and rage, hombre.

<<The sort of radical atheists... >>

Is Harris a radical; in what way? I wouldn't say so. His atheism is of a historically familiar and unradical sort. His xenophobia, on the other hand... that's ALSO not radical, but it is ugly.

<<... because they seem to think that once human beings abandon their grounding in the transcendent that the plausible way forward is with a sort of purist rationality that automatically attributes to other people equivalent value.>>

Citation needed; where does Harris (or any other thought leaders among that "sort of radical atheist") profess a belief that a "way forward" following the death of gods, is to automatically grant warrant to ANY proposition? Wouldn't it be more consistent to characterize their position as expecting ANY proposition to be subjected to rationalist scrutiny?

I don't understand what "equivalent value" is to be attributed to people. The value of human life? The value of the contribution individuals make to society?

<<I just don't understand that.They believe that thats the rational pathway? What the hell is irrational about me getting from you whatever I want when I want it?...>>

To adopt the kind of argument this person might find persuasive, I could use arguments based in evidence from game theory, economics, and primatology (for starters) which explain why a rational person might wish to suppose a society in which mores (and conventions, and laws, etc) prevent individuals from raping, stealing, etc, willy-nilly.

<<Its pure naked self interest how is that irrational... >>

That impulsive violent acts of self-serving appropriation SEEM TO THIS PERSON to be in the interest of one's self, is, I think, a shortcoming of imagination. If we imagine the conditions of a society in which such acts of self-serving are unopposed, we can envision how things would quickly more from "nasty, brutish, and short", to ... much worse. Is it one's naked self-interest, to bring about conditions in which mere survival is increasingly perilous? Or is it in one's self-interest to contribute to a net of social conventions which allows me to breathe easy around my neighbors, without worrying whether they're going to steal my banana or my mate, murder my offspring, or push me off a branch?

<<I don't understand that.... >>

Okay. Admission of ignorance is the first step towards knowledge. (See, I can troll too.)

<<See, to me the universe that people like Dawkins and Harris inhabit is so intensely conditioned by mythological presuppositions that they take for granted the ethic that emerges out of that.>>

There is a room full of economists somewhere that need to be told that their conception of reciprocal self-interest needs to be utterly scrapped, as it is based on mythological presuppositions.

<<As if it's just a given, a rational given.... >>

Citation? I don't know who posits this.

<<YOU DON'T GET IT.>>

The clarity of this sentence is refreshing.

<<The ethic that you think is normative is nesting in this tremendously lengthy history.>>

Who thinks what is normative? (I'm not making fun. The importance of clear writing is always worth underscoring.)

<<Much of which was expressed in mythological formulation.>>

I'm not familiar with any theory of cultural history which posits that any cultural tradition we have inherited in the form of myth would have been ORIGINALLY EXPRESSED in the form OF myth.

<<You wipe that out you don't get to keep all the presuppositions and just assume that they're rationally axiomatic.>>

Pretty sure that, pace Russell, Godel and the rest, that NO reasoning can proceed without axiomatic assumptions which themselves cannot be analyzed conclusively within the propositional framework you are operating. This is, of course, an academic and therefore trivial observation, since most forms of reasoning of use to human beings in the day to day -- causal, moral, predictive, social, etc. -- don't depend on anything at all like the standards of formal validity pertaining to mathematical logic.

<<To make a rational argument you have to start with an initial proposition.>>

Hmm, more or less. I'll allow it.

<<Well the proposition that underlies western culture is that there's a "transcendent morality'.>>

Untrue. The body of institutions -- distributed widely across the globe and with deep roots in history -- which I believe this author is referring to reductively as "western culture", is not grounded on any single proposition. To propose that it is, is to buy into a historical myth. Now, where have I just been reading that myth is bunk and should be cast out of any rational society?

<<Now you can say that thats a transcendent morality that's instantiated in the figure of God.>>

I don't think you can say it, because the noun "transcendent morality" isn't the kind of thing that the predicate function "instantiation" can be applied to.  But I'm not the grammar police, and if this author wants to play slippy-sloppy with his propositions, go to town.

