Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I always like the Catholic Church's slow deliberate pace on all things scientiic. In the last 4 years they finally accepted Galileos premise. Damn forward looking if you ask me.


Mathos, where you phuck up is in your assumptions that credibility in ones chosen research and teaching field seems to presume an assumption that ones opinions in other matters are worth a squat. Maybe that's how you dudes in the old country see things. We dont, in fact we have court precedent that prevents us from getting outside our fields.
Invoking gods and voodoo in science and engineering isnt so bad in itself , its just a waste of time and effort. Its like putting saurkraut on apple pie, whats left is neither a meal nor a dessert. Just a pile of solid waste.

You and your "joined at the cranium" sycophant friend can holler and whine, invoking all sorts of histric "non scientific ' quotes all you wish. Many of us find it quite amusing how youre unable to develop even an executive summary to a case and all youre really good at is resorting to derision thats based upon total ignorance of the entire point. So, keep on keeping on.

c.i. wrote-



And "our" and "we" consist of what?

Five. Six maybe.

Leading you to believe that the assertion-



has validity.

The "normally" arrives in the same way.

As I understand it the anti-ID position is a minority taste.

When I type on my keyboard it may well be part of my reality but that doesn't make it reality per se. That would put me in your position and have me labouring in your unscientific estate in which communication is well nigh impossible apart from things like giving someone the time.

spendi, It seems obvious you missed farmerman's post above yours. Go back and read, then learn something about your imagination vs science.

fm wrote-



A fine intellectual addition to the debate I must say.

It is easy to imagine a bunch of anti-IDers talking like that amongst themselves and coming to believe it has some meaning.

It's almost as easy as penning the quote.

They like it effortless do anti-IDers as anyone who cares to read back down the thread will quickly realise.

c.i. wrote-



Another phucking ignorant assumption. It is getting pathetic. Particularly with it being seemingly obvious whatever that is supposed to mean outside your reality.

I read all posts on this thread. I read Mathos's 3 times and I'm still not much wiser. He has a peculiar way with words though.

On fm's post-

The reason the Catholic Church is seemingly slow on matters scientific is to allow time for discussion on the implications in the social field, their theological wisdom in thinking of the long haul and for their own protection. They have a tendency to eschew the "One-eyed midget shouting the word -Now!"

The rest is simple incoherence as far as I can tell.

I read Mathos's 3 times and I'm still not much wiser.

See?

Science is, after all, in direct conflict with fundmentalist religions. Literal intrepretation of anything, including the Pope's opinion is antithetical to science. Science is a way of thinking that requires doubt. Any method of thinking that requires faith in the face of doubt is by definition non-scientific. So it's understandable that they struggle so with scientific findings........the fact that the Catholic church has taken so many centuries to live with it bears witness to how threatening doubt is to those whose security depends on absolute belief.

There's a place for religious belief as long as it doesn't attempt to define the way things work. Religion is about feeling and security. Good religion helps people live a better life. It doesn't restrict. Science is about thinking, curiousity and doubt. Maybe this Pope will find a way to keep religion in it's place and preserve it for use by those who need or enjoy it. But I doubt it.

I don't think it matters that there is conflict between religion and science. People find security and comfort in religion not offered by science; they have hope for life after death, and somebody they think they communicate with who represents a "higher power."

What can you expect from such midgets? They are rather "now" oriented, and good for me, I'll say. What with my sherries and tendency to provide a peep or two.

You do have a point, Spendi, when you say that religion has served the function of keeping raw instinct in check. However, I wish the Popes et al would learn another method besides demands for absolute authority. Many religions, including staunch Catholcism, are too punitive and restrictive. Gratification of wishes is as important to social peace and harmony as is control. A loving, flexible conscience is far more useful than a mean spirited one. If only the Catholic church could make this adjustment without taking another several hundred years.

As more science reveals the errors and omissions of the bible, the church will have no choice but to revise their dogma. I think the church will survive no matter how many revisions has to be made to reconcile the bible to science.

Just FYI - La Sapienza University, also known as The University of Rome, has been around for over 700 years, is the largest university in Western Europe, is among the most respected institutes of higher learning on the planet, its faculty and alumni number a whole buncha Nobel laureates (among whom is counted Enrico Fermi), along with many past and current heads of state and other major political figures, scientists of all stripe, captains of industry, and celebrated educators. Of particular note and reknown are its School of Mathematics, Physical, and Natural Studies, School of Philosophy, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, and School of Aerospace Engineering.

A long, long, long time ago I was fortunate enough to have had opportunity to participate in a summer archaeologic dig under the auspices of their School of Archaeology and Anthropology. It was a great experience, and the team - both faculty and student - was truly international, polyglot, and philosophically diverse by composition.

