My position explained

I'm a creationist also, I want to see if our positions are compatible.My position is more about the creation vs evolution controversy then it is about what I believe how organisms came to be.My position is that darwinists illegitematly took away the focus from decision / determination for questions about origins, to focus on various "cause and effect" ideas like reproduction with modification. They then proceeded to promote various bizarre and cruel ideas and ideologies based on their prejudiced science.Decision / determination refers to a change in a probability. So when at some point X in time, from zero it becomes a relative 100 percent likelyhood that an elephant will appear at later point Y in time, then that "decision" at point X is the origin of the elephant. (of course you can theorize there was more then one decision-event that went into the creation of an elephant, and that there were decisions that went against the creation, made the appearance of the elephant less likely)Now as far as I see it, where the gap between my viewpoint and yours is, is that you require an intelligent designer. This comes to the question of; what is intelligence?If you would say that intelligence is essentially a matter of decision, and not a matter of cause and effect, then I think I can link our positions. So that when you say you require an intelligent designer, you equally say you require a determination / decision to be at the beginning, the point of origin, and not some material effect.So basicly the argument goes as follows: at the start there was nothing. Looking backwards in time, tracing back the effects to their causes, evolutionists like to make it appear as if there is a logical train of cause and effect that lead up from nothing to an elephant. But standing at the very beginning, there is completely nothing, and, looking forward in time, it is a matter of decision / determination what comes next, what causes are set. An elephant was chosen to be, by miraculous decisions.It seems obvious that to focus on decisions is more conducive to belief in God, then to focus on "cause and effect". So what do you think, can our positions be linked this way, that you require decision equally as you require intelligence?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Reading your reply, I don't think our positions are much compatible.I think you should limit yourself in the creation vs evolution debate to what can be commonly accepted, by people of all, or most religious persuasions. So I think you should make a position for the creation vs evolution debate separate from how you believe organisms came to be.Decisions / determinations can be accepted commonly, and it's something religions can build on. As illustrated in the Jim Carey movie "Bruce Almighty". In the end there, the miracles were something like a drunk giving up the bottle, and that sort of thing. Choices people make.When people generally, or evolutionists, talk of chance, then besides saying it could have turned out differently, it also has an understood meaning that no intelligence is involved in the way it turned out. But I think this misunderstanding can be overcome by consistently naming the point where the chance changed, which would be named decision, or determination, or something like that.The way language is now, it is quite different to say something happened through chance, then to say that something happened through many decisions / determinations, eventhough they should mean the same.
The word decision / determination points to intelligence, the word chance does not."Atheists", "materialists", exploit this difference, so to never name the point where a chance changes, or point out the basic equivalency of all concepts of decision, the equivelancy to human choice for instance. What would Dawkins' text look like if you replaced the word chance with decision, or like word? It would read entirely different in my opinion, entirely more friendly towards religion.So in short, I think you should limit to what can be commonly accepted, and "decision" can be commonly accepted, and would give people sufficient room to build a meaningful religion, broadly in line with science.I mean if you want to replace evolution with some idea that Jesus Christ personally created the organisms, or something like that, then obviously as a Muslim, I don't agree. So I ask you to limit your position to what can be commonly accepted.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Oh I would have thought it quite obvious I'm muslim, by my name, Mohammad......I don't say you should accept evolution, you should only make it part of your position if you find it to be commonly acceptable. Generic common knowledge. I'm sure you have no problem with "micro" descent with modification. You can see an ancestor, and it's offspring, the offspring is different, therefore, descent with modification, evolution. Well, you may argue if evolution is the appropiate word for that, but it's still generic common knowledge. ( actually I do have many problems with micro natural selection, so I don't accept it, where most creationists do accept micro natural selection)That decisions / determinations are what set a cause, the name of the point where a chance changes, is generic common knowledge. The name gives a pointer to intelligence, and that's about all that can be achieved commonly. Unless you want to start defining this intelligence it points to more precisely, but I have never seen any creationist do that. For instance did God create with his mind, or did he create with his heart, or both? It's not common knowledge.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Thanks for demonstrating the validity of my viewpoint. I always have the problem that it is hard to believe that just a difference in emphasis on wordusage, from "cause and effect" or "chance" to "decision" or "determination", would make a lot of difference, so I'm happy you come along to demonstrate it.The fundamental law of physics of letting fall a spinning disc which then bounces some direction, state that there is no law which determines the direction absolutely. It can go one way or another, in the event, or so I'm told. Also the planets that circle around the sun, don't circle in absolute set paths, but there is small scope of variance in their paths.I prefer to use the word determination, in stead of decision, so as to say that I don't posit an imagination in a brain as the place where the determination occurred. It is just to name the precise point where before things could go one way or another, and after went the one way in stead of the other, the precise point at which the outcome was determined, the determination. That I use the word decision now, is only because as it is the word determinatin is relatively unknown for this concept.Things going one way or another certainly does imply intelligence to me, and modern simulations of intelligence are also centrally based on the concept of decision / determination, as opposed to earlier simulations of intelligence being based on calculation.I'm all for not using loaded terms in science, such as Darwinists commonly using goodness, selfish, superior and whatnot, and I think the recognition of determination within science would force evolutionists to choose words more clearly distinct from things which are matters of determination, rather then cause and effect.But you are simply against science. It would be meaningful within science to ask for instance, at what point is it a relative certainty that there would be eyes. Well I think I can safely suggest that according to current knowledge, the main determination for the eye is very early in the universe. I'm suggesting it, but it needs further investigation. Investigation which you seem to block, for obvious reasons, the reason of your prejudice towards "cause and effect".So battles don't have decisive moments? It is unrealistic to say that battles have decisve moments? I think common knowledge is much richer in terms of knowledge about decisions, then scientific knowledge. I think science is the unrealistic one, in not recognizing decisions fully.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

