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To: curiosity

I'll tell you why I am comfortably with Intelligent Design, although I will expect you're really NOT going to like the analysis.

Here's the truth: I hear the two words and take them literally. "Intelligent Design", as in, "God made everything"?
Sure. I have no problem with that.

So, Darwinian natural selection was the way by which God made his choices. "Chance" evolution happens, how? Some gene mutates. Why that gene? A cosmic ray hit it by chance. Why? God did it.

Darwinian evolution and natural selection are completely compatible with a very traditionalist Catholic view of the will of God, which sees in luck and "random" chance itself the purposeful CHOICE of God. (God CHOOSES the lottery winner, because what looks like chance to US is, of course, under the command of God). So, from our perspective, there is what science calls entropy, disorder and randomness. But from a traditional Catholic religious perspective, these are just the inscrutable parts of the natural universe where God makes His choices and decisions.

And when looked at through those very Catholic eyes, there is full compatibility between random Darwinian natural selection over eons of years, and the active will of God...because random luck events are in fact directed decisions of God, operating in override of the clockwork of natural laws.

"Chance" does not exist. God directs the outcome of every throw of the dice. That's intensely Catholic, mystical and medieval.

And obviously if you hold THAT view of cosmology, then Intelligent Design and random Darwinian Natural Selection are utterly and perfectly congruent, and there is no conflict between them, because "random" mutation is, in fact, the conscious decision of God, somewhere, somehow, and so "random" mutations are intelligently planned, and the result is intelligently designed.

Catholicism is a mystical religion. And that's how Catholics look at those words "Intelligent Design". Press a Catholic, and he'll tell you that God chose the Nebraska lottery winner, which would mean that God chose the balls to fall as they did in the lottery draw. Lottery outcomes are intelligent design.

That's why Catholics don't have any problem with the concept of intelligent design. They're nice words, and they fit perfectly well within the Catholic view of the universe. I support Intelligent Design, because I have decided that's what those words mean, and most Catholics are like me.
Have I actually READ what Intelligent Design proponents say? No. I'm not even interested, because I already KNOW how life evolved and how we got here, like most Catholics do. God made the world and life and people, evolution is how he did it. All science can do is give us details about something we already know.

This is an utterly MADDENING viewpoint...to the perspective of folks outside of it who are pressing an agenda. Catholics support "Intelligent Design" in the sense that they look at those two words and apply them literally to what they already believed, in precisely the fashion I have mentioned. That's what I think (know) "Intelligent Design" means, so I support "Intelligent Design." Of course I have never taken the time to actually read any of the pamphlets or any other material published by either intelligent design theorists or very much creationist stuff either.

This is probably the most maddening thing about religious and philosophical differences in general, and Catholics in particular. They'll take the same words and apply them to mean what THEY mean by them, and will take no care at all to try and use the words in the way that the original users meant them.

Catholics support "Intelligent Design" as I have described it. If that's not what Intelligent Design theorists mean by intelligent design, then they'd better adopt some new words, because that's what Catholics mean by it, and Catholics never change their vocabulary, or anything else, to suit social norms. (Of course, changing the terminology to something like "Directed Development" or, really, anything else, won't resolve this issue either, because Catholics will just adopt those words and graft them onto their pre-existing belief set without further ado. That's how we got Christmas trees, after all.)


464 posted on 02/20/2006 2:17:29 PM PST by Vicomte13 (La Reine est gracieuse, mais elle n'est pas gratuit.)
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To: Vicomte13

If that's not what Intelligent Design theorists mean by intelligent design, then they'd better adopt some new words,

It's not and after the Dover case they will be adopting new words.

You're version of ID is not what the controversy is about. The version of ID promoted by the Discovery Institute (the preeminent ID think tank in the US) states that the ID'er intervenes in evolution in a way that is not natural (that is, not random mutation) and that is not knowable by a science that admits only natural explanations. The Discovery Institute actually wants to change the definition of science to admit supernatural explanations. The school board of the state of Kansas has recently attempted to do just that.

489 posted on 02/20/2006 2:37:51 PM PST by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads)
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To: Vicomte13
I like your analysis.

But be careful with terminology. The words "intelligent design" are not used to describe your outlook. It's prepostrous, but they have come to mean the garbage coming out the the Discovery Institute, the notion that some things are simply too complex to have evolved in a Darwinian manner.

What you are describing, which I to some extent agree with, would be better termed "providential design."

1,598 posted on 02/22/2006 1:34:17 PM PST by curiosity
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