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On Intelligent Design Part 2

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On Intelligent Design Part 2

Yeah, I'm making a new version, because the old one got flooded. This will, however, clarify.

from JoeUser Forums

Intelligent Design is proved by two scientific statements: Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and Occam's Razor. Basically, nothing can come from nothing, without an outside force.

    What I meant by this statement was that due to the Theory or Relativity, everything had to be created somehow and Occam's Razor would mean that any attempt to explain it as a mere co-incidence is more-or-less putting a customized one-person secular theology in. For those who haven't read the article I haven't written yet or anything by anyone else, any belief is a theology if it's taken as a belief of the greatest power. Yes, evolutionists worship evolution.

Also, mind you that we know nothing on the specifics of the Creation. If God willed it, we could have evolved from monocellular organisms, but, importantly, God made the universe.

    Yeah, I screwed up my own quote here. Intentionally. The thought ends there. God made the universe within certain constraints, so he could have made us over a trillion years, because, quite simply, a day to him is eternity to us.

He knows what will happen, and anything that has or will happen has been mandated by Him, as are all things happening at this time.

    Yes, I do correct my quotes often. This one is pure theology. Basically, God rules, we drool. Our best efforts are menstrual rags to the power of God. Our sacrifices? Paul uses an obscene term in the original Greek. Basically, God quite literally owns us. However, we are given free will. Paradoxial free-will with a pre-destined future. I'll ask God when I die. Too bad I probably won't put up another entry then.

    I'm putting this in Science, given the prevelence of evolution in the scientific community. Oh, and keep the comments on-topic. No digital high-fiving.

god jesus christ theology intelligent design science
22,397 views 100 replies
Reply #76 from JoeUser Forums Top
How do you explain all the "junk" DNA and repressed genes?


OK, explain this, zoologist. We know everything there is to know about life, right? Obviously from your statements, you believe that we do. If that is the case, WHY CAN'T WE CREATE AN ADVANCED ORGANISM FROM RAW MATERIAL? The answer, obviously, is that we do not know everything. It is possible that the "junk" DNA serves a purpose, and DEFINITE that repressed genes do. It is possible we simply have not DISCOVERED the purpose of "junk" DNA.

A reach? Not really. Some are begining to believe the appendix has a function, despite having long insisted it was a vestigial organ. Tonsils, likewise, have a function and were long considered to be superfluous.

Tell me something, zoologist. You claim to be a Christian, yet you don't believe God created the universe, or that he directs our lives. You don't claim the Bible to have any level of inspiration at all. On what do you base your claims to be a Christian? If God doesn't exist, and if the Bible is nothing more than Grimm's Fairy Tales, then how can you believe in the central figure of the New Testament.

I'm not asking you to subscribe to my opinion; I'll concede limited knowledge in the area of biology. But I would certainly expect someone who has LONG labelled himself a Christian to at least concede a possibility of divine involvement at SOME level.
Reply #77 from JoeUser Forums Top
Which is what a COMMON DESIGNER would do, zoologist. The consistency of the pattern would seem to point TOWARDS the existence of a creator, not away from it.


Interestingly, if we are made by a "common designer", then we must be included in what the designer is. Thus, if the designer is A B and C, we could be C, but we could not be an external D.

This is like saying that a writer can only write what he knows.

So, bascially, it is not entirely fallacious, from the point of view of ID, to assume we are "made in God's image".

However, the idea you have proposed indicates to me that the "common designer" must have a code, one a lot like ours. Of course, this is assuming a common designer exists. I, for one, believe that the universe created itself out of infinite possibility. What I am trying to say is that there could be a "universal code". Now wouldn't that be something?
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Reply #78 from JoeUser Forums Top
How do you explain all the "junk" DNA and repressed genes? If we were formed at once, then there wouldn't be all that excess waste.


That's precisely the point...we were formed all at once..Adam and Eve were created with perfect genes which means they as well as their descendents for lots of time didn't have "junk" DNA whatever that is.

That they had perfect genes also helps explain their long lifespan of all those up until the time of the Flood, not to mention the circumstances of the way the world was at the time with the vapor canapy and all, high content of CO2, etc.
Reply #79 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yeah, the broken genes that are broken in an identical way in some related species is strong evidence. The head of the Human Genome Project is a born-again, evangelical, miracle believing christian who finds those broken genes to be great evidence for evolution. He has no time for creationism or ID.

If you are curious about what he has to say look up Francis Collins.
Reply #80 from JoeUser Forums Top
Now wouldn't that be something?