<<That's fine. You can even call that a personification of the morality, if you don't want to move into a metaphysical space.>>

So we're allowing for the ontological identification of a transcendent morality with the figure of God with a personification of morality, for the sake of conversation and so we don't move things into the confusing environs of metaphysics? This is not the way to cut through the tangle of this topic, my friends.

<<I'm not arguing for the existence of God.>>

It is surprising to me that this was on the table even as a possible misunderstanding of this author's position. Have I missed something?

<<I'm arguing that the ethic that drives our culture... >>

To suppose that there is any single ethic driving our culture, deserving of the singular emphatic deictic "the" is, as above, to buy into a historical myth. Relatedly, to suppose that there is any single culture to which "we" all belong, deserving of the exclusive "our", is, again, to buyt into a historical myth. The myth (body of myths, actually) that these suppositions buy into is adjacent to the nationalism, fascisms, and populist reactionary conservatisms we see making their ambitions more publicly known at the present time.

<<... is predicated on the idea of God... >>

It would have been nice if this post had posited this thesis, and then spent some time defending it, instead of spending time building suspense of the thesis, and then flapping off after delivering it, like a seagull dropping a sloppy white present on a beach-goer's head.

<<.. and that you can't just take that idea away and expect the thing to just remain intact midair without any foundational support."

So you say. But you haven't demonstrated that you know anything about history, sociology, theology, economics, political science, etc., such that we could take your word for it; you haven't explained persuasively that there is a "western culture" which resembles the god-grounded monolith you described; you haven't indicated who the "radical atheists" are who want to "take that idea away"; and you haven't named -- even with a disdainful label like "the sort of radical atheists" -- the agents who "expect the thing to remain intact" without "foundational support."

Post-mortem

The most generous reading of this post is that it is not thoughtfully or carefully written. A less generous reading is that the author is not thoughtful about these matters.

HOW to be more thoughtful about these matters is both an easy and a tough question. Easy, because you can say: "Think more!"; but in reality the conditions which conduct us to thoughtfulness are rare. For the most part we're swimming upstream, against the currents of economic need, social discouragement, media noise, corporate parasitism, and so on. A good inducement toward thoughtfulness, I have always thought and I am not alone in thinking so, is reading. I'll end this response with a few reading suggestions, for the author of the short essay above or for anyone interested to know about some of the influences which bear on my own thinking about these matters. So: I recommend reading the entirety of The Brothers Karamazov, for a start; and maybe reading Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism", Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Good and Evil, Hoffer's The True Believer, Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society, and de Staël's Delphine (if you want to marry advocacy for the ideals of the Enlightenment with the melodrama of plausible human heartache).

* * *

I gave this short essay such focused attention because I was asked for my feedback on it. In general, I don't think this kind of dissection is a good use of anyone's time. There's no scoreboard where folks can rack up points for being "right" or "brutal" in this kind of exchange. And it's unlikely that even a very patient and chummy reply would help the author think very differently about the points expressed in the essay.

If there's any point at all to going toe-to-toe like this, it's for the sake of the audience... the other forum members, the social media followers, everyone spectating on the exchange. They have less at stake in the dispute, and therefore are less likely to retreat reflexively into a defensive stance protecting their original position on the matters discussed.

Whatever the particulars of the debate -- cultural heritage, the existence of higher powers, the question of what is and is not good sound rationalism -- there is usually a more important argument taking place, implicit between the lines: an argument against certainty.

I was chatting with an old friend this morning, an evolutionary biologist (Hispanic human; first-generation scientist), and she happened to be talking against certainty with such a compelling tone of conviction that I'll share it here as a close to this post. She writes: 

My latest bend is to interrogate liberals on why they believe evolution is true, to expose the fact that they're just as gullible as the people who don't believe in evolution -- because they don't know the facts! They just get their media bites from a different source, even if that source happens to be correct. Morally pontificating from a point of ignorance makes you look like an ass. I bristle at the self-righteousness of certitude, and am immediately dubious of the underlying reasons for it.

