What is the I in ID?

would make a great thread, but not here. All we are looking at in this one is the I in ID.But IMHO, there really are no limitations on what a GOD can do including setting self-limitations.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

jar claims,

quote:

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IMHO, there really are no limitations on what a GOD can do including setting self-limitations.

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In that case, the concept is just so empirically significant. I mentioned in one of the Intelligent Design debates that forensic investigators would be able to rule out human intervention by showing that something is humanly impossible. You have just come up with a concept of God that can be applied to literally any instance and could never conceivably be ruled out.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Isn't that in the Nature of a GOD?The key is, there is no need to play the God card frivolusly. If we look at current and past living organisms, it's pretty obvious that God did not design them unless his purpose was to be intentionally sloppy or to fool us into thinking that they were not designed. So it is far more reasonable to assume that God is competent and to look for signs of competent design.That was why back in Message 55 I suggested that the I in ID was God and that he (or she as the case may be) designed the very most basic rules that set everything in motion.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

jar,I don't know what the nature of God is, or isn't. You've defined the term to be a perfect non-reducible concept, something that can be literally anything you want it to be. Why do you say the ID creationists are wrong to think that God designed everything, but you're within your rights to claim that God created the rules that everything is based on? What's frivolous about the way they throw around a term they don't understand, when you use it equally indiscriminately?This is why I'm not religious anymore: I get embarrassed when I hear people use God as a catch-all phrase to explain how lazy their thinking is. When someone says God, I know they've given up hope of understanding something in a rational and honest way. It's never used as a demand to know more, to discover more, and to shed illusions in order to see the greater wonder that Nature and the Universe represent.regards,
Esteban Hambre

First, the most that I can outline here is my personal beliefs. Nothing more than that is possible.I believe they are wrong based on the evidence at hand. If you look at living things, past and present, there is every indication that they evolved just as one would expect from the TOE. There are no signs of creation that I can see.If the evidence of living things is the indication of God, then it's also evidence of a pretty damn sloppy God that is not capable of good, clean design. I find it very difficult to imagine an incompetent God.At the other extreme, at the very basic, the very small, I find just the opposite. I find a set of rules that are simple, elegant, clean, beautiful, aesthetic, functional. Every time we learn more, the underlying rules become even more elegant. That, for me, is the kind of creation of a God.I don't think, though I may well be wrong, that I use the term God or Created indiscriminately. I try to use it with very specific limits as to my understanding. If you find looking through my posts, that I am using it in such a manner, please point it out to me.As to the Creationists in general. I believe what I have said is that it is absolutely possible to explain the world we live on, the Universe we live within and the life that has been here and is here now, based on the very simple rules we find in physics, biology, the TOE and geology. While they can assert that GOD made man in his own image, looking at the product shows a faulty, sophomoric design.I believe GOD is better than that.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

hmmm ... maybe you should cease and deist ???

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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}}}

Is it even possible to describe a mechanism without some knowledge of the designer? Although design is a concept quite easily understood, the thought of intelligent design is something altogether different. Snowflakes are wonderful designs, but they require no intelligence nor deliberate action in forming. The Parthenon, on the other hand, required many man-hours of intelligent planning and deliberate work. But...the only reason we can say this is because we have knowledge of man and what he is capable of. Let's set up a little experiment and see how it plays out.You are an absolutely objective observer. You are studying earth. Nothing else comes into play. Earth-in-a-box, if you will. Now, the hemisphere in view is covered with nothing but lush, green grass. Grass is the only life form. No humans. No animals. No trees. No fish. As you scan the landscape, your eyes pass over the Parthenon, which is also there. Do you even notice it? Perhaps, but you can only surmise that it might be some interesting geologic formation. You have no knowlege of man. At this point you have knowledge only of grass. If you were a quick study, you would conclude that grass and the Parthenon are in no way connected. It's not until the other hemisphere comes into view, where all the humans are busy at work, that you can piece together the evidence and conclude the Parthenon is man-made.This is a huge problem for ID, as I see it. Without some knowledge of the Creator, it cannot be shown that the "creation" is the work of said Creator, much less the mechanism used. My thoughts exactly. I'd add that these little green men don't even need to possess any degree of intelligence. They may be accidentally creating all sorts of things everywhere they go. (You are obviously more versed in ID than I am. The ID "literature" I've read emphatically states god is behind it. Most often the Christian God.)Getting back to the idea of god and the simplistic 'earth study' I mentioned above. It seems western religion's view of god is built upon our ability of self-awareness; that is, God is an all-powerful version of ourselves. If you return to seeing the grass-covered earth, with no knowledge of man (nor yourself - absolute objectivity), you might think god is Great, Green and oozing with chlorophyl (rather than love). Just a thought.This message has been edited by chicowboy, 07-12-2004 04:15 PM

