Posted on 08/22/2005 3:29:51 AM PDT by Pharmboy
At the heart of the debate over intelligent design is this question: Can a scientific explanation of the history of life include the actions of an unseen higher being?
The proponents of intelligent design, a school of thought that some have argued should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools, say that the complexity and diversity of life go beyond what evolution can explain.
Biological marvels like the optical precision of an eye, the little spinning motors that propel bacteria and the cascade of proteins that cause blood to clot, they say, point to the hand of a higher being at work in the world.
In one often-cited argument, Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and a leading design theorist, compares complex biological phenomena like blood clotting to a mousetrap: Take away any one piece - the spring, the baseboard, the metal piece that snags the mouse - and the mousetrap stops being able to catch mice.
Similarly, Dr. Behe argues, if any one of the more than 20 proteins involved in blood clotting is missing or deficient, as happens in hemophilia, for instance, clots will not form properly.
Such all-or-none systems, Dr. Behe and other design proponents say, could not have arisen through the incremental changes that evolution says allowed life to progress to the big brains and the sophisticated abilities of humans from primitive bacteria.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If you really believed that, you would not be answering me, would you? In fact I'm just following the chain of the internal logic of your belief system and apparently I've touched a nerve because you're now resorting to insults.
Or do you simply fall back on feel-good platitudes when you have nothing else to say.
Do you call the arguments of others "feel-good" platitudes when you cannot refute them?
Do you have any idea of the meaning of "enlightened self-interest?"
I know what it means -- it is an idea based on the assumption that people who believe it is in their self-interest to see to the welfare of others will always be a large enough percentage of the population to ensure the existence of civilization. Human nature and human history say "fuhget about it" because it is based on the ever shifting sands of mob rule.
Any truly good civilization has to be based on something that either is, or is at least perceived, to be eternal and transcendent. "Enlightened self-interest" is neither eternal nor transcendent.
Besides, it is irrelevant to my point, which is that any philosophy that presupposes no God and no afterlife saws off the very branch it is sitting on, like the lefty war protesters who say that there is no objective morality and in the same breath call the war immoral.
You cannot have a philosophy without stipulating that life has inherent meaning and purpose (unless nihilism is your philosophy).
Yet you cannot say there is no God and no afterlife where justice and mercy are finally made perfect and still profess that life has inherent meaning and purpose. At that point, everything becomes purely subjective and life has no transcendent meaning that is independent of what anyone thinks of it. Your moods and emotions of the moment are the law that is rewritten minute by minute. There are no facts, no truth; only opinions, desires, impulses and appetites.
That you airily dismiss whole fields of ethics and philosophy as the "movement of meaningless molecules in a meaningless universe" does not speak well of your intellectual abilities.
In other words, that I disagree with you means I'm stupid.
Follow what I said: If we just live and die by chance in a universe that came into existence by chance, all the "enlightened self-interest", all the fields of ethics and philosophy -- all fields of learning PERIOD, that have ever been or will ever be -- are meaningless. Your life and every life is just a bunch stuff that happens for no reason at all. Everything is futile.
You can pretend that life has meaning and purpose, but at the end of the day, like a child playing make believe cops and robbers with his friends, darkness comes and you have to stop playing and go to sleep, never to wake up again.
A single species is a population where gene flow can occur between the extremes of morphology within the species.
***Thanks for posting that. When I read about a Lion & Tiger mating to form a Liger, and it's capable of reproducing, does that mean that Lion & Tiger are in the same species?
Rights, like freedom, are not free. Along with inalienable rights comes responsibility. Irresponsibly violating somebody elses rights means Uncle gets a crack at you. It's all right there in the DOI and Constitution.
Well, then allow me to return your compliment ;)
In your world, yes it is irrelevant, the guy that punched your ticket just goes merrily along his way.
Rights are a concept, you can't shoot them, you can't cut the throat of one with a kabar and you can't blow them up. They transcend your life and mine. Wonderful little things.
Which always comes down to which interpretation of God.
Noted.
Your answer focuses only on human perception. There either is a God or there isn't, and this is a fact utterly independent of what anyone thinks of it or how anyone perceives it:
a) If there is a God, then this does not change at all; only human perception of God changes from time to time and person to person.
b) If there is no God, then this (along with everything else in the universe) does not matter.
The Bible does exactly that. And besides, life is about far more than just avoidance of difficulty and pain.
They'd better not be presenting abiogenesis at all in relation to evolution.
Unless they also want to do such things as teach plant taxonomy as a part of astronomy.
ID of course can be taught in a philosophy class, or it can be held up as a bad example of pseudo science in a biology class...sort of "this is what not to do if you think you're doing research"
As for your 400 scientists, check PatrickHenry's home page for sites that thoroughly debunk that.
You are right, of course. I was dealing primarily with human and property rights in the bible in terms of Israelite 'foreign policy'. Within the nation of Israel itself, laws about property rights, human rights, etc., etc., were very extensive, detailed, meticulous and, as I said before, very cutting edge.
Indeed, the progressive expansion of rights and the progressive inclusion of the deliberately dienfranchised in the US has, in a great many instances, been achieved despite agressive, scripturally based arguments to the contrary.
Ultimately, I tend to agree with those who argue that the plural social construct we now take for granted was much more the product of evolving western "legalities" than any appreciation for, or adherence to, Christian precepts. Indeed, I would argue that it was a necessity in most instances to deliberately separate rationales for the protection of perceived rights from religious justifications because explicit Biblical antecedents are somewhat scarce, and because there is wide (and emotional) disagreement about the proper interpretation of the Biblical antecedents that do exist.
Try the Decalogue.
Actually it refers to three, the three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three preach that everything will be sorted out justly in the afterlife. P.S. Likewise I'm failing to see your point.
But America did not take the land at the express behest of God, who some are claiming is the source of all rights.
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