Ben Stein "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

If I may paraphrase a famous quote...

Not all Christians are Intelligent Designists, but all Intelligent Designists are Christians.

You may not think Christianity has much to do with ID theories but its proponents definitely do.

Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and atheists aren't pushing this theory, and the only Jew doing it, far as I know, is Ben Stein. It is a Christian pursuit.

After doing a Google search, there seems to be a lot of support among Jews for intelligent design, as well as much support against it:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...n+Judaism&meta=

We don't see other religons pushing their versions of ID because we live in North America. Other religons don't get the air time that Christians get.

Assuming that Christians did articulate ID, it stll has nothing to do with Jesus. It's a theory that stands independently. It's no more unique to Christianity than the ideas of martyrdom, forgiveness, or evil.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

After doing a Google search, there seems to be a lot of support among Jews for intelligent design, as well as much support against it:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...n+Judaism&meta=

We don't see other religons pushing their versions of ID because we live in North America. Other religons don't get the air time that Christians get.

Assuming that Christians did articulate ID, it stll has nothing to do with Jesus. It's a theory that stands independently. It's no more unique to Christianity than the ideas of martyrdom, forgiveness, or evil.

No ID in this context is basically a trademark or code-word of conservative Christianity in the United States, used in order to replace more controversial words like creationism in textbooks, articles, and legal arguments. Go back and read posts 99 and 100. The current concept has just caught a little weight and has been adopted by other religious groups seeking to articulate their beliefs in the same manner. The etymology of the word is very modern. This is a telelogical argument engineered solely to confront and combat modern science which threatens the rigid beliefs of those who fiercely subscribe to ID. We are not talking about creation myths which are common to many ancient theologies.

[photon]

Exactly, it's common to use "intelligent design" and "Intelligent Design", the former being another name for creationism, the age old concept, the latter being the commonly used name for the group of people and organizations that in 1987 and onwards decided to use the term to create a supposedly new science to veil their attempts introduce creationism into the science classroom when the courts ruled against them under the guise of science.

EDIT: What H&L said.

[FlamesAddiction]

So what does ID have to with Jesus? Nothing. That's my point.

Christianity is simply the religon of believing Jesus was devine and following his teachings. ID is completely independent of Christianity as evidenced by the fact some Jews, Muslims, and even Hindus support ID (Google is my friend). It doesn't matter if a Christian coined the term or not - it applies outside of the religon. Darwin coined the term "natural selection", but theories of evolution existed long before that. ID is the same in that respect.

[Hack&Lube]

The entire stance of trying to get ID taught in schools as an equal and viable alternative to evolution runs into trouble when they try to say they are just trying to make a fair alternative view vailable. If we go by what FlamesAddiction is saying, then don't they have a responsibility to issue textbooks teaching about all the other creation (I'm sorry, intelligent design [lowercase]) myths? We're going to tell students that it's totally quite possible that we:

1. Came from behemothic cow named Auehumla who licked the gods into existence
2. Were born from a rhubarb plant, then birthed two twins but ate them contributing to mortal sin
3. Were created after the giant 4-eyed god Marduk slew the salt god and split her body which became the world
4. Sprung up from the tears of the all-seeing eye of Atum
5. Were sculpted from the mud of the yellow-river, but since it was a time consuming process, only the nobles were carefully sculpted and the rest of us came from muddy droplets
6. Came from the body of the thousand eyed, thousand headed, thousand footed god Purusha. Parts of which turned into butter, which turned into birds and animals.
7. All came from inside a giant clam, but when, Raven, the trickster teases the humans into climbing out of the shell by telling them how beautiful the earth is, they find out they cannot return to clam paradise
8. We born when the flying spagetti monster dripped divine tomato sauce onto pure white napkin, each divine splatter becoming an early human being

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

After doing a Google search, there seems to be a lot of support among Jews for intelligent design, as well as much support against it:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...n+Judaism&meta=

We don't see other religons pushing their versions of ID because we live in North America. Other religons don't get the air time that Christians get.

Ahh, touche. I did not know that. Although I guess it only makes sense so I probably should have figured it out on my own.

Still though, in regards to this movie and in North America it is a Christian thing, even if it ain't got nothing to do with Jesus. His proclaimed followers are pushing it and, I'm sure, put up the loot to pay Ben Stein and get this movie made.

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

We're going to tell students that it's totally quite possible that we:

1. Came from behemothic cow named Auehumla who licked the gods into existence...

I think the idea would be just to allow discussion on the idea of intelligent design in general. You are right that getting into the beliefs of specific religions could get a bit messy in a public school. But even then, if the discussion can remain civilized, it should be fair game. It's reasonable to present it as an alternative angle on how all this stuff came to be. Students are then more informed, and can make up their own minds as to what they think.

