DescentBB

and a little something for everyone to think about ...

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Sir Arthur Eddington
English astronomer (1882 - 1944)

Yes, seriously, I intend no sarcasm.

The semantic debate and the theoretical arguing between the poles of opinion over what we think we know, needs to be tested more with experience.

To really test the question of is there and Intelligent Design to the Universe, based on your conscious experience, consider psychedelic substances as one way to test, everything you know...

But we're not all equally inclined to just drop acid, I know, so here's another bit to read by TM, ...the first 4 paragraphs are about science...

http://deoxy.org/t_weeke2.htm

Tricord wrote:

Tricord wrote:If we were created, that implies our existance relates to an initial descision which must have had either a reason or a purpose. I'd like to know what it is, it's the only thing that could validate the idea of ID, so the question "why?" is not an unimportant one.

Nobody willing to tackle this one? I believe it's the essence of this thread.

OK, I'll suggest something because you're right... that is the essence of this thread and because you asked...

The purpose: To learn if you tend towards good or evil and to learn how to govern ourselves when on our own.

For this "possibility" you have to make 2 assumptions:
Assumption #1: Man has a spirit (eternal, also reffered to as a "soul") and can be housed in a mortal body thus giving the body "life".
Assumption #2: Your spirit is "spiritual offspring" from God (The Father).

OK, here's how the "possibility" might work:

Before you were born (in a body) you lived as a spirit only and you lived with God (The Father) where his influence is very strong and great (He is God, why would you want to do anything wrong when you are with him?).

As you grew spiritualy, you reached a point at which God (The Father) needs to find if you are going to choose good or evil when not in his presence. This is similar to the Teenager or young adult who needs to be away from the parents in order to continue "growing up". Since in the presence of God there can be no evil, you naturally can't learn that in his presence. So...

You are given a chance to reside in a physical, imperfect, mortal body located in an environment where you will be presented with choices both good and evil without the overpowering presence of God (The Father). This is of course, right here on Earth. Because the memory of God's prescence is strong, your memory is "covered" (blocked) so that you start your earthly existance with a "empty slate" thus allowing you the chance to choose completely on your own. Thus your personal tendancy toward good or evil will be apparent by the choices you lean towards. As you age in your mortal body you are given the opportunity (repeatedly) to choose either good or evil.

When your mortal body dies, your eternal spirit returns towards God's prescence, but before your spirit gets there, your choices, actions, tendancies while in this earthly existance is evaluated (balanced according to the actual events and surroundings you experienced)... because no evil can be in the prescence of God ... it has to be determined if you tended towards good or evil. If good, then you return to God's prescence having learned a great deal about yourself and about managing/controlling your passions, likes, feelings, etc. If you tended towards evil you, of course, cannot be allowed to return to God's prescence and must go to a "not good" place (Do good, go to good. Do evil, go to evil).

Why the need to learn all this? If you are a spirit offspring of God (The Father), wouldn't a good father (he would qualify as a good father) want his offspring to continue to learn?

Why the body? It's part of the chance to learn to govern yourself, your passions, desires, tendancies, likes, dislikes, along with learning how to deal with frailties. Certainly a mortal body like our would qualify for that. There is more to this but I won't go into that at this time.

Now that you've heard this "possibility"... I've got to say it's one of the best "possibilities" I've ever come across. It makes a lot more sense than most alien theories, random planet seeding theories, fluke of nature theories... at least to my mind.

Tricord, what if I tended toward 'evil-good'?





But seriously, your 'what if' essay was very well written, I enjoyed getting lost in that theory for a moment. Thx

"Before you were born (in a body) you lived as a spirit only and you lived with God (The Father) where his influence is very strong and great (He is God, why would you want to do anything wrong when you are with him?).

As you grew spiritualy, you reached a point at which God (The Father) needs to find if you are going to choose good or evil when not in his presence. This is similar to the Teenager or young adult who needs to be away from the parents in order to continue "growing up". Since in the presence of God there can be no evil, you naturally can't learn that in his presence. So... "
TechPro

So are you saying every "soul" has already been created or are "new" souls being made by god on a ongoing basis. Animals have life...do they have souls? Did primitive man, long before the god concept, have a soul? If not, why not?

..do we remember having similar 'what if' theories to explain Santa Claus ..? Experience disproved that one for all of us, right...?!

