Intelligent Design

[grannymh]

False. Theistic Evolution makes no claims about the infusion of the human soul, given that evolution by definition is a mere material process. You should know that, and not relentlessly continue to perpetuate falsehoods.

Please look carefully at what I posted in 215. Thank you.
Please notice that I said “are helpless.” In my old neighborhood when something is helpless when it comes to human nature, that implies that it is not possible to make a correct claim about human nature. At the end of the post, I qualify correct as being in accord with the Catholic Deposit of Faith.

Perhaps the problem is that I did not specifically divide human nature into its material elements which science can study and its spiritual priniciple which Divine Revelation addresses. That could be due to the fact that I am currently following cladograms.
Originally Posted by grannymh forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif When it comes to human nature (Genesis 1:26-27) both Theistic Evolution *and *Intelligent Design are helpless.

Please check out the rest of post 215. It contains the presented evidence to back up your claim that " Theistic Evolution makes no claims about the infusion of the human soul, given that evolution by definition is a mere material process."

From Post 215.

“I have never seen a Theistic Evolution post nor an Intelligent Design post which actually accurately demonstrated human nature as taught by the Catholic Deposit of Faith. So why, in heaven’s name, would anyone who is interested in human nature use them as their source of information?”

 

[DrTaffy]

No, because the Dharmic religions do not categorically state, as the Abrahamic religions categorically state, that the first thing created was light, as in "Let there be light”

Equally, the Abrahamic religions do not state that the stars are Suns like our own. Indeed, the Catholic Church killed Giordano Bruno in part for asserting this, which we now know to be true.

That correlation is far more explicit and unexpected than the alleged link between the phrase “let there be light” and the Big Bang theory.

 

[DrTaffy]

Both of these beg the question, given that the brain is assembled from and by the design plan within the genetic code of the sperm and ova when they combine, the question that remains unanswered is where did the design for the brain come from?

No. The question was explicitly asked:

How often have you seen mindless things producing intelligent beings? :whacky:

So that question has now been explicitly answered.

So we still await the answer to our question:
How often have you seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo?

After all, if this is being proposed as the acid test for our belief system, should you not apply it to your own?

As far as the question of where the design for the brain came from, according to us, your question makes it clear that you know the answer and the reasoning and evidence behind that answer. Produce a fraction of that evidence for’intelligent design’ and we’ll have something to talk about.:ehh:

 

[inocente]

No, because the Dharmic religions do not categorically state, as the Abrahamic religions categorically state, that the first thing created was light, as in “Let there be light!”

Science also categorically says that light filled the early universe.

Atheist Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

A big problem with quote mining is it can all go embarrassingly belly up.

In the exact same book, Sagan completely contradicts you by saying that only Hinduism got it remotely right:

*"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths … in which the time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma; 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the earth or the sun, and about half the time since the Big Bang - and there are much longer time scales still.

There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the God who, after a hundred Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep and the universe dissolves with him until after another Brahma century he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic lotus dream." - genius.com/Carl-sagan-on-god-and-gods-annotated (also has his commentary from the sound track of Cosmos).*

btw Not sure if back in Sagan’s day, he knew that light couldn’t shine for the first 380 000 years. - space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html

So the Genesis writer even gets the let-there-be-light bit wrong. The bible is about salvation, it’s not a science book.

Happy to be of service. :curtsey:

 

[rossum]

Spoken like a faithful Buddhist.

Extract a carbon atom from your body. Extract a second carbon atom from a piece of a carbonaceous chondrite. How can you tell which atom was once part of a living organism? How can you tell which atom was never part of a living organism? What is the special sauce that distinguishes the once-living atom from the never-living atom?

Vitalism was discredited by Wöhler in 1828. There is nothing special about the material components of our bodies.

rossum

 

[rossum]

No, because the Dharmic religions do not categorically state, as the Abrahamic religions categorically state, that the first thing created was light

No, because the Abrahamic religions do not categorically state, as the Dharmic religions categorically state, that the stars are very distant suns with their own suites of planets.

rossum

 

[Peter_Plato]

So the Genesis writer even gets the let-there-be-light bit wrong. The bible is about salvation, it’s not a science book.

Happy to be of service. :curtsey:

The problem with this is that if the Genesis writer gets it wrong about the “let-there-be-light-bit,” then chances are he likely got the salvation-bit wrong, too.

On the other hand, if the Hindu religion has misconceptions about the salvation thing, then why should we think Sagan’s interpretation and concession on the light bit has any significance? After all, the language of Genesis and the Hindu writings is not the precise technical language of a scientific paper on the subject.

This whole argument, I would suggest, is just misconceived on your part.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No. The question was explicitly asked:

So that question has now been explicitly answered.

This assumes the brain, itself - or, at least, the physical body - is the intelligent “being.” The hard problem of consciousness stands in the way of you having explicitly answered the question. He asked explicitly about intelligent “beings,” not functional brains or bodies. Do you have definitive proof that a brain or body is identical to the intelligent being utilizing it? If you do, you have solved the hard problem of consciousness that is puzzling and has puzzled philosophers of mind for centuries.

Shall I wait for your paper with bated breath?

 

[inocente]

The problem with this is that if the Genesis writer gets it wrong about the “let-there-be-light-bit,” then chances are he likely got the salvation-bit wrong, too.

Wow. We walk by sight, not by faith?

