Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

@spendius,

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So now Setanta is deciding what is on topic. In such cases we are all bound to come to Setanta's conclusions.

Setanta is also saying that although Sagan called himself an agnostic…there is no room in other things he said for an intelligent designer.

Well…agnosticism by its very nature allows for the possibility of a GOD…and if there is the possibility of a GOD, there is the possibility of an intelligent designer and intelligent design. Sagan might have argued that any intelligent design would have to be the stuff scientists are discovering, but to suggest there would be no room in any agnosticism for some kind of intelligent designer or intelligent design is more than just a stretch.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Well…agnosticism by its very nature allows for the possibility of a GOD…and if there is the possibility of a GOD, there is the possibility of an intelligent designer and intelligent design. Sagan might have argued that any intelligent design would have to be the stuff scientists are discovering, but to suggest there would be no room in any agnosticism for some kind of intelligent designer or intelligent design is more than just a stretch.

Intelligent design proponents believe that design can be demonstrated. The philosopher Karl Jaspers suggested that no calculable knowledge can come from a belief in God and that God is not demonstrable:

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Reflection on God clarifies our faith. But to believe is not to see. God remains in the distance and remains question. To live by God does not mean to base oneself on calculable knowledge but to live as though we staked our existence on the assumption that God is.

To believe in God means to live by something which is not in the world, except in the polyvalent language of phenomena, which we call the hieroglyphs or symbols of transcendence.

The God of faith is the distant God, the hidden God, the indemonstrable God.

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@wandeljw,

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Intelligent design proponents believe that design can be demonstrated. The philosopher Karl Jaspers suggested that no calculable knowledge can come from a belief in God and that God is not demonstrable:

Most Intelligent Design proponents seem to me to be either nuts, stupid, deluded...or a combination of all three.

I am not a proponent of Intelligent Design…but I am of the opinion that IF it is possible for a GOD to exist…it is possible that intelligent design exists. IF intelligent design exists…it seems apparent to me that the design was to have life evolve the way science is now discovering it has evolved.

I am, in short, unwilling to blindly accept that the evolutionary process is not the intelligent design of some possible god.

It appears to me, Wandel, that the only logical way one can assert that intelligent design is not possible…is to first assert that there is no possibility of a GOD or gods. That assertion, I see as illogical…nothing more than a blind guess about the nature of Reality.

I am not especially taken with the guesses people make about the nature of any gods that might exist. I also am not especially taken with the notions of Intelligent Design some people have. But I am not willing to accept an assertion that gods are not possible (a notion I argue against whenever it is raised)…so arguing against the possibility of intelligent design is almost a requirement for me.

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@Frank Apisa,

Are you having reading comprehension problems Frank? Sagan is saying that if one purports that God is the sum of all the physical laws of the universe, then it is obvious that God exists. Perhaps you can explain how the sum of all the physical laws of the universe would constitute an "intelligent designer."

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@Setanta,

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Are you having reading comprehension problems Frank?

Nope.

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Sagan is saying that if one purports that God is the sum of all the physical laws of the universe, then it is obvious that God exists.

Okay.

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Perhaps you can explain how the sum of all the physical laws of the universe would constitute an "intelligent designer."

Why would I do that?

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@Frank Apisa,

To justify your silly response to my earlier post.

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@Setanta,

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To justify your silly response to my earlier post.

I see.

Well then...perhaps.

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@Frank Apisa,

Look Frank-- I've explained it a few times and you won't get it.

It is a working hypothesis. Everything else having been tried and nothing worked. No God is as the animals are. Leaving off dozing when hunger and the drive to mate urged it.

In between the foggy ruins of time and the flowering of three great civilisations on the Nile, the Euphrates and the Greek peninsula when Rome was a collection of huts, something happened which is still a mystery but must have been religious in genesis. 2 million years of human life had gone before. Nomadic hordes numbering a few hundred at most and never meeting strangers.

All sorts of Gods were brought in as working hypotheses.

The origins of a catalytic cracker would have been a working hypothesis.

Monotheism with God creating the world was a working hypothesis. How could a God have authority when there were thousands of them contradicting each other depending upon whose God they were. And the one God's authority is still not established. There are different versions of the one God and the fear of God is not universal.

The intelligent designer is not an entity. Until you get the notion out of your head that it is not an entity but a hypothesis you will never understand these issues.

The Luddites had a hypothesis that mechanisation would lead to ruin. It still had adherents. They couldn't prove it.

Those working a hypothesis are required to believe in it or act as if they do. The outcome is what matters.

