Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design - good take on this issue

[antireconciler]

Science and religion will always be at odds.

If religious concepts are reified then yes, but this is not necessarily so. Just as little should poetry be interpreted literally and as much is lost in the attempt.

 

[simulatedworld]

Why don't we start a "Gravity vs. Magical Angels Pushing Everything Down" thread?

I'm certain it'll generate some stimulating intellectual debate.

lol @ thread

 

[Sniffles]

Why don't we start a "Gravity vs. Magical Angels Pushing Everything Down" thread?

I'm certain it'll generate some stimulating intellectual debate.

lol @ thread

Stop embarrasing yourself.

 

[Thalassa]

I agree with Peguy.

 

[BlueScreen]

Don't know... it would be quite amusing if I didn't believe in gravity angels.

 

[Mole]

If religious concepts are reified then yes, but this is not necessarily so. Just as little should poetry be interpreted literally and as much is lost in the attempt.

Yes, I think many don't understand poetry because they try to interpret it literally, just as they don't understand the Bible because they try to interpret it literally.

 

[BlueScreen]

Anyone who tries to interpret poetry literally and defines the author by it is {insert insult here}. It's as bad as Greenwich Mean Time! Poetry like most art captures a moment, a feeling, a concept, beauty.

My mother is studying more theology at the moment and I edit her essays. At a higher level it is quite an interesting subject. There is very little explaining things by higher powers, more looking at interactions between groups at the time, the author's intentions in the midst of these interactions, certain style choices the author has chosen because of the times he is in (we all conform to certain things in our society), edits and translations from the original text (some translations are corrected to older texts so are more legit than the original language version of the bible). It is really the analysing of an old text in the context of the known history. If anything it sheds light on the bible and gives understanding of what it is and why it is. Very different to a Sunday sermon that uses it to preech.

I was a sceptic about it before reading, but Theology in the proper sense is a history course which studies the development of Jewish culture and the Christian faith. They look at it and try to understand it in the same way any scientist would. The amount of information and history behind each chapter of the bible is so vast and complicated that you could never take it as a perfect text. The meaning of certain verses differs so much throughout history, and between versions even. It is what it is: the authoritative book on the Jewish history and Christian faith. In a way it is a wonder of the ancient world. It can be dismissed as a simple brain wash religious text, or it can be seen as a goldmine of history and understanding. Seeing authors, their motives, the rise and fall of empires. Some chapters are motivators for the people, some are stories that ran from generation to generation. Religion has been a part of humanity throughout history. It plays a big part in our history. But here are scientists who love to say f**k the great scholars of yesteryear because they are associated with religion. IMO they are as blind and idiotic as those who take the bible literally. Of course guys like Schweitzer are redundant. They were in religion... In a way, science versus religion is the blind versus the blind for the prize of rightness. It is a debate that exists because neither side seeks any understanding.

 

[Shimmy]

You're wrong. Copernicus' work was not condemned by the Church as long as it was taught as theory. In fact he dedicated one of his first editions to Pope Leo X. Galileo also received official support from the pope(who was also a personal friend) for his scientific studies. And the Earth being the centre of the universe was never a Church "dogma", but was the common argument of astronomical theories of the time.

You are both wrong and right there. It is true that copernicus wasn't condemned, and that he was allowed to teach his theory. The theory wasn't very provable at that point and it never gained a wide spread interest among scholars. Basically it wasn't a thread and therefore the church didn't bother banning it.

Now, when Galileo picked up on this theory and actually made scientific observations supporting it, the idea started to spread. Church not happy, Galileo got accused of heresy and convicted to house arrest for the rest of his life. It wasn't until 1758 that the church allowed books defending the heliocentric model. Copernicus' and Galileo's books weren't even allowed until 1835. And it wasn't until Pope John Paul II that the the church vindicated Galilee and apologized.

Galileo affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I told the story the way I did to keep my post a bit shorter and more readable.

 

[teslashock]

Why don't we start a "Gravity vs. Magical Angels Pushing Everything Down" thread?

I'm certain it'll generate some stimulating intellectual debate.

lol @ thread

Everyone knows that the angels are pulling, not pushing. Geeze, get your facts straight before you attempt to pursue these types of intellectual debates.

 

[Gewitter27]

Pastafarianism, the mock religion, holds the theory of unintelligent design, stating that their god (The Flying Spaghetti Monster) was drunk when he created the universe. This theory should be taken into account.

 

[Sniffles]

Now, when Galileo picked up on this theory and actually made scientific observations supporting it, the idea started to spread. Church not happy, Galileo got accused of heresy and convicted to house arrest for the rest of his life.

Galileo got in trouble because he was making arguments related to the interpretation of scriptures, and he was repeatedly warned numerous times not to do that but to stick to his astronomical research. Galileo didn't heed the warning and paid the price. The issue here wasn't science vs religion, but rather one of opposing interpretations of scriptures.

It should also be noted that Galileo faced as much opposition from fellow scientists as did from any theologians. That factor is often forgotten whenever the issue is brought up.

