Question for believers in ID.

[Rav]

The universe also had to be very large, which it is, and so then there are places, amid all the ‘junk’, like the Earth, where all the conditions line up just right, which is a lot of them, such as even there having to be a moon for stability, lest the Earth wobble too quickly in and out of hot and freezing zones.

On earth we have the following (among many others) extremophiles:

Hyperthermophiles that thrive at temperatures between 80 and 122 °C
Acidophiles that thrive in extremely acidic environments
Thermoacidophiles that thrive in environments that are both very hot and very acidic
Cryophiles that survive and reproduce in unusually cold conditions
Radioresistants that are resistant to high levels of ionizing, ultraviolet and nuclear radiation
Anaerobes that do not require oxygen in order to survive

In fact there are entire ecosystems that surround volcanic vents at the bottom of oceans where there is enormous hydrostatic pressure, high temperatures and not a trace of sunlight.

The point is that life doesn't appear to need conditions that we consider to be moderate. In fact what we consider to be moderate is of course merely a reflection of the conditions that we have adapted to, that have shaped us into what we are. The more one learns about and reflects upon all of this, the more it seems not just possible but even likely that if intelligent life exists on some other planet out there, to them we would seem like the extremophiles. Life-forms that have somehow miraculously evolved in the harshest of conditions. After all, oxygen is a corrosive gas you know.

 

[SciWriter]

TO THE END(S) OF THE UNIVERSE

I took a road trip through the universe recently, smoking some pot and playing the radio loud. Holy-moly, there’s nothing holy out there. In fact, it’s a very uncongenial place for life. I’d much rather be in Australia. 96% of it was useless dark energy and dark matter; the rest was mostly rocks gases and dust; dangerous radiation zapped all over the place; and it was fricken freezing! Oh, what I would have given to be in Canada.

Whatever designed the universe certainly didn’t have life at large in mind, although in some good places it had to become; it even took evolution billions of years to fine-tune us to the Earth. Then we nearly got wiped out by huge disasters right and left, even once shrinking back down to a population of around 2000.

I saw the graveyards of the stars and some stellar nurseries, too; all kinds of energy swirled about—when it wasn’t exploding and wreaking havoc. I stopped to eat at the restaurant at the end of the universe, on a moon, but, it had no atmosphere, plus, all the food had been microwaved, by the CMBR.

What a wasteland of a wilderness of wilds of a whole bunch of crap that nearly went on forever in every direction; this was as much of a place unsuited for life that there ever could be. I’m back, thank my lucky stars, noting that, 13 billion years after the initial mess, here we are, having beaten the odds. Well, someone had to! Earth had the right conditions. We won the universal lottery jackpot.

Oh cripes, here comes a humongous asteroid! Darn, all that progress for nothing. Double ‘00’ has come up. It was only a matter of time.

 

[kx000]

TO THE END(S) OF THE UNIVERSE

I took a road trip through the universe recently, smoking some pot and playing the radio loud. Holy-moly, there’s nothing holy out there. In fact, it’s a very uncongenial place for life. I’d much rather be in Australia. 96% of it was useless dark energy and dark matter; the rest was mostly rocks gases and dust; dangerous radiation zapped all over the place; and it was fricken freezing! Oh, what I would have given to be in Canada.

Whatever designed the universe certainly didn’t have life at large in mind, although in some good places it had to become; it even took evolution billions of years to fine-tune us to the Earth. Then we nearly got wiped out by huge disasters right and left, even once shrinking back down to a population of around 2000.

I saw the graveyards of the stars and some stellar nurseries, too; all kinds of energy swirled about—when it wasn’t exploding and wreaking havoc. I stopped to eat at the restaurant at the end of the universe, on a moon, but, it had no atmosphere, plus, all the food had been microwaved, by the CMBR.

What a wasteland of a wilderness of wilds of a whole bunch of crap that nearly went on forever in every direction; this was as much of a place unsuited for life that there ever could be. I’m back, thank my lucky stars, noting that, 13 billion years after the initial mess, here we are, having beaten the odds. Well, someone had to! Earth had the right conditions. We won the universal lottery jackpot.

Oh cripes, here comes a humongous asteroid! Darn, all that progress for nothing. Double ‘00’ has come up. It was only a matter of time.

Your off, the universe is lovely, filled with things to behold. Do you think there is are any earthly zones of space; room temperature, and a oxygen source, randomly sitting out there?

WARP SPEED NOW!

