ID - Failures From a Religious Perspective

[Martin Harran]

ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.

I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge
Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:

"To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
and political legacies.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]

The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one. As a religious
believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
morals and culture.

Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"
which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want. The main
promoters of the ID movement are almost exclusively committed
Christians and they clearly regard this intelligent designer as the
Christian God. Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]

As a fellow committed Christian, I regard honesty and openness as
fundamental characteristics of Christianity and see this poorly hidden
attempt at subterfuge as directly opposite to those Christian
qualities.

This dishonesty does not, of course, on its own mean that the
arguments they are promoting are necessarily wrong; I think however
that people with a hidden agenda have to be treated with great caution
and, if you remove the committed Christians from the ID movement, then
there is nobody of any significance making the arguments they put
forward.

The second thing that gets me about ID is that far from the complexity
of life suggesting an intelligent designer, the Heath Robinson/Rube
Goldberg nature of many aspects of life would imply a seriously
*unintelligent* designer. There are many examples in nature of things
that if designed, were done so in a really bad way. For example, the
recurrent laryngeal nerve connects the vagus nerve to the larynx; in
all mammals, the nerve passes under the aortic arch which increases
the distance it has to travel. In short necked animals like us humans,
that isn't a big issue as the extra distance is only a few inches.
When we come to a longnecked animal however such as the giraffe, we
find that then it travels a distance of about 4 ½ metres (about 15
fee)t, to cover an overall distance of only a few inches - not exactly
"intelligent" design! To take just one human example, the male testes
are one of the most sensitive and easily hurt organs in the human body
yet, although they start off inside the abdomen, during gestation the
drop down into the scrotum exposing them to all the hurt that nature
can offer.

Some people in the ID movement try to wriggle out of this by saying
that God does not directly intervene in everything, only in some
things but the fundamental problem with that approach was neatly
summed up by Paul Wallace " For a person of faith, ID is not just an
unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one. It reduces God to a kind of
holy tinkerer. It locates the divine in places of ignorance and
obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is
out of place in Christian faith and theology." [4]

Apart from design inefficiencies such as the examples given above,
Intelligent Design implies a malevolent God. Michael Behe, one of the
few genuine scientists who endorses ID states that

"Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with
which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely
purposeful arrangement of parts. (...) What sort of designer is that?
What sort of "fine-tuning" leads to untold human misery? To countless
mothers mourning countless children? Did a hateful, malign being make
intelligent life in order to torture it? One who relishes cries of
pain? Maybe. Maybe not." [5]

In the following paragraphs, Behe offers no other explanation for God
being so malevolent; he simply argues that both bad things and good
things happen in life and we shouldn't use the bad things to refute
ID.

That sort of argument by Behe takes us into the territory that St.
Augustine warned us about back in the fifth century when he said:

"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
Christian and laugh it to scorn" [6]

To take another example, humans undergo one of the most distressing,
painful and dangerous birth processes of any animal. Science has a
straightforward explanation for that; basically, our skeletal
structure is one developed for quadruped animals from which we are
originally evolved. Becoming bipedal enabled humans to develop skills
and other features well beyond other animals which remained quadruped
but, whilst our skeletal structure did undergo some modification to
suit bipedalism, this came at the price of a narrowed birth channel
and this was worsened by an increase in human brain size. Whilst these
developments did lead to the difficulties of human childbirth, the
overall advantages of bipedalism won out.

Those who deny our descent from a quadruped lifeform have nothing to
offer as an explanation of the difficulties of human birth except some
vacuous claim that it is all to do with us being punished for the sin
committed by Adam and Eve. I'm sorry but I simply cannot reconcile the
God of love and mercy presented by Jesus Christ with a God who would
punish all women for something committed by ancestors of many
generations ago and put at risk the lives of unborn/newly born
children and I think that to try to do so takes us straight into that
area of ridicule and scorn that Augustine warned us about.
Overall, I think that the ID approach represents Christians trapped in
a mindset that feels we must have some sort of proof for tangible
evidence for the existence of God. To me, there are three broad states
of relationship that a person can have with God:

State I: Disbelief
This may be a lack of awareness where a person has not been exposed to
the very idea of God or where someone is ambivalent about the whole
idea (agnostic) or totally rejects the idea (atheist). [Note:
'agnostic' and 'atheist' are presented as broad categories here, I do
realise that there are variations with them as well as considerable
overlap but that's not germane to my main point.]

State 2: Belief from Authority
This is where someone believes in God because they have been convinced
by some sort of authority figure, typically in childhood where they
have been taught by parents or teachers or priests; or perhaps they
have read religious writers who have made convincing arguments. I
think that this was probably the prevalent state among many religious
practitioners in times past; many Catholics, for example, went to Mass
on Sunday mainly because it was the "done thing" and non-attendance
would have been frowned upon by their friends, family or peers.

State 3: Direct Knowledge
This is where someone has moved on from State 2 and somehow God has
become an inherent part of their everyday life. It is something that
is very difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it.
The best analogy I can give is the relationship I have with my wife; I
love her deeply and I know that she loves me deeply. We do not have to
repetitively express that love in some tangible way and our
relationship is not always plain sailing; after 47 years of marriage,
we can still manage to get on each other's nerves at times do things
annoy each other but that does not take away from the love we have for
each other and we both know that love exists whether or not it is
expressed in any tangible way. My love of God and the love I know he
has for me is just the same, it is as much a part of my life as
breathing and eating are, I do them largely on automatic pilot without
having to think about every breath I take our every bite I eat. It is
not always a straightforward relationship, I have my ups and downs of
God just as I have with my wife, but that's minor stuff and doesn't
take away from the love I have for him and the love I know he has for
me.

Moving from State 2 to State 3 happens in various ways; sometimes it
is some sort of specific religious or spiritual experience or it may
just a gradual process -that is what it was in my own case. I think,
however, at some point it does involve a conscious decision to accept
God as an integral part of your life. One of the main features of this
state is that despite the minor ups and downs, the relationship can
stand up to external challenges. In recent years, for example, I have
read extensively about things like evolution and arguments from
authors strongly opposed to religious belief - writers like Dawkins
and Coyne - but I have not yet encountered anything that seriously
challenges my religious belief; on the contrary, that religious belief
has been strengthened by everything I have read.

And that is perhaps the biggest issue I have with ID; I think that at
its core, it traps people into a state where people feel the need to
employ the dismissal of science and arguments from awe in order to
somehow convince people that God does exist rather than encouraging
them to move onto the stage where they know for themselves, without
the need for empirical evidence and constant reinforcement which seems
to me, a rather fragile form of religious belief.

My conclusion is that than in regard to achieving the objectives of
the Wedge Strategy - essentially a growth in the adoption of religious
belief rather than scientific generated materialism - the ID
movement harms those objectives rather than promoting them.


===========================

References:

[1] Discovery Institute, 'The Wedge Document', 1998.
[2] W. A. Dembski, Intelligent design: The bridge between science
& theology. InterVarsity Press, 1999.
[3] P. Johnson and T. Hess, 'Keeping the Darwinists Honest',
Citizen Magazine, 1999.
[4] P. Wallace, 'Intelligent Design Is Dead: A Christian
Perspective', HuffPost, 2012. [Online]. Available:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/intelligent-design-is-dea_b_1175049.
[Accessed: 26-Jun-2019].
[5] M. J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits
of Darwinism. Free Press, 2007.
[6] J. H. Taylor, 41. St. Augustine, Vol. 1: The Literal Meaning
of Genesis (Ancient Christian Writers). Paulist Press, 1982.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:
> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
> perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>
> I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
> the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge
> Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
>
> "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
> and political legacies.
>
> To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
> that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
>
> The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one.

Behe, one of the great heroes of the revolution, happens to be Catholic,
though I think your larger point stands. You and official Catholic stance
on evolution serve as examples of the better angels so to speak, though
Catholic doctrine on ensoulment and perhaps the human mind may be
problematic. Still better than ID.

> As a religious
> believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
> though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
> correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
> morals and culture.
>

If one takes Pinker seriously science is at least partially responsible for
great improvements in the human condition and perhaps grants us a greater
moral purchase on the world, though also capacity to do greater harm.
Eudaimonically speaking there are on many measures (ie-Pinker’s charts and
graphs) huge improvements in well being. There is at least less child
mortality, which was an outcome of greater knowledge and technology not
gleaned from scriptural adherence. With a better understanding of human
nature and behavior people are tending toward less retributive punitive
measures and capital punishment is on the decline, though I may be
preaching to the Catholic choir there. Not to bring up old threads, but
psychiatric and psychological concepts have replaced demonology and
exorcism or attributions of evil to people who ideate and behave in ways
outside their control.

>
> Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
> and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
> the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"
> which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want. The main
> promoters of the ID movement are almost exclusively committed
> Christians and they clearly regard this intelligent designer as the
> Christian God.

Great point.

>Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
> open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
> For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
> of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
> Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
> movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
> just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
> The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
> up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]
>

Interesting revelations there.

>
> As a fellow committed Christian, I regard honesty and openness as
> fundamental characteristics of Christianity and see this poorly hidden
> attempt at subterfuge as directly opposite to those Christian
> qualities.
>

Good for you. Kudos.

>
> This dishonesty does not, of course, on its own mean that the
> arguments they are promoting are necessarily wrong; I think however
> that people with a hidden agenda have to be treated with great caution
> and, if you remove the committed Christians from the ID movement, then
> there is nobody of any significance making the arguments they put
> forward.
>
> The second thing that gets me about ID is that far from the complexity
> of life suggesting an intelligent designer, the Heath Robinson/Rube
> Goldberg nature of many aspects of life would imply a seriously
> *unintelligent* designer. There are many examples in nature of things
> that if designed, were done so in a really bad way. For example, the
> recurrent laryngeal nerve connects the vagus nerve to the larynx; in
> all mammals, the nerve passes under the aortic arch which increases
> the distance it has to travel. In short necked animals like us humans,
> that isn't a big issue as the extra distance is only a few inches.
> When we come to a longnecked animal however such as the giraffe, we
> find that then it travels a distance of about 4 ½ metres (about 15
> fee)t, to cover an overall distance of only a few inches - not exactly
> "intelligent" design! To take just one human example, the male testes
> are one of the most sensitive and easily hurt organs in the human body
> yet, although they start off inside the abdomen, during gestation the
> drop down into the scrotum exposing them to all the hurt that nature
> can offer.
>

Those are great examples of design problematics and very well put.

>
> Some people in the ID movement try to wriggle out of this by saying
> that God does not directly intervene in everything, only in some
> things but the fundamental problem with that approach was neatly
> summed up by Paul Wallace " For a person of faith, ID is not just an
> unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one. It reduces God to a kind of
> holy tinkerer. It locates the divine in places of ignorance and
> obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is
> out of place in Christian faith and theology." [4]
>

So believers need more than shrinking gaps to buttress their faith. I guess
the deistic clockworker who sparked the universe but takes no interest
beyond that would be out of place too?

>
> Apart from design inefficiencies such as the examples given above,
> Intelligent Design implies a malevolent God. Michael Behe, one of the
> few genuine scientists who endorses ID states that
>
> "Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with
> which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely
> purposeful arrangement of parts. (...) What sort of designer is that?
> What sort of "fine-tuning" leads to untold human misery? To countless
> mothers mourning countless children? Did a hateful, malign being make
> intelligent life in order to torture it? One who relishes cries of
> pain? Maybe. Maybe not." [5]
>

That’s actually a great example for commitment to ID to present theodicy
issues.

>
> In the following paragraphs, Behe offers no other explanation for God
> being so malevolent; he simply argues that both bad things and good
> things happen in life and we shouldn't use the bad things to refute
> ID.
>

Well before Satan became a scapegoat God was responsible for weal and woe.

>
> That sort of argument by Behe takes us into the territory that St.
> Augustine warned us about back in the fifth century when he said:
>
> "Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
> Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
> nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
> an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
> Christian and laugh it to scorn" [6]
>

So Augustine would have no truck with ID?

>
> To take another example, humans undergo one of the most distressing,
> painful and dangerous birth processes of any animal. Science has a
> straightforward explanation for that; basically, our skeletal
> structure is one developed for quadruped animals from which we are
> originally evolved. Becoming bipedal enabled humans to develop skills
> and other features well beyond other animals which remained quadruped
> but, whilst our skeletal structure did undergo some modification to
> suit bipedalism, this came at the price of a narrowed birth channel
> and this was worsened by an increase in human brain size. Whilst these
> developments did lead to the difficulties of human childbirth, the
> overall advantages of bipedalism won out.
>

Hmmm..., I just posted this link on another thread:

https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/god_is_the_greatest_abortionist/

Conception, development, and childbirth are among the hurdles of life that
medical science has ameliorated to a great extent, not to mention
malnutrition and preventable disease. And according to Pinker maternal
mortality has dropped quite a bit.

>
> Those who deny our descent from a quadruped lifeform have nothing to
> offer as an explanation of the difficulties of human birth except some
> vacuous claim that it is all to do with us being punished for the sin
> committed by Adam and Eve. I'm sorry but I simply cannot reconcile the
> God of love and mercy presented by Jesus Christ with a God who would
> punish all women for something committed by ancestors of many
> generations ago and put at risk the lives of unborn/newly born
> children and I think that to try to do so takes us straight into that
> area of ridicule and scorn that Augustine warned us about.
>

To be blunt, if the bible is the word of god or inspired, he could have
given us some solid advice on gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics and
not left it to humans to eventually seek and discover this knowledge. He
could have replaced the sojourn in Egypt that may not have happened or some
of the epistles attributed to Paul or Revelation with an enlightened
treatise on medicine and public health.

>
> Overall, I think that the ID approach represents Christians trapped in
> a mindset that feels we must have some sort of proof for tangible
> evidence for the existence of God. To me, there are three broad states
> of relationship that a person can have with God:
>
> State I: Disbelief
> This may be a lack of awareness where a person has not been exposed to
> the very idea of God or where someone is ambivalent about the whole
> idea (agnostic) or totally rejects the idea (atheist).
>

Or merely lack belief. There is also John Loftus’s outsider test for faith
where people have faithstances leading to beliefs incompatible with Abramic
religions. Science tends to converge on true beliefs where faith tends to
diverge. See what religious freedom has wrought (or rot) in the US.

>
>[Note:
> 'agnostic' and 'atheist' are presented as broad categories here, I do
> realise that there are variations with them as well as considerable
> overlap but that's not germane to my main point.]
>

And that way lies madness. Hearing atheists discourse on definitions of
atheism and agnosticism *ad nauseam* may be worse than anything the old
time church fathers ever wrote.

>
> State 2: Belief from Authority
> This is where someone believes in God because they have been convinced
> by some sort of authority figure, typically in childhood where they
> have been taught by parents or teachers or priests; or perhaps they
> have read religious writers who have made convincing arguments. I
> think that this was probably the prevalent state among many religious
> practitioners in times past; many Catholics, for example, went to Mass
> on Sunday mainly because it was the "done thing" and non-attendance
> would have been frowned upon by their friends, family or peers.
>

There are issues of geographic accident of ones birth and historic
contingency (Milvian Bridge and Battle of Tours come to mind). If history
unfolded differently or if you were born in India how would you believe?

Doubling down in response to challenge? Although the “backfire effect” has
been shown lacking I think.

In my case I slowly fell away and divorced God, never looking back. Given
his abusive creepy stalker relation with the Israelites I think that a wise
choice.

>
> And that is perhaps the biggest issue I have with ID; I think that at
> its core, it traps people into a state where people feel the need to
> employ the dismissal of science and arguments from awe in order to
> somehow convince people that God does exist rather than encouraging
> them to move onto the stage where they know for themselves, without
> the need for empirical evidence and constant reinforcement which seems
> to me, a rather fragile form of religious belief.
>

Works for you though not my cup of tea.

>
> My conclusion is that than in regard to achieving the objectives of
> the Wedge Strategy - essentially a growth in the adoption of religious
> belief rather than scientific generated materialism - the ID
> movement harms those objectives rather than promoting them.
>

I actually enjoyed your well thought out post Martin. If Post of the Month
were still a thing I would nominate it. Kudos.

[jillery]

Not sure how to respond to anything from the above without risking
being accused of "attacking the basic concept of religious belief"

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[Mark Isaak]

On 6/30/19 11:23 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
> perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.

I agree not only with the content of the vast majority of what you say,
but on its importance. I concur with Hemi considering it
Post-of-the-Month-worthy. I do have a few comments, although only the
last (IMHO) is really important.

> I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
> the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge
> Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
>
> "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
> and political legacies.
>
> To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
> that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
>
> The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one. As a religious
> believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
> though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
> correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
> morals and culture.

Those people who see a decline in morals and culture were addressed by
Gilbert & Sullivan, who wrote of "The idiot who praises with
enthusiastic tone / All centuries but this and every country but his
own." I have seen morality improve dramatically in my lifetime (the
last three years notwithstanding), and there has been much atrocity
before my lifetime that I am quite glad not to have witnessed firsthand,
much less lived through.

