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My Case for Intelligent design behind existence

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@Alan McDougall,

Aedes

Really great post I learn from guys like you!! :bigsmile:

Quote:

Now, to get to the heart of the matter, we need to talk about the irreducible complexity issue by picking something else to which one could apply such arguments. In other words, forget about evolution for a second. Is there any other highly complex system in the world that has come about by diversification, selection, and adaptation such that great complexity has arisen from something simple?

Explain how the complex eye evolved by blind chance? :perplexed:

Quote:

Well, yes. There are many examples, but I'll cut to the chase and name the best example: language.

The meme of Richard Dawkins really seems to evolve into something more complex, just as this thread has as it has passed from one person to the other

A meme really seems to have a life of its own Smile

The bumble bee was analysed by aerodyanamic experts, biologists and other great men of science and they all agreed the little guy could not possibly fly with those tiny wings and fat heavy body.

But the bumblebee did not know she could not fly and took off like a jet fighter and flew out of the window to the utter amazement and disbelief of the great men of science :bigsmile:

I think this might be my last effort on this thread, but here it goes

Hi, Guys

To further my case for intelligent design I would like to make a few statements below

No one has come up with a full explanation for the phenomena of life Yes we have discovered the DNA code and made great progress due to the human genome project

Life remains a mystery

Does luck pay a part in evolution?

We are not the person we were six months ago, there is not one molecule in our faces there six months ago But thanks to some controlling field, the new molecules knew how to fall into the into the exact place and familiar pattern so that we can continue to be recognized

Consciousness is a word we use but no one really understand it and exactly how we think. We know only the symptoms of consciousness

Mozart and some great highly gifted ir great original theories that became fact or music in a flash of inspiration as if there was some kind of universal connection or group mind in the cosmos

.

DNA

The fact that the arrangement of the letters is not the result of chemical bonding has driven Meyer to conclude that, without intelligence, DNA would never be able to turn amino acids into proteins. He writes, "The chance of each amino acid finding the correct bond is one in twenty; the chance of one hundred amino acids hooking up to successfully make a functional protein is one in 1030."10

And to survive, the protein chain must be contained within an intricate cellular architecture. That means that the odds against a protein being manufactured randomly are astronomical. It would be easier for a blindfolded person to find one special grain of sand hidden on one of the world's beaches than to have a protein appear by chance.

The genius of DNA lies not only in its complex coded instructions for life but also in its incredibly well-designed architecture, which allows it to contain billions of detailed instructions within a microscopic molecule. The amount of DNA that would fit on a pinhead contains information equivalent to that of a stack of paperback books that would encircle the earth 5,000 times!2

Our complete blueprint is present in each of our thousand million million cells. Think of an enormous building with thousands upon thousands of rooms, where each room houses a complete set of blueprints for the entire structure. (If these analogies are getting a little sterile for you, then you might want to imagine a series of beach houses-and imagine yourself sitting in one.) However, instead of merely thousands of rooms, our bodies contain trillions of cells, each with a complete package of DNA instructions.3

Each strand of DNA in our bodies consists of three billion base pairs of genetic information. These base pairs form a chain, which constitutes the entire human genetic code. Today the entire human genome has been mapped out. Even though humans are closest to chimpanzees in DNA sequencing, there are still some 40 million differences.

Coincidence and pattern, evolution seems to follow Things happen in pattered in time and space that appear more than chance, the law of Seriality.
.
Probability tent towards certainty as the number of events involved approaches INFINITY

"Human life is the result of a "glorious evolutionary accident" or is it?
Stephen Jay Gould

But new insights into our universe belie such a simplistic view. Quantum mechanics has revealed that our material world is based upon an invisible world of subatomic particles that is totally non-material. And over 95% of our universe consists of dark matter and energy that is beyond scientific observation. Also, scientists are openly discussing dimensions beyond ours where walking through walls and teleportation could be realities. The dilemma for materialists is that these areas are beyond the purview of science.

Fred Hoyle an atheist said in discussing the origin of life said a commonsense interpretation of facts suggest that a superinterlect has monkey-eyed with physics as well as chemistry and biology and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

Sir Fred Hoyle, when considering the enormous information requirement of life writes, "Were a refined theory available for estimating the information content of DNA it would, in our opinion, be immediately apparent from its overwhelming content that life could never have arisen on a miniscule planet like on Earth. It would be seen that, to match the information content of even the simplest cell, nothing less than the resources of the entire Universe are needed."16

Antony Flew is one materialist who led the charge against an intelligent designer. Recognized by many as the world's leading atheist for the past fifty years, Flew wrote over thirty books arguing against a creator.

But this formidable atheist took an honest look at DNA, remarking,
What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together. The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence.22

If you were to survey the writings of leading scientists such as Hawking, Penrose, Davies, and Greene, you would find that there are three options being offered for our origins.

Regarding the multi-universe theory, Davies remarks, "Such a belief must rest on faith rather than observation."11

Einstein said nature lead him to conclude that it reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it all the systematic thing and acting of human beings are of utter insignificant reflection

James Jean said the universe shows evidence of a designer of controlling power that has the to think in a way which seems mathematical It begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine

I think we are the product order made out of the prevailing chaos of the universe that seems exercise a bias in favor of constructive accidence and we are a part of a great intelligence that seems to move towards infinite perfect or eternal ceaseless creation.

Our minds are part of the stuff of a self aware universe

The absolute exists outside of linear time and great spans of time are no problem he sets the universe in action and allows it to grow and evolve maybe something like we do with a garden plant

Why most humans' are imbued with a moral conscience, sense of right and wrong?

[CENTER]The fine-tuning in the universe is astounding and unimaginably improbable. It could be all coincidence or chance, or maybe there are multiple universes, raising the odds and probability of life, but a good detective would be wise to consider the distinct possibility that intelligent design lies behind the observable phenomena.[/CENTER]

1. A designer created biological complexity supernaturally

2. A designer created biological complexity through natural processes

3. A designer combined natural processes and supernatural means to create biological complexity
4. A designer doesn't exist. Complexity came about naturally.

LOOKING AT THE EYE

The human eye is perhaps the best-known example of a complex system that couldn't just pop up overnight.

With the eye we are not merely dealing with complexity, but with hundreds of separate parts that must work together in unison with incredible precision.
Those who study the inner workings of the eye say it operates much like a television camera, but is far more sophisticated.

