Intelligent Design or unthinking blasphemy?

Buzsaw What would be the practical difference between a miraculous event and a magical one Buz old buddy?

Both magic and miracle have to do with the supernatural. Both describe events that suspend, or operate outside, natural laws. But there is a difference in connotation.Magic refers to something a human being does. The human being wears the talisman, says the magic words, intones the chant, throws eye of newt and toe of frog into the broth, and something happens. A mortal has tapped into supernatural forces and harnessed those forces to serve his or her will. The mortal, for the moment, acts as a kind of stage director, with supernatural forces acting as players in the drama he or she controls.Miracle refers to something a deity does. If you are a being who holds supreme authority in a certain realm--either as god of the sea, or goddess of childbirth, or Creator of All Of It--it follows that you have the power to intervene directly in your realm if you choose. Maybe you've set things up so that water behaves a certain way or babies are made a certain way. You retain the power to cut the red tape any time you want. You can say 'Well, this time let's roll the waters back' or 'This time a virgin should have the baby.' You suspend your natural laws, you get the thing done, and your action is termed a miracle. Mortals react as they will. They can cooperate with you, by walking through your parted waters or consenting to have your baby, or not. But the mortals do not control it.Religions rooted in Judaism, including Christianity and Islam, affirm the possibility of miracles but carry prohibitions on the practice of magic. That's why some people are reluctant to equate the terms. For them it's a matter of who is directing the drama--the human being or God.It's a difference worth paying attention to--especially because the boundary between magic and miracle are often not so clearly cut. Believing that God answers prayer is not all that far removed from believing that God, when summoned, grants you your wish. Devotees often cross the boundary into magical belief.For years theologians have regarded many folk practices--healing cloths, statues and religious emblems carried for luck or safety, religious relics reputed to have certain powers--as meeting the definition of magic. To the extent that these things represent attempts to harness supernatural powers for personal use, they are.As it happens, many Pentecostals today are deeply interested in magic. I have heard some Pentecostals insist that certain requests of God, made under certain conditions, require the deity to do what you ask. This is not only magical belief, it is magical belief of rare audacity. Many Pentecostals use words like 'Jesus' or 'Holy Spirit' or phrases such as 'Jesus rebuke you' as magic formulas. The words are thought to have talismanic power, like abracadabra. The speaker who utters them automatically puts supernatural powers to work doing things the speaker wants. What makes all these things magic is that the mortals are in the driver's seat. It is they who order the room service; it is God who is the bellhop.

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Archer

I don't find that a very useful distinction.Many times, a "miracle" is the deity working through a human being. Jesus told His disciples:

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Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

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He said that He Himself was an instrument of the deity:

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Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

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In magic, you claim:

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A mortal has tapped into supernatural forces and harnessed those forces to serve his or her will.

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But how can you tell whose "will" is being served, God's or man's?Since there doesn't seem to be a practical distinction between miracle and magic, I think the use of "magic" for "acts of God" is legitimate.

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Ringo writes: Well, that is the catch.
The ambiguity is built in, I think, when a religion that postulates a miracle-working, prayer-answering deity also prohibits magic. Historically Judaism and Christianity have had an easier time distinguishing between the two in theory than in practice.They also inherit the theologically sticky story of Saul and the witch of Endor, where God performs a miracle through one of the very witches his law outlaws (1 Samuel 8.3-12): oremus Bible Browser : 1 Samuel 28.2-12

I have read some of the posts to this thread. Interesting reading.Something that I tend to read time and time again goes something like this:"How can we carbon date man (for example) back to 2 or 3 million years ago when The Bible says God did it in one day?" "The earth was created in 6 days, yet carbon dating speaks a different toon."Well, has anyone ever thought it might have been a bit mind boggling for the people that lived AT THAT TIME to sit down and go over how the strong and weak nuclear force works? The temperature and pressure of stars? The gasious mixture of the earths atmosphere? Water is 2 parts hydrogen, one part oxygen? Etc., Etc... These are the really easy ones off the top of my head. How could the people during this time understood this? Here is a lame example and not as complicated as the amount of time passed from Biblical writings to todays people--> Two thousand years from now a scientist is explaining to me all the theories of HIS modern time. Even if I am well versed in science, how the heck can I really follow what he is saying? Now, let's say I have next to zero education in sciences?Couldn't the writings of the time simply have been God's way of being simple? The bulk of the Bible does NOT explain the origins of life. I do not believe this eas intended to be the focus. How large would the book have been if it contained every fragment of creation? How many volumes? Isn't it possible to use laymans terms for the people of the time and really hit on the key points of the Lord? Loving each other, Jesus Christ, your identity in Him, etc?Now, don't get me wrong, maybe it is EXACTLY the way it is written as it happened. I doubt it based on my above paragraphs. If the people of the time were very versed in sciences, etc. then maybe it would have been written slightly different. Maybe not.Secondly, why is it so hard believe life is intelligently designed? Everyone here can look at the San Francisco bridge and say "That is something that was designed". We have examples like that all around us. Take out a medical book and read it sometime about the human body and all the chemical processes it undergoes daily. It is amazing. That isn't designed? It is so hard to grasp for the simple fact we are the only ones to answer to. Think about it. Eveything we discuss stops with mankind. Everything. We are always looking over and down, never up. Nothing above us on this earth. No one of a higher authority to answer to or question. It's not like I can ask an Angel to give me answers to the cosmos. I haven't seen any, have you?To me, it simply doesn't work that way. I see design in life. I can't prove it in a sense because it will be dismissed as "naturally present, just cause'". Of couse, not everyone shares this view, but it is difficult to argue something that one has not "seen" designed by something. I don't think I am wording this as well as I should, but it is late and I don't have alot of time.... I am typing really fast too.. ha! Edited by xXGEARXx, : No reason given.

