Intelligent design?

[localzuk]

So, my current cold got me thinking about the concept of an intelligent designer/god, and how it is a ridiculous concept to me.

 

The idea that something designed humans to be like they are, whilst allowing someone's malfunctioning sinuses to overflow into their lungs just seems like bad design. Why would people want to claim that something that cares for us would design us in such a bad way?

 

[Advocate]

A loving caring God started out with the perfect design - the sufferings of humans and of this world are because of inherent sin. I could say a lot more and give you chapter and verse and evidence for creative design, however dont feel this is the place for theological discussion, if you are really interested in finding out about how much God cares and loves you then pm me. Hope the cold gets better soon.

[localzuk]

Aww, come on give me some evidence for intelligent design - a concept that even the Catholic Church has denounced. If you could, I think you'd be the first.

[Hightower]

So, my current cold got me thinking about the concept of an intelligent designer/god, and how it is a ridiculous concept to me.

 

The idea that something designed humans to be like they are, whilst allowing someone's malfunctioning sinuses to overflow into their lungs just seems like bad design. Why would people want to claim that something that cares for us would design us in such a bad way?

 

 

Nobody is perfect, not even the Good Lord Himself. I don't think He's done too bad a job to be honest. Considering Toyota are recalling a lot of their cars for bad design, and here us 'humans' are still adapting to suit the ever changing environment.

[vikpaw]

Do you think it's a copyrighted name "Intelligent Design"?

 

We bring you the most advanced evolved technology of the day, BUT sometimes it doesn't work!

[localzuk]

Nobody is perfect, not even the Good Lord Himself. I don't think He's done too bad a job to be honest. Considering Toyota are recalling a lot of their cars for bad design, and here us 'humans' are still adapting to suit the ever changing environment.

 

Ah, but God is supposed to be omnipotent... So, he is perfect according to Christianity.

 

Do you think it's a copyrighted name "Intelligent Design"?

 

We bring you the most advanced evolved technology of the day, BUT sometimes it doesn't work!

 

Lol, it probably is. Although, they'd have trouble enforcing it as it was first used in ancient greece.

[Hightower]

Ah, but God is supposed to be omnipotent... So, he is perfect according to Christianity.

 

That still comes down to how you perceive it though...

[localzuk]

That still comes down to how you perceive it though...

 

That sounds remarkably like a cop out to me.

[RinSewand]

Have to say personally I'd love to hear / read some compelling evidence for intelligent design (either by pm or whichever) chapter and verse I'm marginally less interested as anyone can write anything down....

 

As for how we percieve things - it's a similar arguement to the "we need religion to be moral" there are many imoral things mentioned in many religious texts - if we didn't inherrently know which were 'good' and 'bad' without religion, surely we would have no way of deciding which parts of the holy books/texts/scripts to follow?

 

RwD

[Advocate]

OK - here is part of a paper written for my diploma in theology and church history - this whole course starts from the basis of faith. I include references for you to research further. Apologetics or defense of ones christian faith is a very involved subject covering many areas from evolution/creation to was Jesus who he said he was and much more.

 

Much as I love to discuss this subject I am not here to defend my faith - I will be delighted to explain what I believe and why I have an unswerving faith but Im not arguing finer details, others can do this better than I and I have included some links for those.

 

"Explain and Defend your understanding of the seven days of creation as presented in Genesis 1"

 

Whilst I will attempt to explain my understanding I find it difficult to defend this because how do you defend freely given grace that gives unswerving faith? However in this essay I will attempt to do so with reference to scripture and other texts.

Despite Darwin stating "But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, [if developed by evolution], are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" [Letter to W. Graham, July 3rd, 1881]

That God created the world seems a fantastical view point even in today’s world, but arguably the main alternative belief in evolution requires more faith and of course denies the existence of a loving all powerful God. If we choose to believe in creation we have to bow down and worship the divine Creator. This is the real crux of the matter. When presented with the truth about creation – God spoke and it happened – we then come to the realization that if God created the world and indeed us, we have a choice to worship Him or deny Him. In choosing to accept His truth we have to accept the truth about ourselves and our absolute need to depend on Him.