I wonder what sin hyenas committed to make their birthing process even
worse than humans'.

I think you missed an important state, perhaps state 1.5: Wanting to
Believe. People in this state, as in State 2, hear and believe the
authorities that they *should* believe, and that they are expected to
believe, but they don't actually believe. People in this state can go
into any of the other three. Some keep their lack of felt belief to
themselves, though they learn to say the expected things at the right
times, and they convert back to disbelief when the pressure is off.
Some find a different interpretation of belief which allows them to move
to State 3 of genuine believe. But some only convince themselves that
learning the authorities' arguments counts as belief, and they go into
State 2. Those people are the most problematic, because when they argue
creationism (to pick a random example), they are trying more to convince
themselves than to convince you.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[jillery]

On Sun, 30 Jun 2019 18:41:13 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 6/30/19 11:23 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
>> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
>> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
>> perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
>> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
>> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>
>I agree not only with the content of the vast majority of what you say,
>but on its importance. I concur with Hemi considering it
>Post-of-the-Month-worthy.

I agree it's a change of pace from his last several posts. Time will
tell if it's the first of a new trend, or merely an outlier to his
standard commentary.

[zencycle]

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:


>
> >Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
> > open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
> > For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
> > of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
> > Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
> > movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
> > just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
> > The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
> > up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]
> >
> Interesting revelations there.

Considering that both DEmbski and Johnson both blatantly stated their purpose was to invoke the christian god as creator via 'intelligent' design, I wouldn't consider those quotes to be interesting or revealing, merely more of the same.

[Oxyaena]

Aww, I really wanted the designer to be a squirrel. :(

--
"That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without
evidence." - The Hitch

https://peradectes.wordpress.com/

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, 1 July 2019 22:00:03 UTC+1, Oxyaena wrote:
> On 7/1/2019 11:56 AM, zencycle wrote:
> > On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>> Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
> >>> open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
> >>> For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
> >>> of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
> >>> Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
> >>> movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
> >>> just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
> >>> The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
> >>> up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]
> >>>
> >> Interesting revelations there.
> >
> > Considering that both DEmbski and Johnson both blatantly stated their purpose was to invoke the christian god as creator via 'intelligent' design, I wouldn't consider those quotes to be interesting or revealing, merely more of the same.
> >
>
> Aww, I really wanted the designer to be a squirrel. :(

...because you're a nut?

(I'm not sure where to go with this. ...Except to commend
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl>.)

[Oxyaena]

The power of Squirrel Girl *compels* you to burn in hell!

[zencycle]

On Monday, July 1, 2019 at 5:00:03 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> On 7/1/2019 11:56 AM, zencycle wrote:
> > On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>> Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
> >>> open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
> >>> For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
> >>> of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
> >>> Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
> >>> movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
> >>> just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
> >>> The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
> >>> up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]
> >>>
> >> Interesting revelations there.
> >
> > Considering that both DEmbski and Johnson both blatantly stated their purpose was to invoke the christian god as creator via 'intelligent' design, I wouldn't consider those quotes to be interesting or revealing, merely more of the same.
> >
>
> Aww, I really wanted the designer to be a squirrel. :(
>
> --

It is. In fact, it's a _secret_ squirrel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Squirrel

The parallels between this and the jesus story are too strong to ignore.

[Oxyaena]

Do squirrels ever bust a nut?

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot not to see what is
obvious. The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a
creationist concept. You can check this by looking at how subjective
words are used in common discourse, words like beautiful, nice and
such.

Subjective words must be used by choice, and subjective words must
express what it is that makes a choice.

For example to say a painting is beautiful, the opinion is formed by
spontaneous expression of emotion with free, thus chosen. The word
beautiful refers to a love for the way the painting looks, out of this
love the word beautiful was chosen to say.

Choice is the mechanism of creation, how things originate.

So throwing out creationism = not just throwing out all religion,
but it equals throwing out all subjectivity.

What happens then is, because subjective opinion is invalidated,
then people simply assert what is good and loving as a matter of fact.

All over the internet there are atheist morons completely convinced
that emotions such as love and hate, can be measured as fact. So
you get people with a measuring and calculating attitude in regards
to emotions, the factual attitude. That attitude is not conducive
to healthy relationships, because the factual attitude comes across
as stonecold merciless judgement.

This is why evolution theory = social darwinism. Because in evolution
theory a lot of originally subjective words like "success", "beneficial"
"struggle for" etc. are used in an objectified way. In it's denial
of creationism, evolution theory becomes to be a moral theory that
what is good and bad is factual. Evolution theory denies the creationist
and subjective good, in favor of the evolutionist and objective good.

As the nazi's were an example of social darwinism in the past, presently
the Democratic party in the USA is a social darwinist party. You can see
democrats assert what is good and bad as facts. Like to say a wall at the
southern border is "in fact" an immorality. And all that political
correctness is objectifying what is good and bad. And then "hate",
which really means emotion, is denoted as bad.

There is no way you can excuse people throwing out the foundation for
the concept of subjective opinion. That cannot be done innocently.
That is not some kind of mistake. That is pure evil.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Mohammad Nur Syamsu <mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot not to see what is
> obvious.

Return of Nando?

> The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a
> creationist concept. You can check this by looking at how subjective
> words are used in common discourse, words like beautiful, nice and
> such.
>

Aesthetic words well known before advent of modern creationism.

>
> Subjective words must be used by choice, and subjective words must
> express what it is that makes a choice.
>

Or you misattribute a choice to something that spontaneously erupted from
your neural nethers completely unaware of source. Your aesthetic vocabulary
and judgement are heavily influenced by your social milieu.

>
> For example to say a painting is beautiful, the opinion is formed by
> spontaneous expression of emotion with free, thus chosen.

Spontaneity is not the same as agent causation. Novel combinations of
feeling tones require elements that reside outside your superficial
conscious awareness. Bits and pieces of memories perhaps largely shorn of
forgotten context.

> The word
> beautiful refers to a love for the way the painting looks, out of this
> love the word beautiful was chosen to say.
>

And love has some neurochemical bases.

>
> Choice is the mechanism of creation, how things originate.
>

Or choice is a self-serving afterthought.

>
> So throwing out creationism = not just throwing out all religion,
> but it equals throwing out all subjectivity.
>

I call BS. Qualitative 1st person aspects of experience do not require
creation.

>
> What happens then is, because subjective opinion is invalidated,
> then people simply assert what is good and loving as a matter of fact.
>

Subjective opinion is suspect unless grounded in some corresponding
reality.

>
> All over the internet there are atheist morons completely convinced
> that emotions such as love and hate, can be measured as fact. So
> you get people with a measuring and calculating attitude in regards
> to emotions, the factual attitude. That attitude is not conducive
> to healthy relationships, because the factual attitude comes across
> as stonecold merciless judgement.
>

Calling atheists morons is a stonecold merciless judgement.

>
> This is why evolution theory = social darwinism.

Social darwinism was a mid 20th century construction that lacks much
grounding in reality.

> Because in evolution
> theory a lot of originally subjective words like "success", "beneficial"
> "struggle for" etc. are used in an objectified way. In it's denial
> of creationism, evolution theory becomes to be a moral theory that
> what is good and bad is factual. Evolution theory denies the creationist
> and subjective good, in favor of the evolutionist and objective good.
>

Or one merely acknowledges problems in defining the good in reductive
analytic terms.

>
> As the nazi's were an example of social darwinism in the past, presently
> the Democratic party in the USA is a social darwinist party.

That’s a leap without grounding. Social darwinism conflates laissez faire
attitudes of meritocratic callous disregard for unfortunate with
progressive technocratic interventionism such as eugenics.

> You can see
> democrats assert what is good and bad as facts. Like to say a wall at the
> southern border is "in fact" an immorality. And all that political
> correctness is objectifying what is good and bad. And then "hate",
> which really means emotion, is denoted as bad.
>

One can point to conditions experienced by immigrants and from that basis
make an ethical judgement, which will be influenced by socially inculcated
values along with gut feelings.

>
> There is no way you can excuse people throwing out the foundation for
> the concept of subjective opinion. That cannot be done innocently.
> That is not some kind of mistake. That is pure evil.
>

And has little connection to Harran’s OP.

[zencycle]

I've seen them bust a move....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKy-E6qy9g

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 07:33:15 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot...

Staring into the mirror again?

<CrapSnip>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Joe Cummings]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 07:33:15 -0700 (PDT), Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot not to see what is
>obvious. The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a
>creationist concept.

Complete and utter bullshit.

Could I suggest you look up "De gustibus non est disputandum."

Does it predate or antedate creationism - the XIXth.century response
to Darwen's ideas?

>You can check this by looking at how subjective
>words are used in common discourse, words like beautiful, nice and
>such.
>
>Subjective words must be used by choice, and subjective words must
>express what it is that makes a choice.
>
>For example to say a painting is beautiful, the opinion is formed by
>spontaneous expression of emotion with free, thus chosen. The word
>beautiful refers to a love for the way the painting looks, out of this
>love the word beautiful was chosen to say.

I'm not sure I understand this; do you?

>
>Choice is the mechanism of creation, how things originate.
>
>So throwing out creationism = not just throwing out all religion,
>but it equals throwing out all subjectivity.

This doesn't follow, as Haran has shown.

One can still have subjective feelings regardless of one's religious
beliefs.

>
>What happens then is, because subjective opinion is invalidated,
>then people simply assert what is good and loving as a matter of fact.

That is done regardless of one's beliefs. And it's a matter of
opinion.

>
>All over the internet there are atheist morons completely convinced
>that emotions such as love and hate, can be measured as fact.

I'd love you to show an example.

>So
>you get people with a measuring and calculating attitude in regards
>to emotions, the factual attitude. That attitude is not conducive
>to healthy relationships, because the factual attitude comes across
>as stonecold merciless judgement.
>
>This is why evolution theory = social darwinism. Because in evolution
>theory a lot of originally subjective words like "success", "beneficial"
>"struggle for" etc. are used in an objectified way.

These words are used in biology in a strictly scientific way. Pity
you don't understand that.

> In it's denial
>of creationism, evolution theory becomes to be a moral theory that
>what is good and bad is factual. Evolution theory denies the creationist
>and subjective good, in favor of the evolutionist and objective good.

Examples, please.

>
>As the nazi's were an example of social darwinism in the past, presently
>the Democratic party in the USA is a social darwinist party. You can see
>democrats assert what is good and bad as facts. Like to say a wall at the
>southern border is "in fact" an immorality. And all that political
>correctness is objectifying what is good and bad. And then "hate",
>which really means emotion, is denoted as bad.

Here, you've got into a complete morass. I strongly suggest that you
sit down with a good dictionary and see if your use of words stands up
to scrutiny. I don't think they do, but of course you are absolutely
certain you are right. Other people will take more convincing.

>
>There is no way you can excuse people throwing out the foundation for
>the concept of subjective opinion. That cannot be done innocently.
>That is not some kind of mistake. That is pure evil.

The onus is on you to show this.

[Peter Nyikos]

Martin Harran has repeatedly said he does not want to discuss anything
with me. What's more, if I were to do a direct reply to his OP, he likely
will do what he did the last time I did a direct reply to him: get on his
high horse and berate me for supposedly not "getting it".

So, for this week anyway, I will be dealing with some claims from
the OP that are left in by others in their posts, as well as
claims by the ones to whom I am replying directly.

Below, Mark Isaak says he agrees with almost everything in the
OP, making it an ideal post for starting this process.

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 9:45:02 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 6/30/19 11:23 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> > ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
> > lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
> > discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
> > perspective

As does the theory of undirected evolution, once one factors in the
much longer lead time the former has had since Darwin, with the much
later beginning of the latter.

I would mark that beginning at the first serious treatment of the
fine-tuning of the physical constants of our universe by people
involved in the ID movement. Thus I disqualify the many fine articles
and books on the Anthropic Principle, because the authors' purpose
is altogether different.

Earlier attempts were like pre-Darwin attempts to concoct a theory
of evolution by Lamarck, etc. They include a somewhat naive use
of probabilities by LeComte du Nuoy in the 1940's.

> > but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
> > that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
> > which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>
> I agree not only with the content of the vast majority of what you say,
> but on its importance. I concur with Hemi considering it
> Post-of-the-Month-worthy.

Your two cents' worth, give or take a couple of cents, is duly noted.

> I do have a few comments, although only the
> last (IMHO) is really important.
>
> > I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
> > the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge
> > Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:

Martin is here treating ID as a political movement, and
so he is ignoring the fact that it actually started well
before the Wedge Strategy.

Even Behe's enormously influential book, _Darwin's Black Box_,
predates the Wedge Strategy by two years (1996 vs 1998).
Moreover, Behe had done some writing
about the biochemical arguments for ID earlier, and it is
very telling that people even now go back to those early efforts
in their zeal to discredit Behe.

> > "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
> > and political legacies.
> >
> > To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
> > that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]

The Wedge Strategy does not speak for the ID movement. Behe himself
gave some avenues to ID that had nothing to do with the supernatural.
Foremost among them was the Crick-Orgel hypothesis of Directed Panspermia (DP)
for the origin of life ON EARTH.

If the DP hypothesis is true, then suddenly the case for the bacterial
flagellum having been designed becomes very attractive. Its survival
value is obvious, and it could even be a kind of "Kilroy was here"
message by the intelligent species that seeded earth.

> >
> > The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one.

Martin is here confusing theism with evangelical Christianity,
based on the *ad hominem* fallacy of the wedge strategy document
having been composed by people who happen to share its beliefs.

> > As a religious
> > believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
> > though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
> > correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
> > morals and culture.
>
> Those people who see a decline in morals and culture were addressed by
> Gilbert & Sullivan, who wrote of "The idiot who praises with
> enthusiastic tone / All centuries but this and every country but his
> own."

Here we see your derision for objective morality at work, Mark.

You made it quite plain by asking me a loaded question and then
ducking all questions that would have clarified your particular
brand of subjective morality. You never replied to the post
where I asked them:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/QWR6N--M754/2jYTD3AmBQAJ
Subject: Re: Mysteries of Evolution: Sexual Reproduction; Part A, meiosis
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2019 11:30:55 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <7e565d3f-d1dc-4dea...@googlegroups.com>

Not content with your no-show, you have used naked innuendo on another
thread to create the impression on yet another thread that your idea of
morality is superior to mine, whereas the post I've linked
uses carefully reasoned arguments to the effect that the reverse is true.

> I have seen morality improve dramatically in my lifetime (the
> last three years notwithstanding),

To what does this refer? You don't say. Is it mainly the fact that
major wars like the Vietnam War and even the Iraq-Iran war
of the last century seem to be a thing of the past? Note the
words "seem to be."

And how do you square what you write with the starvation and misery in
North Korea that is promulgated under its hereditary absolute monarch?
He even had one of his uncles murdered.

> and there has been much atrocity
> before my lifetime that I am quite glad not to have witnessed firsthand,
> much less lived through.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ sarcasm on

Let me guess: you are talking about the atrocious treatment of gays
during the Holocaust while ignoring the over 20 million other people
whose lives were lost during WWII, including the civilian victims of the
firebomings of Dresden and Tokyo, as well as the civilian victims of atomic
bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ sarcasm partly off

How else do you explain the tremendous level of your denunciations of me
for objecting to the word "marriage" on a license of civil union
that grants all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex
couples?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ sarcasm all the way off

Seriously, you've got a long row to hoe before your claims
about morality deserve to be taken seriously.


Remainder deleted, since Hemidactylus's reply does a much better
job of engaging what Martin wrote after the above than yours did.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Idiots. Concepts are classified according to logic, not according
to who came up with something when. According to logic subjective
opinion is an inherently creationist concept. It is because
opinions are formed by choice, and express what it is that makes
a choice, and choice is the mechanism of creation.

Fact is a materialist concept. The existence of material things
is a matter of fact. That is just what logic says.

1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / existence of which is a
matter of chosen opinion
2. Creation / chosen / material / existence of which is a
matter of fact forced by evidence

And you can see all the atheists on the internet obsessing over
facts, and they don't have a clue anymore about subjective
opinion. And academics is driving that moral decay. Because
people who don't pay mind to opinions, they are just going to
have bad opinions. Atheists only see category 2, they are totally
oblivious about emotions, the soul, the spirit, God, which are
all category 1.

You have the evidence available, how subjective words are used
in common discourse. You have no excuse.

It all fits very well with the historical evidence of the
Hitler Youth being taught natural selection theory in
reference to Charles Darwin. The schoolbook starts out
with a chapter titled "Factual outlook on life".

Then soon it explains how the content of character is a
matter of biological fact. Then later in the book it extends
natural selection, to socialist selection, to weed out the
unworthy.

