Intelligent Design

[Charlemagne_III]

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

Predicts?

Genesis predicts the discovery three thousand years later (with the Big Bang) that light flooded the early universe before the stars were formed. There is no prediction in any other sacred book that even comes close to this prediction.

A good deal more credible as a revelation than your theory that life assembled itself into being without any particular reason for doing so.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

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

Still waiting for the Hindu sacred scripture comparable to “Let there be Light!”

Source please?

 

[rossum]

Genesis predicts the discovery three thousand years later (with the Big Bang) that light flooded the early universe before the stars were formed. There is no prediction in any other sacred book that even comes close to this prediction.

The Vimalakirti Nirdesa predicts the discovery two thousand years later that planets were to be found orbiting other suns/stars at extremely large distances.

Chapter 10, where the prediction is found, also has Vimalakirti feeding 80,000 people from a single bowl of rice. 5,000 people? What a piker. Fish? Who needs fish?

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The Vimalakirti Nirdesa predicts the discovery two thousand years later that planets were to be found orbiting other suns/stars at extremely large distances.

rossum

Can you supply the quote? Thank you.

Doesn’t sound to me like a startling prediction to me. If there are planets circling our star, why couldn’t there be planets circling other stars?

Now “Let there be light!” That’s a startling prediction. Who’d have thought 30,000 years ago that the first thing to be created was light?

 

[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? Indeed you are resorting to silly word games to avoid answering it!

Expecting someone to “see” the immaterial means we just aren’t on the same page, at all, with regard to what we are staring at. Immaterial implies we can’t see whatever is immaterial. I can conceive of immaterial truths without, thereby being committed to being able to have you “see” them.

In addition, I never claimed “AN immaterial omnipotent being” created intelligent beings, but would defend the idea that Being Itself is immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient and does have the potential to explain whence intelligent individual beings arose since Being Itself grounds the existence of all that comes into or goes out of existence.

I can’t make you “see” the ground of existence because it isn’t perceptible in the sense that individual “things” in the physical world have those perceptible qualities. But to accept your world view, I would have to accept your underlying misconception that individual existents within the physical world have some kind of mysterious power to enable the entire physical world while, at the same time, being in that world. (Yes, I can anticipate your comment, here, but I’ll wait for it.)

We are obviously not on the same page with regard to what you accept as explanatory. You seem to accept that mere change from one form into another is sufficient to explain emergence and nothing more need be said. You would I expect, be satisfied watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat with the explanation that a rabbit can “emerge” from a hat.

On the other hand, I don’t accept that mere emergence explains anything. Sure, minds in some sense, seem to “emerge” from brains and human beings seem to “emerge from” zygotes, but I don’t see in that concession anything like an explanation. I accept that a magician can make a rabbit “emerge” from a hat, but I don’t find that, in any sense, to be sufficiently explanatory, even if you insist that I must.

Until you have a plausible and sufficient explanation for minds and what precisely minds are and how brain chemistry fully accounts for minds or intelligence, then you haven’t made a case, as far as I am concerned.

I am, on the other hand, prepared to listen to that case - if you have one - but don’t assume words like “emerge” will be accepted at face value merely out of a sense of charity for your inability to produce any intellectual assets worth cashing in.

 

[tonyrey]

The term “natural” is indefinitely extensible to accommodate new discoveries, no matter how alien they are to the hypothesis that reality consists of nothing more than the physical universe(s).

You still haven’t defined “natural”…

An unsubstantiated hypothesis - and it must be incomplete if it cannot explain the value, meaning and purpose of life…

Again, that’s for you to decide via religion (or studying the entrails of goats or philosophy or smoking certain illegal substances). You try the first two, I’ll do the others and I’ll let you know if I come across anything interesting.

Sarcasm is an irrational response. Does life have any value, meaning or purpose? If so what is the rational basis for that belief?

 

[DrTaffy]

Still waiting for the Hindu sacred scripture comparable to “Let there be Light!”

Trying to equate “let there be light” to a detailed explanation of the BigBang is, at best, a desperate ploy.

Compare to a clear prediction of stars being Suns like ours, with planets, a truth for which the Catholic Church was still burning people in the 1600s.

 

[tonyrey]

Sometimes it is just being rude and arrogant.

The truth is not always palatable…

 

[tonyrey]

So mindless processes have magically managed to become aware of themselves?

