Creationism v. Intelligent Design v. Evolution

[chagen44]

Looks like another IDvolution supporter!

Buffalo, I haven’t ever been to IDvolution but I will check it out!

 

[wanstronian]

What, you mean they don’t? Joking!

But what does happen to socks in the washing machine? I put lots of pairs of socks in the washing machine and when they come out, I have all these odd one’s.

It seems that all the evidence points towards pixies. At least, there’s no evidence that contradicts the Pixies Theory, therefore it must be true…

 

[wanstronian]

Looks like another IDvolution supporter!

How can someone support something that is entirely undefined?

It sounds to me more like Chagen is a supporter of Grimbonism. What’s Grimbonism? Well, I can’t define it, but it’s how we all came to exist. The evidence is all around you. Open your eyes.

 

[lankin]

Science was birthed by the Church and remains a method of pursuing the whole Truth. There are some matters the Bible does not address, and it is unfortunate how so many Christians have denounced science for what it is.

Does not the theory of evolution point toward a more perfect world, in which the organisms become better adapted to their environment? Does that not speak to a higher power?

This actually comes to a fundamental question of God vs Man and how His ways are not our ways. We will never be able to understand why things are exactly the way they are. Asking “why didn’t God do it this way?” is futile and can only be approached through the ways in which we Know God.

Science is a way of knowing the substance and the Bible is a way of knowing the essence. How man came about was surely by God’s design but science is showing us the method.

There is no contradiction, nor will there ever be.

God is a mystery and science is one way of understanding the beauty of his design.

 

[minkymurph]

I may be the exception to the atheists you have talked to before bc I will not state it’s a fact God does not exist. I don’t think it’s provable. Evolution is though, at least to my satisfaction, as well as the scientific community (and some of you).

I said in one of my posts that when I talk to atheists they state it’s a fact God does not exist, so I hope you don’t mind if I jump in here.

In order to research any topic thoroughly, it is necessary to fully investigate supporting arguments and counter argument. For example, if you were researching historical evidence relating to the article of appeasement, you would consider evidence that supports both pro-appeasement and anti-appeasement arguments, and then come to conclusion.

Less radical atheists don’t jump in with, 'it’s a fact God doesn’t exist. They do say, as you have said, it can’t be proven. Many atheists I have spoken to also seem to be of the opinion that evolution proves God does not exist, which is what prejudices many in the religious world. Your post suggests you are not of the same opinion. So, I’d like to ask you a question. Apart from evolution; what evidence for the existence of God have atheists considered, why do they find it unsatisfactory, and what sort evidence do they think would have to be established to prove the existence of God?

 

[wanstronian]

Science was birthed by the Church and remains a method of pursuing the whole Truth.

Which church, do you contend? The Scientific Method long predates Christianity.

And what do you mean by “the whole Truth?” Why did you capitalise “truth?”

There are some matters the Bible does not address, and it is unfortunate how so many Christians have denounced science for what it is.

I completely agree. But I wonder if you actually know what science is. Let’s read on…

Does not the theory of evolution point toward a more perfect world, in which the organisms become better adapted to their environment?

No - evolution has no concept of ‘perfection.’ Individual organisms becoming better adapted to their environment has no relation to a concept of perfection; indeed, all adaptation is born of compromise, and individual species have quite extreme variations. “Perfection” is not on the agenda.

Does that not speak to a higher power?

Not even slightly.

This actually comes to a fundamental question of God vs Man and how His ways are not our ways. We will never be able to understand why things are exactly the way they are.

Depends what you mean by “why.” If you mean “how come,” this is exactly the sort of thing that science has a good chance of explaining. If you mean, “for what reason,” then you first have to show that a reason even exists. This has never been demonstrated, and until it has, there is nothing to even attempt to understand.

Asking “why didn’t God do it this way?” is futile and can only be approached through the ways in which we Know God.

Asking “why didn’t God do it this way?” is indeed futile, until one can demonstrate that God even exists, let alone ever did anything.

Science is a way of knowing the substance and the Bible is a way of knowing the essence.

No - science is a way of understanding our environment, and the Bible is a way of propagating mythology.

How man came about was surely by God’s design but science is showing us the method.

Well, the first part of your sentence, despite your confidence, is mere speculation. The second half is just plain wrong. Science is not showing us God’s method. No scientific theory needs or uses God (or any other supernatural phenomenon) in any way.

There is no contradiction, nor will there ever be.

Well, apart from the bit where science contradicts the very first chapter of the bible, for example.

