What exactly is it about the universe that you think cannot be explained as the product of natural processes?
Everything in the universe can be explained in terms of physical perception and interpretation, in respect to, as the products of natural process.
My quote was more inclined towards the natural design of the universe or the fine tuning of our universe.
Of course natural selection is a fact, but a fact based and founded upon pure randomness from a beginning of sheer chaos.... Of course not just this but the entire family tree and web complex of life, which has come to pass upon our little world.
For all probability, suggesting that this universe was not designed is kind of like suggesting a great saga, unlike any other in interlect, depth, logic, creation and imagination, without an author...or anyone who wrote it.
It is of course the same with our universe, such beauty and wonder...but left to random design with nothing more then chaos at its hand...?
If such chaos truley rules and governs all then how did one, let alone all, of these Physical Constants of the Universe come into balance in such away that each one is individually, as goldilocks said, "just right".
What follows is a plausible suggestion to how the universe is indeed designed.
Evidence for the Fine Tuning of the Universe The constants of the laws of physics have been finely tuned to a degree not possible through human engineering, Four of the more finely tuned numbers are included below.
Fine Tuning of the Physical Constants of the Universe:
Parameter : Max. Deviation
Ratio of Electrons:Protons 1:10+37 Ratio of Electromagnetic Force:Gravity 1:10+40 Expansion Rate of Universe 1:10+55 Mass of Universe1 1:10+59 Cosmological Constant 1:10+120 These numbers represent the maximum deviation from the accepted values, that would either prevent the universe from existing now, not having matter, or be unsuitable for any form of life.
Recent Studies have confirmed the fine tuning of the cosmological constant. This cosmological constant is a force that increases with the increasing size of the universe. First hypothesized by Albert Einstein, the cosmological constant was rejected by him, because of lack of real world data. However, recent supernova 1A data demonstrated the existence of a cosmological constant that probably made up for the lack of light and dark matter in the universe.2 However, the data was tentative, since there was some variability among observations. Recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurement not only demonstrate the existence of the cosmological constant, but the value of the constant. It turns out that the value of the cosmological constant exactly makes up for the lack of matter in the universe.3
The degree of fine-tuning is difficult to imagine. Dr. Ross gives an example of the least fine-tuned of the above four examples in his book, The Creator and the Cosmos, which is reproduced here:
"One part in 10+37 is such an incredibly sensitive balance that it is hard to visualize. The following analogy might help: Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles (In comparison, the money to pay for the U.S. federal government debt would cover one square mile less than two feet deep with dimes.). Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billion of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one in 10+37." (p. 115)
1. strong nuclear force constant: if larger: no hydrogen would form; atomic nuclei for most life-essential elements would be unstable; thus, no life chemistry if smaller: no elements heavier than hydrogen would form: again, no life chemistry
2. weak nuclear force constant: if larger: too much hydrogen would convert to helium in big bang; hence, stars would convert too much matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible if smaller: too little helium would be produced from big bang; hence, stars would convert too little matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible
3. gravitational force constant if larger: stars would be too hot and would burn too rapidly and too unevenly for life chemistry if smaller: stars would be too cool to ignite nuclear fusion; thus, many of the elements needed for life chemistry would never form
4. electromagnetic force constant if greater: chemical bonding would be disrupted; elements more massive than boron would be unstable to fission if lesser: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry
5. ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant if larger: all stars would be at least 40% more massive than the sun; hence, stellar burning would be too brief and too uneven for life support if smaller: all stars would be at least 20% less massive than the sun, thus incapable of producing heavy elements
6. ratio of electron to proton mass if larger: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry if smaller: same as above
7. ratio of number of protons to number of electrons if larger: electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing galaxy, star, and planet formation if smaller: same as above
8. expansion rate of the universe if larger: no galaxies would form if smaller: universe would collapse, even before stars formed
9. entropy level of the universe if larger: stars would not form within proto-galaxies if smaller: no proto-galaxies would form
10. mass density of the universe if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements
11. velocity of light if faster: stars would be too luminous for life support if slower: stars would be insufficiently luminous for life support
12. age of the universe if older: no solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would exist in the right (for life) part of the galaxy if younger: solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would not yet have formed
13. initial uniformity of radiation if more uniform: stars, star clusters, and galaxies would not have formed if less uniform: universe by now would be mostly black holes and empty space
14. average distance between galaxies if larger: star formation late enough in the history of the universe would be hampered by lack of material if smaller: gravitational tug-of-wars would destabilize the sun's orbit
15. density of galaxy cluster if denser: galaxy collisions and mergers would disrupt the sun's orbit if less dense: star formation late enough in the history of the universe would be hampered by lack of material
16. average distance between stars if larger: heavy element density would be too sparse for rocky planets to form if smaller: planetary orbits would be too unstable for life
17. fine structure constant (describing the fine-structure splitting of spectral lines) if larger: all stars would be at least 30% less massive than the sun if larger than 0.06: matter would be unstable in large magnetic fields if smaller: all stars would be at least 80% more massive than the sun