So you can see how evolution theory undermines subjectivity
systematically, and produces the coldhearted calculating
attitudes so typical of the nazi's.

Character is something by which you make choices, therefore
character belongs in category 1.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

> Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:

> > ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
> > lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
> > discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
> > perspective

I doubt that Martin has anything intelligent to say on the above
subject. I gave one reason for my doubt in reply to Mark Isaak.
A more telling one is that Martin dishonestly treats ID as a
political movement while ignoring its scientific component
altogether, even though it predates what he calls "the ID movement" below.

> > but I think ID also fails

Read: the political ID movement also fails

> > from a religious perspective and
> > that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
> > which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
> >
> > I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
> > the arguments presented.

At the end of this post, we will see how ignorant this claim by Martin is.

> > The ID movement started out of the Wedge
> > Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
> >
> > "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
> > and political legacies.
> >
> > To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
> > that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
> >
> > The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one.
>
> Behe, one of the great heroes of the revolution, happens to be Catholic,

And his revolutionary book, _Darwin's Black Box_, "just happens" to
be two years older than the Wedge document itself. Martin has
a knack for ignoring the Elephant in the Room.

> though I think your larger point stands.

No, the larger point is still tainted by the failure to distinguish
between theism [see the wording of the Wedge document] and Christianity.

> You and official Catholic stance
> on evolution serve as examples of the better angels so to speak, though
> Catholic doctrine on ensoulment and perhaps the human mind may be
> problematic. Still better than ID.

My, my, you've already forgotten how Behe made it part of ID in
his latest book, _Darwin Devolves_. The connection is obvious:
any soul has to be intelligently designed, and the human mind
-- in the sense of the existence of conscious awareness of the world--
cannot be explained by what we currently know about physics.
See Chapter 10, "A Terrible Thing to Waste".

In particular, Behe believes that our tremendous ability to reason about the
deepest secrets of our universe is partly due to our souls rather than our bodies.

>
> > As a religious
> > believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
> > though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
> > correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
> > morals and culture.
> >
> If one takes Pinker seriously science is at least partially responsible for
> great improvements in the human condition and perhaps grants us a greater
> moral purchase on the world,

On the other hand, when he witnessed the first atomic bomb explosion,
Oppenheimer's thoughts turned not to science but to the Bhagavad-Gita,
with the words "I am become death, destroyer of worlds."

Where is that vaunted moral purchase in the bomb on Hiroshima and
the completely superfluous and senseless bomb on Nagasaki a few
days later, after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and before
the Japanese government had a chance to react to these two huge
game-changers?

> though also capacity to do greater harm.

I'd still like to know what YOU think of as a "moral purchase
on the world" which we might owe to science.

> Eudaimonically speaking there are on many measures (ie-Pinker's charts and
> graphs) huge improvements in well being.

Does Pinker include D&E abortion, wherein unborn children able to feel
excruciating pain are torn limb from limb without anesthesia
in a process reminiscent of that "cruel and unusual" method
of execution known as "drawing and quartering"?

New York's nominally Catholic governor praised the law he signed
granting the right to abortion for any reason or no reason
right up to birth. New York City celebrated it with lighting
up the top of the Empire State Building. And Cardinal Dolan's reaction
to this "change in moral purchase" is still a mystery to
Catholics keenly following his public behavior.

> There is at least less child
> mortality,

Read: mortality of children safely out of the womb, which has
changed from a sanctuary to what is in all too many cases
the most dangerous place on earth.

> which was an outcome of greater knowledge and technology not
> gleaned from scriptural adherence.

Are you sure that almost all the people involved do not care
about what Jesus said about the little children, as described
in the Bible?

> With a better understanding of human
> nature and behavior people are tending toward less retributive punitive
> measures and capital punishment is on the decline, though I may be
> preaching to the Catholic choir there.

Indeed, Pope Francis has gone a bit overboard in the universal
condemnation of capital punishment, as though incarceration were
escape-proof all over the world. AFAIK he never made that assumption
explicit, and I seriously doubt that it holds water in every third
world country.

> Not to bring up old threads, but
> psychiatric and psychological concepts have replaced demonology and
> exorcism

Martin Harran was the ignorant voice of Catholicism there, IIRC.
I doubt that he is even aware of the existence of the book
_People of the Lie_, by M. Scott Peck, although he may have
heard about _The Road Less Traveled_.

Chapter 5, "Of Possession and Exorcism", gives an in-depth
psychiatrically based account of the malady traditionally
referred to as "demonic possession" by the most responsible
exorcists of the Roman Catholic Church. He describes two
events referred to as "exorcisms" at which one of the witnesses
was an atheist who saw the "possession" as a severe mental
illness and the "exorcism" as a radical and successful treatment
utterly unlike any methods in current use by psychiatrists.

The plain fact that emerges from Chapter 5 is that modern-day
psychiatric concepts and methods are no more relevant to true
"possession" than the methods and concepts of Sigmund Freud
were to full-blown psychosis. There is a great deal of research
needing to be done.

> or attributions of evil to people who ideate and behave in ways
> outside their control.

One must always distinguish between objectively evil acts
and the dispositions of the one doing them. One of my favorite
plays on words is that if a dictator calls off a massacre
of innocent people (including women and children) because of
a loaded gun leveled at his head, "he is not responsible
for his responsible action."

> >
> > Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
> > and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
> > the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"
> > which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want.

Martin is ignorantly acknowledging that the methodology of the
best ID people, including Behe and Minnich, is that of science.

Talk about the blind leading the blind!

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

PS A belated thank you, Hemi, for calling this thread to my attention.
Initially I was ticked off because you made no attempt to say
where "the post" by Martin Harran was to be found. Fortunately
it wasn't just a post, it was a whole new thread.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:

This is the second of a yet-undetermined number of replies to
Hemidactylus's reply to the OP. I've mentioned in my reply
to Mark Isaak why I am not replying to the OP itself, at least
not this week. [That's an easy decision since, due to the Fourth of
July weekend, tomorrow will be my last day for posting this week.]

> > The main
> > promoters of the ID movement are almost exclusively committed
> > Christians and they clearly regard this intelligent designer as the
> > Christian God.
>
> Great point.

Yes, but why? The obvious answer is that the ID movement is an
updating of the Biblical "The heavens declare the handiwork of God"
and its embracement by the Apostle Paul, and also an updating of
Thomas Aquinas's use of the Argument from Design as one of his arguments

for the existence of God.

However, we should be careful not to let the personal beliefs of
ID theorists cloud our understanding of ID theory itself, any more
than we should let the personal beliefs of atheists cloud our
understanding of the arguments *against* the current state of ID theory.

Then there is the Elephant in the Room of Nobel Laureate biochemist
Francis Crick writing of one modest form of ID via genetic engineering,
in conjunction with a seeding of earth using microorganisms sent
over a distance of many light years:

The senders could well have developed wholly new strains of
microorganisms, specially designed to cope with prebiotic
conditions, though whether it would have been better to try to
combine all the desirable properties within one single type
of organism or to send many different organisms is not
completely clear.
--Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, _Life Itself_
Simon and Schuster, 1981, p. 137

>
> >Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
> > open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.

So what?

> > As a fellow committed Christian, I regard honesty and openness as
> > fundamental characteristics of Christianity

...which Martin Harran has repeatedly violated, so that this
statement reeks of hypocrisy.

Documentation on request, of much besides the behavior described next.

> > and see this poorly hidden
> > attempt at subterfuge as directly opposite to those Christian
> > qualities.
> >
> Good for you. Kudos.

Martin Harran no longer has any problem with jillery's poorly
hidden attempt to make him look like he was confessing to
a fundamentally dishonest attitude. Instead, he viciously
attacked me for continuing to expose this behavior by jillery.

He reminds me of the Skrull warrior in the classic X-Men episode,
"Phoenix Must Die", who momentarily froze when confronted with
Wolverine. After a Kree warrior hit Wolverine with a "phaser stun",
and said he had rescued the Skrull, the latter shape-changed into
a scary creature with bristling teeth and claws and attacked the Kree,
saying something like, "You rescued me? YOU? That insult, I cannot forgive."

> >
> > This dishonesty does not, of course,

All of a sudden, it has become dishonest not to trumpet one's
personal religious attitude in every article one writes on ID.

Martin Harran has abandoned the traditional Roman Catholic concept
of honesty. Jesus himself was "dishonest" by Martin's standards
in Luke 20: 1-8 since he refused to tell by what authority
he was acting the way he was. He prepared his refusal in a particularly
sneaky way:

One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. 2 "Tell us by what authority you are doing these things," they said. "Who gave you this authority?"

3 He replied, "I will also ask you a question. Tell me: 4 John's baptism -- was it from heaven, or of human origin?"

5 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will ask, 'Why didn’t you believe him?' 6 But if we say, `Of human origin,' all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet."

7 So they answered, "We don't know where it was from."

8 Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

> > on its own mean that the
> > arguments they are promoting are necessarily wrong; I think however
> > that people with a hidden agenda have to be treated with great caution
> > and, if you remove the committed Christians from the ID movement, then
> > there is nobody of any significance making the arguments they put
> > forward.

False; Behe put forward Crick's arguments and I, an agnostic, am
continuing to elaborate on them. But Martin Harran is determined
to paint ID as being just another form of creationism.

> > The second thing that gets me about ID is that far from the complexity
> > of life suggesting an intelligent designer, the Heath Robinson/Rube
> > Goldberg nature of many aspects of life would imply a seriously
> > *unintelligent* designer.

This is pure hogwash. Any designer capable of producing the vast
panorama of life would be astronomically more intelligent than Martin
Harran, and even than people far more intelligent than Martin.


<snip typical laundry list of evolutionary imperfections>

> Those are great examples of design problematics

... for an omnipotent designer. But ID theory does not assume
omnipotence or even supernatural existence of the designer.


> and very well put.

You are excusing the asinine lead-in.



There is a lot more asinine talk by Martin to follow, but duty calls.



TO BE CONTINUED

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[jillery]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 15:05:50 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Martin Harran no longer has any problem with jillery's poorly
>hidden attempt to make him look like he was confessing to
>a fundamentally dishonest attitude. Instead, he viciously
>attacked me for continuing to expose this behavior by jillery.

All lies from a liar. And jillery isn't even involved in this topic.
This is exactly the kind of crap Hemidactylus enables when he says to
Nyikos the peter, "And no you’re not alone in this stuff"

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 11:51:30 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Martin Harran has repeatedly said he does not want to discuss anything
>with me.

You are a liar, Peter, I never said that. For the record, what I did
say was:

"Peter, I have told you before that I have no interest whatsoever in
trying to make sense of any of your posts where you hop about like a
demented hare from poster to poster and up and down attribute levels
like a yo-yo in the hands of somebody that is drunk.

If you have a point to make about my post in the hope or expectation
that I might respond to it, please make it and deal with other posters
elsewhere."

[Message-ID: <8pr05epg2401r9hhm...@4ax.com> ]

[匽

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 15:05:50 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:
>

[匽

>> > As a fellow committed Christian, I regard honesty and openness as
>> > fundamental characteristics of Christianity
>
>...which Martin Harran has repeatedly violated, so that this
>statement reeks of hypocrisy.
>
>Documentation on request, of much besides the behavior described next.

I hereby request that documentation.


[匽

>Martin Harran no longer has any problem with jillery's poorly
>hidden attempt to make him look like he was confessing to
>a fundamentally dishonest attitude. Instead, he viciously
>attacked me for continuing to expose this behavior by jillery.

Yet again, you spout a blatant lie.

You can, of course, prove me wrong by simply giving a link to that
vicious attack. Don't worry, I won't hold my breath waiting for you to
produce something that doesn't exist.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 07:33:15 -0700 (PDT), Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot not to see what is
>obvious. The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a
>creationist concept.

I take it that your opening sentence is meant as a good example of
said 'subjective opinion'.

[匽

[Martin Harran]

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 30 Jun 2019 14:56:41 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:

[Snipping quite a bit for the sake of brevity]

>If one takes Pinker seriously science is at least partially responsible for
>great improvements in the human condition and perhaps grants us a greater
>moral purchase on the world, though also capacity to do greater harm.

I haven't actually read Pinker, just summaries of his ideas, but they
don't particularly impress me. I think he is falling into the trap of
confirmation bias, he writes from the perspective of a comfortable
Westerner, he might take a somewhat different view if he was for
example a young woman in Syria who just lost her husband, her children
and all her possessions.

I also think that the sense of peace we have in the world is a very
uneasy one at the moment. Here in Europe, we are just celebrating 75
years of warfare (conveniently ignoring the tragedy of the Balkans and
what is going on in the former Russian republics) but I think that
much of that has been aided by the existence of the EEC; now we have
Britain on the verge of withdrawing from that and God only knows what
the long-term implications of that may be. Looking at the USA, it
seems highly probable that Trump may stumble into major conflict with
Iran any of these days. I also think that his current love affairs
with Putin and Kim Jong-un are likely to end in tears.

[匽

>So Augustine would have no truck with ID?

I think he would agree (as I do) that the Theory of Evolution is not
enough on its own to explain where we have come from and where we are
going to but I think he would have no truck with the way the ID
movement dismisses things that science has clearly established.

[匽

>Conception, development, and childbirth are among the hurdles of life that
>medical science has ameliorated to a great extent, not to mention
>malnutrition and preventable disease. And according to Pinker maternal
>mortality has dropped quite a bit.

This is where those who claim that human suffering is the price of
Adam's sin run into quite a quagmire. Mortality rates have improved
substantially over the last century or so; does that mean that God now
thinks we require less punishment? When you look at the figures more
closely, the improvements are primarily in the First World, not the
Third World; does that mean that that poor people of the Third World
deserve more punishment than us in the First World?

[匽

>To be blunt, if the bible is the word of god or inspired, he could have
>given us some solid advice on gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics and
>not left it to humans to eventually seek and discover this knowledge. He
>could have replaced the sojourn in Egypt that may not have happened or some
>of the epistles attributed to Paul or Revelation with an enlightened
>treatise on medicine and public health.

I think you're falling into the trap of trying to judge the behaviour
of a *supernatural* being on the basis of *human* norms.

>> State I: Disbelief
>> This may be a lack of awareness where a person has not been exposed to
>> the very idea of God or where someone is ambivalent about the whole
>> idea (agnostic) or totally rejects the idea (atheist).
>>
>Or merely lack belief.

That is why I described them as broad categories :

>T)here is also John Loftus's outsider test for faith

>where people have faithstances leading to beliefs incompatible with Abramic
>religions. Science tends to converge on true beliefs where faith tends to
>diverge.

I don't think it's that simple. I believe that science and religious
belief are both concerned with trying to find out things we don't know
or more about the things we do know. It's a bit more straightforward
in science which finds itself to evidentiary matters but less
clear-cut for religion which is trying to deal with things that are
not evidentiary and may even be things that we are simply not capable
of fully grasping. I also think that if you look at the history of
science, much of the original driving force behind it did come from
religion e.g. the role of mediaeval monks in preserving ancient
knowledge and the impact of the monastic schools leading to our
current university system in the West; there are also things like the
direct role of Jesuits in astronomy.

>See what religious freedom has wrought (or rot) in the US.

I think religious freedom is too much an easy scapegoat for what is
going on in the US, you have to ask why it hasn't caused the same
problems in other parts of the world.

[匽

>There are issues of geographic accident of ones birth and historic
>contingency (Milvian Bridge and Battle of Tours come to mind).

That is a fair point but I think it only applies to the starting point
of one's journey and not necessarily how that journey unfolds. To take
an example close to home, I am one of family of 13 kids, all grown up
in the same environment, receiving pretty much the same education. I
would say that only about half my siblings return any significant
Catholic faith and only one or two of them would regard it as
important in their lives as I do in mine.

There is also an important change in religious thinking - at least in
the mainstream Christian churches - about any one faith being the only
true one; the Catholic Church, for example, has completely changed its
stance on its teaching that "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" (outside the
Church there is no salvation).

>If history
>unfolded differently or if you were born in India how would you believe?

In regard to myself, I accept that there are weaknesses and failures
within Catholicism but overall, I find that it gives me what I need.
I'm conscious that other all religions may have things to offer but I
simply haven't the time to explore them all. Funny that you should ask
me about what would have happened if I was born in India; I have long
time been intrigued by some aspects of Hinduism around reincarnation
but never intrigued enough to devote the time and energy to studying
it!

[匽

>Doubling down in response to challenge? Although the "backfire effect" has
>been shown lacking I think.

I'm not sure what you mean there.

>
>In my case I slowly fell away and divorced God, never looking back. Given
>his abusive creepy stalker relation with the Israelites I think that a wise
>choice.
>>
>> And that is perhaps the biggest issue I have with ID; I think that at
>> its core, it traps people into a state where people feel the need to
>> employ the dismissal of science and arguments from awe in order to
>> somehow convince people that God does exist rather than encouraging
>> them to move onto the stage where they know for themselves, without
>> the need for empirical evidence and constant reinforcement which seems
>> to me, a rather fragile form of religious belief.
>>
>Works for you though not my cup of tea.