God is a mystery and science is one way of understanding the beauty of his design.

God is a myth, and science is uninterested in myths.

 

[rossum]

You don’t seem to consider that if we had a common designer, we could share all these traits easily with the lower forms of creatures, and they would be digestible to us as well.

This is one of the better arguments for ID, both common design and common descent explain shared traits. However, there are two observed problems with the common design explanation.

First, all shared traits are arranged in a tree structure. We never see things like a Pegasus, a mammal with bird’s wings. Indeed a Pegasus is an example of a designed animal, designed by humans. The ID designer never steps outside the constraints of the tree. Common descent requires a tree structure and a Pegasus would kill common descent stone dead if one were found.

Second, common descent involves a blind unintelligent copying process, so we would expect mistakes and errors to be copied along with working DNA. An intelligent designer will not want to reproduce mistakes. We observe that the pattern of copied errors, for example in primates’ GULO-pseudogene, follow the tree structure exactly. That is the reason we cannot make vitamin C. If there is a designer then she is copying her errors in an exact tree structure.

It is patently obvious to me that God originated DNA and designed all us creatures to use it as a template for life.

Science has shown how the four bases used to make DNA (ACGT) can form in prebiotic conditions on Earth. No God is required, just chemistry. Given that, it is not so obvious to me.

The Fall started our downward fall from the perfect form of that DNA and led to errors, malformations and mutations.

This is theology, not science. The Fall is specific to the Abrahamic religions. A Hindu, a Buddhist, such as myself, or a Taoist is not going to accept such an explanation. Would you accept a scientific explanation from a Buddhist that involved the influence of bad karma from previous lives?

Remember, things tend toward disorder in our universe and the physical laws that govern our living space, not order and higher function.

You have just denied you own existence. You started as a single tiny cell. You are now made of trillions of cells, a vast increase in order. How can that be? You obviously don’t exist.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is far more subtle than the caricature of it that is pushed by YEC websites.

rossum

 

[minkymurph]

It seems that all the evidence points towards pixies. At least, there’s no evidence that contradicts the Pixies Theory, therefore it must be true…

Nope, there is evidence that contradicts the Pixie Theory. Socks get sucked into the washing machine and get all mashed up in filter and eventually get spat out. I found it when I cleaned out the filter in my washing machine. It was full of a mesh of microscopic bits of woolly stuff is various stages of ruin.

Of course to be truly scientific, I should have sent them off to a lab to have them analysed to be sure the material was identical to odd sock that survived. It also doesn’t explain why only one sock gets hi-jacked, and why blame Pixies? Do you have evidence Pixies exist? I would also like to point out that in my part the world we don’t have Pixies. We have fairies and Leprechauns. :irish3: Is there evidence they don’t exist?

 

[Al_Moritz]

Originally posted by Lankin

Of course science cannot explain the “for what reason”. The latter is a question that science cannot answer. This is a philosophical question. And if you were to say 'there is no reason" this would be a philosophical statement as well. Science itself cannot say anything on the matter.

Originally posted by Lankin

How man came about was surely by God’s design but science is showing us the method.
Well, the first part of your sentence, despite your confidence, is mere speculation. The second half is just plain wrong. Science is not showing us God’s method. No scientific theory needs or uses God (or any other supernatural phenomenon) in any way.

Lankin clearly was speaking from a philosophical perspective. Of course from a purely scientific perspective “science is not showing us God’s method”. Science itself is neutral on that matter. But from a theistic philosophical perspective this can be said (and that is what all the scientists of the scientific revolution, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton etc., believed as well). Just like a naturalist might say that from his/her philosophical perspective science suggests that God does not exist, while science itself says nothing on the matter.

Originally posted by Lankin

God is a mystery and science is one way of understanding the beauty of his design.
God is a myth, and science is uninterested in myths.

Again this is speaking from a philosophical perspective, and when you say that “God is a myth” this is also philosophy. “And science is uninterested in myths” is true, but science cannot establish that God is a myth. That is your personal opinion.

Sorry, Lankin, that I interfered here based your post, but I wanted to clear that up.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Originally posted by chagen44

And it is highly questionable theology too. I am not going to accept such an explanation either. Errors and mutations existed before the fall, in fact, already at the beginning of the development of life. They are part of the very mechanism that allows for the development of life.

 

[wanstronian]

Of course science cannot explain the “for what reason”. The latter is a question that science cannot answer. This is a philosophical question. And if you were to say 'there is no reason" this would be a philosophical statement as well. Science itself cannot say anything on the matter.

