[justaskin]

Not only do I think this thread should not be locked down.Quite the contrary I think it should be made a sticky at the top of the section so we don't get this subject raised in its many incantations every other day.I would think the creation of the universe by design or any other means is quite a valid subject for new theories.After all I think it will be going on long after this site and all the people here have past on.
Compared to the rubbish and drivel that goes on in the JUST CHAT forum this is at least intelligent.

Cheers
justaskin

[Alan McDougall]

Benv

If you're happy to accept it, then you must be happy to accept wolfekeeper's noodly appendages or any other explanation that anyone cares to put forward - you have to accept all of science fiction, all of fantasy, all deranged delusions (pink fairies and unicorns), as equally valid.  Are you happy to do so?  If not, why should your story have any more validity than those?

Noodly appendages do not need an intelligence to happen , they are just the result of random knotting, how on earth you can try to equate this really silly statement with the possibility that there is reason ,cause, and action behind the creation and sustainability of the universe that is just not logical

I think you've missed the point - by introducing an element of design you have added further complication - therefore it is not worth doing.  Also, it is unfalsifiable and based on unfalsifiable  assumptions, so it is again not worth doing.

It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one perfectly good reason to disbelieve it.

Ben it is illogical to you and the very essence of logic to much greater minds than yours and you must accept that as an uncomfortable truth, you you that is , not me and billions of others who believe the unimaginable wonder, beauty, harmony and order can only be explained by acception a mind of infinite intellect is behind existence.

"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"

You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop

Somewhere out there are minds infinitely greater than our puny human intellects and I think it is bombastic and arrogant to propose that humanity are the very pinnacle of creation

Alan

The Alpha and the Omega

[latebind]

The only thing that will solve this debate (and prove who is right) is good hard science, and many years.

I pose a question to those who believe in "Intelligent Designer".

WHY would this designer not make himself known to us? Can he not see how we fight each other all the time over religous nonsense?
Since we are his creations and he cares about us then why does he not step forward and put the record straight? After all we are his design and he should at least feel some responsibility for the pickle that we are in, he created it!

[Don_1]

Well put Latebind.

[BenV]

Benv

If you're happy to accept it, then you must be happy to accept wolfekeeper's noodly appendages or any other explanation that anyone cares to put forward - you have to accept all of science fiction, all of fantasy, all deranged delusions (pink fairies and unicorns), as equally valid.  Are you happy to do so?  If not, why should your story have any more validity than those?

Noodly appendages do not need an intelligence to happen , they are just the result of random knotting, how on earth you can try to equate this really silly statement with the possibility that there is reason ,cause, and action behind the creation and sustainability of the universe that is just not logical

I assume in that case you're not familiar with the Flying Spagetti Monster? It's a spoof argument that if creationsism is to be taught in schools, so should the idea that the world was created and is ruled by a flying spagetti monster, and we are "touched by his noodly appendage".  It is a spoof, but it makes a very good point.

I think you've missed the point - by introducing an element of design you have added further complication - therefore it is not worth doing.  Also, it is unfalsifiable and based on unfalsifiable  assumptions, so it is again not worth doing.

It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one perfectly good reason to disbelieve it.

Ben it is illogical to you and the very essence of logic to much greater minds than yours and you must accept that as an uncomfortable truth, you you that is , not me and billions of others who believe the unimaginable wonder, beauty, harmony and order can only be explained by acception a mind of infinite intellect is behind existence.

"an uncomfortable truth"?  It's not true though, it's a speculation.  You believe that to be true, but there is no objective evidence for it - we can't just pick our own truths.

"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"

There is no evidence for one, it raises more questions than it answers, it requires one to make certain illogical assumptions that cannot be proved/disproved.  There's three very good reasons for you there.

You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop

Actually, I have answered this question.  I've said I don't know.  This doesn't leave a gap to be filled with a designer, it's simply something we don't know.  I'm confortable with not knowing - I don't have to fill the unknown with postulates of designers.

Somewhere out there are minds infinitely greater than our puny human intellects and I think it is bombastic and arrogant to propose that humanity are the very pinnacle of creation

We have no idea if those minds are out there, but they may be.  As we have no idea if they exist, and no way to communicate with them, how do they have any bearing on anything?

I agree, it's bombastic and arrogant to suggest that humans are the pinnacle of creation.  In fact, I think it's quite arrogant to suggest that humans are created at all, when the evidence suggests otherwise.  However, it's perfectly legitimate to say that humans are presently the pinnacle of one path of evolution, just as sparrows and eucalyptus trees are pinnacles of other paths.