 

[SciWriter]

extremophiles…

THE TIME CAPSULE

Since one million years had just passed by, they, of the future, prepared to open, nigh, the absolutely sealed container’s prize, of a capsule made so carefully that it did survive without damage, being totally impregnable to any outside influence imaginable.

They expected to see, perhaps, some old relic, but certainly nothing alive that could tell of it, for it would be hard to imagine, even then, that some organism could keep on going its ken over its course of a million years later, sealed inside this tight container, unable even to exchange energy’s spark, this metabolism being the hallmark of life and all that quacked or quarked… and, so, they did not at all expect something in there that would be flapping its wings, gasping for air, or anything at all of life’s song, it wondering what had taken so long.

Well, they were right and they were wrong, for in the time capsule that was planted ago so long, several things had with it come along…

One was a plaque, of numbers low and high, and containing some primes and pi, another, some essays of the future—some, like those on forums, quite mature, along with Darwin’s book, maps curled, and with maps and other items of the world from those times when the oceans swirled; but, the last, one perhaps not intended, was a microbe—an extremophile—laying there quite contented all the while!

Well, they soon laughed, loud and long, for they were in between right and wrong about what could survive from so long ago, for, it was really walking mighty slow!

Amazingly, as with it the time capsule took, the microbe walked right out of Darwin’s book!

 

[SciWriter]

Your off, the universe is lovely, filled with things to behold. Do you think there is are any earthly zones of space; room temperature, and a oxygen source, randomly sitting out there?

Plenty, and more.

 

[SciWriter]

Another extremophile…

The Seed of Life?

Mikey was a unicellular microorganism, a microbe, one of the bacteria that were called ‘extremophiles’, for they were capable of living in extreme environmental conditions of temperature, ph, salinity, pressure, dryness, radiation, and even with no sunlight or oxygen. They even loved chomping on plutonium, the deadliest substance ever known. Mikey’s ancestry went back 4 billion years, he being among the sturdiest creatures on Earth, those that had also become its master, for humans couldn’t live for but a few minutes without bacteria.

Mikey thought that he might go to Enceladus for a balmy vacation where life was easy, always with a pool and party not too far away. Enceladus is a small satellite of Saturn and is a geologically active moon world with some wondrous scenery of spouting volcanic plumes, even having a bath of water within and below.

Just about then, for sometimes wishes do come true, a huge meteor impact struck the Earth and thrust some material into space, including Mikey and friends, who then resided rather dormant in a rock that protected them by acting as a shield against solar radiation and cosmic rays, not that this would have bothered them a whole lot.

Eons later Mikey and friends and their rock of a spaceship landed on Enceladus. Mikey stepped out of the rock and onto a tiger-striped surface where the temperature was about -359 degrees f. A tiny shiver almost began to undulate through him, but, he shrugged it off. He was hungry, though, not having eaten for millions of years, except for a few bites of iron—and so he was really only running quickly at about half-speed. His friends followed excitedly, covering over 100 kilometers in a few minutes. They paused every so often to gobble up some dust.

They were taken aback for a millisecond when they spotted a fast food restaurant with a sign that said ‘billions and billions of bacteria served here’.

“Hey, there is native life here, just as we’d hoped” said Mikey.

“What a tropical paradise! Hey, there are some hot springs. Let’s take a dip with the sexy native girls and then kick back and relax.”

They frolicked and swam all around for a few thousand years… until a very large eruption sent them all far into space. After a billion years or so, they landed on the 4th planet from a sun in a solar system far away, seeding it with life that became human-like within a few more billion years, although there were some differences in anatomy.

—Mikey

See my picture just below this line:
.

 

[Jan Ardena]

wynn,

But if this intelligence is from God - and everything in this Universe is from God anyway, so the theistic reasoning - then this says something about God as well.

As minute parts and parcels of God, we are essentially endowed with intelligence.

If we were a purely a product of natural forces, you would have no need to feel, or believe that this world is below a certain level of expectation. The world would be exactly as it is, because everything is acting naturally. That you have an opinion, and most probably and ideal expectation, means you're acting separately to natural forces.

??
What do you mean by "nature"?
I don't understand your reasoning at all.

If the darwinist perspective is correct, this world is perfect to you because it is exactly as is meant to be, and our actions
would be perfect as anything we do is due to nature. Morals wouldn't matter, because no matter how things turned out, it would be
absolutely correct.

