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Author Topic:   Intelligent Design and Parasites
iceage 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5915 days)
Posts: 1024
From: Pacific Northwest
Joined: 09-08-2003


Message 31 of 36 (421702)
09-13-2007 10:13 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Cold Foreign Object
07-26-2007 11:39 AM


Bump for Ray
Ray writes:
In addition, the Fall gave temporary custody of the Earth to Satan, he is allowed by God to exploit the curses and multiply them.
Is this Biblical? or is this Extra-Biblical Extrapolations? Can any other Bible scholars help out here.
Ray writes:
There is no "second creation" after the Fall; there is just the curses as explained and their continual unfolding in diversity.
Many parasites are extremely well adapted to their hosts and propagate via complicated life cycle. These parasites have "appearance of design". The "continual unfolding in diversity" does not explain specially adapted body parts, chemistry and morphology adapted for a unique and specific function.
Ray writes:
In my opinion, the parasitic evil in the OP, that is, the ones affecting human beings, is from the mind and power of Satan.
So Satan had a hand in the creation we see about us today!? How do we determine what God wrought and what the devil wrought.

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 Message 12 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 07-26-2007 11:39 AM Cold Foreign Object has not replied

  
iceage 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5915 days)
Posts: 1024
From: Pacific Northwest
Joined: 09-08-2003


Message 32 of 36 (432309)
11-05-2007 4:26 AM


Bump d'bump for input
Do any other creationists feel like Ray that God allowed a second evil creation and gave "temporary custody of the Earth to Satan" at the fall?
Do any other creationist have any input on this issue?

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 33 of 36 (458633)
03-01-2008 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by iceage
07-23-2007 4:53 PM


A Design is a Design
If life is intelligently designed what does this parasitic nature of life say about the designer?
As far as ID is concerned I think the questions are:
Is a design that we don't like not a design because of that?
Is a design that we would have not prefered not a design because of that?
Is a bad design not a design because of that?
Asking "What does the design of a tapeworm tell us about the designer?" sounds not like saying "ID is not scientific enough or at all " but rather "Well, I don't like this designer."
ID doesn't promise that you will like the designer. It is just the detection of evidence for intelligent causes.
If SETI should receive rave reviews of MAD magazine from a distant solar system "What does this tell us about the Intelligent Life sending these messages?" is a secondary question.
I have my opinions about things which can be discerned about the Mind of a Designer of a tapeworm. But these are theological or philosophical musings. I would humor you with an answer. But first I want to make it clear that a design that we loath is still a design.
Am I right?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 34 of 36 (458635)
03-01-2008 10:57 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by jaywill
03-01-2008 10:40 AM


Re: A Design is a Design
I have my opinions about things which can be discerned about the Mind of a Designer of a tapeworm. But these are theological or philosophical musings. I would humor you with an answer. But first I want to make it clear that a design that we loath is still a design.
Am I right?
Are you right that a design that we loath is still a design?
Do you want someone to "humor you with an answer" to that?

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Phostos
Junior Member (Idle past 5836 days)
Posts: 1
Joined: 04-05-2008


Message 35 of 36 (462598)
04-05-2008 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by bluegenes
03-01-2008 10:57 AM


