Intelligent Design?

[Sculli]

The people who wrote the bible were "guided by God's own hand".

... say the people who wrote the Bible.
At this point, any faith would be faith in the word of those who wrote (and re-wrote) the Bible. It has very little to do with faith in a God.

People lie.
It's in their nature, they always have lied, they always will lie.

Which of the following is more likely?
1. Mary getting impregnated by the wish of a God.
2. Mary not getting any from Josef, heading out to have some fun with someone who was able to satisfy her needs, her getting pregnant (which in her day and age would have meant to get stoned to death), and her coming up with a nice story about immaculate conception.

 

[pakomen]

The Bible heaps praise on unquestioning childlike faith, but that's exactly the kind of faith which scares the crap out of me.

Halifirien, this is a great quote. This is the main reason I turned away from Christianity.

 

[tocino de tejas]

Karl Marx has proven to be a very wise man, when in the 1800's he claimed that religion is the opiate of the masses. Religion has caused every single major war since his time, WWII (Hitler and the Jews), Korea and Vietnam (our duty to fight the godless communists), and the War on Terrorism (Islamic fundamentalism)!

 

[deathsvengeance]

ok here's my take on it.. and this is coming from a liberal college student that minored in history... I'll keep it short and simple..

I don't have a problem with Intelligent design being taught in schools, however, only as an alternative thought. Just because it is taught, it does not mean you have to believe it. It is important to learn and understand all aspects and possibilities of "creationism" and how this planet and its inhabitants came to be. They are only theories, not fact, its up to the student to decide what they choose to believe, but to me there is nothing wrong with putting out the "food for thought" if you will. Take it or leave it ^^ I think it should be taught at a more mature age, where the student is capable of learning in this capacity though.

 

[Kat]

Again to reiterate, read the book of Revelations. Then tell me the Bible is not true. Revelations was written about mankinds future how many thousands of years ago? I truly believe we are in the beginning stages of Armageddon now. I agree some of the things written are way out there but some of the things are also symbolic. I am proud to say I am a Christian and believe in the good book. I do have faith in God. But again, I'm not a bible thumper. I don't even go to church.

My sister and I used to go round and round about religion. I really miss that. I truly believe she is in Heaven right now looking down on me and is my guardian angel. She wouldn't have believed it when she was alive though. RL events have happened that I know I definitely have one since she's passed^^.

Anyway, that's my opinion. Take it or leave it.

Food for thought.

 

[pakomen]

I don't have a problem with Intelligent design being taught in schools, however, only as an alternative thought. I think it should be taught at a more mature age, where the student is capable of learning in this capacity though.

Click me: http://www.livescience.com/history/top10_intelligent_designs.html

Ok, so which intelligent design should we teach? All of them? It's really all or nothing isn't it? Maybe we should teach every "intelligent design" theory that every crackpot comes up with. I've got a few wacky ones of my own.

 

[pakomen]

Again to reiterate, read the book of Revelations. Then tell me the Bible is not true. Revelations was written about mankinds future how many thousands of years ago?

I've read the entire book of Revalations and was a Christian for 20 years. I believe it's not true. Buuuttttt I believe that Christianity along with other religions HAS had it's share of--how to put it--seers? People who have had visions of the future? There's a lot of excellent prophecy in the bible. Some of my favorites are the verse in revelation that talks about a scroll in the sky with an eye that sees all things (satellite) and a firefly that spews fire (helicopter)... The bible is a fascinating book, don't get me wrong.

 

[pakomen]

Humorous interjection: http://www.dr-zeller.com/00Images/Fun/20070535.jpg

Easily offended should not click. "Who the f* is Jesus"

 

[Halifirien]

Revelations proves nothing. As one of my favorite writers observed (on another matter), "Prophecy is a guess that comes true. When it doesn't, it becomes a metaphor." Like Nostradumbass and his "predictions," they're vague enough that people will interpret them however they want.

Every generation reads Revelations and thinks they're living it out. That should give you a clue as to how vague it is.

If Intelligent Design has a place in a science classroom, it should be lumped in with all the other creation stories out there. ID is on par with Greek mythology, or the Iroquois tale of Sky Woman, or the Aboriginal, Egyptian, Shinto and Scientologist beliefs because it's all supernatural explanation. Science does not deal in that realm.

 

[masterorion]

Well I'm not a holy roller or anything. Hell I don't even go to Church. Churches are just ... (won't go into my religious beliefs on a gaming board) ... but I do believe we came from God (hence Adam and Eve).

Just my opinion, take it or leave it.

