Behe Bit It (Michael Behe on "The Colbert Report")

He tries to do what you guys ask... put it all in 'secular language' that you can understand all the while being PC.But even that is not good enough. You guys (and gals) will not even accept 'genuine scientific inference to the best explaination'.There must be some motive... " (Aldous Huxley / Ends and Means)Roland Barthes, would agree... “Refusing to assign a ”secret,’ ultimate meaning” to text “liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases”reason, science, law.” (Barthes / Death of the Author)

PaulK:Of course it's no secret... duh!But you boys are the one that insist we use a particular kind of language to prove the case. We have! It's called the design inference.Perhaps you can show (emperically) an example of design that does not have a designer?Nosey himself said that algorithms resemble life. Where do algorithms come from? Can you have algorithms without an intelligently built system of law and order?What you cannot show is an algorithm that builds a system of law and order. The algorithm cannot exist without the system first.I say that in case you think of giving a snowflake as your example. It is created by simple laws and chemistry. But where did the laws come from? Why are the phisical laws just so? And what happens when we change them?You could read John Polkinghorne's book 'One World' for some insight. He says, 'Did you know, that the ratio between the expansion and contraction of the universe had to be so precise, that it would litterally be like taking aim at a one inch square object on the other side of the universe, and hitting it bulls eye.... There's no free lunch, somebody has to pay'. (paraphrased)But you won't read it... it doesn't fit your agenda.So... as NJ and I agree, there is no method we can use to speak on this matter. You have your mind made up. It's called bias. Or more affectionately, as 'methodological naturalism'.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

DrJones (not a real doctor):Do you want simple or complex?Your question is invalid because you assume God to be the same sort of entity as we encounter within our universe. But He is not so by definition.As is often said, you might as well ask, 'to whom is the bachelor married'?The question is flawed.Unless we want to believe that something can come from nothing, we know that something existed eternally, isn't that right DrJones (not an actual doctor)?So... eternality of some kind is a given assumption for us all.God doesn't need a designer, because... being the ultimate and supreme reality; omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, is all that can be. You cannot get bigger than infinite.What qualities would you give the eternal and infinite nature of causation?You seem to suppose that everything needs a cause. That is not true...Only that which has a beginning needs a cause. Reality (God) by definition is real without respect to time. Therefore God does not need a cause by definition.

Nosey:My intention is to get to the point. And the physical laws do just that...How do you explain them? Because they infer design also. It is no secret. Particularly in light of your illustration in the other thread.Are you retracting it?You see, there is an answer... and it is a scientific one; the design inference. It is the same answer we find with the explanation for the arrival of any other system (like the computer in your illustration); intelligence!Where are you coming from? You act as though it is some great mystery.Kiss algorithms goodbye! Not because of them, but because of the 'bigger picture'; the system inwhich they sit.The implications are clear, you just don't like it... We have emperical evidence for design so we can infer it elsewhere. You have none for the alternate view. Yours is pure 'theo'.I am sorry for being so adament about it... but that is the way you want it (according to Percy). You don't care for the message of grace.I am only trying to accomodate you.Do you like?Edited by Rob, : No reason given.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

Anastasia:Really?The only other option is that (all of this) something, came from nothing.Not a viable option for the scientific (reasonable) mind.So I suppose that they are excused...Perhpas the rest of us have something to discuss.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

read the edited version above...

Anastasia: No... your falling into the materialist trap. Read your Bible... God is Spirit.What is matter anastasia?That is what the quantum is all about. Even matter is 'not matter' at the quantum realm. So these nice neat boxes that the naturalist likes to portray are full of holes.'Something', cannot be defined in purely material terms. Matter is only a perspective. It is a dimension, but not the only one.'The dimension of the transcendant can no longer be ignored'.The fact that we don't understand it, means only that 'everything is based on faith. And that is the whole piont of my thread on 'theo'.We can ultimately prove nothing... And that is why Rene Descates come to the conclusion, 'I think therefore I am'. but even that has it's limitations.Actually, the only thing we cannot doubt, is that we exist. So it is ultimately not a matter of proof, but of the inability to deny.And that is presicely what many do... they simply deny that anything (The word in particular) has any meaning at all beyond what we impose upon it. It's the only option to concluding in the affirmative of the great 'I Am'.And that is why NJ's answer to DrJones was so fitting...

Mark:You're conflating design with causation.

PaulK:Yes and that is why you can't do it...We have emperical evidence for design. When we see digital and pictographical languages in archeaology we infer design. We do not suppose that wind and erosion (natural processes) etched the patterns.And any machines that appear in the ashses, like chariots and brick cities, be they symmetrical or not, are not assumed to be natural either. We infer civilization.Therefore, we can do the same with DNA, RNA and biological structures.You expect me to believe that structure and language can arise from natural causes that (as you said are expanding and coming apart)?Then you show some emperical evidence without resorting to 'theo'ry, that is nothing but unemperical... 'thea'trical... 'speculation'.A beast can really put on a show, but where's the beef?