18. decay rate of protons if greater: life would be exterminated by the release of radiation if smaller: universe would contain insufficient matter for life
19. 12C to 16O nuclear energy level ratio if larger: universe would contain insufficient oxygen for life if smaller: universe would contain insufficient carbon for life
20. ground state energy level for 4He if larger: universe would contain insufficient carbon and oxygen for life if smaller: same as above
21. decay rate of 8Be if slower: heavy element fusion would generate catastrophic explosions in all the stars if faster: no element heavier than beryllium would form; thus, no life chemistry
22. ratio of neutron mass to proton mass if higher: neutron decay would yield too few neutrons for the formation of many life-essential elements if lower: neutron decay would produce so many neutrons as to collapse all stars into neutron stars or black holes
23. initial excess of nucleons over anti-nucleons if greater: radiation would prohibit planet formation if lesser: matter would be insufficient for galaxy or star formation
24. polarity of the water molecule if greater: heat of fusion and vaporization would be too high for life if smaller: heat of fusion and vaporization would be too low for life; liquid water would not work as a solvent for life chemistry; ice would not float, and a runaway freeze-up would result
25. supernovae eruptions if too close, too frequent, or too late: radiation would exterminate life on the planet if too distant, too infrequent, or too soon: heavy elements would be too sparse for rocky planets to form
26. white dwarf binaries if too few: insufficient fluorine would exist for life chemistry if too many: planetary orbits would be too unstable for life if formed too soon: insufficient fluorine production if formed too late: fluorine would arrive too late for life chemistry
27. ratio of exotic matter mass to ordinary matter mass if larger: universe would collapse before solar-type stars could form if smaller: no galaxies would form
28. number of effective dimensions in the early universe if larger: quantum mechanics, gravity, and relativity could not coexist; thus, life would be impossible if smaller: same result
29. number of effective dimensions in the present universe if smaller: electron, planet, and star orbits would become unstable if larger: same result
30. mass of the neutrino if smaller: galaxy clusters, galaxies, and stars would not form if larger: galaxy clusters and galaxies would be too dense
31. big bang ripples if smaller: galaxies would not form; universe would expand too rapidly if larger: galaxies/galaxy clusters would be too dense for life; black holes would dominate; universe would collapse before life-site could form
32. size of the relativistic dilation factor if smaller: certain life-essential chemical reactions will not function properly if larger: same result
33. uncertainty magnitude in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle if smaller: oxygen transport to body cells would be too small and certain life-essential elements would be unstable if larger: oxygen transport to body cells would be too great and certain life-essential elements would be unstable
34. cosmological constant if larger: universe would expand too quickly to form solar-type stars
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have made it this far I guess it is also fair to note the possibility of a multiverse existence.
Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1996 In the name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate
14 July 1995
Dear Suleman 'Ali:
Thank you for your fax of 27 June 1995 which said, in part:
"Recently a pamphlet has been circulated around Oxford saying that evolution is synonymous with kufr and shirk. I myself am a biologist and am convinced by the evidence which supports the theory of evolution. I am writing to ask whether the Quranic account of Creation is incompatible with man having evolved. Are there any books which you would recommend on the subject?"
During my "logic of scientific explanation" period at the University of Chicago, I used to think that scientific theories had to have coherence, logicality, applicability, and adequacy, and I was accustomed to examine theory statements by looking at these things in turn. Perhaps they furnish a reasonable point of departure to give your question an answer which, if cursory and somewhat personal, may yet shed some light on the issues you are asking about.
Coherence It seems to me that the very absoluteness of the theory's conclusions tends to compromise its "objective" character. It is all very well to speak of the "evidence of evolution," but if the theory is thorough- going, then human consciousness itself is also governed by evolution. This means that the categories that allow observation statements to arise as "facts", categories such as number, space, time, event, measurement, logic, causality, and so forth are mere physiological accidents of random mutation and natural selection in a particular species, Homo sapiens. They have not come from any scientific considerations, but rather have arbitrarily arisen in man by blind and fortuitous evolution for the purpose of preserving the species. They need not reflect external reality, "the way nature is", objectively, but only to the degree useful in preserving the species. That is, nothing guarantees the primacy, the objectivity, of these categories over others that would have presumably have arisen had our consciousness evolved along different lines, such as those of more distant, say, aquatic or subterranean species. The cognitive basis of every statement within the theory thus proceeds from the unreflective, unexamined historical forces that produced "consciousness" in one species, a cognitive basis that the theory nevertheless generalizes to the whole universe of theory statements (the explanation of the origin of species) without explaining what permits this generalization. The pretences of the theory to correspond to an objective order of reality, applicable in an absolute sense to all species, are simply not compatible with the consequences of a thoroughly evolutionary viewpoint, which entails that the human cognitive categories that underpin the theory are purely relative and species-specific. The absolutism of random mutation and natural selection as explanative principles ends in eating the theory. With all its statements simultaneously absolute and relative, objective and subjective, generalizable and ungeneralizable, scientific and species-specific, the theory runs up on a reef of methodological incoherence.
