Intelligent Design

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“Behe… his opposition desperate. How many people have lost their jobs in the field of science just for disagreeing about a theory?”

Fire the IDiots
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0403121312.35d2e0c%40posting.google.com

Berlinski, in
Feynman, R. Reid, and Berlinski on ad hominems
groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990102235105.11328B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu

P. Johnson (a creationist) on Dawkins’s bluster
groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.10001152331430.1317621-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu

“creation has a creator who, like a computer programmer (not a perfect analogy but good enough for our needs here) wrote into DNA the program of life and can change that programming, just like any other programmer, at will.”

ID + common descent: A Proposal
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0404181835.d59cf7d%40posting.google.com
religious faith and common descent
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0405051933.522f5d0e%40posting.google.com
1910s remarks by Caullery, Edmund B. Wilson, and Bateson on the idea of top-down unfolding/ [Bateson]“unpacking of an original complex which contained within itself the whole range of diversity which living things present”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0405161853.5f28f100%40posting.google.com

1985 A.G. Cairns-Smith; How did recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information originate?
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-32gv43F3jsrelU1%40individual.net

How does a seeingwatchmakingist account for the origin of
the recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information within:
a human? a bacterium? the first biological lifeform?
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-348nj6F47evohU1%40individual.net
 
I found this picture and thought it both funny and sad at the same time:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Science by its very definition attempts to explain phenomenon only by the laws of nature. Anything unnatural or supernatural (ie. - God!) would then be opposed to science.
No. It would only be inexplicable to science. Science is methodologically naturalistic, which means that it seeks natural causes for natural phenomena. It does not, however deny that supernatural causes exist; it only lacks the means to understand them. Scientists, however, can understand the supernatural; they just can’t use science to do it.
Evolution is the naturalistic explanation for the origin of life.
If you lose no other misconception here, lose that one. Evolutionary theory makes no claim about the way life started. Since God says in Genesis that He created life by natural means, that’s good enough for me.
This presupposition that everything is explainable by means of nature is directly opposed to God’s existence. It’s called scientism.
Someone’s had a little fun with your trust. That’s not what science is at all. Many scientists spend a lot of time explaining this to non-scientists.
 
I’m sorry to say God in the cartoon has it wrong. Adam/Eve would have evolved long before the events in Genesis 1-4. Why? I’ve had this discussion before, but consider the mention of metal working, cities, farming, agriculture, animal and plant domestication, and sophisticated musical instruments (Genesis 4:2-4, 17, 20-22). We have no record of such things before 10,000 BC. The historical persons of Adam/Eve, their sons Cain/Abel, etc are described by the writer of Genesis as living during the Neolithic cultural period (c. 4000-5000 BC).

This article explains the “Early Origin” scenario as a way to preserve a literal Adam/Eve and reconcile with the archeological and anthropological data:

“The ecological and cultural environment described in Genesis 1-4 would represent not the historical environment of Adam and Eve (who date to 40,000 years ago or more), but rather that of the writer of Genesis. It is an environment that his readers would have understood perfectly since it pictures a familiar culture with its kinship relationships, plant and animal husbandry, and small towns. Yet the writer paints the garden as a perfect world, emphasizing that Adam and Eve had no excuse for their disobedience of God. This Early Origin scenario preserves the historicity of Adam and Eve and sets them at a point in time that harmonizes better with the archeological data.”

Catholic philosopher Dennis Bonnette notes the following in his book Origin of the Human Species:

“Further, evolutionary science sees the broad picture of human origins taking place over a time-frame measured in hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. It cannot focus on events affecting a single pair of humans at a given point in time. Anthropological data and theories are so general that they cannot oppose particular facts about an Adam and Eve, unless even the broad trends of such data are shown to oppose such particulars’ possibilities. Speculation based upon present data can, at best, indicate the nature and activities of early humans, pointing to largely undefined populations and imprecise time periods. It cannot address with precision the conditions of existence of a single pair of humans at a particular, distant-past time. It cannot exclude, a priori, the possibility of miraculous divine intervention whose reality falls entirely outside the fossil record.”