I didn’t say there is no reason, I said there is no evidence of a reason, and thus that asking what the reason is, is senseless.

You’re right, “for what reason” is a philosophical question, in that it is a non-essential question stemming from a baseless supposition, and can be answered only in purely subjective rhetoric that adds no real-world value.

Lankin clearly was speaking from a philosophical perspective. Of course from a purely scientific perspective “science is not showing us God’s method”. Science itself is neutral on that matter. But from a theistic philosophical perspective this can be said (and that is what all the scientists of the scientific revolution, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton etc., believed as well). Just like a naturalist might say that from his/her philosophical perspective science suggests that God does not exist, while science itself says nothing on the matter.

All true, although it’s worth noting that science has no intrinsic remit to avoid the subject of the supernatural. If, for example, God does exist, and intervenes with the world (as virtuall all theists believe), then science is absolutely the right tool to measure and comment upon that intervention. Science ignores the supernatural only because the supernatural offers nothing detectable or measurable. If it exists, it may as well not, for all the difference it makes.

Again this is speaking from a philosophical perspective, and when you say that “God is a myth” this is also philosophy. “And science is uninterested in myths” is true, but science cannot establish that God is a myth. That is your personal opinion.

From the OED: “myth - a traditional story, either wholly or partially fictitious, providing an explanation for or embodying a popular idea concerning some natural or social phenomenon or some religious belief or ritual.” Seems to fit God pretty well, on an evidential basis (and really, what other basis is worth considering?).

Although “God is a myth” can be considered a philosophical perspective, it’s also a perspective backed up by reams of observational data, all of which excludes the existence of God. In the context you put it, philosophy can be equated with opinion.

It seems to me that a disbelief in a phenomenon because of the lack of evidence, is a far stronger objective position to hold, than a belief in a phenomenon despite the lack of evidence.

But I guess that’s just my philosophy…

 

[donsnow]

Ah, the old “we use the same science you do, but reach different conclusions” play. Given that you are singularly unable to describe what IDvolution is, it doesn’t sound very scientific.

---

Again with the misunderstanding of “insurmountable.” I “cling to” (I note your loaded words here) materialism because everything that has ever been explained, has been explained within the realm of materialism. No phenomenon has ever been explained that requires materialism to be false. So why invent a supernatural explanation, when none is needed? That’s just poor science, and an absence of common sense.
pointing out the flaws in logic and the false premises upon which they are based.

---

Nothing wrong with a priori arguments, but when you’re using them to posit the existence of a phenomenon - particularly one that you claim interacts with reality - you have to back it up with a posteriori empirical evidence. Otherwise, you can posit the existence of any untestable phenomenon you like and call it fact.

I

Hi, wanstronian

I take issue with the above concepts.

First, materialism does not explain everything and you seem to think it does. There is a spiritual facet to life which is not superstition. Materialism can only reject that, not explain, as an immaterial phenomenon. So, I submit that materialism rejects evidence of spiritual out of hand.

Frankly, people don’t have to back up a position with empirical evidence. That is a laboratory or clinical precept and not qualified to apply to the real and messy world.

God loves you,
Don

 

[minkymurph]

Hi, wanstronian

Frankly, people don’t have to back up a position with empirical evidence. That is a laboratory or clinical precept and not qualified to apply to the real and messy world.

God loves you,
Don

Indeed. There are infinite numbers of notions, opinions, ideas and beliefs that cannot be backed up with empirical evidence. In discussions with atheists I have often found that they accept this. However, belief in God in the absence of empirical evidence seems to be the one they have the strongest objection to. One has to ask why?

 

[wanstronian]

Hi, wanstronian

I take issue with the above concepts.

First, materialism does not explain everything and you seem to think it does.

No, I don’t think materialism explains everything in practice. However, I believe that it probably can in principle. Certainly it’s the case that everything that ever has been explained, has done so within the boundaries of materialism. I’m happy to be proved wrong, I’m not particularly dogmatic about it… but I would have to be proved wrong, not just given an example of something which materialistic science can’t explain currently, and which no other form of investigation can either.

There is a spiritual facet to life which is not superstition. Materialism can only reject that, not explain, as an immaterial phenomenon. So, I submit that materialism rejects evidence of spiritual out of hand.

“Spiritual” is such a nebulous term. Are you talking about consciousness? About emotion? Why do you conjecture that science will never be able to explain them? What alternative investigative process do you propose that provides a suitable explanation for “spiritual?”

