<p>EK4,</p>
<p>[post #436]
I have never been condescending- I have been careful on these boards to admit what I don’t know</p>
<p>EK4 to fountainsiren (the only 17 year old in this thread):
[same post]
what hubris to know “everything” at such a young age</p>
<p>mini</p>
<p>I am God</p>
<p>only if God has a mini-me like Austin Powers;)</p>
<p>[in truth you said: Since you’ve already proven that I am God, however, the same still applies:)]</p>
<p>Hi everyone!
first, i’m sorry for being an intruder; i think although intelligent design may not stand as a scientific theory on its own, it points out flaws in modern science and therefore ultimately contributes to the advancement of science. If a scientist is just going to reject this theory completly and ignore the problems it brings up just because they think it’s not as scientific, i don’t think they themselves have the spirit of a scientist. </p>
<p>More importantly, i believe intelligent design points out a misconception of evolutionist students; some students takes that evolution proves that there is no God as a fact even when evolutionist scientists do not have proof for that.</p>
<p>and i think it’s rather silly how people are using age to discredit others; if we weren’t told, we would never have guessed the age of some of the users on this board. using age to attack statements really states that we have nothing else to say. i’m 17 and i have had 2 D’s, one whose name was pipi, and another longevity. sadly we lost both of them, and I cried so hard the second time telling my self i should never get a dog again.</p>
<p>bneg, I have brought up age before not to discredit but to ask that posters show a little more kindness and tolerance of different attitudes or approaches to their posts. I don’t think anyone benefits from name calling or catagorical dismissal of ideas because of age, location, circumstance or gender.</p>
<p>I don’t know a lot of scientists who are out to prove or disprove the existence of God. Instead I think the question is how do we address those thinks we don’t understand. ID offers a solution…that there is an intelligent design to the Universe. Some posters, including myself have suggested this solution is better offered in a philosophy class than a science class.</p>
<p>NAME CALLING -
Name calling and classifying posters into groups they don’t claim to be in does not strengthen ones argument. To say or imply that all ID supporters are trying to get the bible into schools OR to declare the opponents of ID to be anti-religion are unfair generalizations and not point getters in any debate. Sometimes I will write my post on a word program and let it sit there as I ponder or edit… I try to remove unfair or harsh attacks because it takes away from the quality of the discussion.</p>
<p>bneg - I am sorry to hear about your dogs…I have lost several dogs over the years and I swear with each passing that I will only have a tortoise for a pet so it can out live me…but at my feet lies Amelia Earhart…a pound puppy that has been with me for 13 years.</p>
<p>I have a question…if ID claims it was Intelligent Designer, ie God, how will they know? What proof will be acceptable? And if there is no ID, ie God, how will that be acceptable…</p>
<p>When I was in college, My calculus prof posed this:</p>
<p>Picture you are in an infinite hallway, with infinite number of doors, now open one door, you are in another infinite hallway, an infinite number of doors…where does it stop?</p>
<p>The same with ID, there is no final proof of God, because, God is known by Faith, if you study religion. God is just knowing and trusting. And how can that be proved? In all my Church lessons, studies, my impression is that you can not PROVE God, you just know God…</p>
<p>Perhaps God’s existence cannot ever be finally proven. I don’t know. I do believe God left plenty of evidence. The God I believe in walked this earth and thus is present in history. I could not believe in a God for whom there was no physical evidence at all. I am just too logical a person for that. I need facts. I want Truth, not something that just feels good to believe in.</p>
<p>It probably depends upon what religion you are discussing as to how God is known.</p>
<p>As for how the ID methodology can “prove” God, I am not sure it can, any more than athiest could prove that the universe started itself. However, ID can put forth evidence and act as a counterbalance on evolutionary theory when it gets a little carried away with itself. ;-)</p>
<p>yes, science cannot prove that there is no God. To teach only evolutionism as an absolute truth and ignore all its possible flaws and contradictions is really no less absurd than teaching ID in schools.