Alan

The Alpha and the Omega

Ben

The A, the C, the G and the T.

[lyner]

G and T?
I don't mind if I do.

[echochartruse]

To help some take out the human factor of "intelligent Design" thinking that there must be a designer present. God or whatever.

Why don't we just change the word to "Intelligent Adaptation" I think more people will be ale to accept that idea.
After all everything adapts to their environment.

"Human mesenchymal stem cells maturing into cartilage"
"mesenchymal stem cells were extracted from the bone marrow of sheep. “These are cells which can differentiate into bone, cartilage, tendons or ligaments", Nick explains.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue18/stemcells.html

In regard to the person who said it is DNA responsible for stem cell intelligence, I actually thought it was my DNA that is responsible for my intelligence too.

So could "INTELLEGENT (design) ADAPTATION" be thought of as the other theory for those who cant get their head around non human/god/machine/whatever intervention

[_Stefan_]

No. Why make stuff up just so people can swallow it easier?

[Alan McDougall]

Latebind

WHY would this designer not make himself known to us? Can he not see how we fight each other all the time over religous nonsense?
Since we are his creations and he cares about us then why does he not step forward and put the record straight? After all we are his design and he should at least feel some responsibility for the pickle that we are in, he created it!

The designer has made itself very clear to us, we are just part of the one enormous consciousness and we give it many titles god/ID etc take your pick

Scientifically we know that there is an interconnectedness an intertwining of every particle to every other particle in the universe. Taking only the force and action and reaction of gravity, should make this obvious.

We humans seem to think that the universe is unimaginably huge and vast, but that is just our perspective on reality.

To an ID/GOD etc our whole universe might just be an atom in a greater universe

For us to stand up and shout there is no such thing as an ID to me is like  chockroaches debating quantum physics 


We humans are religious fools not the infinite designer

BenV


My statement

You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop

[/color]

Your response

Actually, I have answered this question.  I've said I don't know.  This doesn't leave a gap to be filled with a designer, it's simply something we don't know.  I'm confortable with not knowing - I don't have to fill the unknown with postulates of designers.

[/color]

You still bring up the silliness of the flying spaghetti monster and its noodily appendages. it makes no point other than an irrelevant one

When I look out at the unimaginable beauty, wonder and glory of the universe, like some astronauts I am moved to believe there must be a great hand in the formation of all existence

When I see my beautiful little grandaughter dancing and skipping in the sun and look into her eyes that reflect here beautiful soul , then "I KNOW THERE IS AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER"

Evolution simply can not create altruistic love

"There are no atheists in the trenches"

The heavens or creation declares the glory of God

Ben do you really really believe all those who you love are just accidents of slow acts of evolution, do you really believe that they are just bundle's of random elements a bag of watery biological protoplasm???

[_Stefan_]

You're making the argument from ignorance. "We don't know, therefore goddidit".

Don't be ridiculous. It has been established for quite some time that altruism evolves naturally, and that love is a result of brain biochemistry.
We know how things of beauty have evolved. We know that bodies really are just complex orginised chemistry. If anything, it's even more wondrous that they have evolved undirected, rather than designed. It adds absolutely nothing to say "goddidit".

If you want a scientific answer to your questions, intelligent design creationism will never be it.

[justaskin]

Well I hope the universe is the result of intelligent design because if it is not then what?.
The universe is the result of.
Dumb design?.
Could have done better design?.
If that is the case could us humans ask for a refund for having to live in a less than well designed universe.
And if we use the current popular method of consensus science there is no doubt.The majority of scientists believe in god therefore god exists.
Me being a skeptic and denier though will just have to go on believing there is no such being.
I have no problem believing the universe is the result of some intelligent process because the alternative is the universe just popped into being one sunday afternoon from nothing.

Cheers
justaskin

[_Stefan_]

Scientific consensus does not work like that. Scientific consensus is reached when the scientific evidence and ideas are strong enough to (tentatively) convince the majority of scientists in that field. Thus, scientific consensus is not just an appeal to authority, it is an appeal to the evidence. Religious ideas have next to zero scientific support, and therefore any scientist who believes them is not doing so on scientific grounds. And all you're left with is an appeal to authority - another logical fallacy.

[Alan McDougall]

Stefan

You're making the argument from ignorance. "We don't know, therefore goddidit".

Don't be ridiculous. It has been established for quite some time that altruism evolves naturally, and that love is a result of brain biochemistry.

Stefan Stefan Stefan it has not been established that altruism is the result of wacky brain chemistry or that hate is also the result for the same reason. Love is not just an image of blood flow seen in an MRI scanner??

