Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

That is what you have been trying to set up, right Set.

So here it is, let's see what you do with it.

You are a liar, Frank, you started this ****. Here's a perfect example of the passive-aggressive hatefulness you've been spewing since you got back.



You're delusional if you think you're significant enough in my life to make me unhappy, although i don't doubt that you think you can make me angry. Don't make that mistake, though, don't confuse contempt and disgust for anger, "Old Buddy." You may pity me to your heart's content. There's not a shred of truth in what you have written, although i'm sure you hope it would come true that you make me angry.

The fact of the matter is, after all these years, you have nothing to add to your silly, puerile arguments about agnosticism, which you think you can elevante to a position of moral and intellectual superiority. But it's not superior, it's not even equivalent to the honesty of the other members who have posted here, and who have ripped your pathetic arguments to shreds. You sneer when people point out to you the inconsistency of your agnostic attitudes, which don't extend to fairies, pixies and elves--it only applies to the question of god. That's because you're hidebound by your own upbringing and your participation in a theistic culture, but you're too dishonest to acknowledge it.

I pity you Frank, you're obviously such an unhappy and angry person, no doubt because everybody here has made a monkey out you in debate, and they're laughing up their sleeves at you.

Nope...you started it Set.

I did say, "As I've said before, I do pity you, because you seem like such an unhappy person--and so unnecessarily and inappropriately given to anger!"

And you do seem like an unhappy person...unnecessarily and inappropriately given to anger. And I do pity you.

Try to get back under control. All this anger is bad for your blood pressure.

Your questions are impossible to answer and true atheists do not make the attempt and I am taking the side of a true atheist. They are without gods. They have an absence of a belief in gods. They don’t have to assert that there is not enough evidence to make a guess that there are no gods as you do:



Your narrow view of agnosticism which is not Huxley’s is: that you include ‘all gods’ i.e. ‘the set of all gods’. The consequence of your position is that an infinite number of gods could exist. This is consistent with the agnostic view you are propounding.

This is a consequence of your own logic and the inference that can be derived from your assertion. It therefore must follow (due to you not being able to see enough evidence to exclude an infinite number of gods) that there could be gods that only exist if someone holds the view that someone e.g. you think:



This would mean that something that was true - i.e. a god that exists when you or anyone thinks in the way quoted by you above - could not be known to be true when it was true. The gods exist because of your lack of evidence that they neither exist or do not exist.

You pride yourself on your logic (refer to your remarks to set earlier and also in other posts) being better than an atheist's but they do not fall into the logical trap that you are in. Real atheists do not hold a view about gods… they are without gods.

I have other logical refutations of your position but I’ll explain them when you’ve explained why your agnosticism isn't defeated by the logic shown.

So in answer to your questions I do not have to answer in the way you want me to because I’m an atheist and am wise enough to know that they cannot be answered in the way you want me to because of the logical errors I have shown above. This is my answer so don’t reply in your usual way (which comes across as excessively controlling) that I’ve not answered your questions. I told you in an earlier post the things are not just black & white there are other options available… some early logic failed because of this 'is or is not approach'.

Your are less logical that an atheist… Frank.

My questions are not "impossible to answer." But it is easier for you to evade them...and that is your right.

If you feel your atheism is more logical than "I do not know"...go for it.

I have other logical refutations of your position but I’ll explain them when you’ve explained why your agnosticism isn't defeated by the logic shown.

I've answered them but not as you wanted me to. They are answered. See my main reply above. You are illogical and you defend your illogical brand of agnosticism with two trite questions... ad nauseum.

Look at the time stamp... you ... after reading my post... could not have considered my reply for more than a minute or so. You are a 'windup merchant' and you have no interest in having a debate unless you can control every word... Frank I hope you've shown all those who know you... what you've come back after all these years to do i.e. your true intent.

Igm, I have taken questions from a host of atheists here…and answered, to the best of my ability all of them.

Now I am asking you a few questions…and you essentially are saying that you cannot answer them.

The questions are: What evidence do you see that gods exist? What evidence do you see that gods do not exist?

I do not blame you for evading them…I guess if I were an atheist, I would do my best to evade them also.

But to suggest that because you are a “true atheist”, you cannot answer them, is absurd.

Now you are getting all upset.

Calm down…and if you want to re-consider the questions, do so. If not, don’t.

The questions, once again, are:

What evidence do you see that gods exist?

What evidence do you see that gods do not exist?