I don't expect it to work for everyone; Christ himself made clear that
his message is available to everyone but not everyone will take it up.

[匽

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 30 Jun 2019 18:41:13 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 6/30/19 11:23 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

[Snipping lots for brevity]

>> Those who deny our descent from a quadruped lifeform have nothing to
>> offer as an explanation of the difficulties of human birth except some
>> vacuous claim that it is all to do with us being punished for the sin
>> committed by Adam and Eve.
>
>I wonder what sin hyenas committed to make their birthing process even
>worse than humans'.

Apologies to hyenas, I had forgotten all about them.

[匽

.
>I think you missed an important state, perhaps state 1.5: Wanting to
>Believe.

I wasn't intending the three states to be definitive or conclusive, I
was only using them to bring out my main point that ID can actually
prevent people from developing and growing in their faith.

>People in this state, as in State 2, hear and believe the
>authorities that they *should* believe, and that they are expected to
>believe, but they don't actually believe. People in this state can go
>into any of the other three. Some keep their lack of felt belief to
>themselves, though they learn to say the expected things at the right
>times, and they convert back to disbelief when the pressure is off.

Yes, and as I touched on above, I think that is one of the main
factors behind the drastic decline in religious participation that we
have seen in the West in recent times.

>Some find a different interpretation of belief which allows them to move
>to State 3 of genuine believe. But some only convince themselves that
>learning the authorities' arguments counts as belief, and they go into
>State 2. Those people are the most problematic, because when they argue
>creationism (to pick a random example), they are trying more to convince
>themselves than to convince you.

Yes, I agree with what you say there, it is another way that ID can
hold people back rather than taking them forward.

[匽

[Oxyaena]

On 7/2/2019 4:03 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:
>
>>> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
>>> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
>>> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
>>> perspective
>
> I doubt that Martin has anything intelligent to say on the above
> subject. I gave one reason for my doubt in reply to Mark Isaak.
> A more telling one is that Martin dishonestly treats ID as a
> political movement while ignoring its scientific component
> altogether, even though it predates what he calls "the ID movement" below.

Distinction without a difference.

>
>
>>> but I think ID also fails
>
> Read: the political ID movement also fails

Pointless pedantry noted.

>
>
>>> from a religious perspective and
>>> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
>>> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>>>
>>> I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
>>> the arguments presented.
>
> At the end of this post, we will see how ignorant this claim by Martin is.

You presented no such thing.

>
>
>>> The ID movement started out of the Wedge
>>> Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
>>>
>>> "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
>>> and political legacies.
>>>
>>> To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
>>> that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
>>>
>>> The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one.
>>
>> Behe, one of the great heroes of the revolution, happens to be Catholic,
>
> And his revolutionary book, _Darwin's Black Box_, "just happens" to
> be two years older than the Wedge document itself. Martin has
> a knack for ignoring the Elephant in the Room.

*Darwin's Black Box* was not revolutionary, it was reactionary, we've
been over this many, many, MANY times before, Peter.

>
>
>> though I think your larger point stands.
>
> No, the larger point is still tainted by the failure to distinguish
> between theism [see the wording of the Wedge document] and Christianity.
>

Odd coincidence how the ID movement came about only *after* teaching
creationism in schools was ruled unconstitutional. Wonder why...

[snip mindless pontificating]

>
>
>> There is at least less child
>> mortality,
>
> Read: mortality of children safely out of the womb, which has
> changed from a sanctuary to what is in all too many cases
> the most dangerous place on earth.

Unwarranted hyperbole noted.

>
>
>> which was an outcome of greater knowledge and technology not
>> gleaned from scriptural adherence.
>
> Are you sure that almost all the people involved do not care
> about what Jesus said about the little children, as described
> in the Bible?
>
>
>> With a better understanding of human
>> nature and behavior people are tending toward less retributive punitive
>> measures and capital punishment is on the decline, though I may be
>> preaching to the Catholic choir there.
>
> Indeed, Pope Francis has gone a bit overboard in the universal
> condemnation of capital punishment, as though incarceration were
> escape-proof all over the world. AFAIK he never made that assumption
> explicit, and I seriously doubt that it holds water in every third
> world country.

Capital punishment is inhumane, and is merely vengeance in another form,
it serves as no deterrent, and is very costly to the taxpayer.

>
>
>> Not to bring up old threads, but
>> psychiatric and psychological concepts have replaced demonology and
>> exorcism
>
> Martin Harran was the ignorant voice of Catholicism there, IIRC.
> I doubt that he is even aware of the existence of the book
> _People of the Lie_, by M. Scott Peck, although he may have
> heard about _The Road Less Traveled_.
>
> Chapter 5, "Of Possession and Exorcism", gives an in-depth
> psychiatrically based account of the malady traditionally
> referred to as "demonic possession" by the most responsible
> exorcists of the Roman Catholic Church. He describes two
> events referred to as "exorcisms" at which one of the witnesses
> was an atheist who saw the "possession" as a severe mental
> illness and the "exorcism" as a radical and successful treatment
> utterly unlike any methods in current use by psychiatrists.
>
> The plain fact that emerges from Chapter 5 is that modern-day
> psychiatric concepts and methods are no more relevant to true
> "possession" than the methods and concepts of Sigmund Freud
> were to full-blown psychosis. There is a great deal of research
> needing to be done.

What counts as "true possession," I`m interested to hear more.

>
>
>> or attributions of evil to people who ideate and behave in ways
>> outside their control.
>
> One must always distinguish between objectively evil acts
> and the dispositions of the one doing them. One of my favorite
> plays on words is that if a dictator calls off a massacre
> of innocent people (including women and children) because of
> a loaded gun leveled at his head, "he is not responsible
> for his responsible action."

Define "objectively evil."

>
>
>>>
>>> Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
>>> and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
>>> the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"
>>> which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want.
>
> Martin is ignorantly acknowledging that the methodology of the
> best ID people, including Behe and Minnich, is that of science.

How so?

>
> Talk about the blind leading the blind!
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
>
> PS A belated thank you, Hemi, for calling this thread to my attention.
> Initially I was ticked off because you made no attempt to say
> where "the post" by Martin Harran was to be found. Fortunately
> it wasn't just a post, it was a whole new thread.
>

[Oxyaena]

On 7/2/2019 6:05 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

[snip superfluous guttersnipe]

>
>
>>> on its own mean that the
>>> arguments they are promoting are necessarily wrong; I think however
>>> that people with a hidden agenda have to be treated with great caution
>>> and, if you remove the committed Christians from the ID movement, then
>>> there is nobody of any significance making the arguments they put
>>> forward.
>
> False; Behe put forward Crick's arguments and I, an agnostic, am
> continuing to elaborate on them. But Martin Harran is determined
> to paint ID as being just another form of creationism.

That's because it is, denying it as such is intellectually dishonest.

>
>
>>> The second thing that gets me about ID is that far from the complexity
>>> of life suggesting an intelligent designer, the Heath Robinson/Rube
>>> Goldberg nature of many aspects of life would imply a seriously
>>> *unintelligent* designer.
>
> This is pure hogwash. Any designer capable of producing the vast
> panorama of life would be astronomically more intelligent than Martin
> Harran, and even than people far more intelligent than Martin.

Typically for you, you snip all of Martin's examples of unintelligent
design in nature, why is that?

>
>
> <snip typical laundry list of evolutionary imperfections>
>
>
>> Those are great examples of design problematics
>
> ... for an omnipotent designer. But ID theory does not assume
> omnipotence or even supernatural existence of the designer.

You're ignoring the glaringly obvious, the ID movement came about
*after* creationism was ruled unconstitutional to teach in schools.
Cherry picking, anyone?

>
>
>> and very well put.
>
> You are excusing the asinine lead-in.
>
>
>
> There is a lot more asinine talk by Martin to follow, but duty calls.
>
>
>
> TO BE CONTINUED
>
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

It's not a subjective opinion intellectual fraud. The creationist conceptual scheme
is not an expression of beauty, or anything of that kind. See fraud, you are a social
darwinist yourself, classifying statements of fact as being subjective opinions.

Creationism just sets up a constitution for reasoning which validates
subjective opinion and objective fact, each in their own right, with their own domain,
and their own distinct way in which they work.

Your opinions including your faith are rubbish, because you don't accept the validity
of subjective opinions.

[Peter Nyikos]

Martin launches into an *ad hominem* attack, completely ignoring
my on-topic criticism of him. Here comes some more of the latter.

Whether Martin realizes it or not, he is in the process of throwing out
the "baby" of Christianity and a number of other religions along
with the "bath water" of what he calls "the Intelligent Design movement."

One collateral damage to the "baby" is done by Martin's strained, decidedly
non-Christian concept of "dishonesty", which logically makes Jesus's
behavior in Luke 20:1-8 dishonest. I explained this in my second reply
to Hemidactylus yesterday.

Don't get me wrong: either Martin's grasp of logic is so primitive, and/or
his familiarity with the NT is so superficial, he probably doesn't realize
that this implication follows from his opportunistic concept of dishonesty.


Below, I address Martin directly.

On Wednesday, July 3, 2019 at 3:10:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 11:51:30 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Martin Harran has repeatedly said he does not want to discuss anything
> >with me.
>
> You are a liar, Peter,

Prove it. And be sure to explain why the following is consistent
with you being a morally upstanding member of the Catholic Church:

___________________ begin included post ______________________________

On Tuesday, August 21, 2018 at 4:05:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2018 10:20:53 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
> [snip typical Nyikos prattle]

There was NOTHING typical about it, liar. And labeling the reference
to mortal sins of which 310 priests in Pennsylvania were guilty
(at least objectively speaking) and by Theodore McCarrick [1]
as "prattle" just goes to show how selective your online defense of
the Roman Catholic Church is.

A while back, you lied that I had called your Roman Catholic faith
into question [2]. Will you also lie that I've done that just now?


[1] Archbishop who has not yet been defrocked, although Pope
Francis did accept his resignation as a Cardinal soon after
the scandal on him broke.

Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Edgar_McCarrick


[2] All I had done was to ask you whether you had been taught
about it in school. Do you deny this?



>
> Feel free to come back to me when you have withdrawn the lies you told
> about me previously.

There were no intentional lies, and I've explained this "till
I am blue in the face" as the expression goes.


While you are fiddling with peccadilloes, Rome is burning
with mortal sins galore.

Less figuratively, the responsible laity of the Roman Catholic
Church is burning with anger over the recent revelations
Less figuratively, the responsible laity of the Roman Catholic
Church is burning with anger over the recent revelations
of sexual depravity, and the Vatican is figuratively burning with
the problem of determining the validity of the charges
against McCarrick.

And if the Vatican authorities do not also investigate possible
cover-ups of sexual depravity by priests by McCarrick, I hope
people will be burning with anger over yet another failure
to go after bishops for their cover-ups.


Were you insincere about your true feelings when you
claimed Dawkins had "lost it" where pedophilia is concerned?
Your cavalier treatment of much more serious forms than
what Dawkins related certainly makes it look that way.


Peter Nyikos

============================================ end of post
archived at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/vh_5qLZ_2y0/3AvKw_u4AQAJ
Subject: Re: More Dawkins
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 11:23:52 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <8a7f7b40-68f0-4cef...@googlegroups.com>

Update: since the above was posted, McCarrick *has* been "defrocked"
(laicized) and Pope Francis has made some promising moves towards
eventually putting an end to cover-ups *by* bishops like McCarrick and *of*
bishops like McCarrick, no thanks to lukewarm Catholics like yourself.

Still, much remains to be done.

> I never said that. For the record, what I did
> say

on one occasion

> was:
>
> "Peter, I have told you before that I have no interest whatsoever in

Where's documentation of that "before"?

> trying to make sense of any of your posts where you hop about like a
> demented hare from poster to poster and up and down attribute levels
> like a yo-yo in the hands of somebody that is drunk.

Since the above surrealistic spiel bears no resemblance to anything
I've done, I take it as a paraphrase of "I demand that you never
tell me anything about the context of what I say in your replies to
me, but only address directly the words I added in the post
to which you are directly replying."

That is a blatantly self-serving demand, and so unacceptable that the
effect is to shut off all discussion between yourself and me.

> If you have a point to make about my post in the hope or expectation
> that I might respond to it,

Not only do I have no such expectations, I really do not want
to discuss anything with you. The only discussion I'd like
you to do is with your conscience -- assuming you have a conscience.

> please make it and deal with other posters
> elsewhere."
>
> [Message-ID: <8pr05epg2401r9hhm...@4ax.com> ]
>
> [匽

My only concern is with furthering the cause of truth, and you
are making it clear that I have a better chance doing it
in reply to others, and thereby often killing two birds with one stone.

My next reply to Hemidactylus is a prime example: his own attitude
towards Christianity may become a lot more clear when I talk to him
about some quotes you chose. These quotes produce a good bit of
collateral damage to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other
religions (including some branches of Hinduism) that take seriously
the existence of a creator of our world.

However, next week, to humor your <ahem> desire for direct replies to you,
I will start replying directly to your OP. I say "next week"
because I am taking a four-day posting break starting with
tomorrow, Independence Day, better known to most Americans
as "The Fourth of July."

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 11:56:09 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>Idiot...

Nothing more to say, beyond your repeated
self-characterizations, generated while admiring yourself in
a mirror? OK.

<Further CrapSnip>

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 03 Jul 2019 08:08:20 +0100, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Martin Harran
<use...@martinharran.com>:

Don't expect him to acknowledge any of that; he knows what
he knows and facts will not sway him.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 03 Jul 2019 08:36:21 +0100, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by Martin Harran
<use...@martinharran.com>:

Actually, it's a typical example of this particular moron's
idea of communication. And you're wrong, "subjective" only
applies to ideas with which he disagrees; his own
proclamations are purest objective fact, at least in his
unique opinion.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2019 09:55:02 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com>:

>[X] launches into an *ad hominem* attack...

The irony, it *burns*!

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2019 07:42:31 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>It's not a subjective opinion

If you're referring to your own post, you are incorrect;
*everything* you posted is your subjective (and wrong)
opinion.

<CrapSnip>

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

That is typical atheist stupidity. That subjective opinions are unverified or interpreted facts.
Subjective opinions are like saying something is beautiful. They are not guesses, or conceptual
schemes. That is categorically different.

To know the difference between fact and opinion is the most important thing in critical
thinking.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:00:02 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Martin Harran <use...@martinharran.com> wrote:

I've said some telling things in my reply to Martin Harran today
about him throwing out the "baby" of Christianity and a number

of other religions along with the "bath water" of what he calls
"the Intelligent Design movement."

There will be much more along those lines below in my
third reply to Hemidactylus's long post, but first I
make a comment that hadn't occurred to me until late yesterday evening.

Martin had written:
> > I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and

> > that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
> > which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
> >
> > I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
> > the arguments presented.

Actually I think just the opposite is true: the ID people "telegraphed
their punches" by being too open about where they were coming from,
and thereby made it easy for their opponents to misrepresent them
as a bunch of creationists. Martin identifies this "telegraphing" as:

> > [The Wedge] Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:

> >
> > "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
> > and political legacies.
> >
> > To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
> > that nature and human beings are created by God"

And now, on to where I left off in my last reply,
with Martin trying to capitalize on some "unintelligent design":

> > Some people in the ID movement try to wriggle out of this by saying
> > that God does not directly intervene in everything, only in some
> > things but the fundamental problem with that approach was neatly
> > summed up by Paul Wallace

Truly a case of the blind (Paul Wallace) leading the blind
(Martin Harran). Keep reading.

> > " For a person of faith, ID is not just an
> > unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one.

Only if the "person of faith" subscribes to a God completely different
than the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic one.

> > It reduces God to a kind of
> > holy tinkerer.

The Bible repeatedly depicts God as a kind of holy tinkerer. One big tinkering
was the Noachide flood, and then came the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah, then the Plagues of Egypt [including the most
unnatural one of killing only the FIRSTborn of the Egyptians] and
the leading of the Israelites in the form of a pillar of fire...

...and the NT depicts God as sending his only-begotten Son to
do some tinkering, including the raising of Lazarus from the
dead, the feeding of the five thousand,...

And then God is depicted as raising Jesus from the dead. Spectacular
tinkering indeed!

> > It locates the divine in places of ignorance and
> > obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is
> > out of place in Christian faith and theology." [4]

Truth by Blatant Assertion. Small wonder that, instead of
publishing this in a Christian journal, even an iconoclastic one
like the National Catholic Reporter [not to be confused with
the highly traditionalistic National Catholic Register],
Wallace chose a decidedly secular source:

[4] P. Wallace, 'Intelligent Design Is Dead: A Christian Perspective',
HuffPost, 2012. [Online]. Available:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/intelligent-design-is-dea_b_1175049.

