Intelligent Design

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:01 am

This is in regards to Intelligent Design. Assuming that there is an ID why is the designer assumed to be God, and not, say, ALLAH, or BRAHMAN, or ZEUS, even? What is inherent in the conclusion that the ID has to be the Christian GOD?

Mastermind · Post by **Mastermind** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:04 am

hamilrob wrote:This is in regards to Intelligent Design. Assuming that there is an ID why is the designer assumed to be God, and not, say, ALLAH, or BRAHMAN, or ZEUS, even? What is inherent in the conclusion that the ID has to be the Christian GOD?

He isn't assumed. And Allah means God.

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:08 am

I know what ALLAH means. ALLAH also supposedly made a claim that Jesus never got crucified and that He passed into Heaven. Also, according to ALLAH, Mahdi, the last IMAM is the saviour to come and save the world, not Jesus. How can God contradict God?

Mastermind · Post by **Mastermind** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:11 am

Islam is wrong so that's a bad question to ask.

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:23 am

There's no such thing as a bad question. Islam is Islam. I am not defending Islam nor challenging Christianity in this string. I am merely asking what is it about the intelligent design theory that validates that This designer is the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible?

Intelligent Design is a point worth considering, but there is no direct connection to the allegorical, anthropomorphic God proclaimed in the Bible. Since Intelligent design appears to be a matter of logic, how do you proceed from the position of ID to the proof of all that the Bible claims to be so? It is saying that since the precise measurements of Physics reveal an intelligent designer that that ID has to be God. How do you jump to that conclusion?

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:51 am

hamilrob wrote:Intelligent Design is a point worth considering, but there is no direct connection to the allegorical, anthropomorphic God proclaimed in the Bible. Since Intelligent design appears to be a matter of logic, how do you proceed from the position of ID to the proof of all that the Bible claims to be so? It is saying that since the precise measurements of Physics reveal an intelligent designer that that ID has to be God. How do you jump to that conclusion?

Baby steps my friend, baby steps. The concept is rather simple. First is to demonstrate that there must be A God. ID might be able to do that; or at least it might be worth trying. Then the second step is to consider what the nature of God is. Is God vindictive and petty like early mytholigical characters? Does God promote hatred and voilence as portrayed in the Quran? Or is the gift of God forgivenss and eternal life, that every person has the opportunity to experience a mutually loving relationship with Him?

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:38 am

You can Baby step all you want to. The process which led to existing theology is clearly understood. No one needed ID to figure out if there is a God or not. You still have to make an ideological leap to make that conclusion. All theology and religion have developed solely from human imagination. The original conception of a God was handed down through the years by ritual, and dogma, using persuasion, guilt manipulation and fear tactics as well as appealing to love and affection, natural human needs easily manipulated by charismatic orations about a loving God.

The mind is a fertile seedbed not only for the dissemination of ideas but for indoctrination as well. Rational insight takes work and literacy. Humans are still emotional creatures at large and prefer being told WHAT to think rather than being taught HOW to think. There is no clear progression from the theory of intelligent design to a corroboration of theological ideas. Once you leave that group of mathematical values indicative of the possibility of an intelligent designer, you have to use your imagination and existing theology to determine the attributes of the God you supposed was proven by that evaluation.

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:08 pm

hamilrob wrote: You still have to make an ideological leap to make that conclusion. All theology and religion have developed solely from human imagination.

That is true - no one is arguing with you on that point.

hamilrob wrote:The original conception of a God was handed down through the years by ritual, and dogma, using persuasion, guilt manipulation and fear tactics as well as appealing to love and affection, natural human needs easily manipulated by charismatic orations about a loving God.

This statement is completely off-topic and has nothing to do with intelligent design.

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:14 pm

I think I was trying to say that Intelligent design had nothing to do with theology. ID is being invalidly used to demonstrate the existence of God, which has already been handled by theology. I don't mean to get off the subject, but how are you to connect Intelligent Design to theology without discussing theology in its own light?

Is Intelligent Design allowing us to shift our means of understanding God from the traditional tools of theology to something more rational and less in need of persuasion and manipulation of guilt and ignorance? I will go so far as to entertain the idea that ID proves the existence of a creative intelligence. I still need to make unfounded claims and appeal to the imagination in order to set up attributes for this creative intelligence, and there is no rational connection to the God of the bible (or the Koran) which has been established through faith.