Logicality Speaking for myself, I was convinced that the evolution of man was an unchallengeable "given" of modern knowledge until I read Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species". The ninth chapter (The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Ed. J.W. Burrow. London: Penguin Books, 1979, 291-317) made it clear, from what Darwin modestly calls the "great imperfection of the geological record" that the theory was not in principle falsifiable, though the possibility that some kind of evidence or another should be able in principle to disprove a theory is a condition (if we can believe logicians like Karl Popper) for it to be considered scientific. By its nature, fossil evidence of intermediate forms that could prove or disprove the theory remained unfound and unfindable. When I read this, it was not clear to me how such an theory could be called "scientific".
If evolution is not scientific, then what is it? It seems to me that it is a human interpretation, an endeavor, an industry, a literature, based on what the American philosopher Charles Peirce called abductive reasoning, which functions in the following way:
(1) Suprising fact A. (2) If theory B were the case, then A would naturally follow. (3) Therefore B.
Here, (1) alone is certain, (2) is merely probable (as it explains the facts, though does not preclude other possible theories), while (3) has only the same probability as (2). If you want to see how ironclad the case for the evolution of man is, make a list of all the fossils discovered so far that "prove" the evolution of man from lower life forms, date them, and then ask yourself if abductive reasoning is not what urges it, and if it really precludes the possibility of quite a different (2) in place of the theory of evolution.
Applicability Is the analogy from micro-evolution within a species (which is fairly well-attested to by breeding horses, pigeons, useful plant hybrids, and so on) applicable to macro-evolution, from one species to another? That is, is there a single example of one species actually evolving into another, with the intermediate forms represented in the fossil record?
In the 1970s, Peter Williamson of Harvard University, under the direction of Richard Leakey, examined 3,300 fossils from digs around Lake Turkana, Kenya, spanning several million years of the history of thirteen species of mollusks, that seemed to provide clear evidence of evolution from one species to another. He published his findings five years later in Nature magazine, and Newsweek picked up the story:
"Though their existence provides the basis for paleontology, fossils have always been something of an embarrassment to evolutionists. The problem is one of 'missing links': the fossil record is so littered with gaps that it takes a truly expert and imaginative eye to discern how one species could have evolved into another.... But now, for the first time, excavations at Kenya's Lake Turkana have provided clear fossil evidence of evolution from one species to another. The rock strata there contain a series of fossils that show every small step of an evolutionary journey that seems to have proceeded in fits and starts" (Sharon Begley and John Carey, "Evolution: Change at a Snail's Pace." Newsweek, 7 December 1981).
Without dwelling on the facticity of scientific hypotheses raised under logic above, or that 3,300 fossils of thirteen species only "cover" several million years if we already acknowledge that evolution is happening and are merely trying to see where the fossils fit in, or that we are back to Peirce's abductive reasoning here, although with a more probable minor premise because of the fuller geological record--that is, even if we grant that evolution is the "given" which the fossils prove, an interesting point about the fossils (for a theist) is that the change was much more rapid than the traditional Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection would warrant:
What the record indicated was that the animals stayed much the same for immensely long stretches of time. But twice, about 2 million years ago and and then again 700,000 years ago, the pool of life seemed to explode--set off, apparently, by a drop in the lake's water level. In an instant of geologic time, as the changing lake environment allowed new types of mollusks to win the race for survival, all of the species evolved into varieties sharply different from their ancestors. Such sudden evolution had been observed before. What made the Lake Turkana fossil record unique, says Williamson, is that "for the first time we see intermediate forms" between the old species and the new.
That intermediate forms appeared so quickly, with new species suddenly evolving in 5,000 to 50,000 years after millions of years of constancy, challenges the traditional theories of Darwin's disciples. Most scientists describe evolution as a gradual process, in which random genetic mutations slowly produce new species. But the fossils of Lake Turkana don't record any gradual change; rather, they seem to reflect eons of stasis interrupted by brief evolutionary "revolutions" (ibid.).
Of what significance is this to Muslims? In point of religion, if we put our scientific scruples aside for a moment and grant that evolution is applicable to something in the real world; namely, the mollusks of Lake Turkana, does this constitute unbelief (kufr) by the standards of Islam? I don't think so. Classic works of Islamic 'aqida or "tenets of faith" such as al-Matan al-Sanusiyya tell us, "As for what is possible in relation to Allah, it consists of His doing or not doing anything that is possible" (al-Sanusi, Hashiya al-Dasuqi 'ala Umm al-barahin. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, n.d, 145-46). That is, the omnipotent power of Allah can do anything that is not impossible, meaning either:
(a) intrinsically impossible (mustahil dhati), such as--creating a five-sided triangle--which is a mere confusion of words, and not something in any sense possible, such that we could ask whether Allah could do it;
(b) or else impossible because of Allah having informed us that it shall not occur (mustahil 'aradi), whether He does so in the Qur'an, or through the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in a mutawatir hadith, meaning one that has reached us through so many means of transmission that it is impossible its transmitters could have all conspired to forge it. This category of the impossible is not impossible to begin with, but becomes so by the revelation from Allah, who is truthful and veracious. For example, it is impossible that Abu Lahab should be of the people of paradise, because the Qur'an tells us he is of the people of hell (Qur'an 111).