Have you ever seen it happen?

How often have you seen mindless

• things producing intelligent beings? :whacky:

Does a human sperm or ovum have a mind?

Yet they regularly come together to produce intelligent beings.

Have you ever **seen **a mind?

 

[Bradski]

You still haven’t defined “natural”…

Sarcasm is an irrational response. Does life have any value, meaning or purpose? If so what is the rational basis for that belief?

Tony, I’d find myself more conducive to answering any questions you had if you quit pumping out your desk calendar quotes and firing off umpteen questions about everything under the sun in every post (generally the same ones ad nauseum). How about being a bit more pro-active? How about you bring some substance to the discussion?

Or maybe you’d like me to define ‘substance’ for you. Oops…sorry. More sarcasm (note to self: If you can’t resist being sarcastic to Tony, then stop replying to him unless he actually says something constructive).

 

[tonyrey]

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?”

How would you define the mind?

 

[tonyrey]

Tony, I’d find myself more conducive to answering any questions you had if you quit pumping out your desk calendar quotes and firing off umpteen questions about everything under the sun in every post (generally the same ones ad nauseum). How about being a bit more pro-active? How about you bring some substance to the discussion?

Or maybe you’d like me to define ‘substance’ for you. Oops…sorry. More sarcasm (note to self: If you can’t resist being sarcastic to Tony, then stop replying to him unless he actually says something constructive).

An exaggeration which implies that you don’t want to commit yourself. If you can’t define anything it is impossible to have a rational discussion.** One** simple question:

How do you decide whether an event is natural?

 

[rossum]

Can you supply the quote? Thank you.

Then, the Licchavi Vimalakirti set himself in such a concentration and performed such a miraculous feat that those bodhisattvas and those great disciples were enabled to see the universe called Sarvagandhasugandha, which is located in the direction of the zenith, beyond as many buddha-fields as there are sands in forty-two Ganges rivers. There the Tathagata named Sugandhakuta resides, lives, and is manifest. In that universe, the trees emit a fragrance that far surpasses all the fragrances, human and divine, of all the buddha-fields of the ten directions. In that universe, even the names “disciple” and “solitary sage” do not exist, and the Tathagata Sugandhakuta teaches the Dharma to a gathering of bodhisattvas only. In that universe, all the houses, the avenues, the parks, and the palaces are made of various perfumes, and the fragrance of the food eaten by those bodhisattvas pervades immeasurable universes.

– Vimalakirtinirdesa sutra, Chapter 10

In this context, “buddha-field” may be a single solar system or a group of many solar systems. It defines the range of actions of a Buddha. Without seeing the Sanskrit/Tibetan I cannot be sure, but I suspect that Thurman intends “buddha-field” to refer to a single solar system, while “universe” refers to one of the larger groupings of multiple solar systems.

Here is a shorter piece from the Smaller Sukhavati sutra:

1. Then the Buddha addressed Shariputra, the elder, and said, 'Beyond a hundred thousand kotis of Buddha-lands westwards from here, there is a world named Sukhavati. In that world there is a Buddha, Amita(-ayus) by name, now dwelling and preaching the law.

– Smaller Sukhavati sutra

Note also the large distances involved, something else confirmed by modern science. I do not know enough about the Hindu scriptures to supply an equivalent quote.

Doesn’t sound to me like a startling prediction to me. If there are planets circling our star, why couldn’t there be planets circling other stars?

The Bible does not realise that the sun is a star. The two are always handled differently.

Now “Let there be light!” That’s a startling prediction. Who’d have thought 30,000 years ago that the first thing to be created was light?

No. There was darkness in Genesis 1:2, before light was created in Genesis 1:3. This is exactly the sequence of the Jewish day which starts with darkness, at sunset, and only later does the light arrive, at sunrise. There was no special knowledge there, just an expansion of the typical day onto a larger scale.

Both Abrahamic and Dharmic scriptures contain lucky guesses, and both contain errors. There are no “pillars” supporting the earth and Mount Meru does not exist.

rossum

 

[DrTaffy]

Have you ever seen it happen?

Have you ever seen an immaterial omnipotent being create life ex nihilo? If that is the required standard of proof for us, why is it not for you?

Have you ever **seen **a mind?

I have experience of minds, but they are not visible things. So what? Do you claim to have seen a mind? :ehh:

 

[DrTaffy]

Expecting someone to “see” the immaterial means we just aren’t on the same page, at all, with regard to what we are staring at.