I am not making argument from the unsteady platform of ignorance, all I am trying to suggest, is that there is much much better evidence in nature for a designer that there is against the existence of one. If you dislike this approach so much, come on and give me evidence that there is no ID.

I have brought into this thread many facts "suggesting that "there might be" an ID" and all I have received from most of you is irrational outbursts that someone is trying to take away their precious belief in an uncaused universe



Medical science in reality knows very little about how the brains hormones, neuro- transmitters act or react in the brain, they are still trying to fathom out how this unimaginably complex organ really works

Love and hate can be intrinsic or endogenous having nothing to do with neuro- transmitters. "Love causes the love neuron transmitters to flood the brain", not the other way around as you suggest, that it is "neuro- transmitters a out little out of sync that result in feelings of selfless love".

Do you really think your love for your spouse, kids, parents etc are just the result of some chemical effect on your brain, come on your loved ones are real not a delusion or illusion brought on by brain chemicals!!!

[_Stefan_]

Alan

ID is dismissible purely from basic logic. It is also dismissible because it is absolutely unscientific. You're the one making irrational posts, not me.

Please read in depth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(scientific_views)

I am sorry, but you do not have a rational basis on which to reject this information and replace it with your own notions.

While you're out reading, please learn more about evolution. The fact that you think ID is even worth considering as an explanation means that you do not have a good understanding of the topic.

[justaskin]

Nobody can prove if the universe is a result of intelligent design or not or if there is a designer or not.Until there is it is just speculation one way or the other.

Cheers
justaskin

[lyner]

AMcD

Do you really think your love for your spouse, kids, parents etc are just the result of some chemical effect on your brain, come on your loved ones are real not a delusion or illusion brought on by brain chemicals!!!

Why not? As systems, we are not likely to be able to 'understand' ourselves fully. There's a simple Venn diagram argument which implies that self-knowledge would have to be unlimited in order to contain all of itself. Our bodies are continually being run by sub-systems of which we're not aware but our consciousness uses an 'arrogance' strategy which makes us think we're in charge. The boss doesn't know who's fixing the central heating - he just organises the finances so someone can be paid to do that sort of thing. The boss feels he's in charge but the C/H man can freeze the boss if he chooses to.
What you are saying is that, because we couldn't understand ourselves fully, someone else must be responsible for constructing us. You are invoking a 'God of the gap' because you feel a need to explain something you can't. This is understandable but doesn't prove anything except that you are using a strategy to deal with a difficult subject.
This God of the gap is not necessary if you can accept the more simple explanation that you don't need to have everything explained.

Anyone who has received medication for emotional illness can tell you that these higher emotions which you assume are proofs of a God, are indistinguishable (so why not the same) as what can be produced chemically. This offends and scares people if they can't just accept it.

And if you insist there must be a God - where did it come from? More Turtles, I'm afraid. If you want to talk Science, then you have to go for the reductionist explanation.

[Alan McDougall]

Stefan

What you are saying is that, because we couldn't understand ourselves fully, someone else must be responsible for constructing us. You are invoking a 'God of the gap' because you feel a need to explain something you can't. This is understandable but doesn't prove anything except that you are using a strategy to deal with a difficult subject.
This God of the gap is not necessary if you can accept the more simple explanation that you don't need to have everything explained

My ID does not need any gap to reveal itself, it is everything it equates to all existence. ID= EXISTENCE. Where have I use the term God? in this thread , god is an entity that requires worship, faith etc and this in nothing like my concept of an intelligent designer.

If I forced to express my take on God then I agree with Einstein , I like the idea of the god of Spinoza the Dutch philosopher

ID is dismissible purely from basic logic. It is also dismissible because it is absolutely unscientific. You're the one making irrational posts, not me

That if from your perspective Stefan not mine and I accept that, but to me my statements are rational but I must   agree not always true science But you must acknowledge that many many great scientists have not dismissed the possibility of an ID, and I like to identify myself with them

I am not religious at all , in fact I despise narrow minded silly fundamentalism


Science can take us back to the big bang, it can not tell us what happened, how it happened and who or what made it happen. The big bang itself is absolutely not science but mysticism. Back then events happened that defy the present cosmological laws or constants, and only someone or a something who set these laws in place, could have had the intelligence to monkey with them, as were done in the primordial universe.

Take your body it is just a bunch of elements and chemicals arranged in some lucky way by evolution, and yes I can accept that view pint as truth.

