[_ Old Earth _] Questions about ID

[Barbarian]

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to
keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of
the Origins of Life to individual students and their
families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction
focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency
on Standards-based assessments.

Somehow I missed that. The Nimrods even confused evolution with the origin of life. Amazing. Most creationists know better than that. Even some IDers know better than that.

 

[BobRyan]

Rom 1
14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
...

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress
the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,
being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations,
and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

L.K trying to argue that he does not see what barbarians see in Romans 1

What does Johnson mean by vague terms like 'all the creating that has been done in the history of life'?

• Does he mean that each separate form of life was individually created?

• Does he mean that there was a single act of creative force from which all else flowed?

• Does he mean to identify this 'creative intelligence' with a supernatural being?

• Does he mean to identify it with aliens from a distant star in our own galaxy?

• Does he mean to identify it with aliens from a galaxy remote from our own?

L.K engaged in a kind of religious argument that ID does not engage in -- and yet L.K finds it suitable to his need to misdirect from the glaringly obvious statement above where ID SCIENCE is merely detecting the presence of design.

L.K you are simply whining that Johnson is not going into the very religious speculation that your own questions above are so steeped in. Why complain that he is NOT doing what you so wanted him to do - in your efforts to deny the Romans 1 "clearly seen fact" that even barbarians see?

By referring to 'unintelligent, purposeless, natural processes' does Johnson intend to exclude the possibility that natural selection could have been designed

Your circular self-conflicted argument of the form "the no god solution was designed by god" was rejected by Darwin, rejected by Dawkins, rejected by Provine, Rejected by Meyers and as we saw at the top - you are taking a position that even the barbarians of Romans 1 were not considered to take.

How "instructive".

I can't believe you really imagine to yourself that we can not all READ the text and SEE it in the light of day! What are you thinking??

Bob

 

[lordkalvan]

And I find it hard to imagine that you believe that your replies are either relevant or make much sense at all. Evolutionary theory is neither unavoidably atheistic nor exclusive of God simply because individuals such as those you have referred to believe it to be so. You have persistently ignored every reference you have been given to devout Christian scientists who find evolutionary theory entirely consistent with their faith and who are thus in complete disagreement with your conclusions. If your only response is to accuse them of being 'unwitting', this is puerile. Again I ask, why should I prefer your conclusions over theirs?

ETA: And if Phillip Johnson isn't making a religious argument when he makes this statement, '...you need a creative intelligence to do all the creating that has been done in the history of life, then I would be very interested in what you and he think is a religious statement. If, indeed, as you assert without any evidence that I can see, that it isn't a religious statement, then the questions I asked - or ones very similar to them - become entirely reasonable. What is the form of the proposed creative intelligence that he and you propose searching for? Is it supernatural or not? Is it advanced aliens or is it God? How will you know it when you find it? Indeed, how will you know when you have found it?

 

[BobRyan]

And I find it hard to imagine that you believe that your replies are either relevant or make much sense at all.

Hint: Try quoting the posts and responding to the points.

Evolutionary theory is neither unavoidably atheistic nor exclusive of God simply because individuals such as those you have referred to believe it to be so.

Certainly we could argue that case from the evolutionists that are engaged in ID science.

But in the attacks on ID science - we see DISTINCTIVE Atheism as the Romans 1 point demonstrates -- and so you wisely choose to gloss over that fact most devastating to your argument.

I see why you do it -- I just don't know why you imagine that I don't notice that you are doing it?

You have persistently ignored every reference you have been given to devout Christian scientists who find evolutionary theory entirely consistent with their faith and who are thus in complete disagreement with your conclusions. If your only response is to accuse them of being 'unwitting', this is puerile. Again I ask, why should I prefer your conclusions over theirs?

The hollow argument of the form "I let them think for me instead of letting you think for me" is not working for you as well as you seem to imagine.

So why not respond to the points instead of continually coming back with a solution of the form "those guys do my thinking for me"?

Given the confirmed history of junk-science fraud that has gone into their thinking and given that one of their own accusses them of sipping at the cup of "anti-knowledge" it seems only prudent for you to "do the math yourself" instead of continually appealing to their half-baked solutions AS IF they were valid.

Bob

 

[Barbarian]

BTW, Bob, your blurb says that ID's idea of the origin of life differs from Darwin's.

Could you explain what ID says about the origin of life, relative to what Darwin said about it?

Please?

 

[BobRyan]

If, indeed, as you assert without any evidence that I can see, that it isn't a religious statement, then the questions I asked - or ones very similar to them - become entirely reasonable.

1. Is this where you deny that the barbarians in Romans 1 are non-Christian pagans? (As you appear to be asking questions more directed at Romans 1 than at ID science).

2. Why complain that neither Johnson nor I leap off the religious-doctrine cliff you are so anxious to flee to in your attempts to spin any SCIENCE that does not bow to atheism -- "religious"?

L.K
What is the form of the proposed creative intelligence that he and you propose searching for? Is it supernatural or not? Is it advanced aliens or is it God? How will you know it when you find it? Indeed, how will you know when you have found it?

2. go to the 3 posts at this link on this thread -- and get around to responding to the points that address that question.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32904&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=255#p397409

Since we are learning that you are not likely to do the math -- I may come back here and do it for you later -- but since I already answered the question by way of giving an example of ID -- seems like the next step is for you to FINALLY respond to the point.

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

BTW, Bob, your blurb says that ID's idea of the origin of life differs from Darwin's.

