Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Chum wrote-



I know nothing about Tooth Fairies but there are some fiendish experts on religion.

Your second statement is correct. The post you referred to was heavy on veracity and not the reciprocal of it. Maybe you didn't understand it or just didn't like it.

What exactly was it that caused your clever assertive blurt? Read the post over again and provide some beef to your remark. It was researched a bit unlike your post. Correct any errors I made. I am a willing learner.

How can one be an "expert on religion" when religion is a figment of the imagination? Now you can certainly be an expert on the physical/social/psychological manifestations of religious practices, but that is not the same thing at all; nope no "fiendish experts on religion" can exist, and I challenge you to provide proof of the theistic reality of religion in the pragmatic sense.

As to my pleasurably concise remark, do you expect me to prove a falsehood such as ID when ID has no basis in fact? As such I challenge you to provide proof of ID.

Given you "know nothing about Tooth Fairies" how precisely would you go about becoming a fiendish expert on Tooth Fairies? Pull out the odd molar, place it under your pillow, and hope?

In the afterglow of ID's spiritual release, god asks Spendi "do you want your pants back?" and Spendi answers "no just leave me with my dignity".

Chum-

That's a version of the Emperor has no clothes.

How can you separate religion from the physical/social/psychological manifestations of religious practices when nothing but human beings have religion and nothing is subject to the physical/social/psychological manifestations of religious practices apart from human beings and nothing outside of human beings has a cultural history?

Given human beings in a complex social collective there will be physical/social/psychological manifestations of something. I presume you accept that. What do you propose the something should be if we get rid of religion?

It seems to me that you are criticising the human condition and claiming that you are above it and are smarter than the average. You seem completely unaware of the important role hypocrisy plays in all societies.



I hope you don't go around too much in your social circles with that one. It is so old you would hardly believe it. And it's as naive now as it was a few thousand years ago. It's a hermit philosophy.

Are you able to distinguish between "dress" and "clothing". Only the latter is pragmatic. The former is entirely based on belief. The retail trade is now dependent, through high gearing, on something called "consumer confidence" which is a spiritual concept. Have you any idea of the cascade which would be set in rapid motion if we only visited shops to provide ourselves with pragmatic necessities however luxurious.

Are you ready for everyone, yes everyone, to become converted to your position on hearing your irrefutable argument. You ought to be. It doesn't make any sense if you are not. You could be an overnight, runaway success and everybody looking to you to find out what to do next. They would all say why didn't I think of that. They would all say what fools they had been to think that a marriage ceremony had disguised the sordid transaction they had engaged in. There would be no advertising. Clothes would be dished out like they are in the military. Chocolate would be sold on cocoa %. How much might shareholders save if the higher echelons in corprations dined and excreted in the same place as the lower as pragmatic sense would dictate. And if we applied pragmatic sense on the interface between the sexes I think you might find life somewhat changed.

Why do you single out religious practice for a rigourous subjection to pragmatic sense and leave out all the other spiritual matters.

A few glib sneers are not going to change the history of our culture. If you wish to do that I suggest you stand for election and with such common sense pragmatic arguments as you deploy you would be bound to sweep to power surely. Then you could really get to work.

The Dow would, of course, go through the floor. We are totally dependent on the physical/social/psychological manifestations of beliefs of some sort.
Maybe you should start a new religion based on the philosophy of pigs or monkeys. They operate pragmatically I think. They don't have christenings, marriages or funerals.

You might consider reading the thread or trying to retain what you have read. Your points have been thouroughly washed a good few times. I refrain from entering a lot of threads on these matters because I'm not prepared to keep starting again.

Can you define electricity or do you confine yourself to the physical/social/psychological manifestations of it?

As no-one else on here has been prepared to describe a religion free society perhaps you might give it a go then we might see what the physical/social/psychological manifestations of that would look like.

We might even choose it if you sell it good.

The current issue of What Is Enlightenment Magazine identifies 12 schools of evolutionary thought in a spectrum from scientific materialism to religious determinism.

A well known shape in artistic symbolism wande.

It might be called hastateic or sagitateic.

I notice that ID is to the right and the Darwinian is left. That's about correct too.

I had never realized that there were so many variations between Darwinism and ID, spendi. It seems to me that too many people are trying to find a synthesis of science and religion. I prefer to treat religion and science as completely separate subjects.

I am also starting to believe that attempts to reconcile religion with science must seem condescending to people who are very religious.

There aren't really. Those might be called marketing niches.

You could call orthodox historically modified Christianity ID with the story as packaging marketed at different niches.

A bit like romance novels where you could have Henry Fielding for the experienced and worldly reader and Barbara Cartland for the pretty things. Christianity is somewhat different in intellectual, urban centres from what it is in turnip growing country. Which is a point I have hardly even hinted at before because I know Americans are loathe to accept such things.

A confessional conversation in, say, The Vatican, is a completely different thing to one out in the sticks between a journeyman parish priest and a herdsman or milkmaid. The former approaches psychoanalysis and the latter a broad perfunctory social survey. All large organisations show this difference. But Americans all think they are as good as anybody and thus don't really understand it. They seem to dislike not knowing what is going on and your media flatters you all by an impression that you do. To join the inner circles you need triple A+'s from age 11 onwards I'm afraid. The song My Way could only be American. It is ridiculous to an English person of even an average education.

There are a lot more varaiations than the visual aid shows. A proper IDer would have no difficulty reconciling religion and science. Render unto Ceasar the things etc.

Spendi = dodge

"Get out of Dodge City"

You just gallop out up Main Street shooting in the air don't you? I've seen it in the movies. It looks easy.

I never shoot blanks.

spendi, Herdsmen? milkmaids? I SUPPOSE THAT fencing and Milking machines never caught on in the UK, tradition and all Spendi-lost in time.

I think I shall hitch up the coach and take the milk cans to the rail crossing..

Cultures are like icebergs fm except that there's more underwater. Or was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers a spoof. I sometimes wonder if that movie was the start gun for the DIY inductry. Those boys were acting like male birds of paradise.

I was worn out when I went out the exit I remember. All I could hear was hammering and sawing and banging.

There's nothing like chaste young ladies to get 'em going is there?

spendi
Thats why I choose you to make fun of.

I see youve decided to get off trying to sound like a Darwin scholar. Its best that you stck with things you know best like Watney's Red Barrel., or Guiness.

. That was a musical right? Dont like musicals except for a very few.
I saw the Seven Samurai, or The MAgnificent Seven, Seven Deadly Sins,The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, The Seventh Seal. Thats all the Sevens I can recall without proper recall authorization. (Its the green form). PS, the"Barn raising " in WITNESS was much more of an event with proper barn raising music even.

I'm not a Darwin scholar fm.

When did I ever claim that.

I just wondered what it would do to a young man's mind to be cooped up with Fitzroy for years on end in those conditions and with a Wedgewood heiress panting for gratification and having to bloody well wait for the sodding science.

I must admit to feeling like the infra-red to that intensity of ultra-violet.

The buttercups in the meadows would have enabled me to figure it all out.

spendi. But you play one on A2K

Not in the least. I've read a bit that's all. I read a lot of other stuff. I'm a Before the Midnight Scholar if anything.

I only read Darwin and about him to fill a small gap. It's pretty simple stuff whenever reproduction awaits biology. Human behaviour is miles more entertaining.

But I gotta scoot. Things is bubbling here. See you later I hope.

A local Tennessee newspaper indicates that State Senator Finney may be rewording his education resolution regarding the teaching of evolution.

Mr Finney seems an eminently sensible fellow.

How much control does the headmaster of a school have over what to teach and who to recruit to teach it?