Apologists wasting their talent

[_Mercury]

Say Light, you're quoting me here, not Dude.

Yah, id have to observe that there is a great deal of inability to perform proper citations, whether they be of professionals or douchebags.

[_guy sajer]

I think ALitD is responding to my snide dismissal, Guy Sajer. Actually, it was a joke and not really an attempt at a dismissal at all. I realize creationism looks outside the Bible for scientific evidence of the creation of life on earth (as long as it corresponds to their presupposition that God created it in six days). Some non-fundamentalists are happy to support intelligent design, and aren't concerned with Biblical literalism. My reply was a joke and I guess our Point of Light didn't get it.

KA

Ok, thanks for clarification.

Out of sincere curiosity, what would be an example of credible empirical evidence for intelligent design that is uniquely explainable within an ID framework (and thus could not be accounted for within an evolution framework)?

[_Coggins7]

Yah, id have to observe that there is a great deal of inability to perform proper citations, whether they be of professionals or douchebags.

Put down the joint, close the centerfold, and turn off the old Nirvana records. You might actually be able to contribute something to this forum someday if you can just control all the distractions...

[_KimberlyAnn]

Ok, thanks for clarification.

Out of sincere curiosity, what would be an example of credible empirical evidence for intelligent design that is uniquely explainable within an ID framework (and thus could not be accounted for within an evolution framework)?

I'm a bit confused. Are you asking me? Or That Little Light of Ours? If you're asking me, you're in for a disappointment, Guy. I have only cursory knowledge of the Intelligent Design argument. From my limited study of it, I can't think of a thing that couldn't be accounted for within the framework of evolution, except the idea of God as the initial spark or originator of life. I have theist friends who are proponents of intelligent design and theist friends and a fundamentalist Christian husband who hold the Bible to be literal and inerrant, including the creation of the earth in six days. Both come down to faith in the end and cannot be proven empirically.

Perhaps ALitD can give you a more intelligent answer.

KA

[_The Dude]

This is what Beckwith is saying Dude. You keep missing the point. I think you are capable of getting the point, even if you are liable to disagree. But thus far you keep missing your mark which is making conversing difficult.

Heh, let me see if I can piece this together. You claim:

Dawkin's concern with Wise is irrational because holding that concern is in logical contradiction to the implications of his entire world view.

Dawkins' concern is that Wise has been taught to follow a rigid dogma instead of using his mind to learn and explore the things it could have.

Dawkins' world view says that living creatures evolved by slow, gradual steps and the appearance of design is an illusion.

This is contradictory, according to you and Beckwith? Explain.

[_Coggins7]

Dawkins' concern is that Wise has been taught to follow a rigid dogma instead of using his mind to learn and explore the things it could have.

Dawkins' world view says that living creatures evolved by slow, gradual steps and the appearance of design is an illusion.

This is contradictory, according to you and Beckwith? Explain.

It already has been explained, clearly and concisely. What do you want from us?

[_Coggins7]

I disagree fundamentally with you and Stalin. I don't believe in God, yet I find tremendous meaning, moral and otherwise, in the death and suffering of others.

That's nice, but in Dawkin's world, Stalin disagrees with you, and there is no frame of moral reference by which you can determine which value system is to be granted greater legitimacy. Your perception of meaning in the death and suffering of others is utterly subjective and illusory. Its yours and yours alone, and stands over against say, a Nazi moral system that has just as much claim to legitimacy, in a meaningless, accidental, randomly generated universe, as does yours.

Capability for abstract moral thought and feeling is what makes us human and what, IMHO, differentiates us from animals. This innate capacity, and tendency, for investing actions, beliefs, etc., with moral significance is easily explained within an evolutionary framework; one that does not rely at all on any notion of God.

And if you can explain this purely within an evolutionary framework (a circular, ex post facto procdure that has nothing to do with empirical science per se, but not to divert the subject...), then fine, but if you do, the statement "I find tremendous meaning, moral and otherwise, in the death and suffering of others" has no moral meaning beyond your subjective belief that it does.

