I stumbled upon Intelligent Design.

[Computer]

This morning while browsing through Trek BBS I decided to look on Google for the suspected galactic location of Sol in the MilkyWay Galaxy to see if it compares to suggested Trekverse locations.

I stumbled accross this article without looking at the top banner or links I read the main article only, about a quarter of the way down I realized where I was and where the article was going.

It of course was promoting Intelligent Design.

Now I consider myself an open minded individual but something about this just rubs me the wrong way.

I am an Agnostic first of all and have absolutely nothing against faith or God (organized religion being a different story)

To me it felt as though religion has tried to hijack science for it's own purposes leaving out critical information.

It describes the universe as a volatile and violent place making our stable star system increbily unique, statistical figures that im forced to question the validity of.

When trying to understand the universe you cannot possibly attempt to think in human terms, small and simple. A billion years to us is an incredible amount of time, but when you are speaking on the scale of the universe it's esentially just another day.

Disproving possibilities should be a small side effect of the scientific desire to explore and expand knowledge, not the main purpose of it.

I dont know how to hotlink but here is the link I stumbled upon. http://www.realtruth.org/articles/070601-001-egpi.html

Personally speaking I have never considered science to be a threat to the existance of god but more so just our interpretation of him/her or it

In the most civil way possible what are your thoughts and opinion on the issue?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Intelligent Design is not falsifiable, not testable, and therefore not science. People have long discussions about this, but that's what it boils down to. People can believe it if they want to, teach it to others, whatever. But it's not science and doesn't belong in a science curriculum.

 

[Amaris]

Robert Maxwell said:
Intelligent Design is not falsifiable, not testable, and therefore not science. People have long discussions about this, but that's what it boils down to. People can believe it if they want to, teach it to others, whatever. But it's not science and doesn't belong in a science curriculum.

Agreed.

I'm a devout Christian and believe that God created the universe. However, scientifically speaking, there's no way I could ever prove that. Intelligent Design belongs in a philosophy course, not a science class.


J.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

Intelligent Design as a personal philosophy, in its loosest sense as in believing that a deity created the universe, is a widespread and perfectly valid belief - even one that many scientists share. The "irreducible complexity" kind of Intelligent Design is simply creationism in disguise, relying on the intellectual laziness of its followers to think that simply because we do not know how something happened means that it couldn't possibly have happened. Despite having to put up with that sort of thing on a regular but thankfully not too frequent basis (as someone who teaches paleontology in university), I still can't wrap my mind around why a small group of people so vehemently reject science when I can't see how it would possibly contradict any religious beliefs about the the divinity of Jesus or even the existence of God. But they clearly do see some kind of contradiction, so I guess we just have a completely different mindset or something, because it's just not something I can fathom at all.

-MEC

 

[EyalM]

I read the article. It tries to claim that it cant be a coincident that the earth's environment is so suitable to human life. The logic flaw is that human life are adjusted to the environment, not the other way around.

 

[CaptainStoner]

PlixTixiplik said:
I still can't wrap my mind around why a small group of people so vehemently reject science when I can't see how it would possibly contradict any religious beliefs about the the divinity of Jesus or even the existence of God. But they clearly do see some kind of contradiction, so I guess we just have a completely different mindset or something, because it's just not something I can fathom at all.

-MEC

This is the point I am often trying to make in the "discussion" as it were. It falls on deaf ears. There is an intrinsic element of radical religious worldviews that requires conflict, even (or especially) where there is none, and anyone caught in that kind of dualism seems to just ignore whatever you try to tell them, and soldier on.
But I can see how they get there. Those types are usually Bible literalists. They cannot accept even something like carbon dating, because to them the Bible says the world is thousands of years old. They can allow no sense of metaphor in their reading of sacred text. This worldview puts them in constant contradiction with reality, but rather than it bringing them away from their narrow view, every contradiction only affirms it and deepens their sense of being a chosen people. Whackos.
Last time I checked, Evolution IS an Intelligent Design! Furthermore, Quantum Physics may well be the God's way of getting back at all those pesky atheist Scientists. Measure this!

 

[Deks]

To my knowledge there are numerous natural processes that happen spontaneously without the need of ANY kind of intelligence or outside interference.

I am an atheist myself, and therefore I am a little puzzled as to WHY people think there MUST be an intelligence behind the creation of the universe ?
Ok ... the answer is quite obvious, though why is it that people seem to think how some kind of entity MUST be out there ?

