IC please clarify for us

[Immanuel Can]

As for Stephen C. Meyer...

It cannot escape everybody's notice that you could not think of one thing...even one...to say against the man's arguments. All you could do was insult the man.

Not very clever. Not at all interesting.

[Dubious]

As for Stephen C. Meyer...

It cannot escape everybody's notice that you could not think of one thing...even one...to say against the man's arguments. All you could do was insult the man.

Not very clever. Not at all interesting.

When one's entire arguments amount to bunk what is there left to say? Intelligent Design is a theistic attempt to make itself compatible with science and disproven innumerable times.

Science itself being the main argument against it, what is there to further argue against?

Bunk is bunk. From any rational perspective the bible itself is bunk, something you've mastered over and over again to perfection more than anyone else on this site and not in the least reticent proclaiming it!

[phyllo]

BTW -- from the Jewish perspective, not about sin at all. When Eve eats the fruit, does not yet have knowledge of good and evil (so cannot "sin"). When Adam eats thee fruit, same thing. We are now left with Eve giving the fruit to Adam. Here the "comparative evil" rule comes into play. If A and B are both sins, B a far greater sin than A, and one is constrained so MUST do either A or B, then A is not considered a sin. Eve can either give the fruit to Adam or not (no other option). If she does not, she is both ordered to lie down with him and forbidden to lie down with an animal (capital offense). If she does, Adam will be a fellow human, not a beast.

God told them not to eat the fruit from that particular tree. The sin is disobeying God.

That's not the Jewish view?

[phyllo]

So if ‘the World’ was good prior to that Event, there could certainly have been no ‘creatures killing and feeding on other creatures” which, in our discussion, became emblemized by the shark killing and eating the seal.

So what world was it that was deathless and non-predatorial?

The story of The Fall needs revision.

How would that work?

1. There were no predators in the Garden. They were somehow created later.

2. The predators ate grass and seaweed.

3. God feed predators nutritionally balanced kibbles in a bowl.

More likely, God was okay with predators and prey.

[phyllo]

The only argument I make is that within ecological systems the very nature and structure of these systems is that, to live and exist, creatures are forced to kill and eat other creatures. It is a frighteningly bizarre, but amazing indeed wondrous “world”. I guess you could say that such beings are trapped in a world not their creation, and are forced to be predatory and merciless. But no act of survival can be judged as “evil” because the sum total of acts is what maintains the system.

Forced? Lions would prefer to be doing something different?

They don't really want to hunt, kill and eat antelopes?

Lions don't want to be lions?


What a human view of the world. Humans often don't want to be doing what they are doing.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Here's the problem with that argument: it fits both worldviews equally. If things are random, accidental, explosive, merely material, etc., it would be possible for us to find we live in a world full of accidents, hazards, miseries, etc. If, however, there had been a fall, then exactly the same thing would be true! So the evidence for your view is also just as useful for the contrary view.

To make this really really simple: If you consider the view that two humans in a primeval forest made a decision that caused both the loss of their deathless existence and the corruption of the entire world and universe, and resulted in our present predatory world with its accidents, hazards, miseries, etc., I can only remind you that that view really has no explanatory value except as some sort of metaphor or as a cluster of psycho-mythic meaning. It serves purposes, as mythic tales serve purposes, but I am afraid that as a description of ‘reality’ it simply cannot function.

I do think Stephen Meyer (and those other fellows) do have at least a couple of valid points: the mathematical improbability of the Universe being so conducive to life (and order), as well as their thoughts on cell complexity. But this has only minimal value for theology. And does not in any way I can see validate Hebrew or Christian mythological tales nor allow them to be reconciled with scientifically determined understandings. What I take away from their argument is: OK, somehow, everything we now see and witness (order, life, intelligence, self-reflective mind) was all potential in the Origin. Great! But whatever god or divine intelligence that did create our world, is nothing at all commensurate with the theological picture of God. The god that created this world, our world, is something utterly unintelligible.