Heb 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Either that is true or it is not true. ID attempts to make visible what has up until now been illuminated by faith. Is Faith at and end? Is that too far off the topic? You have Faith, and you have (in ID) what is being offered as proof. Which is the correct path? You don't need both.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:18 pm

hamilrob wrote:I think I was trying to say that Intelligent design had nothing to do with theology. ID is being invalidly used to demonstrate the existence of God, which has already been handled by theology.

It might be used to demonstrate the existence of a God, but not of the Christian God in particular. There is no justification to say that the existence of God has "already been handled by theology". Theology is the study of God, but this does not mean that external methods cannot be used to verify His existence.

hamilrob wrote:I don't mean to get off the subject, but how are you to connect Intelligent Design to theology without discussing theology in its own light?

What need is there to connect them? Intelligent design is about as separate from theology as algebra is, once you get beyond the existence of God to the identity of God. Do we reject God because algebra can't prove his identity?

hamilrob wrote:Is Intelligent Design allowing us to shift our means of understanding God from the traditional tools of theology to something more rational and less in need of persuasion and manipulation of guilt and ignorance?

Intelligent design is in no way intended to do that. Bible study is the more rational way to study God. We believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, but that is a separate topic.

hamilrob wrote:I will go so far as to entertain the idea that ID proves the existence of a creative intelligence. I still need to make unfounded claims and appeal to the imagination in order to set up attributes for this creative intelligence, and there is no rational connection to the God of the bible (or the Koran) which has been established through faith.

You're right in that ID cannot prove one God over another. However, if the Christian God actually exists, he will no doubt be the God discovered by Intelligent Design. To use ID by itself to reach this conclusion would be begging the question, however. That's why there's much more to apologetics than just ID.

hamilrob wrote:Heb 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Either that is true or it is not true. ID attempts to make visible what has up until now been illuminated by faith. Is Faith at and end? Is that too far off the topic? You have Faith, and you have (in ID) what is being offered as proof. Which is the correct path? You don't need both.

You're burning a straw man of "faith", as I have seen many people do. It doesn't threaten Christian faith if there is evidence for it. "Faith" is not supposed to be blind faith but rather reasoned faith, based on facts but going beyond them. It refers more to a personal, dynamic acceptance rather than simply intellectual belief.

This is a popular straw man of "faith", because it makes Christianity look stupid to a thinking person.

And naturally ID doesn't threaten even the straw man, because it only covers the existence rather than the identity of the Designer.

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:38 pm

Superb articulation of the point I was trying to make Jerickson.

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:33 pm

What need is there to connect them? Intelligent design is about as separate from theology as algebra is, once you get beyond the existence of God to the identity of God. Do we reject God because algebra can't prove his identity?

If you research the issue of ID, you will find that the connection gets made anyway. I didn't make it. The Christian God is 100% the fabrication of human culture and can neither be proved nor disproved by intelligent design, nor demonstrated.

Intelligent design is in no way intended to do that. Bible study is the more rational way to study God. We believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, but that is a separate topic.

You are correct here, not in the content, but in the reality. Any study of God should require the bible. I personally have rejected the idea of biblical infallibility, but as you said, that becomes a separate topic at some point. As long as there are people out there trying to use ID as a proof OR demonstration of the existence of the Christian God, then the topic of Bible study has relevance to the subject here.

You're right in that ID cannot prove one God over another. However, if the Christian God actually exists, he will no doubt be the God discovered by Intelligent Design. To use ID by itself to reach this conclusion would be begging the question, however. That's why there's much more to apologetics than just ID.

Well if ALLAH is the true God, are you ready to accept that if that's what ID ultimately discovers?

You're burning a straw man of "faith", as I have seen many people do. It doesn't threaten Christian faith if there is evidence for it. "Faith" is not supposed to be blind faith but rather reasoned faith, based on facts but going beyond them. It refers more to a personal, dynamic acceptance rather than simply intellectual belief.