I’ll let a Catholic priest speak for me:

“The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less — some more than others — on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors in historic and scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if the errors related to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them . . . The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects, is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.” - Georges Lemaître

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy;12556414:

No. The question was explicitly

asked:

How often have you seen mindless

things producing intelligent beings? :whacky:

So that question has now been explicitly answered.

This assumes the brain, itself - or, at least, the physical body - is the intelligent “being.” The hard problem of consciousness stands in the way of you having explicitly answered the question.

No it doesn’t. Unless you want to argue that sperm and ova have minds, or that human beings do not, then we have answered the question explicitly.

Indeed you are the one who tried to reduce the question of consciousness to one of the physical structure of the brain when you asked “where did the design for the brain come from?”

Shall I wait for your paper with bated breath?

Probably. It seems like the kind of condescending nonconstructive thing you would do.

So we still await the answer to our question:
How often have you seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo?

After all, if this is being proposed as the acid test for our belief system, should you not apply it to your own?

And funnily enough we are still waiting!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Wow. We walk by sight, not by faith?

False dichotomy.

Who says it is either/or and mutually exclusive?

Oh, yeah…

…you do.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Equally, the Abrahamic religions do not state that the stars are Suns like our own. Indeed, the Catholic Church killed Giordano Bruno in part for asserting this, which we now know to be true.

That correlation is far more explicit and unexpected than the alleged link between the phrase “let there be light” and the Big Bang theory.

There is nothing in the Dharmic religions that comes anywhere near the Big Bang.

“Let there be light does,” since it refers to a light that existed before the stars were created.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

A big problem with quote mining is it can all go embarrassingly belly up.

btw Not sure if back in Sagan’s day, he knew that light couldn’t shine for the first 380 000 years. - space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html

So the Genesis writer even gets the let-there-be-light bit wrong. The bible is about salvation, it’s not a science book.

Happy to be of service. :curtsey:

Read Genesis again. Notice that there was darkness before the creation of light. Why wouldn’t that correspond to 380,000 years?

You’re welcome!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Vitalism was discredited by Wöhler in 1828. There is nothing special about the material components of our bodies.

rossum

Or as Chesterton put it:

“The rough, shorthand way of putting the difference is that the Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living.”

So from your point of view there truly is “nothing special about the material components of our bodies.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

So we still await the answer to our question:
How often have you seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo?

Interestingly enough, the ONLY intelligent being that I can claim any real familiarity with did arise “ex nihilo” as far as I can tell.

Now you have a narrative that seeks to explain that “arising.” Unfortunately, it has huge holes in it because it doesn’t explain the “intelligence” part, the intentional part, nor the personal identity part. All of which are crucial for sufficiently explaining “intelligence.” Your narrative insists that I must deny a great deal in order to accept it.

In other words, I must swallow the primo even while staring at the secondo and contorno make me want to heave.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Wow. We walk by sight, not by faith?

I’ll let a Catholic priest speak for me:

“The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less — some more than others — on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors in historic and scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if the errors related to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them . . . The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects, is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.” - Georges Lemaître

I like Lemaitre’s quote, but not because it disposes of “Let there be light.”

“Let there be light” is still operative from a scientific point of view, as Sagan points out in Cosmos.

There is no quote from the Hindu texts that is comparable to “Let there be light.”

If there is, document it.

You’re welcome.

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy;12556414:

So we still await the answer to our

question:
How often have you seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo?

Interestingly enough, the ONLY intelligent being that I can claim any real familiarity with did arise “ex nihilo” as far as I can tell.

So we still await the answer to our question:
How often have you seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo? Indeed you are resorting to silly word games to avoid answering it!

Now you have a narrative that seeks to explain that “arising.” Unfortunately, it has huge holes in it because it doesn’t explain the “intelligence” part, the intentional part, nor the personal identity part. All of which are crucial for sufficiently explaining “intelligence.” Your narrative insists that I must deny a great deal in order to accept it.

No, it just requires you to accept the fact that sperm and ova are mindless, give rise to humans, and humans have minds. QED

In other words, I must swallow the primo even while staring at the secondo and contorno make me want to heave.

Pretentious italian culinary references are no substitute for actually answering the question.

 

[DrTaffy]

There is nothing in the Dharmic religions that comes anywhere near the Big Bang.

There is nothing in the Abrahamic religions that predicts that the stars are Suns like ours. Indeed the Catholics resisted this truth quite violently.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, it just requires you to accept the fact that sperm and ova are mindless, give rise to humans, and humans have minds. QED

Funny, I feel no compulsion to accept that human minds are sufficiently explained by the “mindless” aspects of sperm and ova. Neither am I obliged to accept that minds “emerge” from - nor need I accept that minds can be explained solely by - the mindless biochemistry of the brain, your presumptions otherwise, notwithstanding.

 

[rossum]

Or as Chesterton put it:

“The rough, shorthand way of putting the difference is that the Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living.”

Correct:

[The Buddha said:] “What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time — crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?”

“As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time — crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.”

"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.

– Assu sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 15.3

So from your point of view there truly is “nothing special about the material components of our bodies.”

Correct. There is nothing special about the salt on your table, it is just a chemical. The atoms of that salt can be incorporated into your body, and there is still nothing special about them. They are still ordinary sodium and ordinary chlorine.

rossum