(HELPFUL HINT: It is glaringly obvious that you do not see any evidence that gods exist…and you do not see any evidence that gods do not exist. Your hypothetical was not an actually hypothetical at all…it was the true answer. You just do not want to give it. But in the end it will make you feel better about yourself if you just answer the questions honestly. So do so.)

You do have a problem Frank as I tried to point out in my post concerning the Crusoe and Pure Visitor myths. It is not very easy to explain in this format. But I'll try.

It is normal to support values with certainties. That the world is of such and such a nature shores up values. Loss of confidence in the certainties undermines the values. Doubt damages faith and if faith crumbles the moral structures based on the faith also crumble. That applies to atheist regimes as well as regimes based on another type of faith.

You are saying that doubt or ignorance provide a rationale for a moral structure. It is the classic liberal and existential position. The liberal preaches toleration on the grounds that if the truth cannot be known no source of truth can be justifiably suppressed. The existentialist preaches that no doctrine can give us knowledge of who or what we are.

The liberal can be accused of not favouring liberty as such but only as a corollary which would, of course, lapse if the truth became known. That's why liberals are repressive on getting power. The power defines truth.

In your case the truth can't ever be known. It's a sort of sour grapes position. We cannot possess certainty and therefore we are tolerant but we are certain that we cannot possess certainty. So we have no way of knowing what to tolerate or what not to tolerate. Yours is a negative certainty. It leads nowhere. It's catatonic. Only biological urges are then valid which is possibly what you are arguing for. Having no position on God or no-God is having no position on anything. Biological urges are not intellectual positions. A no-God regime becomes God. It imposes culture and social structure possibly starting with a blank sheet of paper.

Liberalism as freedom within the limits of non-interference with the freedom of others is sociologically and psychologically unrealistic. The words "culture" and "social structure" would then have no meaning. But cultures and social structures are collective expressions embracing how social environments mould every aspect of our lives. Even our thoughts.

Would we be free if the constraints and pressures of culture were lifted. Are birds free from the chains of the skyways?

Your position envisages a non-social and self-sufficient island consciousness (Crusoe) and defines toleration as non-interference with that trench. Obviously no such last redoubt exists in a complex culture which is what you are enmeshed in for better or for worse.

Even thought is necessarily conditioned by language which is the prime cultural artefact. So even thought cannot be a last bastion. Our culture even determines our dreams. The language is not of our own making. It is taken over as a given, and urban slang is not an exception, from a linguistic store the culture keeps.

The ultimate essence of our being is socially formed. We allow some tinkering but even the tinkering is socially determined. For example, Om Sig David wants to tinker with spelling on the grounds of efficiency. As Bernard Shaw and others do and did. But efficiency itself is a cultural value.

So liberty might be defined as a toleration of tinkering reforms but within the general cultural context in order to prevent congealing and rigidity. Going outside that context is revolutionary.

No doctrine can possess certainty because it would cease to be a doctrine if it could. If only certainty be acceptable the word doctrine and its tsunamis become redundant or even non-existent. Then society would congeal. Science seems to me to be trying to bring that about. Or I suppose I ought to say spokespersons for science who hardly know what science is. People seeking power and influence riding on the skirts of science. Like the NCSE and its poor bloody infantry.

To treat one's own identifications as an objective fact, or even a society's own identifications, commits mauvaise foi (self deception) because those identifications are chosen and not necessary and given. Your position is chosen Frank. You have respect for one type of truth: namely, not treating as certain that which is not certain. And you have chosen it. It did not come as a result of being born with it. Why you have chosen that truth I will leave for you to ponder or maybe others to speculate upon.

But it is certain that there is a God or there is not a God, as you continually remind us.

Both historically and sociologically your truth is minoritarian and most people who study these matters think it has to be.

Okay--people, and societies, overestimate their certainties in regard to their beliefs. Most people suppose, I think correctly, that their social role, their self-image and their persona is not chosen but a given and that that is the natural and normal condition of humanity. One might expect resistance to such a supposition to be strongest in the USA and especially in cities but it is easily argued that it is self-indulgent and born of the hubris associated with affluence. That it is elitist. Solipsistic. Playpen shite. Not suitable for a mature man of experience and distinction who can occasionally go round a golf course in under 90.

Most roles contain strong elements of necessity, vocation and imposition and it is very doubtful whether a society thinking otherwise could survive at all.