Anyway I voted: Religion is the opium of the people.

i dont do religious debates so dont think this is a flame or attempt to make argument cuz i think people can believe whatever they wish. but.....along with your churches thing....myself, churches are a place where people gather to worship. a church is NOT NEEDED to worship. people can worship and believe in their god from any place on the planet. in the times of christ, there were no churches. whos to say you cant worship from home, a back alley, whatever.

as for the adam and eve part. a few years ago, i had someone mention this to me and it made a good point. adam and eve...well, during the period that they would have been created, there was nothing. whos to say adam and eve were even human. adam and eve may just be fictional characters portrayed in the "story" of the bible. alot can be speculated about the bible. some people think its the greatest STORY ever told. some of it being fictional and some being just a story. no one will ever know for sure. it could have been created by someone that wanted to start a group of followers. there are a few religions that started by someone because they believed something different and they had gotten other people to follow that belief. for all we know, buddhism may be the correct religion.???

question i ask when it comes to religion is "do you know for sure that everything in the bible happened", "is it fact?" "can it be proven beyone the shadow of a doubt that what you believe is absolutely correct"....if you can answer yes to all of these, id like to see it so then i know what religion to be following.

as for now, i believe what ive been tought since ive been old enough to comprehend. and that is also proving something in itself. when kids are born, they are taught a way of life(religion included), that was of life will stick with them throughout their life. their belief may change somewhere down the line, but the fact remains the same....they are tought about some religion to believe in from someone that was tought the same way. and that person was tought by someone else and yadda yadda yadda till it goes back to the person that started preaching whatever beliefs. question ultimately comes down to..."the very first person that started these beliefs, where did they get their information from and is it ALL fact". if we knew that answer, there wouldnt be so many religious arguments.

as for ID, hmm. i am borderline on this because "I" have no proof of where we originated from. religion says one thing and i do believe in my religion, however, at the same time, science believes in evolution. question to me is "which one is correct". well, if we knew that, we wouldnt be having debates like this. the scientific "theory" that we came from evolution of another form is just a theory. no one can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that evolution is true. there were no scientists studying apes during their so called evolution in to man. my thought on this is, human was either placed or evolved from something. how that human or "something that evolved" came into what it is today, is unknown. "what created life?" people believe that something in time happened (like a big bang or whatever it was, i dont recall) that jump started life. the question i ask then is, "what created that jump start?" everything has to start from somewhere but the origination of anything is unknown.

lets say that life on earth was created by some freak happening, ok, then what created the earth that this happened on? well, people will say earth was created by a collision of two large masses or whatever the scientific research has discovered. well, next question is, what created those two large masses (or whatever) that created earth. stuff just doesnt appear unless something starts it. that is where religion comes in. it gives people a theory to believe in. wether its taught in school or not, well, kids dont have to believe something that differs from their religion, but i dont think its correct to teach them stuff like that. kids are easily moldable. you can get them to believe in santa claus really easy and ID is no different. "if its in school, its gotta be right".

dont get me wrong, im a religious person and everything, but i dont go to church, however, i am a believer of the christian faith.i do believe that god has a set plan for everyone and that what he has set out for me is the way its meant to be regardless of what i do.
but, i do also keep an open mind about what other people want to beleive.

 

[Sculli]

i do believe that god has a set plan for everyone and that what he has set out for me is the way its meant to be regardless of what i do.

Honestly, that is what ticks me off the most about religion.
Essentially you have given up in life, because no matter what you do, it's was already meant to be. With all due respect, but that is bullshit.
Life is what you make it, take charge and stop relying on the "it was meant to be" excuse (if you screw up), or start giving yourself some credit for what you achieve (if you are successful).

 

[masterorion]

Honestly, that is what ticks me off the most about religion.
Essentially you have given up in life, because no matter what you do, it's was already meant to be. With all due respect, but that is bullshit.
Life is what you make it, take charge and stop relying on the "it was meant to be" excuse (if you screw up), or start giving yourself some credit for what you achieve (if you are successful).

thats true, however you have to think about past decisions that you may have had. "what if". what if you made another decision. what if you joined the military, what if you went to a different school. it changes EVERYTHING in history. what if i were born female? what if my mother died before i was born.

whos to say that the decisions you make arent already decided for you. you do not know that your decisions arent already made for you. if you do, you should open your mind a little and ask yourself "what caused me to make whatever decision and why?" your probably gonna say, "it was in my best interest" or something along that line. but, do you know for 100% fact that your decisions werent already predetermined?...NO, you dont. if we knew what your life was going to hold for you, the life wouldnt be what it is.

any littel decisiion made can be teh cause of your death. going home for the holiday could result in a fatal car accident. as rough as that is on loved ones, are you possitive taht your life was or wasnt meant to end there?

