Intelligent Design

[grannymh]

Evolution is God’s Design, see also the Pope’s comments above.

May I gently and respectfully suggest that when you have a moment, take a look at the cladogram for the lineages following the Homo/Pan Split or Divergence.

Question 1.
If evolution is God’s Design, where on the cladogram is an effective population of two founders of the human species?

Please accept my apology for the more than ten words in my simple question per post 983.

 

[Al_Moritz]

May I gently and respectfully suggest that when you have a moment, take a look at the cladogram for the lineages following the Homo/Pan Split or Divergence.

Question 1.
If evolution is God’s Design, where on the cladogram is an effective population of two founders of the human species?

We have had this discussion many times before. Due to the metaphysics of human nature, theological monogenism is compatible with genetic polygenism.

Please accept my apology for the more than ten words in my simple question per post 983.

I don’t see anything to apologize for.

 

[grannymh]

We have had this discussion many times before. Due to the metaphysics of human nature, genetic polygenism is compatible with theological monogenism.

I don’t see anything to apologize for.

Since those discussions, I have learned about Catholic theological Original Sin and Catholic theological Divinity of Jesus Christ. These essentially related Catholic doctrines do not agree with the current scientific cladogram of human origin that follows the conclusions of the Science of Human Evolution.

Even with some of the fascinating twists of genetic polygenism, the evolution cladogram still does not have a beginning population of two founders of humankind.

Some say that a picture is a thousand words. The scientific cladogram picture still says only four words – “No Adam and Eve.” I really doubt that the scientific cladogram picture will be redrawn with a point known as “theological monogenism.”

 

[Bradski]

No attempt has ever been made to describe a** feasible** earthly Utopia because every intelligent person realises it is nothing but an infantile fantasy…

So Genesis describes an infantile fantasy?

You can’t have your cake and eat it, Tony. The whole thread is post after post by those supporting those who say - look, God’s hand in the most minute detail! How could it happen without being designed! Including your posts.

Yet when it pointed out that this hands on approach, this design of life includes disease and death, terror and pain, you throw your hands up and claim that, well, not everything has been designed.

So I guess God said that we’re going to have a large portion of the planet’s life form who are specifically designed to eat other living creatures (and remember it wasn’t always thus) and either wasn’t aware of the consequences or didn’t really spend a lot of time worrying about it.

 

[edwest2]

But only among secular dummies, including some scientists, who don’t know where the proper limits of science are.

In a 1998 statement titled Teaching about Evolution and Science, the American National Academy of Sciences said:

“At the root of the apparent conflict between some religions and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world …] Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.”

Science can say nothing about the supernatural? Then why do these threads exist?

Ed

 

[Bradski]

yWho am I, Bradski, that I should venture an opinion about what God could have done better?

You’re someone on a forum who has been asked a rather simple question in regard to ID. We mere mortals only have mortal opinions. This mere mortal is asking for yours.

It is absolutely certain (as far as you are concerned) that God designed life exactly as we see it now. And it absolutely certain (from any Christian’s point of view), that He could have designed it without the pain and terror that animals suffer.

Maybe you just think it’s a necessary part of life and it couldn’t be any different. But Genesis says otherwise. It could have been any way God decreed. So why did He want to include agony and terror and pain for a large proportion of life on this planet for the last few millions of years? Why that design?

 

[Bradski]

Science can say nothing about the supernatural? Then why do these threads exist?

Because some Christians either don’t understand that quote or don’t agree with it.

And hey, have you read somewhere that the Intelligent Designer is supernatural?

 

[edwest2]

Because some Christians either don’t understand that quote or don’t agree with it.

And hey, have you read somewhere that the Intelligent Designer is supernatural?

What do you want from us? I don’t go to atheist forums looking to repeat the same things over and over. You have free will but it is my duty to tell all: there is a God.

Ed

 

[Al_Moritz]

Because some Christians either don’t understand that quote or don’t agree with it.

Precisely.

And, because some Catholics don’t understand the theology of their own Catholic Church and the implications of the classical theism that the Church espouses. For them, God is only active when He ‘intervenes’ (see such above remarks as “the God who does nothing”).

 

[grannymh]

So Genesis describes an infantile fantasy?

You can’t have your cake and eat it, Tony. The whole thread is post after post by those supporting those who say - look, God’s hand in the most minute detail! How could it happen without being designed! Including your posts.

Yet when it pointed out that this hands on approach, this design of life includes disease and death, terror and pain, you throw your hands up and claim that, well, not everything has been designed.

So I guess God said that we’re going to have a large portion of the planet’s life form who are specifically designed to eat other living creatures (and remember it wasn’t always thus) and either wasn’t aware of the consequences or didn’t really spend a lot of time worrying about it.

Hopefully, you don’t mind if I burst the popular bubble that other living animal creatures, pre-Adam, had some kind of immunity to guts and blood events. Animals are hungry material/physical beings which have always been nasty to the lower food chain.