In fact it is more sophisticated than any machine imaginable. Behe uses a mousetrap as a nonliving example of irreducible complexity. Five basic parts of the trap must work together in order for it to catch mice:

(1) a flat wooden platform

(2) A spring

(3) A sensitive catch that releases when pressure is applied

(4) A metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back

(5) The hammer that serves as the instrument of death and cruelty for our harmless mouse.

A mousetrap needs each of these parts to kill mice. Each part works interdependently, and so a partially constructed mousetrap serves no function and is worthless.

On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.8

But, again, it is not simply complexity; it is irreducible complexity. Going back to Behe's illustration of the mousetrap, everything must be in place for the system to work. Missing just one component, the whole system is worthless. Behe remarks,

You can't do it. Besides, you're using your intelligence as you try.

Remember, the audacious claim of Darwinian evolution is that it can put together complex systems with no intelligence at all.9

Did Darwin really believe the eye evolved bit by bit over time? Although his theory attempts to explain how it could have happened, many believe

Darwin himself was unconvinced. Years after he had written his world-changing theory Darwin admitted to a friend, "The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder."15 Hmm

Actually, the entire Darwinian paradigm revolves around the theme that man is not unique, but rather just the end-product of a long evolutionary chain.

The argument goes; that since we have bodies similar to apes, and since we share much of the same DNA, we must be related to them. Materialists cite this as proof that Darwin was right about us descending from lower forms of life.

In other words, for human speech to work, the brain structure, the tongue, the larynx, the vocal cords, and many other parts all need to be fully developed.

Some biologists have speculated that a mutation occurred allowing an individual to talk. But, according to Olson, such explanations "have always been suspect." In reality, science cannot explain why we are the only creatures with the ability to speak

If evolution caused the human brain to become what it is it hugely overstepped the mark and included apparently huge redundancy
So, what are we to make of the human brain?

We generally associate complexity with intelligence. The more complex a building or machine, the more intelligence is required to engineer it. The human brain, for starters, contains 12 billion neuron cells intertwined with 100 trillion connections. To illustrate a number as large as 100 trillion, molecular biologist Michael Denton suggests visualizing a solid forest of trees covering half the United States. If each tree contains one hundred thousand leaves, the connections in a human brain would equal the total number of leaves in the entire forest.

Yet the brain's connections are not mere intersections like those in a highway system, but rather is a highly organized network far exceeding the complexity of all the communication networks on planet Earth.19

Our memories (one billion trillion bits of them) are not isolated in one section of the brain but instead are intertwined throughout the network. "Each junction has the potential to be part of a memory. So the memory capacity of a human brain is effectively infinite."20 Inside that three pounds of gray matter of yours is enough information to fill 20 million books (19 million if you aren't that bright).

Even if communication engineers could apply the most sophisticated engineering techniques known to humanity, the assembly of an object remotely resembling the human brain would require an eternity of time.

Even then, they still wouldn't know where to begin.22

The overwhelming processing power takes place within an area of our brains called the cerebral cortex, and it is here where the human enigma is most apparent.

The cerebral cortex is the area of our brains where, mysteriously, "matter is transformed into consciousness."23 The cerebral cortex distinguishes human beings from all other animals.

Why did we get these incredibly complex brains with both the hardware and software for language? And according to evolutionists, our brains have remained unchanged. Mayr writes,

So, if a designer has left clues about himself, where would we look for them? To begin our search, we need to examine the universe to see if he has left his fingerprints. Just as the paintings of The Last Supper and Mona Lisa tell us something about their artist, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony reveals clues about its composer, we should be able to discern clues about a designer by observing his universe.

Although scientific evidence only gives us a partial picture of what a designer is like, the universe does reveal some insightful clues about his nature.

The following characteristics seem to emerge. The designer is a

The universe either (a) had a beginning or (b) had no beginning.

2. If it had a beginning, the beginning was either (a) caused or (b) uncaused.

3. If it had a cause, the cause was either (a) personal or (b) not personal.16

That is because the Creator would not be restricted by any of the constraints of our four-dimensional world-including time.

We assume that we can unravel and understand the infinite complex of the universe, but in really we only view our world through a tiny slit all the rest is edited out as irrelevant to us. So how can a human who can only perceive such a tiny part of realy ever comprehend the Absolute

Nature in the view of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colorless merely the hurrying of material endless meaninglessness. It is we who give the rose its scent and the nightingale its song, We are music said T.S Eliot

@Alan McDougall,

Alan,

No one claims that either the eye or human life popped up overnight by random chance.

If you take what life on earth was like 3 billion years ago, the probability of evolving into humans and tulips and mushrooms and all the life here in this moment is indeed infinitesimally small.

But the probability of making various random small changes in one generation is extremely high. And this has been true for every generation over billions of years. Selective advantages bias the small changes that are preserved versus lost, and populations are finite, so every generation is different than the last.

You need to extrapolate that concept to the sheer number of organisms, sheer number of generations, and sheer amount of time to understand what evolutionary biologists are talking about.

Here's another way to think about it. Let's take Barack Obama in 2009 versus Barack Obama before he was conceived. What are the odds that a man from Kenya and a woman from (?) Kansas will somehow meet, have a child who will grow up a fatherless mixed-race child, somehow end up at Columbia and Harvard, and become president of the US? Infinitely small when you look at it this way. Every little step along the way is very possible and likely -- but with a little variation here or there, he could have gone in a radically different direction in the end.

The eye is the same way as the rest of evolution -- you cannot ask a question of whether the modern eye (and the supportive parts of the brain) are possible by random chance without looking at all the intermediate steps. A lot of research and understanding has arisen since Darwin, who is by no means the final word on ANYTHING in evolutionary biology. But here's what Darwin ACTUALLY said about the eye:

Wikipedia wrote:

Charles Darwin himself wrote, in his Origin of Species, that the evolution of the eye by natural selection at first glance seemed "absurd in the highest possible degree". However, he went on to explain that despite the difficulty in imagining it, it was perfectly feasible:
[INDENT]...if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.[4]
[/INDENT]He suggested a gradation from "an optic nerve merely coated with pigment, and without any other mechanism" to "a moderately high stage of perfection", giving examples of extant intermediate grades of evolution.[4]
Darwin's suggestions were soon proven to be correct, and current research is investigating the genetic mechanisms responsible for eye development and evolution.

Evolution of the eye - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Take note that there is a common mechanism of light perception found even in bacteria!!

Quote:

The genetic machinery employed in eye development is common to all eyed organisms. The only unique prerequisite for vision is the use of vitamin-A-related chromophores in the visual pigment, and this is also found in bacteria. Even photoreceptor cells may have evolved more than once from molecularly similar chemoreceptors, and photosensitive cells probably existed long before the Cambrian explosion.[

Finally, take note that the human (or, more generally, vertebrate) eye is not perfect!! The most perfect eye (most efficient, and without a blind spot) is in cephalopods.