So what's the proper name for a change in probability? Actually it's so unbelievable that scientists wouldn't have a name for it, that I tend not to believe it myself that they don't have. It is basicly the same kind of thing as science not using the word "cause", it's like something from the twilight zone.Both those claims mentioned about things going one way or another, were given to me by evolutionists, I lost reference. But I think we can simply discard your thesis that there is apparently no free behaviour in the universe as much meaningless philosphy.I don't think the meaning of "change in a probability" is maximum fuziness, it's quite clear IMO. When rolling a die, you have 6 chances with equal probability, one of them get's realised. That point where this chance changes, it get's realised or not, I name the decision, determination. So the main determinatin for the eye, is the point from which on it was very likely that there would be an eye. That point is very early in the unverse, why Dawkins seems to imply it is, the way he writes about how very likely an eye is to occur.And so with all organisms and attributes, we can perhaps trace them back to a few determinations, at which the origin of the major KINDS of organisms was set, with some variation left over to be determined in the future. The current state of knowledge points toward that being true.It's astonishing how a little electron in a human brain, can have massive impact on it's surroundings. If the electron went another way then something entirely different might have happened. Well on first glance, there doesn't seem to be many of those massive controllingpoints for decisions in nature, except for the human brain. That is except of course, at the very beginning of the universe, when the universe was even smaller then a brain. Decisions there could easily control a lot of things, the whole universe even, as tiny as it was then.I'm sure generals use a like-word to intelligence think meaningfully about decisive moments of the battle. Well they use the word "soul" you seem to imply. Perhaps if science about determinations get's developed, they would talk about a determination network, or structure, with manipulative controlling points and whatnot. I wouldn't know what words generals would use, but the word would be in the same class as intelligence.So you see Mike, I think you should just be satisfied with getting a pointer towards intelligence accepted within science, in the form of science recognizing decision, then that you would want to bring in something like "intelligent designer", which is not generic common knowledge.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

That's what I think sometimes yes, that I'm deluding myself that scientists ignore decision. But for a seemingly absurd position, there is evidence of the absurd, such as Dawkins exclaiming that chance is the enemy of science. And a simple question of what to name the point at which a probability changes is met with no simple answer. I'm still playing devil's advocate here a bit, I'm just trying to encourage people to pick a book from the shelf and find the name for it that is in use. The name for the point where a probability changes. I don't know it, but it seems inconceivable to me that there isn't one, or many different ones.The current common name in use is decision, I guess. I prefer to call it determination in a science context, that is more neutral. Change in probability is good enough as a definition of that, but the point needs a name because it is referred to much. It already has a name, or many names, in common language, so why not give it a name within science, a name that is more clean, that doesn't have so much associative meaning?You object to the name "decision" because it implies intelligence you say. Well I don't care so much, name it "chorigin", whatever. Point is that you don't want any name at all, for quite obvious reasons, because even if you invented a new word for it, it would still point to intelligence, because of the basic equivalency in meaning to human choice. In a human choice, the probability of something changes as in "chorigin", or whatever you wish to call it.I knew I was responding to your post, but I was making a sidecomment to Mike, because I want his comment on the potential for decision as a pointer to intelligence. If maybe the creation vs evolution debate would dissolve if evolutionists meaningfully acknowledge decisons. The discussion about whether or not an omnipotent intelligent designer owns those decisions some way, being more a question that is much outside of the scope of science.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Maybe this is why scientists never come round to the subject of intelligence. They are too busy naming every single last insect, every star in the sky, and every grain of sand on the beach, so that they never get around to giving a formal commonname for the point where a probability changes.regards,
Mohamamd Nor Syamsu