Well, you're educating me here about Faith. That's a good thing. I always thought it served to render belief in things that empirical investigation cannot demonstrate. If I had faith that a house was burning around the corner, and then went to see the house burning, I wouldn't need the faith anymore. I will re-read the remainder of hebrews 11 to further understand what Faith is all about and why it can (as you say) co-exist with physical proof, and why it SHOULD share its pre-eminence that way.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:53 pm

hamilrob wrote:If you research the issue of ID, you will find that the connection gets made anyway. I didn't make it. The Christian God is 100% the fabrication of human culture and can neither be proved nor disproved by intelligent design, nor demonstrated.

You are begging the question, starting with the assumption that God is a fabrication of human culture and then "proving" it by talking about ID.

And I don't make the connection in the irrational sense. See the rest of my post.

hamilrob wrote:You are correct here, not in the content, but in the reality. Any study of God should require the bible. I personally have rejected the idea of biblical infallibility, but as you said, that becomes a separate topic at some point. As long as there are people out there trying to use ID as a proof OR demonstration of the existence of the Christian God, then the topic of Bible study has relevance to the subject here.

You assume that the Bible is a product of human imagination. I believe that the evidence indicates it is divinely inspired.

hamilrob wrote:Well if ALLAH is the true God, are you ready to accept that if that's what ID ultimately discovers?

I will put it this way - that would be as surprising a conclusion from ID as it would from algebra.

You see, ID cannot be used to discover the identity of the true God. I am saying that due to other evidence, I believe in the Christian God. Therefore, the God ID discovers will be the Christian God, even though all the details will not be found by ID.

I'll use a computer science example. Let's say my computer has an IP address of 254.254.254.254 (it doesn't; this is just an example). If I didn't have a firewall, I could open up a DOS Prompt or Unix-style console on your computer and run "ping 254.254.254.254". It would tell me that there is a computer there. However, it will not reveal that I am running Gentoo Linux, or that my machine has an AMD processor, or anything like that. Nonetheless, I can verify these facts physically at my machine. I could also verify that my IP address was 254.254.254.254. Thus, the computer that responded to your ping scan must run Gentoo Linux and have an AMD processor. This is revealed by a different means than the ping scan.

Likewise, ID is like the command to run a ping scan. It purports to reveal that there exists a God, just as the ping scan would prove there is a computer at 254.254.254.254. But I must use my separate knowledge of God to reveal that the God of ID is the God of the Bible. ID cannot make this conclusion.

ID would be equally incapable of making the conclusion that the God of ID was Allah.

hamilrob wrote:Well, you're educating me here about Faith. That's a good thing. I always thought it served to render belief in things that empirical investigation cannot demonstrate. If I had faith that a house was burning around the corner, and then went to see the house burning, I wouldn't need the faith anymore. I will re-read the remainder of hebrews 11 to further understand what Faith is all about and why it can (as you say) co-exist with physical proof, and why it SHOULD share its pre-eminence that way.

You could still demonstrate faith if you had evidence there was a little kid trapped in the burning house. Going into the house to save the kid would be an act of faith in the same sense as Christian faith.

Also, note that belief in the existence of God is not the essence of Christian faith. See James 2:19.

Do see http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... faith.html.

Forge · Post by **Forge** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:03 pm

jerickson314 wrote:You could still demonstrate faith if you had evidence there was a little kid trapped in the burning house. Going into the house to save the kid would be an act of faith in the same sense as Christian faith.

But what if one knew there was [not?] a child in the house?

Faith is one of the reasons why God does not come on a plantary--or interstellar, or what have you--loudspeaker in all his splendor to reveal himself to the world. If he chose to do so, there would be direct evidence of his existence, resulting in a sort of pre-determination. There would be no way for a rational mind to deny him.

However, he stays in metaphorical shadows and drops us hints to his existence, enough to give us a strong enough foundation for belief.

Evidence is first, followed by belief/faith, and finally concluded by proof.

hamilrob · Post by **hamilrob** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:33 pm

Divine inspiration is included in the assumption that all religion is the product of human imagination. All inspiration is produced in the Brain in response to various stimuli. The notion of God looking over the clouds and telling people what to write is silly. The possibility that the writers were moved by the possibility of God being real is not hard to accept. The origin of the Bible is the mind of humans. So too with all religion.

Evidence for God from Science