Re: Human designers vs. God-as-designer

From: Ralph Krumdieck (ralphkru@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU)
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 11:15:48 EDT

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    >
    >Chris
    > >Finally, echoing Arnhart, the theistic ID position is based almost entirely
    > >on ignorance. It's the "God of the Gaps," again. Since we do not *know* how
    > >life originated, we *cannot* argue that it must have been design. Since we
    > >do not have *any* specific evidence of an actual *instance* of divine
    > >intervention (and just how would we know it was *divine* intervention,
    > >anyway?), we cannot claim to know that such interventions have occurred.
    > >The strongest claim we can make is that we are *ignorant* of such things.
    > >And ignorance means *ignorance*, not an excuse to make any damn arbitrary
    > >claim we happen to want to believe because it fits our desires or religious
    > >beliefs. (This is something many of the *non-theistic* ID theorists need to
    > >learn as well (Bertvan?).)
    >
    >Hi Chris,
    >I have stated repeatedly that a profession of ignorance would be acceptable
    >to me. And ignorance means ignorance, not an excuse to make such arbitrary
    >claim such as, "We know exactly how it happened. It was random variation and
    >natural selection," just because that is the only explanation we can think of
    >that fits a materialistic philosophy. I'm convinced there was a lot more to
    >it than that simplistic explanation.
    >Bertvan

    But what do you find simplistic about random variation and natural selection?
    The strict creationist (God did it all) is very simplistic, comparatively
    speaking.
    The blended creationist/evolution position (God or aliens or whatever started
    it, evolution did the rest) is a little more complicated but still has the
    simplistic
    notion of God (or someone or something) did it at the start. To inject ID
    into
    the random variation and natural selection picture simplifies things, since
    tough spots can be gotten over by saying Intelligence did it. It seems to me
    that random variation and natural selection is the most complicated of the lot
    since there is no appeal to superior beings or talents.
    ralph



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