Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

YOu also ignore the history of christian countries such as the Inquisition, persecution of Jews, and slavery. Not a good record by any standard of morals.

Nonsense - an idiotic proposition is an idiotic proposition, and an intellectually dishonest proposition is an intellectually dishonest proposition, regardless how or by whom held. A religionist proposition need not be idiotic and/or intellectually dishonest inherently, however some who ascribe to religionist propositions fall easy prey to religionist-oriented idiocy and/or intellectual dishonesty. In that subset, I would include both biblethumpers and jihadists. I don't even hold religion to be the sole source for such idiocy; look at violently miitant environmentalists and the organized proponents of pedophilia for but two areligious examples of intellectual dishonesty.

Again, an idiotic proposition is an idiotic proposition, whether or not its endorser or promoter is an idiot, and there is no requisite one-on-one correlation; perfectly reasonable, intelligent folks can embrace idiotic propositions, and perfect idiots can embrace great truths.

Not every Christian is responsible for the Inquisition, persecution of the Jews and slavery. Continuing to imply that they are is not only wrong, I would say it is statistically incorrect.

There are atrocities associated with nearly every religion I would imagine. Doesn't mean that is what the religion is all about.

I think history is the key word in your statement. PAST history.

The people who keep their mouths shut either out of fear or assent are equally responsible as "cardinal Biggles"

[quote="farmerman"]The people who keep their mouths shut either out of fear or assent are equally responsible as "cardinal Biggles"[/quote]

Right, I'm responsible for the crusades because I am a Christian. I am responsible for Pat Robertson's behavior because I am a Christian. Doesn't matter that I disagree with what he says or does, I guess the fact that I haven't gone out and killed him means I am still at fault because I am a Christian.

farmerman, I am disappointed. You are one of the most intelligent posters on these threads IMO. Yet you would buy into because you are a Christian you are guilty by association?

I cant blame you for the Crusades, so thats just a silly example. Yes you are responsible for Robertson (Collective you's). Youve made excuses for his unforgivable bigotry and hatemongering in the name of God . You should be letting him and his ministry know that hes a loon. Hes on TV by the grace of his ministry. If they dont buy it, and did instead protest him, dont you think hed be gone?

Would you not agree that the majority of German people who remained silent during Hitler's reign were somehow complicit?

Cicerone assumes that when I make reference to the exisrtence of a creator, I am necessarily calling upon a Christian religious doctrine. I am not.

He also implies that incidences of oppression, persecution, and intolerance among Christians are greater than among all other religious constructs. This is false. No culture, religious or otherwise is free of these evils. Some, such as Islam preach and have practiced coercion as the normal means of propagating the faith. This is not true of Christianity, Buddhiusm and most other religious traditions.

However, as the awful 20th century has demonstrated, avowedly atheistic political doctrines and the governments that practice them tolerate no discussion or diversity of belief whatever. Indeed they have systematically practiced oppression, murder and misrule to degrees unprecedented in modern history.

Timber appears to assign to himself the right to declare opposing views to be "idiotic" and therefore not deserving of the respect or protection that he evidently demands for his own. Narrow-minded intolerance is by no means the exclusive province of believers, though they are indeed prone to it. Indeed it appears to me to be rather widespread among those who profess thoroughly modern scientific and secular views.

Got a news flash for ya, there edgar! I haven't made excuses for Pat Robertson's anything. I have made it quite clear I do not believe he is speaking for God and should keep his mouth shut. Would you like me to send you a copy of the letters I have written to Pat Robertson expressing my displeasure at the way he portrays Christianity? See, that's the biggest problem I have with such general statements about Christians and Christianity. YOU AND OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE as to what individual Christians are doing. You seem to be assuming quite a bit though.