I do think we need to mention a Worldview in whose shadows we still exist: that of The Great Chain of Being. In that view, we have our existence in a lower, but not the lowest domain within the Creation. The vicissitudes and tragedies of life in our plane are interpreted as simply being toward a pole that is farther away from God’s perfect radiance and order. There are ‘spirits’ and demonic entities that inhabit this lower realm, but as I say it is by no means the lowest. So, the realm we find ourselves in is situated more or less “between Heaven and Hell”. But here is the mystery: There was conceived that the Avatar of God descended down not only into our intermediate realm but even farther, and established a Path of Ascent.

My message to you, my dearest child, is that this view, this understanding, this potential, describes a paradigm that must necessarily take shape not only in our world but in all possible worlds. It is ur-metaphysics, and as such it is not exclusive to dominating and ultra-possessive Hebraism and Christianity. Note please: I do not negate or discount this metaphysical vision. I actually say that it needs to be re-visualized and realized in our own selves.

Stories about “how we got here” are quite common, mythologically. And so are the concomitant demands about “what must be done”.

One of elements that has been latent or part of the ‘background’ in my conversation with you is that with the Nietzschean revolution in perspective and interpretation of The World, a whole array of varied methodologies pertinent to spiritual life got highlighted. We have to recognize the degree to which we have all been influenced by all that. (The topic of another conversation really).

So the evidence for your view is also just as useful for the contrary view.

What we are dealing with, IC, are “interpretive models” and really that is the larger topic.

[MikeNovack]

God told them not to eat the fruit from that particular tree. The sin is disobeying God.

That's not the Jewish view?

Two things --
First, in the Garden story, God doesn't actually ORDER them not to eat the fruit of that tree. Don't put your hand into the fire or you will get burnt is an advice abut consequences, not an order. A number of the 613 are like that, not orders per se but "don't do X or Y will happen" (something you won't like)

Second, and more to the point, BEFORE eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, how could they possibly know wrong/bad to disobey God? CAN one "sin" without knowledge of good and evil?

Abut the lion eating kibble ------ I suggest reading Job 38 and 39 --- especially where 38 ends and 39 begins (the traditional division slightly misplaced by a couple lines) Remember the original texts had no chapter divisions. Thus in the first five books, the Torah, only the divisions between books is marked with a couple blank lines.

[phyllo]

First, in the Garden story, God doesn't actually ORDER them not to eat the fruit of that tree.

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Genesis 2:16-17 NIV

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Genesis 3:2-3

Seems fairly clear.

Second, and more to the point, BEFORE eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, how could they possibly know wrong/bad to disobey God? CAN one "sin" without knowledge of good and evil?

That would make giving them any instructions somewhat futile.

One would think that God was intelligent enough to realize it and God would not punish them if they acted against orders or God would have given them enough sense to obey orders.

39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions(BN)
40 when they crouch in their dens(BO)
or lie in wait in a thicket?(BP)
41 Who provides food(BQ) for the raven(BR)
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?(BS)

Job 38:39-41 NIV
What is the mechanism God uses to provide food?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Intelligent Design is a theistic attempt to make itself compatible with science and disproven innumerable times.

My thought on this assertion of ‘intelligent design’ is that such language implies that everything was blue-printed prior to manifestation, as if on a great drawing board. That is what they try to imply.

It is also true that theists and religionists use the concept of an intelligent designer as a tool to defend a theological plan and of course the ethical instructions. But that is rhetorical trickery because the bizarreness and violence of Nature actually reveals a very very strange creator.

But really the concept in itself only restates what is quite obvious: everything about our world, the Universe, the entire manifest reality, is intricate beyond imagination. And as such inconceivable.

It is ‘intelligent’ through and through.

It is I think easier to realize that, however it all did come about, it does come about; it is coming about.

[Dubious]

Intelligent Design is a theistic attempt to make itself compatible with science and disproven innumerable times.

My thought on this assertion of ‘intelligent design’ is that such language implies that everything was blue-printed prior to manifestation, as if on a great drawing board. That is what they try to imply.

It is also true that theists and religionists use the concept of an intelligent designer as a tool to defend a theological plan and of course the ethical instructions. But that is rhetorical trickery because the bizarreness and violence of Nature actually reveals a very very strange creator.

But really the concept in itself only restates what is quite obvious: everything about our world, the Universe, the entire manifest reality, is intricate beyond imagination. And as such inconceivable.

It is ‘intelligent’ through and through.