From Adam, Eve, and the Hominid Fossil Record

Another article I like on this topic is In Search of Historical Adam by Fischer

Phil P
 
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PhilVaz:
I…The historical persons of Adam/Eve, their sons Cain/Abel, etc are described by the writer of Genesis as living during the Neolithic cultural period (c. 4000-5000 BC)…
why wouldn’t that reflect the time the stories were composed rather than when they took place?
and if they are allegorical does it matter?
 
steve << why wouldn’t that reflect the time the stories were composed rather than when they took place? and if they are allegorical does it matter? >>

Yeah, that’s my view, that they are allegorical, and they reflect the time the stories were composed. And this seems to be the view of Benedict XVI and John Paul II on Genesis, despite Buffalo linking that article from Fr. Brian Harrison in every evolution thread we’ve ever had in here. :yawn:

Phil P
 
From an article I was reading the Church is not in agreement with Intelligent Design because they don’t want God viewed as a designer. There’s more to it than that, but can’t remember now nor can I find the article I was reading. Anyone know?
 
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PhilVaz:
steve << why wouldn’t that reflect the time the stories were composed rather than when they took place? and if they are allegorical does it matter? >>

Yeah, that’s my view, that they are allegorical, and they reflect the time the stories were composed. And this seems to be the view of Benedict XVI and John Paul II on Genesis, despite Buffalo linking that article from Fr. Brian Harrison in every evolution thread we’ve ever had in here. :yawn:

Phil P
Phil, you need some more links?😃

The problem here is the assumption God’s Revelation was incomprehensible to the writers, that they had to resort to allegories to transmit the truth, that they just couldn’t report the facts. .

Question - would God reveal Himself (the Truth) is an allegorical way?

If there is any problem it would have to be our understanding of the writer due to the language and expressions of his time. The Church however claims to know the meaning through its Magisterial authority, protection of the Holy Spirit and Tradition.

Now all of a sudden due to our “enlightenment” it is difficult to accept what has been known for so long because we arrogantly believe we know better through our superior intellect and study methods. Who better to be a witness than soemone who was there. We weren’t.
 
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buffalo:
The problem here is the assumption God’s Revelation was incomprehensible to the writers, that they had to resort to allegories to transmit the truth, that they just couldn’t report the facts. .
God’s Revelation is incomprehensible to all humans. It is related to us in many ways, via many vehicles of truth. Historical truth, spiritual truth, mythic truth.
Question - would God reveal Himself (the Truth) is an allegorical way?
Certainly. Jesus spoke in parables. No one bothered to try to take down the name of the seed-sower or identify which of the multitude was the One Lily of the Valley spoken of. Story and myth is a powerful way to communicate truth (especially social and moral matters) to people. Why would God not use it?
 
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wanerious:
God’s Revelation is incomprehensible to all humans. It is related to us in many ways, via many vehicles of truth. Historical truth, spiritual truth, mythic truth.

Certainly. Jesus spoke in parables. No one bothered to try to take down the name of the seed-sower or identify which of the multitude was the One Lily of the Valley spoken of. Story and myth is a powerful way to communicate truth (especially social and moral matters) to people. Why would God not use it?
The fullness of God’s Revelation is unknown to man. It would be unknowable and uncomprehensible unless we were God Himself. What He revealed to us for the sake of our understanding is both knowable and comprehensible for He ordered it that way.

When Jesus spoke in parables it was clearly communicated.
 
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buffalo:
The fullness of God’s Revelation is unknown to man. It would be unknowable and uncomprehensible unless we were God Himself. What He revealed to us for the sake of our understanding is both knowable and comprehensible for He ordered it that way.

