Intelligent Design Vs Science Community

Element, how about a little teaser post...it's not that I don't trust you(I don't trust anyone)

lol..sure:

Snippet of Article 1:

"Two 20th Century Scientific Discoveries That changed everything.

By Steven Power

About 4500 years ago allegedly inspired by God, Moses wrote these words : "In the beginning God created the heavens and earth" Ever since these words have been the dividing point for philosophy, theology and science.
Aristotle (400 BC) stated that the universe and all matter and energy is eternal, there was no "beginning" as the biblical worldview required. Therefore if the Bible spoke of "the beginning" it was at odds with the idea of eternally existing matter and energy.

This worldview of eternally existing matter and energy dominated all of philosophy, and later science ever since . It has been maintained that there was NO beginning but matter has always existed in some form or another and is merely re-cycled eternally.
It was stated that time is infinite in the past and will go on infinitely into the future.
This has been the foundation of all astronomy and cosmology for thousands of years.

Philosophers agreed that anything that BEGINS TO EXIST, must have an explanation for it's existence. But if the Universe had no beginning then no such explanation is required.

Because of the obvious contradiction between the two worldviews it is clear that logically they cannot both be correct, one must be wrong."


Snippet of Article 2:

"The debate over the existence of a creator is as old as history. Men and Women are asking the same questions today as they always have. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?

The answers to these most important of questions will determine how we live our lives perhaps more than any other single factor.

If there is no creator of us and our universe then neither we nor the entire universe have any real meaning, there will be no ultimate accountability for our actions, No ultimate punishment for evil doers and no ultimate reward for the good.
If we are simply the result of the random accumulation of randomly produced molecules that have been combining and recombining for countless millions of years on a planet that was randomly produced as the result of a random explosion of a “Cosmic Egg” that exploded for no reason and came from nowhere,
then we have no more ultimate value than a mosquito, a piece of mold or a rock!

Unless we were created by an intelligent being for a purpose, we have NO ultimate purpose, and any purpose that we might imagine for our existence is simply make believe.

There can be no real right or wrong, no good or evil. Only my arbitrary preference against your arbitrary preference. Hitler could do what he did because it was justified in his mind, and no one has any real authority to question it, Because, if there is no ultimate Truth then your truth can be your truth, and my truth can be my truth. Morality would be relative to the circumstance and one’s personal definition of truth."

Cause and effect is not intelligent design, any more than ants could call roadkill manna from heaven.

True, which is what the articles explain. The intelligent design piece comes in when science discovered that we are made up of "information", aside from our physical properties, each molecule contains information or "software" that determines how the next generation of life from a being (whether human, animal or plant), replicates. Cause and effect can create any physical thing given enough time and energy, except for information, language or a code. Cause and effect can create the human body, as a shell, but anything past physical properties it doesn't because matter doesn't create concepts or ideas because it's non-physical.

That's like saying that the computer programming language, C++, could have been created by cause and effect. It's not possible that it can exist until a conscious mind gives it meaning.

If intelligence and design were not components of the natural universe, humans would not be capable of either

If the universe is a completely random occurrence, then human intelligence and design are also completely random occurrences

no matter what, you end up at the same place. everything is and we're all a part of it. Whats the deal?

religion takes a very human centered approach to the question of "why are we here?" whereas science takes a very technical approach. We're all looking at the same thing

They are absolutely part of the natural universe, but the universe doesn't create the idea, it just creates the "hardware" so to speak for us to do so. Random occurrence doesn't create a language, it's not possible. Random occurrence could, however, give us vocal chords for us to speak, but attaching meaning to words and a language needs a conscious mind to do so, not random occurrence.

The article gives the example of Morse code. Could the universe create Morse code? No, but it could create the symbols, however, we as intelligent beings gave it a meaning to create Morse code.

The problem with the debate in question is, it is the same as me convincing others God exists. We cannot, especially in the face of a marxist regime, make everyone believe in god. The same is true of the science which supports the biblical account thus Creator God.