It is blasphemous amongst some religious-dogmatic types to suggest animals have souls.. and also 'spirit' does not equal 'soul' .. much too pagan of a term..

You can experience all that theory about ID, God, and the reason(s) we are here, within this 4 dimensional space/time universe... And there by have more proof about which "if, and or but" is correct. And my experience is that 'God' is not masculine.

One thing for sure, I know from experience, is that nothing about my body, soul and mind are "evil" .. nothing in our 4 dimensional universe starts out as evil... I have found that evil is introduced, cultured, or injected and then allowed to rule by our societal ambitions and our power driven, sheep herding tactics and leaders.

El Ka Bong wrote:And my experience is that 'God' is not masculine.

What did you mean about this part?

Bettina

If I could only post anonymously

Bet51987 wrote:

El Ka Bong wrote:And my experience is that 'God' is not masculine.

What did you mean about this part?

Bettina

EKB believes in ID. The use of hallucinogens has convinced EKB that God is woman.

That alone would rule out Intelligent Design!

Bet, I love the way you just completely blew over my post as if it wasn't there, and kept on beating on the fact that you take it as fact that we originated via means of evolution.

Stop acting like our origins are a proven fact... we all know that they're not. You have your faith, I have mine- accept it and move on.

Palzon wrote:EKB believes in ID. The use of hallucinogens has convinced EKB that God is woman.

That alone would rule out Intelligent Design!

Next time we meet in the mines, Palzon.....I'm going to hurt you.

snoopy wrote:Bet, I love the way you just completely blew over my post as if it wasn't there, and kept on beating on the fact that you take it as fact that we originated via means of evolution.

Stop acting like our origins are a proven fact... we all know that they're not. You have your faith, I have mine- accept it and move on.

Hope your not mad at me, but I only gave my pov like everyone else, but since you brought it up again....I can't accept ID. I know our origins are not totally proven, but you have to realize that origin is a very very large puzzle with many pieces.

Between ongoing evolutionary studies, hard evidence, research, and real discoveries, they have already placed some of those pieces together. That part of it is hard fact, and don't think for a moment that this doesn't worry the ID people. I wonder what the church will do when we come closer to finishing it.

What does ID have? A philosophy....backed by an organization that is very good with words, religious "instructors" that forced me to be a model student, and "religious scientists" that try to refute each piece that fits.

There was no intellegent design to the universe, humankind, or life. There was just chance and a good womb for it to grow. Just a puzzle with pieces that some are putting together and some are trying to take apart.

Look....My best friend wears a large cross and so do I. We go to the same church and sing in the same choir. Before a test, I've seen her hold it in her hand for a few seconds because her cross means something to her. I don't because mine is decorative but were still best friends. If you read my other posts you would realize that my whole diary is here. Nobody on this dbb wished for a god more than me, but it just didn't happen the way the bible book says.

I don't have a problem with the church unless they try to stop me from learning the truth of where I came from, and I'm glad I live in a country where they don't burn books like the Islamics do.

Meet me in the mines and we can settle this.

Bettina

El Ka Bong wrote:I have found that evil is introduced, cultured, or injected and then allowed to rule by our societal ambitions and our power driven, sheep herding tactics and leaders.

Yes, it's a matter of choice. That's what I tried to indicate:

TechPro wrote:...thus allowing you the chance to choose completely on your own. Thus your personal tendancy toward good or evil will be apparent by the choices you lean towards. As you age in your mortal body you are given the opportunity (repeatedly) to choose either good or evil.

Personnally, I prefer to think that we started out inherently good (having come from the prescence of God) and then make our own choices.

Palzon wrote:EKB believes in ID. The use of hallucinogens has convinced EKB that God is woman.

That alone would rule out Intelligent Design!

Yeah, Bet, hurt him! Hurt him bad. That was a backhanded and uncalled for slap. Nobody deserves their gender being insulted like that.

Bet51987 wrote:Hope your not mad at me, but I only gave my pov like everyone else, but since you brought it up again....I can't accept ID. I know our origins are not totally proven, but you have to realize that origin is a very very large puzzle with many pieces.

Between ongoing evolutionary studies, hard evidence, research, and real discoveries, they have already placed some of those pieces together. That part of it is hard fact, and don't think for a moment that this doesn't worry the ID people. I wonder what the church will do when we come closer to finishing it.

What does ID have? A philosophy....backed by an organization that is very good with words, religious "instructors" that forced me to be a model student, and "religious scientists" that try to refute each piece that fits.