The majority of people seem to claim how the universe is 'magnificent' and too complex to simply come into existence without any sort of intelligence.
I beg to differ.

Quantum physics is just a new branch of science that will provide more insight in understandings of our surroundings.
Of course there is always a possibility that god exists, yet it's also quite possible that such a deity is nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy of people who are afraid to die and those who cannot find inspiration/strength/hope/answers (and other aspects) from alternative sources.

Intelligent design is not part of science and from my personal perspective it's just another way for organized religions to 'survive' and appeal to masses in the modern day since the 'old rules' don't apply and make 0 sense due to our current knowledge in comparison to the knowledge we had thousands of years ago.
And even today I think we know far less than 1% on a universal scale (that's just being generous taking into consideration how we are FAR FAR smaller than a tiny speck in universal measurements).

 

[Spider]

Humans are always trying to come up with an explanation for something they don't understand. Fact is, our science isn't deep enough yet to explain everything to the nth detail yet. Sure, evolution happened, but as to its exact cause there isn’t a definitive answer from science yet. We just know it happened. That doesn’t always set well when arguing evolution with some folks, and they throw that back at you.

The process of fossilization just doesn’t leave us lot of clues to go on. It’s easy to see the progression of humanoid skulls if you line them up by their age. But each one that we’ve found is quite a bit different from the older one and we are missing those in-between. That’s always good for a few uninformed remarks from Creationism crowd.

edit to say: PlixTixiplik, I didn’t know you teach paleontology. It makes sense to me now because your posts on the subject are always so detailed and informed. I love paleontology but I’m rather an amateur on the subject.

 

[Deks]

Oh I realize the fact that humans are trying to come up with explanations to things they don't understand (or anything to be precise) ... but to be frank, religious explanations provide far more questions than answers, and rarely make sense (at least to me).

 

[Amaris]

Deks said:
Oh I realize the fact that humans are trying to come up with explanations to things they don't understand (or anything to be precise) ... but to be frank, religious explanations provide far more questions than answers, and rarely make sense (at least to me).

I see faith as seeking the right questions for the soul, and science as the effort to find the right answers for the mind.


J.

 

[The Mule]

^^yes, that's similar to how i see things too. what really irks me about these Creastionists is they use some science to try and rationalize their beliefs, but never do it right. they should just leave science alone.

 

[Deks]

J. Allen said:

Deks said:
Oh I realize the fact that humans are trying to come up with explanations to things they don't understand (or anything to be precise) ... but to be frank, religious explanations provide far more questions than answers, and rarely make sense (at least to me).

I see faith as seeking the right questions for the soul, and science as the effort to find the right answers for the mind.


J.

Since I am an atheist the 'faith' part is something I lack (and I am perfectly fine with that).
I was raised a Christian actually until religion and faith as a whole became disgusting to me (even more to the point quite illogical, contradictive , the cause of many conflicts/violent behavior ...).
In any case ... personally I do ask myself numerous questions about my own existence and what not ... however, I hardly (actually never) attribute any of those things to religious aspects or something `mystical` simply because at some point answers are not available, or we as a race lack knowledge to explain them.

I look at religion (and this is my own opinion) as an illusion, created by certain people to escape realistic aspects of life, explain things they cannot understand, promote their own views on life, etc ...
On one hand it provides them comfort and a way to deal with certain things.
Which is fine ... but the problem ensues when such people start shoving it into everyones faces and present it as an absolute.

I really dislike it when science is used by organized religions to justify their own beliefs (and poorly at that).

 

[Amaris]

Deks said:
Since I am an atheist the 'faith' part is something I lack (and I am perfectly fine with that).
I was raised a Christian actually until religion and faith as a whole became disgusting to me (even more to the point quite illogical, contradictive , the cause of many conflicts/violent behavior ...).
In any case ... personally I do ask myself numerous questions about my own existence and what not ... however, I hardly (actually never) attribute any of those things to religious aspects or something `mystical` simply because at some point answers are not available, or we as a race lack knowledge to explain them.

I can understand that.

I look at religion (and this is my own opinion) as an illusion, created by certain people to escape realistic aspects of life, explain things they cannot understand, promote their own views on life, etc ...
On one hand it provides them comfort and a way to deal with certain things.
Which is fine ... but the problem ensues when such people start shoving it into everyones faces and present it as an absolute.

Aside from the illusion bit (I would have to explain my faith), I agree completely.

I really dislike it when science is used by organized religions to justify their own beliefs (and poorly at that).

