Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

@farmerman,

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The Creationists and IDers just cant seem to divorce themselves of the notions that science is evil .quote]

Once again effemm tries his sneaky trick if linking Creationists and IDers despite it having been explained to him on numerous occasions that those two are sworn enemies to a greater extent than either are enemies of atheists.

The word Faustian derives from the fear that science is evil. Before science got properly underway battles were fought in fields with a small number of men carring pointed sticks. Now whole cities can be blasted out of existence, men, women and children with a touch of a button in a safe underground bunker thousands of miles away.

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Thats shallow thinking by shallow people.

That's just another bland, cliched assertion with no meaning.

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They feel that everything we have is a gift of some narrow religious origin , when just the opposite is true.

When I said these guys can hardly read or write you need look no further than that.

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@cicerone imposter,

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I'm also aware of that fact, but they seem to be in a very small minority. It may also be that they are not as vocal as their counterparts for whatever reasons.

Fancy saying it's a fact and then undermining it yourself with what follows. They are a majority actually.

The reason may well be that they are at work in their labs and research centres rather than running around sticking their fissogs onto the telly whilst pandering to those who want some justifications for rejecting religious disciplines in the sexual field. From what I have read they have no time for Dawkins.

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@spendius,

Some advice fom Da Pidgin Bible

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No fool yoaself! If you tink you know an undastan everyting jalike all da peopo nowdays, dat mean, you donno notting. Wen you figga you donno notting, dass wen you goin start fo learn. Da way da peopo inside da world tink, God say dat stuff stay stupid. Da Bible say:
“Da smart guys, dey sly buggas,
But God take wat dey do an jam um up!” (Letta Numba 1 Fo Da Corint Peopo 3:18-19

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@fresco,

I'm well aware fresco that I know next to nothing. I'm arguing with people who think they know everything about how to prepare 50 million kids for their adult roles. I presume you aimed your post at them. Or that you haven't read the thread.

Is that not obvious? I must have said so dozens of times. Yesterday even. I think I used the words "I haven't the faintest idea." I'm for leaving these decisions to the local elected people who can be presumed to know a bit about their constituencies.

Your post actually is just flippant. Why don't you join the argument? Let's play the Wittgenstein word games eh?

Do you think emotional states exist, can be engineered and turned to account for whatever purpose even as physical/chemical states apt for certain behaviours?

One thing I do know is that the anti-IDers on here hide from questions like that and I know that people who do so cannot be said to have any sort of scientific perspective.

But the Pidgin Bible purports to know something doesn't it? And is therefore ridiculous. It is claiming that nihilism is the way forward and is using motormouth to say everybody should shut their mouths.

What do you think 300,ooo,000 Americans, or 60,000,000 Brits, would look like if they were all atheists?

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It appears that Tejas has renounced the proposed "review and critique " option in the teaching of evolution. Its quite proper that teachers commit to provide students with the tools to conduct their own critiques of science in general. This is covered in our state curriculum within a rather extended discussion on the scientific method, methods of research , and Quality Control.

This is sortof what the methodology would normally entail . I believe that the folks in TExas saw the attempts to undermine ascience as just another attempt at manipulation by the Anti-science Evangelical Christians.

These culture wars outbreaks have turned into a large regional "Whack-A-Mole" game. We have but to wait to see where the next attempts at anti-science will surface.

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@spendius,

Spendius

First of all…I would never put you…or anyone else on “ignore.” Not even sure why that feature is here.

In response to Farmerman, you wrote:

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“The reason you are scared of it is because you know that if there is a pyschosomatic realm and that emotions do affect the health and happiness of individuals and societies then you need to take religion seriously because its dogmas, ceremonials and rituals do create emotional states for better or for worse.”

Prior to that you wrote:

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“You have all that on Ignore because you are scared of it.”

That IS “begging the question.”

“Begging the question” is a logical fallicy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.

You acknowledge “the thing you are trying to prove” is why Farmerman is scared…and (You Are Scared) is explicitly stated in one of the premise.

You do it often...and I WILL point it out in the future.

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@farmerman,

anti which science? Your version effemm?

We all know what that is by now.