This is nihilism, and this is what evolutionary theory implies if it is conceived of as any more than a mechanical explanation for the development of organic life. If evolutionary theory is conceived of as a total and encompassing explanation of not only how, but why and that there is existence, then morality, as free will, is an illusion, and our beliefs in these abstractions the fantasies of complex brains who conceive of them and believe in them only because they can and they are useful psychologically in negotiating a harsh world. But nothing in such a world can ever be right, wrong, or moral in and of itself outside of and extracted from the subjective and relative human belief that it is or isn't so.

DNA can be passed on quite effectively by earthworms; it does not take civilization or systems of moral philosophy.

[_The Dude]

Dawkins' concern is that Wise has been taught to follow a rigid dogma instead of using his mind to learn and explore the things it could have.

Dawkins' world view says that living creatures evolved by slow, gradual steps and the appearance of design is an illusion.

This is contradictory, according to you and Beckwith? Explain.

It already has been explained, clearly and concisely. What do you want from us?

"Us"?

I want to hear from Light how those two ideas held by Dawkins are contradictory. They don't seem to be to me, the way I understand Dawkins means them, and I expect it will take some framing and interpretation on Light's part to create an inescapable contradiction out of them.

[_Coggins7]

Since you seem to have difficulty reading and digesting much past soundbite sized chunks of information, you must have missed my post above, where Beckwith himself makes clear what is at is core a rather elementary logical problem:

But Dawkins, in fact, does not actually believe that living beings, including human beings, have intrinsic purposes or are designed so that one may conclude that violating one’s proper function amounts to a violation of one’s moral duty to oneself. Dawkins has maintained for decades that the natural world only appears to be designed. He writes in The God Delusion: “Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that—an illusion.”

But this means that his lament for Wise is misguided, for Dawkins is lamenting what only appears to be Wise’s dereliction of his duty to nurture and employ his gifts in ways that result in his happiness and an acquisition of knowledge that contributes to the common good. Yet because there are no designed natures and no intrinsic purposes, and thus no natural duties that we are obligated to obey, the intuitions that inform Dawkins’ judgment of Wise are as illusory as the design he explicitly rejects. But that is precisely one of the grounds by which Dawkins suggests that theists are irrational and ought to abandon their belief in God.

So if the theist is irrational for believing in God based on what turns out to be pseudo-design, Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction. For Dawkins’ judgment rests on a premise that—although uncompromisingly maintained throughout his career—only appears to be true.

What on earth part of this do you people not comprehend?

[_Runtu]

Since you seem to have difficulty reading and digesting much past soundbite sized chunks of information, you must have missed my post above, where Beckwith himself makes clear what is at is core a rather elementary logical problem:

But Dawkins, in fact, does not actually believe that living beings, including human beings, have intrinsic purposes or are designed so that one may conclude that violating one’s proper function amounts to a violation of one’s moral duty to oneself. Dawkins has maintained for decades that the natural world only appears to be designed. He writes in The God Delusion: “Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that—an illusion.”

But this means that his lament for Wise is misguided, for Dawkins is lamenting what only appears to be Wise’s dereliction of his duty to nurture and employ his gifts in ways that result in his happiness and an acquisition of knowledge that contributes to the common good. Yet because there are no designed natures and no intrinsic purposes, and thus no natural duties that we are obligated to obey, the intuitions that inform Dawkins’ judgment of Wise are as illusory as the design he explicitly rejects. But that is precisely one of the grounds by which Dawkins suggests that theists are irrational and ought to abandon their belief in God.

So if the theist is irrational for believing in God based on what turns out to be pseudo-design, Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction. For Dawkins’ judgment rests on a premise that—although uncompromisingly maintained throughout his career—only appears to be true.

What on earth part of this do you people not comprehend?

Oh, I comprehend it, all right. What I'm asking for is for you to actually defend it. At the heart of Beckwith's statement is a very simple syllogism. If you can't give me that syllogism and, I'll know you don't really know what you're talking about.

Here's hoping you'll prove me wrong.