Quote:

The eyes of many taxa record their evolutionary history in their "imperfect" design. The vertebrate eye, for instance, is built "backwards and upside down", requiring "photons of light to travel through the cornea, lens, aquaeous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells before they reach the light-sensitive rods and cones that transduce the light signal into neural impulses - which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns." [21] This reduction in efficiency may be countered by the formation of a reflective layer, the tapetum, behind the retina. Light which is not absorbed by the retina on the first pass may bounce back and be detected.
The camera eyes of cephalopods, in contrast, are constructed the 'right way out', with the nerves attached to the rear of the retina. This means they do not have a blind spot, and their vision is marginally clearer.

Look, life is complex and mysterious and wondrous -- we all agree with that. And we will never fully understand it -- but that says more about our ability to study and understand than it does about the origin of life. Just because something is too complex for humans to understand doesn't mean that it can't be a natural occurance.

I feel like to study and attempt to understand life is a celebration of its complexity.

@Aedes,

Aedes

Quote:

Alan,
No one claims that either the eye or human life popped up overnight by random chance.

If you take what life on earth was like 3 billion years ago, the probability of evolving into humans and tulips and mushrooms and all the life here in this moment is indeed infinitesimally small.

But the probability of making various random small changes in one generation was extremely high. And this has been true for every generation over billions of years. Selective advantages bias the small changes that are preserved versus lost.

You need to extrapolate that concept to the sheer number of organisms, sheer number of generations, and sheer amount of time to understand what evolutionary biologists are talking about.

The eye is the same way, and there are ancestral common forms that are much simpler.

Maybe the eye and other lesser complex live entities did evolve over great span of time.

As far as I know modern evolution belief is that changes came more from advantageous mutations rather than small adaptions over immense time spans. I do not dismiss either possibility but these small changes "might be tiny" forced changes made by a great consciousness, who is interested in his great Petre dish experiment. Maybe there is some great eye looking at us through its equivalent of an electron microscope?

William James said that human waking consciousness is but one type of special conscientiousness, whilst all about it parted by the flimsiest screens lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different No account of the universe is in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. "They forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality"

In other word(my own) there is much about reality we do not know and it is important "to know what we do not know and acknowledge the fact"

I think at times in a non religious way that there must be a consciousness that is timesless, unlimited by space and you and I receive information in flashes of intuition, in a moment like some sort of osmosis coming directly into our mind. I am sure this has happened to you, you battle with a problem and during sleep eureka you have the solution

I like the idea that earth and humanity might not be the pinnacle of sentient intelligent life in the universe and out there here are greater things and minds and thoughts than ours

I think you guys might have mistaken me for a hard nosed theist, but I was really tying to act as some sort of catalyst or devils advocate during this this thread

I am not religious or a theist , I cant not for example perceive why an all powerful being would require humanity to prostate themselves before him and sing songs of worship to him day and night , why would a being of infinite power and might require his ego to be stroked. It beats me

When I look at the universe i see that it might be a great self aware entity or even the entire universe might be just one neuron in a greater infinite entity that in its self might be evolving just like we are on this quantum particle we call earth

Big thoughts, maybe even stupid thoughts , but thoughts can reach out and embrace immensity.

God yes but we are that god and part and parcle of existence. Touch yourself and you are touching god not some transluscent invisable spirit.

The energy that makes up our physical bodies is eternal and infinite in source we only alter and change in an everlasting process of evolutionary existence striving always towards perfection

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

As far as I know modern evolution belief is that changes came more from advantageous mutations rather than small adaptions over immense time spans.

First of all, those are one and the same -- inherited adaptations are produced by genetic changes, and it's only over great time that they become predominant in a population. You don't just have a mutation here or there and pop up a whole new organ. That kind of change takes tens of millions of years.

But second of all, it is not accurate that natural selection is the main force behind evolution:

Most of the evolutionary change we see in the world is NOT because of selective advantages. It's because of finite population sizes, geographical isolation, and nonrandom mating. If you have 1 million people, who have all sorts of genetic variants, then take 100 of them and isolate them on an island for 10,000 years, those offspring will be genetically distinct from their ancestral population because they are 1) no longer genetically mixing and 2) a small, non-representative subset. Non-random mating is another mechanism of evolution -- i.e. people preferentially reproducing with those from a similar cultural / religious identity or a similar appearance. Those traits that DO confer selective advantages will become predominant in a population very quickly -- in proportion with the advantage, in fact. This is why the sickle cell gene, which in carriers is very protective against severe malaria, has independently arisen at least five times in the last 10,000 years.

Alan McDougall wrote:

these small changes "might be tiny" forced changes made by a great consciousness, who is interested in his great Petre dish experiment. Maybe there is some great eye looking at us through its equivalent of an electron microscope?

Maybe, but that's not a question that science can think about. It's a matter of speculation and/or faith. You could say that there is a great consciousness that impells our heart to beat by reaching out and squeezing it. It's all a metaphorical puppet strings argument -- whether you ascribe to determinism via natural phenomena or via a deity, it doesn't change the fact that science is rooted in the observable.

Alan McDougall wrote:

I think at times in a non religious way that there must be a consciousness that is timesless, unlimited by space and you and I receive information in flashes of intuition, in a moment like some sort of osmosis coming directly into our mind. I am sure this has happened to you, you battle with a problem and during sleep eureka you have the solution

It's only non-religious because it's not attached to a tradition. But it calls upon the same notions of the sublime and the wondrous that religion encompasses.

@Aedes,

Aedes

Quote:

Most of the evolutionary change we see in the world is NOT because of selective advantages. It's because of finite population sizes, geographical isolation, and nonrandom mating. If you have 1 million people, who have all sorts of genetic variants, then take 100 of them and isolate them on an island for 10,000 years, those offspring will be genetically distinct from their ancestral population because they are 1) no longer genetically mixing and 2) a small, non-representative subset. Non-random mating is another mechanism of evolution -- i.e. people preferentially reproducing with those from a similar cultural / religious identity or a similar appearance. Those traits that DO confer selective advantages will become predominant in a population very quickly -- in proportion with the advantage, in fact. This is why the sickle cell gene, which in carriers is very protective against severe malaria, has independently arisen at least five times in the last 10,000 years

Sickle cell mutation has help African people survive the terrible plagues of malaria , but as you know that other than that this advantage, it also comes at a huge price to the individual who has to suffer from auto immune and other diseases because of it.