And here you come in, Hemi, showing the other horn of the
dilemma on which Wallace, and hence Harran, placed the traditional God:

> So believers need more than shrinking gaps to buttress their faith. I guess
> the deistic clockworker who sparked the universe but takes no interest
> beyond that would be out of place too?

BINGO! In _Honest to God_, the British bishop J.A.T. Robinson neatly hit both
horns of the dilemma by first deriding the image of "God winding
up the world and flinging it into space" and then the image
of the theistic God who intervenes from time to time "like a
rich aunt in Australia" and keeps the clock running "with periodic
windings."

In contrast to these "unedifying" ideas of God, Robinson
championed a Tillich-inspired God virtually indistinguishable
from the "God" of pantheism.

Robinson enjoyed a brief vogue before the fickle public turned
its interest to the even more radical "God is Dead" theology
of Altizer and Vahanian.

> >
> > Apart from design inefficiencies such as the examples given above,
> > Intelligent Design implies a malevolent God.

No more so than Roman Catholicism or other branches of Christianity.
Or Judaism or Islam, for that matter.

> > Michael Behe, one of the
> > few genuine scientists who endorses ID

...and who just happens to be a devout Roman Catholic, a fact
the Roman Catholic Martin Harran conveniently leaves out...

> > states that
> >
> > "Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with
> > which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely
> > purposeful arrangement of parts. (...) What sort of designer is that?
> > What sort of "fine-tuning" leads to untold human misery? To countless
> > mothers mourning countless children? Did a hateful, malign being make
> > intelligent life in order to torture it? One who relishes cries of
> > pain? Maybe. Maybe not." [5]
> >
> That's actually a great example for commitment to ID to present theodicy
> issues.

For "commitment to ID" read "commitment to Christianity and to any
religion that takes the idea of a literal creator of our world seriously."

This includes Judaism, Islam, and some branches of Hinduism. One of
the Upanishads depicts a creation reminiscent of Genesis, and the god Brahma
(not to be confused with Brahman on the one hand and Brahmins on the other)
is given the title "Creator".

> >
> > In the following paragraphs, Behe offers no other explanation for God
> > being so malevolent;

Nor does Martin Harran.

> > he simply argues that both bad things and good
> > things happen in life and we shouldn't use the bad things to refute ID.

[5] M. J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits
of Darwinism. Free Press, 2007.

Martin conveniently forgets to give a page number, perhaps because he
is copying from an unidentified secondary source. Having seen creative
displays of spin-doctoring from Martin before, I'll try and figure
out what Behe actually said during my four day break; I have too
much else to do today.

> Well before Satan became a scapegoat God was responsible for weal and woe.

Satan is no scapegoat in a mature Christianity. C. S. Lewis spent
a whole book grappling with the evil in the world as a stumbling
block to the God of traditional Christianity: _The Problem of Pain_.

And the worst pain of all is that undergone in Hell, and if it
weren't for C. S. Lewis giving us an un-traditional but still
non-heretical concept of Hell in _The Great Divorce_, I might
be an anti-Christian today.


TO BE CONTINUED next Monday.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Trolidan Troltar]

On 7/2/19 7:33 AM, Mohammad Nur Syamsu wrote:> Unfortunately you are a

complete and utter idiot not to see what is
> obvious. The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a

> creationist concept. You can check this by looking at how subjective
> words are used in common discourse, words like beautiful, nice and
> such.
>

> Subjective words must be used by choice, and subjective words must
> express what it is that makes a choice.
>

> For example to say a painting is beautiful, the opinion is formed by

> spontaneous expression of emotion with free, thus chosen. The word

> beautiful refers to a love for the way the painting looks, out of this
> love the word beautiful was chosen to say.

Maybe or maybe not. Sooner of later if you see some dog feces
smeared on canvas then it may be thought by others that you are
making a false statement when you call it beautiful. If you are
talking modern art enthusiasts, it might be that the key is changing
the name next to the displayed picture, although it is hard to say,
perhaps there are some genuine modern art enthusiasts.

If they are true 'enthusiasts' it would seem they might like
some modern art. What might make some be liked or others not?
Could the term 'meaningless' be legitimately applied to the
term 'beautiful' in some circumstances?

Sooner of later even great generalizations like say love or hate
must have viable criteria for saying that something is one and
not the other, or in the end such terms become meaningless.

> Choice is the mechanism of creation, how things originate.
>

> So throwing out creationism = not just throwing out all religion,
> but it equals throwing out all subjectivity.
>

> What happens then is, because subjective opinion is invalidated,
> then people simply assert what is good and loving as a matter of fact.
>

> All over the internet there are atheist morons completely convinced
> that emotions such as love and hate, can be measured as fact. So
> you get people with a measuring and calculating attitude in regards
> to emotions, the factual attitude. That attitude is not conducive
> to healthy relationships, because the factual attitude comes across
> as stonecold merciless judgement.
>

> This is why evolution theory = social darwinism. Because in evolution

> theory a lot of originally subjective words like "success", "beneficial"
> "struggle for" etc. are used in an objectified way. In it's denial
> of creationism, evolution theory becomes to be a moral theory that
> what is good and bad is factual. Evolution theory denies the creationist
> and subjective good, in favor of the evolutionist and objective good.
>

> As the nazi's were an example of social darwinism in the past, presently

> the Democratic party in the USA is a social darwinist party. You can see

> democrats assert what is good and bad as facts. Like to say a wall at the
> southern border is "in fact" an immorality. And all that political
> correctness is objectifying what is good and bad. And then "hate",
> which really means emotion, is denoted as bad.
>

> There is no way you can excuse people throwing out the foundation for
> the concept of subjective opinion. That cannot be done innocently.
> That is not some kind of mistake. That is pure evil.

Evil is a parasitism of the good. There is no evil
that does not obtain power except from some other
goodness. Many things however are not simple and
can not be reduced to a tiny number of variables.

If it is tried what one ends up with is just a
false model or idea.

> On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 8:25:03 PM UTC+2, Martin Harran wrote:
>> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
>> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
>> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific

>> perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and

>> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
>> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>>
>> I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to

>> the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge

>> Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
>>
>> "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
>> and political legacies.
>>
>> To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding

>> that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
>>

>> The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one. As a religious

>> believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
>> though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
>> correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
>> morals and culture.
>>

>> Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
>> and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
>> the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"

>> which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want. The main
>> promoters of the ID movement are almost exclusively committed
>> Christians and they clearly regard this intelligent designer as the

>> Christian God. Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been

>> open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
>> For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
>> of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
>> Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
>> movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
>> just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
>> The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
>> up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]
>>

>> As a fellow committed Christian, I regard honesty and openness as
>> fundamental characteristics of Christianity and see this poorly hidden
>> attempt at subterfuge as directly opposite to those Christian
>> qualities.
>>

>> This dishonesty does not, of course, on its own mean that the

>> arguments they are promoting are necessarily wrong; I think however
>> that people with a hidden agenda have to be treated with great caution
>> and, if you remove the committed Christians from the ID movement, then
>> there is nobody of any significance making the arguments they put
>> forward.
>>

>> The second thing that gets me about ID is that far from the complexity
>> of life suggesting an intelligent designer, the Heath Robinson/Rube
>> Goldberg nature of many aspects of life would imply a seriously

>> *unintelligent* designer. There are many examples in nature of things
>> that if designed, were done so in a really bad way. For example, the
>> recurrent laryngeal nerve connects the vagus nerve to the larynx; in
>> all mammals, the nerve passes under the aortic arch which increases
>> the distance it has to travel. In short necked animals like us humans,
>> that isn't a big issue as the extra distance is only a few inches.
>> When we come to a longnecked animal however such as the giraffe, we
>> find that then it travels a distance of about 4 ½ metres (about 15
>> fee)t, to cover an overall distance of only a few inches - not exactly
>> "intelligent" design! To take just one human example, the male testes
>> are one of the most sensitive and easily hurt organs in the human body
>> yet, although they start off inside the abdomen, during gestation the
>> drop down into the scrotum exposing them to all the hurt that nature
>> can offer.
>>

>> Some people in the ID movement try to wriggle out of this by saying
>> that God does not directly intervene in everything, only in some
>> things but the fundamental problem with that approach was neatly

>> summed up by Paul Wallace " For a person of faith, ID is not just an
>> unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one. It reduces God to a kind of
>> holy tinkerer. It locates the divine in places of ignorance and

>> obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is
>> out of place in Christian faith and theology." [4]
>>

>> Apart from design inefficiencies such as the examples given above,

>> Intelligent Design implies a malevolent God. Michael Behe, one of the
>> few genuine scientists who endorses ID states that

>>
>> "Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with
>> which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely
>> purposeful arrangement of parts. (...) What sort of designer is that?
>> What sort of "fine-tuning" leads to untold human misery? To countless
>> mothers mourning countless children? Did a hateful, malign being make
>> intelligent life in order to torture it? One who relishes cries of
>> pain? Maybe. Maybe not." [5]
>>

>> In the following paragraphs, Behe offers no other explanation for God

>> being so malevolent; he simply argues that both bad things and good

>> things happen in life and we shouldn't use the bad things to refute
>> ID.
>>

>> That sort of argument by Behe takes us into the territory that St.
>> Augustine warned us about back in the fifth century when he said:
>>
>> "Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
>> Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
>> nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
>> an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
>> Christian and laugh it to scorn" [6]
>>

>> To take another example, humans undergo one of the most distressing,
>> painful and dangerous birth processes of any animal. Science has a
>> straightforward explanation for that; basically, our skeletal
>> structure is one developed for quadruped animals from which we are
>> originally evolved. Becoming bipedal enabled humans to develop skills
>> and other features well beyond other animals which remained quadruped
>> but, whilst our skeletal structure did undergo some modification to
>> suit bipedalism, this came at the price of a narrowed birth channel
>> and this was worsened by an increase in human brain size. Whilst these
>> developments did lead to the difficulties of human childbirth, the
>> overall advantages of bipedalism won out.
>>

>> Those who deny our descent from a quadruped lifeform have nothing to
>> offer as an explanation of the difficulties of human birth except some
>> vacuous claim that it is all to do with us being punished for the sin

>> committed by Adam and Eve. I'm sorry but I simply cannot reconcile the
>> God of love and mercy presented by Jesus Christ with a God who would
>> punish all women for something committed by ancestors of many
>> generations ago and put at risk the lives of unborn/newly born
>> children and I think that to try to do so takes us straight into that
>> area of ridicule and scorn that Augustine warned us about.

>> Overall, I think that the ID approach represents Christians trapped in
>> a mindset that feels we must have some sort of proof for tangible
>> evidence for the existence of God. To me, there are three broad states
>> of relationship that a person can have with God:
>>

>> State I: Disbelief
>> This may be a lack of awareness where a person has not been exposed to
>> the very idea of God or where someone is ambivalent about the whole

>> idea (agnostic) or totally rejects the idea (atheist). [Note:

>> 'agnostic' and 'atheist' are presented as broad categories here, I do
>> realise that there are variations with them as well as considerable
>> overlap but that's not germane to my main point.]
>>

>> State 2: Belief from Authority
>> This is where someone believes in God because they have been convinced
>> by some sort of authority figure, typically in childhood where they
>> have been taught by parents or teachers or priests; or perhaps they
>> have read religious writers who have made convincing arguments. I
>> think that this was probably the prevalent state among many religious
>> practitioners in times past; many Catholics, for example, went to Mass
>> on Sunday mainly because it was the "done thing" and non-attendance
>> would have been frowned upon by their friends, family or peers.
>>

>> And that is perhaps the biggest issue I have with ID; I think that at
>> its core, it traps people into a state where people feel the need to
>> employ the dismissal of science and arguments from awe in order to
>> somehow convince people that God does exist rather than encouraging
>> them to move onto the stage where they know for themselves, without
>> the need for empirical evidence and constant reinforcement which seems
>> to me, a rather fragile form of religious belief.
>>

>> My conclusion is that than in regard to achieving the objectives of
>> the Wedge Strategy - essentially a growth in the adoption of religious
>> belief rather than scientific generated materialism - the ID
>> movement harms those objectives rather than promoting them.
>>
>>

>> ===========================
>>
>> References:
>>
>> [1] Discovery Institute, 'The Wedge Document', 1998.
>> [2] W. A. Dembski, Intelligent design: The bridge between science
>> & theology. InterVarsity Press, 1999.
>> [3] P. Johnson and T. Hess, 'Keeping the Darwinists Honest',
>> Citizen Magazine, 1999.

>> [4] P. Wallace, 'Intelligent Design Is Dead: A Christian
>> Perspective', HuffPost, 2012. [Online]. Available:
>> https://www.huffpost.com/entry/intelligent-design-is-dea_b_1175049.

>> [Accessed: 26-Jun-2019].

>> [5] M. J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits
>> of Darwinism. Free Press, 2007.

[Trolidan Troltar]

On 7/2/19 8:14 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:> Mohammad Nur Syamsu

<mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Unfortunately you are a complete and utter idiot not to see what is
>> obvious.
>

> Return of Nando?

>
>> The whole concept of subjective opinion is inherently a
>> creationist concept. You can check this by looking at how subjective
>> words are used in common discourse, words like beautiful, nice and
>> such.
>>

> Aesthetic words well known before advent of modern creationism.
>>

>> Subjective words must be used by choice, and subjective words must
>> express what it is that makes a choice.
>>

> Or you misattribute a choice to something that spontaneously erupted from
> your neural nethers completely unaware of source. Your aesthetic
vocabulary
> and judgement are heavily influenced by your social milieu.
>>

>> For example to say a painting is beautiful, the opinion is formed by
>> spontaneous expression of emotion with free, thus chosen.
>

> Spontaneity is not the same as agent causation. Novel combinations of
> feeling tones require elements that reside outside your superficial
> conscious awareness. Bits and pieces of memories perhaps largely shorn of
> forgotten context.
>

>> The word
>> beautiful refers to a love for the way the painting looks, out of this
>> love the word beautiful was chosen to say.
>>

> And love has some neurochemical bases.
>>

>> Choice is the mechanism of creation, how things originate.
>>

> Or choice is a self-serving afterthought.
>>

>> So throwing out creationism = not just throwing out all religion,
>> but it equals throwing out all subjectivity.
>>

> I call BS. Qualitative 1st person aspects of experience do not require
> creation.
>>

>> What happens then is, because subjective opinion is invalidated,
>> then people simply assert what is good and loving as a matter of fact.
>>

> Subjective opinion is suspect unless grounded in some corresponding
> reality.
>>

>> All over the internet there are atheist morons completely convinced
>> that emotions such as love and hate, can be measured as fact. So
>> you get people with a measuring and calculating attitude in regards
>> to emotions, the factual attitude. That attitude is not conducive
>> to healthy relationships, because the factual attitude comes across
>> as stonecold merciless judgement.
>>

> Calling atheists morons is a stonecold merciless judgement.

By what right do courts judge?

Generally it is the power to tax in order to pay police to
obey the court.

So if someone wants to judge in essence they want tax handouts
from the government like the judges and the police are getting.

If you get money you can use it to buy food.

So if you yap just right then your government handout gets more
money. More yapping, more food.

So who isn't going to judge if it brings in a source of money?

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, July 2, 2019 at 8:15:02 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 15:05:50 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

... partly mimicking a use of the expression "poorly hidden attempt" by Martin,
who was using it to bring charges of dishonesty against the ID movement.

> >Martin Harran no longer has any problem with jillery's poorly
> >hidden attempt to make him look like he was confessing to
> >a fundamentally dishonest attitude. Instead, he viciously
> >attacked me for continuing to expose this behavior by jillery.
>
>
> All lies from a liar.

Correction: all truth, and jillery makes no attempt to give
her "virtual reality" of what she would like everyone to
think as having actually happened.

> And jillery isn't even involved in this topic.

Jillery is ignoring the elephant in the room: a post by herself
in response to Martin Harran, needlessly worrying about how she is

Not sure how to respond to anything from the above without risking
being accused of "attacking the basic concept of religious belief"

I say "needlessly" because, as I am showing, Martin's "shotgun"
approach to attacking ID is producing plenty of collateral
damage to all kinds of religious beliefs. For instance, his
"poorly hidden attempt" had collateral damage to Jesus's behavior
in Luke 20:1-8.

> This is exactly the kind of crap Hemidactylus enables when he says to
> Nyikos the peter, "And no you're not alone in this stuff"

The above twist on my name is typical of jillery's Peter-Pan-style
arrested social development.

The preceding comment was enabled by jillery.


Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/2/19 1:03 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> [...] Martin dishonestly treats ID as a

> political movement while ignoring its scientific component
> altogether, even though it predates what he calls "the ID movement" below.

Perhaps that is because ID *is* a political movement, and because it has
no scientific component at all.