i guess there is more meaning in knowing God Himself than simply knowing that God exists… To the ones who are open to Him, everything is proof of His existence, then to see Him in heaven would really be no surprise…it would just be like returning home.</p>
<p>MrB said:
I don’t think anyone benefits from name calling or catagorical dismissal of ideas because of age, location, circumstance or gender.</p>
<p>I would add to your statement: ethnic and religious background–although I would exclude political background for obvious reasons. </p>
<p>I know all of them have been applied to me in this or other threads: age (I should curtsey to my wizened elders), location (Im Canadian/Iranianoooh!), gender (and by women of all people!it seems Im supposed to be more appreciative of my freedom than boys), ethnic background (again, Ive been repeatedly advised that I should appreciate the rights I have more than others because of my skin-color; a curious multicultural ethic), and religion (its all through this thread, though no one seemed to mind at the time to be fair, including me). I could direct the inquiring mind to any of them, but who caresI dont, others seem to.</p>
<p>Throughout not only this thread but others, people seem to feel it is ok to denigrate peoples heartfelt and reasoned beliefs, most often manifested in their religious metaphysical view and practice of life; they feel free to do this it seems, because they believe, unlike other people, they are objective in their unproven beliefs (unless they have actually proved to themselves through their own experiments, calculation and observation the substance of their beliefs, they must hold these beliefs on faith or on good authority as do many religious peoplesuch enthusiastic people may well have fallen-all-over the likes of Piltdown Man a generation ago, as many naively did).</p>
<p>As to proving the existence of God, it has been done repeatedly, but perhaps not to the satisfaction of the inquiring minds here: Pythagoras. Plato. Aristotle. Augustine. Anselm. Ibn Sina. Aquinas. Maimonides. Descartes. Spinoza. Kant (for ethical purpose). Ect. The proofs were exhausted by our ancestors and stand on their own with few modern amendments (the argument from conscious).</p>
<p>Moreover, Copernicus believed his science did prove the existence of design, as did
Kepler,
Da Vinci,
Decartes,
Newton,
Boyle,
Faraday,
Mendel,
Kelvin,
Plank,
Einstein–who said, "I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings. Einstein, in his own words, was a Pantheist in Spinozas sense of Intelligent Design.</p>
<p>As I stated earlier, to suggest that since some of these scientists were persecuted by a particular church at a particular time (or one of their mothers was accused of being a witch?) somehow disproves their own firmly held arguments for the existence of a design and designer, borders on the bizarre and seems, on the surface, politically/culturally motivated and not in any way scientifically or logically relevant to a discussion of ID in science. So one is left wondering why some feel it is relevant to a discussion of SCIENCE.</p>
<p>Susantm, you said I do believe God left plenty of evidence. </p>
<p>I believe existence, as such, is evidence (no reference to existence as a predicate in the ontological argument), and if all that exists is plenty of evidence, we have PLENTY OF EVIDENCE. </p>
<p>As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Compensation, “The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.” (by the way, thanks for the kind words while facing down the torches and pitchforks 
).</p>
<p>MrB said,
To say or imply that all ID supporters are trying to get the bible into schools OR to declare the opponents of ID to be anti-religion are unfair generalizations and not point getters in any debate.</p>
<p>Well said, though I believe all bets are off ifin an attempt to keep any discussion of ID away from science in schoolpeople demonize religion, as such, to make their point (as a matter of clarification, I am a Sufi, so the “Bible into schools thing”, by definition, could not apply to me).</p>
<p>For instance, if they refer to religion as bigoted, as has been done repeatedly in this thread; or if they call religion a repressive institution with designs on persecuting scientist and science generally, as has been done repeatedly; or if they question the veracity of scientists because of their religious affiliation, as has been done repeatedly; or if they imply that those who are religious are either backward or lying, as has been done repeatedly, we have crossed the line on accusations of anti-religious rhetoric and it follows that it should be called what it is.</p>
