Stephen Jones wrote:
>Reflectorites
>
>This will be my last post for a while (what's that cheering? :-)).
>I have exams in a week!
>
>On Sat, 10 Jun 2000 22:51:32 -0700, Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>
>>SJ>ID does not even have "a deity" at all. Todd Moody is "an agnostic".
>
>CL>An intelligent entity capable of creating life, manipulating it etc,
>>seems pretty deistic to me.
>
>The point is that one can be "agnostic" about the Designer. One could
>believe the Designer to be "deistic", theistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, or
>just leave the identity of the Designer unresolved "agnostic". Fred Hoyle's
>"intelligent universe" (and maybe Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis) would
>probably be acceptable under ID.
>
>At its most basic, ID claims that there is empirically detectable evidence of
>design in nature. There is no need for it to speculate on the Designer.
In fact, it is *required* that no speculation be done on who did the
designing. That would automatically cause ID to fail the Lemon test. That's
why it is vital for the ID movement to sanitize their product of any
whisper about who the designer might be.
------
The Supreme Court has forged a three-part "Lemon test" (Lemon v. Kurtzman,
1971) to determine if a law is permissible under the First-Amendment
religion clauses.
1. A law must have a secular purpose.
2. It must have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits
religion.
3. It must avoid excessive entanglement of church and state.
------
>CL>I guess I just have a built-in prejudice
>>in favor of naturalistic explanation.
>
>I admire Cliff's honesty and self-awareness here. He at least acknowledges
>his prior "built-in prejudice in favor of naturalistic explanation". But then
>he should also acknowledge that his repeated requests that I provide
>evidence for ID is therefore meaningless.
>
>Even if design had in fact taken place, my marshalling of evidence for it
>would make no difference to Cliff. His "built-in prejudice in favor of
>naturalistic explanation" would always convert my real design into his
>*apparent* design!
>
>The question Cliff might ask himself is, how could his position ever be
>falsified? That is, if design was real, how would Cliff ever know it?
design cannot be detected. It can only be apparent. "It looks designed to
me" is irrefutable. Yep, sure does! (look designed to you) in much the
same way that a cloud can look like a horsie or a duckie. There's no way to
tell if the cloud was molded into the shape of a horse/duck by a guiding
intelligence or if it formed that way by natural forces.
Susan
----------
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our
actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only
morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
--Albert Einstein
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 13 2000 - 11:10:37 EDT