What scientific component are you thinking of?

Irreducible complexity? No design science there, just an argument from
ignorance based on transparently faulty reasoning.

The Anthropic Principle? No design science there, just a
misunderstanding of probability.

Directed Panspermia? An iota of design science, in that it was a
reasoned speculation (not theory) at one time. But even if we call it
intelligent design, it has never been part of the ID movement.

People have been asking for ID science for decades, and ID's most
knowledgeable proponents have supplied nothing. All they have is
rejection of evolution based on selective and faulty evidence.

> [...]
> And [Behe's] revolutionary book, _Darwin's Black Box_, "just happens" to

> be two years older than the Wedge document itself.

The Wedge strategy is older than the Wedge document. Behe's work which
became _DBB_ was supported as part of that strategy.

> [...]

> Martin is ignorantly acknowledging that the methodology of the
> best ID people, including Behe and Minnich, is that of science.

Behe and Minnich have done science. But they have never done any
science that addresses ID. The only theory they have tried to test is
"Evolution is wrong", and that is not an ID theory.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[jillery]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2019 14:37:07 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, July 2, 2019 at 8:15:02 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 15:05:50 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
>> <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>... partly mimicking a use of the expression "poorly hidden attempt" by Martin,
>who was using it to bring charges of dishonesty against the ID movement.

Since jillery posted well before Harran, that's another lie.

>> >Martin Harran no longer has any problem with jillery's poorly
>> >hidden attempt to make him look like he was confessing to
>> >a fundamentally dishonest attitude. Instead, he viciously
>> >attacked me for continuing to expose this behavior by jillery.
>>
>>
>> All lies from a liar.
>
>Correction: all truth,

Correction: all lies.

>and jillery makes no attempt to give
>her "virtual reality" of what she would like everyone to
>think as having actually happened.

It wouldn't make any difference.

>> And jillery isn't even involved in this topic.
>
>Jillery is ignoring the elephant in the room: a post by herself
>in response to Martin Harran, needlessly worrying about how she is

Nyikos the peter is ignoring the elephant in the room: Jillery's post
to Nyikos the peter has nothing to do with Jillery's post to Harran.
That they exist in the same topic is incidental.

> Not sure how to respond to anything from the above without risking
> being accused of "attacking the basic concept of religious belief"
>
>I say "needlessly" because, as I am showing, Martin's "shotgun"
>approach to attacking ID is producing plenty of collateral
>damage to all kinds of religious beliefs. For instance, his
>"poorly hidden attempt" had collateral damage to Jesus's behavior
>in Luke 20:1-8.
>
>
>> This is exactly the kind of crap Hemidactylus enables when he says to
>> Nyikos the peter, "And no you're not alone in this stuff"
>
>The above twist on my name is typical of jillery's Peter-Pan-style
>arrested social development.

The above evasion of the point is typical of Nyikos the peter's
dishonesty, which justifies Jillery's twist on his name.

>The preceding comment was enabled by jillery.
>
>
>Peter Nyikos

Only when you use self-serving and unique definitions of "enabled".

[jillery]

On Wed, 03 Jul 2019 18:31:05 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

As does Nyikos the peter pointlessly including Jillery into his
personal problems with Harran.

[Oxyaena]

On 7/3/2019 5:37 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
[snip complete fuckwittery]

I`m just gonna go out on a limb here and state that Peter is being a
douche for the sake of being a douche here, that is all.

[Oxyaena]

People don't have the right to food?

>
> So who isn't going to judge if it brings in a source of money?
>

[*Hemidactylus*]

Mohammad Nur Syamsu <mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's not a subjective opinion intellectual fraud.

Classic Nando. Doesn’t play well with others.

>The creationist conceptual scheme
> is not an expression of beauty, or anything of that kind. See fraud, you are a social
> darwinist yourself, classifying statements of fact as being subjective opinions.
>

Methinks Social Darwinism isn’t what you think it is. How can it be as a
vacuous shoehorned term.

>
> Creationism just sets up a constitution for reasoning which validates
> subjective opinion and objective fact, each in their own right, with their own domain,
> and their own distinct way in which they work.
>

It takes creationism to do such? I like guacamole (a subjective gustatory
preference). Guacamole is made from avocados (an objective fact). Due to
connection to Mexican drug cartels avocados have been likened to blood
diamonds and discouraged (moral evaluation). Where was creationism in those
simple distinctions bucko?

>
> Your opinions including your faith are rubbish, because you don't accept the validity
> of subjective opinions.
>

I don’t accept your opinion of Martin and I devalue your demeanor here. A
rock in a stream bed makes better decisions than you as does the moon.
Angling for another banhammer?

[jillery]

Good grief. Quit compensating. Just do it.

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

It makes obvious sense that the mechanism by which things
originate, would also supply the basics of reason.

Any subjective opinion is formed by choice and expresses

what it is that makes a choice.

To like guacamole, it expresses a love for the way it
tastes. Spontaneous expression of emotion with free will,
thus choosing the opinion, the words that you like it. You
chose the opinion out of the love for the way it tastes.

Facts are obtained by evidence of a creation forcing to
produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it.

The words that guacamole is made from avocado, provides basicly
a 1 to 1 corresponding picture of this process where guacamole
is made from avocado.

That avocado's are a creation means there first were the
possibilities of avocado's existing and not existing, and
then it was chosen to be.

etc.

1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / existence of which is a matter
of chosen opinion
2. Creation / chosen / material / existence of which is a matter
fact forced by evidence

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Yeah, you all lie that talk.origins only censors for
crossposting and spamming. Truth is talk.origins censors all
sorts of posts.

Because you don't give a fuck about freedom of opinion.

[jillery]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 06:07:17 -0700 (PDT), Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Yeah, you all lie that talk.origins only censors for
>crossposting and spamming. Truth is talk.origins censors all
>sorts of posts.
>
>Because you don't give a fuck about freedom of opinion.

Hemidactylus is not T.O.
Jillery is not T.O.
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Subjective opinion is a creationist concept idiot.
You throw out opinion together with throwing out
creationism.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Mohammad Nur Syamsu <mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It makes obvious sense that the mechanism by which things
> originate, would also supply the basics of reason.
>

Not until the advent of the neocortex.

>
> Any subjective opinion is formed by choice and expresses
> what it is that makes a choice.
>

So the people who are genetically disposed to taste cilantro as soap can
choose to taste otherwise?

>
> To like guacamole, it expresses a love for the way it
> tastes. Spontaneous expression of emotion with free will,
> thus choosing the opinion, the words that you like it. You
> chose the opinion out of the love for the way it tastes.
>

The appealing fats have nothing to do with it nor taste buds or current
state of hunger? If I ate guacamole and it made me sick and I developed a
taste aversion how much control have I for preference? Ideological
captivation could inspire me to go on hunger strike and refuse guacamole.
How much control would I have over that really? My sense of resentment over
societal injustice would come from somewhere deep down inside.

>
> Facts are obtained by evidence of a creation forcing to
> produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it.
>

Humans who came across the Bering strait and migrated to Central and South
America developed a taste for avocado. Avocado used to be a food of extinct
large mammals and maybe coevolved:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-the-avocado-should-have-gone-the-way-of-the-dodo-4976527/

An anachronistic fruit.

>
> The words that guacamole is made from avocado, provides basicly
> a 1 to 1 corresponding picture of this process where guacamole
> is made from avocado.
>

1:1? Julia Child you’re not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guacamole

“Guacamole dip is traditionally made by mashing ripe avocados and sea salt
with a molcajete y tejolote (mortar and pestle).[16][17] Recipes call for
lime juice, cilantro (UK English: coriander), jalapeño, onion, and salt.
Some non-traditional recipes call for sour cream, tomatoes, basil, or even
peas.[18]”

>
> That avocado's are a creation means there first were the
> possibilities of avocado's existing and not existing, and
> then it was chosen to be.
>

“Chosen” by megafauna who pooped the pits out?

>
> etc.
>
> 1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / existence of which is a matter
> of chosen opinion
> 2. Creation / chosen / material / existence of which is a matter
> fact forced by evidence
>

https://www.uv.mx/personal/megalindo/files/2010/07/GalindoTovar_325_334_V21.pdf

“The origin of the avocado, as with any other species, cannot be explained
without its histori- cal-geological background (Graham, 1995). Ancestors of
the Lauraceae family originated in Gondwana (Africa) and migrated to
Laurasia (Europe; Raven and Axelrod, 1974). According to Chanderbali et al.
(2001), the Lauraceae orig- inated in Laurasia, from the Gondwanan ances-
tors. Subsequently, one part of the family migrated to Asia, and another,
including the Perseae clade, migrated to North America (Renner, 2004).
Later, when Central America was formed (Miocene-Pliocene) and mountain
building occurred, new habitats emerged and speciation took place due to
geographical isola- tion (Scora and Bergh, 1992). Archaeological evidence
shows that when the climatic condi- tions changed during the Paleocene
glaciations, avocado ancestors migrated from North America to the south and
became established in the more hospitable habitats of Mesoamerica
(Schroeder, 1968; Storey et al., 1986; Scora and Bergh, 1992; Bergh, 1995).
Evidence suggests that the complex geological history of Mexico has been
the main evolutive factor for the avo- cado (Ramamoorthy et al., 1993).”

[stop top posting]

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2019 11:15:43 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>That is typical atheist stupidity.

I didn't know you were an atheist, but I agree; this, along
with all of your posts, exhibits rather extreme stupidity.

I agree; you should try to learn it.

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 06:07:17 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>Yeah, you all lie that talk.origins only censors for
>crossposting and spamming. Truth is talk.origins censors all
>sorts of posts.

Nope.

<CrapSnip>

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 06:04:24 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>It makes obvious sense that the mechanism by which things
>originate, would also supply the basics of reason.

Uh-huh...

It's been brought to my attention that you may be The Moron
Once Known As Nando (TM).

Is that correct? If so, do you still contend that rocks
think?

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 04 Jul 2019 09:15:22 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 06:07:17 -0700 (PDT), Mohammad Nur Syamsu
><mohammad...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, you all lie that talk.origins only censors for
>>crossposting and spamming. Truth is talk.origins censors all
>>sorts of posts.
>>
>>Because you don't give a fuck about freedom of opinion.
>
>
>Hemidactylus is not T.O.
>Jillery is not T.O.

And ignoring or killfiling morons isn't censorship.

>You're entitled to your own opinions.
>You're not entitled to your own facts.

So, since he has no facts, only idiotic opinions, he's not
entitled to anything? Sounds good to me...

[Ron Dean]

I've been away from TO for a while, but this topic caught my interest.
I consider Intelligent design and religion to be on two different
plates. I consider ID to be evidenced by discoveries advanced by
scientist such as Brandon Carter, The late Stephen J. Gould and Niles
Eldridge, Sean B. Carroll. I realize that none of these scientist
accept ID. But the evidence they present, can easily be seen as
evidence for intelligent design and since evidence is often subjective
their interpretation falls with the naturalistic scenario. But I do
not think that evidence in necessarily subjective to philosophical
positions, which naturalism clearly is. While I'm convinced that
there is solid empirical evidence which supports deliberate design
in nature. There is absolutely no empirical evidence which points
to the identity of the inferred designer.

I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.

So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 06:57:35 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>Subjective opinion is a creationist concept idiot.

"Creationist concept idiot"

Sounds right as a designator...

[jillery]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 14:00:41 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
wrote:

>I've been away from TO for a while, but this topic caught my interest.
>I consider Intelligent design and religion to be on two different
>plates. I consider ID to be evidenced by discoveries advanced by
>scientist such as Brandon Carter, The late Stephen J. Gould and Niles
>Eldridge, Sean B. Carroll. I realize that none of these scientist
>accept ID. But the evidence they present, can easily be seen as
>evidence for intelligent design and since evidence is often subjective
>their interpretation falls with the naturalistic scenario. But I do
>not think that evidence in necessarily subjective to philosophical
>positions, which naturalism clearly is. While I'm convinced that
>there is solid empirical evidence which supports deliberate design
>in nature. There is absolutely no empirical evidence which points
>to the identity of the inferred designer.

All evidence can be seen as evidence for ID, since ID makes no
testable distinctions. The difference between ID and naturalism is
the latter actually explains the evidence.

>I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>
>So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Physiologist Dennis Noble who talks about self organizing
systems, also asserts as a basic principle that there is
no evidence of this self.

A curious thing, a scientist principally asserting
there can be no evidence of something he posits.

But logic usurps science, logic dictates there can
be no evidence of what it is that makes a choice.

So the self organizing, the intelligent designer
designing, there can be no evidence of them, because
they operate solely by choice.

But this stil leaves decisionmaking processes
organizing, and designing, open to scientific enquiry.

[Ron Dean]

On 7/4/2019 2:18 PM, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 14:00:41 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>> I've been away from TO for a while, but this topic caught my interest.
>> I consider Intelligent design and religion to be on two different
>> plates. I consider ID to be evidenced by discoveries advanced by
>> scientist such as Brandon Carter, The late Stephen J. Gould and Niles
>> Eldridge, Sean B. Carroll. I realize that none of these scientist
>> accept ID. But the evidence they present, can easily be seen as
>> evidence for intelligent design and since evidence is often subjective
>> their interpretation falls with the naturalistic scenario. But I do
>> not think that evidence in necessarily subjective to philosophical
>> positions, which naturalism clearly is. While I'm convinced that
>> there is solid empirical evidence which supports deliberate design
>> in nature. There is absolutely no empirical evidence which points
>> to the identity of the inferred designer.
>
>
> All evidence can be seen as evidence for ID, since ID makes no
> testable distinctions. The difference between ID and naturalism is
> the latter actually explains the evidence.
>

The work of Fred Hoyle which where he predicted the conditions
necessary for the creation of carbon was later tested and verified,
It is called the triple alpha process. This explain how fine tuning
occurred which resulted in the creation of Carbon and oxygen. While
Hoyle made his prediction in the 1950s, the anthropic Principle wasn't
discovered until two decades later and presented by theoretical
physicist Brandon Carter, a colleague of the late Stephen Hawking,
at a scientific conference at Krakow, Poland in 1973. But the point
is Hoyle's prediction clearly fits the definition of an ID prediction.

>
>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>
>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>
>

[Ernest Major]

Considering that Fred Hoyle rejected the idea of an "intelligent
designer" I can't see how it could be a prediction made from the
assumption of an "intelligent designer" - what on earth do you think an
ID prediction is.

Regardless of when the Anthropic Principle was named, I see Fred Hoyle's
prediction of the C-12 resonance (excited state) that enables the
triple-alpha process as classic example of the application of the
Anthropic Principle - but the Anthropic Principle has nothing to do with
intelligent design. All the (Weak) Anthropic Principle says is that the
fact that we exist means that the universe must be compatible with our
existence. We can exploit that to deduce things about the universe not
observable at the time of deduction.

In the absence of this resonance the normal course of the reaction would
be a+a+a -> a+a+a. Instead we have a+a+a -> C-12* and C-12* decaying
either to a+a+a or C-12 + gamma. It's the presence of the latter branch
which enables the triple alpha process.

However one could argue against a role for the Anthropic Principle in
Fred Hoyle's prediction, in that the prediction is not based on our
existence, but on the existence of carbon and heavier elements in the
universe, in spite of the instability of Be-8.

You do realise that the Anthropic Principle is not a claim that the
purpose of the universe is to allow us to exist?

>
>>
>>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>>
>>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>>
>>
>
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>

--
alias Ernest Major

[Trolidan Troltar]

On 7/3/19 7:43 PM, Oxyaena wrote:> On 7/3/2019 4:16 PM, Trolidan Troltar

Human rights under law only exist if governments
obey the written laws to begin with.

If you institute kangaroo courts like in the Soviet
Union during the time of Stalin, then human rights
do not exist because there are no effective courts to
insure that the police follow the written laws.

People are whisked off to Gulag and tortured in
order to sign confessions years after the fact.

Some of the people in Gulag back then were not
given adequate food in order to survive.

The Consititution of the Soviet Union however
had some wording that was almost identical to
that in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Either way, if a court says that you have shoplifted,
it is generally saying that you did not have the right
to the food in the store.

A wide number of legal systems however recognize
that if you are immobilized and made incapable of
obtaining food on your own by imprisonment, then
if it is not made available to you then you will
eventually die from starvation without food.

If you are sentenced to be imprisoned but prison
conditions mean death, then you are not actually
getting imprisonment but instead execution when
the court has given sentence of imprisonment.

This is another situation where the police or
prison system is not actually following written
procedure.

So under a wide array of legal systems you are
allowed access to food while imprisoned.

I am not sure how widespread prison labor is
throughout the world. In the United States
there is a specific exception in the 13th
amendment that explicitly allows this form
of involuntary servitude, if a court has ordered
it.

I am thinking that in a wide array of circumstances,
the prison labor does not tend to cover the costs
of maintaining the prison.