 

For a humanity that is often very confusing and extremely chaotic a divine absolute stands, it’s not just about dates and the whys and wherefores of how God created the universe. It is about a loving Creator who not only created the world but indeed the ultimate crown of His creation was the creation of His people in His image. (Gen 1: 26-27)

 

In (Hebrews 11:3) we see that it is by faith that we understand, so where does this faith come from? We are told in (Romans 10:17) that faith comes from hearing the message.

 

On a personal note, aged 15 I made my own commitment to Christ through very little teaching other than my own reading of the Bible. Later during secular study I discovered the wow factor of faith and grace. In History and RE lessons I learned widely accepted, recorded and historic facts outside of the Bible with reference to the existence of Jesus. (Eph 2:8) says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—“

 

So for me it’s the grace of God that has given me the faith to accept that an all powerful, all loving God created our world, continues to uphold it and have intimate relationship with it, and with His people. When I look at the intricate detailed wonders of a flower, a tree, a child, a snowflake, a star in the sky, and reflect on God’s creation I often relate to the hymn writer and sing at the top of my voice ‘Oh Lord my God when I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hands hath made….’

 

It is evident the people of the old testament believed and accepted that God created the world, that this was a sovereign act and that the wonders of this should cause us to worship Him. Psalm 95:2-6 says,

“Let us come before him with thanksgiving

and extol him with music and song.

For the LORD is the great God,

the great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth,

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us bow down in worship,

let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;”

 

So in this first chapter of Genesis our triune God (Gen 1:26) first creates the world out of a ‘formless nothing’ (v2). We are not told how God created the world just that as He spoke so it came into being. This may be a difficult concept for an unbeliever to understand, but belief in an all powerful God would include the idea that His words would cause our creation. Then in the final few verses He crowns His creation by making us in His image. It never ceases to amaze me – He said and it happened –I have explained this to people as the ‘open sesame’ scene, when as a child we stood in front of the automatic doors and said ‘open sesame’ and the doors opened, although this was fun it paints a picture of a child imitating their Father in that when innocently as a child I believed that if I said ‘open says me’ the automatic doors would open.

This whole chapter is very positive and exciting, it describes the perfectly planned beginning of the world before the fall. It details what God did and what He has given those He created. In Gen 1:26-28 after creating us God goes on to bless us (v28) and have relationship with us, in this verse God speaks to man saying “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”. He gives us reason, purpose and responsibility for living things; then in (v29) He gives us food “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food”.

 

It is amazing that in these few verses we are introduced to a triune God, who has provided everything that we might ever need.

 

Although God stands apart from his creation He is far from distant from it. He not only continually upholds the universe and everything in it “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power…” (Heb 1:3KJV), but He also wants a personal relationship with us.

 

 

 

Rev. Dr John Polkinghorne puts it well when he says, “To believe in creation means that there is a divine Mind and a divine Purpose behind what is happening in the world. To believe in creation is to believe that the universe is not just a random collection of atoms, but it is an orderly world whose patterns reflect the will of a Creator. It is to believe that history is not just a meaningless succession of one thing after another, but it is going somewhere because there is God’s purpose behind what is happening.”

Bibliography

• The Bible (NIV0 (KJV)

• Systematic Theology Wayne Gurdem, (1994)

• Knowing God, J.I. Packer, (1975)

• A Summary Of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof (1938)

• https://www.csm.org.uk/

• Polkinghorne CiS lecture

[cookie_monster]

Did I just miss all of the 'evidence' of intelligent design in that? If I did could you just bullet point them for me. Edited February 9, 2010 by cookie_monster

[sted]

its relegion you either believe it because you do or think its a load of twaddle and tbh no amount of rational argument will settle it as its not a rational thing

[Soulfish]

Did I just miss all of the 'evidence' of intelligent design in that? If I did could you just bullet point them for me.

 

I think I missed it to. It seems to be a defence of the Christian faith, which is different to intelligent design. I'm Catholic and to me intelligent design just doesn't work. Then again I was always brought up to believe that the bible wasn't literal, but allegories and other stories to convey a message and that by taking it at face value you lost a lot of it's meaning

[Hightower]

That sounds remarkably like a cop out to me.