There was a catastrophic extinction of life and it is said that nearly 99% of humanity died due to the enormous Sumatran volcano some seventy five thousand years ago

The Earth was blanketed by a volcanic dust cloud for over a decade resulting in a massive loss of animal and plant life. The extinction of the great mammals like the Mammoth, Saber Tooth tiger etc are examples and these huge mammals also lived on the American continent

Because of the above mentioned event the human gene pool became very small and limited. For example the extreme of difference between any human on earth, is less than from on chimpanzee in one family group and another group right in the same area.

We humans although we might look a little different from each other at times have an extremely small gene pool. Geneticists have discovered this fact by retracing DNA back though females and this study has shown that this enormous event restricted our ancestors to a few groups of fertile people spread over central Africa

Genetic diversity between humans is really very small and this might mean our species will become weak and even extinct in the next hundred thousand years

There has been no real evolutionary change in the human species for over 100 thousand years. Indeed Homo Sapient appears to be unaltered from the moment of the most ancient skeleton evidence

Will we have sufficient time to evolve towards Homo Superior and migrate out into the vastness of the universe before that happens?

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

Sickle cell mutation has help African people survive the terrible plagues of malaria , but as you know that other than that this advantage, it also comes at a huge price to the individual who has to suffer from auto immune and other diseases because of it.

Let me correct this somewhat if you don't mind. Heterozygotes (carriers) of the sickle cell gene have essentially no adverse consequences at all. THESE are the people who are protected against malaria.

Homozygotes (people who have two copies of the sickle cell gene) have full blown sickle cell anemia. Not autoimmune diseases, not other diseases... they have sickle cell anemia. This is generally fatal in childhood or adolesence in places without modern medicine.

Now, you're right that sickle cell heterozygosity comes at a price, namely the risk of having offspring with sickle cell anemia. But this sloppy solution is EXACTLY why the idea of "intelligent design" makes no sense for this scenario -- which is the most rapid and powerful human evolutionary phenomenon in the last 10,000 years.

Being a carrier of the sickle gene is SUCH a selective advantage in sub-Saharan Africa, that at a population level it FAR outweighs the downside of sickle cell anemia.

On the other hand, having the sickle gene is no advantage in places without malaria, and in these places sickle cell anemia is a much bigger problem.

So why do we have this horribly sloppy genetic solution to malaria? And why, when you look at genetic linkage analysis, would this disease have arisen and been preserved 5 separate times in the last 10,000 years? Simple -- malaria is such a bad disease and the sickle carrier genotype is so protective that it's almost immediately preserved. In other words, random mutation, which has produced the sickle cell gene innumerable times, has turned out to be so protective that it's rapidly spread in populations multiple times.

Alan wrote:

There has been no real evolutionary change in the human species for over 100 thousand years. Indeed Homo Sapient appears to be unaltered from the moment of the most ancient skeleton evidence

This is ultrastructural evidence, not genetic evidence. Saying something like how we share 99% of our genetic material with one another or 95% with chimpanzees is NOT an appropriate way to describe our genetic diversity. The fact of the matter is that gene regulation is what really determines phenotypic differences, and relatively small changes in the right areas of DNA can produce dramatic differences in phenotype.

As evidence, take a look at the famous Science article from a year or two ago about the genetic differences between different dogs -- from chihuahuas and shi-tzus all the way to great danes and german shepherds. They're almost genetically identical, but with a few notable genes with variant regulation.

Alan wrote:

Will we have sufficient time to evolve towards Homo Superior and migrate out into the vastness of the universe before that happens?

The world can warm, then cool, then darken, then lighten, etc. We'll eventually lose the race, because changes happen much more quickly than evolution. But hey, we're here now. Enjoy!

@Alan McDougall,

For do thy stars comandth themselves, to shine?

For do thy stars comandth themselves, how to shine?

For do thy stars comandth themselves, when to shine?

No, for the laws comandth the stars to shine, and how to shine, and when to shine.

For what hath comandth the laws to comandth the stars to shine, and how to shine, and when to shine?

For a law hath not the intelligence, nor the power to make and uphold a law.

For man nor woman hath the power to make a law that comandth to stars.

For it takes intelligence to make a law, and it takes power to uphold that law...

So, for what intelligence with such power hath casted such laws that comandth all?

@No0ne,

No0ne wrote:

For do thy stars comandth themselves, to shine?

For do thy stars comandth themselves, how to shine?

For do thy stars comandth themselves, when to shine?

No, for the laws comandth the stars to shine, and how to shine, and when to shine.

For what hath comandth the laws to comandth the stars to shine, and how to shine, and when to shine?

For a law hath not the intelligence, nor the power to make and uphold a law.

For man nor woman hath the power to make a law that comandth to stars.

For such laws hath been casted...

For it takes intelligence to make a law, and it takes power to uphold that law...

So, for what intelligence with such power hath casted such laws that comandth all?

Theory on formation of life from inanimate matter:

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(science)

Regarding Anthropic Principle:
"If there were a large number (possibly infinite) of different physical laws (or fundamental constants) in as many universes, some of these would have laws that were suitable for stars, planets and life to exist. The anthropic principle could then be applied to conclude that we would only consciously exist in those universes which were finely-tuned for our conscious existence. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that there is life in most of the universes, this scarcity of life-supporting universes does not imply intelligent design as the only explanation of our "existence."

As for how the laws came about, it must be realized that we are the ones that notionally construct these "laws". That is, through our mathematical calculations we come to a conclusion, this conclusion, if stable (always under the same conditions) we state as "law". Basically, all we're saying is we've discovered patterns in existence. There need not be a, "Who done it?!"; patterns or the notion of *things so finely tuned* can be explained, or at the least, theorized, without any question of, "Who done it?!".

@Alan McDougall,

:listening:There are a limited amount of configurations of line's, so what allows there to be a limited amount and prevents an unlimited amount?

People create "Laws" which tell of what a thing will do.

Those laws exist as words, for they are not the laws that make the thing do what it do.

@Alan McDougall,

If you are going to quote a post, make sure that your reply is relative to what the person is talking about.

@No0ne,

No0ne wrote:

If you are going to quote a post, make sure that your reply is relative to what the person is talking about.

It was very relevant...

You state:

Quote:

So, for what intelligence with such power hath casted such laws that comandth all?

I state:

Quote:

There need not be a, "Who done it?!"; patterns or the notion of *things so finely tuned* can be explained, or at the least, theorized, without any question of, "Who done it?!".