<p>Some people have even “fibbed” (to use the polite terminology) about others in this thread (the head spins); but this last point has no substance, not even on the surface (one would hope). </p>
<p>One poster even believes there was proof offered that he, HIMSELF, is god, (a wishful, grandiose and reveling thought to be sure;)).</p>
<p>Fountain Siren</p>
<p>A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–
and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!</p>
<p>Omar Khayyam</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html[/url]”>http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html</a></p>
<p>When you mentioned you were Sufi, I thought of the relationship Omar Khayyam had between his religion and science. He believed in God but did not think every life event was was the result of divine intervention…I think that got him into hot water with some.</p>
<p><a href=“Omar Khayyam - Wikipedia”>Omar Khayyam - Wikipedia;
<p>Sorry I didn’t have time to search out a better site for this memory</p>
<p>He believed in God but did not think every life event was the result of divine intervention…I think that got him into hot water with some.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thoughtful post.</p>
<p>Of course, per the question at hand, belief in God, by definition, includes a belief in design and a designer (ID); but that is not all, it goes even further in the case of Khayyam as with other alleged Sufis. </p>
<p>Those who had reached the highest plateaus of wisdom and gnosis were said to believe that every even breath was the activity of God. In fact, Khayyam got in to hot water for the opposite reason you suggest, he thought God was in everything and every breath which theologically threatens certain forms of Islamic orthodoxy (as similar heresies did in the history of Christendom).</p>
<p>To a Sufiin a sense similar to, but not the same as, Einstein and Spinoza–God is the life force within all that we refer to when we say, life. God is in the breath of all existence.</p>
<p>Ive heard stories from my father about my great, great grandfather Jolly James (built the first glass house in Michigan); they say he used to recite Fitzgeralds complete translation of Omars Rubiyat by heart after dinner and on holidaysbeginning to end. He had only an 8th grade education and was considered by everyone who knew him the wisest man they had ever met (according to my father). </p>
<p>He was once bailed out of a Mexican Jail by Douglas Fairbanks, amongst the other extra-ordinary feats and adventures of his legendary life. </p>
<p>MrB
Thanks for kindly referring to Khayyam. There are only a handful of people who seem to know anything about Sufis in the Western World (relatively speaking) and only a few more who would even know that Omar was once one of them.</p>
<p>I assure you that there are others, but it was public school teachers and my parents who taught me to read and helped me to think. So read and think I do.</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread, I don’t have anything new to offer, but I will check in to respond if necessary to other posters.</p>
<p>What are your college plans, fountain siren?</p>
<p>Mr. B,</p>
<p>I’m a very excited incoming freshmen to Dartmouth College. </p>
<p>I’ve probably given away my major by posting so much on this specific thread, but I plan on majoring in Philosophy (modified with religion to hopefully produce an Ethics major; Dartmouth doesn’t have an official Ethics major) while following a pre-med track.</p>
<p>Religion, Ethics, and the Environment was one of my favorite courses at Cornell…Dartmouth is beautiful, I have a nephew who works at the medical center. You might want to start reading as soon as you can find your class requirements.</p>
<p>FountainSiren,
When I was in college, I read several books by Indries Shah–Wisdom of the Idiots, I think one was called–which contained sufi stories/parables… (not sure the exact correct term). They did indeed contain a lot of wisdom, and I enjoyed them very much.</p>
<p>I was telling someone about this thread and they wondered “If ID is a religious theory, would you want a science teacher to teach it?”</p>
<p>They believed it was an attempt at getting religion in the schools but were opposed to it because they thought schools might not do a good job of teaching religious principles.</p>
<p>What if ID is not only a religious theory?</p>
<p>There is something called the Harvard Project…read about it a Boston.com. It is just in its initial phases.</p>
<p>Raising the bar</p>