Jose
Sorry but your argument has a few loopholes.
1) Most suffering in this world has natural causes such as pain, disease & starvation. Why doesn't god protect us from those? After all the monotheistic concept of god is that he is omnipotent [he's all powerful] & omnibenevolent [he's all good]. so why do we have any naturally caused suffering at all?
2) God being allpowerful can do anything correct? Then logically he could have created humans so that we would, of our own free-will, ALWAYS choose to do the right thing. If you reply is that that would make us robots I merely respond by pointing out a) we are freely choosing to do good & b) God being allpowerful must have had this option.
3) God could, anytime someone chose evil that would harm another, isolate the potential evildoer so they don't affect the rest of us. Free will is preserved but things like the holocaust never happen.
Why should he do this? Think about the teaching inherent in the parable of the good samaritan & then apply it to god. Does that parable not imply that god has a moral obligation to help if he can?

It comes down to this
either god wants to help us but CANNOT [then he's immpotent]
or he Can help us but WILL NOT [then he's malevolent]
If he CAN & WILL help us why do we have any suffering at all?

Bd, arm in plaster, people praying, looks at arm, (in plaster) healed. After normal healing time plaster taken off, healed. I can understand why you are leaving this thread. Give us all a break will you, we all understand how mass hysteria effects people, it is demonstrated daily throughout the world, especially in the confines of superstition, (churches). All it proves is that those that follow religion as controlled by emotional hysteria, rather than intelligence. Mike Tyson wasn't even born when you were supposedly in Borneo, so why the quotes.

Philo, I expect that this miracle, (cataracts removed) will appear in every medical journal and every newspaper in the world, the nuns will have to be canonised, as per church doctrine and the world will rejoice. Just like all the other miracles that your ilk espouse.

Jose, I studied the Vatican councils account of 1531 many years ago, as well as their other accepted apparitions. Reading that, will give you the true catholic churches version, a long way from your fantasy, but still a joke. Can you quote the NASA document you referenced relating to this investigation.

Here we have true examples of where ID comes from. The religious slaves are so trapped within their delusions that all they can see is fantasy. They just spew forth more unsustainable rubbish, in their insane attempt to change reality into illusion. The further it goes on, the more desperate they become, clutching at straws as they sink beneath the mire of their own delusions.

They can't answer anything, just rely on one or two very dubious points which they repeat over and over. Actually ID is not intelligent design, but Insipid Deceit.

There does not appear to be a muslim on this thread, it would be interesting to know islamic thought on ID.

Bosk, illusions just delude, they can't interact or function.

Duec, I knew.

All,
I might just bow out of this forum about now, it’s drifted very far from the original discussion about ID and I thank all for the robust discussion. I will however leave a final comment about a current discussed topic; a parting shot?

Claiming that miracles exist because you have seen them is not proof in the scientific sense; just ask any policeman/woman who has had to sort through the numerous, conflicting descriptions of some event. With each observer willing to swear that what they saw was true, despite it being in total conflict with other descriptions from other observers who are equally willing to swear to their version of events.

I, like probably many here, have been to shows where I have seen with my own eyes something which I know to be impossible. During the last school holidays my eight year old daughter volunteered to “have her middle cut out” by a magician at one such show, it looked “real” to the people in the audience and my daughter was not able to offer any light as to how it was done.

Now I’m not saying that miracles are stunts like a conjurer’s trick, but such tricks do show how easily the human senses can be deceived. And one should really consider the emotional state and indeed the intentions of the participants and observers when evaluating a claimed miraculous event.

In the Bible (talking New Testament here) there are many miraculous events. But in reading about them they don’t seem capricious, silly or stunts. They either form a basis for teaching via a parable or are presented as evidence of Jesus being the Son of God.

However modern day miracles don’t seem to have any such justification. They seem arbitrary and in most cases absolutely pointless (of course gaining ones sight back doesn’t fall into this category).

At the end of the day, if you are a believer, you have to ask yourself is God a meddler, a capricious trickster or is He a compassionate Creator. Only faith can answer that.

Deuc – Hume, the famous skeptic, understood that to deny causality was an ‘absurd’ idea. This was his expert opinion. To claim it was not based on reason is self-serving and lame. To complain that he concedes it is impossible to know of causes and so could not be an expert on whether the law of causality is logically necessary is fallacious (confusing logic with knowledge of whether something actually is the cause of an effect). To say that causality doesn’t apply is to violate the law of non-contradiction. It is like saying that there are 4-sided triangles. It is analytically false, and Hume knew this, especially considering his views of what sources of knowledge are valid. I’ll repeat it again. To believe that something can come from nothing is worse than magic as at least with magic you have a magician.

The uncertainty principle is to do with knowledge and so does not apply (remember Hume). Some people may say that it breaks the laws of causality, but so what. I can say there are married bachelors and 4-sided triangles. All statements are equally false because they are analytically false.

"Why should I have to give more support for my disagreements with your positions than you do for your position."
“It wouldn't be more support”
Actually, you said that “The least you could do is state which ones you disagree with, but I expect you to say why.” So if I had to say why, then I would be giving more support than you. But if I don’t have to give more support, then to start you off, I disagree with all of your basic facts.

“I didn't claim "evolution" shows it is possible, just that evolution can explain it.”
So are you are saying that there is no evidence that evolution can generate IC systems? I believe that was my point.

Pericles: I am not unilaterally deciding. I have made an argument that both positions include the agency of intelligent design in their explanations for human life. You have not refuted this argument.

DavidLatimer: It was not my intention to attribute the phrase in question to you. I used a valid syntax for writing that I agree could be construed in that way as well as in the way I intended. As such, I apologise for any misunderstanding caused and will attempt in future to make it clearer about whether I am quoting you.

Ironically, you have not claimed that I have misrepresented your position. (even though using words that you did not write), yet Deuc, using words I did write, has indeed misrepresented my position.

Re: ‘Nobody else’. I hope you also will endeavour to be clearer in future.

Re: Unasked question. Is there a correction to your statement in there somewhere, because I still can’t see what your complaint is or how it was valid? As such, my misrepresentation claim has not been nullified.

Re: Magnetism: You continue with poisoning the well on this claim. It is a matter of record and your attitude speaks volumes as to your objectivity. Bringing in points about teaching it is irrelevant as I have not been talking about teaching creation science in school.

Perhaps you would like more recent creation research that has successfully predicted the presence of c-14 in ‘ancient’ diamonds and radiogenic helium in ‘ancient’ granites.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0821rate.asp
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=114

Other examples of prediction borne out are that the universe had a beginning and that the continents are moving.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/historical.html

Taffy: Thanks for your definitions. They are not assertions of fact and do not beg the question as to the discussion at hand. In all, I have no problem with you putting forward your definitions and I see this as vastly different to Deuc’s ‘basic facts’ which are not mere definitions but assertions without substance.

The only definition I would take issue with are ‘science’ -science is not easily defined, especially when you consider the wide range of scientific fields and methods. Stephen Meyer has a lot on the issue
http://www.idthefuture.com/index.php?p=936&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Grey
A few points
First Answers in Genesis is hardly a credible source. Many, many acts of outright fraud & deception have been attributed to them.
Second, merely because an organisation, after the fact, claims that they predicted a discovery does NOT make it so. Hell I can predict a million things that way & have a 100% success rate as well.
Finally this quote "Other examples of prediction borne out are that the universe had a beginning and that the continents are moving."
Ah how things change. I can remember when Answers in Genesis was denying this & saying the continents were stationary. Such is the standard of truthfulness of those who attempt to find a scientific basis for creationism