There was no intellegent design to the universe, humankind, or life. There was just chance and a good womb for it to grow. Just a puzzle with pieces that some are putting together and some are trying to take apart.

You're mixing issues. Both Evolution and ID have both a philosophical side, and a scientific side. I understand that you disagree with the philosophical side of ID... that's fine. I choose to disagree with the philosophical side of evolution. I don't deny, however, the scientific side of evolution. Likewise, I ask that you not deny the scientific side of ID. Until you are able to disprove the reliability of the methodology that ID uses to identify design in an object, you can't just write off ID as simply a philosophical exercise. I said it in my first post, and I'll say it again: (in another form) Both ID and Evolutionary theory are scientific theories (both yet to be proven invalid or unreliable) the lead to philosophical extrapolation. If one follows ID's methodology, it will reliably identify man made things as intellently designed, and naturally occuring things as non-intellegently designed. (Given, it won't catch all man made things, but it those that it catches will indeed be man made.) Please stop comparing the scientific work of one with the philosophical extrapolations of the other.

snoopy wrote:

Bet51987 wrote:Hope your not mad at me, but I only gave my pov like everyone else, but since you brought it up again....I can't accept ID. I know our origins are not totally proven, but you have to realize that origin is a very very large puzzle with many pieces.

Between ongoing evolutionary studies, hard evidence, research, and real discoveries, they have already placed some of those pieces together. That part of it is hard fact, and don't think for a moment that this doesn't worry the ID people. I wonder what the church will do when we come closer to finishing it.

What does ID have? A philosophy....backed by an organization that is very good with words, religious "instructors" that forced me to be a model student, and "religious scientists" that try to refute each piece that fits.

There was no intellegent design to the universe, humankind, or life. There was just chance and a good womb for it to grow. Just a puzzle with pieces that some are putting together and some are trying to take apart.

You're mixing issues. Both Evolution and ID have both a philosophical side, and a scientific side. I understand that you disagree with the philosophical side of ID... that's fine. I choose to disagree with the philosophical side of evolution. I don't deny, however, the scientific side of evolution. Likewise, I ask that you not deny the scientific side of ID. Until you are able to disprove the reliability of the methodology that ID uses to identify design in an object, you can't just write off ID as simply a philosophical exercise. I said it in my first post, and I'll say it again: (in another form) Both ID and Evolutionary theory are scientific theories (both yet to be proven invalid or unreliable) the lead to philosophical extrapolation. If one follows ID's methodology, it will reliably identify man made things as intellently designed, and naturally occuring things as non-intellegently designed. (Given, it won't catch all man made things, but it those that it catches will indeed be man made.) Please stop comparing the scientific work of one with the philosophical extrapolations of the other.

Intellegent design to me, is a theory that is going where god couldn't go. ID believes that the earth is much older than creationists say it is. This is a step forward, but still ties to god. I'm having trouble with the word "scientific" because a scientific theory is an idea that with verified tests has a chance of becoming law. I see no chance for ID to become law so I have a hard time accepting it as science.

Can you show me a link where ID has scientific backing other than the church? I would like to see what your describing.

Bettina

it's time for me to find that window... fly in the soup outta here ! To the Mines ! .. I'll pm you Betti'..

..hmm, is it true that...parthenogenic organisms or species, those that reproduce without the need of an opposite sex, usually dispense of the male..? lizards and insects... no such thing as male parthenogenesis..? right..?

... just a thought, on the way ... to teh mines..eh..

http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/p ... nesis.html

snoopy wrote:You're mixing issues. Both Evolution and ID have both a philosophical side, and a scientific side. I understand that you disagree with the philosophical side of ID... that's fine. I choose to disagree with the philosophical side of evolution. I don't deny, however, the scientific side of evolution. Likewise, I ask that you not deny the scientific side of ID. Until you are able to disprove the reliability of the methodology that ID uses to identify design in an object, you can't just write off ID as simply a philosophical exercise. I said it in my first post, and I'll say it again: (in another form) Both ID and Evolutionary theory are scientific theories (both yet to be proven invalid or unreliable) the lead to philosophical extrapolation. If one follows ID's methodology, it will reliably identify man made things as intellently designed, and naturally occuring things as non-intellegently designed. (Given, it won't catch all man made things, but it those that it catches will indeed be man made.) Please stop comparing the scientific work of one with the philosophical extrapolations of the other.