Incidentally, my experience that summer included The Greek Twins, and was the occasion of a personal discovery pertaining to Fluorescent Paint

c.i. wrote-

I read Mathos's 3 times and I'm still not much wiser.

See? [/quote]

See what? I only said I wasn't much wiser. I didn't assume others wouldn't be.

A writer cannot allow himself to be constrained by the idea that he must make himself comprehensible to everybody. He is entitled to assume that the world provides readers who do understand or are prepared to try to understand and from my experience you anti-IDers are not prepared to understand or even try to understand anything you don't already understand which is why you are, to all intents and purposes in a debate of this nature, illiterate.

For Socrates understanding consisted of a struggle which, of necessity, involved a degree of humiliation, and that vital ingredient is missing in all the productions of anti-IDers. It may well be missing in the whole US of A in which case it is understandable. Joyce though the US "unbearable".

Stendhal said that he wrote for less than 100 people in the whole of France. He ended up one of the most famous writers in European literature. Do you never wonder why or is it easier to dismiss him with a wave of the arm and a schoolground putdown.

I suppose that people who think we are monkeys can be assumed to be promoting jibber-jabbering in which only extremes of feeling are representable.

A point of correction here, c. i. - never has the Roman Catholic Church "revised" any particular of dogma, only exceedingly rarely - as in a very, very few times over the past two millenia - has it adjusted doctrine, and for consistency of teaching and tradition that august institution is without parallel among the institutions with which humankind has saddled itself.

Excellent post timber-

Fancy being run and staffed by ID-iots all through Western man's (and woman's-oops) rise to glory and hegemony even up to Mars. How would you compare it to Dawkins intellectually?

It's incredible isn't it. One wouldn't expect an ID-iot to be able to take the top off a boiled egg.

How do you manage to remember old posts like that. I clicked on the
Greek Twins and after reading it got a "Shutting Down" notification which then didn't happen.

I knew there must have been a time when you could be lit up, Timber....it would have been nice to be there for the occasion.

As far as Spendi's argument goes, to clarify my point........narcissistic demand for blind faith, or allowing oneself to be anoited as the voice of God is as much an example of unchecked instinct as is the immediate demand of one eyed midget. One harmful over-indulgence in gratification is hardly a functionally helpful method of controlling another. For one thing, it's too fragile and too easily results in war and murder in the name of control. Sound familiar?

In my opinion, Spendi, this is where your argument goes wrong.......unless I misunderstand you......which I may, given that I have been absent and haven't kept up with any evolution of thought you may have enjoyed. It's the optimist in me.

A splendid straw-man example illustrating the ignorance from whence proceeds the proposition you forward, spendi. The "We are monkeys" concept is exclusively peculiar to those with no grounding in the realities of scientific knowledge and understanding. You are hoist on your own petard, my freind. Once again.

Lola wrote-



We are not discussing fundamentalist religions Lola. We are discussing Intelligent Design or, as I prefer, intelligent design. That idea, and it is an idea, is in direct conflict with fundamentalist religions of all types.

As I understand it there is a confusion over there which thinks that intelligent design has something to do with fundamentalist religions.



That is the problem when it tries to get involved in social affairs. Doubt produces uncertainty and ultimately catatonia if everybody is imbued with its principles rather that a chosen few. Presumably that is why it only ever is allowed an advisory role to Governments.



What about the security of society? What security could we expect with a society of doubters and non-believers?

I'm afraid that the "voice of God" is a subject on which a number of threads may well prosper.

But it makes a pleasant change, I must say to consider, your posts, Lola, after some of the mush I've been putting up with.

It is always a balancing act. How to get the best out of us without unleashing our true nature in blowtorch mode.

And we run the world.

Had The Church been fully in charge, authority and all, which is necessary to avoid the blowtorch, we might not have allowed the "Now" men to export our technologies so easily. We might have been more patient (slow). The Church has engaged in such restrictions in the past and the Chinese loss of the monopoly of silk production through carelessness in that regard was a severe blow to them and if they could have caught the Faustian rascal who did it he would have come to a very sticky end.

I think our system works quite well and I'm not up for shooting off in the dark blowtorches blasting.

I hardly think that embracing a faith is narcissistic. It seems quite the opposite to me.

I knew it was a straw man timber but I thought it worthwhile to get the smear in seeing as how I'm way behind at that game.

This is a mis-quotation Spendi. I said something else entirely. Embracing faith in a kind, supportive system is quite different from embracing a cruel unforgiving one. I said narcissism (that's pathological narcissism to be exact......there is after all a healthy narcissism that is necessary for the survival of the species) is a poor subsitute for a loving conscience.