Frankly, people don’t have to back up a position with empirical evidence. That is a laboratory or clinical precept and not qualified to apply to the real and messy world.

No, they don’t have to. People are free to hold whatever opinion they like, and I wouldn’t dream of denying them that freedom. However, if they want their opinion to be accepted as reality or truth, they need to do a little more than just point to the current limitation of materialistic investigation and state that their baseless supernatural hypothesis wins by default. That’s just the argument from ignorance.

Science is evolving all the time, it’s a foolish person that assumes that the current state of empirical knowledge is the best it’ll ever be.

 

[donsnow]

Science was birthed by the Church and remains a method of pursuing the whole Truth. There are some matters the Bible does not address, and it is unfortunate how so many Christians have denounced science for what it is.

Does not the theory of evolution point toward a more perfect world, in which the organisms become better adapted to their environment? Does that not speak to a higher power?

This actually comes to a fundamental question of God vs Man and how His ways are not our ways. We will never be able to understand why things are exactly the way they are. Asking “why didn’t God do it this way?” is futile and can only be approached through the ways in which we Know God.

Science is a way of knowing the substance and the Bible is a way of knowing the essence. How man came about was surely by God’s design but science is showing us the method.

There is no contradiction, nor will there ever be.

God is a mystery and science is one way of understanding the beauty of his design.

Hi, lankin,

Your post stands as one of those rare examples of truth with beauty. Thank you.

God loves you,
Don

 

[donsnow]

Indeed. There are infinite numbers of notions, opinions, ideas and beliefs that cannot be backed up with empirical evidence. In discussions with atheists I have often found that they accept this. However, belief in God in the absence of empirical evidence seems to be the one they have the strongest objection to. One has to ask why?

Hi, minkymurph,

My first explanation to why would be to offer human nature: some atheists have an intellectual bias against the existence of a spirit world as part of Creation.

God loves you,
Don

 

[minkymurph]

Hi, minkymurph,

My first explanation to why would be to offer human nature: some atheists have an intellectual bias against the existence of a spirit world as part of Creation.

God loves you,
Don

Hadn’t thought of that one. I’d come to the conclusion some atheists (not all) are atheists because:

1. There are implications attached to believing in God. Not believing relieves them of certain obligations and responsibilities.
2. Accepting ‘only evidence’ doesn’t require must in the way of reflective thought.
   3)They have an axe to grind with religion.

And yes, I can support these views with evidence.

Intellectual bias in an interesting one. Can you (or anyone else) expand?

 

[donsnow]

No, I don’t think materialism explains everything in practice. However, I believe that it probably can in principle. Certainly it’s the case that everything that ever has been explained, has done so within the boundaries of materialism. I’m happy to be proved wrong, I’m not particularly dogmatic about it… but I would have to be proved wrong, not just given an example of something which materialistic science can’t explain currently, and which no other form of investigation can either.

“Spiritual” is such a nebulous term. Are you talking about consciousness? About emotion? Why do you conjecture that science will never be able to explain them? What alternative investigative process do you propose that provides a suitable explanation for “spiritual?”

No, they don’t have to. People are free to hold whatever opinion they like, and I wouldn’t dream of denying them that freedom. However, if they want their opinion to be accepted as reality or truth, they need to do a little more than just point to the current limitation of materialistic investigation and state that their baseless supernatural hypothesis wins by default. That’s just the argument from ignorance.

Science is evolving all the time, it’s a foolish person that assumes that the current state of empirical knowledge is the best it’ll ever be.

Hi, wanstronian,

Thank you for replying. Sometimes, I get ignored.

I do question your statement that everything which has been explained was explained by materialism. Unless you present the mathematical abstractions as materialism, I would submit that math has explained a lot of immaterial phenomena.

How to investigate the spirit?
That’s a fair question. I have tested the spirit which is God, and accepted Him as real. In doing so, I have accepted, not established, a personal relationship with the presently invisible being which is God. (Ever since the advent of Jesus Christ as the son of God in His own flesh, God has acquired a tangible nature in His Son).
How did I test God? I saw in the scriptures of the Holy Bible, certain expectations of God can be filled, if there is a God. I made certain prayers, the answering of which could either be human or divine. Since I didn’t discuss my prayers with other people, that ruled out human intervention. Some, not all, of those certain prayers were answered. I am satisfied that God Most High the Holy Trinity has proven Himself to me. I asked, He answered. I sought, He let me find Him.
In short, I cannot “see the wind”. I can see where a breeze passes by the bending of tall grass or rustling of leaves on a shrub or tree, but I can’t see the wind that makes the grass and leaves do that. I don’t have that kind of vision, although there are types of radar and other sensors which can detect wind before its passage. Likewise, I can see the results of the unseen God in my and in other people’s lives.
That’s the best explanation I can make.
Most of this is very intrinsic to my private personal life, so I’m not willing to divulge more details.