Just my thoughts...
Hey guys, I ain't no freakin scientist but I found this interesting enough to just chime in with a few of my thoughts...
In accordance with the creation being cursed through the Fall I found an interesting blog post. This is an excerpt:
"One of my occasional thoughts is why did God create mosquitoes? They seem to serve no real purpose in the scheme of things, but make life very uncomfortable, even deadly in the tropics.
Today I was listening to a podcast of "The Science Show" from the ABC and one of the articles was about how the malaria parasite has a lot of plant genes in its DNA. It is actually a microscopic animal but embedded in its DNA is a huge range of genetic code only known elsewhere in plants. Scientists speculate that the parasite started off as a plant but evolved its activities to more closely resemble an animal.
So I had this revelation. One of the side-effects of Adam and Eve's sin is that it corrupted the whole of creation. And so an ordinary, innocuous plant is transformed into the world's most destructive (to people) disease parasite."
I find this particularly interesting as since evolutionists can theorize as to the origins of a species according to their theory, why can't a creationist theorize how the Fall affected their characteristics according to their own belief as well?
I also found this:
"In the Bible parasites killed King Ahab. In the book of Revelation, it states that wormwood proceeds out of the heavens and due to the bitter waters one third of mankind dies. Most people believe this to be a meteor that hits earth. While this may be true there is a more direct relationship here than a meteor. Wormwood is and was the name of an herb used to kill parasites thus the name worm-wood. Bitter waters is the old name for infested waters. Therefore the Bible is giving future reference to a time when parasites get so bad and are transmitted through the water that one third of mankind dies."
I just found these to be interesting thoughts. Of course, I feel the need to mention that I am a Christian and I do not shy away from such discussion, though I do not intend to stalk this thread to say any more. The whole topic made me curious enough that I was researching it on my own. I just wanted to chime in with what I found interesting, although I noticed the relative silence on the whole parasite issue with ID online.
I understand that the discussion is about how the Fall explanation doesn't provide a satisfactory explanation in some of your "evolutionary minds" since many parasites are so fine-tuned it seems ridiculous that their roles could not only change dramatically, but entirely.
That's not too concerning though as the Fall is still a story concerning a woman speaking to a serpent and a world where animals didn't eat each other.
Considering this, it's not surprising that "creation being corrupted by the Fall" may not be a sufficient explanation for some, while it may be for others. Total change is something considered normal and an integral part of the Fall account.
Besides, if I had to explain Creation AS WELL AS the incredible things I've seen that you wouldn't believe either... well, I could only say God or something supernatural not of God. And how would that satisfy you?
So to close I would just say the Fall does explain it, and that things are totally different now compared to the utopia of the Garden though this obviously won't satisfy many of you simply because of what you see right now.
Peace!
Edited by Phostos, : No reason given.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 36 of 36 (462599)
04-05-2008 6:18 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Phostos
04-05-2008 5:26 PM


Re: Just my thoughts...
Hi Phostos, welcome aboard!
What you say is fine for those who prefer explanations consistent with their religious beliefs, but the claim of intelligent design is that it is legitimate scientific theory deserving a place along side other major theories of science like the theory of relativity, plate tectonic theory and the theory of evolution.
So let's imagine that you're going to make a presentation about intelligent design theory at a conference of scientists or to a local school board, your goal being to convince them it is truly scientific. Are you really going to include the Bible, Adam and Eve, the serpent and the Fall?
Phostos writes:
I find this particularly interesting as since evolutionists can theorize as to the origins of a species according to their theory,...
Scientists don't "theorize...according to their theory." They create theories to explain bodies of evidence, then they make predictions based upon those theories and test the predictions to see if they're correct. Making correct predictions is how theories are proven.
The theory of relativity provides great examples of testing a theory's predictions. Einstein's general theory of relativity held that space and time were actually a single entity called space/time, and there was much debate concerning whether Einstein's theory represented the true structure of our universe.
Einstein focused on two relatively simple predictions. One concerned the orbit of Mercury, but was post hoc because the deviation of the orbit of Mercury from Newtonian physics was already known, and Einstein could have crafted his equations to yield a correct answer for Mercury's orbit.
But the other prediction was of a previously unknown phenomenon, the bending of light by gravity. General relativity predicted that light passing by a body with sufficiently large gravity would be bent by a precisely calculable amount that could actually be measured. The sun qualified as a body of sufficiently large gravity, and so an experiment was designed to test this prediction.
The experiment required a total eclipse of the sun, something that is always in ready supply as they occur at irregular periods every couple years or so, though often not in convenient locations.
The experiment worked like this. First, at night astronomers would take very precise pictures of the region of the sky where the total eclipse would occur in order to very precisely record the exact position of all nearby stars. Then, during the exact moment of the total eclipse when the stars were again visible they would again take very precise pictures of the identical region of the sky.
Once at home the astronomers would measure the exact position of every star in the total eclipse photograph to see how it compared with its position in the night-sky photograph when the sun wasn't present. They found that not only were the stars in slightly different positions, those positions corresponded precisely, within experimental error, to the predictions of general relativity.
So to sum up, Einstein introduced his theory of general relativity, he made a couple predictions based upon his theory. The prediction about Mercury was already known to be correct. Astronomers tested his solar eclipse prediction, the prediction was found to be correct producing headlines in the New York Times and Einstein's theory became an accepted scientific theory. (The original test was performed by Sir Author Eddington in 1919, but the test was repeated a number of more times during the 1920's, most persistently by scientists reluctant to accept Einstein's theory, but they continued to obtain confirming results.)
So if the goal of intelligent design theory is acceptance as science, then IDists must make predictions based upon their theory, and then they must test those predictions. Successful tests will cause their theory to become accepted by the scientific community. This is, in fact, the way all theories become accepted.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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