Posted on 10/07/2007 7:15:09 PM PDT by monomaniac
Somebody has definitely called the idiots.
I agree...it is frightening. I think many ID people are confused. They think the lack of specific details in something like Evolution by Natural Selection means that anything goes and people can drop anything they want into the suggestion box: giant turtles, indivisible spiritual entities etc. But the whole ID premise is: We can’t understand anything so don’t try.
I’ve yet to see any ID theory. A theory lays out specifics details for a process and makes predictions. It will replace Evolution at each juncture. It will be a very detailed set of books on exactly how God designed/created each part and why. Animal by animal. IDers want to jump in and say God did it in an intangible way, and that’s it, let’s go home. The world’s shortest science book.
By what method does God compute? Specifically, if God is intelligently designing everything, he must have astounding computing power. Is God a quantum computer the size of the Universe?
By what methods does God interact with the Universe without violating 1st and 2nd laws of TD (or is he integrated into our system?).
At some point a complex theory may be able to model how energy from the Sun cast to a place like Earth can lead, statistically, to the formation of complex bio system via the thermodynamic gradient. It may demonstrate how very complex systems can flourish, and with the help of something like Natural Selection, life can arise and grow.
But IDers don’t even want to bother. They just want to throw their hands up in the air and say “It’s too hard...no way it happened through Natural Selection...God did it. Let’s give up and go sing songs instead.”
We tried that folks. It’s called the way life was before the Renaissance. Medieval ID produced a big fat Zero in its efforts to stave of death and disease. Oh, right, keep science around to solve the real problems, but when it comes to answering the questions, we’ll ask St. Thomas Aquinas.
If you want to purport that an entity without parts can interact with this Universe (even design things in it), then lay out a theory for how this is done. I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m saying lay your theory on the table in some mathematical formulation which will define how something without parts computes.
Another hint: a theory for how God interacts here without violating TD.
etc
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Typical liberal response. They'll dish it out all day, but don't ever think about doing the same to them, or they'll squeal "unfair"!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I don’t quite see your point with the wedge doctrine. An organization like the Discovery Institute may well want to promote a view of science that is more consistant with Theism but that hardly means that their scientiffic arguments are invalid.
Here are some of the arguments that I find to be the most persuasive. First, have you looked into any of Dr. Behe’s arguments for design - I think they make a very compelling case that many of the cellular biological mechanisms are very complex machines that could not have developed through a process of random mutation and natural selection. Second, Evolution has a huge problem explaining the development of new protein’s. Given the length of even a simple protein chain, statistically, you would need most of the supposed evolutionary time table to expect to randomly generate even one new simple protein. This is a huge problem for evolution since a partially coded protein produces no benefit to the organism and thus natural selection cannot solve this statistical problem.
Have you perhaps indelicately forgotten about the Neanderthals? And others?
ID isn’t a theory. It was a theory, a long time ago. It was the only theory. I’d be prepared to accept the ID theory again on one condition: If that theory produced results.
But as I said in my last post, medieval theology produced zero results.
No cures. No end to pain and suffering. Cluelessness about everyting. That’s its legacy.
Here they had God himself in charge and couldn’t figure out the Earth wasn’t the center of the Universe.
They had the Great Designer himself in charge and couldn’t defeat Plague. After all, God designed plague or one of its ancestors. Surely God must have known something about how to stop it.
I just don’t see how people can take ID seriously.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
You wrote: “The actual title of Darwins book regarding the Evolution Theory is: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life. It was used to justify slavery.”
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My response: So? It wasn’t used BY DARWIN to justify slavery. Besides, the Bible was used to justify slavery. If you’ve read the Bible, you know that God approves of slavery.
Pretty much inarguable.
However, a reasonable conjecture is that Neanderthals were sentient. My hackles rose when it was suggested that no other species possessed sentience.
It is a matter of little difference. The argument that sentience must be produced if naturalism is true is a flawed argument anyway.
That dream of environmentalist whackos, an Earth without man, would not disprove or prove the existence of a creator. In fact, such a situation is a necessary precursor to the appearance of intelligence, both for creationists and naturalists.
It is my understanding that God recognizes the existence of slavery, not condones it, where can I find this in the bible?
I checked out the site and bookmarked, thanks for the link.
You wrote:”It is my understanding that God recognizes the existence of slavery, not condones it, where can I find this in the bible?”
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My response: You can find it in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. God doesn’t just recognize that slavery exists. God believes it is OK to enslave another human being, but note: It is a major sin to covet another man’s slave, so much so that it made its way into Gods list of major no-nos. Think of it this way. God has many picayune rules and concerns himself with a lot of details you or I might consider unimportant. Don’t mix wool and linen, for example. You might say God is a micromanager. The “Top Ten” list of no-no’s, according to God, contains the biggies, however, delivered with burning bush. The Top Ten includes a rule against coveting your neighbor’s wife, or just as importantly, his donkey. Or his slave. Obviously, here was God’s golden opportunity to prohibit slavery, and all he could think of was how wrong it would be to want your neighbor’s slave for yourself.
I’ll check it out, thanks
It even has one or more "demigods" ~ to wit, "natural selection".
You've got to wake up and smell the e coli being modified so we can test out all the millions of wild DNA molecules and RNA molecules in the oceans to see what they do (or are s'posed to do). Once that task is done, we can get back on this evolution thing and see if what we are looking at (in terms of life on Earth) is driven by spare parts cooked up elsewhere some time in the past by someone/something or mathematical determinism (whereupon we shall turn the whole business over to the math department), or yet some other process.
I seriously doubt the existence of the "demigods" hypothesized as controllers for biological change.
The main guy here simply wants to test wild DNA molecules found in the ocean (he's found more than 2 million of them himself).
Eventually I would imagine he'll start cutting and pasting "introns" from our own genome, and might even copy over our "cut and paste" routine into his test bed so he can get a more sophisticated result.
I see Godzilla in our future eh?!?!?!?!
Behe's arguments have been largely refuted by the scientific community. Many of the arguments in his first book don't even show up in his most recent book.
Also, check out the reviews of his most recent book. They are pretty devastating.
Hit Michael Moore and the dogmatic evolutionists over the head with a 2 x 4. I love Ben's approach.
I usually go to the movies once or twice a year, and this will be one of them.
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