You simply don't wish to think that Jesus wants you for a sunbeam and nor do you wish to think you are a clockwork orange.

Your position is absurd. Get thee to a cave. It might make sense there.

My blood pressure is fine, always has been. I see you have nothing going for you, but i already knew that. All you can offer is an attempt to suggest that you are the voice of cool reason. It's pathetic, because you have no intellectual position here that we haven't heard a thousand times. All you cling to is your religioius litany of phony agonsticism. Everyone here has better debate skills than you. Everyone here has gone right to the heart of what passes for logic at your house. Everyone here has seen the flaw in your argument, and thrown it back at you. You make a special case of the question of whether or not there is a god, because your agnosticism is false. Everyone here has pointed it out to you. You have nothing.

Thank you for sharing that, Set.



Ah...but you keep responding to me. So in effect, I've got you...and that is not nothing.

Glad your blood pressure is okay. You are so out of control I was beginning to worry.

See, more of the passive-aggressive bullshit. I'm not out of control, and you have nothing intellectual going on here. Everyone has seen it, everyone has pointed it out. It's pathetic really. I guess you're the last to know.

Hey, Spendius.

You wrote:

At no point have I been asking for "certainty"...or for "proof."

In fact, I have gone out of my way to point out that I AM NOT looking for certainty or for proof.

My questions to igm (and to everyone else here) are:

What evidence do you see that gods exist?

What evidence do you see that gods do not exist?

What the hell…let me add the follow-up questions to see what happens with them also.

Do you see any evidence to indicate that the existence of a GOD or gods is necessary to explain existence?

Do you see any evidence to indicate that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible?

Please cite it so we can discuss it.

NOTE: I AM NOT asking for “certainty” as Spendius erroneously suggests…and I am not asking for “proof.” I am merely asking what evidence you see for any of these things…so we can discuss that “evidence.”

I don't think you understood my post Frank. Or the other one.

I don't understand yours either.

You say--"At no point have I been asking for "certainty"...or for "proof." "

And then you say--"Please cite it so we can discuss it."

What sort of society do you prefer? One with a God/s or one with no God?

You will have noticed no doubt Frank there there is a physiognomic difference of some importance between our God societies and roughly equivalent No-God societies.

Portraits and statues of our Great Leaders are not on prominent display as they are in No-God societies. In fact we all know that our Great Leaders are a bunch of cunning assholes. In No-God societies they are the great father and the source of all wisdom. You can be shot for laughing at them. Here you get a TV programme to do it.

In your ideal society where everyone would think as you do what would be your compromise between these two facts of appearance?

I understood your post, Spendius...and I get that you did not understand mine.

These were your words exactly:




I have NEVER claimed that "the truth can’t ever be known"…although I do KNOW that “the truth” whatever it is, MAY never be known. If "the truth" is that there is a GOD (a personal GOD wanting to make its presence known)...it would have no trouble whatever in doing so in an unambiguous way. If "the truth" is that there are NO GODS...then I can think of no way that can ever be known.

As for the “certainty” comment…I simply wanted to point out that I HAVE NEVER asked for certainty.




I don’t prefer one over the other…and I don’t see that it would matter. Either there are gods (or is a GOD) or there are no gods. Society is functioning whichever it is.

Obviously you never saw pictures from Iraq when Saddam Hussein was its "president." His was a GOD society...and there were pictures of the Great Leader all over the place. Rome had gods...Egypt had gods...both had pictures of Great Leader all over the place. Italy during the days of Mussolini was a GOD society...Hitler was a catholic, never excommunicated.



I thought they were cunning linguists.



You should have lived in Spain during the Inquisition...and made this argument. That would have generated lots of laughs...but I suspect not for the person making the argument.

Lots of unqualified, unbounded assertions here - none of them true.

Actually Frank it struck me, as I was mucking and foddering the beasts, which were making a racket because I had neglected them when writing my longer post, that in your ideal society you could have portraits of the great leader in sepia-toned soft focus in medium sizes and the comics on the TV programmes can only do their worst jokes on pain of being transported to somewhere north of Canada.

I am assuming you are uncertain whether or not to have a great leader as there is no objective proof that having a great leader is better, or worse, than not having one from an evolutionary perspective. And it is unsatisfying intellectually to not have a position on the matter on the basis that there is no objective proof.

With "the meek will inherit the earth" Jesus predicts that not having a great leader is adapted for evolutionary success. Spiro Agnew notwithstanding.