Posted on 08/25/2005 3:17:05 PM PDT by curiosity
We've seen the little symbols on the backs of cars: The "Jesus fish" and the "Darwin fish." The Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish. The Darwin fish eating the Jesus fish. It makes for entertainment while commuting, but this front of the culture wars won't be won or lost on the freeway.
The creationists realized that they were not getting enough traction in their bumper- sticker campaign against the theory of evolution. So biblical literalists have come up with a new strategy: leave the word "God" out of the public argument, and come up with one that sounds more scientific. It's called "intelligent design." President Bush has endorsed it as one of the theories of life's origins that should be taught in public schools.
But it isn't a theory at all. "Intelligent design" posits that the structure of life is so complex and delicate that it is unimaginable that it could have come into existence without having been designed by some intelligent force. Therefore such an intelligence must be responsible for it. But this is a conclusion that can be reached only by assuming that it is true in the first place -- a classic tautology, or example of circular reasoning, which has no place in science.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Yeah, like anyone who believes in God is going to get their theology from San Francisco.
The San Francesspool has a problem with God. Breaking news.
Faith and Science Ping.
blah. I durnt theenk dis is up ta snuff.
The San Francesspool has a problem with God. Breaking news.
------
Yes, and I can understand why. Even God could not have dreamed-up and created the FREAKS that inhabit that cesspool of perversion.
Yup, already the writer is being tendentious, in the second paragraph. The ID folks (whether or not they're right) acknowledge deep geological time, and some of them also acknowledge descent from a common ancestor. They're not young Earth creationists; they're not wedded to a literal reading of Genesis.
Anyway, you see this kind of argument regularly. The NY Times indulged in this just the other day in an editorial that suggested that ID proponents just don't appreciate deep geological time.
Amen. Whenever I have to drive through SF I make sure to have my asbestos windshield wipers on the car just in case brimstone starts raining down from Heaven.
I don't think this writer understands either religion or science. Evidently he got his reverendship from some sort of mail order divinity school.
ID Theory in a nutshell....There is order in the universe so there must be an Intelligent Designer.
"Yup, already the writer is being tendentious, in the second paragraph. The ID folks (whether or not they're right) acknowledge deep geological time, and some of them also acknowledge descent from a common ancestor. They're not young Earth creationists; they're not wedded to a literal reading of Genesis."
Did you RTFA? He criticizes Intelligent Design as a tautology that explains nothing. That didn't require any kind of straw man.
Likewise, the theory of evolution doesn't detract from our sense of awe and divine humility in the face of the miracle that is life. On the contrary. It's even more awesome, even more humbling, even more divinely majestic to consider that all this living diversity emerged from something akin to random trial and error. To consider that a rose is a result of such a prosaic process: what a marvel! And to think that trial and error, survival of the fittest, led to the human experience of awe ... this, too, is divine. I associate God with my experience of holy wonder, rather than thinking of God as an "intelligent designer" who exists apart from the universe, tinkering with it from afar. Evolution just gives me one more reason to be awestruck.
He "Get's It."
Great post. Thanks.
Less so than the opposite.
...And as broadly defined as the author described, it is merely a debate of context.
Doesn't ID generally include a more specific idea than that? If not, then it is a stupid argument to engage in until one has decided whether there A) is a God, and B) said God is interactive.
This leads me to believe that the author starts off by misstating the argument and goes off into the wild blue yonder from there.
"Yeah, like anyone who believes in God is going to get their theology from San Francisco."
right now, I'm just glad I hadn't just taken a drink when I read your post...
Depends on whose version.
Behe claims that it is impossible for "irreducibly complex" biological systems to have evolved. From this he concludes they must have been designed.
The most common procedure is to have a few drinks, and then try to make sense of my posts.
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