We do not need to convince anyone or have their censored peer-reviewed journals accept God for the science to be true. It is still true science whether they publish it or not. The science is published elsewhere and even taught in numerous schools and universities.

[link to www.nwcreation.net]

"Intelligent Design" is creationism repackaged for the doubtful or gullible to make it look like science while pretending to hide its religious undertones. There is nothing scientific about it.

This rebranding was primarily necessary after Creation "Science" was quite rightly barred from being taught in science classes in the US.

That is all anyone really needs to know.

I stopped asking such questions, it was driving me mad.

True statement. But the understanding of the universe within the science community is that the universe, time, matter and energy had a beginning, creation of it must be explained according to science and philosophy standards. They accept that the universe doesn't have an infinite past, but rather a beginning. Let's say, for instance, that the big bang theory is an absolute truth (it hasn't been proven, or it wouldn't be called a theory, it's just the best science has to go on), and an explosion of an almost infinity dense cosmic ball of matter created everything. What caused the explosion, and what created the cosmic ball in the first place? By saying it was always there contradicts the universe having a beginning, and one could argue holds the same amount of weight as saying that an intelligent being of some sort always existed as well.

If all things happened by random occurrence, then we have no real purpose and cannot be held accountable for anything we do. Saying karma exists is the same as saying God exists, because both entities hold people ultimately accountable for their actions in life, they are just given different labels. If we are here for no purpose then procreation, research, science, communication, space travel, technology, etc...have no purpose either. There is no reason to research things if there is ultimately no purpose. If there is a purpose, who created that purpose? Why do we have the need to live, if it means nothing whether we are here or not?

Thanks for the feedback.

Many of these points are questions of philosophy which is not an area I have ever studied so don't feel very well qualified to respond to these points.

However, I could suggest that life really does have no fundamental purpose - it just is because at some point "something" came into existence that was able to make copies (or near copies) of itself so long as there was available energy and chemical resources in the environment it found itself in to allow it to keep doing so.

This, and variations when making new copies is (in my world view) what has led to the amazing variety of life, both past and present.

Life that thrives is life that is able to adapt so that it can cope well with changes in environment or, better still, is able to move into and exploit new environments.

The adaptations we have - intelligence, curiosity, creativity, morality etc have come about because these are adaptations that have led to our success as a species that can inhabit almost any environment on the planet, in group sizes ranging from one or two up to the millions of people found in large cities

Even if there is no true "purpose" in life, other than an intrinsic ability to create more (similar) life, the adaptations described give us the ability to question our existence and formulate (and test) theories to explain this, and to wonder at the sequence of events that led to this happy situation, whatever we think these might be.

For me, the world of 'chance', is just as, if not more, wonderful than a world where everything was designed for a specific purpose.

Last Edited by salamanderuk on 11/17/2011 07:54 PM

Great response, salamander! As well as great points. I'm finally glad there's a post on this issue without there being a heated debate, where hurt feelings and name calling run rampant...lol. Thanks for being civil and constructive!

Last Edited by Element5541 on 11/17/2011 08:22 PM

Many thanks. I'm of the opinion that a civil and constructive response deserves the compliment of the same :) My aim wasn't to "push" evolution, but felt the topic to be a helpful lead up to the question of the need for (or otherwise) a purpose to life.

By the way, I do occasionally get caught up in "arguments", especially around this area but no-one ever really "wins" in these situations so I try to avoid them when I can ;)

Yeah, I try to avoid them or ignore them if it does get heated. Also for the record, my belief is both in an intelligent designer AND natural selection. It's ignorant to believe that change within species doesn't occur, but I sway more to the side that it's because of what code and genetic information that was provided by our designer that exists within the DNA that causes this change. Separate from the common evolutionary basis accepted by science and taught in schools. But then again, my idea of intelligent designer is quite different from most "Christians".

I have all the answers. Feel free to email me.