Why are you so adamant in believing there needs to be "intelligence"? I hope you see how my response is relevant.

Quote:

Those laws exist as words, for they are not the laws that make the thing do what it do.

There doesn't always have to be "someone behind the scenes", as you seem to imply. Many of these things do what they do because they are 'programmed' that way -- they are autonomous and self-organized to sustain life. Take a look at autopoiesis, for example:

Autopoiesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote:

:listening:There are a limited amount of configurations of line's, so what allows there to be a limited amount and prevents an unlimited amount?

Are you asking why does order instead of ultimate chaos exist? I've already addressed this, and provided theories that attempt to explain. Please read the links I've provided.

@Zetherin,

Aedes

Quote:

Now, you're right that sickle cell heterozygosity comes at a price, namely the risk of having offspring with sickle cell anemia. But this sloppy solution is EXACTLY why the idea of "intelligent design" makes no sense for this scenario -- which is the most rapid and powerful human evolutionary phenomenon in the last 10,000 years

I agree with all that you have written and all your posts make a lot of sense, unlike some others that just come in with a negative response without any substance to it

I am sure that you have noticed that my knowledge of evolutionary response to diseases is limited but I like to learn and grow in knowledge even thought I am a little long in the tooth

In Africa where I live, malaria is the number one killer and kills many more people than HIV AIDS

My one daughters lives in Tanzania and people there are always going to clinics for help

But evolution has not done a very good job with malaria as millions still die of this disease every year. The real solution to this dilemma is to get rid of the mosquito or come up with a vaccine to make people resistant to this plague

Sickle cell mutation has no place in say the African American people and I have seen documentary about these people who still Carry this unnessersary mutation

By mentioning Homo Sapient I should have added that Homo Sapiens is the only remaining Homo in that group line. The rest have become extinct

I got the facts about human genetic diversity from a very reliable source and I am sure human genetic DNA diversity is very much less than that of the chimpanzee.

I think you misunderstood me about chimp human genetics. I was not referring to the similarity between 'human and chimp' NDA but the small genetic DNA diversity between human ad human extreme and the much greater diversity between chimp compared to chimp

For example the Khoisan people (bushman) people of South Africa who on the outside might look very different from a Norwegian blue eyed blond , genetically these humans have almost identical DNA

On the other hand you can compare a chimp to another chimp living right next to each other and the diversity between these two chimps can be much greater than any human to human DNA differences

In other word we humans have only a small genetic pool. I am not swearing that I an correct about this , maybe you can check this out or bring me up to speed where I have gone wrong

Thankyou for your informative posts :bigsmile:

I can not end my comments yet so here are a few more

Here are a few points relating to "intelligent designer"/ random chance and evolution of the universe and earth

1. the impossible to pass test

Over the last one hundred or so history has shown that there is a core group of critics who will not accept that god can exists not, under any circumstances the see it as some sort of a threat or personal affront.

.
There seems to be a stubborn stance that "I will not believe in "intelligent designer" even if you can prove it to me'.

As "investigators" they become the prosecutors, judge and jury who make sure that those who are investigating the possibility an "intelligent designer" accused of fraud or cheating or outright stupidly.

This might be true with fundamentalist religious fanatics who just say god exits and you are blaspheming if you differ, but there are rational people that continue to believe that facts can lead one to a conclusion in the "intelligent designer" debate, even in a non religious way that I have been attempting to do during this thread.

2. Cartesian logic test

3. Beyond reasonable doubt test

This is the test used by the courts to establish the guilt of a person charged with a criminal offence. the testimony of one reliable witness is enough to find someone guilty of murder
Intelligent design fails in this test and one has to move over to faith until and if better facts come to light in relation to an intelligent designer.

4. On the balance of probabilities

This is another test used by the courts to establish the liability of parties in a non-criminal, civil matter.

It is obviously a much less stringent test than the criminal test of beyond reasonable doubt. the church sometimes uses this test for its own beliefs since theology is subjective, personal, and no one can test theology on the basis of beyond reasonable doubt. it is also the test usually used in medical research to test the safety of new drugs and in most areas of science.

It is here that I plug into the real possibility of an intelligent designer; to me it just seems more probable that not that god created the universe and it did not just happen

5. prima facie test

The 'on the face of it' test. this is a very weak test. circumstantial "intelligent designer" might be permitted to pass this test.

Courts use it in criminal committal proceedings-the court whether a prima facie case has been established for the matter to be sent to a full hearing.

Evidence might, sometimes even hearsay evidence could be brought into the debate and the possibility of an intelligent designer, will be allowed to be dialogued.

This is the test being used by some disciplines, such as psychology. all introspective psychology is accepted on the basis that it can establish prima facie that it may be correct.

There are those in orthodoxy, material and religious, who for vested interests, fraudulently keep on applying test number one-the impossible to pass test "evidence for the possibility of god" the creator or of course the reverse

Yet the evidence for the possibility of an ID albeit circumstantial" is objective, stunning in its consistency and volume, and taken as a whole amounts to technical, scientific knowledge (fundamental laws require a law maker)

Skeptics of ID have not given a credible alternative explanation "intelligent designer" for that I am still waiting

In the absence of a "credible alternative explanation", in this debate I have no alternative but to accept that god exists ID and it is he who created the universe, be it by his process of driven evolution or by his creative word

We will all experience death and knowledge that there is indeed an "intelligent designer" would bring great comfort to many.

Know the truth and the truth will "set you free". Wrong

If you set a zoo wild animal free back into the wild it will perish

Know the truth and the truth will "MAKE YOU FREE" Correct and a big difference

I always remember the quote; "there are no atheists in the trenches"

Zetherin

Quote:

Regarding Anthropic Principle:
"If there were a large number (possibly infinite) of different physical laws (or fundamental constants) in as many universes, some of these would have laws that were suitable for stars, planets and life to exist. The anthropic principle could then be applied to conclude that we would only consciously exist in those universes which were finely-tuned for our conscious existence. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that there is life in most of the universes, this scarcity of life-supporting universes does not imply intelligent design as the only explanation of our "existence."

If there were an infinity of universes each differing in some way then it is logical, too me anyway that out universe could have happened by mere chance.

But if the is only one universe the God had to get it right the first time and in the relatively short cosmological time that our universe has existed

Is the universe all that is?

....................................................................................................
Others still in this thread read my essay below

By Alan McDougall

Aware of infinite potential in vast unploughed fields of nothing, I strode with great beams of cosmic light toward the infinite horizon of eternity, sowing seeds of existence before the timeless foam of creation.