Yes, it would be interesting. But it is conjecture, as is virtually any other theory on origins.

What's also interesting is that some people can look at DNA and assume that it indicates there's NO WAY that a creator/designer could be involved, yet another can look at the same DNA and draw the exact opposite conclusion. I think the fact that that can happen speaks to how much we do NOT know, rather than how much we know, and we would do well to humbly concede we don't have all the answers.

I also find it interesting that a college undergrad can so easily dismiss scientists who have researched longer than he has been alive as idiots.
Reply #81 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's precisely the point...we were formed all at once..Adam and Eve were created with perfect genes which means they as well as their descendents for lots of time didn't have "junk" DNA whatever that is.

That they had perfect genes also helps explain their long lifespan of all those up until the time of the Flood, not to mention the circumstances of the way the world was at the time with the vapor canapy and all, high content of CO2, etc.


It is impossible to have "perfect genes". For instance, let's say you view longevity as perfect, as well as the ability to breath in a low O2 environemnt. The problem with saying that these are perfect is that what if I now change the environment so that there is more O2, which there is. Adam and Eve are wasting a lot of effort on the ability to survive in a low O2 environment, when that isn't even needed. Now I am the more "perfect" individual. I am using O2 way less efficiently, like a Chevy hemispherical engine, but there is plenty of gas. I am actually at an advantage. Now if the Earth somehow depletes too much O2, then guess who wins out?
Reply #82 from JoeUser Forums Top
The theory of evolution is very established but it says nothing about ultimate origins. It just deals with the evidence that life changes over time.

There are people of all faiths who support evolution and even the previous Pope admitted the evidence was very strong and that catholicism had no trouble with it as long as you allow for a divine creation of the soul.
Reply #83 from JoeUser Forums Top
The theory of evolution is very established but it says nothing about ultimate origins. It just deals with the evidence that life changes over time.


Very true, ancient. While I know what I believe, evolution and ID are not competing theories. And, in fact, it is a poor scientist indeed who operates with the preconceived notion either that there is or is not a God in addressing these issues. Absent faith, the only intellectually defensible position is atheism.

I find antitheists as nauseating as I find some young earth creationists.
Reply #84 from JoeUser Forums Top
One problem with ID though is that it is not currently a science. Even the founder of the movement, Philip Johnson, agrees with that. He is hopeful that they will eventually make it one but agrees that it can't compete as a complete product at the moment.

Another problem is that many people who now use the term ID are really just YEC creationists who are using the term to get themselves another hearing. They know the term "creationist" is a liability so they take advantage of the new name without changing their rhetoric one bit. Some of them, in my experience, don't even know much about the specific claims of the ID movement.
Reply #85 from JoeUser Forums Top
You even have the gene for a tail.


What's this all about?

Reply #86 from JoeUser Forums Top
CSCOLES POSTS:
It is impossible to have "perfect genes".


Adam and Eve were created with absolutely perfect in every way genes. After their fall, it's been downhill for us ever since...we have disease, sickness, suffering and death. And so in this respect, our physical nature has deteriorated, not the other way around. We have not become better..

Reply #87 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yes, it would be interesting. But it is conjecture, as is virtually any other theory on origins.


I stated it as conjecture.

What I am trying to say is that there could be a "universal code". Now wouldn't that be something?



Reply #88 from JoeUser Forums Top
at least concede a possibility of divine involvement at SOME level.


Some level, yes. Perhaps the very, very beginning...maybe even the very first organism- of course that deals with abiogenesis, not evolution.

It's not a requirement to contend evolution if one is a Christian. Most people understand that and can balance the two.

I'm actually quite appreciative of the fact that there is a much more complicated universe out there than the Bible tells us. Not God making everything 6,000 years ago...but a vast and rich history of the universe and the many, many natural laws and processes that riddle it. If you believe in God and can't give him credit for that...well, that's doing a bit of an injustice don't you think? I prefer the God that has the power to create everything so that it's able to run on its own without his intervention, like a perpetual motion machine. THAT'S real power, not throwing stuff together and having to direct the life of every person, every organism on the planet.


Hmm, time for a break from this debate, I think...it's getting tedious.

~Zoo
Reply #89 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's not a requirement to contend evolution if one is a Christian. Most people understand that and can balance the two.


No, I was just wondering what you base your claims to being a Christian on. I don't doubt it, but when we establish that you believe the Bible only to be literature and add to that the fact that you not only refuse to concede creation (note: not necessarily YEC) as even a possibility, it makes one wonder what you use as a basis for your belief in Christ. I'm not doubting, just asking.
Reply #90 from JoeUser Forums Top
If you believe in God and can't give him credit for that...well, that's doing a bit of an injustice don't you think?