I am in NO WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HOLOCAUST just because I am a Christian. Would you like me to right Hitler a letter and tell him how displeased I am by him also? Oh wait! He's dead. Gee, I can't do a thing about the holocaust now, can I? :wink:

Well, if youve written to Dr Pat, then good for you. I count you among the ones "doing good works".In siome of your other posts you left me with a feeling that 'although you didnt agree with Dr Pat, he was a Christian nonetheless' Maybe I mistook what you wrote, its quite easy . We make perfect sense to ourselves but not the readers

NOW, as far as misunderstanding my own writing......
As far as Hitler goes, I wish you would have again read what I said before you responded in capital letters. (we try not to shout). I didnt blame you for hitler, I suggested that we( meaning you and I) would probably agree that those (in Hitlers time) who did nothing were also complicit. Didnt Jesus say something about ..."They are also guilty who say nothing"...

Okay, let's make it a more recent history. How do you explain our unjustified preemptive attack on Iraq that have now killed some 30,000 innocent Iraqis by this "christian" president? He has told the American people that he talks to god more than he talks to his biological father.


Any comments?

Of course, America has hardly "gone all the way" and is unlikely to become as psychotic as Nazi Germany any time soon. But what do you suppose God thinks of preventative war based upon deception? Or about the use of depleted uranium? Or about dropping napalm on civilians? Are Iraqi insurgents are any less certain that God is on their side than our own Evangelical Marines?

Yes, Saddam Hussein was a brutal thug, but why do so many insist on forgetting that the U.S. helped him to power in the first place? Does God see our role in all of this as lightly as we do? And how many U.S. citizens do you know, who, mired in fear, readily dismiss America's use of torture and rationalize our disregard for international law? What else might they overlook?

In 1937, Hitler said that because of Germany's belief in God and God's favoritism towards Germany, the country would prevail and prosper. "We, therefore, go our way into the future with the deepest belief in God. Would all we have achieved been possible had Providence not helped us? I know that the fruits of human labor are hard-won and transitory if they are not blessed by the Omnipotent. Work such as ours which has received the blessings of the Omnipotent can never again be undone by mere mortals,"he said.

While attempting to solidify his power, Hitler also denounced those who denounced religion -- as if he were talking about Hollywood or blue states or Noam Chomsky. "For eight months we have been conducting a fearless campaign against that Communism which is threatening our entire nation, our culture, our art, and our public morals, "Hitler said in a speech in Oct. 1933. "We have made an end of denials of the Deity and the crying down of religion."

There will be no more crying down of religion in George Bush's America, either. Though oft-repeated assertions made by the media in the immediate aftermath of the election have proven to be nothing more than myth, propagandists would have you believe that the American people have spoken: "Moral values" reign supreme.

But how can any one of us know God's desires -- especially when our enemies claim to have God on their side as well? And doesn't it seem that religious hubris -- believing that God sanctions one's own inhumane treatment of others -- always invites a fall?

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever," Thomas Jefferson said, of the price America would eventually pay for slavery. "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions," Ulysses S. Grant advised, describing karmic retribution without pointing hateful fingers at lesbians.

And long before that, the poet John Milton tried to "justify the ways of God to Man." But yet, the world, with its conflicting visions of morality, ethics and truth, still struggles to comprehend.

Perhaps Truth, for want of a better definition, is what God sees when he looks at any given situation. And perhaps it is ultimately impossible for us to know God's mind. After all, it's obvious that Hitler wasn't telling the truth when he spoke of God and country -- and by the same token, it's difficult to look at Najaf or Fallujah or Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay and see God's hand in any of it.

After one of Bush's operatives promised to "export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation" Bob Woodward wrote: "The president was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God's Master Plan." And sure enough, when Woodward asked Bush if he had discussed the impending invasion of Iraq with his father, President George H.W. Bush (who could have offered sage advice), the President responded: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher father that I appeal to."

But, without knowing God's mind, most of us have only History to help us judge. And the fact is, without the benefit of History, some of the "moral values" Hitler embraced sound eerily like those being peddled today.

George Bush is not Hitler. America is not Nazi Germany. But buying into religious assertions or thinking that God is on your side is not wise when it comes to matters of war -- particularly when that war is an aggressive preventative war based on false premises and assumptions.

So, aside from Jerry Falwell, who speaks with hate-filled authority, most of us do not know how God will judge us. We will have to settle for History's imperfect record.

