Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Here's some smorgs news from my little life:

Bought a CD (very cheap) with music from 1978 on it, to listen to on the way to work - it was a piss-poor year for music, I tell thee! Fast forwarded every track apart from Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats).

Had to go into a very long, very boring meeting at 9.30, still had the rat song in my head... it's only 10 o'clock and I'm already bored, it's a rat trap baby, and you've been caught.

Got back to my desk to be told that someone had tried to set a Jobcentre on fire (in Manchester) by pouring petrol all over the floor and then trying to ignite it!

Had discussions with my two favourite colleagues about: Elvis, Richard Dawkins, intelligent design, The Simpsons and celebrity perfumes.

Went to lunch with Eunice and talked about what we'd do if we won a massive amount on the lottery, decided it was better to stay skint as we would die shortly after from eating loads of cakes and chocolate.

Spoke to a customer about failing to attend my interview due to his Granddad dying again... two had already died the previous year! He was so cheeky I gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn't stop his money.

Got 'the coffees' in the afternoon and a large bag of blackcurrent and licorice sweeties to share. Spent the rest of the afternoon comparing 'black tongues' in between interviews (and during, if customer wasn't looking).

5.05 p.m. went home.

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As far as your posts regarding the influence of language on rhetoric, I believe that language can influence rhetoric, but you're definitely oversimplifying it, and I certainly don't think that the bible had anything to do with making the west the rugged place that it was. I guess what I'm saying is, that I'd like a citation on almost any of your major points from that english language bible post.

I think I made the point sufficiently clear. If you don't accept it I suggest you read The Bible and then some of the other base flattery you are given on a daily basis. James Joyce agreed with me and his expertise in language was extraordinary to put it mildly. Our Prime Minister is fond of using the phrase "hard working families up and down the land" to describe us lazy-arsed toss-pots and devious skivers whose votes he wants. You won't find anything like that in The Bible.

The only really worthwhile response to your difficulties with "ideal-types" is to suggest you read Max Weber.

By making a market out of religion I meant that the one that was most satisfactory for most people would come to the top. As Joubert, who I quoted at length on the subject, explained. I think atheism will sink without trace except for a few contrarians seeking attention from the simpler aspects of it.

Your next point is out of date. Eternal punishment is no longer a serious aspect of modern religion.

As Geoffrey Gorer wrote in his book about de Sade on that point (1963)-

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In most countries today religion is so much on the defensive, so 'broadminded' and complaisant and unassuming, that we can hardly throw our minds back to the time when Darwin was preached against in every pulpit and Hegel denounced as heretical. Similar conduct in the Bible Belt of the US or Ireland or Spain is smiled at and deplored even by the most pious of churchmen.

On your point about stem cell research I don't think either of us are qualified to offer an opinion. Official bodies oversee such matters and one might assume they are experts. "Senselessly destroyed" blithely assumes those experts are senseless. I don't accept that. I don't accept fertility clinics on Mailer's argument but I don't complain about them. I would never use them myself. I think forcing an existence upon someone who never asked for it using scientific techniques to satisfy one's own whims is disgusting. To inform the kid afterwards is doubly so. Nay-more. It is scientific careerism out of control in my opinion.

I agree that we shouldn't "use God to make our own personal agendas look better".

I've never known athiests to dodge complexity, and I doubt that moral athiests are less likely than moral theists to do good deeds.

Atheists never do anything else. There is no such thing as a "moral atheist". Any good they do is because they have accepted Christian morality and live in a Christian ambience and seek approval and praise within it. "Good" to an atheist can only mean that to which their senses draw them towards as Aquinas explained.

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Beyond that, the examples you're giving only further prove my point that religion( do good things to other people or god will punish you) is better at uniting people under an ideal than just the ideal(do good things to other people).

I might have said something like that assuming you mean our religion. Not all religions take such a view.

But if your Prime Minister said that in French, noone would be aroused, as you seem to suggest happens whenever a french rhetorical master speaks. I think your characterizations of people based off of their native language is baseless.

Your assertion that the English language of the Bible inspired a feeling of "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" just doesn't make sense. As I've been pointing out, a skilled rhetorician can use the words in the bible to any effect. I suspect that even if what you're saying is true, outside of the concept of divine punishment(which does still exist in modern religions both in this life and the next), skilled rhetoricians could've used any philosopher's writings to the same effect. The only thing that sets religions apart from philosophies is the concept of the divine, and the only reason the divine seems to be important to most religions, is to tempt people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise and create an expectation of unavoidable punishment should someone step out of line.