Ultimatly, science is not anti-religion, and religion is not anti-science. They can co-exist.

And again, while creation narratives may seem to sound crazy, it's not as if the Big Bang people are certain of what they are talking about. No one was around obviously to witness the birth of the universe. From that standpoint, a big explosion of sorts seems just as crazy and unlikely. Someone could have done it. Moooooniverse!

[photon]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

So what does ID have to with Jesus? Nothing. That's my point.

Christianity is simply the religon of believing Jesus was devine and following his teachings. ID is completely independent of Christianity as evidenced by the fact some Jews, Muslims, and even Hindus support ID (Google is my friend). It doesn't matter if a Christian coined the term or not - it applies outside of the religon. Darwin coined the term "natural selection", but theories of evolution existed long before that. ID is the same in that respect.

You can avoid the reality as much as you want, it doesn't change the reality. The current Intelligent Design movement was started by and is currently used by Christians for the intent purpose of deceiving others.

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools" - Phillip Johnson, a major proponent of ID.

I agree with you that ID doesn't have anything to do with Jesus, but you'll have to take that question up with the Christians who insist that it does. That members of other religions support Intelligent Design makes some sense but that doesn't change the facts around the origin of the current movement. Which this thread is about, it's the context of the capitalized term we're using. If you want to ignore common uses of words for some reason that's fine, just let others know you want to ignore it.

The current ID movement was created by Christianity to defeat "scientific materialism" and replace it with "science" that submits to Christian convictions, and to reshape public policy to reflect conservative Christian, specifically evangelical Protestant, values. This is directly from the Wedge Document, a political plan by the Discovery Institute, one of the major driving forces behind ID. One of its authors specifically said themselves ID and the wedge strategy was designed to appeal to different religions on purpose.

If you want to discuss the origins of the idea of intelligent design among Greek philosophers, you can start a thread on it, but this thread is about the movie Expelled and the current Intelligent Design movement.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

I think the idea would be just to allow discussion on the idea of intelligent design in general. You are right that getting into the beliefs of specific religions could get a bit messy in a public school. But even then, if the discussion can remain civilized, it should be fair game. It's reasonable to present it as an alternative angle on how all this stuff came to be. Students are then more informed, and can make up their own minds as to what they think.

No. If you're going to do anything, teach creation stories from various cultures in social class or a comparative religion class. But you do not teach Intelligent Design in any fashion any more than you would teach the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a class about world religions.

The only proper context to teach Intelligent Design is if it's being taught as what it is, a tactic of some groups to get around the laws of separation of church and state and get religion taught in the schools.

Ultimatly, science is not anti-religion, and religion is not anti-science. They can co-exist.

So say you, and so say I, but the proponents behind ID disagree with you.

And again, while creation narratives may seem to sound crazy, it's not as if the Big Bang people are certain of what they are talking about. No one was around obviously to witness the birth of the universe. From that standpoint, a big explosion of sorts seems just as crazy and unlikely. Someone could have done it. Moooooniverse!

The Big Bang is far more certain than any other proposal. Keeping in mind what the Big Bang actually says; the Big Bang doesn't claim that something came from nothing, it simply says at at some point in the past the entire universe was very very small and very very dense, and then expanded outwards. And that's exactly what all the observations support.

It's very typical for people arguing against evolution and the Big Bang to argue against their incorrect assumptions of what those theories say, and not what those theories ACTUALLY say.

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by photon

You can avoid the reality as much as you want, it doesn't change the reality. The current Intelligent Design movement was started by and is currently used by Christians for the intent purpose of deceiving others.

It's not intelligent design three-card monty. The idea is that it's a possibility, just like the Big Bang is. Nor is it necessarily an "alternative viewpoint". The two ideas could well be presented together without creating conflict.

I believe that God created this all, and that the Big Bang could have been what occured when He decide to. Like I've been saying all along, science makes sense, but to me so does God.

As to the Christian nature of ID, there's nothing wrong with just briefly presenting the idea of intelligent design in general (even in a Science class), without reference to specific religions because it's a possibility that is much more broadly pondered than the Spaghetti Monster. Mainstream science classes tend not to acknowledge fringe stuff, but the notion of intelligent design in general isn't fringe, and may deserve acknowledgement.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

I believe that God created this all

Who created God?

If your answer is God always existed, why can't we say the universe always existed without a God (through an infinite number of big bangs and collapses)?