All of this begs the question, however. Given his assertions regarding God's role in helping him decide policy ("I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible" Bush told Woodward. . . "I felt so strongly that [invading Iraq] was the right thing to do") how does Bush view the more mundane, secular implications of his actions? When asked by Woodward how History would judge the war in Iraq, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

I challenge anyone to find the moral value in that.

Timber:
Many thanks.

c.i:
good for you.

farmerman:
I always look forward to your comments as I learn something along the way.

George:
Sorry for using "poof" maybe I got into Setanta's way of thinking and put myself in as discourteous mode. But Stephen Hawkins admitted that matter does not disappear into a black hole. Recently, there was news that a baby universe being born out of a black hole in a galaxy. The Big Bang might just be a over-pressurized cooker with gravity being the pressurizer with internal energy building up as the black hole sucks in energy and matter till it vomits out its contents in a big bang. There is nothing to suggest that the expansion and contraction of the Universe is not cyclic. By contraction I mean that all the stars at some point in time will eventually exhaust their nuclear fuel and explode or become black holes maybe even coagulate (if that is the right term) into a giant black hole to restart the Universe anew with another Big Bang.

Multiple Universes and string theory are only on paper and mathematics. Nothing concrete.

Quantum mechanics of which I am not an expert but they suggest that matter and anti-matter may pop up at random anywhere. But note matter and anti-matter cancel each other so it is a nil event. Besides what is observed in the sub-atomic level does not necessarily translate to everyday normal life. You don't see husband and wife popping in and out. The popping in and out could very well result in an energy field which has been de-stabilized due to the input of enormous amount of energy applied such as in particle accelerators.

I was countering the argument that DNA occurring was improbable. I showed that a god occurring out of nothing is even more improbable. I have pointed out that the existence of a god cannot be proven nor disproven. I am not against religion.

Whether the universe involves an infinite sequence of expansion and contraction, creation and aniahlation of matter and anti matter, or conversely, had a beginning, its origins are beyond the ken of science.

I noted your argument against the possibility of god emerging from nothing. I simply added that the possibility of the universe emereging from nothing is even more fantastic.

I know that this is what you are claiming and I am specifically disagreeing with you on that very point. There are many reasons to behave morally or ethically other than because one believes in God. If a person has internalilzed a sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, that person is no longer dependent on an authority figure like God, or father or Priest. Moral behavior becomes a part of oneself and it is to this internal self to which we are accountable. For instance I think people behave morally and ethically because they know that if they don't they can't expect fair treatment from others. There are many logical reasons to behave morally other than "because if I don't, God will know." Or "God is in charge, so therefore I must obey."

Maybe if you explained the logic of your assumption I would know better what you mean. But just because you might not behave morally if you didn't believe in God does not mean that it's logical that no one else would either.

And anyway, what does this have to do with teaching ID as science? You talk out of two sides of your mouth. Teaching evolution as a scientific discovery and inquiry, and teaching the scientific method does not have anything to say to children about whether they should believe in God or not. That is a personal and private decision. It belongs at church and at home or in a comparative religion course, not in the science classroom.

You seem to believe that teaching evolution automatically influences children to question their faith. And I don't see how that is.

Thank you Ros.......very clarifying without too many words. I don't believe that science is either incompatible with the idea of a creator or that it makes the concept unnecessary for a thinking person. I think george is assuming that is what we mean without clarifying.

I'll ask as Ros has done. Is there anyone here that says, implies or believes what george is assuming?

I will be very interested in the responses.

btw.......I don't want to let this go by without acknowledgement. Very well said.

You have two already. Let's keep count.

No, only one - you responded to your question.

Please also note my words. I made no assumptions. Instead I referred to the evident implications of what was posted here. I make no assumption whatever about anyone's unexpressed beliefs.

You have Rosbourne's answer and you have mine as well.

The implications of what is posted here is not evident to anyone but you. What you call evident implications are your assumptions, whether you like to call them that or not.

If you could, just try to make the connections for us. It they are evident, then you should have no trouble delineating them for us. And if you can't do it, I have to maintain that they are your assumptions, since I don't think you can read the minds, intentions or motivations of people other than yourself.

P. S. You're up very late. Or, are you out West?