I bristle, too, and hope you all do as well.

* * *

Updated the day after to note that the friend who sent this quoted material to me has alerted me that it was written by Canada's Jordan Peterson. Rings true.

Premonitions of Trump's America

From Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World:

I have a foreboding of an American in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. [...] The plain lesson is that study and learning -- not just of science, but of anything -- are avoidable, even undesirable.

* Note that what I see prophesied in this excerpt is not the rise of Trump, but the emergence of an American culture in which someone like Trump is able to move unimpeded.

No, leftist regression is not killing the atheist movement

I’m a member of several secular mailing lists, for activists or organizers – in-house and intra-mural conversations, mostly. Shop talk. Well, this morning a message came through on a mailing list for humanist organizers. This is what the submitter sent in:

Saw an interesting post from David Smalley of Dogma Debate about whether the regressive left is killing the atheist movement. What do you think? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dogmadebate/2017/06/reasonably-controversial-regressive-left-killing-atheist-movement/

This question, and the article it links to, got under my skin for some reason. Maybe for a bunch of reasons. By way of response, I replied with what turned into an op-ed column calling out the secular community at large for their (our!) lack of demands when it comes to our leadership. Here’s what I wrote. Your comments are welcome.

---

Of the several dozen factors I would list as inhibiting or impeding the progress of secular activism, I would NOT include leftist repression among them. 

Over the past few months (since Trump's election boosted my motivation, actually), I've been checking in with a network of professional organizational consultants with relative regularity -- folks that work with international nonprofits, campaigns, corporations, and so on. I'm very fortunate in not having to pay their usual billable rate, which is somewhere between painful and audacious. Good for them, I suppose.

What we talk about is the structure and activity of the secular movement -- its personalities, its assets, its organizations, its opportunities and its failings. Take this with a grain of salt, but the overall view that I've taken away from these consultations is that "our" greatest hindrance is our lack of focused, outcome-oriented leadership. We are largely headed up by non-professionals, whether that term refers to their employment history and expertise or to their temperament. 

We have (in potentia) the money, resources, human capital, and skills to achieve gains. We have gains TO achieve -- socially laudable, economically relevant, politically needful activism to pursue, and noble (if I may use that word without seeming like overly pious) goals to fight for. We have work to do and the means to do it. But if the review I've been doing of our activity over the past two decades has shown anything, it is that our work is time and again disrupted and destroyed by organizational infighting; operational incompetence; and personality-driven failure. 

If you asked me why the "atheist movement" (loaded term) is "failing" (leading term), I'd tell you it has a lot more to do with the self-serving, short-sighted, self-aggrandizing and frankly destructive personalities that our complex community has not yet figured out how to neutralize, than it does with leftist repression.

(The continued failure of secular leadership in the US to take responsibility for the terrible demographics of the movement, in all its manifestations -- talking heads, org officers, media representation, conference attendance, and so on -- is I think concomitant to larger leadership problem. The demographic problem and the leadership problem are to each other both cause and result.)

If secularism were half as rational as we like to think we are, then a lot of the folks in charge would be shown the door in quick fashion, making room for folks who are ready and equipped to deliver in terms of revenue, media activism, legislative influence, membership growth, local chapter stability, etc, etc. 

If I may say so without seeming merely to be "stirring up shit" -- some of those people who should be shown the door are on this mailing list.

More than once, a person I look up to in the secular social movement has drawn a comparison between secularism and waves of enfranchisement. You had women's rights; civil rights; equal rights; and now, perhaps, we could see ourselves as part of a fourth wave. There are a few problems with this comparison, but in spirit, it's an exciting metaphor. The reason I can't embrace it is because I'm embarrassed, on my own behalf and on the behalf of anyone who has any role in organized secularism over the past quarter century, at how badly we've failed at identifying and empowering the kind of astute and honorable leadership that those previous movements depended on. 