I am the boundless Mind, Original Self-Awareness the cause of everything, relative to nothing I am "This".

On the panorama of bleak blackness, I AM "The Absolute", sowing universal energy.

Reality was my aim and the beauty of my achievement.

Illuminating the darkness with beams of dazzling radiant glory was the first event of reason.

I formulated in my mind the first numbers and called them "Zero" and "One",

With the simplicities and realities of the fundamentals of' "one, and 'zero", "I made everything". I am the Prime Mover and there was no proponent to my "First Cause". I am the "Immovable Rock" and the" Alpha point".

I took these first numbers and weaved them into the fabric of the reality, creating all the limitless universes on the infinite timeless foam of nothing, which now makes up what you call of "existence".

I am the Almighty One. If you are, wise do one thing Respect me The Lord.

I am the creator of the totality of all existence known by many names and titles but just refer to me as "THE DESIGNER"

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"I AM THE CEASELESS CREATOR OF EVERYTHING"

"I AM INEXHAUSTABLE ENERGY"

"I AM EVERYTHING INCLUDING YOU"

"I AM ALL THAT" "IS"

"THAT IS WHO I AM"!!

"I AM WHOEVER AND WHATEVER I SAY I AM"

"I AM YOUR LIFE"

"I AM LIFE"

"I AM THE FIRST THOUGHT"

"I AM THOUGHT IN ACTION"

"I AM THE MYSTERY THAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS"

"YOU ARE UNABLE TO DEFINE ME BECAUSE TO YOU I WILL ALWAYS REMAIN INSCRUTABLE"

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

They seek God here, they seek God there, the seek God everywhere , but fail to realise God is Everywhere

The prayer of the agnostic

God if there is a God, save my soul if I have a soul :perplexed:

Alan

@Alan McDougall,

[quote=Alan McDougall]my knowledge of evolutionary response to diseases is limited but I like to learn and grow in knowledge even thought I am a little long in the tooth[/quote]This is very commendable of you!

[quote=Alan McDougall]In Africa where I live, malaria is the number one killer and kills many more people than HIV AIDS[/quote]I have worked in West Africa several times over the years in Ghana, Senegal, The Gambia, and Burkina Faso, doing clinical care and research (I've done malaria research and malnutrition research). This is a more complex topic, of course, than the number of deaths. Malaria and HIV are both catastrophic illnesses for Africa. HIV/AIDS kills far more African adults than does malaria, and malaria kills far more African children than does HIV. But there are tens of millions of clinical cases of malaria per year in Africa (as many as 2/3 of a billion worldwide) and I could give you a dizzying list of its impact on society independent of its death toll. That's true for HIV as well, but malaria has been shown to be the single leading impediment to economic and social development in tropical Africa.

Alan McDougall wrote:

evolution has not done a very good job with malaria as millions still die of this disease every year.

Well, evolution establishes equilibrium -- it doesn't generally eradicate things. There is now a state of disequilibrium in Africa between humans and malaria, in part due to population growth. Anopheles gambiae, which is the most important mosquito that transmits falciparum malaria, is a peridomestic mosquito, it breeds in puddles in roads, tire tracks, mud brick pits, etc. The proximity of lots of breeding sites with lots of humans has an astronomical multiplier effect on the transmissibility of malaria from person to person (via mosquito).

[quote=Alan McDougall]The real solution to this dilemma is to get rid of the mosquito or come up with a vaccine to make people resistant to this plague[/quote]True, but you could do a lot of good just with improved diagnostics, improved access to health care, and improved access to effective antimalarials. It's estimated that 30% of the childhood malaria deaths in Africa are because children get chloroquine or sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine, to which the parasite is often resistant, rather than more effective therapies like artemisinin combination therapy.

[quote=Alan McDougall]Sickle cell mutation has no place in say the African American people and I have seen documentary about these people who still Carry this unnessersary mutation[/quote]Oh, it's very common among the African American population, such that we screen for it in all African American newborns here.

But evolution is slow. The export of African slaves in any large proportion is a phenomenon of the last 500 years, and even in the absence of modern medicine it would take thousands or even tens of thousands of years for the gene frequency of the sickle cell gene to largely disappear (assuming lack of malaria as a selective pressure). Interestingly, though, if you take a look at the gene frequency for sickle cell in Africa, it corresponds almost identically to the geographic distribution of malaria. South Africa, the highlands in east Africa, the Sahara are areas of low malaria incidence, and they also happen to have lower rates of sickle cell.

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/aencmed/targets/maps/map/T628326A.gif

There are lots of other mutations as well that confer protection against malaria. Some other famous ones are hemoglobin C (common in Mali, known to be protective agaisnt malaria, and it happens to be in a place with lower sickle cell); hemoglobin E is common in southeast Asia; G6PD-deficiency, spherocytosis, and thalassemia are common in the Mediterranean region, etc. Lots of others, too. That's how strong a selective force malaria is.

[quote=Alan McDougall]I got the facts about human genetic diversity from a very reliable source and I am sure human genetic DNA diversity is very much less than that of the chimpanzee.[/quote]

Alan McDougall wrote:

I think you misunderstood me about chimp human genetics. I was not referring to the similarity between 'human and chimp' NDA but the small genetic DNA diversity between human ad human extreme and the much greater diversity between chimp compared to chimp

True among humans, too, i.e. there is more variability from person to person than there is on average between different groups of humans. But the thing is that most phenotypic variability is produced by altered regulation of just a handful of genes. That's how dogs can come in all shapes and sizes but be nearly genetically identical. I've read that 80% of the genetic differences between different dog breeds is found in just three genes.

[quote=Alan McDougall]For example the Khoisan people (bushman) people of South Africa who on the outside might look very different from a Norwegian blue eyed blond , genetically these humans have almost identical DNA[/quote]It depends on resolution of your analysis, though. There are several major genetic groupings in Africa -- the Bantu (most black Africans), the Khoisan, the Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic (like from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia), the Pygmies, and then the Berber / Arabic people from the desert. Yes, all humans are genetically very close. But certain genetic differences are extremely closely tied to specific geographic and ethnic groups, and there are ways of dating the genetic divergence of people such that common ancestry can be determined. Interestingly, the linguistic groups of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, etc, correspond very closely to the genetically defined groups. There is a scientific paper "Genes and Languages" that I pulled a couple years ago that goes into fascinating detail about this.