With respect to evolution, the knowledge claim that Allah has brought one sort of being out of another is not intrinsically impossible ((a) above) because it is not self-contradictory. And as to whether it is (b), "impossible because of Allah having informed us that it cannot occur", it would seem to me that we have two different cases, that of man, and that of the rest of creation.
Man Regarding your question whether the Qur'anic account of creation is incompatible with man having evolved; if evolution entails, as Darwin believed, that "probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from one primordial form, into which life was first breathed" (The Origin of Species, 455), I apprehend that this is incompatible with the Qur'anic account of creation. Our first ancestor was the prophet Adam (upon whom be peace), who was created by Allah in janna, or "paradise" and not on earth, but also created in a particular way that He describes to us:
"And [mention] when your Lord said to the angels, 'Truly, I will create a man from clay. So when I have completed him, and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down prostrate to him.' And the angels prostrated, one and all. Save for Satan, who was too proud to, and disbelieved. He said to him, 'O Satan, what prevented you from prostrating to what I have created with My two hands? Are you arrogant, or too exalted?' He said,'I am better than he; You created me from fire and created him from clay'" (Qur'an 38:71-76).
Now, the God of Islam is transcendently above any suggestion of anthropomorphism, and Qur'anic exegetes like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi explain the above words created with My two hands as a figurative expression of Allah's special concern for this particular creation, the first human, since a sovereign of immense majesty does not undertake any work "with his two hands" unless it is of the greatest importance (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi. 32 vols. Beirut 1401/1981. Reprint (32 vols. in 16). Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1405/1985, 26.231-32). I say "the first human," because the Arabic term bashar used in the verse "Truly, I will create a man from clay" means precisely a human being and has no other lexical significance.
The same interpretive considerations (of Allah's transcendance above the attributes of created things) apply to the words and breathed into him of My spirit. Because the Qur'an unequivocally establishes that Allah is Ahad or "One," not an entity divisible into parts, exegetes say this "spirit" was a created one, and that its attribution to Allah ("My spirit") is what is called in Arabic idafat al-tashrif "an attribution of honor," showing that the ruh or "spirit" within this first human being and his descendants was "a sacred, exalted, and noble substance" (ibid., 228)--not that there was a "part of Allah" such as could enter into Adam's body, which is unbelief. Similar attributions are not infrequent in Arabic, just as the Kaaba is called bayt Allah, or "the House of Allah," meaning "Allah's honored house," not that it is His address; or such as the she-camel sent to the people of Thamud, which was called naqat Allah, or "the she-camel of Allah," meaning "Allah's honored she-camel," signifying its inviolability in the shari'a of the time, not that He rode it; and so on.
All of which shows that, according to the Qur'an, human beings are intrinsically--by their celestial provenance in janna, by their specially created nature, and by the ruh or soul within them--at a quite different level in Allah's eyes than other terrestrial life, whether or not their bodies have certain physiological affinities with it, which are the prerogative of their Maker to create. Darwin says:
"I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide" (The Origin of Species, 454-55).
Indeed it may. It is the nature of the place in which Allah has created us, this world (dunya), that the possibility exists to deny the existence of Allah, His angels, His Books, His messengers, the Last Day, and destiny, its good and evil. If these things were not hidden by a veil, there would be no point in Allah's making us responsible for believing them. Belief would be involuntary, like the belief, say, that France is in Europe.
But what He has made us responsible for is precisely belief in the unseen. Why? In order that the divine names--such as al-Rafi' or "He Who Raises," al-Khafidh "He Who Abases," al-Mu'ti "He Who Gives," al-Mani' "He Who Withholds," al-Rahim "the Merciful," al-Muntaqim "the Avenger," al-Latif "the Subtlely Kind," and so on--may be manifest.
How are they manifest? Only through the levels of human felicity and perdition, of salvation and damnation, by the disparity of human spiritual attainment in all its degrees: from the profound certitude of the prophets (upon whom be peace), to the faith of the ordinary believer, to the doubts of the waverer or hypocrite, to the denials of the damned. Also, the veil for its part has a seamless quality. To some, it is a seamless veil of light manifesting the Divine through the perfection of creation; while to others, it is a seamless veil of darkness, a perfect nexus of interpenetrating causal relations in which there is no place for anything that is not material. Allah says,
"Exalted in Grace is He in whose hand is dominion, and He has power over everything. Who created death and life to try you, as to which of you is better in works, and He is the All-powerful, the Oft-forgiving. And who created the seven heavens in layers; you see no disparity in the creation of the All-merciful. Return your glance: do you see any fissures?" (Qur'an 67:1-3).