And with that, I'll shout "Amen!", no puns intended.


J.

 

[Brent]

I like what Einstein said:

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

I think they can both compliment each other.

 

[Iasius]

CaptainStoner said:
Furthermore, Quantum Physics may well be the God's way of getting back at all those pesky atheist Scientists. Measure this!

As my quantum mechanics professor once said: If the theologists are correct and there is a god that created the universe, then he studied functional analysis.

 

[TerriO]

Brent said:
I like what Einstein said:

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

I think they can both compliment each other.

There's a part of social science that goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, if not further. Humans have always used the divine to explain the unexplainable.

How many people have childhood memories of being told that thunder was really just God (or the angels) bowling? And that lightning was when someone got a strike?

*looks around*

Okay, that could be because my grandfather was a professional bowler, I will admit that.

But, seriously, where science stops, religion has always tended to begin.

 

[Johnny Rico]

Robert Maxwell said:
Intelligent Design is not falsifiable, not testable, and therefore not science. People have long discussions about this, but that's what it boils down to. People can believe it if they want to, teach it to others, whatever. But it's not science and doesn't belong in a science curriculum.

It may not be science, but science helps to prove that it exists.

To tell me, and those who believe, that this huge and seemingly endless and glorious thing we know as the universe, just happened because all those particles just had nothing better else to do?

 

[Johnny Rico]

PlixTixiplik said:
Intelligent Design as a personal philosophy, in its loosest sense as in believing that a deity created the universe, is a widespread and perfectly valid belief - even one that many scientists share. The "irreducible complexity" kind of Intelligent Design is simply creationism in disguise, relying on the intellectual laziness of its followers to think that simply because we do not know how something happened means that it couldn't possibly have happened. Despite having to put up with that sort of thing on a regular but thankfully not too frequent basis (as someone who teaches paleontology in university), I still can't wrap my mind around why a small group of people so vehemently reject science when I can't see how it would possibly contradict any religious beliefs about the the divinity of Jesus or even the existence of God. But they clearly do see some kind of contradiction, so I guess we just have a completely different mindset or something, because it's just not something I can fathom at all.

-MEC

And that statement proves that you know nothing of what the Theory of Intelligent Design and those who believe in it stands for.

It's not about rejecting science. Not at all...it's beliefing that science in of itself is a tool to explain the theory of Intelligent Design.

 

[Brent]

Johnny Rico said:
It's not about rejecting science. Not at all...it's beliefing that science in of itself is a tool to explain the theory of Intelligent Design.

I agree

 

[Johnny Rico]

Deks said:
To my knowledge there are numerous natural processes that happen spontaneously without the need of ANY kind of intelligence or outside interference.

I am an atheist myself, and therefore I am a little puzzled as to WHY people think there MUST be an intelligence behind the creation of the universe ?
Ok ... the answer is quite obvious, though why is it that people seem to think how some kind of entity MUST be out there ?

The majority of people seem to claim how the universe is 'magnificent' and too complex to simply come into existence without any sort of intelligence.
I beg to differ.

Quantum physics is just a new branch of science that will provide more insight in understandings of our surroundings.
Of course there is always a possibility that god exists, yet it's also quite possible that such a deity is nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy of people who are afraid to die and those who cannot find inspiration/strength/hope/answers (and other aspects) from alternative sources.

Intelligent design is not part of science and from my personal perspective it's just another way for organized religions to 'survive' and appeal to masses in the modern day since the 'old rules' don't apply and make 0 sense due to our current knowledge in comparison to the knowledge we had thousands of years ago.
And even today I think we know far less than 1% on a universal scale (that's just being generous taking into consideration how we are FAR FAR smaller than a tiny speck in universal measurements).

This post is just stupid I don't know where to start.

As I said above, do you really think that this whole universe came together and the miracle of life we find here on Earth is just the result of happenstance? That it just all started out of of conincidence? That it was just by chance that it happened and developed like this?

If you do, then it is folks like you who are so close-minded, or at the very least tunnel-visioned when it comes to the "almighty science" scene.

I think the major falicy that Inteligent Design denying scientists have is that they assume the extremist point of view of the Intelligent Design supporters. You have to remember that the vast majority of people are NOT extremists.

But certain extremists, (read: athiests) proclaim that all believers of Intelligent Design theory are Bible-thumping literalists. Which is not true at all. I'd argue that most of them are happy to accept scientific findings, it's just that they like to say that there has to be some external intelligence to create such wonderful creations.