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Politics : A Neutral Corner -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (1831)	12/29/2005 1:01:22 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2253

Suppose a scientist found copyright marks on the human genome. Or maybe found photographs of the Prime Mover in action. Etc. It would be one of the greatest discoveries of all time. Compare and contrast to the "theory" of "intelligent design" which hasn't advanced much, if any, in over 100 years, since William Paley posited the watchmaker (1802). An idea apparently first advanced by Cicero! "When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers? " — Cicero, quoted by Dennett 1995, p. 29, (Gjertsen 1989, p. 199) en.wikipedia.org Fascinating idea, and nothing more. The first time I observed otherwise intelligent beings getting all excited by the idea, I assumed that they had come up with proof that a genome -- any genome -- could not exist as it does without some kind of external input. Not so. Nothing has been developed on this idea that is more advanced than Paley and Cicero.

To: Lane3 who wrote (1831)	12/29/2005 10:15:25 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2253

So if we could prove that say the Christian version of God really exists he would then by your definition be "natural" and not "supernatural". Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. (Imagine the scenario when that happened. Great time to have cable news channels on all day.) I beg to differ. It all depends on how God reveals himself. If he opens up (so to speak) we can then find out what makes him tick and he would become part of our natural order of things. But, if he remains opague (so to speak) and reveal himself in some way we do not understand, then God would still be super natural.

To: Lane3 who wrote (1831)	12/29/2005 10:45:33 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 2253

"So if we could prove that say the Christian version of God really exists he would then by your definition be "natural" and not "supernatural". " Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. (Imagine the scenario when that happened. Great time to have cable news channels on all day.) OK so that confirms that the disconnect was over the definition of supernatural. I think that proven or not if an omnipotent spiritual being exists that it is supernatural, as it isn't limited by any current or even possible scientific understanding, and in the view of some, not even by the basic elements of logic. This "designer" could be an alien race, for example, way ahead of us. If so, then those entities would be recognized as natural. Would we worship them? Surely not in the same way as we worship our current (supernatural) deity, probably not at all. We might be subservient to them but we wouldn't worship them, I wouldn't think. If the "designer" turned out to be a cosmic force, we'd put it into a science book, not an updated bible. That's why I picked the Christian version of God (although the Jewish or Islamic would server just as well, and perhaps others), rather then just saying a designer. As for worship that a separate issue. If God exists, and could be proven, and was in fact proven, there would still be people who didn't worship. If super-powerful aliens or some vast mysterious cosmic force was found to be the designer of life on earth its possible some people would be devoted to these aliens or force in a way that at least closely resembles worship. Worship doesn't automatically imply supernatural, supernatural doesn't automatically imply worship, and neither concept has an automatic connection to "intelligent design" (Although most conceptions of intelligent design do involve the idea of design by a supernatural being, and most people pushing the idea do worship that being.) Tim