Either way, if you were to go to prison for shoplifting
a bag of potatoes from a grocery store it might be
debatable whether the prison food would truly be
free or not.

Humans tend to yap for far more than food. Pets
might be satisfied with food only but humans
are much worse.

[Ron Dean]

Fred Hoyle was an atheist.

>
> Regardless of when the Anthropic Principle was named, I see Fred Hoyle's
> prediction of the C-12 resonance (excited state) that enables the
> triple-alpha process as classic example of the application of the
> Anthropic Principle - but the Anthropic Principle has nothing to do with
> intelligent design.
>

Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
Have you read this book.

>
All the (Weak) Anthropic Principle says is that the
> fact that we exist means that the universe must be compatible with our
> existence. We can exploit that to deduce things about the universe not
> observable at the time of deduction.
>
> In the absence of this resonance the normal course of the reaction would
> be a+a+a -> a+a+a. Instead we have a+a+a -> C-12* and C-12* decaying
> either to a+a+a or C-12 + gamma. It's the presence of the latter branch
> which enables the triple alpha process.
>
> However one could argue against a role for the Anthropic Principle in
> Fred Hoyle's prediction, in that the prediction is not based on our
> existence, but on the existence of carbon and heavier elements in the
> universe, in spite of the instability of Be-8.
>
> You do realise that the Anthropic Principle is not a claim that the
> purpose of the universe is to allow us to exist?
>

I do, but I'm not sure, that atheist, under any circumstances, could
acknowledge the very possibility that we _were_ the ultimate purpose
or the final objective behind "design".

[PhantomView]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
wrote:


> >

>Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.

I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
cover and tossed it into the trash bin.

Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.

[Ron Dean]

I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
this book you should know.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/4/19 5:30 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
> On 7/4/2019 5:54 PM, Ernest Major wrote:

>> [...]

>> You do realise that the Anthropic Principle is not a claim that the
>> purpose of the universe is to allow us to exist?
>>
> I do, but I'm not sure, that atheist, under any circumstances, could
> acknowledge the very possibility that we _were_ the ultimate purpose
> or the final objective behind "design".

I'm not sure that a theist, under any circumstances, could rationally
conclude that humans are the ultimate purpose of design. Why would a
designer create millions of wondrous species and omnipresent beautiful
landscapes, and then add one more species to destroy all of that?

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[Ernest Major]

So, you are agreeing that it wasn't an ID predictions?

>>
>> Regardless of when the Anthropic Principle was named, I see Fred
>> Hoyle's prediction of the C-12 resonance (excited state) that enables
>> the triple-alpha process as classic example of the application of the
>> Anthropic Principle - but the Anthropic Principle has nothing to do
>> with intelligent design.
> >
> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
> Have you read this book.

No. But have you. Korthof quotes the book as saying the the Anthropic
Principle is a refutation of design arguments.

http://www.wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho17.htm

'"Salisbury argued that the enormous improbability of a given gene,
which we computed in the text, means that a gene is too unique to come
into being by natural selection acting on chance mutations. WAP
self-selection refutes this argument, as Doolittle in Scientists
confront creationism, ... has also pointed out. " (p575). [WAP=Weak
Anthropic Principle]. (bold is mine).'

You regularly assert that the anthropic principle is evidence for
design, but I've never seen you adduce any reasoning in support of that
assertion.

> >
>  All the (Weak) Anthropic Principle says is that the
>> fact that we exist means that the universe must be compatible with our
>> existence. We can exploit that to deduce things about the universe not
>> observable at the time of deduction.
>>
>> In the absence of this resonance the normal course of the reaction
>> would be a+a+a -> a+a+a. Instead we have a+a+a -> C-12* and C-12*
>> decaying either to a+a+a or C-12 + gamma. It's the presence of the
>> latter branch which enables the triple alpha process.
>>
>> However one could argue against a role for the Anthropic Principle in
>> Fred Hoyle's prediction, in that the prediction is not based on our
>> existence, but on the existence of carbon and heavier elements in the
>> universe, in spite of the instability of Be-8.
>>
>> You do realise that the Anthropic Principle is not a claim that the
>> purpose of the universe is to allow us to exist?
>>
> I do, but I'm not sure, that atheist, under any circumstances, could
> acknowledge the very possibility that we _were_ the ultimate purpose
> or the final objective behind "design".
> >
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>>>>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>>>>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>>>
>>
>>
>

--
alias Ernest Major

[jillery]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 23:37:49 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

wrote:

>On 7/4/2019 9:58 PM, PhantomView wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>
>>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
>>
>> I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
>> cover and tossed it into the trash bin.
>>
>> Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
>> survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.
>>
>I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
>foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
>this book you should know.

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle was published in 1986.
The forward was written by John Wheeler.
The forward uses 3 pages. The book itself has 706 pages.

AOTA can be found on Amazon, so you still don't know if I read the
book.

The point is, NOTA is evidence of *reading* the book. Few people I
know remember such details for most books they have read.

I point this out to show that you don't know how to recognize
evidence. This is one reason why your claims of evidence for ID are
meaningless.

[jillery]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 16:59:47 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

Again with your bald assertion of "clearly".

It's a common scientific practice to extrapolate from what is known in
order to look for what is unknown. That is exactly what happened in
the case you describe above. Based on his then new hypothesis of
stellar nucleosynthesis, he predicted there should exist a process
which created carbon from helium within stars, a process which was
unknown at the time. The triple-alpha process is not evidence of ID,
and Hoyle did not apply ID in order to hypothesize it. Instead, he
used sound theoretical principles.

>>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>>
>>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

See how easily you come to racist ideas about people
being genetically disposed to some behavioir.

The definition of choice in creationism is to make
an alternative future the present. Or, defined as
making a possible future the present or not.

You use a different idea of choosing, the idea of
selecting the best, or most appropiate, option.

The creationist and correct fundamental idea of choice
is spontaneous, and the idea of choosing in terms of what
is best is a complicated way of choosing involving also
sorting.

Your idea that taste can change shows taste is subject
to freedom, and not set in stone.

You are trying to find exceptions to the rule, but
exceptions only prove a rule.

You are totally oblivious to the entire spiritual domain,
including human emotions, choosing which way the material
turns out.

You basically reject the validity of subjectivity, which
in practice can only mean that you have incorporated
subjectivity under objectivity. That you have made subjectivity
into objective facts about brainstates.

And again fraud, the evidence is directly available
in common discourse. Subjective words must be used
by choice, and express what it is that makes a choice.

You can also easily see this is how it works by many
atheists denying free will is real, and calling it an
illusion. They denh free wil to get rid of the unevidenced
human spirit choosing, just as they got rid of the
unevidenced God the holy spirit previous.

But we still use the logic of free will in common
discourse, regardless that many atheists say it is an
illusion.

In any case, you are just another fucking intellectual
fraud who doesn't give a shit about evolution scientists
undermining the concept of subjective opinion.

Exhalting in feelings of factual certitude, disregarding
subjective opinion, even when your factual certitude
about speculative genetic predispositions of mechanical
assertions of taste, is a bit thin.

[Ron Dean]

On 7/5/2019 1:31 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/4/19 5:30 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
>> On 7/4/2019 5:54 PM, Ernest Major wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> You do realise that the Anthropic Principle is not a claim that the
>>> purpose of the universe is to allow us to exist?
>>>
>> I do, but I'm not sure, that atheist, under any circumstances, could
>> acknowledge the very possibility that we _were_ the ultimate purpose
>> or the final objective behind "design".
>
> I'm not sure that a theist, under any circumstances, could rationally
> conclude that humans are the ultimate purpose of design.  Why would a
> designer create millions of wondrous species and omnipresent beautiful
> landscapes, and then add one more species to destroy all of that?
>

A final note from the late Stephen Hawking in his book "A Brief History
of Time".

if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by
everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers,
scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the
discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.
If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human
reason -- for then we should know the mind of God. (p.193)

I realize Hawking was an atheist, but there is a theological implication
in the statement and no doubt Hawking realized this. Why at the last
moments he did not delete this sentence, who knows and he cannot provide
an answer!

[Vincent Maycock]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 10:00:33 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
wrote:

<snip>

>I realize Hawking was an atheist, but there is a theological implication
>in the statement

Would you agree with this "theological implication"?

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 10:00:33 -0400, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>:

Ummm... You seem to have failed to answer the question.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 05:27:57 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>See how easily you come to racist ideas about people
>being genetically disposed to some behavioir.

I agree that is wrong. So please refute the idea of "genetic
disposition" by showing the group that despite your genetic
heritage you *can* fly like a bird, by jumping off the
nearest cliff.

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

How can you be an idiot for decades?

[PhantomView]

On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 23:37:49 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

wrote:

>On 7/4/2019 9:58 PM, PhantomView wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>
>>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
>>
>> I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
>> cover and tossed it into the trash bin.
>>
>> Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
>> survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.
>>
>I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
>foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
>this book you should know.

That was WAY back when it first came out ... it had a
pretty kind of neo-psychedelic cover and was about
an inch and a quarter thick (paperback version).
BTW, I think it was "Cosmological Anthropic Principle".
Total waste of my limited funds.

Mixing the term 'anthropic' with anything about the
universe is purest mystical hubris. The universe
*just is* and our kind are not on its proverbial mind.
A ten or fifteen degree global temperature swing
in either direction will put an end to this sort of
ego trip permanently.

[PhantomView]

On Fri, 05 Jul 2019 07:26:46 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

I eventually googled cover pictures ... none of the current
ones (a fancy window or some "string lady") match the
original paperback I bought - and then defiled to prevent
others from becoming contaminated. Mine was more
like a quasi-spiral mosaic of colored fish scales, favoring
mangenta.

WE are the result of what the environment around us
allows, not because the environment somehow bends
to service our needs. If anyone wants to call that the
"weakest anthropic principle" I will still be annoyed
because combining 'anthropic' and 'cosmos' still
implies some oddly mystical linkage which really is
not there at all except in the over-inflated egos of
certain individuals.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 6 July 2019 02:55:02 UTC+1, PhantomView wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 23:37:49 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On 7/4/2019 9:58 PM, PhantomView wrote:
> >> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>>
> >>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
> >>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
> >>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
> >>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
> >>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
> >>
> >> I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
> >> cover and tossed it into the trash bin.
> >>
> >> Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
> >> survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.
> >>
> >I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
> >foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
> >this book you should know.
>
> That was WAY back when it first came out ... it had a
> pretty kind of neo-psychedelic cover and was about
> an inch and a quarter thick (paperback version).
> BTW, I think it was "Cosmological Anthropic
> Principle".

It appears not. But they changed the first
Harry Potter title...

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 11:23:11 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mohammad Nur Syamsu
<mohammad...@gmail.com>:

>How can you be an idiot for decades?

Wrong question. Correct question: "Which cliff?"

BTW, have you stopped jerking off in front of the mirror?
Yes or no, please.

[Ron Dean]

On 7/5/2019 11:45 AM, Vincent Maycock wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 10:00:33 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I realize Hawking was an atheist, but there is a theological implication
>> in the statement
>
> Would you agree with this "theological implication"?
>

On pages 124 & 125 he briefly discusses the anthropic principle, but
then he turned to the multiverse hypothesis, suggesting that maybe many
other universes, some may be beautiful, but there would be no one to
enjoy their beauty.
I know Hawking was an atheist. My question is why did he not remove
it, or why did he write it into his script in the first place. Is it
possible that after he did his research, this unforeseen theological
implication gave him pause?

>
>> and no doubt Hawking realized this.
>

[Ron Dean]

OK I believe you did read it. So I withdraw my comment and
I apologize to you.

[Ron Dean]

On 7/5/2019 9:50 PM, PhantomView wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 23:37:49 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 7/4/2019 9:58 PM, PhantomView wrote:
>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>>>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>>>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>>>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>>>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
>>>
>>> I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
>>> cover and tossed it into the trash bin.
>>>
>>> Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
>>> survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.
>>>
>> I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
>> foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
>> this book you should know.
>
> That was WAY back when it first came out ... it had a
> pretty kind of neo-psychedelic cover and was about
> an inch and a quarter thick (paperback version).
> BTW, I think it was "Cosmological Anthropic Principle".
> Total waste of my limited funds.
>

I question that!
The book I have is entitled "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle".

>
> Mixing the term 'anthropic' with anything about the
> universe is purest mystical hubris. The universe
> *just is* and our kind are not on its proverbial mind.
> A ten or fifteen degree global temperature swing
> in either direction will put an end to this sort of
> ego trip permanently.
>
>

[Ron Dean]

On 7/5/2019 7:26 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 23:37:49 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 7/4/2019 9:58 PM, PhantomView wrote:
>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 20:30:25 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>>>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>>>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>>>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>>>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
>>>
>>> I read that book ... then I wrote "This is crap" on the
>>> cover and tossed it into the trash bin.
>>>
>>> Sorry, the universe isn't FOR us. We just manage to
>>> survive the artifacts of its indifference ... so far.
>>>
>> I don't believe you. When was it published: who wrote the
>> foreword and approximately how many pages? If you read
>> this book you should know.
>
>
> The Anthropic Cosmological Principle was published in 1986.
> The forward was written by John Wheeler.
> The forward uses 3 pages. The book itself has 706 pages.
>
> AOTA can be found on Amazon, so you still don't know if I read the
> book.
>

Right, But I could question you further, and arrive at a reasonable
conclusion!

>
> The point is, NOTA is evidence of *reading* the book. Few people I
> know remember such details for most books they have read.
>
> I point this out to show that you don't know how to recognize
> evidence. This is one reason why your claims of evidence for ID are
> meaningless.
>

[Ron Dean]

Of course, Hoyle's prediction was decades before the phrase "Intelligent
design" appeared. So, naturally we should not expect him to use this
term. The same holds true for the term "fine tuning", Nevertheless and
even-though he was an atheist, he made this statement after his
prediction was tested: (quote)
"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super
intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and
biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in
nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so
overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond
question." - Fred Hoyle

I realize to say that to forge carbon and oxygen thru fine tuning is a
very controversial idea, because of it's implications. So, whether or
not the triple alpha process represents fine tuning - it comes down to
overriding considerations. And for People committed to naturalism, this
is absolute: naturalism takes precedence over all considerations. So,
it should not be a surprise that there are people who seek to refute
the fine tuning in this case.


Fine Tuning?
The triple alpha process is extremely important is determining the
elemental composition of the universe and allowing life as we know it to
exist. Yet that the process occurs at all is somewhat improbable, as its
discovers showed it was only made possible by the complex interplay of
physical constants that cause the excited resonance of C-12 to occur
where it does. The philosophical and scientific implications of this
have prompted much discussion. I found this:

"Since we exist, the laws of the universe must be compatible with our
existence. As a philosophic argument, this is known as the anthropic
principle and occasionally used as explanation after the facts are
determined for why the laws of the universe are what they are. Using it
to make testable predictions is another matter; it has been claimed that
the prediction of the Hoyle state is the only successful case of
anthropic argument to predict a physical phenomena in the history of
science. [5] This is disputed, based on the fact Hoyle's papers in the
1950s do not mention the anthropic argument, and it was only associated
with the prediction of the Hoyle State by various figures, including
Hoyle, decades later. [6] While answering such questions may be outside
the domain of science, one area that can be examined is just how
fine-tuned the triple alpha process is, or how much it would vary if
universal constants did. The answer appears to be that the triple alpha
process is actually quite fine tuned, with one group estimating in 2000
that variation in the strong force and Coulomb forces outside a narrow
window would drastically affect the production in the universe of
carbon, oxygen, or both. [2] However, it is important to note that while
the prevalence of the triple alpha process in its current form may
require finely tuned universal constants, by itself that not necessarily
mean that the Universe or life requires finely tuned universal
constants. It has been argued that with different universal physical
constants, a stable isotope with atomic mass 8 could exist, possible
eliminating altogether the need for the triple alpha process in order to
produce carbon or heavier elements. [

large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/udit2/
>
The fact that Hoyld did not mention the Anthropic Principle, is an
argument against the Anthropic principle?