Of course we are not.

I am responding to the absurd claim that proponents of naturalistic evolution have to have ‘seen’ mindless things produce something with a mind in order to be able to hold their position, and am pointing out that:
a) we have done so, trivially
b) the theistic crowd have a far more challenging task if they are to meet their own standard

You, on the other hand, appear to be (arguably dishonestly) trying to treat this response as a complete naturalistic argument for how sentience arose and then affecting surprise at the fact that the alleged argument is incomplete. I may as well criticise your post as being an incomplete explanation of how to clean my car’s EGR valve.

Immaterial implies we can’t see whatever is immaterial.

So the answer to my question is “No”? Of course you have not seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo, that is because the proposed test is a silly one. Yet it was proposed by your side and you have not only embraced it, but extended the dishonesty by trying to treat my response as something that you cannot, for one second, have believed it to be intended as.

Until you have a plausible and sufficient explanation for minds and what precisely minds are and how brain chemistry fully accounts for minds or intelligence, then you haven’t made a case, as far as I am concerned.

Nope. The topic of this thread is “Intelligent Design” - so if you wish to defend that thesis it is for you to produce an argument. If I start a thread about a complete naturalistic explanation for consciousness, that is a different matter. But so far you are just pulling the usual ‘argument from ignorance’ trick of trying to shift the burden of proof.

 

[tonyrey]

Have you ever seen

 

[tonyrey]

Of course we are not.

I am responding to the absurd claim that proponents of naturalistic evolution have to have ‘seen’ mindless things produce something with a mind in order to be able to hold their position, and am pointing out that:a) we have done so, trivially
b) the theistic crowd have a far more challenging task if they are to meet their own standardYou, on the other hand, appear to be (arguably dishonestly) trying to treat this response as a complete naturalistic argument for how sentience arose and then affecting surprise at the fact that the alleged argument is incomplete. I may as well criticise your post as being an incomplete explanation of how to clean my car’s EGR valve.

So the answer to my question is “No”? Of course you have not seen an immaterial omnipotent being create intelligent beings ex nihilo, that is because the proposed test is a silly one. Yet it was proposed by your side and you have not only embraced it, but extended the dishonesty by trying to treat my response as something that you cannot, for one second, have believed it to be intended as.

Nope. The topic of this thread is “Intelligent Design” - so if you wish to defend that thesis it is for you to produce an argument. If I start a thread about a complete naturalistic explanation for consciousness, that is a different matter. But so far you are just pulling the usual ‘argument from ignorance’ trick of trying to shift the burden of proof.

In that case your argument is from ignorance because you rely on** invisible** entities in your interpretation of reality. We have direct experience of the mind whereas all knowledge of the material universe is inferred from what we perceive. Our primary datum and **sole certainty **is our stream of consciousness.

 

[edwest2]

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?

The question also remains unanswered when you, for example, assume natural selection acting on random mutations over a long period of time, is sufficient to account for that design. Until you demonstrate that it has been, all your assertions that it does, remain merely assertions.

You cannot use “survival” as the trump card, because you are, thereby, assuming that survival depended entirely upon random mutations - which, again, begs the question. You haven’t shown that, you assume that is what ensured survival because you assume that was the only mechanism in play.

Well said. Too many assertions and assumptions. Having read some of the more technical literature, connections between this and that, i.e., this must be connected to that, are assumed. Some primitive forms of life had some very complex features.

Ed

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The Bible does not realise that the sun is a star. The two are always handled differently.

No. There was darkness in Genesis 1:2, before light was created in Genesis 1:3. This is exactly the sequence of the Jewish day which starts with darkness, at sunset, and only later does the light arrive, at sunrise. There was no special knowledge there, just an expansion of the typical day onto a larger scale.

rossum

Where in the Bible does it say the sun is not a star?

As to your second point, there was no sun in existence when God said “Let there be light!”

According to Genesis, the sun was created at a much later date.

The rest of that post is more undecipherable than Revelations.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As to the human brain, if that is not designed by God but merely the consequence of a long train of evolution by blind natural selection, why is there such a profound gap between the human brain and all other mammals? You would think there would be intermediate subhuman brains that evolved, somewhere between the human and the ape, that are still around because they were better able than the apes but less able than men to thwart the challenges to survival.

Where are they?