Morals mean we have an ideal, and ideals aren't found in nature. Morals mean we have a sense of what is right, no such sense can be found or quantified in nature. Stalin would be no more wrong or right than Mother Terresa.


Intelligence is obvious, and intelligence itself cannot be found in nature, but evidence of intelligence can, and the world has developed the way it has because of intelligence, ours.

I don't have any particular position regarding the Pyramids, and see no need per se to have it.

But I've drawn your attention to it.
It's a simple matter of yes or no, do you think they were a product of chance, or intelligence.

And there's nothing wrong with interpreting what you see, if there's no other means of obtaining knowledge.
It takes intelligence to decipher intelligence. I assume that intelligence was behind Stone Henge, because I wasn't present at their construction, but I could work out some explanation that says it was constructed by natural forces.

Would you believe me?

I don't think I would care either way.

I don't care, but that's not the point. We're in a discussion which you are taking part in, and I'm trying
to give clarity to a point of enquiry made by you. I need an answer from you to complete my task.

Like I said in the previous post, the horrible things that go on in this world intuitively incline me to consider that God either doesn't exist, or is malevolent.

I'm not talking about God.
Check the question again.

So when all the options that are left are these two: 1. God doesn't exist (and so there is no design either), and 2. God exists, but is malevolent; one chooses among them. As the second one seems repugnant, the first one is left by default. That is a possible way for arriving at the belief that the world is not designed.

It doesn't matter whether you think God exists or not, as we're not talking about God, specifically.
We're discussing intelligent design.

But like I said, I am consciously not inclined to either the design, nor to e non-design position.

But you are now because I've brought it to your attention.

The "demands of the body"? I once heard from a Buddhist teacher that the body doesn't need anything, and is perfectly willing to die.

That doesn't make sense.
The body has demands in the same a car has demands. If you want it to operate then you give in to the demands, i.e. food, water, and shelter. The person (soul) and the body are different.

Yes. We've talked about that many times.

You have to deal with different people differently. The modern athiests are extremely defensive because they've built their house on eggshells. This makes them very offensive when you begin to put a strain on their belief. So I am merely communicating to them how they communicate to me, otherwise they will carry on doing what they're doing.

Sure. But I don't think hatred can be overcome by hatred.

It's got nothing to do with hatred.
You're overly emotional sometimes, which stops you from checking what's actually going on.

I think that it is actually the approach that theists often have to non-theists that is so conducive to the spread of atheism. Ie. theists pushing people into becoming atheists.

Atheists ae atheists, untill they become theists. Belief in God is something that is triggered. One comes to the realisation that God is the ultimate reality. So even if someone claims to be a theist, it doesn't mean they are. If you believe in God, then you see things from that perspective, to the level of your particular consciousness.

jan.

 

[Sarkus]

If the darwinist perspective is correct, this world is perfect to you because it is exactly as is meant to be, and our actions would be perfect as anything we do is due to nature. Morals wouldn't matter, because no matter how things turned out, it would be
absolutely correct.

You use the term "correct" - but with regard such a perspective there is no "correct" or "incorrect" - there is just the subjective view we each hold.
Morals would matter, in as much as they are subjective and enable us to function in a society built upon a shared sense of morality.
But it does not make the morals "correct" or "incorrect" - as they are meaningless concepts in such a perspective.

Morals mean we have an ideal, and ideals aren't found in nature. Morals mean we have a sense of what is right, no such sense can be found or quantified in nature. Stalin would be no more wrong or right than Mother Terresa.

"Ideals aren't found in nature"? This seems somewhat of unsubstantiated claim. Care to elaborate?
You are also mixing up the objective and subjective positions, and trying to argue against one because of what you apply to the other.
Morals are a subjective issue - and as such can be applied subjectively to our actions.
From an objective perspective there are no morals, there is therefore no question of right or wrong. It doesn't mean that Stalin would be no more right or wrong than Mother Theresa, it means that right / wrong are not even applicable concepts.
You are doing nothing more than comparing subjectively opposite positions, and saying that from an objective point of view they are both subjectively the same - which is a fallacious argument.

Intelligence is obvious, and intelligence itself cannot be found in nature, but evidence of intelligence can, and the world has developed the way it has because of intelligence, ours.

Intelligence can be found in nature: We are intelligent. We are part of nature. Q.E.D.
Or do you mean that "intelligence" can not be found as a separate entity, but is merely a subjective property that some matter might hold with regard other matter?