It is I think easier to realize that, however it all did come about, it does come about; it is coming about.

Nature, in all its glory and chaos, reveals itself as very, very strange indeed without the inclusion of an entity forcing it to be that way. Why would it require some supervising intelligence beyond the processes which inform it? It's easier to conceive nature itself being in charge as a type of impersonal Brahmanic entity whose consciousness - if it can be stated that way - resides in the collusion of all its interconnected processes but without the necessity in having any overt goal as a manifestation of some über-cosmic intelligence conducting its operations according to some preconceived plan.

Like a single neuron firing, a singular process requires no intelligence but when networked into a cosmic web of complexity it yields the simulacrum of a superintending agent ordering the outcome.

This stance, to my mind, has much in common with metaphysics since the interpretations of that outcome can be endless.

[Immanuel Can]

As for Stephen C. Meyer...

It cannot escape everybody's notice that you could not think of one thing...even one...to say against the man's arguments. All you could do was insult the man.

Not very clever. Not at all interesting.

Science itself being the main argument against it, what is there to further argue against?

"Science" would have something to say about the argument, one way or the other; something about the statements made by the speaker, the data available, the relevant experiments, and so on. You have only spite. Spite isn't science. It isn't even an argument, in fact. It's just noise.

[Immanuel Can]

I do think Stephen Meyer (and those other fellows) do have at least a couple of valid points: the mathematical improbability of the Universe being so conducive to life (and order), as well as their thoughts on cell complexity.

I agree. And thank you for focusing on the data, rather than on the sort of empty insults Dube is fond of. It speaks well of you as a philosopher.

But this has only minimal value for theology.

Huge value.

It makes the hypothesis that all this happened by accident vastly implausible. That sets us to having to seek a better hypothesis -- no small service to theology.

But whatever god or divine intelligence that did create our world, is nothing at all commensurate with the theological picture of God.

Which theology? And how would a world with things like suffering, pain and death be "incommensurate" with belief in the fall of man? I can't see what that argument would be. It's not at all obvious, for sure.

In fact, it looks like a very commensurate kind of explanation of the current world.

[MikeNovack]

It makes the hypothesis that all this happened by accident vastly implausible. That sets us to having to seek a better hypothesis -- no small service to theology.

A very confused consideration of "probable", perhaps not unrelated to confusion between some and one.

You are saying Nature being in one particular state, the state we are in, is very improbable. And so is any other possible particular state in which we might have found ourselves. But does that mean Nature being in some (any) possible state is improbable? (the number of possible states being very. very large).

For example, the chances of you being struck by a meteorite in your lifetime are very low, about 1 in 2 million. But there are about 300 million people in the US, so expect about 150 of them to be struck by a meteorite in their lifetime. And since a lifetime is reasonably less than 150 years, it is rather LIKELY that some person in the US gets hit by a meteorite every year.

[phyllo]

If there is a countably infinite number of planets in the universe, the probability of ideal conditions for life on at least one of them, is high.

[Immanuel Can]

It makes the hypothesis that all this happened by accident vastly implausible. That sets us to having to seek a better hypothesis -- no small service to theology.

A very confused consideration of "probable", perhaps not unrelated to confusion between some and one.

No confusion at all. It's very straightforward: the more complex a thing is, especially in an irreducibly complex way, the lower the chances of it having occurred by accident.

The classic example is of one finding a pocket watch on a remote trail. One immediately knows one is looking at an artifact of intelligence. On the other hand, if one merely encounters a rock, the chances that one would identify it with deliberate arrangement is practically zero. That's simple, normal estimation, and not confusing at all.

But does that mean Nature being in some (any) possible state is improbable?

Actually, nature being in ANY state is not only improbable, but even the fact of there being a "nature" to talk about, or people to talk about it, is improbably on an astronomical scale. The chances that, by chance, the strong and weak forces in the atom would be in the precise balance necessary to hold matter together is even astronomically improbable. Even the most rudimentary universe of rocks orbiting each other in space is astronomically improbable -- as has been pointed out long ago. Here's a secular take on it: https://slate.com/technology/2013/08/sy ... exist.html

But you'd have to have some familiarity with the many, many irreducible complexity problems in order to know just how many dimensions are hit by this problem.