Because the "design" is so poor.As per the topic, blaming the "design" on God makes Him look like an idiot. Claiming that He created a "perfect" design that somehow made itself imperfect also makes Him look like an incompetent fool.

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Perfection or imperfection by who's definition? Idiot by who's definition? The term "Blaming" assumes that one has the knowledge and ability to declare unequivocally that the process is flawed. I know of no human that is privy to such omnipotent enlightenment.

What definitions do we have but our own?

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We have the definitions of others to consider. I do not share your assesment of the topics question. This is simply your assertion. One done without any knowledge of wether or not it is design or if it is design what the intended outcome of the design is. Without knowledge of the intended outcome one cannot assess the preformance of the design.
We as humans have yet to design things that ballance. We design based on preformance we desire, never considering the fallout. Usually ignorant of the true impact what we do will have. In assessing such questions we must recognize our limitations.

By "our own", I meant the human race in general. That doesn't matter. You have no special knowledge of the "designer" either. Not at all. My assessment of the "design" is from the customer's viewpoint.Since none of us can know what the designer's intended outcome was, those intentions are utterly irrelevant.Who cares whether Henry Ford was trying to invent a car or a time machine? From our point of view, it's a car, and nothing else matters. We assess its design on our criteria, not his.

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Yes, You have an opinion but what is your point?

My point is that we and we alone decide what is a good design and what is not. We have no way of knowing what the "designer's" intentions were, so the only criteria we have for judgement are our own.By our (human) standards, the "design" of many living things is crap. That implies that if living things were "designed", the "designer" is either incompetent or malevolent.Applying such a conclusion to God would be blasphemy, so those who do not wish to blaspheme ought to get off the "design" train.Pointy enough?

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and your point is what? if we are talking about a designer who stands outside the criteria of what is considered designed, then it would have to be a god and the god in question from most IDests 99% say its the christian god who is all-knowing and outside time and knows everything in time
so by what IDiests define as the designer, this designer would know what would happen to his designed life, unlike humans who have no ability to know things in advance like god. but like all living things we can assess problems with something, so claiming that the design isn't what god wanted it to be is irrelevent and begging the question, since we can never know eather way unless god tells us.the evidence alone shows that the design doesn't show intelligence at all but shows some other answer because of the utter faulitiness of the 'design'
as far as i can see not one Idist has shown anyway to show ID much less show how it is designed or why, since how is rather irrelevent if the designer can poof life into existance

i agree ringo, to argue a designer requires he be incompetent or malevolent since a lot of the 'designs' show nothing that would indicate a good designer
i mean if the way we get more people kills people what good is that? or if we can choke easily just by eating there is something wrong with the design or the answer isn't design at all

Because people weren't idiots back then, they were just ignorant.Look, somehow you learned all that stuff, right? I mean you weren't born knowing it. The knowledge you have now was built on a foundation of education that took a long time, but it didn't take a thousand years or anything. It just took some school. If he starts from principles that you do understand, why would it be so hard? It might be time-consuming, but remember that up in his time, they teach children who know even less about science than you do.It just takes time. Because things that are alive are nothing like anything that has ever been designed, except where our designs have aped that which has already lived. Nope! I mean, c'mon. The human retina was put in backwards. The light-senstitive side faces inwards, towards the inside of the skull. The only reason we can see at all is because the two layers on top of the light-sensitive layer are thin enough for enough daylight to pass through. But you still have blind spots from those layers.Does that seem designed to you? If the designer was an idiot, maybe.