That doesn't make sense.
The body has demands in the same a car has demands. If you want it to operate then you give in to the demands, i.e. food, water, and shelter. The person (soul) and the body are different.

It does make sense, from their perspective.
A car does not have demands.
WE (i.e. our conscious self) puts demands on the car (to operate, to have fuel). The car itself has no demands whatsoever... and will happily rust away if left to its own devices.
Likewise our body has no demands (from their perspective) but it is our conscious self that puts demands on it. These are OUR demands of our body, not the demands of the body. Remove our consciousness and our body has zero demands... and will happily die.

You have to deal with different people differently. The modern athiests are extremely defensive because they've built their house on eggshells. This makes them very offensive when you begin to put a strain on their belief. So I am merely communicating to them how they communicate to me, otherwise they will carry on doing what they're doing.

The majority have not built any house, and feel no need to build a house. There quite often is also no belief - merely a practical acceptance that there is no need to invoke something for which they have no evidence.

Atheists ae atheists, untill they become theists.

And theists are theists until they become atheist.
Yay to state the obvious.

Belief in God is something that is triggered.

So is epilepsy. So is a gun.

One comes to the realisation that God is the ultimate reality.

Not realisation but subjective conclusion.

So even if someone claims to be a theist, it doesn't mean they are. If you believe in God, then you see things from that perspective, to the level of your particular consciousness.

And if you are a psycopath you see things from that perspective. If you are a necrophile then you see things from that perspective. If you hold ANY view then you see things from the perspective of that view.
You are merely stating the obvious, Jan.

 

[wynn]

Check the question again.

It's got nothing to do with hatred.
You're overly emotional sometimes, which stops you from checking what's actually going on.

It looks like you don't need me for this conversation after all.

:shrug:

 

[James R]

If the darwinist perspective is correct, this world is perfect to you because it is exactly as is meant to be, and our actions
would be perfect as anything we do is due to nature. Morals wouldn't matter, because no matter how things turned out, it would be
absolutely correct.

What a strange point of view. Evolution isn't a process with a purpose, so nothing is "meant to be".

But the bigger issue is with your conception of morality. Nature may be amoral, but human beings certainly are not. And what "matters" to people is determined by people, not by something removed from them (like your God or your personified conception of "nature").

Morals mean we have an ideal, and ideals aren't found in nature. Morals mean we have a sense of what is right, no such sense can be found or quantified in nature. Stalin would be no more wrong or right than Mother Terresa.

We are part of nature, so morals can be found in nature. Human beings aren't separate from nature; we are part of it.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "ideals", or if they are supposed to add something to the idea of moral principles.

Your contention that there's nothing wrong with mass murder, say, or that helping somebody else is no more "right" than killing them, is bizarre to say the least. Nobody believes that. Nobody who is sane, anyway.

Intelligence is obvious, and intelligence itself cannot be found in nature, but evidence of intelligence can, and the world has developed the way it has because of intelligence, ours.

As I already pointed out, human beings are part of nature, so if we are intelligent then intelligence is found in nature.

As for human impact on the universe as a whole, it is utterly negligible. But your "world" has always seemed quite restrictive to me, so this is probably just a natural short-sightedness of yours creeping in.

 

[gmilam]

Morals wouldn't matter, because no matter how things turned out, it would be
absolutely correct.

Does this mean that if you discovered that there was no God, you could just as easily be a mass murderer and a rapist?

People like you scare me.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Does this mean that if you discovered that there was no God, you could just as easily be a mass murderer and a rapist?

People like you scare me.

Or heck, if you scale it down to the misdemeanors, then we're also confronted by this problem: creationists, who purport to be endowed with moral righteousness, can't honestly engage the facts and evidence brought by science--beginning with evolution. Where is the God of Truth and Morality when they are left to explain how Darwin's finches got to Galapagos? Or the increasing order of development in the layers of the fossil record? Or the evidence that there was never a mass extinction as required by the Flood Myth? And so on. It would seem to me that before any of them worry about linking human values (such as morality ) to a God, they would first need to exhibit the intellectual honesty of seeking truth in natural evidence in the same way any ethical scientist does. By this analysis the modern scientist (or any logical mind regardless of background) may represent the highest moral standards humanly achievable--in terms of honesty at least. Maybe this is what scares creationists about scientists. Maybe they now realize their moral authority has faded. Maybe they feel threatened by honesty alone and can't find any escape from the modern light of day that exposes them.