You just want to define science in such a way that you and your ilk are top dogs.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank-

petitio principii is to ask for what is looked for. Asking a debate opponent to grant what the opponent is looking for you to prove. It does not mean to assume without an argument.

I don't ask anybody to assume that effemm is scared of discussion of the psychosmatic realm or of the functions of emotional states. His, and others, failure to answer questions put to them on those matters is there for all to see. It is a fact. They have avoided such considerations for four years.

You have failed to appreciate the words "the reason" and "because".

If you ask a man who you know has been beating his wife whether he has stopped doing it is not the same as asking a man who you don't know whether he has been beating his wife the same question. A failure to answer the question in the first case is a different case than a failure to answer in the second case.

We know effemm has consistently failed to answer many questions in relation to psychology and sociology. We know he seeks to keep this discussion on the tracks he wants. He can't lose the argument then. He can only lose the argument if he discusses these other matters. And it is reasonable to suppose that he is scared of losing the argument. He would risk losing face. A terrible thing it would seem.

I don't see how I have begged the question. I start from the fact of his ducking those issues on the basis of an assertion that they are irrelevant.

I will welcome you pointing out to me any occurences where I do beg the question. One only ever learns something new by losing face.

But Hume thought that unless you distinguish "assuming" from "entailing" all valid proofs beg the question.

I might admit that saying his reason is fear could be challenged but then I would ask for the reason he continually avoids those questions. Of course he has another reason. It is that he hasn't seen the questions because he has me on Ignore. Then I would ask what is the reason for that if it is not that I persist with questions he wants to avoid answering.

It is generally accepted that "moving away" from a stimulus is a result of fear.

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With no fear natural scientific curiosity would cause a movement towards the stimulus. So fear has overcome a natural characteristic and that is real anti-science on the grandest scale that can be imagined.

It is effemm who constantly begs the question of why the Evangelicals act as they do. They may have reasons they don't wish to discuss as with the Texas senator who referred to "controversial issues." And they are controversial.

effemm simply assumes their reasons are what they publicly state them to be. It is convenient for him to do that.

Did Mr Obama state publicly his real reason for seeking the Presidency? effemm just accepts the euphemisms when it suits him and rejects them when it doesn't.

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@spendius,

Spendius...don't spend a lot of time on this.

I didn't expect for a moment that you would acknowledge that your argument was begging the question...and I don't expect it now.

In any case, whether it is or is not "begging the question" is not in any way impacted by you acknowledging or denying that it is or is not.

So really, don’t spend any more time on it.

We need you working on the bigger questions.

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@Frank Apisa,

Like what's going to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I work on that quite a bit.

Or how late dare I stay in bed so that my breakfast doesn't cause me to have lunch so late that it spoils my dinner. Any self-respecting well evolved microbe would work on that. It's these Christian gentlemen, spouting about the wonders of evolution, who make me laugh mate. And the ladies--my goodness me--

No wonder a few fainted when Darwin unveiled his masterwork.

One of Darwin's pals said he laughed all the way through Origins. I imagine he must have thought that it was an extended metaphor for the workings of the female mind in its deeper levels.

Have you any idea, Frank, what else he must have been thinking. It's hardly a bundle of laughs read any other way as far as I can see.

Maybe the reason Darwin got himself cooped up with Fitzroy for 5 years, 5 years Frank, with that silly sod, think on that in your prime, was to get away from the machinations of the county heiresses for a bit. And their mothers.

I try to see a man in the round. That's what biographies help you do. And your own experience of yourself.

PS. Am I imagining things? I think there were three words in that which break the "i" before "e" except after "c" rule. ******* teachers eh?

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@Frank Apisa,

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In any case, whether it is or is not "begging the question" is not in any way impacted by you acknowledging or denying that it is or is not.

I didn't deny it Frank. I proved it. To my own satisfaction at least. If it satisfies you to believe I only denied it go ahead.

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@spendius,

I mean to say Frank--what does it tell the world about one's beloved wife and family when one shells out a load of dough to embark on a round the world balloon record breaking attempt?

I think a lady has every right to have a go with the window-cleaner with a news report on the telly showing him at 50,000 ft above Nepal and sending a message home hoping they are managing without him alright.

Do you not?

