Overwhelming evidence for Design?

[tonyrey]

The rejection of divine intervention also implies that prayer for our physical needs is a complete waste of time because it has no effect whatsoever on events in a universe controlled entirely

Christians believe events in this world are often influenced by spiritual intervention but there seems to be no evidence that angels are concerned with microbiological engineering.

BTW I delete all disparaging personal remarks on principle.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree with Meyer that it is evidence for intelligent design. But I also think the entire universe is evidence of intelligent design.

The way I see it is this: even if we did determine that DNA arose from natural processes, we are still left with the inexplicable fact that we live in a universe that possesses such creative natural processes. No matter how many new substrata of existence we find, none of them will ever be self-explanatory and all contribute to a self-evidently elaborate and creative reality.

All the science in the world cannot undermine St. Paul’s words of wisdom: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

Indeed, the more science learns, the more relevant those words become.

St Paul’s sentence should suffice to silence those who see no evidence for Design.

 

[greylorn]

…
I don’t believe too many people in this forum are going to run out and buy your book, so why don’t you give them the web site that contains the essentials of the Beon Theory so they can understand what you are alluding to?

You are right-on. Only the perspicacious few, the intelligent who are not among the “intelligensia” will read the book. That’s fine with me.

No one posting on the CAF is destitute. They all own computers. Asking someone to cough up the price of a restaurant dinner for potentially life-changing information is a way of filtering out those who are ill-equipped to understand the information.

Congratulations again on a nice looking book. I predict it will find some success among the Trekies for the core subject and with the dissociated cynics for the deliciously amusing similes, metaphors, diatribes, asides, and the amazing personnel experiences. You are truly a fair and balanced writer, you managed to insult everyone on the planet. I couldn’t put it down, but then again there is that dark side of my personality that I can never completely suppress.

As ever,
Yppop

The only thing wrong with a “dark side:” is pretending that you do not have one.

“As ever” to you too, you honest old curmudgeon!

 

[tonyrey]

I think this distinction by Edward Feser might add some insight into the discussion:

*When combined with the doctrine of divine simplicity, divine conservation entails a very different conception of God’s relationship to the world than is entailed by theistic personalism. Theistic personalism tends toward a conception of God as an especially penetrating observer of the world, who learns what is happening in it via epistemic powers that are far more advanced than ours. For classical theism, though, since God doesn’t change, neither does he “learn,” not even in an extremely effective way. His knowledge of the world is far more intimate than that. He knows it precisely by knowing Himself as the sustaining cause of the world, in the very act of causing it. He is not like a machinist who is the keenest possible observer of the operations of a machine he has built. He is, again, more like a musician who knows the music he is playing, not by observing it, but precisely in the act of playing it.

The theistic personalist also generally takes God’s miraculous activity to amount to a kind of “intervention” in a natural order that would otherwise operate without him, like that of a machinist who steps in to alter the workings of a machine he had earlier set in motion but which was, before the intervention, carrying on independently of him. For the classical theist, that is simply not the right way to think about miracles, since there is no such thing as the world otherwise carrying on apart from God, given that He is already the sustaining cause of the ordinary course of events itself. If we pursue the musician analogy a bit further, we can say that for the classical theist, the world’s regular operations are like the music a musician plays according to a score he has before his mind, and a miracle is like the musician’s momentary improvisation or departure from that score. It is not an intervention in a course of events that would otherwise have carried on without God, but rather the suspension of the normal ordering of a course of events that would not in any case have carried on without Him.*
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2010/09/classical-theism.html

The question is could Intelligent Design, as for example be evidenced in the elaborate DNA coding in the cell be an example of God’s improvisation?

Meyer presents a strong case for why it might be.

Feser thinks not, but I am not convinced why it couldn’t be.

:thumbsup:It seems arbitrary to limit divine intervention to suspension! Why impose restrictions on Providence?

 

[Sair]

The question is could Intelligent Design, as for example be evidenced in the elaborate DNA coding in the cell be an example of God’s improvisation?

Meyer presents a strong case for why it might be.

Feser thinks not, but I am not convinced why it couldn’t be.

Well, it could be…

But it could at least equally be evidence for natural biochemical development. The problem is that all evidence to which ID theorists have access is the same evidence to which mainstream biologists have access, and as such, it’s very indirect evidence of any designing intelligence. Until there is unequivocal evidence of the presence of such an intelligent entity, ID will be continually forced into the ever-diminishing corner of what empirical science has not yet effectually modelled.

 

[Sair]

The point of prayer is not to change God, but to draw us closer to God’s will by making us more aware of His presence in our lives. If we are open to God in this way, the things that we ask for will become aligned over time with what is the best for us. At some point on the road of prayer our petitions will be more frequently fulfilled because they will come into increasing correspondence with His perfect will.

Secular meditation cannot have as its end a harmonizing of our wills with the perfect omnibenevolent and omniscient Ground of the universe. Secular meditation could have a calming influence or quelling of the “monkey brain,” but it cannot have as its end communion in love with the Eternal “Thou” of God.