What "scientific methodology" is there to be found within ID? Which are the succession of steps and which are the observations that lead to a scientific backing of ID theory? The only backing I keep hearing boils down to "wow, that's waaay to complicated for me to understand. That can't be a coincidence, it must have been God's work".

Another thing.. We humans are but a small part of all life on this planet. We have developed (or been given, for you ID people) superior intelligence and self-awareness, but other animals have to rely on instinct. That instinct tells them to kill to survive, to attack, to be agressive. The balance in nature is one of violence, cruelty and fierce competition. Every lifeform, which can be so beautiful in it's own right, just serves the purpose of nutrition for another lifeform; with all the pain and suffering that comes with it. In nature, the individual is unimportant and disposable. Surely an all-powerful entity of pure goodness doesn't create a world like that?

Since when does ID equate to a god?

woodchip wrote:Since when does ID equate to a god?

God, the designer, yo mama; whatever you want to designate the entity responsible for our creation.

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:Since when does ID equate to a god?

God, the designer, yo mama; whatever you want to designate the entity responsible for our creation.

Certainly doesn't have to be a god...correct?

woodchip wrote:

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:Since when does ID equate to a god?

God, the designer, yo mama; whatever you want to designate the entity responsible for our creation.

Certainly doesn't have to be a god...correct?

No but by accepting ID you do acknowledge the existance of a higher entity, and the whole descision/purpose/reason thing I posted earlier, right?

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:Since when does ID equate to a god?

God, the designer, yo mama; whatever you want to designate the entity responsible for our creation.

Certainly doesn't have to be a god...correct?

No but by accepting ID you do acknowledge the existance of a higher entity, and the whole descision/purpose/reason thing I posted earlier, right?

A highter entity like say ... humans compared to apes?

woodchip wrote:

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:

Tricord wrote:

woodchip wrote:Since when does ID equate to a god?

God, the designer, yo mama; whatever you want to designate the entity responsible for our creation.

Certainly doesn't have to be a god...correct?

No but by accepting ID you do acknowledge the existance of a higher entity, and the whole descision/purpose/reason thing I posted earlier, right?

A highter entity like say ... humans compared to apes?

No wood. if you ppl would read the darn Wikipedia entry for the wedge document you would see that it cannot just be any old higher entity in any honest sense.

The whole purpose of ID is get (already anti-intellectual) americans to accept something as science when it is not science. then they will be able to use this pseudo-science to bolster their worldview and advance their conservative christian agenda. mind you, the ppl who wrote this document, and from who it eventually leaked, are the main proponents of ID. Here is a snipit since no one has commented:

wedge wrote:As stated in the Wedge Document[1], the strategy is designed to defeat "Darwinism" and to promote an idea of science "consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The ultimate goal of the Wedge strategy is to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian values.

The strategy outlines a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media, funding agencies, and the scientific community in order that they should effect an "overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies". Wedge advocates have stated they hope to reinstate a "broadly theistic understanding of nature" to replace materialism. According to critics of intelligent design, the intelligent design movement, and the Discovery Institute, the wedge document, more than any other Discovery Institute project, betrays the Institute's and intelligent design's political rather than scientific purpose.

There are three "wedge projects" referred in the strategy as three phases:

Phase I: Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity,
Phase II: Publicity & Opinion-making, and
Phase III: Cultural Confrontation & Renewal.

Follow ID and we'll be back in the dark ages in no time.

will_kill wrote:The Theory of ID holds back the natural processes of The Theory of Evolution...thereby effectivly putting the human race on hold....

This was the 17th post in this thread...

Bet51987 wrote:Can you show me a link where ID has scientific backing other than the church? I would like to see what your describing.

Bettina

has a quick overview of the theory.

A good book on the subject is "The Design Revolution" by Dembski... he not only outlines the theories he introduced in his earlier books, but addresses some critiques of what he said.

This page seems to have a decent critique of the theory from an evolutionist's point of view.

And, now that I linked to a article shooting down ID, I'll post my problems with the critique.

