Does Intelligent DEsign Belittle God?

[liquidpele]

How do you determine what is needless? Specific example would be useful…

And I am asking how many more? It is impossible to address vague assertions. Why don’t you ask why God doesn’t prevent **all **suffering?

If you mean work a miracle for every disease, deformity and disability I have already pointed out that a spate of miracles would undermine the order and regularity of nature.

I’m getting the impression you think everything has a purpose… in which case any example I gave would likely not be suitable for you. Maybe you could come up with some reason why a woman being raped before being brutally killed was for some kind of purpose. I can’t.

Does the number really matter? Fine, 42. Why not 42 more miracles? Why not all of them? My point is, why the little spurt of miracles by Jesus and before him (if you take the OT literally anyway) and then nothing that can’t be explained easily by science or probability since? Why hold back if you’re going to interfere some? I assume there is a Catholic answer to that…

So a spate of miracles would undermine the order of nature, but coming back from the dead and healing lepers doesn’t? Feeding multitudes with 2 fish and some bread doesn’t? Flooding the whole damn world doesn’t? Why the disparity?

 

[Detales]

Yes, I agree. 42 is an excellent choice. Tonyray, are you not being a bit naive here? I’m remembering something about St. Augustine recommending against looking silly to non-Catholics. In this case, 1 already = spate. A miracle *by definition *is an undermining of the order and regularity of Nature as an intervention that sets aside or re-orders natural laws “Deus ex machina.” Besides, that whole concept of relationship is off base.

Do miracles happen? In my estimation yes, but not by direct agency of the God acting out an opinion contrary to the flow of events as some person who has a stake in it. I find such a stance pueril, but necessary if you have no other explanation for things you/we don’t understand. I believe Liquid is right in calling in the God of the Gaps argument.

I would recommend you to the current study of stage magic as an insight into human perception. There aer wonderful works as well on transnormal abilities of humans and animals. We don’t yet know everything about the Nature that would be allegedly undermined and re-ordered. Not nearly. If anything, we are abysmally ignorant, and it belittles our thoughts about God to think that such means are necessary for the Supreme.

But clearly such a stance is a part of the evolution of our understanding of the Unknown relative to our sense of self, or it wouldn’t be so prevalent. But because so many have it doesn’t mean it is ultimately right or that there isn’t a more encompassing explanation. But in my opinion it is in about the same catagory as atheism. But both can be transcended and the good parts included in the new paradigm.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m getting the impression you think everything has a purpose… in which case any example I gave would likely not be suitable for you.
Maybe you could come up with some reason why a woman being raped before being brutally killed was for some kind of purpose. I can’t.

 

[liquidpele]

liquidpele;5452952:

The purpose was in the mind of the rapist and also in the free will of the rapist.

Why pick on 42? Why not 420 or 4200 or 42000 or 420000 or 4200000?
Any number you choose is arbitrary. How do you decide where to stop?

I have pointed out several times that if miracles prevented every misfortune the world would be chaotic.

Your faith in science is touching but misguided… Do you base all your decisions on science? How do you assess the probability of materialism or atheism?

How do a few miracles undermine the order of nature?
You are letting yourself be carried away by your feelings!
Do you think all Christians are fundamentalists?

Rationalize it however you want, like I said, I won’t.

I picked 42 because… well… you must not read Douglas Adams. My point is not the number, as I already said. This is like me saying that a food bank gave a few piece of bread, and someone said they should do more, and you asked for the exact number of piece they should give.

My “faith” in science here is not the topic. If someone has a real miracle, they should take it to the JREF people. Obviously people claim that miracles are personal, you can’t study them like that though. The problem with that is that it puts them in the same place as luck and karma… it’s up to the person to interpret, and anyway it’s in stark contrast to things God did in the bible in which it was supposed to be very obvious.

