ID as Religion

ID man keeps saying:

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And we should take your word that nature acting alone did it?

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Where is your positive evidence that nature acting alone did all this?

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Religious believers throughout history have asked these questions in the context of many phenomena we no longer feel the need to invoke supernatural intervention in order to explain. We don’t require a supernatural designing entity to explain such former mysteries as the seasons, heredity, earthquakes, diseases, rainbows, tides, magnetism, mountains, catastrophic weather, solar and lunar eclipses, identical twins, and so forth. It’s certainly a believer’s prerogative to ascribe any of these to the will of a supernatural being, but the burden of proof would be on him if he expects us to share his suspicion that nature acting alone is inadequate to account for any scientific phenomenon.regards,
Esteban Hambre

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First ID is not presented by creationists and second just because the evidence leads us to the metaphysical it does not follow that religion has to be attached.

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As you frame your argument, metaphysical = supernatural. An inference should not lead to metaphysical questions. An infernce should lead to hypotheses based on emperical data. As Mr. Hambre pointed out, science is set up to eliminate the metaphysical not include it. However, religion always leads to the metaphysical which is another sign that ID is both religion and part of the creationist movement.Please answer this YES or NO. Does ID, as you present it on this website, require the existence of the supernatural? If you think a yes or no answer is unfair, please explain why.

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Behe isn't an ID Creationist.

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So he believes that nature alone can create life? Or does he think that God was responsible? Which do you think it is?

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I don't know of any ID Creationists.

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Look in the mirror.

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Where is your positive evidence that nature acting alone did all this?

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Sitting out there waiting to be tested through the scientific method. Every year we come closer to the answer, why stop now?

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Where did nature come from?

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For science, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that nature is testable through emperical data. You want to move the evidence away from nature to the supernatural but you have yet to show that the supernatural even exists. At least we know that nature exists. I might also ask where your designer came from.

IDman invokes the supernatural when discussing Newton as evidence of god, and this would confirm a connection between belief in the supernatural and religion. He needs to answer if the definition of supernatural given in the original post is correct or what needs to be changed. That would be a logical next step.enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

instead of attacking Mr Hambre on what you perceive as an incorrect view, why not discuss with him what he defines as creationism.that would be a logical thing to do.like responding to the question on the definition of "supernatural" and whether you agree with it.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

You have got to be kidding me. That is your response to my saying in order to detect design you need an established criteria?Science is the process of revealing what nature acting alone can or can't do.We don't have to create criteria to determine whether mechanics are happening, we can see them happening. YOU will have to define criteria which separates random physical mechanics from nonrandom mechanics.I have a hard time believing that ID theorists propose that all phenomona are miraculous intelligence driven phenomenon until proven otherwise.That would just about violate everything in Behe's book. Weak IDMan weak. That's about as good as "yeah, so are you."

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Lamer by the second.Splitting hairs, there would be a difference between natural mechanisms and "nature acting alone did it", though both would fall under the term natural processes.Let us make sure we both mean that natural process will refer to "mechanical processes unguided by an intelligence"... that is a bit more descriptive than "nature acting alone did it".That said, given your own def, I am not wrong. Please give me ONE and I'll accept even just ONE phenomenon that has been studied and DOCUMENTED as having a supernatural or "guided process" from something OTHER than a very material intelligence.You can find phenomena that are as yet unstudied, or with no documented evidence of what natural mechanism was a cause, but there has been NO documented case with POSITIVE EVIDENCE of anything beyond natural processes.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I do, deal with me.I have pointed out repeatedly, to your continuing silence, that Dembski has written a book directly connecting the Bible and ID. Someone in another thread has pointed this out to you once again.While you can say ID is not every ID theorist, and this is true, when major players (such as Dembski) directly tie the two together that certainly raises questions and gives honest people an honest reason to make the connection.I mean what are they supposed to do when Behe says one thing inside a book, and Phil Johnson and Dembski say quite the opposite inside books as well as right on the covers.Just as IDIOTs claim there is a controversy about evo, there appears to be a much deeper one within ID. There is NOT a consistent statement on whether ID is directly religious or not.You must deal with this apparent contradiction. If it is to disavow the liked of Dembski and Johnson, well that would be a step in the right direction but it better have some real teeth.And in another thread, and equally avoided, you said that the rejection of common descent would put a person in the creationist camp. I pointed out that you have already said you do not agree with common descent.Are you going to spin... I mean comment... on this problem, or shall I take your silence as an admission I am right?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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How do we know that?