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

It's not intelligent design three-card monty. The idea is that it's a possibility, just like the Big Bang is. Nor is it necessarily an "alternative viewpoint". The two ideas could well be presented together without creating conflict.

I believe that God created this all, and that the Big Bang could have been what occured when He decide to. Like I've been saying all along, science makes sense, but to me so does God.

As to the Christian nature of ID, there's nothing wrong with just briefly presenting the idea of intelligent design in general (even in a Science class), without reference to specific religions because it's a possibility that is much more broadly pondered than the Spaghetti Monster. Mainstream science classes tend not to acknowledge fringe stuff, but the notion of intelligent design in general isn't fringe, and may deserve acknowledgement.

I think you're missing the point. No-one is saying that intelligent design shouldn't be acknowledged as a viewpoint. Just that it should not be taught as science. Why? Because it isn't science.

When you suggest that science and religion can co-exist, you're right. But what you're proposing is that they're also interchangeable, and that's false. Science and religion are not really comparable--it's like apples to battleships. They make radically different kinds of truth claims, and ask radically different questions about the world. They just aren't the same, and science class is not the place to ponder the questions of religion.

The fact is, the so-called "Intelligent Design" movement is an attempt to de-legitimize and undermine science from the ground up by indoctrinating children with a wrongheaded and misleading set of assumptions about the nature of scientific theory. If you read "Of Pandas and People" (I have--one and a half hours I'll never get back) the so-called ID "textbook"--you'll find that its basic argument is not that evolution was "controlled by God"--since that's in any case a matter of faith, not proof. It's a dogmatic attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in general and to undermine the validity of science as an approach to understanding the physical world.

Worse than that, it's utter nonsense. And when you force feed it to children who don't yet have the maturity to make critical judgments about what they're being told, it becomes dangerous nonsense. That's what gets people upset.

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCook

The idea that people can still refuse to accept that evolution is true and cling onto ridiculous ideas in this day and rage is really depressing.

Thats because it's hard to accept something as fact when it hasn't been proven (and never will be) as such. Evolution is a theory just like Creationism. Neither is a scientific law like gravity.

So depressing that people have different opinions and beliefs in this world than you do huh?

btw if the universe was created through an infinite number of big bangs, obviously there would had to have been an original state of being that preceded the first big bang. So who created that?

[troutman]

Evolution is a fact - like gravity.

People sometimes try to score debating points by saying, "Evolution is only a theory." That is correct, but it's important to understand what that means. It is also only a theory that the world goes round the Sun -- it's just a theory for which there is an immense amount of evidence.

There are many scientific theories that are in doubt. Even within evolution, there is some room for controversy. But that we are cousins of apes and jackals and starfish, let's say, that is a fact in the ordinary sense of the word.
-- Richard Dawkins

[troutman]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

btw if the universe was created through an infinite number of big bangs, obviously there would had to have been an original state of being that preceded the first big bang. So who created that?

Why does something have to create it? What created the Creator?

Infinite Regress

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by troutman

Why does something have to create it? What created the Creator?

If nothing or nobody created something, how did it come into existence?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

If nothing or nobody created something, how did it come into existence?

How did God come into existence?

How did the number 7 come into existence?

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

It's a dogmatic attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in general and to undermine the validity of science as an approach to understanding the physical world.

Worse than that, it's utter nonsense. And when you force feed it to children who don't yet have the maturity to make critical judgments about what they're being told, it becomes dangerous nonsense. That's what gets people upset.

I was an Intelligent Designist for a long time. My full blown athiesm really only kicked in in the last 3 years. ID made sense to me because I was taught that there was a god, but I couldn't deny the obvious existence of science.
In retrospect, I think that it is a bit of an oxymoron to believe in intelligent design. Almost like a cop out to true religious beliefs. For christians, anyway. Specifically because the bible outlines exactly what "happened".
A christian would argue back that the word of god cannot be taken literally. They will say that because
a) how can we, today, know exactly what he meant when he inspired men to write the bible
b) because it has to be justified that the bible has been edited and altered countless times over the ages.

But I personally think that if there was a god, a god that managed to get his message on paper, it would be clear. Not abstract. Not changeable. Not editable. It would be The Word of God.

I just cannot trust a book that was written by people that were inspired by supernatural occurrances. Nor a book that was edited by people that were drunk with power and hell-bent on maintaining that power.

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by troutman

How did God come into existence?

How did the number 7 come into existence?

Since God, by Creationist definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

Since God, by Creationist definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time.

I would argue that man is the creator of time. Since humans are the only ones affected by it. Everything else in the known universe exists in cycles. Only humans have a concept of time. And that's all time is, a concept.