EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed

FranchiseBlade · Mar 26, 2008

B-Bob said:

Tracing genetic phylogeny may now present the single greatest piece of evidence of evolution. If the world was made in a strict Biblical way, then God very deliberately set every tiny gene, in each organism, to be absolutely pointing to an evolutionary theory that took millions of years. He was deliberately as misleading as possible, and I don't understand that notion of God. (e.g. there's no need for monkeys and humans to have some of the exact same, quirky dormant, genetic artifacts, and have those artifacts absent in fish, lizards and even dogs, unless monkeys and humans have a common ancestor.) The Almighty put brains in our heads, presented a wealth of gorgeous evidence, only to trick us?

If someone starts in Nacogdoches, Texas, walking, and then you see him in Lufkin two days later, sweaty, tired, with fresh red dirt on his shoes, do you think there's evidence he walked in between? Or did he teleport, and all the sweat, red dirt and fatigue are just there to trick you? And I mean, you analyze each molecule of dirt and can show which acre of land it came from exactly, tracing his path from Nacogdoches to Lufkin... but he teleported, and is a prankster, someone practicing an intensely detailed chicanery for no good reason.

I don't think the version of God I believe in would do such a thing.

-=-----------------

To me... I see the universe, and our continued discoveries of it, as glorious things that can amplify spirituality and belief in the divine.

The term "intelligent design" was, ironically, coined by a capital-S Scientist, a cosmologist in fact (that is, a physicist studying the structure of the universe). The person was referring to the amazing fact that all the fundamental constants are at just the perfect values, out to 10 decimal places, that we need to have the fundamental forces form planets, to form organic molecules, and to have carbon-based life as we know it. It is like the universe has been set, by an agent, to allow the processes of stellar evolution, planetary development, atmospheres, and even, at least in one case, life. Change any one of those constants, for gravity, the permittivity of free space, etc, and you can't get a universe like ours.

That is awe-inspiring, moving, and, to some of us, completely compatible with a spiritual faith.

And evolution, a brilliant system for the propagation, adaptation and survival of life, completely fits with the notion that something bigger than mankind's understanding is at work. In short, how could you possibly create a more intelligent design than the central dogma of DNA and what happens when you let the process of genetic mutation interact with the earth's environment for a few million years?

All chances of me being an atheist went out the window when I really learned some of the details of evolution and of modern cosmology. Yes, they are theories, and we have more to learn. There is a ton of evidence underwriting both, and these theories will always point to deep mysteries in terms of our origin and that of the universe.

There is more room than ever for a prime mover, IMHO. Science carves out a central stage for such.
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Great post

gifford1967 · Mar 26, 2008

B-Bob said:

Tracing genetic phylogeny may now present the single greatest piece of evidence of evolution...
Click to expand...

B-Bob you're eloquent post describes my perspective on the relationship between science and spirituality very well. If we believe in God there are some things we can take for certain. In some way God is responsible for the creation of the universe, the earth, humans on earth, and the unique human ability to observe our environment, use our rational minds, and figure out how our world works. We can be far more certain that the fossil and genetic record was written directly by the hand of God than we can of any religous text. To my mind the development of the scientific process was a spiritual leap for mankind.

thumbs · Mar 26, 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expell...ligence_Allowed

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed....

First, your source is tainted. I stopped the moment I saw "wikipedia." Anybody can put anything into Wiki -- there is no credibility there. No credible news organization, for example, allows its reporters to reference "Wacki."

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