It would be so much easier to talk about morality if they would simply agree to base it on honesty, and then to merely agree that honesty treats facts and evidence objectively, without the trappings and personal baggage of an ideology such as a religious creed. Unless, that is, they are among those rare birds who sincerely practice what they preach.

 

[Balerion]

Or heck, if you scale it down to the misdemeanors, then we're also confronted by this problem: creationists, who purport to be endowed with moral righteousness, can't honestly engage the facts and evidence brought by science--beginning with evolution. Where is the God of Truth and Morality when they are left to explain how Darwin's finches got to Galapagos? Or the increasing order of development in the layers of the fossil record? Or the evidence that there was never a mass extinction as required by the Flood Myth? And so on. It would seem to me that before any of them worry about linking human values (such as morality ) to a God, they would first need to exhibit the intellectual honesty of seeking truth in natural evidence in the same way any ethical scientist does. By this analysis the modern scientist (or any logical mind regardless of background) may represent the highest moral standards humanly achievable--in terms of honesty at least. Maybe this is what scares creationists about scientists. Maybe they now realize their moral authority has faded. Maybe they feel threatened by honesty alone and can't find any escape from the modern light of day that exposes them.

It would be so much easier to talk about morality if they would simply agree to base it on honesty, and then to merely agree that honesty treats facts and evidence objectively, without the trappings and personal baggage of an ideology such as a religious creed. Unless, that is, they are among those rare birds who sincerely practice what they preach.

In the case of many of the posters here, like Jan, Wynn, and LG, they probably don't know what a finch is, let alone how its presence on Galapagos is of any consequence. They have demonstrated a blinding and willful ignorance of the subject. They argue against it because it challenges their Christian/vaguely Hindu/vaguely Buddhist worldviews, not because they've actually been swayed by compelling evidence against it.

In the case of the people who should know better, such as the morons at the Discovery Institute, it's a matter of principal, not fact. They know damn well they don't have the science, and their whole approach is to skirt that as much as possible through propaganda.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Nature may be amoral, but human beings certainly are not.
:
We are part of nature, so morals can be found in nature.

Yes, we see it both ways, both the lack of it and the presence of it. I think that idea could develop into a semester-long course exploring the amoral and moral roots of human behavior. It would be a great interdisciplinary subject. There are days when I stop and sense that any small nuance of human existence ties back to our natural roots, if only in some arcane way. There is a documentary of the bear hunter who reforms and learns to live among them as a protector. He manages to become accepted by the bears. They will approach him, hug him, paw him, nip at him a little, but they won't try to hurt him. At one point he forgets what he is doing and gets between a mother and her cub, and she wounds him. This is so intensely correlated to our own sense of protecting children (or any underdog for that matter) which may be viewed as a moral obligation. But it's not even that complicated. It's strictly instinctive.

And what "matters" to people is determined by people, not by something removed from them (like your God or your personified conception of "nature").

Yes, otherwise there would be no universal sense of right or wrong--no laws or treaties, no declarations of human rights, and so on. Even someone like Marx, who the creationists would equate with the devil, was thinking about social justice, and the utopian world in which all the resources are shared. But, using their logic, did God inspire Marx to worry about the poor starving masses of the early industrial era? The same logic would apply to Hammurabi, the hated Babylonian. Did God inspire him to carve out the first known set of extensive laws that are designed to protect life and limb ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth") as well as property and civil order, etc.? From here we could look to the laws of pagan Greeks and Romans and ask the same. Like you say, it just boils down to what matters to people, nothing more.

As I already pointed out, human beings are part of nature, so if we are intelligent then intelligence is found in nature.

That would be another huge stumbling block for creationists. By refusing to acknowledge that our inherited traits include instinctive and learned behaviors found in lower animals, they feel it necessary pin human intelligence on some supernatural cause.

As for human impact on the universe as a whole, it is utterly negligible.

Utterly to the power utterly. Squared. Yet somehow this dubiously loving overlord who also happens to be jealous, vindictive and prone to have tantrums, has cause to turn his celestial attention from some massive catastrophe such as colliding galaxies, to worry about dietary restrictions, matters of sex and hygiene, and, most peculiarly, whether he's being praised enough. It's all so absurd. Until you rewind to ancient times when all of the known universe probably encompassed a radius of only several dozen kilometers. But now that we know better, our importance clearly comes down to being--as you say--utterly negligible. It may be a little hard to swallow, but no more than any other stark reality that's just part of growing up. Creationism to me is akin to refusing to cut the cord.

