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The Forum > Article Comments > Intelligent design - damaging good science and good theology > Comments

Intelligent design - damaging good science and good theology : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 9/9/2005

Peter Sellick argues it is not a good idea to teach intelligent design in our children's biology classes.

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Sells,
In your last post,I think you are touching on the concept of terraformation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming

Terraformation of other planets or moons is in the theoretical stages at present, but with advanced technology it may be possible in the near future. About 100 yrs ago our knowledge in areas such as computing, biology, genealogy etc was minimal compared to now, but within the next 100 yrs, our technologies would probably become so advanced, as to be able to carry out terraformation.

If man did have the technology to carry out terraformation, then should it be carried out . I would think ”yes“. We already carry out reafforestation of areas of land that support minimal life, so as to increase the amount of life on that land, and terraformation is just an extension of that.

However if man were to seed another planet or moon with life, then that life may have to be especially manufactured or tailored to suit the geography, atmosphere, radiation levels, gravity etc of that other planet, but we are already creating GM life forms, and man’s ability to create life forms that would be suitable for existence on another planet is only a matter of time away.

With reafforestation of an area, it is best to carry out initial planting or seeding, nurse it along for a few seasons, then leave it alone to develop it’s own ecosystems, as too much external interference will only weaken those ecosystems.

I would think the same with terraformation. Carry out initial seeding, nurse those life forms along for some time, then allow them to develop on their own. But if this is done, then eventually those life forms would have no idea that they were purposely seeded into the area originally.

However certain genes could be incorporated into those manufactured life forms, that would always give them a commonality. One of those genes could be the theoretical “God Gene”. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101041025
Posted by Timkins, Saturday, 10 September 2005 2:34:05 PM
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A little bird said.............
Posted by MichaelK., Saturday, 10 September 2005 2:52:47 PM
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Crabby.
I am reading Eberhard Busch “The great passion” which is his introduction to Karl Barth. I say this because I find that much of my thinking comes out of the thing I am reading at the moment. Barth has a lovely section on God as the truth, not a list of truths but the truth that unmasks all of the lies of mankind. The focus on the cross finds its meaning in the unmasking of men and women who thought they stood for the truth but who framed and killed the only true man. When we look at the world we see truth, indeed it is the scientists job to reveal truth about the physical world. We see the natural love between parents and children and communities who share a common life and look out for each other. The evolutionary psychologists record such things. But there is a difference between seeing truth in the world (Romans 1) and in using the structure of the creation to deduce the activity of god and his existence. This is how natural theology fails, by looking for God in the wrong place. The thing that raises us from our respective deaths is the event that unmasks the lie that is dressed up to look like the truth. It is in this event that we see God as truth and this is the event that we absolutely need to become human. The problem with a god discovered in nature is that it has no humanity. Barth tells us that there is no unhumanness in God, he does not dwell above where humans are not. So I sort of agree with Aquinas, he is a person easily quoted out of context. The problem with our thinking is that it has been so formed by the quest of natural science that we tend to interpret everything in that context
Posted by Sells, Saturday, 10 September 2005 3:17:13 PM
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Been thinking, give this a try,

The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant declared near the turn of the 17th century, when he became unhappy with the tactics of Napoleon, that there is now revealing proof that from now on, not one man, nor one nation, should ever be trusted to rule the future world. Better a Federation of Nations, selected by all peoples of the globe.

We have now got instead, a unipolar nation with all the weaknesses that Kant himself had stressed. One single nation, which declares it has the power to forbid all other nations opposing this power, revealing itself as a reborn Rome which totally destroyed Carthage, and every person, building, and everything the culture represented, states like Israel allowed to keep their puppet monarchs. How much future Iraq, could be like those Roman subject states, though with US troops withdrawn, and a Dyarky democracy managed from the White House, with Israeli nuclear rockets right close by Iraq and ready.

We note the present White-House lineup, with Dick Cheney, not George Bush, much first in line - Cheney with Paul Wolfowitz masterminding the whole shebang since Gulf-War One.

Along with other neo-cons, American Zionists and ex-oil-executives like Condoleeza Rice, and we must not forget to add again that the presence of corporation man, Dick Cheney, means that all the US slaughter, from up high, has been mostly for Iraqi oil.

And if it comes to prove that the Iraqis will be double-crossed, we Westerners will inherit a world not ruled by British gunboat colonial diplomacy, but by US missiles nuclear tipped, for Americana, the only way an angry world can be policed.

But world problems have reached the stage to be not fixed by modern missiles, but by moral understanding. For our classic English grammar has become all mixed up - terms like “liberalism and rationalism”, when applied to freedom, do not mean a unipolar Americana corporate capitalistic global takeover, but simply a “moderation in all things”, followed by the “freedom for the peoples of our world to share and share alike.”

George C, WA, Bushbred
Posted by bushbred, Saturday, 10 September 2005 4:45:20 PM
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>>Of course, if Anthony Flew thinks there is evidence for intelligent design, maybe you should take another look?<<

With respect, Grey, one thing that Anthony Flew did not do was to suggest that there is any evidence for intelligent design, he merely said

[biologists' investigation of DNA] "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,"

Please note, once again, that no evidence is being presented here, simply the thoughts of an 81 year-old who has striven for answers to philosophical questions for most of his life. Unsurprisingly, he never quite reached the answer to life, the universe and everything, so - quite naturally - gave up thinking at all. He really summed it up by saying:

"It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Hmmmm. Very convincing evidence, that final "I suppose".
Posted by Pericles, Saturday, 10 September 2005 5:03:54 PM
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Readers may be surprised to learn that what the Christian churches say and or preach about “Jesus Christ” has nothing to do with the Biblical record of a man by the name of Yeshua Hanotzri (Jesus of Nazareth) and that their “received spiritual traditions” e.g. doctrines they proclaim,were the creation of men whose names are totally unfamiliar to most of the human population. The ignorance surrounding this man is so pervasive that even those modern day adherents of the “New Age” faithfully mouth the falsehoods as though they were some kind of transcendent truth. New Age of course does not imply new thinking. As a mater of record they attend to the worst manifestations of ignorance in theological matters, as do the followers of modern day creedal Christianity.
Those religions, which come under the general heading of Christianity, did not arise with Jesus of Nazareth.
The religion of Jesus was that of his forefathers. He did not start a new religion, was a practising member of his synagogue and as an observant Jew attended the Temple in Jerusalem, although it could be said that he formed a radical group within Judaism that opposed the self indulgent teachings of the Temple Priests who he accused of collaborating with the Roman occupiers and in doing so denied their countrymen any semblance of social justice.
Christianity as a religion is the amalgamation of old pagan religions into a compromise religion, which had more to do with politics than religion, and over the centuries finally embraced all of the old pagan religious concepts, which Christianity was supposed to replace.
Developing creedal Christianity had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth and it certainly has nothing to do with the Bible or with "a particular creative act of God".
For two thousands years Jesus has been churchified. Jesus became a literary creation in which he had to conform to the deliberations of ancient councils and reflect ecclesiastic narcissism.
What the churches of Christendom preach with respect to Jesus of Nazareth represents the most vicious and obscene lie ever perpetrated on human kind. SAS
Posted by SAS, Saturday, 10 September 2005 5:04:37 PM
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