On the evolution of ID seduction:

Originally posted by FabianFnas
And that designer of yours is your god. Or do you perhaps mean some other god, some spirit entity, designing every snowflake to be six folded symmetry, and never seven? 😀 This supernatural being is your religion, and since religion and science never mix, this is a topic for the Spiritual Forum.

For someone who is always crying about people bringing God into the
Science board, you do more than most.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
For someone who is always crying about people bringing God into the
Science board, you do more than most.
Kelly

Why should I? There is a Spiritual Forum. Every spiritual question I bring there. Like the dinosaur on Noah's ark, as to take one example. That *is* religion, nothing more.

Back to topic. Is the designer of yours the christian god, or what?

For the record, my position is one of practical agnosticism - there may well be a God, it´s essentially undecidable from first principles, in the event there is one it only makes any difference after you die.

I´m sorry, but Intelligent Design is just creationism with slightly different language. The ID´ers know that the 6,000 year old date for the creation of the world just doesn´ t hold water, and to avoid having to justify details about the specifics of a religion couch their arguments in terms that avoid referring to any particular god. In this way they hope to avoid the fragility in their argument that having a purely supernatural explanation will give you.

However, if you examine the central claim - evolution is guided by a conscious designer, who may or may not be the ¨creator of all things¨ then there are two rather obvious problems. The first is that in order to do all this the designer basically has to be God. Any entity without God-like powers is just not going to have the fine control in order to direct evolution to this degree. The other problem is that why on earth would they bother.

Let´s assume that there is a designer, and that it is God, God has a bunch of souls he wants to put through lives so that they become individual and more interesting to him (**) and so creates a Universe which is just truly monumentally huge (we can see a radius of 45 billion light years) why go to all the bother of designing something, when you´ve been quite careful to set up the initial conditions in such a way that there are (literally) trillions of galaxies with billions of suitable stars in each one of them with just the right conditions for life to get started on planets around these starts and evolve into a suitable soul carrier. All he then has to do is wait until some species evolves that he can pop the souls into. There is simply no need to go around tinkering once it´s all started.

Even if you believe in a God who is more or less like the Creator God that exists in most major world religions, there is no reason to believe that the God did anything other than leave the physical forms to blind chance. The only sensible interpretation of the line ¨God created Man in his own image¨ is that our souls are in the image of God, not the physical forms.

(*) or she, I really don´t think it´s particularly meaningful to assign gender to a deity, but ¨it¨ seems a little disrespectful.

(**) well, why else? The other possibility is after the war in heaven (Lucifer´s rebellion) the might be savable angels on the rebel side were sent here as a sort of practical trial. Either way it´s not central to my argument.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Even if you believe in a God who is more or less like the Creator God that exists in most major world religions, there is no reason to believe that the God did anything other than leave the physical forms to blind chance. The only sensible interpretation of the line ¨God created Man in his own image¨ is that our souls are in the image of God, not the physical forms.

Christians believe that their god was the Great Designer and creator of it all. So do a lot of other theist religions. For me it's not so simple. If (and I say if) ther was a designer, then it could be any god, hell, even Satan himself (lacking good PR men).

If I was this designer, I would start it all, and then whatch it spinning, by itself, not interfering. Therefore I rule out any christian god who from the day one (sorry) put his finger in every detail, putting dinosaurs on the Ark, creating rainbows, killing people, even most of the humanity, making people walk on water, for short: everything.

I would create the laws of nature, and let it go for itself during billennia (does this word exist?) until life sprang up as a consequence of the laws of nature. No need for any intervention anywhere.

But the christian god as the creatior or designer? Well, he did a terrible job then. Perhaps he is a rookie, and do a better job next time?

Originally posted by KellyJay
The only way you'd ever find God is when God reveals Himself to you,
correct! The only ones that will ever find God are those that seak Him
in truth, but your stearing this away from ID and back into the
Spiritual, and as always when this happens here, I'm the one that
gets blamed for it.
Kelly

So you are saying that God from a scientific standpoint is indistinguishable from random effects? Or is he simply indistinguishable from other hypothetical designers?
Its just that it seems to me to be a contradiction to claim evidence for a designer whilst simultaneously claiming the designer leaves no evidence.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Why should I? There is a Spiritual Forum. Every spiritual question I bring there. Like the dinosaur on Noah's ark, as to take one example. That *is* religion, nothing more.

Back to topic. Is the designer of yours the christian god, or what?