No, I don’t think all Christians are fundamentalists. I do think it strange that many believe in Miracles that don’t seem to actually be miracles though…

 

[liquidpele]

Yes, I agree. 42 is an excellent choice. Tonyray, are you not being a bit naive here? I’m remembering something about St. Augustine recommending against looking silly to non-Catholics. In this case, 1 already = spate. A miracle *by definition *is an undermining of the order and regularity of Nature as an intervention that sets aside or re-orders natural laws “Deus ex machina.” Besides, that whole concept of relationship is off base.

Do miracles happen? In my estimation yes, but not by direct agency of the God acting out an opinion contrary to the flow of events as some person who has a stake in it. I find such a stance pueril, but necessary if you have no other explanation for things you/we don’t understand. I believe Liquid is right in calling in the God of the Gaps argument.

I would recommend you to the current study of stage magic as an insight into human perception. There aer wonderful works as well on transnormal abilities of humans and animals. We don’t yet know everything about the Nature that would be allegedly undermined and re-ordered. Not nearly. If anything, we are abysmally ignorant, and it belittles our thoughts about God to think that such means are necessary for the Supreme.

But clearly such a stance is a part of the evolution of our understanding of the Unknown relative to our sense of self, or it wouldn’t be so prevalent. But because so many have it doesn’t mean it is ultimately right or that there isn’t a more encompassing explanation. But in my opinion it is in about the same catagory as atheism. But both can be transcended and the good parts included in the new paradigm.

I’m curious what kinds of things you consider to be miracles then?

Also, I think it not as a helpful thing in our evolution of understanding - I see it instead as the boundary. As soon as we hit something we don’t understand (or don’t want to accept as non-miraculous), we seem to invoke God or Miracles. I see this as a concession to apathy in relation to understanding.

 

[Detales]

Hi Liquidpele, (your “handle” still reminds me of lava, Pele being the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire)

To me anything is a miracle that lessens the confinement of mind to matter. The direction of evolution always seems to point to forms appearing that transcend and include the previous forms. That would include the evolution of mind as well.

We look around and we cannot guarantee that the human forms we see are “human” in the best sense of the word. Though in maturity we grant equality based on Principle to each one, we don’t necesarrityl know that a mature mind is behind any particular body. We might be looking at a philosopher, a psycho, of a fisherman, a Mother Teresa or an octomom. We don’t know by looking. We know by their actions and some degree their words. Some few can tell by sound.

So we can possibly infer that if there is a next evolutionary step in our species, it may not be so much in body as in mind. That evolutionary step would necessarily incorporate what went before, including and yet transcending it. That transcendence might include subtleties of connectivity that we presently are not sensitive to in terms of harmonics or psychodynamics.

For instance, as an NLP practitioner I can reduce a phobia to close to zero in about ten minutes, whre it used to take much longer than that to acheive even a lesser success. To an outside observer ignorant of technique, that migh seem a miracle. It is not. It is self knowledge. Similarly, it has been shown that dogs know from a distance that their owners are about to return home from a remote location at a random time. There is a subtle connectivity there that we currently don’t understand. Yet there might come a time that some humans will be abel to utilize whatever that ability is. To those who can’t, that ability might seem miraculous. It is not. It is an act of perception in a particular form of awareness. Another example might be such abilities as some have to “see” sound or even in one case, bend a light beam.

In any case, individuals can undergo sudden and profound perceptual changes that are so far unexplainable in mechanistic terms. That does not mean they are unexplainable in terms of a greater understanding, but to the mind of ignorance, such might be called a miracle or a descent of grace.

We are all ignorant in some way. We know that the human awareness seems to have blind spots that allow a person to cope with the organization of an astounding amount of data. That is why stage magic is now being used as a window into the nature of our perceptual abilities. “Magic” is not a miracle, but seems so to the senses, even if the trick in done openly, as Penn and Teller have shown. In the same way, we tend to organize things on lines of pattern recognition, and see faces and such in trees, rocks, elephants in clouds, and Jesus and Mary in pizza crusts and dirty wndows. What we are seeing is our own ability to organize and recognize clues, not what is “objectively” there. In fact, given that if you had a proton the size of a marble, its electron would be a speck two miles away, it is difficulat to justify that what we are looking at is there in the first place. It is “there” to our particular level of ability of perception.