 

[gmilam]

From my experience, creationists do have a serious problem accepting that we are part of nature. Their worldview sees nature as something that was put here for us to use and abuse. We are not part of it, we are somehow above it. Billions of cubic light years of nature all put here just for us..

Yeah, right...

 

[Aqueous Id]

In the case of many of the posters here, like Jan, Wynn, and LG, they probably don't know what a finch is, let alone how its presence on Galapagos is of any consequence.

I hear that, but I can't stop feeling bewildered by it, since it's the most superficial treatment given on the subject -- the finches have become "poster children" for the subject -- and they're in all the textbooks from Anatomy to Zoology. They're plastered all over the web, all over the Discovery Channel, basically everywhere you look. Of course you have to look. but your point is well taken.

They have demonstrated a blinding and willful ignorance of the subject.

Even the more articulate arguments raised here can be a lot better formulated than, say, the drivel you might expect from ICR; yet never do any of them ever address what Darwin actually encountered, the nature of the dilemma it posed and how he had no recourse but to acknowledge that the finches evolved on the islands. There simply is no other feasible explanation. In this case, even a miracle and the Garden of Eden wouldn't hack it, because the volcanoes rose out of the sea long after that purportedly happened. And the other problem would be that after God sent just those two dozen species on their 500 mile journey -- and just because they happened to be adapted to the few food sources there -- He would have had to have killed all of their kin living on the mainland. It's so absurd a scenario that the hack who would profess it ought to be required to go into treatment, owing to the possibility that this kind of delusion might correlate with the personality disorders that pose a threat to oneself or to the public.

They argue against it because it challenges their Christian/vaguely Hindu/vaguely Buddhist worldviews, not because they've actually been swayed by compelling evidence against it.

I have sometimes been confused by those vague religious affiliations. Creationism, the kind that disparages Darwin, is clearly a product of the American Anabaptist movement. Connecting Anabaptist beliefs to Eastern religion is a study in absurdity itself. And of course the idea that Darwin was an atheist or that his ideas are common with atheism is so palpable to them. Yet we see him standing there, scratching his head at these diving iguanas that eat seaweed. It's so far removed from the creationist perception of an "agenda" that all we are left with is yet another ludicrous conspiracy theory. They will call us sheeple, but then they never bother to explore what it is we are "blindly" following. Without reading about, or being able to explain back to us, the significance of the finches, they have lost touch with what "Darwinism" could possibly mean, preferring for themselves an invented meaning, and one that comes out a vacuum, without a shred of relevance to what he discovered, what he figured out and why. In essence we are talking about two entirely different notions, one of which is their invented concept of "Darwinism". Perhaps we could start referring to "finchism" and "igaunism" and "turtlism" and try to break this down a little more specifically to the matter of those individual natural histories themselves, which demand an explanation, one that evolution alone satisfies.

In the case of the people who should know better, such as the morons at the Discovery Institute, it's a matter of principal, not fact. They know damn well they don't have the science, and their whole approach is to skirt that as much as possible through propaganda.

Talk about sheeple. To follow such a fraud without even bothering to fact-check it, just to have an arguing point to hang one's hat on, is quintessential pseudoscience. It's phenomenal, that over 40% of Americans have fallen for this scam and can't wiggle their way out of it -- simply by reading. I have gone out of my way to occasionally post direct quotes from Darwin, seeking rebuttal, but I always get silence. I can only imagine that some fuses are being blown, but that assumes a sense of honesty, which isn't necessarily equally at stake here for each of us.

Periodically the gauntlet is thrown down, demanding evidence from us that ToE is proven. All along, the prevailing question Darwin raised in his own mind is left flapping in the breeze: How did those species get to Galapagos? Any creationist that skirts this question is being dishonest; inferring to know what "Darwinism" means by invoking the term as an epithet. No, they simply don't have any idea. They simply don't want to know.

 

[Aqueous Id]

From my experience, creationists do have a serious problem accepting that we are part of nature. Their worldview sees nature as something that was put here for us to use and abuse. We are not part of it, we are somehow above it. Billions of cubic light years of nature all put here just for us..

Yeah, right...

I think that's a huge factor for them which is down in the subtext. On the surface they're arguing a matter of science without acknowledging it or addressing it, but underneath it all, I think this is the whole point.