i think you may have misjudged what i was making in that statement. by all means im not saying that if you sit at home and do absolutely nothing, that is what was meant to be. no, what people do within their life may or may not be predetermined. if i die tonight in my sleep, whos to say it wasnt my time?
5+ years ago when i made the decision to get married, i personally made that decision. wether it was right or wrong is irrelivent. from what happened during that marriage lands me where i am now. if i wasnt married, i wouldnt be sitting here typing this message. if i didnt join the military, i wouldnt have gotten married. if i didnt join the military, i wouldnt have a 5 year old son from the marriage that was caused by me joining the military. do i know for sure that all those decisions werent made for me already? No. i had some inclination to make that decision, but what caused me to make it. i dunno. but everything happened for some reason and thats what i leave it as.

also another thing i want to mention that i hate people that are as disrespectful as you are over someoens OPINION. i honestly took that remark you made to heart. you slandered what i belief because you think that your belief is right. open your mind and take other peoples opinions into thought. it will give you a broader look on life. you may actually say to yourself...."hmm, i wonder if so and so was right about whatever". who knows, you may be right, i may be right. do you know 100% and beyond the shadow of a doubt that life isnt predetermined for u.? of course people make decisions through life but you will never know what a different option would have brought.

 

[pakomen]

One thing that shows me that Intelligent Design will fail in the classrooms is this:

Before it was called Intelligent Design, it was called Creationism. Christians bitched because they couldn't get the courts to allow Creationism to be taught in the classroom. So, what do they do? They give it a more vague name: Intelligent Design.

In fact, the name Intelligent Design is way too vague. If they weren't such pussies they would have called it Judeo-centric design or something along those lines, because Intelligent Design leaves room for every religion and every crackpot sci-fi theory.

 

[Reishu]

hmmm i really don't have an easily described opinion that fits well into this...

I'm inclined to believe that Intelligent Design -could- be true, and i have no evidence (note that i said evidence, not theories) on the contrary.

My grandfather did a lot of research into the celluar workings of everyone varying from normal people to shamans and gurus. He found some suprising stuff.

One little tidbit is in the mitochondiral melatonin (sp?), a pigment which influences how efficient the cell processes energy. Some things influence how the pigment develops, such as mental status and physical status.

As the mental status becomes what most religions would describe as more exalted, the pigments align in ways that help the mitochondira process energy better. Varying degrees of alignment vary from not at all (where fatigue is rampant) to other end where people do not have problems with fatigue.

There have been rumors of people who progress so far in this process to actually be capable of emitting light. In -every- instance, such people have been "taken away to god" as -every- religion describes. Coincidence? i don't think so.

Now, this would point to the existence of a very real "god" (probably labeled as such due more to the mysterious technology at hand there, as well as a significantly evolved society which promotes the higher mental levels)

This is given credibility by ancient folklore, such as what Mesopotamian religions preserved. Such religions even describe the travels of the gods into the solar system.

The Jewish religion also points to it, where it describes God travelling in a "Chariot of Fire" (a very ancient way to describe something rocket-like)

At this time, the current "myth" so to say of other people in the solar system is told via UFOs and alien sightings. There is too much real evidence, even if it is doubted, to say that there is no way that someone else out there is there.

When regarding our creation, there are a great many stories, but generally, they all fall into some process that describes God designing our bodies. Intelligent Design? Yes. But is it what current scholars say? No.

A common misconception is the idea that "Create" = to make something out of nothing. Every dictionary says "Create" = to make something out of something else.

God created us, but he didn't make us out of thin air. he had to have raw materials. This may have very well have been apes, which had the most potential of any other species on Earth at the time.

Another ingredient in creation is time. Humans didn't just *pop* into existence fully grown, like Greek legends suggest. Geologic records suggest that it took a long long time, but they still don't know what the catalyst which made such large changes was.

Another thing to point out is that geologists agree that evolution in a species is made by leaps and bounds, where a species is relatively unchanged for a large period of time, then very quickly (i'm talking like a handful of generations quickly) something changes.

Coincidence? I think not... too many pieces fit together.

Anyways, this is a very long post, but i don't believe that it is incorrect, only obscure.

As for the OP, Intelligent Design? yes. Evolution? yes. Both worked together in my opinion.

 

[Reishu]

three and a half hours and no replies? oh come on, someone has to have something more to say...

it's not like i should have the final word. >.>

 

[Daveman]

Honestly, that is what ticks me off the most about religion.
Essentially you have given up in life, because no matter what you do, it's was already meant to be. With all due respect, but that is bullshit.
Life is what you make it, take charge and stop relying on the "it was meant to be" excuse (if you screw up), or start giving yourself some credit for what you achieve (if you are successful).

Yes this is one thing that gets to me. My little brother had leukemia, he's now 8 years old, he was diagnosed at 4 years old. It was cuaght extremely early, and went into remission relativly quickly, they've completely stopped treatment this year, and now only needs a checkup every once in a while to make sure no cancer cells are found and the blood counts continue to recover.