Actually the ID people are adamant that their concept does not include god so that it can 'get around' the separation of church and state requirement and to make it seem to be an independent avenue of inquiry appropriate for public school. See:Intelligent design - Wikipedia I am not surprised at your experience, as it seems that creationists think that ID is the best thing since sliced bread as a way of infiltrating god into the classroom, a Trojan horse if you will. This is faulty thinking on their part, due to inherent irreconcilable differences. The ID concept is that we can discern evidence of design by the result of action. It follows that the mechanism of that action is either readily apparent or the action is supernatural. Absent any evidence of action by natural forces one is left with the conclusion that it can only be design by supernatural action, and that implies a supernatural being. That means one or more gods by definition.Your thought experiment is interesting, but it is also a documented fact that natives unaware of the process of manufacturing thought that watches were magical objects rather than man-made objects. Also think of a kaleidoscope: viewed from one end the beads are shown in a pattern, from the other just a random jumble; the appearance of design is from a selective viewpoint that is not based on the reality.Also see http://EvC Forum: Is ID properly pursued?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}}}

Yes ofcorse, may be not in the same length as now ( generations of humans are getting shorter). But in the same shape YES . You will ask me how did I know!!to reach to some place there are many ways. It does not matter which one you go in as long as it is SAFE and can lead you to where you are going.If you can not go on some way -because you lack to enough experience- and other people went on but they reach to a psudo-target(let me call it so),that all does not mean that thier way is wronge !!
indeed your way is not wrong too. there may exist a third way and fourth.....But how will you explain to those people that they have reached a psudo-target ? and the real one is not what they think? they have to continue in there way to reach the true one.
but if thier potentials are not enough yet! would they try another SAFE way (while keeping on in the origional way)? or would they insist considering there psudo-target?A man came to you someday telling you some thing that is unbelievable . but he proved his honesty . would you believe him ? even if his truth is inconsistent with what you have reached to-untill then- in your trustful way???????This message has been edited by dandon83, 07-26-2004 04:32 AM

man came to you someday telling you some thing that is unbelievable . but he proved his honesty . would you believe him ? even if his truth is inconsistent with what you have reached to-untill then- in your trustful way???????His honesty is neither here or there. I'm interested in what he call PROVE. People are quite easy to fool.

THE PROOF is something hard for you to examine.It is our HOLY QURAN you need to learn arabic first in order to examine it .If you could .you will find that it is impossible to be written by a man .who can not read or write (or even if he could).Quran told us 1400 years ago things that have been recently prooved by science. so we believe that Quran is from God(ALLAH). and we believed every thing in it.(quran told us that ALLAH created ADAM and his wife ,thus the human beings existed )

Let's assume this trustfull man tells you that God never existed.
Would you believe this man?Lucy

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Bible
Search Results
"Death & Dead" were found 827 times in 751 verses.Thats a Whole Lotta Suffering

I have read it - it's a book of fairystories like the bible.no it's not impossible to have been written by a man, it's quite clearly written by a man. Quran told us 1400 years ago things that have been recently prooved by science.This is an assumption on your part, can you back it up with anything?Don't bother about the babies - I'll blow you straight out of the water on that one. For examples it says the sex is determined after 40 days - pure crap.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 07-26-2004 07:25 AM

In that case I would tell you that you are making exactly the same mistake that Fundamentalist and Literalist Christians are making.The Map is not the Territory.The Koran is not Islam just as the Bible is not Christianity.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

no it's not impossible to have been written by a man, it's quite clearly written by a man.You are a man . teached,able to read and write ; would you please write 1/10 like Quran.I would be so glade to follow your new relegion.