But now we come to the ultimate mystery. If you take the exact state of a persons body, just before death, weight, water, mass, chemical composition etc etc, and then do the exact same just after the death of this person , everything would measure exactly the same. The body pre-death and post-death is exactly the same

Except of something of very very vital importance, this previously "animated entity" is now "inanimate", it is what we call dead. What is no longer there, that thing we call "life"

Life is the gift of the intelligent Designer

I AM LIFE

[BenV]

I really think this discussion is over.  Alan McD would like to believe in an intelligent designer.  Others have said that there is no point postulating one.

As to life being the 'gift' of a designer, I disagree.  My life was a gift from my parents. 

I understand that you do not think of yourself as religious, but this:

Life is the gift of the intelligent Designer

marks you out as being someone who thinks in a religious way.  You may not pray or give thanks to your designer, but your designer is a deity.

Based on the evidence, the mind is a result of the physical brain, and life is a result of biological processes.  No designer implied by the facts, no designer needed to understand, no designer required to live.

[Madidus_Scientia]

The body pre-death and post-death is exactly the same

No, there is always a reason a body is dead, and if it's dead it definitely must not be exactly the same as it was when it was alive.

[Alan McDougall]

BenV

Maybe you think this thread is over, but the question relating to this thread will never be over!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html

Although I have already stated I am areligious I think this article on ID (and I am not a Catholic and there is nothing wrong in being one)


The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.
 
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 9:35PM GMT 11 Feb 2009

Gianfranco Ravasi: Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church Photo: EPA

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin's theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had "never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish" and forms of life had been transformed "slowly over time". Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.
 
Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a "higher power" must be responsible for the complexities of life.


The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than a scientific or theological issue.

Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.

Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the "time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation" of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth approaches.
Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin's opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".

Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin's legacy.

They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin's theory.

The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his "forgotten" work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.



Alan

[Madidus_Scientia]

When I look out at the unimaginable beauty, wonder and glory of the universe, like some astronauts I am moved to believe there must be a great hand in the formation of all existence

Yeah so what? How does that make what you are moved to believe true?

Evolution simply can not create altruistic love

As sophiecentaur has already asked, why not?

The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.

But you must acknowledge that many many great scientists have not dismissed the possibility of an ID, and I like to identify myself with them

More arguments from authority? Those aren't going to convince us rational types of anything.

[BenV]

It is over, Alan, because we are not discussing the original question.  There are plenty of other threads to discuss biological evolution in, this is not the place.

BenV

Maybe you think this thread is over, but the question relating to this thread will never be over!

Followed by a story that does not address the question relating to this thread at all...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html

Although I have already stated I am areligious I think this article on ID (and I am not a Catholic and there is nothing wrong in being one)


The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.
 
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 9:35PM GMT 11 Feb 2009

Gianfranco Ravasi: Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church Photo: EPA

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin's theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had "never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish" and forms of life had been transformed "slowly over time". Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.
 
Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a "higher power" must be responsible for the complexities of life.


The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than a scientific or theological issue.

Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.

Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the "time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation" of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth approaches.
Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin's opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".

Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin's legacy.

They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin's theory.

The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his "forgotten" work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.



Alan

So this news story has nothing to do with whether or not the universe was designed (the original question and point of this thread), and adds nothing.  So catholics can accept evolution - good, so they should.  Religion and science are only at odds when someone with a theistic belief insists that their belief is objective fact.

Let me give you an example - in this thread, a person with a theistic belief (that an intelligent designer created the universe and guides evolution) is claiming that belief to be an unargueable fact.  Of course, it is not a fact - it is that person's interpretation of what they percieve.  Strangely, despite people pointing this out, the person continues to claim that his or her theistic belief must be true, and that everyone else must be wrong.

[justaskin]

So getting back to the original question what do you believe. Is the universe a result of some form of design or are the laws that govern the universe as we observe it just a hotch potch that popped into existence some time in the past.What scientific proof is there one way or another.I am quite prepared to believe there was time before the big bang and before that and before that.I have more trouble believing the universe just popped into existence from nothing sometime in the past and before that nothing.
May I suggest that if we don't want to discuss the religious side of this discussion then just stop replying to anything with religious connotations.

Cheers
justaskin

[Madidus_Scientia]

It is difficult to imagine the universe popping into existence.

However, if you postulate that a god or "intelligent designer" created the universe, there's 2 things popping to existence, the God, and the universe.

[justaskin]

It is difficult to imagine the universe popping into existence.

Well is that not what the big bang theory postulates.

However, if you postulate that a god or "intelligent designer" created the universe, there's 2 things popping to existence, the God, and the universe.

No only one as presumably the designer already existed.If he popped into existence at the same time as the universe how could he have designed it.
The thing is was this universe designed to have the laws it has or are all universes past present and future bound by the same laws of physics.

Cheers
justaskin