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We inferred it from our knowledge of people making things out of stone, including religious structures.Haven't I already said this?

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Where and when was another Stonehenge made?

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There's only one Stonehenge, but given that we know that humans have, for millennia, built massive and elaborate structures, it is a reasonable assumption that humans built this one, too. There are also buried human remains close by and burial mounds, etc.

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What IDists are saying is that based on our current level of knowledge ID is the best explanation for what we observe.

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And what kind of expalnation is "nature did it"?

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Because, so far, that has been the only answer we have ever gotten when inquiry is allowed to progress.That is where all of our positive evidence has ever led us.

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Why go against what we do know to posit something else?

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But we don't actually know if an Intelligent Designer did anything.We only have gaps in our understanding, into which you inexplicably insert a Designer.

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By your logic when an archeologist comes upon an inscription in the wall he should assume it was put there by nature acting alone. We don't want him to commit a "scribe-of-gaps" fallacy.

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What?Archaeologists don't study natural events, they study human cultures through their artifacts.

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We do not need to know who designed my car to know it was
designed.

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That's right. That is because we know, through voluminous positive evidence, that humans design cars.

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We do not need to know how it was designed to deyect and understand it.

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That's right, because we have voluminous positive evidence that humans design things, including means of transportation which accomidate our anatomy well, use fossil fuels, etc.

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However I can understand that logic eludes you.

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Careful. Ad Hominems only make you look desperate.

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OK the evidence is the bacterial flagellum exhibits irreducible complexity.

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So does a stone arch.

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It is a multi-part system that functions because of the parts that make it up. We can be assured of its design as we can with any other multi-part system that a;so exhibits IC- getting seperate components together in such a way to achieve a function that depends on the components.

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How do you know that these IC systems cannot evolve naturally?

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And how do you know that the designer will not be revealed in that same time frame?

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EXACTLY!WE DON'T. That is the whole point.You cannot say "The Designer didit. No need to look for a naturalistic explanation now, we know that there is no way anyone anywhere could ever, for ever and ever, discover a naturalistic explanation for X phenomena.", and expect it to be treated as science.Science doesn't work by edict.

Actually there are several other sites that have similar arrangements, just not as well developed. One nearby is known as "Woodhenge" as it was made entirely with wood structure (temporary until the stone one finished?).There were also many other cultural elements that are of similar construction.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Oh, I didn't know that, cool.

I hope this isn't a case of when the going gets tough the tough get going... out of here.If you are leaving IDman, is this the part where we all get to laugh at you as you claimed people at that ID forum would laugh at us?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I didn't realize that I had left this bit off, but it needs addressing.

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If you want to tell the difference use Dembski's design explanatory filter.

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Not today. This is a discussion board. IOW you are supposed to come prepared. How is that people feel qualified to dis something they know little or nothing about?

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Well, that's why I asked you to explain it to me.YOU are the one saying that there is evidence of Intelligent Design, so it's YOU who must come to the debate prepared to explain it to all of us methodological naturalists.What you are suggesting is for us to abandon the very tenets of science which have served us so powerfully for the last several centuries.So, I repeat... If this is explained specifically somewhere in a link to Dembski's design filter, perhaps you could point me to it?Or perhaps you could describe or link to an example of where this filter has been applied to a biological system and detected Intelligent Design?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-16-2004 03:57 PM

he already declared victory didn't he?I hope he comes back. that question about the def of supernatural is really bugging me ...

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

MrHambre has an explanation of the design explanatory filter here:http://EvC Forum: The Importance of Potentially Disconfirming Evidence -->EvC Forum: The Importance of Potentially Disconfirming EvidenceI would assume it is the same one.