Philosophy, which is entirely concerned with evidence, stands in the same relation to nature as morality does to religion. But it can never affect the masses, for its appeal is based on reason, to which the masses are blind, whereas religion is based on emotion, and therefore potent.

Well, I could read the works of a sociologist, or you could present his argument as you understand it, since you seem to be one of its adherents

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Your assertion that the English language of the Bible inspired a feeling of "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" just doesn't make sense. As I've been pointing out, a skilled rhetorician can use the words in the bible to any effect. I suspect that even if what you're saying is true, outside of the concept of divine punishment(which does still exist in modern religions both in this life and the next), skilled rhetoricians could've used any philosopher's writings to the same effect. The only thing that sets religions apart from philosophies is the concept of the divine, and the only reason the divine seems to be important to most religions, is to tempt people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise and create an expectation of unavoidable punishment should someone step out of line.

The point about skill in rhetoric is precisely to be a leader of men and any leader will seek to inspire them with a get-up-and-go spirit surely. As E has just show there is inspiration involved. Battle hardened veterans might sing OCS ironically. I'd like to see a skilled rhetor trying Wittgenstein or Talcott Parsons. The Bible is poetry. All through. It is meant for declamation and the temperament that creates.

spendius wrote:

But my point is that God isn't vital to poetry or for the sort of temperament that the bible creates. Similar effects can be caused by the idea of the free market. Let the mankind go out into the wild west and see what profit there is to be made. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to survive, and he doesn't need God to tell him that. If anything, the bible says that there are things a man shouldn't do.

La Mettrie, the only anti-ID martyr wrote-

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Philosophy, which is entirely concerned with evidence, stands in the same relation to nature as morality does to religion. But it can never affect the masses, for its appeal is based on reason, to which the masses are blind, whereas religion is based on emotion, and therefore potent.

Notice "affect". Create affections. Temperaments.

Philosophy for La Mettrie, Mr Gorer says, is "materialist, pragmatical, atheist"...... "It can only be based on physical science, derived from sensual observation, and must be completely unbiased by preconceived ideas of any sort."

Such as bigamy being immoral.

But doesn't the fact that the most convenient religion will prevail suggest that there isn't any real divinity behind it, and doesn't that suggest that people are just going to gravitate towards the interpretation of religion that provides the largest reward and the smallest punishment.

I've read numerous preachers preach that those who believe hell doesn't really exist are the ones most likely to end up there. Perhaps you're not familiar with american protestantism, since you're not from america.

It's smiled at and deplored, except by its followers who are numerous enough to support so called "mega-churches"

I guess this is another thing you haven't come into contact with since you're not from america, but in america. Nearly the entirety of our population claims that it would never vote for someone who isn't religious, making religion a very large issue in nearly every election.
Once in office, politicians try to use religious beliefs to justify any number of things including the continued denial of marriage rights to same sex couples. This is done under the banner of God, and protestors routinely carry signs citing Leviticus(rules for the jewish family of Levi, who were often priests) and shouting things like "Gays are an abomination in God's eyes" and/or "God hates fags."

You really don't think there's any code of ethics that has been forged without the concept of a divinity?

Vengo wrote-

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But doesn't the fact that the most convenient religion will prevail suggest that there isn't any real divinity behind it, and doesn't that suggest that people are just going to gravitate towards the interpretation of religion that provides the largest reward and the smallest punishment.

Are you objecting to that?

Yes we live in a world in which Moses and Jesus "codified" most of the rules that modern western society lives by, at least in the breach. Consequently we western atheists must generally in public act like Christians.

But if you think that Mary (Mother of God) was the first parent to query her offspring "How would you like it if I pulled your hair?) then you have never raised children.

That, my friend, is the Golden Rule---writ large. I reckon it predates Moses even.

Choosing the interpretation of God that suits you best doesn't help you understand God, the way theology(the study of God) should. It's just flattery and it paves the way to mindless self indulgence.

...there is one route of escape from that model of 'revealed package plus metaphysical account of its divine origin' : namely, to see the 'revealed' package as a set of 'pictures', stories, parables, by which to regulate human life, and for which no further grounding is possible or appropriate.

The religious authority and the efficacy of those pictures, however, when taken in that way, becomes enigmatic--and questionable.

One doesn't need a Godhead to live a moral life. Only our intelligence is necessary. And a smattering of common sense would be handy.

Some scientific truths-censored.