I don't mean that our lack of heroically perfect leadership is what's holding us back. I mean that we're entirely too tolerant of entirely too much imperfection. We can do better, as secularists and rationalists and humanists, and we should, and we need to. The US needs every one of its component communities to get their act together; all hands are needed to create, strengthen and defend institutions, memes and attitudes which are up to the task of neutralizing chaotic nationalism, xenophobia of all sorts, nativism and corporatism. 

I write this reply, without wishing to seem to devalue the work and contributions of secular leaders who ARE doing a bang-up job.

I fear I've replied to your question with a bit of grandstanding. I've deliberately not said much about Smalley's article, or about his other statements along these lines in social media. I find it a shallow and unpersuasive position, and with that, enough said. 

All best,

Zachary Bos

Boston

Matron in the train station

Saw an older woman handing out Watchtower tracts at the T this morning. I bet that work gives her a sense of purpose, and of dignity through purpose. And it's nice to know that she has a reason to be out of the house. Still, I'd much rather see her stumping for an ideology that didn't reject science, reject modernity, and demand impossible beliefs from the people interested in belonging to that community.

What kind of an ideology might that be? Well, it'd have to be a big one, else it wouldn't attract commitment and motivate behavior. But so many big ideas are also dangerous ideas. Radical fellowship opens the door to disfellowshipping; community belonging opens the door to shunning; values-based leadership opens the door to coercion, authoritarianism, and abuse.

Some days I'm such an optimist that I feel it wouldn't be such a difficult thing to articulate such an ideology, and stitch up a workable community structure around it, and release it into the wild. Then I think about the observable scarcity of such communities where benign values-in-action have resulted in flourishing and stable social situations, and I tuck my optimism back in my pocket and recommit to a more humble set of ambitions.

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled," Mark Twain wrote. (Or no, he didn't, but I will tell you that he didn't and you won't believe me.)

Orwell on socialist sex maniacs

Ah, YouTube. This morning it brought me to an unaired clip from the British panel show QI, in which the inestimable and inimitable Stephen Fry quotes from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier (1936):

"'Socialism draws towards it with magnetic force every fruit juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer, sex maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England.' [Orwell] also talks about 'vegetarians with wilting beards', 'outer suburban creeping Jesus' eager to begin yoga exercises,' and 'that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal wearers and bearded fruit juice drinkers who come flocking toward the smell of progress like bluebottles to a dead cat.'" [transcript]

I wonder what justice there is in Orwell's cranky depiction of figures we probably all recognize through the distortions of his caricature. There is an n-dimension graph whose axes represent openness toward or rejection of different conceptual possibilities -- spirituality, personal perfectability, political perfectability, and so on -- and in this graph space, we should be able to identify the overlapping domains of "socialism", "individualism", "bohemianism", "veganism", and so on. Would the result be a disordered pell-mell without order? Or would some kind of informative structure emerge, to tell us about the people who reject theism but embrace socialism, who embrace fascism but reject spiritualism, and so on? Where will we find the bluebottle types, or the skeptics, or the Eric Blairs? What if these each turn out to be categorical cousins, to no one's greater surprise than their own?

Wanted: a simple explanation of abiogenesis

On the right, science. On the left, incredulity.

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016, I awoke to find this email in my American Atheists mailbox, from a gentleman writing from India:

Dear Sir, 

Good day to you.
                     
I would like to reintroduce myself as an independent researcher in philosophy and modern science. I gratefully acknowledge your previous evidence-based reply that helped me a lot to improve my critical thinking skills. 

Being an open-minded, unbiased researcher, it is my pleasure to share one of my concerns- as expressed below, hoping a satisfactory explanation: 

When we talk about consciousness, we all know that consciousness is the result of certain evolutionary arrangement of atoms. How can a specific 'collection of atoms' in the universe alone  'think', 'aware' and 'reason' about even 'its' own existence while all the sub-atomic particles in the universe are governed by the same laws of physics? 