Yeah - billions of cubic lightyears and the master of it all is worried about whether some tribe of shepherds kept their foreskins or whether they ate yeasted bakery goods. Kind of makes everything Hawkings or Feynman says seem so much more profound. And Darwin, too.

 

[SciWriter]

SAPIENS SUPREME

Oh man! What a piece of work, the mind; what noble deeds done and undone in kind. What “Rube Goldberg” inventions heaped upon—in the layers of brains the mind was made upon. What is this sapiens mammal animal, but of some slime and of brutish law. Aye!

Let us ‘neglect’ this state of affairing on the grounds that it is unappealing. So, then…

We are spun of an eternal golden braid, those windings of truth, love, and beauty made from the goodness of purity immortal—the theory of everything’s singular portal. What is man but the special chosen species for whom all the plants grow and the waters reach, for whom the Earth turns round and orbits a nuclear furnace, spreading love’s energy, enabling us to thrive above any and all creation. What is man but the only bloom for which all the 13.7 billions years of evolution and love have occurred in a predetermined random yeast to form and flower such a vainglorious beast.

It’s here on forever’s edge that we meet our destiny, that in our temporary parentheses of eternity we should flourish for just a moment, bidden as the blossoms of perfection’s flower garden. A hundred trillion stars and countless shores were built to light our universal nights explored. Forty million other lower species, too, the All-Might placed about our world, merely for our delight. Our name is writ large on Heaven’s marquee, as in the supernovae stardust showered from He.

From nothing not He came, no, but, of a naught our own universe was made and ever wrought. A starring role we play in His reality show, every atom spinning round just for us to know, our apish ancestors rising and falling just for us to stand upon. Oh man! They all lived and died for our lone promise! Every shaft of light shines with us in mind; thus, it beams forth our beginning and our end—in and of God’s hidden and Heavenly shrine.

Oh life! We cherish being, that of ours and thine. We do so much deserve reward beyond this role, and so it is that one’s immortal spirit-soul, that angelic vapour that drives a living being, shall go forth to glory on, behind the scene. We are not merely some mammally organic clump, but purposely evolved by God on this planet, near a star, in that intended long and winding mindless gestation of slowly drifting time, dust, and selection by death that ever sifted the best from the rest: Sapiens!

(Now why is the soul so ‘true’ and so far with it faith goes? It is only because one so much wishes it to be what knows.)

Earth could not answer; nor the seas that mourn in flowing purple, of their Lord forlorn; nor rolling Heaven, with all his signs reveal’d and hidden by the sleeve of night and morn. Ah, love! Could thou and I with fate conspire to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, would not we shatter it to bits--and then re-mould it nearer to the heart’s desire! — Omar Khayyam

 

[Jan Ardena]

Sarkus,

You use the term "correct" - but with regard such a perspective there is no "correct" or "incorrect" - there is just the subjective view we each hold.
Morals would matter, in as much as they are subjective and enable us to function in a society built upon a shared sense of morality.
But it does not make the morals "correct" or "incorrect" - as they are meaningless concepts in such a perspective.

Okay, let's replace ''correct'' with ''natural''.

Do you regard ''subjectivety'' and ''morals'' as ''natural'' because we humans possess them, or because they are part of the fabric of the material world, like hydrogen, or oxygen?

It does make sense, from their perspective.

What perspective is that?

A car does not have demands.

It hasn't got consciousness obviously, but I'm sure if you try hard enough you recognise the figure of speech.

Likewise our body has no demands (from their perspective) but it is our conscious self that puts demands on it. These are OUR demands of our body, not the demands of the body. Remove our consciousness and our body has zero demands... and will happily die.

Same as above.

And theists are theists until they become atheist.

What is ''belief in God''?

So is epilepsy. So is a gun.

Same as above.

Not realisation but subjective conclusion.

Was that your experience, or do you have something more objective to back that up?

And if you are a psycopath you see things from that perspective. If you are a necrophile then you see things from that perspective. If you hold ANY view then you see things from the perspective of that view.
You are merely stating the obvious, Jan.

So what is belief in God?

jan.

 

[Balerion]

I hear that, but I can't stop feeling bewildered by it, since it's the most superficial treatment given on the subject -- the finches have become "poster children" for the subject -- and they're in all the textbooks from Anatomy to Zoology. They're plastered all over the web, all over the Discovery Channel, basically everywhere you look. Of course you have to look. but your point is well taken.