If you consider the EM spectrum, our ability to sense it is miniscule and restricted on all sides by the nature of our sensory equipment. That means there may be all sorts of stuff going on around us that we have no clue about. Consider that even in terms of radio waves we are now enveloped in a “transmitosphere” that didn’t exist even, say, forty years ago. Kids are texting each other by the billions of messages daily on a planet where their parents likely thought Dick Tracy’s wrist radio was impossible.

So we are increasing out interaction with the invisible, both on technical and, for lack of better terms, “psychic” grounds. As Asimov said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology seems miraculous to the ignorant.” Again, I remind us of cargo cults. That is not backwards, necessarily, only as a matter of perspective to us who know about the actual nature and use of airplanes. To the cultists, it may have been a step forward in assimilating something radically new. Machines to us, magic to them. Same human capacities grown up under circumstances necessarily demanding different historic skills.

It is little wonder then that we encounter strange things and strange thoughts these days in the global village. It is no longer the world where my friend was the frist white man some Guatamalan indians had ever seen. He could not explain to them that the USA was not just in the next couple of valleys away. So, in what respect are you and I like those Guatamalan indians? We might correctly percieve something about the Catholic mindsets on here, and yet have lacuna of our own. In some respects the opposite might be true. Our correct perceptions, from more ignorant perspectives, may seem miraculous when results are produced that work.

I can submit any of my posts here to a group of people with a certain background and be complimented and/or corrected according to a world view we share. To some on here the same material is gobledygook. If they, or we, woke up to a higher order of perception and involvement, that to me, in the sense of the lessening of confinement, is a miracle.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Not even all suffering, just the needless.

I’m not trying to define how many are enough. You said we should believe in miracles, and I’m asking why if there are miracles and God interferes with this world, why would God not do more?

Why do you percieve the natural world as anything less then magical? Just because things ocurr in a seqeunce or become actual according to a particular complexity in pattern and structure, is not evidence against miracles, but is evidence to me as contrivance through miracles. That you don’t see reality as extreamly bizzare, magical and very particular, is quite disturbing to me, and is telling of your tendency to take life for granted. Just look around you, open your eyes and think about it.

 

[Detales]

“…why would God not do more” is hypothetially answerabel only if God is a personal “doer,” and that is impossible.

And “Why do you percieve the natural world as anything less then magical?” implies that the rational is less wonderful than the unknown, as well as seeming to take the activity fo discovery out of the picture. A purpose of wondering at what appears to be miraaculous could be to build an energetic pressure to discover.

 

[MindOverMatter]

And “Why do you percieve the natural world as anything less then magical?” implies that the rational is less wonderful than the unknown,

What do you mean by rational? Are you saying there is an objective standard? Should i find the rational more wonderful then the unknown? And why is the unknown less rational?

The only other options that attempt to explain reality is an infinite universe that transcends all countable numbers, or that the world popped out of nothing. To me this is worser then magic, let alone miracles.
I see no reason whatsoever to desire or perceive these things as more rational then the concept of a perfect eternal and personal will. The world isn’t suddenly less miraculous or magical or more rational just because we remove the concept of God or miracles from our minds; in fact the reality we live in becomes completely absurd.

I was arguing that because these miraculous things such as life and mind occurred in such an ordered and particular fashion, its more reasonable to think of our universe as being the product of an intelligent mind. Otherwise why is it so ordered and particular? Why are there such things as objective laws or rules? Why is it rational?

as well as seeming to take the activity for discovery out of the picture.

I don’t see why my post would lead you to think this? I have no problem with “scientific discovery”. I have a problem with naturalism

A purpose of wondering at what appears to be miraculous

What do you mean by “appear?” Are you presupposing that there are too kinds of reality? One thats miraculous and one thats not? Why is the other less miraculous, and what is the objective standard by which you measure?

could be to build an energetic pressure to discover.

Discover what? That there is some rational reason for why the universe exists. Where do you get this idea of rational from?