I honestly don’t' know why you do it, but you do! I've told you over
and over 'design' does not equal God, it is its own topic, in its own
right. Proving design does not prove God, it would only disprove that
the process of life requires something/someone guiding the process
beyond just a happenstance of a galactic lucky break that all the
right materials required for life were present that they were all located
in just the right amounts, that the proper amount of energy was
in place so that the timing of their blending was done so as not to ruin
the material or process by how they joined, so that nothing was done
out of order or in the wrong ways. The process and all that entails are
the topic of discussion as far as I’m concern; however, you just seem
to want to talk about God. I’m okay with talking about God, when I’m
posting about God I do attempt to do it on the Spiritual board, unless
someone questions me directly about the Spiritual or God.
Kelly

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Why should I? There is a Spiritual Forum. Every spiritual question I bring there. Like the dinosaur on Noah's ark, as to take one example. That *is* religion, nothing more.

Back to topic. Is the designer of yours the christian god, or what?

Does NOT MATTER who the designer is, proving design does not
prove God with respect to life, it only proves that the process could
not occur without someone or something directing it.
Kelly

Originally posted by DeepThought
For the record, my position is one of practical agnosticism - there may well be a God, it´s essentially undecidable from first principles, in the event there is one it only makes any difference after you die.

I´m sorry, but Intelligent Design is just creationism with slightly different language. The ID´ers know that the 6,000 year old date for the cr ...[text shortened]... l side were sent here as a sort of practical trial. Either way it´s not central to my argument.

How can you say that ID means God you don't think life could be
designed without God? I find that completely a joke if that is your
bottom line, since that means you either go from where it does not
require any designer at all, or you flip it to where it now must mean
that it can only be done by the GRAND designer that there could
possibly be, God.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Does NOT MATTER who the designer is, proving design does not
prove God with respect to life, it only proves that the process could
not occur without someone or something directing it.
Kelly

But the designer of yours is a consious enitiy of some form? You deny your Christian Lord and Saviour, som it has to be some other, right?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
But the designer of yours is a consious enitiy of some form? You deny your Christian Lord and Saviour, som it has to be some other, right?

You should practice what you preach, take the spiritual questions to
the spiritual board and leave the science where it belongs. My views
about God do not belong here no matter what they are, so it is not
proper for you to ask me about my views on God if you want to keep
crying that people are bringing God to evolution discussions and
talking about God instead of the process. Now if you want to
acknowledge God may in deed belong in the science forum, I'll gladly
talk about God here. I refrain only because of the people cry to no
end that the spiritural does not belong here.

By asking my views about God here, are you saying I should actually
talk about God here?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
You should practice what you preach, take the spiritual questions to
the spiritual board and leave the science where it belongs. My views
about God do not belong here no matter what they are, so it is not
proper for you to ask me about my views on God if you want to keep
crying that people are bringing God to evolution discussions and
talking about God ...[text shortened]... y asking my views about God here, are you saying I should actually
talk about God here?
Kelly

If you say the designer of yours is not a god, then what is *it*, scientifically speaking?

(And here I put us on track again. Happy?)

Originally posted by FabianFnas
If you say the designer of yours is not a god, then what is *it*, scientifically speaking?

(And here I put us on track again. Happy?)

I'm saying and this is the last time I am going to repeat it, the
designer isn't the topic, it is the process. You want to talk about
God I suggest you do it on the Spiritual board, if you want to talk
about the process evolution with respect to could it happen without
the intent of design I'll continue answering your questions here.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm saying and this is the last time I am going to repeat it, the
designer isn't the topic, it is the process.

You avoid the answer. That's bad strategy. I say you don't know what you're talking about.

I give you a new chance to answer: If you say the designer of yours is not a god, then what is *it*, scientifically speaking?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
You avoid the answer. That's bad strategy. I say you don't know what you're talking about.

I give you a new chance to answer: If you say the designer of yours is not a god, then what is *it*, scientifically speaking?

Avoiding an answer to a question on the topic I want to talk about,
no. Avoiding a different topic I have no desire to talk about here, yes.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
How can you say that ID means God you don't think life could be
designed without God? I find that completely a joke if that is your
bottom line, since that means you either go from where it does not
require any designer at all, or you flip it to where it now must mean
that it can only be done by the GRAND designer that there could
possibly be, God.
Kelly

Well, you have to ask about how a designer could operate. I did give an argument about this in the evolution of eyes thread. Essentially the options for a designer are God, a god, or aliens. By God I mean the Christian God, or at least something similar. By little ´g´ god I mean either a divine entity who has god-like powers or unbelievably advanced aliens who belong to some stage III civilization. By aliens I mean entities who are not that much more advanced than us, but can tinker with our DNA.

To guide evolution they can do two things. They can do a bit of genetic engineering to create new adaptations and species, or they can cause mass extinctions. All the designer candidates can play the mass extinction game - that just requires a little orbital engineering. Tinkering with DNA to get the effect you want over billions of years really does cut out the more primitive aliens. As does the speed of light problem. They have to be here to alter us.

Really I don´t see how you can have a designer who isn´t either God or so close, in terms of capability, to God as makes no practical difference. At which point you do come back to the issue of why bother?

Also if it isn´t God, you then have the question of how the designer came about.