Here are a couple maps of major genetic haplogroups:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Y-Haplogroups-1500AD-World-Map.GIF/500px-Y-Haplogroups-1500AD-World-Map.GIF

http://www.familytreedna.com/img/understanding-dna/migration_map_tut.gif

Here is a correlation between genetic and linguistic structure in Europe:

http://anthropologynet.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/razib-modified-correlation-between-genetic-geographic-structure-in-europe.jpg

Alan McDougall wrote:

In other word we humans have only a small genetic pool. I am not swearing that I an correct about this , maybe you can check this out or bring me up to speed where I have gone wrong

We have a large and diverse genetic pool. Tiny genetic changes can produce major changes in the function of an organism. What this comes down to is not just the gene, but the gene regulation -- i.e. how much of a gene product is made, where it's made, and what controls it. Tiny alterations can dramatically change gene regulation.

Alan McDougall wrote:

There seems to be a stubborn stance that "I will not believe in "intelligent designer" even if you can prove it to me'.

Who are they? Is it a specific movement you're referring to, or is it a general feeling you have? I think that the question of an "intelligent designer" is not important to many people, so no strong (let alone stubborn) stance is given at all. I happen to not believe in an intelligent designer, but I don't really care either, for instance.

Alan McDougall wrote:

the Cartesian test is, 'doubt anything which can be doubted'. the courts do not apply this test, the churches do not apply this test and the materialists do not apply this test when testing their own beliefs.

This I have to vigorously disagree with, so much so that I am willing to post a hundred randomly picked scientific articles to prove it to you. Scientific studies use statistics that require statements of confidence. If I tell you that paracetamol is better than placebo for headache and I give you that famous P value (P < 0.05), that is a statement of probability and doubt!! It literally means that there is a 5% chance that the difference between paracetamol and placebo was do to random chance and not a real difference -- in other words, there is a 5% doubt built into my conclusion. Scientific studies ALSO are required to disclose methodological limitations, and they are required to go through peer review before publication. That doesn't make them perfect, but it means that they ARE guilty until proven innocent! Doubt is completely integral to science.

Another thing that's completely integral to science is Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is almost always the most likely.

@Aedes,

Alan McDougall wrote:

If there were an infinity of universes each differing in some way then it is logical, too me anyway that out universe could have happened by mere chance.

It appears logical to myself also.

Alan McDougall wrote:

But if the is only one universe the God had to get it right the first time and in the relatively short cosmological time that our universe has existed

That's wholly dependent on the notion of "God" we decide to conjure. For instance, I could say my notion of "God" is not bound by time. That is, *it* does not follow a stream of sequential events culminating to an experience like we do. *It* just is -- it has no beginning or end. So, there is no "short cosmological time" for time is not a factor; *It* can see our birth, every moment of our lives, and our death all in one breathe, just as *it* can with everything. The point is, I just constructed that on the spot, and you can conjure up anything you like, that's the beauty of our minds! Let's be specific when we type these sorts of rhetoric, please.

"God" notion aside, we're leading back to the Anthropic Principle: Anthropic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Those who invoke the anthropic principle often invoke multiple universes or an intelligent designer, both controversial and criticized for being untestable and therefore outside the purview of accepted science."

Take a yonder at the link, and you'll find many hypotheses regarding the existence of the universe.

---

I want something to be very clear here: I've not stated you are definitely wrong. For all I know, there is some greater entity that has created the universe; I always leave my mind open. If I said you were outright wrong, that would be foolish. Do I *think* you're wrong? Yes, but I know I could be wrong!

There are two reasons I started posting in this thread, and just in case we aren't clear, here they are:

I don't feel science has anything to do with proving "Intelligent Design", at least in the context I've perceived. I've noted my gripes with the term "Intelligent", and to label the entire material world as "Intelligent" or "Stupid" just doesn't sit well with me. Therefore, the "Wow, look at how this works!" arguments I don't feel necessarily support "Intelligent Design". Additionally, even if they did, this would not be *proven* through the scientific methods I'm aware of.
There are many ways to look at the existence of the universe, other than creation. Not everything has to have a "Who done it?!". We should be able to look past, or at least reconsider, the classic Artificer/Artifact relationship. Leaning on the crutch "Well, I can't explain this rationally right now, it must be God!", will get us nowhere. Put those glasses on :Glasses: and start considering!

@Zetherin,

Aedes

This is a really great post Aedes and this is why I never questioned your credentials, you know what you are talking about and back it with facts. Smile

On a guess I would say you are a Biologist /geneticist or anthropologists

Of course I am not asking you to reveal this on the open forum , I respect your right to privacy

[quote]Another thing that's completely integral to science is Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is almost always the most likely.[/quote]

Occam's razor where you accept the most obvious and simple explanation for a debate etc, holds true for me also. I have difficulty using Occam's razor as a resolver of the possibility of the truth or falsehood of an ID.

I think my contribution to this topic has not been bad especially from a technical guy like me, who is basically a Mechanical Engineer

Zetherin

[quote]
1. I don't feel science has anything to do with proving "Intelligent Design", at least in the context I've perceived. I've noted my gripes with the term "Intelligent", and to label the entire material world as "Intelligent" or "Stupid" just doesn't sit well with me. Therefore, the "Wow, look at how this works!" arguments I don't feel necessarily support "Intelligent Design". Additionally, even if they did, this would not be *proven* through the scientific methods I'm aware of.
2. There are many ways to look at the existence of the universe, other than creation. Not everything has to have a "Who done it?!". We should be able to look past, or at least reconsider, the classic Artificer/Artifact relationship. Leaning on the crutch "Well, I can't explain this rationally right now, it must be God!", will get us nowhere. Put those glasses on :Glasses: and start considering!
[/quote]

I actually wear glasses :bigsmile: and they do not blind to from the truth and I agree with yo that ID does not belong in a scientific forum, but this forum is a philosophic forum and one of the things about philosophy that I love is that it allows us to explore realms of thought beyond science, even the existence of god for example Many Great philosophers were caught up is this train of thought, Descartes for example

Quote:

"God" notion aside, we're leading back to the Anthropic Principle

The god of my understanding has nothing to do with any principle, I started this thread so our forum could debate , learn from each other even move from our positions by the logic of others

You are correct about time I see time as a human idea, used to track the revolution of the earth, rise and fall of the sun, and in modern time how we move in relation to the whole of the rest of the universe.