The two main parts of ID are irreducible complexity and complexity-specification.

irreducible complexity: The author states that redundancy in biochemical pathways show that they are not necissarily irreducably complex. I agree. He then continues to gloss over the fact that there are not theories about how some things could have gradually evolved. (Example that he doesn't mention: the motor device in the bacteria flagellum.) Furthermore, he casts a comical light on the theory by bringing up William Paley's theories about half an eye being useless, and states that since theories for the evolution of the eye have been developed. That's great- science has come a long way in the past 200 years... bringing up a scientist who has dead for 200 years smells a lot like a straw man. Finally he closes by stating that biological systems have no evidence of being irreducibly complex. That is simply incorrect (again, the motor example- there are no good theories as of yet on how it could not be irreducibly complex) While irreducible complexity has yet to be absolutely proven within biological systems, it has not been disproven in some examples- and scientific proof relies on lack of disprovability, rather than absolute provability. No scientific theory has even been absolutely proven. (I.E. Quantum Theory stands because no one has been able to come up an experiment that has results that it cannot explain, coupled with a theory that can explain it; but that same could be have been said for Newtonian physics until years after it was originally introduced.)

Complexity-specification:

The author's argument about chaos theory demonstrating that some phenomena are self-organizing is flawed. If an event is self-organizing, it looses it's complexity. Take the author's example of tornados. The author argues that they they involve a plethora of meterological aspects, thus it is complex, and it doesn't always happen, thus it is not normal, so it slips through the crack. The problem with the argument is that under the conditions in which tornados form, the likelihood of them forming becomes much more likely. Depending on how you look at it, they are either normal or random but not irreducibly complex. One perspective sees them as something that happen as an effect of a certain set of conditions- at a level of incredible complexity (I.E. knowing all of the exact conditions.) they become normal. If the conditions are exactly in a certain way, a tornado will occur. (Kind of like a double pendulum- if you know the exact parameters, you can reliably predict it's path- it is only considered chaos because you never know the parameters well enough to do the predictions well.) If you look at tornados from a less complex perspective, they become relatively likely to occur under a given range of conditions. I think I explained that fairly well- the argument is flawed in that real examples self-organizing phenomena become likely to occur under conditions in which they can occur. (Can meaning have ever been observed to occur.)

The author then jumps into an argument about the nature of the designer, based on the resulting designed object. The problem is this: ID makes no attempt to determine anything about the nature of the designer, it simply attempts to detect design in something. Thus, while the rest of the critique may be a fun philosophical argument, it isn't addressing any claims that ID has made.

this is in no way intended to be a complete refutation of what you have just posted...just an initial response.

1. even if the scientist admits that some process/phenomena is irreducibly complex under current scientific theories - this does not mean that successful reduction of the process is impossible (or even unlikely) or that it will never be achieved under other theories.

2a. even if the scientist admits that some process/phenomenon is impossible to subject to reduction - this does not mean that there is not a naturalistic explanation. it may merely mean that man is not equipped to ever arrive at the explanation. in other words, there is a naturalistic explanation, but it is not knowable to man.

2b. even if the scientist admits that some process/phenomenon is impossible to subject to reduction - this does not mean that only an intelligence could create such a process/phenomena.

3a. Miraculous conjectures require miraculous evidence. If there is any merit to ID, it would take a lot more than pointing out deficiencies in naturalism to show ID's merit. The fact is, scientists not only admit deficiencies in their theoretical knowledge, but make no effort to hide them.

3b. Simply because ID embraces criticism of scientific naturalism does not mean that ID is a scientific theory in its own right. Naturalism has been successful because it has been useful to reduce complex processes/phenomena and to supply theories that are both falsifiable and have survived falsification. ID fails to make science of itself and so attempts to change what is considered to be science!

Anyway - food for thought.

snoopy wrote:ID makes no attempt to determine anything about the nature of the designer, it simply attempts to detect design in something.

I'm going to concede this argument to you based on our levels of intellegence. I have not studied this enough to challenge you or the authors so I will have to leave this to others.

However, my "personal pov" on the above quote is similar to seeing a cart then implying there must be a horse around even though you don't see one around anywhere.

My take is that some creationists are trying a different approach to combat evolutionary science. One grand way would be to drop the offending word "god or creator" and instead, mention all the nicley designed carts they see. This would apply intellegence without naming names.

Again, just my pov. I am not at the level to argue this with you....but I wanna real bad.

Bettina

Bet51987 wrote:

snoopy wrote:ID makes no attempt to determine anything about the nature of the designer, it simply attempts to detect design in something.

I'm going to concede this argument to you based on our levels of intellegence. I have not studied this enough to challenge you or the authors so I will have to leave this to others.