When Jesus spoke in parables it was clearly communicated.
Indeed. So, in my view, what was communicated to primal peoples was understandable to them as myth and spiritual stories telling them the proper relationship between God and Man and His Creation. We are able now to learn more subtle Revelation of God through our investigation of Creation. Ancient Hebrews would not “get” the wonder and beauty of quantum mechanics or general relativity.
 
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wanerious:
Indeed. So, in my view, what was communicated to primal peoples was understandable to them as myth and spiritual stories telling them the proper relationship between God and Man and His Creation. We are able now to learn more subtle Revelation of God through our investigation of Creation. Ancient Hebrews would not “get” the wonder and beauty of quantum mechanics or general relativity.
Are you making the presunption that “primal” people were less intelligent than us? Less capable of understanding God than us?
 
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buffalo:
Are you making the presunption that “primal” people were less intelligent than us? Less capable of understanding God than us?
Of course not. Are they as capable of reading revelation in the natural world around us? No. Are they every bit as intelligent as us? Yes, possibly more so. And I think they could probably comprehend mythic truths much better than we can, as we tend (as a whole) to only give weight to the literal sense. We are a very literal, simplistic, fundamentalist society (not just in the religious sense), and I think we are the poorer for it.
 
I just watched the Journey Home last night on EWTN and physicist Anthony Rizzi was on. He made a point that I never really recognized. He said that “Intelligent Design” actually limits God because our senses and intellects are limited. Intelligent Design imposes our human concept of both ‘intelligence’ and ‘design’ on Him. Too often we think that God must have created the universe in the same way in which we create an authomobile, for example, but this isn’t necessarily the case and to suggest so would be to stifle God’s power since He created everything from the inside out. You can see the show by clicking HERE. (this link may still be the old episode, but they should update it shortly)
 
An interesting thought on design and evolution:I can illustrate my concern most simply with this bag of watch parts. Actually, in the interest of truth-in-advertising, I should tell you that this isn’t really a bag of watch parts, but a bag of little screws and wires and bits and pieces I picked up around the lab. But imagine please that I have disassembled a watch and put all the parts in this plastic bag. Now, I could shake this bag 24 hours a day for years and years, and the watch would never reassemble itself. But now, imagine, that I have another bag with the parts of a watch that is designed to self-assemble. When I shake this bag, a little spring hooks onto a little screw and latches into place. The battery snaps into the battery holder and stays there. All the pieces of the watch are constructed so that, when two pieces that belong together collide with the right sort of trajectory, they hook together and stay hooked together. So if you shake this bag for an hour or so, in the end, you’ll have an entire working watch - working, but with some tiny scratches here and there which indicate its history of being shaken together. Now I present you with the ordinary watch, and with the watch which can self-assemble, and I ask this question: which watch is more cleverly designed? I know how most people would answer. My point here is not to try to prove that God creating life-forms through evolution is somehow “better” that God creating life-forms through miracles. My point, rather, is that self-assembly is not the opposite of “design.” Watches and biological life-forms can, in principle, be designed to self-assemble from simpler component pieces.

(Loren Haarsma Is Intelligent Design “Scientific”?)

rossum
 
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Matt16_18:
Yep.

The atheistic Darwinist asserts that somewhere back in history a bipedal animal gave birth to a mutant, and that mutant was the first human being.
Fiction.
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Matt16_18:
the mutant offspring was lucky enough to be born in the right environment so that he could propagate.
Fiction
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Matt16_18:
For the atheistic Darwinist, the bottom line is that the creation of human beings is reducible to nothing more than organic chemistry.
Fiction. The description applies to atheist, nor ‘darwinist’.
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Matt16_18:
A faithful Catholic rejects this as utter nonsense.
Fiction
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Matt16_18:
A Catholic parent certainly has the right to object to public schools teaching his child nonsense!
Your fictions are nonsense, any paretn should object.
 
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buffalo:
Are you making the presunption that “primal” people were less intelligent than us? Less capable of understanding God than us?
Error of historical continuity.

Pantheism was the norm. Revelations came in an order.
 
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