>
>>>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>>>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>>>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>>>
>>>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>

[Ron Dean]

Hoyle knew nothing of the term "intelligent Design". So, the comment
that he never used the phrase doesn't discount it considering the
did make the following statement after the test was completed and his
prediction verified::

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super
intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and
biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in
nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so
overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond
question." - Fred Hoyle
>>>

>>> Regardless of when the Anthropic Principle was named, I see Fred
>>> Hoyle's prediction of the C-12 resonance (excited state) that enables
>>> the triple-alpha process as classic example of the application of the
>>> Anthropic Principle - but the Anthropic Principle has nothing to do
>>> with intelligent design.
>>  >
>> Really! I think the Anthropic Principle is evidence supporting ID.
>> I read a book entitled Called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle",
>> by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler. This book more than anything
>> else convinced me of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, a very
>> difficult book, but the "coincidences" seem to demonstrate design.
>> Have you read this book.
>
> No. But have you. Korthof quotes the book as saying the the Anthropic
> Principle is a refutation of design arguments.
>
> http://www.wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho17.htm
>

Clearly, he was able to discredit the week long creation event. But
I did not see where he was able to argue against the design, except
where he says: " ...
any argument telling us we could not have evolved, simply and clearly
must be wrong. It is obvious that the authors implicitly reject any
(divine) intervention in natural processes. And everyone who accepts
that science works exclusively with natural causes, must come to the
same conclusion. WAP can eliminate theories and calculations that 'deny'
our existence, but has nothing to say about which theory explaining our
existence, is right."
>
There is no doubt that Korthof was highly impressed with this book he
wrote: "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle is the most impressive book
I read the last decade. If this book does anything: it places life on
earth in its cosmological context. Life and the universe will never be
the same after this book!"
>
When the anthropic principle was proposed at a scientific conference
in Polannd in !073, by Brandon Careter, a coellogue of the late Stephen
Hawking, It seems obvious that John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler was very
impressed. Which inspired this book in question.
>
Again I struggled through this book twice. For the most part, to me it
was difficult. The writer described a large number of "coincidence"
which - right or wrong - I considered this as evidence of design.
IF you haven't read the book, I think you are missing a very interesting
subject.

>
> '"Salisbury argued that the enormous improbability of a given gene,
> which we computed in the text, means that a gene is too unique to come
> into being by natural selection acting on chance mutations. WAP
> self-selection refutes this argument, as Doolittle in Scientists
> confront creationism, ... has also pointed out. " (p575). [WAP=Weak
> Anthropic Principle]. (bold is mine).'
>
> You regularly assert that the anthropic principle is evidence for
> design, but I've never seen you adduce any reasoning in support of that
> assertion.
>

Fine tuning of the 2 dozen of so constants I believe strongly imply
deliberate design. Professor Leonard and Martin Rees maintain that
the cosmological constant, an ant-gravity force could not vary by one
part in 10^123 parts.
If it did we would not be here. And this is on one of the
constants that had to be held to extremely close tolerances, like
one or 2%. If this is true, what are the chances of this just
happening the result of random, unguided natural processes? But
after discussing these universal constants, Dr, Susskind turns to
the multiverse hypothesis.

[Ron Dean]

the cosmological constant, a kind of anti-gravity force a tiny
.000...123 zeros could not vary by one part in 10^123 parts. If it

did we would not be here. And this is on one of the
constants that had to be held to extremely close tolerances, like
one or 2%. If this is true, what are the chances of this just
happening the result of random, unguided natural processes? But
after discussing these universal constants, Dr, Susskind turns to
the multiverse hypothesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cT4zZIHR3s&t=461s

[jillery]

On Sat, 6 Jul 2019 18:04:05 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

Then why ask the above questions in the first place? Instead just
start with whatever you would ask further.

>> The point is, NOTA is evidence of *reading* the book. Few people I
>> know remember such details for most books they have read.
>>
>> I point this out to show that you don't know how to recognize
>> evidence. This is one reason why your claims of evidence for ID are
>> meaningless.

[jillery]

On Sat, 6 Jul 2019 20:11:39 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

That's a pointlessly pedantic comment. The issue is not what a
concept is called, but the concept itself. The concept of ID has been
floating around for centuries. And Holye did not invoke that concept
when hypothesizing the triple-alpha process.

>So, naturally we should not expect him to use this
>term. The same holds true for the term "fine tuning", Nevertheless and
>even-though he was an atheist, he made this statement after his
>prediction was tested: (quote)
>"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super
>intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and
>biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in
>nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so
>overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond
>question." - Fred Hoyle

I looked for the source of that quote, but could not find it. Instead,
I found dozens of websites which also quote it without identifying the
context in which Hoyle allegedly said or wrote it. At the very least,
the context would identify what facts to which Hoyle refers, and
whether Hoyle backed up his opinions, or was just preaching to the
choir.

Either way, Hoyle was just one person. Even though he was brilliant
and was first to hypothesize stellar nucleosynthesis, he was also
human with human prejudices. Just as he was ultimately proved wrong
about Steady State, he was proved wrong about his "commonsense
interpretation of the facts".

>I realize to say that to forge carbon and oxygen thru fine tuning is a
>very controversial idea, because of it's implications. So, whether or
>not the triple alpha process represents fine tuning - it comes down to
>overriding considerations. And for People committed to naturalism, this
>is absolute: naturalism takes precedence over all considerations. So,
>it should not be a surprise that there are people who seek to refute
>the fine tuning in this case.

Again you assume motives not in evidence. Instead, try to recognize
that the people whose motives you impugn above, base their opinions on
physical evidence.

Since you asked, no. Instead it's an argument against *your*
argument, that the triple-alpha process is evidence for ID. You're
welcome.

>>>>> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
>>>>> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
>>>>> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.

[Burkhard]

Ron Dean wrote:
> On 6/30/2019 2:23 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> ID has been discussed numerous times here and there were a couple of
>> lengthy discussions initiated by MarkE not too long ago. Those
>> discussions, however, mostly focused on how ID fails from a scientific
>> perspective but I think ID also fails from a religious perspective and
>> that has not received as much attention as it could. The main ways in
>> which I think it falls down in religious terms are as follows.
>>
>> I think the first way that it fails is the underlying subterfuge to
>> the arguments presented. The ID movement started out of the Wedge
>> Strategy which had two stated Governing Goals:
>> "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural
>> and political legacies.
>> To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding
>> that nature and human beings are created by God" [1]
>>
>> The movement is clearly an evangelical, Christian one. As a religious
>> believer, I don't have any fundamental issue with those objectives
>> though I do think they are taking a rather simplistic view of the
>> correlation between advances in science and the decline in traditional
>> morals and culture.
>>
>> Where I do have a problem, is that they try to hide these objectives
>> and pretend that there is no religious agenda involved by replacing
>> the concept of God with some sort of vague "intelligent designer"
>> which people are left to interpret in whatever way they want. The main
>> promoters of the ID movement are almost exclusively committed
>> Christians and they clearly regard this intelligent designer as the
>> Christian God. Indeed, various leaders of the ID movement have been
>> open about that when talking to audiences that support their views.
>> For example, William Dembski has stated that "The conceptual soundings
>> of the [intelligent design] theory can in the end only be located in
>> Christ [2] and Philip Johnson said that "ID is an intellectual
>> movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as
>> just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. [...]
>> The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens
>> up for them some doors that have been closed." [3]

>
>
>>
> I've been away from TO for a while, but this topic caught my interest.
> I consider Intelligent design and religion to be on two different
> plates. I consider ID to be evidenced by discoveries advanced by
> scientist such as Brandon Carter, The late Stephen J. Gould and Niles
> Eldridge, Sean B. Carroll. I realize that none of these scientist
> accept ID. But the evidence they present, can easily be seen as
> evidence for intelligent design and since evidence is often subjective
> their interpretation falls with the naturalistic scenario. But I do
> not think that evidence in necessarily subjective to philosophical
> positions, which naturalism clearly is. While I'm convinced that
> there is solid empirical evidence which supports deliberate design
> in nature. There is absolutely no empirical evidence which points
> to the identity of the inferred designer.
>

> I realize there are people who _believe_ the designer is the God
> a matter of _faith_. There is absolutely nothing in ID pointing to
> the identity of the designer. Therefore, there is no way to know.

Oh, but on the contrary, your own "evidence" tells us a quite a bit
about the designer. You claim e.g. that punctuated equilibrium points to
design. But that means that the designer periodically creates new
species and kills off those they don't like any longer, and continue to
do so.

Congratulations, you just scientifically disproved Christianity!

>
> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>

<snip>

[Vincent Maycock]

On Sat, 6 Jul 2019 17:52:17 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>

wrote:

>On 7/5/2019 11:45 AM, Vincent Maycock wrote:
>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 10:00:33 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> I realize Hawking was an atheist, but there is a theological implication
>>> in the statement
>>
>> Would you agree with this "theological implication"?
> >
>On pages 124 & 125 he briefly discusses the anthropic principle, but
>then he turned to the multiverse hypothesis, suggesting that maybe many
>other universes, some may be beautiful, but there would be no one to
>enjoy their beauty.
>I know Hawking was an atheist. My question is why did he not remove
>it, or why did he write it into his script in the first place. Is it
>possible that after he did his research, this unforeseen theological
>implication gave him pause?

Does this supposed theological implication give you pause, and if so
how?

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/6/19 6:55 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
[...]

> Fine tuning of the 2 dozen of so constants I believe strongly imply
> deliberate design.

If the universe is fine-tuned for life, how do you explain the fact that
at least 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the universe is inimical to
life?

[Öö Tiib]

On Sunday, 7 July 2019 19:15:02 UTC+3, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/6/19 6:55 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
> [...]
> > Fine tuning of the 2 dozen of so constants I believe strongly imply
> > deliberate design.
>
> If the universe is fine-tuned for life, how do you explain the fact that
> at least 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the universe is inimical to
> life?

We are capable to observe about 4% of our Universe if it is there.
About rest we have circumstantial evidence and use placeholder
names like "Dark" to it.

If there is God, then most likely we live in simulation of how we
make local more-scient, -present and -potent beings than we
ourselves are and how we then deal with that interesting situation.
Rest of the crap in simulation is fine-tuned to be outside of our
reach, empty, desolate, non-communicative and also economically
uninteresting so for to keep us working on the project of
interest. And the effects of "Dark" stuff may be are just defects
in less interesting parts of simulation. ;)

[Ron Dean]

On 7/7/2019 3:20 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Jul 2019 20:11:39 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 7/5/2019 7:56 AM, jillery wrote:
>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 16:59:47 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 7/4/2019 2:18 PM, jillery wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 14:00:41 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>>>>> wrote:

><snip>

This seems to be the characteristic of all quotes regardless of who
is being quoted. But in any case, this is one site of Hoyle's quotes.
>
https://www.azquotes.com/author/6972-Fred_Hoyle

>
> Either way, Hoyle was just one person. Even though he was brilliant
> and was first to hypothesize stellar nucleosynthesis, he was also
> human with human prejudices. Just as he was ultimately proved wrong
> about Steady State, he was proved wrong about his "commonsense
> interpretation of the facts".
>

This is true, but Hoyle like Einstein believed in an eternal universe
without a beginning. This was convention before Hubble proved the
universe was expanding, even though Einstein's general theory of
relativity did point to a universe which had a beginning and possibly an
end.

>
>> I realize to say that to forge carbon and oxygen thru fine tuning is a
>> very controversial idea, because of it's implications. So, whether or
>> not the triple alpha process represents fine tuning - it comes down to
>> overriding considerations. And for People committed to naturalism, this
>> is absolute: naturalism takes precedence over all considerations. So,
>> it should not be a surprise that there are people who seek to refute
>> the fine tuning in this case.
>
> Again you assume motives not in evidence. Instead, try to recognize
> that the people whose motives you impugn above, base their opinions on
> physical evidence.
>

People have difficulty shaking their biases. Even Einstein noting that
his theory indications were contrary to convention, he altered his
theory the reflect his belief. He called this the "cosmological
constant" which he worked out to be zero. He later called this the
greatest mistake of his career.

So, its quite obvious humans, all of us, are subject biases even when
these biases are conflicted by facts, all too often our biases take
precedence over facts. It could even happen to the great scientist Einstein.

Fine tuning is not just my argument. This is from Wikipedia
>
There is Main article: Fine-tuned universe
Carbon is a necessary component of all known life. 12C, a stable isotope
of carbon, is abundantly produced in stars due to three factors:

1.The decay lifetime of a 8Be nucleus is four orders of magnitude larger
than the time for two 4He nuclei (alpha particles) to scatter.[15]
2.An excited state of the 12C nucleus exists a little (0.3193 MeV) above
the energy level of 8Be + 4He. This is necessary because the ground
state of 12C is 7.3367 MeV below the energy of 8Be + 4He. Therefore, a
8Be nucleus and a 4He nucleus cannot reasonably fuse directly into a
ground-state 12C nucleus. The excited Hoyle state of 12C is 7.656 MeV
above the ground state of 12C. This allows 8Be and 4He to use the
kinetic energy of their collision to fuse into the excited 12C, which
can then transition to its stable ground state. According to one
calculation, the energy level of this excited state must be between
about 7.3 and 7.9 MeV to produce sufficient carbon for life to exist,
and must be further "fine-tuned" to between 7.596 MeV and 7.716 MeV in
order to produce the abundant level of 12C observed in nature.[16]
3.In the reaction 12C + 4He → 16O, there is an excited state of oxygen
which, if it were slightly higher, would provide a resonance and speed
up the reaction. In that case, insufficient carbon would exist in
nature; almost all of it would have converted to oxygen.[15]
Some scholars argue the 7.656 MeV Hoyle resonance, in particular, is
unlikely to be the product of mere chance. Fred Hoyle argued in 1982
that the Hoyle resonance was evidence of a "superintellect";[10] Leonard
Susskind in The Cosmic Landscape rejects Hoyle's intelligent design
argument.[17] Instead, some scientists believe that different universes,
portions of a vast "multiverse", have different fundamental
constants:[18] according to this controversial fine-tuning hypothesis,
life can only evolve in the minority of universes where the fundamental
constants happen to be fine-tuned to support the existence of life.
Other scientists reject the hypothesis of the multiverse on account of
the lack of independent evidence.[19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process
>
It seems to me, this quote by Fred Hoyle shows that he actually
predicated and anticipated the anthropic principle many years before
Brandon Carter presented it at a scientific symposium in honor of
Copernicus 500/Th birthday in 1973 at Krakow Poland:
>
“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe
looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of
nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been
quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and
special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be
necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist.
Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle,
the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect
has monkeyed with physics".

To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a
designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics.
Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that
one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you
need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us.
The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned
very precisely, or the universe would be sterile.

Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the
other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the
universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No
protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry,
no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the
universe seems to be just right for life.”
― Paul Davies

tags: anthropic-principle, chance, coincidence, fine-tuning, fred-hoyle,
id, intelligent-design, science, serendipity, theism
>
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/fred-hoyle

[Ron Dean]

On 7/7/2019 12:12 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 7/6/19 6:55 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
> [...]
>> Fine tuning of the 2 dozen of so constants I believe strongly imply
>> deliberate design.
>
> If the universe is fine-tuned for life, how do you explain the fact that
> at least 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the universe is inimical to
> life?
>

And there is no life in this part of the universe.

[Ron Dean]

On 7/7/2019 9:39 AM, Vincent Maycock wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Jul 2019 17:52:17 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 7/5/2019 11:45 AM, Vincent Maycock wrote:
>>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2019 10:00:33 -0400, Ron Dean <"Ron Dean"@gmail.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> I realize Hawking was an atheist, but there is a theological implication
>>>> in the statement
>>>
>>> Would you agree with this "theological implication"?
>>>
>> On pages 124 & 125 he briefly discusses the anthropic principle, but
>> then he turned to the multiverse hypothesis, suggesting that maybe many
>> other universes, some may be beautiful, but there would be no one to
>> enjoy their beauty.
>> I know Hawking was an atheist. My question is why did he not remove
>> it, or why did he write it into his script in the first place. Is it
>> possible that after he did his research, this unforeseen theological
>> implication gave him pause?
>
> Does this supposed theological implication give you pause, and if so
> how?
>

When I first read this book, not long after it was published, I had
become a agnostic with atheist leanings. But if this had any effect, I
don't think so. What about you? Did this have any effect on you?

[Ron Dean]

I don't think the designer is involved with micro-managing the universe
or life. There is no reason to think the designer has been involved
since it set everything up to run on it's own. So, I do not understand
where anything I wrote has anything to do with Christianity, Judaism or
Islam or any other religion.

>
>>
>> So, I do not have the same misgivings about ID as you obviously do.
>>
> <snip>
>

[Burkhard]

You have given punctuated equilibrium as evidence for design. Punctuated
equilibrium you described as the sudden appearance of fossils "fully
formed" species (whatever that means) and their sudden disappearance.
Assuming counterfactually that this is indeed evidence for design, it
would mean the designer creates and continues to create new species de
novo (the abrupt appearance) and equally abruptly removes them. That
type of designer would rather obviously be incompatible with mainstream
Judaeo-Christian thinking.

[Mark Isaak]

On 7/7/19 12:01 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
> On 7/7/2019 12:12 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 7/6/19 6:55 PM, Ron Dean wrote:
>> [...]
>>> Fine tuning of the 2 dozen of so constants I believe strongly imply
>>> deliberate design.
>>
>> If the universe is fine-tuned for life, how do you explain the fact
>> that at least 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the universe is
>> inimical to life?
>>
> And there is no life in this part of the universe.

???