I mean, what is the logical and rational plausibility of our assumption that physical objects (obviously they are made up of atoms and atoms don't have any self-awareness and consciousness) , for example, a rock ( or any inorganic, non-living matter of choice ) of certain mass (Kg), when subjected to blind, unconscious, unplanned and unintelligent evolutionary forces of magnitude of certain Newtons (N) for trillion, trillion, trillions of years or even infinite time , the original rock will become 'self-aware' in such a way that now the rock is able to 'think', 'aware', and 'reason' about even 'its' own existence and 'its' surroundings, able to grasp the laws of physics, mathematics, able to involve in logical reasoning, able to draw logical conclusions, able to feel sense of justice, sense of purpose and sense of existence, able to involve in rational thinking, able to feel pain and sorrow etc.?

Is there any logical fallacy in looking beyond the theory of abiogenesis?

Appreciate your kind feedback.
Please ignore and forgive me if this e-mail is an offence.

Thanks and regards,
F---- V----- P----------,
Electrical Engineer,
INDIA. 

When I read his question -- 

I mean, what is the logical and rational plausibility of our assumption that physical objects... when subjected to blind evolutionary forces... will become 'self-aware'?

-- I was tempted to write in reply, simply, "1.0", reflecting the 100% plausibility of the emergence of consciousness from non-living precursors, in light of the evidence of the physical world around us and the conscious being (myself) typing in response. I decided in the end to give him a less trivial reply. 

For your reading pleasure, here is my Sunday morning armchair musing on abiogenesis, and the emergence of thinky out of rocky, and all that jazz. 

Dear F----: 

Excellent to hear from you. I'll copy you from my personal email account, so our conversation doesn't clutter up my official inbox.  

Let me address out two points I see in your message that create a lot of confusion. 

The first objection I have has to do with your analogy likening the emergence of consciousness to a rock manifesting the ability to think. This is an error of analogy, akin to an error in understanding what is meant BY abiogenesis, and indeed, by consciousness.  

No theory of abiogenesis posits that a solid solitary object (such as: a rock!) would within its own geological lifetime undergo such physical changes that allow it eventually to think, while also retaining its identity AS a rock. 

Abiogeneis as it is currently conceived is not a local phenomenon that occurs WITHIN an ecology -- today you have no life, and tomorrow, there it is, there is life, isolated and localized within, and somehow separate from, the ecology. Rather, abiogeneis is a process that occurs over geological timescales, and in a manner distributed throughout systems that span an entire ecology. Further, it is conceived of as an incremental process, with manifold different simultaneous instantiations.  

The popular image of abiogenesis as having to do with a puddle of slime on a rocky shore, as isolated in its reaction space as a glass beaker in a lab, is wildly misleading. Although there needs to be a certain degree of concentration of reagents and stock materials, and a certain patterning to the encounters different chemical (and eventually, biological!) materials undergo, this does not bear comparison to the slime puddle image. Things are altogether more dynamic, and take place at scales that are at the same time much smaller (microscopic clay templating! RNA self-catalysis!) and much larger (ocean depth gradients of iron- and sulfur-bearing isoclines! or, according to a different model, iuron- and sulfur-bearing surface deposits such as those surrounding ocean floor vents).  

In other words, I fear that your metaphor of abiogenesis operates at the wrong levels of scale, and with the wrong impression of dynamism. 

The other point I'd wish to address briefly, in response to your kind invitation, has to do with your presentation of the concept of "consciousness." This, like abiogenesis, is a complicated subject which is sometimes disfavored by limiting metaphors. 

You write:  

now the rock is able to 'think', 'aware', and 'reason' about even 'its' own existence and 'its' surroundings, able to grasp the laws of physics, mathematics, able to involve in logical reasoning, able to draw logical conclusions, able to feel sense of justice, sense of purpose and sense of existence, able to involve in rational thinking, able to feel pain and sorrow etc.?

