BOSKY.....

AIG have indeed had allegations of fraud and blah blah levelled at them...but have you checked out:

1/ The credibility of those charges ?
2/ The background and motivation of the source of such charges ?
3/ The responses ?

I've followed some of them through, and its MOST interesting to see both sides ...responses...motivations...etc.

Also, having bad things said about you, is different from 'having bad things proved against you'. Anyone can say anything about anyone... u know this.

I wish to revisit the issue of 'miracles' for just a moment.

One poster very rightly said about the miracles of Jesus having a very specific purpose, to underline His divine origin/authority.
They are certainly not for entertainment value !

JOSE,
with all due respect, I have very little support for anything which points people's attention to "Mary" a specifically catholic icon. Any tradition which elevates Biblical characters beyond their stated boundaries is quite un settling to me. When I saw Pope John Paul's coffin had "M" on it.. (meaning Mary) I cringed. It just speaks of pagan ideas of 'heavenly family'... father/mother etc....
"Mary" related events only draw attention to the Catholic Church, rather than Christ.

Miracles/signs are valid if they glorify Christ and draw mans attention to Jesus, and specifically his redemptive role for mankind. As Pericles said, 'images' resembling Mary or Jesus.. (we don't know what he/she looked like anyway) appearing on a peanut butter sandwich... (for example) do nothing but hold believers up to public (and deserved) ridicule

http://members.aol.com/bjw1106/marian5.htm

Boaz David,
I would be happy to discuss this with you by email (joseph_howard@hotmail.com), so as to let the topic stay on ID in this thread.

Regarding the conduct of debate and misrepresentation:

If I say, for example “there is evidence of X” and someone responds “David said ‘X is proved’ ” then that’s a misquote, but if someone says “David you’re saying that X is proven” it may be misrepresentative, but the lack of quotes gives people the idea that I may not have said it exactly like that. I don’t believe that a neutral person will automatically believe what I say about others any more than ditto what others say about me. But I will correct misquotes and respond to claims that I misrepresent.

Regarding ID v creationism:

For all practical purposes ID and creationism are the same. The word ‘God’ has been changed to ‘designer’. We know the reason why this has been done – to bypass US constitutional law. Once the US courts dismiss this backdoor attempt to teach creation science in American classrooms, ID will be remembered as a fad. So, I won’t be respecting any distinction of substance between ID and creationism.

Regarding Philo’s thoughtful answer:

Looking at nice patterns in clouds I asked “Is that scientific evidence the wind is an intelligent designer?” to which Philo responded:

“to a poet God run his fingers through the clouds forming the display, to a scientist the nature of wind on the chemistry of the cloud formed the structure. Both the wind and the chemistry have design features that form amazing images. Who gave the clouds their chemistry, and the wind its nature?”

We may believe that God gave these things, but it is from philosophy and/or religion that we so conclude. Science may explain the patterns formed in a precise way, but not ascribe a purpose or grand design to the display. Students are welcome to muse on this outside the science class (that's where this thread has gone), but in science class the rigours of theory, experimentation and observation must be followed.

Regarding causation:

The arguments here are very outdated. Causation is ultimately philosophical and science repeatedly challenges classical notions of causation, especially over the last 100 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causation

Perciles- I am not asking you to prove a negative. I am asking what logical reason do you have from excluding either of the two explanations that God guided evolution or god created as per the bible from the set of explanations that fall under the description that Intelligent Design is responsible for human life? Both attibute it to intelligent design although they disagree on the method.

That was the argument I put forward, that you seem to ignore. Perhaps in your 'bizarre' world the words written suddenly disappeared, but those of us here in reality just don't get why you are throwing a bender.

DL: Note that this is different from DavidLatimer's contention that ID and creation science are the same for practical purposes. ID starts from a completely different position, not from the bible, but from observation of how IC is CS objects are formed. This is why many creation science organisations do not particularly agree with the ID movement.

Re: Causation - Sorry David, but you are mixing up epistomology with ontology. As the wiki you linked to describes epistomology type issues they are irrelevant. I am suprised as I thought Hume's quote would have made this clear to you.

Here we go again!

More philosophy.

Then let’s add a bit more philosophy. And to top it off some philosophy. Try to steer the argument back to science and the retort is … more philosophy. And it's so classical. Hume this, Hume that. Not epistemology? How many references are there to knowledge in this tread? Here's a big word for ya: theological noncognitivism! Sorry, sorry, sorry; it's two words!

We should be teaching science in science class. That's my repeated response to this article.

I don't care if ID proponents and creationists don't agree. They both share the problem of trying to dress themselves up as real science. The difference is that Ingenuous Design is untested before the US supreme court.

I am not interested in the popularity of whatever in the US. I am not interested in the "first cause". I am not interested in the Pope's funeral. I am not interested in miracles (good luck for those who receive them). I am not interested in nihlism (can't spell it, can't look it up).

None of these things will be taught in our science classes.

Why on earth are people falling intot he trap of debating this stuff in psuedo intellectual terms - tossing about references to epistimolgy, teleology, nihilism and ontology and all the rest.

The concept if ID is essentialy as I put it over one hundred tiresome posts ago - I may as well say an extra terrestrial egg plant designed the world as commit to the notion of ID. ID is a furphy, a fraud a faith.

As I indicated before to argue ID vs creationism to the extent it has been in these pages, particularly in the psuedo scientific/philosohical manner demonstrated here- and thereby affording it some undeserved credibility - is a foolsih move.

It is evident the proponents of ID/creationuism have set controlled and guided the agenda on this debate with in excess of 200 posts to prove it - shame on us all.