If you don't want to believe in the hypothesis, or act as if you do, aren't you being a bit precious considering how wonderful the outcome has been for you. Shouldn't you, as a man of principle and integrity shun the benefits of the hypothesis? Or at least offer an explanation of how those benefits could have arisen with any other hypothesis from the vast and exhaustive range the human intelligence has tried out. And is still trying out.

I bet that if we knew more of Spades' messianic religion it would have a few get out clauses in the rumpy-pumpy department. Which is a tweak of the general hypothesis and may well be a useful one. As it is it remains unexamined.

Agnostics and atheists reject the hypothesis and are identical in that regard and are both of no account.

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@spendius,

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Look Frank-- I've explained it a few times and you won't get it.

It is a working hypothesis. Everything else having been tried and nothing worked. No God is as the animals are. Leaving off dozing when hunger and the drive to mate urged it.

In between the foggy ruins of time and the flowering of three great civilisations on the Nile, the Euphrates and the Greek peninsula when Rome was a collection of huts, something happened which is still a mystery but must have been religious in genesis. 2 million years of human life had gone before. Nomadic hordes numbering a few hundred at most and never meeting strangers.

All sorts of Gods were brought in as working hypotheses.

The origins of a catalytic cracker would have been a working hypothesis.

Monotheism with God creating the world was a working hypothesis. How could a God have authority when there were thousands of them contradicting each other depending upon whose God they were. And the one God's authority is still not established. There are different versions of the one God and the fear of God is not universal.

The intelligent designer is not an entity. Until you get the notion out of your head that it is not an entity but a hypothesis you will never understand these issues.

The Luddites had a hypothesis that mechanisation would lead to ruin. It still had adherents. They couldn't prove it.

Those working a hypothesis are required to believe in it or act as if they do. The outcome is what matters.

If you don't want to believe in the hypothesis, or act as if you do, aren't you being a bit precious considering how wonderful the outcome has been for you. Shouldn't you, as a man of principle and integrity shun the benefits of the hypothesis? Or at least offer an explanation of how those benefits could have arisen with any other hypothesis from the vast and exhaustive range the human intelligence has tried out. And is still trying out.

I bet that if we knew more of Spades' messianic religion it would have a few get out clauses in the rumpy-pumpy department. Which is a tweak of the general hypothesis and may well be a useful one. As it is it remains unexamined.

Agnostics and atheists reject the hypothesis and are identical in that regard and are both of no account.

Spendius,

We all recognize that advances in the understanding of electromagnetism or nuclear physics has culminated in the development of new products which have dramatically transformed modern-day society. There is no denying that.

And as Schopenhauer so wisely noted, “A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.”

So it is impossible for that kind of sexual transformation (if you can even call it that) to take place in the context of what most classical philosophers would refer to as personal and communal self-cultivation and self-creation.

Deciphering the contextual codes in a way that gives meaning and sense to what Camus might call “the wild beast a man without ethics might loose upon this world”…requires more than just supposing it can be done.

So I have to insist…nay, strongly suggest…that we abandon these attempts to justify non-nuclear family reorganizations just because they have some peripheral benefit to the (if you will excuse the expression) most primitive societies currently extant on planet Earth.

Hypothesis or no hypothesis, Spendius, we simply cannot do it…and you will never convince me otherwise by repeating the same arguments over and over again using different words.

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@Frank Apisa,

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I am, in short, unwilling to blindly accept that the evolutionary process is not the intelligent design of some possible god

If youre interested in not continuing to sound like the mule stuck between two haybalesI can reccomend a five foot bookshelf of the scientific evidence of "life ascending" (Which is one of the books). After youve read them then come back and try to still stand on your inability to reason well.

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@Frank Apisa,

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I am not a proponent of Intelligent Design…but I am of the opinion that IF it is possible for a GOD to exist…it is possible that intelligent design exists. IF intelligent design exists…it seems apparent to me that the design was to have life evolve the way science is now discovering it has evolved.

Do you even have the remotest idea of what youre trying to convey here?

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@farmerman,

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If youre interested in not continuing to sound like the mule stuck between two haybalesI can reccomend a five foot bookshelf of the scientific evidence of "life ascending" (Which is one of the books). After youve read them then come back and try to still stand on your inability to reason well.

Try to grasp the concept, Farmerman. The way things actually happened...the way science is not establishing is the way things actually happened...

...MAY BE THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

What makes you think a GOD could not think of evolution as the way to design it?

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@farmerman,

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Do you even have the remotest idea of what youre trying to convey here?

Yup.

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@farmerman,

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Do you even have the remotest idea of what youre trying to convey here?

