11/25/09

In Which I Agree With Richard Dawkins on Intelligent Design

Please note that this essay will now be housed in True Freethinker’s section on Richard Dawkins
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Posted by Ken
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6 comments:

  1. StuartNovember 25, 2009 at 11:45 AM

    Brilliant as usual

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  2. mmcelhaneyNovember 25, 2009 at 11:52 AM

    I hate that argument: "Who designed God?" Such a question shows a total lack of understanding about who and what the Bible says God is. It presuppposes that God is like us...having a beginning...that there was a point in time that he came into existence - meaning that prior to that He did not exist. They are confused. I really like this post. It's brilliant and funny in a tongue-in-cheek way - my favorite humor.

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  3. XtnYodaNovember 25, 2009 at 3:39 PM

    I read somewhere where Sagan had decided that life had to have come here from some other world/place for genetics and evolution needed more time than the typical 12 or so billion years... I think it was in Time mag several years ago...

    Fun post here sir!

    Thanks for stopping by!

    chuck

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  4. HumblePieNovember 25, 2009 at 4:26 PM

    When we seek an explanation of origins, we're not simply trying to assign a label to what we don't understand. An explanation is very different than a label--it takes a big mysterious thing and breaks it down into something that we can use to make predictions about it.

    For example, if we ask, "Where do apples come from?", "The store" isn't a very satisfying answer. But if we talk about tree and photosynthesis and hybridization and evolution, we begin to really understand what's behind the apple.

    God is just a label. The multiverse is just a label. Evolution describes a process--an actual explanation.

    We don't ask "Where did God come from?" because of some metaphysical requirement for a first cause. We ask because of a desire for an ultimate explanation. We have something mysterious like the Universe and we want to break it down into something we can understand. God is an unsatifying answer, because it it is a label on our ignorance rather than a model that we can use for prediction.

    At the same time, I understand why theists are frustrated when atheists ask the question, because God terminates the metaphysical regress. But just recognize why atheists keep asking. It's because God doesn't terminate the explanation regress.

    Take care.

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  5. KenNovember 28, 2009 at 12:20 PM

    HumblePie,
    Thanks for your comments.

    God is a perfectly valid terminus of the finite regress as per my pink/unicorns essay.

    Also, God is perfectly valid for making scientific predictions. And I do not mean that scientific predictions in the Bible already such as that the universe had a beginning, that our bodies are composed of the stuff of the Earth, the first law of thermodynamics, etc.
    I refer to the fact that, for example, employing the concept of God that we may logically and scientifically infer; we would predict the creation of universe that is minutely fine tuned for life and we are uncovering this fact more and more everyday.

    If it may be said that theists are the least bit frustrated when atheists ask the question it is because it is deeply fallacious and demonstrates a basic knowledge of even natural theology.

    aDios,
    Mariano

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  6. AnonymousJanuary 1, 2010 at 9:49 AM

    I had hoped that in the 21st century intelligent people wouldn't still need to debate theists. Simply because over and over and over again during history theists believes have been demonstrated wrong by evidence and facts and millions of people have been massacred in name of these believes.

    I'll probably will not live long enough, but the day will come when leaders of some religions will be charged for crimes against humanity at the Hague tribunal.
    It would sign the victory of the human spirit and the defeat of the brainwashers of our kids.

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