As for human disease, death, terror, pain and rain on a picnic, that is in a different category because humans, even though they are vertebrates, have an immortal soul created by God. If people do not wish to believe that a Creator God exists, that is o.k. with me. I am just the messenger.

As the poorly paid messenger, I can tell you what the Catholic Church teaches about the first human and his really bad Original Sin. When Adam told God to take a hike, Adam and his descendants lost the perks that came with the friendship relationship between humanity and Divinity. It is that simple.

 

[Bradski]

Hopefully, you don’t mind if I burst the popular bubble that other living animal creatures, pre-Adam, had some kind of immunity to guts and blood events. Animals are hungry material/physical beings which have always been nasty to the lower food chain.

Not according to Genesis. So if you believe Genesis, and from what I gather from other threads, you are a believer in an actual Adam and Eve, then why do you say there was blood and guts? There was no food chain as such. That was the original design.

And I can see the argument that everything from Man’s point of view went south as soon as Adam disobeyed God, but why did God change the design from a planet full of herbivores with everything living in Tony’s happy community to one with a not inconsiderable percentage of carnivores?

And if you have an argument that life was designed to be red in tooth and claw even form Day One, don’t you think that that is a bad design? To include pain and terror and agony? Don’t you think He could have designed it otherwise?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You’re someone on a forum who has been asked a rather simple question in regard to ID. We mere mortals only have mortal opinions. This mere mortal is asking for yours.

It is absolutely certain (as far as you are concerned) that God designed life exactly as we see it now. And it absolutely certain (from any Christian’s point of view), that He could have designed it without the pain and terror that animals suffer.

Maybe you just think it’s a necessary part of life and it couldn’t be any different. But Genesis says otherwise. It could have been any way God decreed. So why did He want to include agony and terror and pain for a large proportion of life on this planet for the last few millions of years? Why that design?

If you want some wild eyed speculation, I’ll give you that, but don’t go assuming it has anything remotely to do with the truth of the matter.

Let’s say it is possible, even plausible. At least no more implausible than, say, atheistic materialism

The sin of Adam and Eve was one having to do with “knowledge of good and evil.” The desire for that knowledge is what changed the ontological landscape of the universe, so to speak. Humanity was permitted intimate experience down into our bones in terms of the nature of evil. Perhaps something like an ontological multiverse was brought to bear on the human experience and the universe as experienced by human beings was plunged into an entirely different mode at that instant.

We may have hesitations about believing that something as integral and concretely real as the universe could so easily and completely be made over, but I suspect we underestimate the power of God with regards to what is possible. The current universe is consistent and intelligible because God wills it to be, but it is likewise baffling, challenging, insufferable, mysterious, tedious and glorious for the same reason.

We seem to have a compulsion to think the nature of the universe determines the nature of God, but I strongly doubt that is true. We have no idea. The universe, in a sense, was designed to accommodate us, though not obviously so, but that says absolutely nothing in terms of what is possible for God. It could become an entirely different universe with no effort on the part of God.

He is not constained by time or place and what will or could happen in the future will and could very much impact what has happened in the past and all past-present “tensions” are reconciled, not immediately, but eternally.

I don’t think our sense of the gravitas of existence is a false or misleading one. Lewis called it the weight of glory. Our lives, our thoughts and our actions count, they matter to God. We are not alone.

God is real. We have no clue.

 

[Peter_Plato]

And if you have an argument that life was designed to be red in tooth and claw even form Day One, don’t you think that that is a bad design? To include pain and terror and agony? Don’t you think He could have designed it otherwise?

When Jesus said, “You must eat my body and drink my blood or you will not have life in you,” he was not speaking metaphorically. In a very real sense he was hunted down and crucified by human beings before he died and before his body and blood were made available for consumption.

This is God turning himself into the hunted and taking to himself the experience of “pain, terror and agony” in order to become an integral part of our cells, tissues and sinews to overthrow the evil that we allow to exist in our bones. He wants to become a part of us by the very tooth and claw nature that humans unleashed in the garden.

 

[grannymh]

Not according to Genesis. So if you believe Genesis, and from what I gather from other threads, you are a believer in an actual Adam and Eve, then why do you say there was blood and guts? There was no food chain as such. That was the original design.

Citation please.

And I can see the argument that everything from Man’s point of view went south as soon as Adam disobeyed God, but why did God change the design from a planet full of herbivores with everything living in Tony’s happy community to one with a not inconsiderable percentage of carnivores?

Pardon me. You have mistaken me for someone who cares about designer herbivores and carnivores.

And if you have an argument that life was designed to be red in tooth and claw even form Day One, don’t you think that that is a bad design? To include pain and terror and agony? Don’t you think He could have designed it otherwise?

Personally. I have a lot of fun with my grannykids. Why, in heaven’s name, would I want to waste time on redesigning the world and its inhabitants?