The last time I checked, the university scene was an atheistic subculture, of professors and students actively or passively convinced that God was created by man. In bastions of liberalism like the University of California at Berkeley, for example, which still forbids the establishment of a Religions Department, only this attitude will do; anything else is immature, is primitivism. The reduction of human behavior to evolutionary biology is a major journalistic missionary outreach of this movement. I am pleased with this, in as much as Allah has created it to try us, to distinguish the good from the bad, the bad from the worse. But I don't see why Muslims should accept it as an explanation of the origin of man, especially when it contradicts what we know from the Creator of Man.
Other Species As for other cases, change from one sort of thing to another does not seem to contradict revelation, for Allah says,
"O people: Fear your Lord, who created you from one soul [Adam, upon whom be peace] and created from it its mate [his wife Hawa], and spread forth from them many men and women" (Qur'an 4:1),
and also says, concerning the metamorphosis of a disobedient group of Bani Isra'il into apes,
"When they were too arrogant to [desist from] what they had been forbidden, We said to them, 'Be you apes, humiliated'" (Qur'an 7:166).
and in a hadith, "There shall be groups of people from my community who shall consider fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful: groups shall camp beside a high mountain, whom a shepherd returning to in the evening with one of their herds shall approach for something he needs, and they shall tell him, 'Come back tomorrow.' Allah shall destroy them in the night, bringing down the mountain upon them, and transforming others into apes and swine until the Day of Judgement." (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 7.138: 5590). Most Islamic scholars have understood these transformations literally, which shows that Allah's changing one thing into another (again, in other than the origin of man) has not been traditionally considered to be contrary to the teachings of Islam. Indeed, the daily miracle of nutrition, the sustenance Allah provides for His creatures, in which one creature is transformed into another by being eaten, may be seen in the food chains that make up the economy of our natural world, as well as our own plates.
If, as in the theory of evolution, we conjoin with this possibility the factors of causality, gradualism, mutation, and adaptation, it does not seem to me to add anything radically different to these other forms of change. For Islamic tenets of faith do not deny causal relations as such, but rather that causes have effects in and of themselves, for to believe this is to ascribe a co-sharer to Allah in His actions. Whoever believes in this latter causality (as virtually all evolutionists do) is an unbeliever (kafir) without any doubt, as "whoever denies the existence of ordinary causes has made the Wisdom of Allah Most High inoperative, while whoever attributes effects to them has associated co-sharers (shirk) to Allah Most High" (al-Hashimi: Miftah al-janna fi sharh 'aqida Ahl al-Sunna. Damascus: Matba'a al-taraqi, 1379/1960, 33). As for Muslims, they believe that Allah alone creates causes, Allah alone creates effects, and Allah alone conjoins the two. In the words of the Qur'an, "Allah is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16).
A Muslim should pay careful attention to this point, and distance himself from believing either that causes (a) bring about effects in and of themselves; or (b) bring about effects in and of themselves through a capacity Allah has placed in them. Both of these negate the oneness and soleness (wahdaniyya) of Allah, which entails that Allah has no co-sharer in:
(1) His entity (dhat); (2) His attributes (sifat); (3) or in His acts (af'al), which include the creation of the universe and everything in it, including all its cause and effect relationships.
This third point is negated by both (a) and (b) above, and perhaps this is what your pamphleteer at Oxford had in mind when he spoke about the shirk (ascribing a co-sharer to Allah) of evolution.
In this connection, evolution as a knowledge claim about a causal relation does not seem to me intrinsically different from other similar knowledge claims, such as the statement "The president died from an assassin's bullet." Here, though in reality Allah alone gives life or makes to die, we find a dispensation in Sacred Law to speak in this way, provided that we know and believe that Allah alone brought about this effect. As for someone who literally believes that the bullet gave the president death, such a person is a kafir. In reality he knows no more about the world than a man taking a bath who, when the water is cut off from the municipality, gets angry at the tap.
To summarize the answer to your question thus far, belief in macro-evolutionary transformation and variation of non-human species does not seem to me to entail kufr (unbelief) or shirk (ascribing co-sharers to Allah) unless one also believes that such transformation came about by random mutation and natural selection, understanding these adjectives as meaning causal independence from the will of Allah. You have to look in your heart and ask yourself what you believe. From the point of view of tawhid, Islamic theism, nothing happens "at random," there is no "autonomous nature," and anyone who believes in either of these is necessarily beyond the pale of Islam.
Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly what most evolutionists think. In America and England, they are the ones who write the textbooks, which raises weighty moral questions about sending Muslim students to schools to be taught these atheistic premises as if they were "givens of modern science." Teaching unbelief (kufr) to Muslims as though it were a fact is unquestionably unlawful. Is this unlawfulness mitigated (made legally permissible by shari'a standards) by the need (darura) of upcoming generations of Muslims for scientific education? If so, the absence of textbooks and teachers in most schools who are conversant and concerned enough with the difficulties of the theory of evolution to accurately present its hypothetical character, places a moral obligation upon all Muslim parents. They are obliged to monitor their children's Islamic beliefs and to explain to them (by means of themselves, or someone else who can) the divine revelation of Islam, together with the difficulties of the theory of evolution that will enable the children to make sense of it from an Islamic perspective and understand which aspects of the theory are rejected by Islamic theism (tawhid) and which are acceptable. The question of the theory's adequacy, meaning its generalizability to all species, will necessarily be one of the important aspects of this explanation.
Adequacy Of all the premises of evolution, the two that we have characterized above as unbelief (kufr); namely, random mutation and natural selection, interpreted in a materialistic sense, are what most strongly urge its generalization to man. Why must we accept that man came from a common ancestor with animal primates, particularly since a fossil record of intermediate forms is not there? The answer of our age seems to be: "Where else should he have come from?"
It is only if we accept the premise that there is no God that this answer acquires any cogency. The Qur'an answers this premise in detail and with authority. But evolutionary theory is not only ungeneralizable because of Allah informing us of His own existence and man's special creation, but because of what we discern in ourselves of the uniqueness of man, as the Qur'an says,
"We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in themselves, until it is plain to them that it is the Truth" (Qur'an 41:53).
Among the greatest of these signs in man's self is his birthright as Khalifat al-Rahman, "the successor of the All-merciful." If it be wondered what this successorship consists in, the ulama of tasawwuf, the scholars of Islamic spirituality, have traditionally answered that it is to be looked for in the ma'rifa bi Llah or "knowledge of Allah" that is the prerogative of no other being in creation besides the believer, and which is attained through following the path of inward purification, of strengthening the heart's attachment to Allah through acts of obedience specified by Sacred Law, particularly that of dhikr.
The locus of this attachment and this knowledge is not the mind, but rather the subtle faculty within one that is sometimes called the heart, sometimes the ruh or spirit. Allah's special creation of this faculty has been mentioned above in connection with the Qur'anic words and breathed into him of My spirit. According to masters of the spiritual path, this subtle body is knowledgeable, aware, and cognizant, and when fully awakened, capable of transcending the opacity of the created universe to know Allah. The Qur'an says about it, by way of exalting its true nature through its very unfathomability:
"Say: The spirit is of the matter of my Lord" (Qur'an 17:85).
How does it know Allah? I once asked this question of one of the ulama of tasawwuf in Damascus, and recorded his answer in an unpublished manuscript. He told me:
"Beholding the Divine (mushahada) is of two sorts, that of the eye and that of the heart. In this world, the beholding of the heart is had by many of the 'arifin (knowers of Allah), and consists of looking at contingent things, created beings, that they do not exist through themselves, but rather exist through Allah, and when the greatness of Allah occurs to one, contingent things dwindle to nothing in one's view, and are erased from one's thought, and the Real (al-Haqq) dawns upon one's heart, and it is as if one beholds. This is termed 'the beholding of the heart.' The beholding of the eye [in this world] is for the Chosen, the Prophet alone, Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace). As for the next world, it shall be for all believers. Allah Most High says,
'On that day faces shall be radiant, gazing upon their Lord' (Qur'an 75:22)."
[I wrote of the above:] If it be observed that the term heart as used above does not seem to conform to its customary usage among speakers of the language, I must grant this. In the context, the term denotes not the mind, but rather the faculty that perceives what is beyond created things, in the world of the spirit, which is a realm unto itself. If one demands that the existence of this faculty be demonstrated, the answer--however legitimate the request--cannot exceed, "Go to masters of the discipline, train, and you will be shown." Unsatisfying though this reply may be, it does not seem to me to differ in principle from answers that would be given, for example, to a non-specialist regarding the proof for a particular proposition in theoretical physics or symbolic logic. Nor are such answers an objection to the in-principle "publicly observable" character of observation statements in these disciplines, but rather a limitation pertaining to the nature of the case and the questioner, one that he may accept, reject, or do something about (Keller, Interpreter's Log. Manuscript Draft, 1993, 1-2).
Mere imagination? On the contrary, everything besides this knowledge is imagination, for the object of this knowledge is Allah, true reality, which cannot be transient but is unchanging, while other facts are precisely imaginary. The child you used to be, for example, exists now only in your imagination; the person who ate your breakfast this morning no longer exists except in your imagination; your yesterday, your tomorrow, your today (except, perhaps, for the moment you are presently in, which has now fled): all is imaginary, and only hypostatized as phenomenal reality, as unity, as facticity, as real--through imagination. Every moment that comes is different, winking in and out of existence, preserved in its relational continuum by pure imagination, which constitutes it as "world." What we notice of this world is thus imaginary, like what a sleeper sees. In this connection, Ali ibn Abi Talib (Allah ennoble his countenance) has said, "People are asleep, and when they die, they awaken" (al-Sakhawi, al-Maqasid al-hasana. Cairo 1375/1956. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyya, 1399/1979, 442: 1240).