Have I ever...EVER expressed faith in YEC? Sorry, no.
Reply #91 from JoeUser Forums Top
I prefer the God that has the power to create everything so that it's able to run on its own without his intervention, like a perpetual motion machine.


If there is a God and he set the world into motion just right, didn't he determine everything to happen just the way it should already? Hence, He would really be directing everyting while doing nothing.

Let's say Suzie prays to God. God set up the world so that Suzie would pray to him, and he also set up the world in a way that would determine his answer.

*this is more conjecture.
Reply #92 from JoeUser Forums Top
If there is a God and he set the world into motion just right, didn't he determine everything to happen just the way it should already? Hence, He would really be directing everyting while doing nothing.

Let's say Suzie prays to God. God set up the world so that Suzie would pray to him, and he also set up the world in a way that would determine his answer.


That is actually a very interesting theory.
Reply #93 from JoeUser Forums Top
That the initial conditions are set up just right for everything else to unfold is called the Fine Tuning Argument.

Michael Denton, who was once a creationist of sorts, and then joined the ID movement eventually came to espouse this view. Genetic links convinced him evolution was correct and he now supports evolution and common descent but believes that all of the initial varables were set by a creator.
Reply #94 from JoeUser Forums Top

Genetic links convinced him evolution was correct and he now supports evolution and common descent but believes that all of the initial varables were set by a creator.

Is this theistic evolution?

 

Reply #95 from JoeUser Forums Top
Adam and Eve were created with absolutely perfect in every way genes.


Wrong. My name is neither Adam nor Eve.
Reply #96 from JoeUser Forums Top
Genetic links convinced him evolution was correct and he now supports evolution and common descent but believes that all of the initial varables were set by a creator.

Is this theistic evolution?
 




Yeah, that's a form of theistic evolution.

Theistic evolution might also say that a god intervened later in the process to ensure it developed down a certain path or other variations of that sort of thing.
Reply #97 from JoeUser Forums Top
Genetic links convinced him evolution was correct and he now supports evolution and common descent but believes that all of the initial varables were set by a creator.

Is this theistic evolution?





Yeah, that's a form of theistic evolution.

Theistic evolution might also say that a god intervened later in the process to ensure it developed down a certain path or other variations of that sort of thing.


Right, it's more like Theistic intervention. Anyway, I don't buy it becasue it's, in reality, a compromise position which has contrived God as accommodating evolutionary theory. No way--- especially given M-Evolution conceptual problems.

Natural selection can no longer be cited in favor of Macroevolution...the mechanism of M-Evolution is still missing....it's known with certainty the M-evolution can't occur becasue DNA has been designed (by Almighty God) so that only variety within kind can occur.





Reply #98 from JoeUser Forums Top

Unless you're seriously dosing those poor things, they won't mutate into different species. Sorry to break it to you. And even then, everything but cockroaches would die.

Reply #99 from JoeUser Forums Top
Another problem is that many people who now use the term ID are really just YEC creationists who are using the term to get themselves another hearing. They know the term "creationist" is a liability so they take advantage of the new name without changing their rhetoric one bit. Some of them, in my experience, don't even know much about the specific claims of the ID movement.


I know what you're saying. It seems as though those who believes Genesis has to walk on tip-toes amongst the science crowd.

I'm a true blue believer in Special Creation and no one has been able to shake me of it. If offers a coherant basis for understanding the earliest events of how the universe and life itself began and for how mankind came to be in a state of confusion and distress.

I accept it on the basis of faith in the revealed God, that Sacred Scripture must be free from error and that empirical science will never discover any data which can conclusively contradict Scripture since they have the same Author. Man, even though finite in his understanding and knowledge, can know something of the unseen Divine Maker and Lawgiver and can discern absolute principles.

The M-Evolution model serves up questions only the Creation model can answer.
Reply #100 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well, believe what you like. As long as you are honest that the bible is your primary source and that learning the evidence is less important. You just can't teach stuff like that in public schools. Even the D institute has given up on it according to Johnson. At least for the forseeable future.

EDIT: Also, nobody needs to "shake you of it". It's up to you to spend the time to learn the evidence. If it doesnt interest you then you won't. Only you know how much time youve spent learning both sides of the issue. Most creationists only know the rhetoric that creationist preachers, websites or books provide them. They don't look for a counter argument because they don't really care.