As John L. Heilbron(whose work is cited in your source) has noted, the Galileo affair had little if any effect on the advancement of astronomical research, even within the Church itself. In fact as he noted in his book Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories, the Church "gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably, all other, institutions."

One major achievement of this was the development of the Gregorian calendar(named after Pope Gregory XIII) to replace the old Julian calendar; and still remains the one in use to this day.

Here's a review of Heilbron's work:

"While it is true that the church condemned Galileo, new research shows that centuries of oversimplifications have concealed just how hard Rome worked to amass astronomical tools, measurements, tests and lore...

...Dr. Richard S. Westfall, a historian of science, in 1989 wrote that Rome's handling of Galileo made Copernican astronomy a forbidden topic among faithful Catholics for two centuries.

Not so, Dr. Heilbron claims. Rome's support of astronomy was considerable.

"The church tended to regard all the systems of the mathematical astronomy as fictions," Dr. Heilbron wrote. "That interpretation gave Catholic writers scope to develop mathematical and observational astronomy almost as they pleased, despite the tough wording of the condemnation of Galileo."

To illustrate, Dr. Heilbron examined four cathedrals: San Petronio in Bologna, Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, St. Sulpice in Paris and Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

For the great Basilica of San Petronio, he showed how a solar observatory was erected in 1576 by Egnatio Danti, a mathematician and Dominican friar who worked for Cosimo I dei Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and who advised Pope Gregory on calendar reform. The church observatory produced data long before the telescope existed.

By 1582, the Gregorian calendar had been established, creating the modern year of 365 days and an occasional leap year of 366 days. Danti was rewarded with a commission to build a solar observatory in the Vatican itself within the Torre dei Venti, or Tower of the Winds.

The golden age of the cathedral observatories came later, between 1650 and 1750, Dr. Heilbron writes, and helped to disprove the astronomical dogma that the church had defended with such militancy in the case of Galileo..."

So in the end, you still can't prove that science and religion are opposed to each other based on the Galileo affair.

 

[simulatedworld]

Stop embarrasing yourself.

Why do all of your social/political posts amount to "Grrr modern atheists are stupid" + "vague implications that Catholicism is right about everything"? We get it--you're very Catholic and you think atheism is stupid. That's fine, but this isn't "a good take on the issue" because in the minds of people who know what they're talking about on this, there is no issue.

If the author of your article in the OP there is so keen on distancing himself from the "fundamentalists" who outright deny legitimate scientific discoveries, why does he then go on to...outright deny legitimate scientific discoveries?

For that matter, why don't religious people ever try to build arguments against scientific principles that don't contradict religious scripture?

I'm not attacking Catholicism here, just the form that lets faith get in the way of legitimate science. Spirituality and religion exist to deal with questions that are too big to be dealt with by science, but this isn't one of those questions. Any "debate" that may have existed on this topic ended in the scientific community years ago. Evolutionary biology has become accepted as scientific fact, and there's a reason for that.

I think faith and science can be compatible, but please, if you're rehashing the teleological argument you must be awfully desperate for new material to fight the evil evolutionists with. You need to stop trying to answer scientific questions with religious means (and vice versa for others.)

Let's go over a basic rendition of the teleological argument:

Although there are variations, the basic argument can be stated as follows:

1. X is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
3. God is a sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
4. Therefore, God exists.

#3 is an arbitrary faith-based assertion, so we'll leave that one out for the moment.

#1 amounts to: "This is real hard and I don't get it." The fact that you can't understand how such complexity could have arisen naturally is not a case against natural complexity; it's a case for your own failure to comprehend it. This is a limitation on your own faculties of reasoning and understanding, not on science itself. I'm real sorry if this doesn't gel with your religious sensibilities, but you're grasping at straws here in a desperate attempt to justify your own arbitrary faith-based worldview. It doesn't work like that.

#2 is a consequence of #1. I recall this being a terrible argument when they introduced in Philosophy 101 in college, and it's still a terrible argument now. The whole "IF I SAW A WATCH I WOULD ASSUME IT HAD A DESIGNER" thing? Really, Peguy? I expect more out of you than meaningless rhetoric and highly questionable arguments from an intro to philosophy course. This is just weak.

You don't have any natural ability to look at something in a vacuum and recognize based on complexity alone whether or not it's "too complex to have occurred randomly." This is an entirely arbitrary decision.

The only reason you'd be able to tell from looking at a watch that it's been designed is that you already know what a watch is from living on Earth and are aware from previous experience that watches don't grow on trees. This isn't based on some magical inherent understanding of watches as being too complex to exist naturally; it's based on simple prior awareness of what a watch is in an Earth-based context.

If you went to a foreign planet where you had no idea what anything is, you wouldn't be able to use this magical power to determine which objects are designed and which ones aren't because your sense of context as to the nature of watches (an obviously man-made creation) would no longer apply.

For that matter, where do you draw the line? How do you have any reliable frame of reference as to what is complex enough to occur randomly and what is not, other than the fact that looking at the universe this way makes you more comfortable?

 

[Sniffles]

Why do all of your social/political posts amount to "Grrr modern atheists are stupid" + "vague implications that Catholicism is right about everything"?

