Even if God is an intelligent designer, there is no reason not to study the design.
In a nutshell, the crevo threads all revolve around the following problem: Science started out with the intention of studying God's handiwork. Even Islam considered science to have this intention. Until about 1800, science had intelligent design as its fundamental paradigm. Then trouble erupted in geology, because the detailed study of strata didn't support the flood story. Over the next hundred years evidence accumulated for an earth that was much older than the age calculated through the Genesis geneology.
The age of the earth problem did not trouble many theologians until Darwin suggested an alternate story for the history of living things. The key problem with Darwinism is not that things change, but that there is no direction to the change -- the living system has free will, so to speak. Apparently it is OK for people to have free will, but not for the universe as a whole. You can see this problem most clearly in the desperate posts of f.Christian, which while syntactically disorganized, clearly display the fear that life (assuming evolution) has no direction and (therefore) no meaning. This is the fear that drives these debates.
Don't open that can of worms :-)
You can see this problem most clearly in the desperate posts of f.Christian,
I think Fletch likes to give the needle and keep the thread bumped in an unique and original fashion.
Good post.
Theologians thought they were in hot water when science began to discover the age of the substances around us. It did not square, at least on the surface of it, with what the Bible teaches. Just like evolutionists, they scrambled to concoct defenses and explanations that really didn't hold much weight.
What they seemed not to understand is that the universe will demonstate very well not only figures in the billions of years, but even to infinity. Science demonstrates fairly well these days that the laws of nature we've so long observed and calculated may not always apply the same way at any given time or place, black holes not withstanding.
So, walking on water, physically passing through locked doors, changing water into wine, etc. are not at all scientifically implausible, especially given the fact that there is relatively more space in what we see as a solid object than there is between the earth and the sun. Especially given the fact that science has yet to adequately account for the energy that permeates the universe.
So, I'm glad science has progessed to this point without having to constantly remind me that God did it. Heck, I don't care if they make these discoveries while avowing with great certainly to themselves "there is no God." I know already that He not only whipped all this stuff up, but that He will continue to sustain and govern it until He decides to pick up His marbles and end the game as we know it.
Each new scientific discovery confirms these things all the more. It is rather delightful to see so many peon scientists employed by God without their even knowing it, so that they may incidentally confirm to me what I already know, and what even a five-year-old knows.