 

Because I'm catholic it doesn't mean I have to believe every word. I support Sunderland - doesn't mean I agree with everything they do.

[localzuk]

OK, thank you for the post Advocate, but when I talk of evidence (and most of the world does too) they refer to scientific evidence, not religious doctrine. I don't find a book which is entirely unsourced, and potentially just a collection of old fairy tales (not that I am calling them that, I'm saying that they potentially could be, as we have very little evidence to the contrary), to be an acceptable source.

 

So, any scientific sources? Ones that don't change the scientific method to include "theistic realism".

[cookie_monster]

I do like this bit though: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

 

Looking around the world today, population, pollution, a dead ecosystem I think we're nearly there, mother nature will soon be subdued

[RinSewand]

This would possibly be better taken to PM - but from that (which I must say is very well written) the evidence IS faith?

 

I was rather hoping we'd veer off towards the eye and flagella motors... which have been touted as real scientific evidence...

[localzuk]

its relegion you either believe it because you do or think its a load of twaddle and tbh no amount of rational argument will settle it as its not a rational thing

 

Ah, but that's the thing - Intelligent Design is not intrinsically linked with religion supposedly. The current idea was created specifically to remove 'God' from the equation, in order to be able to teach it in US Science classes - which is why even the Catholic Church and a good long list of other such bodies have said it is unacceptable.

[LosOjos]

Religion is so obviously a control mechanism invented by man in a time when they didn't have guns to threaten people with; what better way to make people tow the line than put the fear of god in them? And there are very few exceptions (Buddhism the only I know of) to that rule of the fear of god.

 

Personally, I believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and have just as much proof for Him as anybody else has for their gods.

 

At least He doesn't actively promote rape, slavery, murder and a total lack of respect for women like most other gods.

[sted]

Religion is so obviously a control mechanism invented by man in a time when they didn't have guns to threaten people with; what better way to make people tow the line than put the fear of god in them? And there are very few exceptions (Buddhism the only I know of) to that rule of the fear of god.

 

Personally, I believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and have just as much proof for Him as anybody else has for their gods.

 

At least He doesn't actively promote rape, slavery, murder and a total lack of respect for women like most other gods.

 

im not so sure relegions do as such but you can read all sorts of things into whats said depending on your own mindset. As a simple example how many times have you had to reread a sentance as you read the word you were expecting to see rather than the actual word becsuse it looked smaller

[Marci]

So when are we starting EduSkeptics then??

[RinSewand]

And there's good evidence that religion in its early days improved a groups chance of natural selection as it bonded the group and gave them a leader - an organised tribe woudl be much more likely to win any fights it found itself part of, and therefore control more land, thus becoming more powerful, with more followers...

 

These days - probably not so important in most 'civilised' places in the world.

 

RwD

[mac_shinobi]

OK, thank you for the post Advocate, but when I talk of evidence (and most of the world does too) they refer to scientific evidence, not religious doctrine. I don't find a book which is entirely unsourced, and potentially just a collection of old fairy tales (not that I am calling them that, I'm saying that they potentially could be, as we have very little evidence to the contrary), to be an acceptable source.

 

So, any scientific sources? Ones that don't change the scientific method to include "theistic realism".

 

Just my $0.02 and I could be wrong ( nothing new there ) am guessing it is similiar to perfection in the sense that it does not exist

[witch]

Surely the main evidence of intelligent design could be said to be the fact that whilst our brain certainly isnt the biggest, it IS the most functional, and allows us to reason and create in a way that is beyond any other living creature on earth (except possibly the dolphins )

[fafster]

IMO it's all nonsense.

 

Intelligent design is advocated by the same people who think Jesus rode to work on the back of a triceratops.

 

With regard to Religion, it was created to subdue the masses and create positions of power. Before religion you'd have needed a lot of men and weapons to keep a population toeing your line. With religion you tell them that being obedient means you get to spend eternity in a blissful paradise, which would have been a stark contrast to the lives that they would have been living.