 

[AmbroseSJ]

I haven’t scanned this entire thread, but my viewpoint is that the Jesuit is right (for once.) In a nutshell, arguments from Intelligent design are a reward to Faith not its foundation. Faith must precede. Faith can not be reduced to scientific principles, it transcends them. That is why arguments from ID tend to belittle God (or Faith) Faith is never at odds with Science or Intelligent Design, but it can not be based on it either. “Natural Theology” is based on these types of arguments, but it will never reveal the Loving and Holy God, that is only found in Scriptures and the Church. It can actually be detrimental in and of itself, as it can lead one down a road of expecting rational scientific arguments for all religious doctrines.

 

[reggieM]

I haven’t scanned this entire thread, but my viewpoint is that the Jesuit is right (for once.) In a nutshell, arguments from Intelligent design are a reward to Faith not its foundation. Faith must precede. Faith can not be reduced to scientific principles, it transcends them. That is why arguments from ID tend to belittle God (or Faith) Faith is never at odds with Science or Intelligent Design, but it can not be based on it either. “Natural Theology” is based on these types of arguments, but it will never reveal the Loving and Holy God, that is only found in Scriptures and the Church. It can actually be detrimental in and of itself, as it can lead one down a road of expecting rational scientific arguments for all religious doctrines.

Infallible, *de fide *article of faith - of the Deposit of Faith, required by all Catholics:

God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.

From a Zenit interview with Catholic philosopher, Ralph McInerny

Q: What is natural theology? In other words, explain what it means that it is an article of faith that God can be known by reason apart from faith.

McInerny: It is, by another name, philosophical theology; that is, the knowledge of God that can be attained from common human experience of the world, without dependence on religious faith.

Plato, and especially Aristotle, in pre-Christian times, carried the theology of the philosophers to heights which are still cause for marvel. The whole point of classical philosophy – the love of wisdom – was to attain such knowledge of God as is possible for the human mind. It is in contemplating God that the most perfect happiness is found. So natural theology is not just a special set of topics, but the key to philosophy.

The Catholic tradition sees in Romans 1:19-20 the scriptural basis for what was defined by Vatican I, namely, that it is “de fide” that God can be known by natural powers of man unaided by faith.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Certitude:

Concerning the sphere of certitude in religion, “Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the first cause (principium) and last end of all things, may be known with certainty, by the natural light of the human reason, through the medium of things created” (Vatican Council, Constitut. de Fide Cath., cap. ii); and this affirmation is supported by an anathema of the contradictory proposition (ibid., can. I).

So, the claim that natural theology is “detrimental” is a heretical proposition – it has been officially anathematized by the Holy See in the documents of Vatican Council 1. It’s a rejection of St. Paul’s teaching in Romans 1:19-20 and a rejection of the teleological argument which has been a part of Catholic theology since the apostolic age (through the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and through to the teaching of the modern popes, including Pope Benedict XVI.)

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Infallible, *de fide *article of faith - of the Deposit of Faith, required by all Catholics:

God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.

From a Zenit interview with Catholic philosopher, Ralph McInerny

Q: What is natural theology? In other words, explain what it means that it is an article of faith that God can be known by reason apart from faith.

McInerny: It is, by another name, philosophical theology; that is, the knowledge of God that can be attained from common human experience of the world, without dependence on religious faith.

Plato, and especially Aristotle, in pre-Christian times, carried the theology of the philosophers to heights which are still cause for marvel. The whole point of classical philosophy – the love of wisdom – was to attain such knowledge of God as is possible for the human mind. It is in contemplating God that the most perfect happiness is found. So natural theology is not just a special set of topics, but the key to philosophy.

**The Catholic tradition sees in Romans 1:19-20 the scriptural basis for what was defined by Vatican I, namely, that it is “de fide” **that God can be known by natural powers of man unaided by faith.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Certitude:

Concerning the sphere of certitude in religion, “Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the first cause (principium) and last end of all things, may be known with certainty, by the natural light of the human reason, through the medium of things created” (Vatican Council, Constitut. de Fide Cath., cap. ii); and this affirmation is supported by an anathema of the contradictory proposition (ibid., can. I).