This is not to denigrate the power of imagination; indeed, if not for imagination, we could not believe in the truths of the afterlife, paradise, hell, and everything that our eternal salvation depends upon. Rather, I mention this in the context of the question of evolution as a cautionary note against a sort of "fallacy of misplaced concrescence," an unwarranted epistemological overconfidence, that exists in many people who work in what they term "the hard sciences."
As someone from the West, I was raised from early school years as a believer not only in science, the practical project of discovery that aims at exploiting more and more of the universe by identification, classification, and description of micro- and macro-causal relations; but also in scientism, the belief that this enterprise constitutes absolute knowledge. As one philosopher whom I read at the University of Chicago put it,
Scientism is science's belief in itself: that is, the conviction that we can no longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge, but rather must identify knowledge with science" (Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests. Tr. Jeremy J. Shapiro. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971, 4).
It seems to me that this view, in respect to evolution but also in respect to the nature of science as a contemporary religion, represents a sort of defeat of knowledge by an absolutism of pure methodology. As I mentioned at the outset, the categories of understanding that underly every observation statement in the theory of evolution arise from human consciousness, and as such cannot be distinguished by the theory from other transient survival devices: its explanative method, from first to last, is necessarily only another survival mechanism that has evolved in the animal kingdom. By its own measure, it is not necessary that it be true, but only necessary that it be powerful in the struggle for survival. Presumably, any other theory--even if illusory--that had better implications for survival could displace evolution as a mode of explanation. Or perhaps the theory itself is an illusion.
These considerations went through my mind at the University of Chicago during my "logic of scientific explanation" days. They made me realize that my faith in scientism and evolutionism had something magical as its basis, the magic of an influential interpretation supported by a vast human enterprise. I do not propose that science should seriously try to comprehend itself, which it is not equipped to do anyway, but I have come to think that, for the sake of its consumers, it might have the epistemological modesty to "get back," from its current scientistic pretentions to its true nature, as one area of human interpretation among others. From being the "grand balance scale" on which one may weigh and judge the "reality" of all matters, large and small--subsuming "the concept of God," for example, under the study of religions, religions under anthropology, anthropology under human behavioral institutions, human behavioral institutions under evolutionary biology, evolutionary biology under organic chemistry, organic chemistry (ultimately) under cosmology, cosmology under chaos theory, and so on--I have hopes that science will someday get back to its true role, the production of technically exploitable knowledge for human life. That is, from pretentions to 'ilm or "knowledge," to its true role as "fann" or "technique."
In view of the above considerations of its coherence, logicality, applicability, and adequacy, the theory of the evolution of man from lower forms does not seem to show enough scientific rigor to raise it from being merely an influential interpretation. To show the evolution's adequacy, for everything it is trying to explain would be to give valid grounds to generalize it to man. In this respect, it is a little like Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, in which he describes examples of dreams that are wish fulfillments, and then concludes that "all dreams are wish fulfillments." We still wait to be convinced.
Summary of Islamic Conclusions Allah alone is Master of Existence. He alone causes all that is to be and not to be. Causes are without effect in themselves, but rather both cause and effect are created by Him. The causes and the effects of all processes, including those through which plant and animal species are individuated, are His work alone. To ascribe efficacy to anything but His action, whether believing that causes (a) bring about effects in and of themselves; or (b) bring about effects in and of themselves through a capacity Allah has placed in them, is to ascribe associates to Allah (shirk). Such beliefs seem to be entailed in the literal understanding of "natural selection" and "random mutation," and other evolutionary concepts, unless we understand these processes as figurative causes, while realizing that Allah alone is the agent. This is apart from the consideration of whether they are true or not.
As for claim that man has evolved from a non-human species, this is unbelief (kufr) no matter if we ascribe the process to Allah or to "nature," because it negates the truth of Adam's special creation that Allah has revealed in the Qur'an. Man is of special origin, attested to not only by revelation, but also by the divine secret within him, the capacity for ma'rifa or knowledge of the Divine that he alone of all things possesses. By his God-given nature, man stands before a door opening onto infinitude that no other creature in the universe can aspire to. Man is something else.
Books I realized after writing the above that I had not talked much about the literature on the theory of evolution. Books that have been recommended to me are:
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Michael Denton. Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler Publishers, 1986. Originally published in Great Britain by Burnett Books Ltd. This would probably be the most interesting to you as a biologist, as it discusses molecular genetics and other scientific aspects not examined above. Enclyclopedia of Ignorance. Ed. Duncan Roland. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1978. Thinking About God (Exact title?). Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood. Bloomington, Indiana. American Trust Publications. Thank you for asking me this question, which made me think about my own beliefs. I remain at your service,
Re:Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
« Reply #62 on: 2005-11-30 18:23:28 »
Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God? I think all it proves is the existence of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, provisionally of course.