I'm not talking about tours of duty.

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@spendius,

Ummmm...

...jeez, maybe I didn't make myself clear.

What I meant to say was: "Don't spend a lot of time on this."

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@Frank Apisa,

TAG!!. Now its your turn to water it .

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank--do you normally go about instructing people what to do and what not to do?

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@spendius,

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Frank--do you normally go about instructing people what to do and what not to do?

Is that truly how you view my comment, Spendius...or are you just in a bad mood?

I certainly didn't mean it that way at all.

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@Frank Apisa,

Prof Hepburn of Edinburgh University allows that a morality in the absence of a non-human authority is "at least reasonable" but, he wrote-

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..it must be acknowleged, nevertheless, that religions have played an important role in moral learning......Any number of central moral notions, attitudes, qualities of character, have in fact come to general awareness only or chiefly through religious teachers.

For myself I would dispense with the "or chiefly".

I do not see how an atheistic society of any seriousness could have anything other than regultory commands at the disposal of the elite which is composed of human beings. Hence our endless fascination with immorality among elites.

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A decision about accepting or rejecting the claims of theistic language to have a real object must be based on a holistic judgment. Do we do more damage to our overall experience of the world if we reject theistic paradoxes and the perilously stretched analogies than if we retain them? And this is a test we can carry out only roughly, since what we think of as our 'experience cannot be more than partially extracted from the 'interpreted' --religious or agnostic or atheist--views of the world, between which we are attempting to make a reasoned decision.

By a "real object" he means a social consequence in this world.

effemm & Co blankly refuse to consider social consequences. For four years I have tried to get anti-IDers to consider social consequences and to no effect.

They make no attempt to make a "reasoned decision" on such a vital matter. And he ends up with snidey shafts of sarcasm such as his last post as a justification for shoving his one view up all our asses and without any discussion of which he doesn't approve. Should any arise it goes on Ignore and with such a toodo and fanfare that one might think, if one was ultra stupid, that such a pathetic gambit wins him the point and the intellectual high ground.

It is easy, even tempting, to promote atheism in a Christian society as it gets you noticed and you can come out with a range of insults and denigrations but what has an atheist to say in the company of 300.000.000 atheists? I suspect that if one has a need to insult and denigrate one might become a theist in such circumstances. An excuse to vent off steam.

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Prof Hepburn readily allows that religious language is-

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....cosmogony, historical narrative, myth, moral discourse, as well as blessing and cursing, confessing, adoring. It crucially involves metaphor, symbol, analogy, parable, paradox. It is, typically, language avowing the inexpressible, unconceptualizable nature of its object, or the indescribability of mystical experiences which nevertheless it strives to express. Given the diversity of religious language, there can be no single way of confirming or rebutting its many and complex claims.

It's just all a load of superstitious crap to effemm with no further opinions needed.

Did, for example, Narcissus really drown in his own pellucid reflection or is the story merely a warning of the dangers of self-regard. To prove that Narcissus never existed does nothing concerning that danger. Similarly, to point to those characteristics of religious language says nothing of the value of them nor of the value of the art and science which has been derived from them.

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What is happening on this thread is an example of "confirmation bias" and "superiority bias". It's what happened on Wall Street.

Looking for evidence selectively that confirms one views and one's superiority. A claque of like minded views, the comfort of the mob, reward, and opposing views on Ignore, reinforces the "superiority bias" which feedsback to bolster the confirmation bias. This confirmation nexus causes a release of testosterone which is addictive. It causes male attitudes to come to the fore. Big machines, big technical words, stentorian tough talk, loud voices, shirt buttons popping. The Discovery Institute have "stepped on their dicks". Assertion in bar-room language. The Claque becomes the route to those things.

Opposing views are feared. They might be right and create, instead of testosterone, cortisol production responding to stress, which elevates blood pressure and prepares the body for a fight or flight response. When the fight can't be won flight kicks in. The Ignore button. Get off the thread blurtings. Insults. Let the thread die. Not answering any points. Hunting in packs. Bad sportsmanship. Bad manners. Bellowings like a bull walrus.

Could be compensation for regular, unremitting henpecking I suppose. That's what the psychologists reckon and they claim to be scientists.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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