If the author of your article in the OP there is so keen on distancing itself from the fundamentalists who outright deny legitimate scientific discoveries, why does he then go on to...outright deny legitimate scientific discoveries?

For that matter, why don't religious people ever try to build arguments against scientific principles that don't contradict religious scripture?

I'm not attacking Catholicism here, just the form that lets faith get in the way of legitimate science. Spirituality and religion exist to deal with questions that are too big to be dealt with by science, but this isn't one of those questions. Any "debate" that may have existed on this topic ended in the scientific community years ago.

I think faith and science can be compatible, but please, if you're rehashing the teleological argument you must be awfully desperate for new material to fight the evil evolutionists with.

The fact that I and most Christian denominations in the world back evolution has already been established in this thread. So I see little point in addressing your arguments above. I even broke it down very simple for Haphazard earlier:

The facts point to evolution. Whether or not this disproves God's existence is a matter of theoretical debate. Theory explains how the facts fit into the overall picture.

 

[simulatedworld]

The fact that I and most Christian denominations in the world back evolution has already been established in this thread. So I see little point in addressing your arguments above. I even broke it down very simple for Haphazard earlier:

Then why did you title the thread in a way that directly implies conflict between Dawrinism [sic] and Intelligent Design (and quote an author who offers the Teleological argument as evidence for ID)?

 

[Sniffles]

Then why did you title the thread in a way that directly implies conflict between Dawrinism [sic] and Intelligent Design?

Are you serious?

 

[simulatedworld]

Are you serious?

Yes, I am serious. The title suggests that you find some inconsistency between the two philosophies, not that you accept and embrace both, and the author you quoted goes on to recount the history of the Teleological argument in support of his belief in ID.

And of course you ended your post with a Peguy-patented snide comment about how stupid modern atheists and atheism are. Surely you don't think your post created the impression that you support evolution?

 

[Sniffles]

Yes, I am serious. The title suggests that you find some inconsistency between the two philosophies, not that you accept and embrace both, and the author you quoted goes on to recount the history of the Teleological argument in support of his belief in ID.

I made it clear that I reject how the discussion is commonly framed, and I posted the excerpts that made good points on that. And I clarified my position more as the discussion went on when people asked. I was originally hoping people would just take what I posted and discuss matters between themselves with miminal involvement from me(since I didn't even really want to post it anyways but a member thought it could provide for some in-depth discussion here). Oh well!

And of course you ended your post with a Peguy-patented snide comment about how stupid atheists and atheism are.

And what about the non-stop snide remarks about how stupid religious people and religion are?

No actually I was just astonished that you said what you did, since if anything gave me the impression you weren't paying attention to the discussion at hand. That's why in all honesty I often can't take you seriously.

Atheists maybe wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid per se- although many arguments nowadays atheists commonly use are pretty stupid when examined closely. But then again, the same can be said of many religious people; Young Earth Creationists for example or people who think the Virgin Mary appears in grilled cheese sandwiches.

I make a distinction between being ignorant and being stupid. They're not the same.

 

[simulatedworld]

OK, reread the thread, trying to figure out what you're talking about...

From what I can discern, you mean to point out that evolution is not in direct conflict with all forms of religion, but only the fundamentalist sects which interpret scripture literally.

But you used the phrase "Intelligent Design" and that's awfully misleading, because the popular ID movement right now tries to pass itself off as science when it's actually just repackaged faith.

Your form of faith may not contradict the idea of evolution, but the political movement popularly known right now as "Intelligent Design" does outright declare evolution to be a lie and declares that faith and science cannot agree on this issue without turning faith into science (which is a contradiction in terms, imho):

Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[12] The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science."

I misunderstood your position based on this discrepancy.

Personally, I can see how one could simultaneously believe in God/other higher power as the initial cause of everything in the universe, but still believe in evolution as a natural process that was initially set in motion by God.

I guess this is your position here? In any event, using the phrase "Intelligent Design" in today's political climate implies adherence to an ideology that I don't think you intend to align yourself with.

My apologies for the misunderstanding.

 

[Sniffles]

My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Apology accepted. Sorry for any misunderstanding or personal rudeness on my part as well.

 

[simulatedworld]

Apology accepted. Sorry for any misunderstanding or personal rudeness on my part as well.

No worries. You're right that I've made a number of obnoxious comments about religious people. I think you have a much better grasp of these ideas than about 99% of religious people, and I have learned a little bit more about it as a result of reading some of your posts.

I no longer reject religion wholesale, and indeed I believe I've described you personally in past posts as "an intelligent Christian." Five years ago I wouldn't have admitted such a thing existed.

I still don't believe it, necessarily, but I can at least see why people do, and you're partially responsible for that. I do, by the way, see a lot of value in reading scripture for its metaphorical wisdom (not to mention its profound and near-ubiquitous influence on global culture), even if I reject the idea that it points to any literal or definite truth.

Seriously though, the people behind today's ID movement are ardently against evolution/Darwin and insist upon a literalist interpretation of scripture. I suppose I assumed you were placing support behind this movement based on use of the phrase "Intelligent Design."

Does that make sense?