Well, wanstronian, I can no more go by future and as yet unfound science than you can go by what you call superstition. With my human limitations, I can only go by what was and what is, with my faith first in God, then some credibility to what society calls science.

This is the best I can answer you.

God loves you,
Don

 

[donsnow]

Hadn’t thought of that one. I’d come to the conclusion some atheists (not all) are atheists because:

1. There are implications attached to believing in God. Not believing relieves them of certain obligations and responsibilities.
2. Accepting ‘only evidence’ doesn’t require must in the way of reflective thought.
   3)They have an axe to grind with religion.

And yes, I can support these views with evidence.

Intellectual bias in an interesting one. Can you (or anyone else) expand?

Hi, minkymurph,

When I was in college, I had an English Composition professor who spent some class time each day I was in his class, bashing God and bashing the concept of God. This was his class, and I was not prepared to waste more of my time after his bashing wasted my time, in arguing with him about God. I just let it go and got what ever he did teach of English composition, after he was through bashing God and the concept of God.
I’m saying, that young students with very many of those kind of professors cannot help but respond by forming an academic, to wit, intellectual, bias against the concept of God.
(I joined the USMC less than ten years after the Korean war: in which war American servicemen were first subjected to applied brainwashing techniques of the North Koreans, and some of those servicemen renounced their oath as a result. So, at the time I enlisted, a precis of brainwashing at that time was taught to us, with the techniques to recognize and resist the brainwashing so’s to keep our oath to this nation, its flag and its Constitution.)
I have since learned to apply that training to things in America as well as anything in North Korea.
It is with that background that I have formed the opinion that a lot of public education is more brainwashing that education.

God loves you,
Don

 

[Neildown]

False.

“Chance” only plays a role in random genetic variation; the ensuing natural selection is a non-random process, guided by the interaction of the organism with the environment. Therefore, interpretations of evolution as an overall “chance process” – with the necessarily resulting scenarios of ludicrous mathematical improbability – are based on misunderstanding of how evolution works.

Natural selection works as a filter for random genetic variation. Adaptive improvements select out the organisms with genomes carrying beneficial variations, and these genomes serve as template for further variations, the beneficial ones of which are again selected, and so on. Step by step, through slow cumulative selection over many generations of living organisms, numerous random variations thus can non-randomly accumulate within a single genome, each one of them beneficial. Non-randomly means, not by chance, since through natural selection each random variation is filtered for being correlated in a favorable manner to other functions of the genome, including those of other preceding random variations.

The overall cumulative effect will be of considerable magnitude over vast timescales, leading to new functions and structures: macroevolution as a sum of the accumulation of very many steps of microevolution (manifestation of small genetic changes after selection by the environment).

From all the above it should be clear that a sudden, improbable chance accumulation of genes, which together would lead to complex structures all at once, is not considered to play a role in this very gradual process.

I am not talking about what the organism does after it is conceived, I am talking about abiogenesis - the beginning - not what ensues. I know enough about biology to understand natural selection, but that is of no relevance to my argument, unless I am missing something here. Even if I am, you still do not have all the evidence you need to accurately and honestly show the earth is old enough to have sustained such a process. This area is still quite gray, despite the fact that many scientists are willing to believe the earth is old enough for that process. There is no such thing as an un-biased scientist.

Also, in refutation of your ‘false’ statement - if an atheist does not believe in God, the only thing left is chance. Without an Infinite Arbiter [they have science, but it is not infallible or infinite ] there is really no such thing as logic or reason. Therefore natural selection would be a form of random phenomena.

For God evolution is not a time-consuming process. God is – or from the viewpoint of philosophical concept, has to be – infinite, non-material (i.e. non-corporeal as well) and eternal. He lives outside the dimensions of space and time; after all, He created them in the first place. As a consequence, everything in the domain of time can exist for Him in an instant: God does not need to ‘wait’.

I don’t believe that is of any relevance to my point. I never said God had to wait. It’s the fact that He did all those things in my former point instantly to our own eyes. There is no reason not to assume that He created the earth in an instant as well. There is not as much in favor of evolution as most people think.