I do! Frank is trying to convey that we live in a world where anything could be possible if you can not prove it is not. Let me explain by giving just one example of Franks infinite possibilities.
I know that this may seem bizarre to many but Frank thinks that it could be possible for there to be very large "10 feet long" invisible dinosaur turds floating all around us but the reason that you do not notice them is because they are invisible and not only that they have no scent.
I could be wrong but I think somewhere along our evolutionary process someone else also thought like frank and now we have theology. Idea

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@Frank Apisa,

You have got your ego running all around the universe Frank. This is a speck remember. A sort of series of tiny little corners in which your zone of operations is the smallest.

The ID is not an actual entitity. There is no scientific or common sense reason to proceed as if it is. Which you have to do to not believe in it or not know whether to believe in it.

I don't understand your post. What kind of sexual transformation is impossible? Wild beasts have been unloosed on the world. One needn't suppose it can be done.

I'm not trying to convince you by different word formulations. I'm engaged with the facts and the reason I repeat the same arguments is because they are valid and you refuse to admit it. And I understand why you refuse. Your pride is too heavily invested which was a result of you thinking you knew what was what and spouting it at too many witnesses to the point you can no longer back down.

What's your working hypothesis? Sitting under a tree without a working hypothesis is hopeless. And ridiculous when the pleasant shade has been provided by a pretty good working hypothesis.

fm has one--mental re-orientation centres to teach Christians a better way. Better he defines himself. Of course.

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@farmerman,

There's no "ascending" fm. There's a total ignorance of evolution displayed by the use of such a word. You only believe yourself to be on the top branch of the Tree of Life.

You're a ******* organism that has been softened by self-indulgence you silly moo. You wouldn't know what Science is if it bit you on the buttocks.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

The way things actually happened...the way science is not establishing is the way things actually happened...

...MAY BE THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

What makes you think a GOD could not think of evolution as the way to design it?

The "way things happened" is clearly evidenced through history of the planet. You apparently are merely making assertions out your ass merely in order to try to gather up some credibility.

If you dont wanna catch up on the quick "learn" about evolutionary biology and the associated disciplines, then please dont make these bold statements that are sent out there just like spendi's assertions. Neither of you seem to have a clue , however its not my job to cater to defiant ignorance.

If youre convinced of your belief, start a thread, dont contaminate this one. Youre not advancing this one beyond the simple fact that you agree with the author"s premise . AFter that, youre whistling in the graveyard apparently afraid to even have a sound conviction based on scientific evidence. Naturally from your statements herein , I assume that you just dont read scientific literature at all and you feel that ignorance somehow embiggens you.

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@farmerman,

It is not an assertion that evolution knows no "ascending" as you said it did.

Nor is it defiant ignorance. It is a scientific fact of great importance.

Declaring it to be an assertion and a result of defiant ignorance is simply your tried and tested method of not answering and any regulars on this thread who don't know that truly have their heads up your arse caused by pushing too hard with their tongue.

It is a purely Christian invention, and it's in the Bible, that human beings are superior to other life forms although the doctrine doesn't specifically say anything about American geologists of a certain age and condition.

So let's have some explanation of your use of "ascending" from a scientific point of view and cut out the stupid cackling.

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@farmerman,

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The "way things happened" is clearly evidenced through history of the planet. You apparently are merely making assertions out your ass merely in order to try to gather up some credibility.

Of course. I have not argued otherwise.

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If you dont wanna catch up on the quick "learn" about evolutionary biology and the associated disciplines, then please dont make these bold statements that are sent out there just like spendi's assertions. Neither of you seem to have a clue , however its not my job to cater to defiant ignorance.

If this post is any indication, apparently “your job” is to make insulting remarks for no legitimate reason.

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If youre convinced of your belief, start a thread, dont contaminate this one.

I have not shared any beliefs…and I am not contaminating this one. You are with your intemperance.

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Youre not advancing this one beyond the simple fact that you agree with the author"s premise .

I’m not even sure what the author’s “premise is…so I cannot be advancing it, unless I am doing so accidentally.

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AFter that, youre whistling in the graveyard apparently afraid to even have a sound conviction based on scientific evidence.

Wake up, Farmerman. I agree that evolution happened. I am simply pointing out that if there is a GOD…it might have intelligently decided that the way it wanted thing to proceed was through evolution. Why can you not grasp that?

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Naturally from your statements herein , I assume that you just dont read scientific literature at all and you feel that ignorance somehow embiggens you.

Using words like “embiggen” certainly does nothing to embiggen you, Farmerman. I do read scientific literature. Perhaps you meant to question whether I am willing to be as stone headed on this issue as you?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

If you consider my remarks as insulting , thats good, it shows that youre not completely a one trick pony.

1 Reply

Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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