Could you explain what ID says about the origin of life, relative to what Darwin said about it?

Please?

As for the abiotic origin of life itself -- Darwin is ahh -- "Mr Protoplasm" when it comes to cell science.

Did you skip class that day?

As for Darwin's own mythology being at variance with scripture -- Darwin HIMSELF claims that!

As for Darwinism's story telling "about how one thing came from another" being "stories easy enough to make up but they are NOT science" -- well Colin Patterson -- and Atheist Darwinist himself admits to that.

As for ID Science merely exercising the Academic Freedom to follow the data where it leads in the case of that celluar biology example --- evidence speaks for itself.

As for the confirmed junk-science history and decades long fraudulent claims of Darwinist in the past 150 years -- again the evidence speaks for itself.

What part of this is confusing?

Bob

 

[lordkalvan]

If, indeed, as you assert without any evidence that I can see, that it isn't a religious statement, then the questions I asked - or ones very similar to them - become entirely reasonable.

1. Is this where you deny that the barbarians in Romans 1 are non-Christian pagans? (As you appear to be asking questions more directed at Romans 1 than at ID science).

You will have to be more explicit about what you are trying to imply here, as it seems to me to be irrelevantly cryptic.

2. Why complain that neither Johnson nor I leap off the religious-doctrine cliff you are so anxious to flee to in your attempts to spin any SCIENCE that does not bow to atheism -- "religious"?

The proof of the pudding..... See below.

[quote:3w18a08r]L.K
What is the form of the proposed creative intelligence that he and you propose searching for? Is it supernatural or not? Is it advanced aliens or is it God? How will you know it when you find it? Indeed, how will you know when you have found it?

2. go to the 3 posts at this link on this thread -- and get around to responding to the points that address that question.[/quote:3w18a08r]
I am surprised that you would link so confidently to the post you do as Phillip Johnson clearly demonstrates his confused thinking in the statements you reference there. And if not confused thinking, then the alternative conclusion must be an element of disingenuousness, unless you wish to explain how the contradictions in these two statements can be reconciled logically:

It's saying that there's an intelligence, but the intelligence could be natural as well as supernatural.

and

...you need a creative intelligence to do all the creating that has been done in the history of life.

Let me spell it out for you in case you have difficulty following the argument: if the creative intelligence is wholly natural, as Johnson claims to believe entirely possible and indeed central to the ID argument if it is not to be thought to be no more than scientific creationism in a cheap suit (as poor, confused, misled Judge Jones dodderingly imagined it to be), how can such a natural intelligence have done all the creating that has been done in the history of life? In other words, is it Johnson's (and your) case that the natural intelligence created itself? I trust you can readily see the logical absurdity inherent in trying to hold these two arguments in mutual association with each other.

It is also worth looking at some of Johnson's other public utterances to see the religious agenda hiding behind the supposedly rational facade of ID 'science':

It is the alleged absence of divine intervention throughout the history of life -- the strict materialism of the orthodox theory -- that explains why a great many people, only some of whom are biblical fundamentalists, think that Darwinian evolution (beyond the micro level) is basically materialistic philosophy disguised as scientific fact. (Johnson, "The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism", First Things, November 1997, pp. 22-25)

Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. . . . The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe. (Johnson, "The Church of Darwin", Wall Street Journal, August 16, 1999).

For now we need to stick to the main point: In the beginning was the Word, and the 'fear of God'- recognition of our dependence upon God-is still the beginning of wisdom. If materialist science can prove otherwise then so be it, but everything we are learning about the evidence suggests that we don't need to worry. (Johnson, "How to Sink a Battleship; A Call to Separate Materialist Philosophy from Empriical Science", address to the 1996 "Mere Creation Conference")

In any case, Darwinistic evolution would be a most peculiar creative method for God to choose, given the Darwinistic insistence that biological evolution was undirected. That requirement means that God neither programmed evolution in advance nor stepped in from time to time to pull it in the right direction. How then did God ensure that humans would come into existence so that salvation history would have a chance to occur? (Creator or Blind Watchmaker? Phillip E. Johnson, First Things, January 1993, p.12)

Of course, God could make some use of random mutation and natural selection in a fundamentally directed creative process. God can act freely as He chooses: that is just the problem for those who would constrain God by philosophy. God could employ mutation and natural selction or act supernaturally, whether or not His choice causes inconvenience for scientists who want to be able to explain and control everything. Once we allow God to enter the picture at all, there is no reason to be certain a priori that natural science has the power to discover the entire mechanism of creation. (ibid.)

To know that Darwinism is true (as a general explanation for the history of life), one has to know that no alternative to natural evolution is possible. To know that is to assume that God does not exist, or at least that God does not or cannot create. To infer that mutation and selection did the creating because nothing else was available, and then to bring God back into the picture as the omnipotent being who chose to create by mutation and selection, is to indulge in self-contradiction. (ibid., p.14)

Sources: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/wedge.html
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/cre_bw98.htm

Johnson is taking a stance on ID free of any religious baggage? If you believe this, surely you will believe anything.

Since we are learning that you are not likely to do the math -- I may come back here and do it for you later -- but since I already answered the question by way of giving an example of ID -- seems like the next step is for you to FINALLY respond to the point.

You try so hard to add a veneer of science to your religious arguments when you use expressions like 'do the math' as if just using the term suggests that your position is wholly rational and free of faith-based presumptions and pre-existing conceptions that colour every interpretation you make and understanding you take. Do you imagine no one sees through this?