This, on its surface, sounds like a plainly ludicrous proposition. But I'd never describe consciousness in this manner. Instead, I might translate your description this way:
the original rock may be subjected to the processes of weathering and erosion, such that it is reduced to sediment. The minerals and chemicals which constituted that rock are now available to circulate in the (aqueous, likely) ecosystem, where they may be involved in chemical reactions we believe to be preliminary to the abiotic formation of biological monomers, such as carbon fixation, chemical reduction, or (to give a more complex example), pyramidine formation.  

Over time, an ecology which has produced biological monomers, may enter into a state of conditions conducive to the formation of biological polymers, some of which are self-catalyzing. The abiogenesis really heats up then!
An ecology which features concentrations of self-catalyzing biological polymers may give rise to autocatalytic chemical networks and structures such as micelles and vesicles. These molecular-scale phenomena may interact and form more complex structures and systems, which we begin to recognize as rudimentary "proto-life."  

Over eons of chemical, and then biological, and then ecological, evolution, this proto-life may develop adaptive systems which "record" life experience, in the form of chemical changes in the cell, or taxic changes in behavior, or changes in genetic expression, or charge potential changes in nerve cells. As this system of record-keeping (memory, you could call it) becomes more sophisticated, the organism benefits from the ability to predict appropriate behavior for future conditions which resemble past conditions it has a record of. This is a significant part of what we call learning.   

The organism continues to become more sophisticated. But keep in mind, we aren't talking here about a single individual. We are speaking in evolutionary terms, so this change takes place over countless generations, across the somatic instances of countless individuals.  

Eventually, the learning/memory systems of the organism become so sophisticated, and recursive, and powerful, that the organism is able to model future potential behavior! This does bear comparison to the way that a computer program using patterns of charge distribution in an electronic system, to model the world of a computer game. We don't think there's anything magical about that, do we? Likewise, the pattern of charge distribution in the nervous system of the organism, are able to run a model of the world. And this model may contain sub-programs we can label as "thinking", "awareness", "reasoning about its own existence and its surroundings", "pondering the the laws of physics", "mulling over maths", "fiddling about with logical reasoning", "the drawing of conclusions", "the sense of justice", "a sense of purpose" , "a sense of existence", and "the experience of pain and sorrow."  

All of these thoughts and feelings are 1) simply patterns of charge distribution changing across the vastly complex representational network of a nervous system, and 2) amazing. 

Voila! From rock to mind. Now, I am kidding, of course. But I hope that my "translation" of your description of the origin of consciousness, even as briefly as I describe it, is enough to make the point I intend -- namely, that while there is so much that we have yet to measure, verify, and truly understand about the way life emerges from non-life, and how mind emerges from minerals, the nature of the mystery isn't, any longer, metaphysical, if we come to terms with the vast scales of complexity involved in a naturalistic explanation.  

Seen from a distance, the complexity of the naturalistic explanation may look supernatural. But we don't have to keep our distance. We can zoom in, get our hands and minds dirty, and engage with data, and models, and articles and animations and questions and answers, and so on, through the technology of information and communication which frees us from the backwaters of our ignorance as separate individuals. (That internet -- she's amazing.) 

Thank you for the stimulating questions; these were fun things to think about on a Sunday morning here in New England. 

With warm regards from Boston, 

Zachary "the Thinking Rock" Bos
Massachusetts State Director for American Atheists

To the extent that we atheists want to have our materialist apologetics in order, I think it would be useful to have a "best practices" way of responding to questions like, ah, but, rocks can't think, can they.

Do you have any suggestions for concise and accessible explanations of abiogenesis, of the sort we could share with persons like this Indian engineer when they have questions about the plausibility of that theory? I'd love to know what you recommend. (How great if there was a really brilliant YouTube animation going through this stuff... )

The graphic above, interestingly enough, comes from the blog of a Christian defending creationism as a plausible theory.