Special pleading?God by definition is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. You cannot get bigger than that. He is the ultimate and supreme reality. If you don't believe me, believe Merriam-Websters.He most certainly is special. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.Only that which has a beginning needs a cause Mark. So the rules of cause and effect do not apply to God. It's the difference between time and eternity.It's not a convenient escape... it is simply the limits of logic, and our only choice, other than believing something came fro nothing. And that would be very unscientific since we know emperically that something exists. Alan Sandage J. N. Willford, March 12, 1991. 'Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest'. New York Times, p. B9 )

Straggler:Well, I could say the same thing about your observation. How is it anything other than a human abstraction?You have to get outside of the box to make that stick.As for our assumptions of eternality. It is a matter of logical undeniability, rather than affirmative proof.Can I deny my own existenc without affirming it at the same time? After-all 'who' would be doing the denying? Wasn't it Descartes who concluded, 'one thing I cannot doubt, is that there is a doubter doing the doubting'?What is the alternative to eternality Straggler?I'll tell you the answer...We can believe that something came from nothing. That once there was nothing, and then 'poof'... out of that (which is nothing) came something.So it's the undeniablility, lest we resort to throwing logic out entirely. And then you would have some 'theologically bad type of metaphysics', but not science.So, you see, God and science are not at odds.Nosey brought up the algorithms in the computer thingy in another thread. But he neglects to factor in the laws themselves; in the case of his illustration they are designed by humans.And that is the real problem in terms of thermodynamics. What source (cause) of intelligently directed energy produced the laws? Becuase the laws themselves cannot produce it. And you can't infer an eternal material universe when it had a beginning and is chained to entropy. So matter cannot be eternal.But energy of some quantum kind can... And that is a different sort of kind, existence, or being.Look at Newton's quote here, and notice also how science is inexorably married to philosophy. Sir Isaac Newton, "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (Other books written by Newton include "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel", and "Principia Mathematical")

There is an answer... and it is not my intention... rather it is the only fitting scientific inference.It is called 'design'. (Sir Isaac Newton,
"Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (Other books written by Newton include "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel", and "Principia Mathematical") (Charles B. Thaxton. Ph.D,
Chemistry, Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, Staff member of the Julian Centre. "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories", Philosophical Library) (Ashby L. Camp,
'A Response to Priests Of Scientific Orthodoxy', in Human Events, Sept. 25, 2000)

Mark24:Who said God is complex? He is actually very simple... 'I Am'.He is simply 'love'. Eternal being in relationship. God is community; Unity in diversity; E. pluribus unum. It is simply the law of non-contradiction at the simplest level. And out of that, we can proceed with very complex systems.God is not a singular entity. He is a family (if that helps). Just like a family with different members there is one group. god is like that. Not a He so much as an 'us'. Hence, 'Let us make man in our image'.He is like mathematics (He is not mathematics, but only 'like' mathematics)(or rather... mathematics is like Him) which is why math helps us so much in terms of understanding an orderly universe. And you just take it for granted as Davies points out well.What is math?Is addition and subtraction math? Yes!Is geometry and calculus math? Yes!So math is really not concered with complexity. Complexity arises from it's central principle of non-contradiction. It is what it is. If math could speak it would say, 'I am that I am'.You, and those who call such thoughts 'logical fallacies', are making an error. You are trying to question the whole, with terms that only work with the parts. You are trying to define eternal reality with temporal vision.You must open your eyes to that which is outside of you. And that is not possible without help from outside.You disect reality into false dichotomies, and reduce and deconstruct the whole into pieces that are not seperate from one another.You think of God as this unfathomable complex reality, when He is actually the foundation. He is the base upon which all else can be made. 'Without Him, nothing that has been made was made' (John 1).If you want to understand it, you must look to something like the gospel of John. Read it and try to grasp what it is saying. In the process you may just find God. Because if you are honestly seeking, He will open your eyes.Theological language adds another dimension to mere theoretical language. They are the same in many regards, but only theology looks at the whole picture. Theory, as it is used today under the umbrella of mehtodological naturalism, has limited vision by it's own 'a priori self limiting perspective'.Why would we limit our perpective intentionally? What implications are there of examining the evidence with a design perspective that haunt you?Because intentional disbelief is motivated by some form of bias. What is it?I don't know what else to say...

You almost got it... because yes... 'You are'!But you are not logic, you are a utterly unique expression of it.You were designed, in the image of God.

whoa... just teaching. i could say the same to you, but I don;t like to tell others what to do. I welcome all thoughts. They do not frighten or threaten me. capish?God cannot be designed, because H is the supreme and ultimate reality. He is everything that is,and can be,by definition.Anything else is simply not to be.