By the way, when I am working, I do demand citations from both science and the first three chapters of Genesis. I am looking forward to yours according to your opening paragraph.

Yes, I do believe in the reality of Adam and Eve who are actual humans. So, of course they have blood and guts right along with the animals in Genesis 2: 20. I am sure you would notice the scientific biological explanation for the difference between Adam and the animals.

The Catholic explanation for the difference between Adam and the animals is that Adam is an unique unification of *both *the material world and the spiritual world. Genesis 1: 26-27 means that Adam and Eve are invited to share in God’s life in joy eternal. Because we are Adam and Eve’s descendants, we can share in God’s life here and after bodily death. Sounds good to me.

 

[grannymh]

Some additional information about Original Sin in the “designed” garden.

Adam stamped his bare foot and told God that he was tired of being just a mere creature who had to respect human limits symbolized in the forbidden tree named the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Maybe eating the forbidden fruit gave Adam heartburn. However, the actual result was the splitting apart of Adam’s relationship (Original Holiness aka State of Sanctifying Grace) with his Creator. Adam flat out disobeyed God. He chose himself over and against God and against the requirements of his creaturely status. Adam’s free act of disobedience shattered humanity’s relationship with Divinity.

 

[Bradski]

What do you want from us?

Phillip E Johnson is considered to be the ‘father’ of ID. He is the co-founder of the DI. This is what he wants:

“Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools”.

And:

“So the question is: “How to win?” That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the “wedge” strategy: “Stick with the most important thing” —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, “Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?” and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do.”

I will do whatever I can to stop this man and his fundamentalist ideas being promoted as science and taught in our schools.

What I want from you are arguments for the opposition so that people can read them and come to their own conclusions.

Citation please.

Weren’t the biblical references (chapter and verse) enough? I would have thought that they would have carrie some weight.

Pardon me. You have mistaken me for someone who cares about designer herbivores and carnivores.

They are relevant to the discussion. I mistook you for someone who might have some (name removed by moderator)ut based on what I posted.

Personally. I have a lot of fun with my grannykids. Why, in heaven’s name, would I want to waste time on redesigning the world and its inhabitants?

Did someone ask you to? I think the question related as to why God redesigned it. Prior to the Fall, herbivorous. After the Fall, carnivorous. There was a change. Why do you think that happened?

 

[grannymh]

Some additional information about Original Sin in the “designed” garden.

Adam stamped his bare foot and told God that he was tired of being just a mere creature who had to respect human limits symbolized in the forbidden tree named the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Maybe eating the forbidden fruit gave Adam heartburn. However, the actual result was the splitting apart of Adam’s relationship (Original Holiness aka State of Sanctifying Grace) with his Creator. Adam flat out disobeyed God. He chose himself over and against God and against the requirements of his creaturely status. Adam’s free act of disobedience shattered humanity’s relationship with Divinity.

Regarding the question of what was the Intelligent original Design.

The answer is Genesis 1: 26-28 with the stipulations found in Genesis 2: 15-17 and Genesis 3: 8-11. At the dawn of human history, the first man known as Adam had the freedom to maintain the original design or to abandon it.

It is only God, not the human creature, Who has the creative power to restore the abandoned original humanity/Divinity design. God’s love for us is expressed in Genesis 3:15 and John 3: 16-17. The Creator God did not abandon us to a broken design. In His Divinity, Jesus is on our side as St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15: 22.

In 1 Corinthians 15: 51-55, victory not only repairs the original design, but it also provides all the necessary means to keep it repaired which is the Catholic Church of Jesus Who hung bloody in Adam’s place for all of Adam’s descendants.

 

[Bradski]

Regarding the question of what was the Intelligent original Design.

The answer is Genesis 1: 26-27 with the stipulations found in Genesis 2: 15-17 and Genesis 3: 8-11. At the dawn of human history, the first man known as Adam had the freedom to maintain the original Design or to abandon it.

I’m not sure if you are agreeing there was a change after the Fall. That is, animals not killing each other before ( to put it as its most basic) and then animals doing so after the Fall.

Either way, it was God’s design. Or do you disagree with that?

 

[Bradski]

We may have hesitations about believing that something as integral and concretely real as the universe could so easily and completely be made over, but I suspect we underestimate the power of God with regards to what is possible.

Are you KIDDING me?

We have no clue.

No argument there.

 

[grannymh]

I’m not sure if you are agreeing there was a change after the Fall. That is, animals not killing each other before ( to put it as its most basic) and then animals doing so after the Fall.

You are welcomed to deal with God’s design for animals. I prefer to deal with God’s design for humans.

Either way, it was God’s design. Or do you disagree with that?

It might be helpful if you re-read the edited post 1008. You may find the below quoted sentence interesting. Please note that given the context of post 1008, “original design” refers to humans and not to animals.

From post 1008.
“At the dawn of human history, the first man known as Adam had the freedom to maintain the original design or to abandon it.”