So, the claim that natural theology is “detrimental” is a heretical proposition – it has been officially anathematized by the Holy See in the documents of Vatican Council 1. It’s a rejection of St. Paul’s teaching in Romans 1:19-20 and a rejection of the teleological argument which has been a part of Catholic theology since the apostolic age (through the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and through to the teaching of the modern popes, including Pope Benedict XVI.)

You are misunderstanding my post. It is understandable however, as this is a very recondite subject. But I stand by my words, and will try to explain further. The Vatican Council and especially P.X. in Pascendi gregis dominici is aimed squarely against “Modernists.” These people basically said it is IMPOSSIBLE to know of the existence of God through Natural reason and the created world. The Jesuit and myself are not saying that at all. We are saying that it is just not likely (with the state of Science and Intelligent Design as it exists in the 21st century.) IOW, it is still very possible, just as the Church teaches. However, it is not a convincing argument by any means, or else there would be no Atheists or Agnostics in the world. Do you see the difference?

Therefore arguments from Intelligent Design are rarely productive in today’s atmosphere. In fact, depending on how those arguments are conducted, they can actually be counter-productive, as your own reaction has shown. However, to one that already has Faith, arguments from Intelligent Design are both a comfort and a joy. Again a big difference.

My siding with the Jesuit is not heretical, and neither are his opinions. What we are discussing is what works, vs. what doesn’t work.

However, if you have converted Atheists using arguments from Intelligent Design, I congratulate you!

 

[Detales]

In short, ID does not belittle God, who cannot be belittled. We belittle our understanding of ourselves and God by believing such things as ID.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Ambrose

*Therefore arguments from Intelligent Design are rarely productive in today’s atmosphere. *

Rareness of productivity has nothing to do with the truth. Are you a pragmatist only?

However, to one that already has Faith, arguments from Intelligent Design are both a comfort and a joy. Again a big difference.

Again, comfort and joy are not the issue. Truth is.

My siding with the Jesuit is not heretical, and neither are his opinions. What we are discussing is what works, vs. what doesn’t work.

What certainly doesn’t work is the absurd proposition, offered entirely without proof and as an atheistic assumption to boot (there couldn’t possibly be intelligent designer, tell that to Einstein), that abiogenesis occurred by chance.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Ambrose

*Therefore arguments from Intelligent Design are rarely productive in today’s atmosphere. *

Rareness of productivity has nothing to do with the truth. Are you a pragmatist only?

However, to one that already has Faith, arguments from Intelligent Design are both a comfort and a joy. Again a big difference.

Again, comfort and joy are not the issue. Truth is.

My siding with the Jesuit is not heretical, and neither are his opinions. What we are discussing is what works, vs. what doesn’t work.

What certainly doesn’t work is the absurd proposition, offered entirely without proof and as an atheistic assumption to boot (there couldn’t possibly be intelligent designer, tell that to Einstein), that abiogenesis occurred by chance.

You have also completely missed my point, and jumped to wrong conclusions. This sort of debate requires a very refined and sensitive understanding of precisely what people are saying and not saying.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Detales

*We belittle our understanding of ourselves and God by believing such things as ID. *

Why?

 

[Detales]

Because Creation is neither by accident nor design.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Ambrose
*
You have also completely missed my point, and jumped to wrong conclusions. **This sort of debate requires a very refined and sensitive understanding *of precisely what people are saying and not saying.

Instead of smarmy* ad hominems*, why not just stick to the argument?

Where has science proved abiogenesis by chance? You are aware, of course, that for science to say anything it has to have proof. So where is the proof that abiogenesis happened by chance, when the mathematical likelihood is so remote as to be impossible?

Where’s the beef?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Detales

*Because Creation is neither by accident nor design. *

I was hoping for more than a sentence.

 

[Detales]

You only ask for more because you didn’t look inside. Mistaking immensity for a sentence may be yours unless you go beyond periods.