I have not dismissed even one of you points of view and who knows you could be much more correct than me or maybe all of us will reach some sort of a consensus by our group understanding and unique knowledge

I am painfully informed about the anthropic theory as well as the many other really crazy fundamentalist nonsense that they would like to drill into our brains

I have chased away people from my front door many many times and I hate their idea of their limited god

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;50149 wrote:

On a guess I would say you are a Biologist /geneticist or anthropologists

I'm an infectious disease physician, actually, but I do research and I'm on a medical school's faculty.

Quote:

I have difficulty using Occam's razor as a resolver of the possibility of the truth or falsehood of an ID.

The way to use it is to avoid adding things into the explanation that aren't explicitly revealed by your evidence.

Quote:

I think my contribution to this topic has not been bad especially from a technical guy like me, who is basically a Mechanical Engineer

You raise insightful questions and you have an open mind, you've made an essential contribution.

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

I do I do I am an astronomer and look out at the unimaginably beauty and order of the cosmos.

Go onto a mountain and you will see beauty all around you, YOU HAVE TO LOOK CAREFULLY TO FIND THE UGLY IN NATURE

If there were no creator the whole universe would be absolutely chaotic and disordered.

Alright, so the world is incredibly beautiful...there is beauty everywhere...there is order everywhere...agreed. Here is the question; have you ever been anywhere but the world, or experienced anything other than the world? If not, then why would you assume that something other than the world must be responsible for the world? How could you know that the world would be chaos without a creator, if you have only ever known the world you live in, which as you say, is orderly?

The argument is that God must have created the world because the world is perfect, or infinitely complex and well-ordered, yes? How do you know what God is like, or that He is perfectly beautiful, powerful, capable of ordering, etc? Surely you don't claim to have seen him. So how do you know about beauty and order, if not from direct experience of God? You know about it from the world. There are certain qualities that we call beautiful; extrapolated and abstracted, those ideas form God. God was born in our minds from our experience of the world, which is quite feat, but not evidence of the existance of God outside our minds.

If you don't know what God is, to say that 'God must be responsible for the world' means nothing. Then God becomes a device by which you can dream of another world. You can think of anything and say, with God it would be possible to... (or the inverse, re a world without God is chaos). That is just another way of saying, "what if..."

Of course, I would say that the world is chaos, and that the apparent order is the result of a creator: us.

@BrightNoon,

Quote:

Alright, so the world is incredibly beautiful...there is beauty everywhere...there is order everywhere...agreed. Here is the question; have you ever been anywhere but the world, or experienced anything other than the world? If not, then why would you assume that something other than the world must be responsible for the world? How could you know that the world would be chaos without a creator, if you have only ever known the world you live in, which as you say, is orderly

?

You grudging agreement that there is beauty is heart warming. Yes I have experienced beauty beyond that of this world I have been clinically dead and what I saw was unimaginably beautiful.`

But lets leave it at that, I saw what I saw and and I am not going to try to convince you that there are dimensions, realms, both of beauty and light as well of dark and ugly that are realities mostly unseen

If you really think this little tiny dot of dust we call earth is all that is , you must have a very narrow outlook

Being a tiny entity in the vastness of existence, the reative force we call God is beyond human definition and if you read my posts I never try to tell anyone what god is or what god is not

It would be like a cockroach trying to fathom the space shuttle

@Alan McDougall,

Yes, we find the world beautiful, doubtless, but since we are born into this world that isn't saying much. If we'd been born into a world that we now find ugly, we'd still think it beautiful. The bar is set by our inheritance: the world we have. If we are predisposed to find beauty in the world, we cannot use that beauty to say anything objective about it - we're simply biased by being born into it.

Let me give you an analogy. The Sun has a certain temperature and this temperature dictates the spectrum of radiation it emits (and we receive). The peak of this spectrum happens to fall slap bang in the middle of the spectrum of radiation we can observe optically. This is surely a wonderous thing because it means we get the best of what the Sun offers. An anti-evolutionist would conjecture that some intelligent designer* made the Sun radiate with the spectrum we could use. An evolutionist would say we evolved to optically sense the radiation that was most present.

To generalise, to a creationist the world is the way it is so that it may be of use to us. To an evolutionist we have evolved to best make use of the world the way it is. Your 'case' for ID has been along the lines of the former which, as I said before, is essentially a stance of arrogance. I don't mean that in an offensive way: it presupposes our inevitable and absolute existence, passing all necessity onto the universe for our comfort, pleasure, requirements, etc, i.e. it bestows as a starting assumption something special about humans as distinct from any other physical system.

This is the crux of creationism in general. In ID, this becomes a circular argument: the universe must have been designed in order for it to be of use to us, but the demand the universe be useful to us emerges from the notion that we are the reason for the universe, a teleological view which necessitates a designer.

*I've never met an anti-evolutionist who didn't believe in some divine creator or consciousness. What does that tell you?

@Bones-O,

Bones-O!

Quote:

To generalise, to a creationist the world is the way it is so that it may be of use to us. To an evolutionist we have evolved to best make use of the world the way it is. Your 'case' for ID has been along the lines
of the former which, as I said before, is essentially a stance of arrogance. I don't mean that in an offensive way: it presupposes our inevitable and absolute existence, passing all necessity onto the universe for our comfort, pleasure, requirements, etc, i.e. it bestows as a starting assumption something special about humans as distinct from any other physical system

I don't think my stance is stubborn arrogance (I know you did any mean offense) My stance if you back track to former posts, you will read that I can be moved by telling logic as was I with the very informative and fact based posts by Aedes.

I might have moved from a position of ID to a belief that we are just enormously lucky, it was bound to happen somewhere and somewhen.

Whatever we believe right or wrong will make no difference to the truth and I have not reached and might never reach the point were I will be absolutely positive about this topic.

If you guys give some honest reflection I think you will have to come to a similar conclusion

If all we have in the eternity and infinity that is existence, is this tiny moment we call life, then chance has played a very cruel joke on all of us

We exist in relation to eternity for an unmeasurable infinitesimal moment , here now and in a flash gone forever. Like some fundamental particle

So I rage and rage at the dimming of the light and fight against the coming of the eternal night

Quote:

*I've never met an anti-evolutionist who didn't believe in some divine creator or consciousness. What does that tell you?

Why must this entity be divine? I am not anti-evolutionist because the truth of it stares me in the face. But I retain sufficient objectivity to consider that there might be some great intelligent (not necessary Divine) that is experimenting with life on our earth.

This entity might even be malevolent this might make sense when we see that the only way to sustain our lives we must do it by killing another life. EAT OR BE EATEN

Surely a benevolent creator could have made a better way of energising our bodies, maybe by just standing in the sun and absorbing energy directly from it, like walking solar panels :perplexed:

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