I’m afraid your explanation of prayer here sounds a little bit like the thoroughly debunked “Secret” and the pseudo-quantum “science” known as the “law of attraction”. The only difference seems to be that rather than aligning the universe to one’s own desires, one reconciles onesself to the fact that the universe (with or without divine intervention) will behave exactly how it behaves, regardless of our own desires.

If, in the pursuit of continued prayer/meditation, we merely align our own desires with what will happen anyway, then the only difference would seem to be belief in God - either God will do what you have accepted as his will anyway, or the universe will behave as it will anyway, regardless of your own wishes. I still see no appreciable difference between religious prayer and secular meditation, except the supposition of the former that there actually is such a thing as an omnibenevolent and omniscient Ground of the universe, a person with whom we might commune.

 

[tonyrey]

*A wooden boat is a hopelessly inadequate analogy for a vast system in which there has been development from the Big Bang to the awe-inspiring universe with immensely complex living organisms and persons made in God’s image. Do you believe all this is the result of blind secondary causes?

Thank goodness for that! I don’t claim to be infallible.

It should be remembered that the laws of nature ARE God’s Will and are themselves a form of his intervention. Laws don’t write themselves, after all. So, at least as far as the development of the material world is concerned, I don’t see any reason theists should have to reject the idea that the information systems of life could not be embedded in some deeper layer of the laws of physics that we have yet to learn. It should also be remembered that science doesn’t fully understand the laws of nature yet, so there’s no telling what we might find. Believers don’t need to be and absolutely shouldn’t feel threatened by such notions, because the more we learn about the universe, the more we realize just how incredibly well organized it is. The laws of nature are an immensely complex, hierarchical information system themselves!

David Hume rightly attributed physical evil to the fact that the laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency. The universe is not controlled by divine fiats but by physical constants. Although the information system is incredibly well organized it cannot take into account the needs of every individual in every situation. If it did it there would be no errors or genetic defects at all!

Belief in Providence implies that God intervenes to minimise the harmful effects of mishaps - at both the macroscopic and microscopic levels. Otherwise far more people and animals would be killed in earthquakes and other cataclysms. There would also be far more cases of inherited disease and deformity. The very survival of life on this planet has been against overwhelming odds. All those facts require explanation - which materialists cannot provide…

 

[tonyrey]

A wooden boat is a hopelessly inadequate analogy for a vast system in which there has been development from the Big Bang to the awe-inspiring universe with immensely complex living organisms and persons made in God’s image. Do you believe all this is the result of blind secondary causes?

Then probability is discarded in favour of possibility! Is anything possible?

In The Signature of the Cell Stephen Meyer has explained why undirected physical causes alone are an insufficient explanation of a immensely complex, hierarchical information system.

“Complexity” is not for me a sign of design. Rather it is the nature of the information involved, in so far as it goal directed, that suggests design to me; simply because it involves the quality of abstract meaning.

DNA is goal-directed.

Miracles are thought to play no part in the scheme of things because for some inexplicable reason the infinitely loving Father leaves the universe entirely to its own devices as if the laws of nature are perfectly capable of fulfilling His Will down to the very last detail.

Human beings don’t have to exist in an evolving universe. Miracles make sense only once homo-sapiens exist, since miracles are about the salvation of human beings because their existence posses a particular quality. But until their existence occurs, what reason is there for God to perform miracles?

Miracles make sense even without homo sapiens. The emergence and survival of life for billions of years before man existed demand explanation in terms of purpose.

It makes no sense for God to create this kind of universe if he is going to interfere with its processes in-order to determine or bring about a particular quality or being. Why not just create an entire universe all at once, rather than one that takes billions of years to evolve. Its pointless and arbitrary.

You are assuming the process itself and all the individuals in that process are and were valueless! This amounts to rejecting the need for any form of development…

Evolution is a principle of Gods creative love since there is no nature other than God that ought to exist, and no being that deserves to exists more than another being.

How do you reach that conclusion?

 

[prodigalson2011]

Human beings don’t have to exist in an evolving universe. Miracles make sense only once homo-sapiens exist, since miracles are about the salvation of human beings because their existence posses a particular quality. But until their existence occurs, what reason is there for God to perform miracles?

The term miracle is a relative one. To a human being, every act of God, from creation onward, is a miracle because it supersedes mere physical causation. So your question would be more accurately worded as, “What reason is there for God to act in the absence of humans?” And the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question of why God created human beings at all: for His own delight.

 

[greylorn]

If I am not mistaken, Beon Church of Physical Theology has a website.

I hoped that anyone smart enough to find the website without my direction would also be intelligent enough to realize that publishing the URL without my okay would be a smarmy, tacky thing to do.

Oh. But of course you did realize that, and did it anyway.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I hoped that anyone smart enough to find the website without my direction would also be intelligent enough to realize that publishing the URL without my okay would be a smarmy, tacky thing to do.

Oh. But of course you did realize that, and did it anyway.