However, my "personal pov" on the above quote is similar to seeing a cart then implying there must be a horse around even though you don't see one around anywhere.

My take is that some creationists are trying a different approach to combat evolutionary science. One grand way would be to drop the offending word "god or creator" and instead, mention all the nicley designed carts they see. This would apply intellegence without naming names.

Again, just my pov. I am not at the level to argue this with you....but I wanna real bad.
Bettina

I missed Snoopy's comment you've quoted above. It is simply not true. ID may superficially refrain from including their stance on the creator. However, the proponents themselves have made clear the basis of their beliefs and their ultimate goals are driven by a belief in the god of the bible. It is their stated goal to convert others to Christianity and their stated goal to undermine naturalism.

Please read the Wikipedia page since it is highly informative on the ID issue and not a long read. Here is is again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

Palzon wrote:2a. even if the scientist admits that some process/phenomenon is impossible to subject to reduction - this does not mean that there is not a naturalistic explanation. it may merely mean that man is not equipped to ever arrive at the explanation. in other words, there is a naturalistic explanation, but it is not knowable to man.

Right. The scientific methodology asks one to find the most likely hypothesis and then work to prove or disprove that hypothesis, eventually refining it to be a relatively unquestionable hypothesis concerning a given process/object. You statement reveals a backwards method: assuming a hypothesis (in the case of an irreducible process, not even a seemingly likely one) and then trying to force an explanantion that would make the hypothesis fit. While I'm sure there is a naturalistic explanation for everything, the question is: is the naturalistic explanation the best? If there exists a better explanation, one should not cling to the inferior one simply because accepting the better explanation threatens one's philosophy.

Bet51987 wrote:

El Ka Bong wrote:And my experience is that 'God' is not masculine.

What did you mean about this part?

Bettina

it's a Pagan thing.

i just quickly grabbed some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopaganism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_worship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_and_gender
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_%28mythology%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_%28science%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_philosophy

snoopy wrote:While I'm sure there is a naturalistic explanation for everything, the question is: is the naturalistic explanation the best? If there exists a better explanation, one should not cling to the inferior one simply because accepting the better explanation threatens one's philosophy.

Hmm. And why is "naturalism" necessarily not "by design"? Because we cannot get our minds around it to understand it? We can't understand it, therefore it cannot be true?

I say leave the pure science (stripped as much as possible from the philosophical trappings) in the science classroom, and then let the materialists and the IDers slug it out in the philosophy, ehtics and religion classrooms.

dissent wrote: I say leave the pure science (stripped as much as possible from the philosophical trappings) in the science classroom, and then let the materialists and the IDers slug it out in the philosophy, ehtics and religion classrooms.

Because the "ID" believers want you to accept their beliefs as science.....not philosophy.

Bettina

Palzon wrote:even if the scientist admits that some process/phenomenon is impossible to subject to reduction - this does not mean that there is not a naturalistic explanation. it may merely mean that man is not equipped to ever arrive at the explanation. in other words, there is a naturalistic explanation, but it is not knowable to man.

Your argument against ID has been that it is not falsifiable. What you just stated above is that no matter what evidence came up against naturalism, you would not accept that it falsified naturalism.

ID is NOT creation science. I rejected so called "Creation Science" a long time ago because it was busy making excuses. Carbon 14 dating? Well, perhaps there was MORE carbon 14 a long time ago. And who says the decay of radio active isotopes is constant anyway? And all of those fossils mysteriously lined up in a consistent manner all over the globe, could have been the way the animals ran away in the flood! BAH! Fantasy. A bunch of EXCUSES because they didn't like the way the evidence was lining up.

Now then, the naturalists are cheering. But just wait. Think about it for a second. When "Scientist" start making up wild fantasies in order to defend their theory, it's evidence that something is wrong, right? Now look again at the arguments coming out against Behe and Dembski. No, really, LOOK at them.

"An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become - because of later changes - essential."

Uhm, right, show me an example. A cilium REQUIRES certain working parts in order to be functional. Saying "Well, PERHAPS there were advantages to having a non working cilium" doesn't make it so. It's fantasy. And you can't use the "We just don't understand it" excuse. WE DO understand the cilium. We can tell you exactly what each molecule in that machine does, and it's obvious that it won't work without all the parts.