My parents and familiy continuely thank god for him being ok now, how god saved my brother, how it's all about god. Not once, not once have I heard anyone thank the doctors, say "thanks to the doctors", "thanks to medicine", or "thanks to our insurance company who paid over a hundred thousand dollars".

Guess what if my brother didn't have a blood test schedualed that day 4.5years ago, if those people at the labs didn't test his blood properly, if my dad didn't have insurance for him, if the doctors didn't do anything, if they gave him the wrong treatment, if those doctors/chemistiss/scientists never researched and found how to deal with cancer years ago, if all these people didn't do their part or didn't work hard, things might have ended differently.

And then after all that, "god" gets the credit for it all. Let me ask this, where was god 100 years ago? when this disease meant you were gonna die, why didn't he help those people, mostly children, why didn't he help them? why did he only start helping people survive after people discovored meathods to cure it?

 

[Kat]

I have no clue Davemen why God let's things happen like they do. Again it all comes back to faith. I cannot answer those questions. I have a few of my own.

Why did God allow my sister to be taken at 34 years old and leave 2 boys ages 6 and 4, my neice who was in her senior year of high school age 17, motherless for the rest of their lives? And there are so many more. Why was I only allowed to have 1 child? Why did my daughter get pregnant at 15? Why did God take not only 1 but 2 children from my Mother (she had a miscarriage with my brother Michael [who my grandson is named after] when she was pregnant with him)? My natural father pushed her down the stairs. Very long story and I try to never think about it now. Bottom line is: why ask why?

God has some grand scheme in things. That's all I can say. Btw, my sister told my mom a year before she died she was gonna be goin' around a curve and die in a car accident. There is some weird shit in this world. Again, it comes down to Faith. You either have it or you don't.

 

[Reishu]

I agree Kat ^^

Faith is good if you know it will bring you to a happier place. What i don't understand is how people say they have faith and end up going nowhere with it. Dave's family for instance, they had faith that Dave's little brother would get better. But it stopped there.

"Faith like a mustard seed can move mountains."

Just because a mustard tree gives fruit doesn't mean the tree should stop growing

 

[Daveman]

I have no clue Davemen why God let's things happen like they do. Again it all comes back to faith. I cannot answer those questions. I have a few of my own.

The way I see it is, Even if there was a god, he definatly doesn't play an active role in this world.

I can easily answer why smallpox killed so many people, but now 0 people have it. It's not because God wanted the disease gone. It's because a group of people made a vaccine and aggressivly fought the disease with it until smallpox was declared "eradicated". I don't see any divine intervention there.

When an innocent 5 year old boy, drops his ball in the middle of the street, and a car hits him. God didn't let it happen, it was a series of events that just went wrong. When another 5 year old boy drops his ball in the middle of the street, and a car reacts fast enough to completely dodge the boy, God didn't save the boy, the driver who caught it early enough did.

To say "yeah but god wanted the car to doge it" or "yeah but it was in god's greater plan for the car to not of been able to avoid in time" when the only factors are human controlled is basically saying god controlled the person's reflex, reasearch, luck, actions, or etc..

And where does that leave free will?

 

[masterorion]

the way i like to look at it is, lets say there was an important decision or event that happened and you look back on it and wonder "what if i didnt do this" or "took the other choice"? how would that change you make, effect the rest of history? lets use kats story as an example....what if her sister hadnt passed on. what in history would have changed? everything would have. her sister would still have some effect in this world and future kids her sister may have conceived would playing a role also because those unborn kids would have gotten married or had some part in history as well.

now as far as daveman goes, lets say god didnt have your little brothers condition set beforehand, how would that have changed life for your family. i would imagine that if your brother hadnt had the disease, no 100k would have been needed as well as no emotional distress. but since it did happen, your family is much more thankful for your brothers life. but, what if nothing bad was going to happen? what if he wasnt born? what would your family be doing?

and this goes into my previous opinion. the future is gonna happen the way its going to happen unless your able to travel back in time to change it. every decision, event, etc plays into a single persons lifetime.

faith plays a huge role in daily life. maybe not for everyone, but a majority of the population. i myself, i have money issues since im not employed and live on my own, but i dont worry about money because i have a firm belief that its gonna work itself out. and it has, every single time. back when i was married and had a house, i was workin two jobs but cutting it very close. we were about to lose the house but out of the blue, i get a bonus check from work that covered just over what i needed. prior to that, ive heard a few people say, "things work themselves out". i didnt think to much of it till that point in time that i got my bonus check. but ever since then, i paid attention to those times that things were needed. im unemployed atm but get checks from the VA to go to school each month, its enough to cover rent. you have to admit, its pretty amazing that i still have a way to pay for stuff plus rent. the money is just there when i need it. i dont ask why or how, but it finds the best time to find me

blah blah ramble ramble