Why the secrecy? The WWW is a free place; if you don’t want people finding and sharing your sites, you shouldn’t be putting them out in the public domain.

You are quite the character, greylorn.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

I hoped that anyone smart enough to find the website without my direction would also be intelligent enough to realize that publishing the URL without my okay would be a smarmy, tacky thing to do.

Oh. But of course you did realize that, and did it anyway.

I did not realize providing someone with a URL that could easily be found by using Google was tacky and/or smarmy.

 

[ReapReason]

I did not realize providing someone with a URL that could easily be found by using Google was tacky and/or smarmy.

His delusion of grandeur is way of the ricta scale!!!

 

[ReapReason]

You are quite the character, greylorn.

Quite the character indeed

 

[tonyrey]

Design is often associated with beauty and rightly so because beauty is a sign of harmony. Like truth it exists in reality as well as in the mind. There are principles which determine whether an object is beautiful or ugly. A body must be symmetrical if it is to be aesthetically pleasing. The proportions must be correct because they are related to the functions of the limbs and organs. When everything blends together there is a unity and fittingness due to necessity rather than contingency. The harmony is not due to Chance but Design.

The rational basis of beauty is revealed in the way in which it corresponds to mathematical principles like Fibonacci Numbers which occur in nature and the Golden Ratio which been used by artists for centuries. Blind mechanisms cannot produce such exquisite forms and patterns which reflect the purpose of their existence. They are clear evidence of creative genius. The more superb the craftsmanship the more probable is its conscious origin. The parts are not related to the whole and to one another accidentally but intentionally. In any coherent interpretation of reality analysis has to be supplemented by synthesis.

A utilitarian explanation of beauty is disproved by the fact that it is not needed for survival. The sky need not be blue nor the sun golden nor the clouds white nor the grass green. Colour-blindness doesn’t prevent one from coping with life successfully in a natural environment. Nor are exotic perfumes and exquisite harmonies essential. All these luxuries are further evidence that the universe is designed with wisdom, inspired by love and intended for the enjoyment and fulfilment of all living beings.

Beauty is not confined to the physical world. It is found in everyone inspired by truth, goodness, freedom and love. Beauty of character is the highest form of beauty. That is why to destroy anything is wrong and inexcusable - a sign of ignorance and ingratitude - but to destroy a person’s faith, zest for life and sense of purpose amounts to a rejection of Design and the value of existence itself.

“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6

 

[tonyrey]

“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6

Those words of Jesus also apply to adults but He singled out children because destroying their faith in God is more damnable and inexcusable.

 

[tonyrey]

The term miracle is a relative one. To a human being, every act of God, from creation onward, is a miracle because it supersedes mere physical causation. So your question would be more accurately worded as, “What reason is there for God to act in the absence of humans?” And the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question of why God created human beings at all: for His own delight.

God’s delight also consists in sharing the delight of all His creatures. He shares our grief, suffering and desolation as well. Nothing is excluded from His infinite love - except evil.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m afraid your explanation of prayer here sounds a little bit like the thoroughly debunked “Secret” and the pseudo-quantum “science” known as the “law of attraction”. The only difference seems to be that rather than aligning the universe to one’s own desires, one reconciles oneself to the fact that the universe (with or without divine intervention) will behave exactly how it behaves, regardless of our own desires.

The essential difference is that we don’t regard the universe as the ultimate and immutable reality.

If, in the pursuit of continued prayer/meditation, we merely align our own desires with what will happen anyway, then the only difference would seem to be belief in God - either God will do what you have accepted as his will anyway, or the universe will behave as it will anyway, regardless of your own wishes. I still see no appreciable difference between religious prayer and secular meditation, except the supposition of the former that there actually is such a thing as an omnibenevolent and omniscient Ground of the universe, a person with whom we might commune.

It is a mistake to think the Will of God excludes our wishes. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been told to pray for our needs and the needs of others.

 

[Sair]

Those words of Jesus also apply to adults but He singled out children because destroying their faith in God is more damnable and inexcusable.

If there is any degree of confidence in the truth of one’s faith, this should not be a problem, surely?

This seems to me to be an admonition before the fact against the encroachment of reason and science upon naive supernaturalism, but what would I know? I’m just a lapsed Catholic

 

[Sair]

The essential difference is that we don’t regard the universe as the ultimate and immutable reality.

As you wish - by all means, believe in unicorns and fairies too if you so desire. Whatever the universe is, it is not immutable - and I wonder why any reality needs to be immutable in order to provide solid reasons for particular courses of action in particular times and places. If it was, for example, okay for the Israelites to massacre neighbouring peoples in Old Testament times, but not now, it would appear that your God’s design, both in planning and execution, is similarly inconsistent. And that doesn’t even touch on the logical fact that an entirely immutable entity would be incapable of creation in the first place…

It is a mistake to think the Will of God excludes our wishes. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been told to pray for our needs and the needs of others.

Prayer would be unnecessary if your God were actually omniscient. Does he really require constant reminders from his faithful? If Christian theology is correct, he knew our wishes before he even created us.