Blood clotting is the same way. WHATEVER system you come up with for blood clotting, has GOT to have a way to start a blood clot, and it must start the clot at the right place, and it has GOT to have a way to STOP the blood clot from solidifying all of the blood in your body. And it has GOT to have a way to remove that blood clot after it is no longer needed. So, at a MINIMUM it requires multiple systems to come together, correctly, simultaneously, or it is fatal. Anything short of a working system is worse than no system at all. But what do the Naturalist say? "Well, perhaps there was some way to do it in pieces?" Perhaps? They sound like Creation Scientist. They are making excuses.

ID does NOT say that evolution doesn't work. ID says that design CAN be recognized. We do it in archeology all the time. This rock is just a rock, but THAT rock is an axe head! We do it in forensic science. There is nothing really new or revolutionary in ID.

Ah, but you say, you can't apply it to LIFE!

Really? Tell me, if a new plague hit the US tomorrow. Something Ebola like, but airborne. How much do you want to bet the government would have a team of expert biochemist and geneticists studying that plague to see if it was a freak of nature, or if it was DESIGNED by scientist working for al qaeda. Duh! of COURSE they would be checking it out.

The problem with so called "Creation Science" is that they START with the conclusion and from that point, they will come up with whatever wild fantasy is required to deny the evidence. Naturalist, look carefully, you are doing the SAME THING!

Evolution, by definition, works in small steps. Anything that you can change in small steps, with each step having an advantage over the previous one, can, at least possibly, evolve. But if you find a system that, by it's very nature can NOT be developed in small steps, a system with multiple complex parts that HAS to be built all at once in order to have minimum function, then it can NOT have evolved.

This is NOT an argument from ignorance. Quite the contrary. When Darwin attempted to trace out the evolution of the eye, he could come up with a possible path because he thought cells were very simple balls of protoplasm surrounded by a simple membrane. We are no longer ignorant. We KNOW that the complexity of the simplest cells makes a modern battle ship look like a bath toy. Inside those cells we find many systems that could have evolved in steps. But we ALSO find systems that are irreducibly complex. We are NOT ignorant about these systems, we can often tell you every molecule that is involved in the system, and what every one of them does. There is no simple layer further down to work up from, molecules are as small as we get in the biochemical world. And so, because we are NO LONGER ignorant, we now know that when Darwin said, "First a simple eye spot evolved", he was really saying: "Assume the molecules 11-cis-retinal, rhodopsin, transducin, phosphodiesterase, and cyclicGMP all evolved simultaneously and in the right places, in the correct amounts, and with a useful support structure. Or perhaps that they just all happened to be useful molecules in some OTHER something or other in the cell that doesn't exist anymore. Or maybe we could assume that they self organized out of the chaos, or that they fell to earth on a Comet!"

And perhaps Merlin just waved his wand and they appeared, it's about as plausible.

Now, the problem with all of this is, that while I am BEGGING the naturalist to try and look at it with a truly open and scientific mind, I know most of them won't. Why? For the exact same reason "Christian Scientists" reject evolution. Faith. Naturalism is a world view, a meme, that defends itself just like any other.

WHICH points out the basic problem with having a public school system. Because everyone's tax dollars are being used to pay for the public schools, everyone wants to have a say in what is taught there. And there is simply NO WAY to educate children in a Neutral manner. If you teach ID in public schools, you will be offending the Naturalists, and if you don't teach it, you are offending the Creationists. There is no good way out of this conundrum.

A good article in which Behe covers many of the basics of his theory is available online at:
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm

Kilarin

"As an adolescent, I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty and I thirsted or a meaningful vision of human life--so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an Archbishop so you can meet girls."
Matt Cartmill

Well this issue will be investigated at the highest levels of journalistic integrity in a four night series next week:

Science vs. Religion. Evolution vs. Creation. It is an age-old battle whose time has come. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will gather together all the experts (or at least those who will talk to them), travel to the places that matter in the debate (basic cable budget permitting) and ultimately settle the controversy once and for all. "Evolution Schmevolution: A Daily Show Special Report" will premiere on Monday, September 12 and air nightly at 11:00 p.m. through September 15.

For one full week, "The Daily Show" goes in-depth, around, through and quite possibly under, one of the hottest hot-button issues facing our nation: evolution. It's the accepted theory on the origin of life by an overwhelming majority of the world's biologists, but maybe they're all wrong. What's so great about the scientific method anyway?

No, I'm sorry this has been decided and you can all just move along now....