Even the more articulate arguments raised here can be a lot better formulated than, say, the drivel you might expect from ICR; yet never do any of them ever address what Darwin actually encountered, the nature of the dilemma it posed and how he had no recourse but to acknowledge that the finches evolved on the islands. There simply is no other feasible explanation. In this case, even a miracle and the Garden of Eden wouldn't hack it, because the volcanoes rose out of the sea long after that purportedly happened. And the other problem would be that after God sent just those two dozen species on their 500 mile journey -- and just because they happened to be adapted to the few food sources there -- He would have had to have killed all of their kin living on the mainland. It's so absurd a scenario that the hack who would profess it ought to be required to go into treatment, owing to the possibility that this kind of delusion might correlate with the personality disorders that pose a threat to oneself or to the public.

That's because even the more articulated arguments found here are derived from the same shallow propaganda. This is especially evident in their use of the term "Darwinism" when referring to evolutionary theory, but it also rears itself in the way they all fail to answer the bell when challenged on the details of their argument. With the exception of the people behind these movements, startlingly few opponents of evolution can actually tell you anything specific about it, and most of them crumble when presented with the mounds of evidence in its favor. Note Jan's almost-pathological refusal to see James' offerings as anything more than "Cartoon pictures." While Jan falls more into the category of internet lurker than proper ID proponent, he's still one of the people out there helping to keep other people stupid. His inability to answer direct questions or to speak in anything other than broad generalities is a trait he shares with most ID proponents.

I have sometimes been confused by those vague religious affiliations. Creationism, the kind that disparages Darwin, is clearly a product of the American Anabaptist movement. Connecting Anabaptist beliefs to Eastern religion is a study in absurdity itself. And of course the idea that Darwin was an atheist or that his ideas are common with atheism is so palpable to them. Yet we see him standing there, scratching his head at these diving iguanas that eat seaweed. It's so far removed from the creationist perception of an "agenda" that all we are left with is yet another ludicrous conspiracy theory. They will call us sheeple, but then they never bother to explore what it is we are "blindly" following. Without reading about, or being able to explain back to us, the significance of the finches, they have lost touch with what "Darwinism" could possibly mean, preferring for themselves an invented meaning, and one that comes out a vacuum, without a shred of relevance to what he discovered, what he figured out and why. In essence we are talking about two entirely different notions, one of which is their invented concept of "Darwinism". Perhaps we could start referring to "finchism" and "igaunism" and "turtlism" and try to break this down a little more specifically to the matter of those individual natural histories themselves, which demand an explanation, one that evolution alone satisfies.

The idea that the Vedas is a book of science isn't a new one, and fits rather well into the anti-science movement of Evangelical Christianity. They don't obviously agree on the answer, but they both view science as a threat to their faith. There's no good reason why evolution should upset Buddhism, but then Wynn isn't really a Buddhist. I call their faiths vague for different reasons; Wynn because she's a seeker who borrows from Buddhism to help her get through her day, and Jan because he doesn't actually know much of anything about the Vedas save for what can be read on some radical "Vedas is science" blogs and websites.

In other words, calling us "sheeple" is no more or less a borrowed phrase than the entirety of their argument against evolution. They aren't thinking, they're parroting. And yes, there is irony in that, but these are utterly unironic people. What do you expect?

Talk about sheeple. To follow such a fraud without even bothering to fact-check it, just to have an arguing point to hang one's hat on, is quintessential pseudoscience. It's phenomenal, that over 40% of Americans have fallen for this scam and can't wiggle their way out of it -- simply by reading. I have gone out of my way to occasionally post direct quotes from Darwin, seeking rebuttal, but I always get silence. I can only imagine that some fuses are being blown, but that assumes a sense of honesty, which isn't necessarily equally at stake here for each of us.

Periodically the gauntlet is thrown down, demanding evidence from us that ToE is proven. All along, the prevailing question Darwin raised in his own mind is left flapping in the breeze: How did those species get to Galapagos? Any creationist that skirts this question is being dishonest; inferring to know what "Darwinism" means by invoking the term as an epithet. No, they simply don't have any idea. They simply don't want to know.

Again, you're playing chess while he's playing checkers. The run-of-the-mill creationist/IDer/Vedas-blowhard has no earthly idea what the hell they're talking about, and the smart ones know they're lying. If you expect something more substantive than silence from the first group or something more ethical than obfuscation and ad hominem from the second, I think it's time to lower those expectations. The silence and the lies are the victories themselves.