Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I submit, spendi ol' chum, that by the available evidence, your assertion is in error. The two have been found in court of law spefically and explicitly to be coequal, with the ruling dependent from that finding unchallenged. Additionally and apart from any juridical consideration, the overwhelming, and widely published consensus opinion of legitimate, acreditted, practicing and adminstrational scholars, researchers, academics, and religious authorities holds the 2 to be coequal. You of course are welcome to take any position you find suitable, however you determine what might be suitable to you. The stand you have taken on this particular issue shares much with many of your posted stances on a variety of issues; in common with many if not most religionist propositions, not only does it stand on no evidence, it stands contrary to academically and professionally accepted evidence.

timber-

Thank for your civilised contribution.

I do see your point that if ID and creationism are the same thing then they are the same thing. If-



is true,which I must admit I doubt, then that high authority is using ID as a label which does not cover the gamut of what intelligent design means as an English phrase. I submitted a post on that very subject a while ago.

Actually,there is no need for the word "intelligent" at all as "design" implies intelligence which is presumably why Darwin only referred to a designer and a creator. Many other scientists and philosophers have used the word "designer" for something they feel is unknowable or, as Darwin had it, unimaginable.

It follows from your argument that the high authorities could agree to label anything they agreed upon to suit any purpose they may have in mind Intelligent Design and hey presto that is intelligent design.

In another previous post I explained intelligent design from a general, if you'll allow intellectual, position and tried to show how such a concept is the next obvious theological development in Faustianism as it refines God further into the distance avoiding going so far as non-existence which it is felt the populations are not ready for bearing in mind the catholicity of the people who gather under its umbrella and the different factors they have to deal with.

The equating of the two expressions, Intelligent Design and Creationism, as I have also previously explained, is useful because Creationism is so easy to discredit, which might explain why I remain unsupported, but attacks, however sensible on creationism say nothing about intelligent design even if those making them think they do.

Whatever cabals of interest do with these expressions is of no interest to me. The word Socialist has never meant socialist anywhere I know about and the word Democracy has never meant democracy.

But we can't have an international intellectual debating forum hijacked by two parties in a dispute. I don't think, and I sincerely hope, that I have ever said I believe in anything. You may argue all you want with your opponents but you are in a forum where an outside voice can be heard.

I suspect that in a debating chamber nothing would be heard above the hullaballoo of insults and assertions and brayings and the sound of loose objects colliding with various bodies and walls.

Other higher authorities in the past have all agreed certain things, and had them peer reviewed, and I'm quite certain you wouldn't go into bat for their conclusions. There will be a world in a thousand years. We are not the summation of human existence.

You have denied being an intellectual. Party hacks are never that.

If that is your position, spendi, then you really are wasting everyone's time (especially your own).

I think wande, with all due respect, that that is a matter for me.

If your statement had any credibilty you could apply it to anyone you disapproved of in order to close them out and leaving you free to have your will running on the rampage.

The site is called Able to Know and I feel sure everyone who reads this thread would bridle at the idea that they were to be confined to only knowing what you know which is what would happen if all those you said were wasting their time gave up contributing.

If this is what anti-IDers are like it is no wonder some people are opposing the position.

What would be the point of a Creationist coming on this thread? Science or Religion is a serious intellectual proposition. Intelligent Design is a concept not a flag.

spendi,

My statement applies to what I had quoted from your post. Terms that are central to this discussion seem to have no meaning or interest for you. Therefore, I feel that your participation in this discussion is of no use to you or to anyone else.

Well wande-

I feel it is. That's the nature of belief.

Do you understand it better now. Belief I mean. Now that you know what belief feels like.

You have no proof, in any scientific sense, peer reviewed and all that,that
my-



Hence it is a belief of yours.

It could look like,to save a load of boring proof, that you are seeking to take over the World Wide Web and have it bow to how you feel. And whatismore attempt it with a load of cliched, continuously revolving assertions which would only get past the guard of a chimp.

So that's how I feel.

That's exactly what wande indicated - did you miss the significance of the bit where he said "I feel that ... "?


No - just lobbying for the triumph of knowledge, logic, and reason over ignorance, fear, and superstition

We've come to know your sentiments, and thusly we accord your rambling rants the respect and regard they merit.

well i must admit that spendi does make me laugh

timber wrote-



I used the word "feel" four times in the post timber refers to. I did think that having done that there was no need to underline the word or use any other form of emphasis to communicate that I had not missed wande's use of the word to an intelligent reader. I even linked the word to "belief" in order to show that religious believers feel their faith and thus have no need to prove it in the same way wande had no need to prove that-



simply because he feels it.

It was an opportunity to show what belief feels like to those who believe and if one way of feeling deserves respect and others don't then there is bigotry.

I can easily show that the statement last quoted is false because I know that not everyone does feel that my participation is of no use and I also know that it is of use to me and in a number of ways. Anti-IDers are not in a position to show that a belief in an designer is false and rely on asserting that it is so which I have no need to do in this case.

