From: Jan de Koning (jan@dekoning.ca)
Date: Sat Sep 13 2003 - 16:24:28 EDT
At 10:37 PM 11/09/2003 -0500, Keith Miller wrote:
>But what you describe is simply not science. I see no way that divine
>action can be a part of scientific description. Divine agency is almost
>by definition a black box - a divine agent can theoretically explain
>everything and thus nothing. Science is a method by which we attempt to
>discover processes and mechanisms at work in nature. It is a limited
>endeaver. To try to make "science" into some overarching all encompassing
>search for truth is to undermine the very methods by which we evaluate the
>validity of scientific explanations. I have yet to see a description of
>what the ID scientific method is - other than simply to allow
>metaphysical speculation as part of scientific description (which is not a
>methodology at all).
>
>Keith
When I went first to university some 50 years ago, one of the first courses
I was taking (and which I had to take) at the Free University was a
philosophy course which described in detail how all of life, all of our
studies, were part of God`s creation, and were combined in one view of the
totality of life. That statement made it necessary to have a look at the
Bible as well. But then the Bible, not in a ``modern`` translation, even
if the translation was almost 500 years old.
Our readings showed how translations in `Modern` times always included
modern thoughts. We spent hours on the Old Testament comparing texts with
words like `nephesh`, `leeb` , `ruach` and discovered that, for example the
word including nephesh was translated in Gen. 1 as living being, because it
was talking about animals, but in Gen.2 it was translated as living soul,
because man was meant. Clearly at least one was not a literal
translation, but forced by our philosophical background. Our prof.
impressed upon us that our reading, be it translations or anything else,
was always colouring our understanding.
Consequently, trying to discuss on this listing anything more than some
basic facts and pointing to interesting studies is impossible. Debating
basic philosophical understandings of our reading of the Bible would
involve us in discussing bible translations, history of bible translations,
history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, basic knowledge of
scientific research etc. etc. All things requiring years of study,
intersting, but impossible on a list like ours.
Jan de Koning
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