You have ended up believing something I can prove to be false and not believing something which you can't prove wrong. I'll leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions about that.

And even if my participation is of no use to myself or anyone else I am still entitled to offer it in case it may come to be at a later stage or simply because nobody has said I don't have that entitlement.

It might be of use if only to prompt expostulations of the nature of-



as a further example of the anti-IDer approach to these difficulties which is so bereft of ideas that it degenerates into such pointless invidious comparisons and underscores it by accusing others of "rambling rants" as if such an assertion is proof that they are rambling rants.


wande wrote-



Rabelais said that a good laugh is a health tonic and he was a medical man and there has been some scientific proof of his opinion in recent years. One might say that that is proof of the use of my posts.

Theres bad design, good design, final design, conceptual design, process design etc, so why not Intelligent Design. Its a modifier of choice that was employed to distinguish this doctrinal reconstitute from its Creationist roots. If spendi denies that ID's roots are scientific Creationism then hes oblivious of recent history or else hes a fundamentalist preacher.

I dont find spendi humorous at all. Hes pitiable.I feel that hes contrived a keyboard personality that drips with pomposity "for no apparent reason". Hes certainly not a lone voice fighting for intellectual honesty. He just seems to enjoy the sport of negating almost everything anyone says, whether he understands the issues or not. Hes a definate misogynistic misanthrope, hes most often poorly informed,he rarely brings anything to the debate, his opinions are frequently pointless, hes often sunk to lying his way out of a debate corner, and his self proclaimed wit falls flat. Other than that ...

Well, for one, Thunder runner has spent some time obviously thinking about all this. I think that most of us have gone through the same thought processes in order to arrive at our present philosophies. Its always dangerous to propose that our belief system be joined to a parade of provable facts and evidence,
because if only one of these provable facts is not in harmony with our beliefs, then something loses. Either our thinking process becomes illogical, or else we must become creatures guided by our beliefs alone.

If that's not flaming I don't know what is.

If other readers are persuaded by it then I have overestimated their intelligence. It is meaningless except in the sense that it is one anti-IDers bunch of assertions for which no evidence is offered in support.

The "intelligent" in the phrase "intelligent design" is obviously pointless and Darwin didn't use it although he scoffed at Creationism. I'm not about to argue with Darwin on such an obvious point. Intelligent design is not creationism unless someone wants it to be for the reasons I have previously stated. It is the real enemy of creationism.

How in the deuce did I manage to post my comment above splendis last OD? I was on Evolution how? well Ill just pick it up and carry it over.

Spendi shaddup

"Take him out and shoot him. We are not having any ideas on here that Commissar farmerman hasn't stamped with his approval. Just shut the fooker up."

*Neutrals note the anti-ID mindset.

moke

Gasometer.

(Gee-this is easy.)

CANADA UPDATE

This is interesting, Wandel. It appears that M. Fournier is attempting to dance around the issue, in the hope that any controversy dies down. Québec provides funds for public education to Catholic schools, which is often a sore spot for people in English-speaking Canada, because it means that Federal funds go to parochial schools. The position of the Catholic Church on evolution is that there is no conflict between science and theology, and the church does not dispute evolutionary theory. Québec has largely a conservative population, but just barely. They are just as likely to vote Liberal (which is only liberal in name) as Tory, and are represented in the Federal Parliament by the Bloc Québecois in the main. Currently, the minority Tory government of Stephen Harper is relying on the Bloc for the necessary majority to forward their agenda. Whatever tack M. Fournier takes will likely be tacitly approved by Jean Charest, the provincial PM, and by extension, by Mr. Harper's government. Complicating the issue, though, is the James Bay and Northern Québec Treaty, and the fact that the Pentacostals are at the bottom of the anti-evolution position there. The population of Québec is overwhelmingly Catholic, and les habitants are not likely to see any common interest with the Pentacostals. At the same time, they are sufficiently conservative that they may be suspicious of any move to impose on the Kativik School Board.

I think this will prove one of the more interesting episodes in the creationism/evolution struggle, and the more so as it operates outside the ID/evolution struggle--KSB isn't pushing ID, and they are not pushing creationism, but they are prohibiting the teaching of evolution theory.

Setanta,

I was already thinking that this situation is more convoluted than what happened in South Carolina. Just as in South Carolina, there is more than one entity claiming jurisdiction over the curriculum.

Of course, the earliest stage of the anti-evolution movement in the United States was the outright prohibition of teaching evolution. The situation in at least part of Quebec seems like the stage the U.S. was in a century ago.

You give the United States too much credit, Wandel. The decision of the Supremes in 1968 in Epperson versus Arkansas arose because a teacher challenged the state's prohibition on teaching a theory of evolution. The Act in Tennessee under which John Scopes was prosecuted was passed in 1925--it was not rescinded by the legislature there until 1967.