There are two basic problems:
a)What exactly is this 'god' thingy that we are trying to prove the existence of ?
b)Who designed this 'god' thingy?
At some point one is going to have to conclude that there exists that which (whatever you want to call it) must always have existed, without a beginning and, if the 2nd law holds up, without an end. Otherwise one has to bite the bullet of an infinite regression of designers.
Occams razor suggests to me that a universe which has always existed is a simpler proposition to deal with than the proposition that a god thingy, which had always existed, then went on to create a universe. One difficulty with the second position is that it would necessarily mean that 'god' would have to be able to create something from nothing, otherwise we would be back at square one. Of course, maybe it did. But we know of no single instance of this occuring in our experience of the universe. It is, as far as we know, impossible. Which, if true, means that a creator 'god' is impossible. Which means that the 2nd law cannot be proof of a god because it was never created by god in the first place. Best Regards.
If such chaos truley rules and governs all then how did one, let alone all, of these Physical Constants of the Universe come into balance in such away that each one is individually, as goldilocks said, "just right".
I'm not sure what you mean by chaos here, but you should realize that natural selection is not random. The variation is random but the selection is not.
As for the Goldilocks effect, ask yourself if it is just lucky that we happen to live on Earth where water can be found in life-supporting liquid state ("just right") rather than on Venus where it is too hot or Neptune where it is too cold.
"Divine messages etched in cells -- what bosh!" The professor rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on the table. "It means nothing, nothing at all."
"Professor," said the journalist, "with all due respect, I find that difficult to believe. As you know, earlier this week, researchers applied a powerful new sub-electron microscope to human tissue samples for the first time. They found hitherto-undetected sub-atomic particles on each and every examined human cell, from hundreds of donors. And on each cell, the particles seem to spell out a message in English: I, God, am the designer of this cell. Scientists across the globe have independently verified this discovery."
The scientist shrugged. "I suppose the physics community will find the discovery of the new particles mildly diverting. But I fail to see why those of us in the biological sciences should care."
"But, professor…this discovery appears to be a message from, well, God!"
"'Appears!' 'Appears!' The appearance of design is nothing more than a trick of the mind -- a mote in the eye of the beholder. Abraham Lincoln 'appeared' in my cereal this morning. Was I visited by a ghost -- or an overactive imagination that found patterns amidst random assortments of Corn Flakes? A lump of coal, held under pressure for a million years, will rearrange its molecular structure into the precise pattern of a diamond. Order, yes, but is it design? Only for those who feel compelled to find it. Rivers rush to the sea; the planet spins on its axis; the cycle of life carries on across the globe. Intricately ordered, all of it! But not designed. I assure you, young man, it would not take very many chimpanzees in front of very many typewriters to produce something like I, God, am the designer of this cell. And the chimpanzees in question have been at the typewriters a very long time. Life on this planet is tremendously old, and the mundane laws of physics coupled with mere chance could have produced any number of extraordinary phenomena."
"But what natural event could possibly explain a message in human cells?"
"You have fallen prey to an old fallacy, young man. Do you really want to place your trust in the God of the Gaps?" The professor's voice went into a falsetto. "Oh, we can't solve the mysterious riddle of the words in the cell! It must be the work of Thor, the Thunder God! Oh, Mighty Thor, we bow before your unfathomable mysteries!" The professor's voice dropped. "Then, of course, the next day, the riddle of the message in the cell will be solved through a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation, and yet the world will still be calling upon Thor to make the crops grow. Your kind never learns. Science always bridges the gaps. Science forever pushes mysteries aside. In years to come, when we understand the purpose of those particles and their arrangement, this conversation will seem extraordinarily foolish."
"Furthermore," continued the scientist, "what kind of halfwit God would compose such an inane message? A really capable God would have etched the whole Bible onto human cells. After all, if He can insert a tiny message into cells, why not a great big one? Your God is omnipotent, isn't He? And why would God care to tell anyone what he designed? Why not admonish the scientific world to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel? And why not put the message in Chinese, rather than English? I feel sorry for the idiot who bends in awe before the rather pathetic God of the particle cloud."
"Professor, doesn't it strike you as just the slightest bit odd that something so strongly resembling a message should be found in human cells? Isn't the pattern of the particles a coincidence so improbable that the presence of a message is the more likely explanation?"
"God -- the more likely explanation? My dear sir, you don't understand the meaning of the word 'likely.' I think it is more likely that there are a hundred billion universes in the whole spectrum of existence, and we just happen to live in one wherein a random concatenation of particles in human cells resembles a funny message. I think it is more likely that the human mind evolved to find meaning in random patterns and shapes -- the better to keep the tribe allied against foreign intruders. God is the most unlikely event imaginable. Any theory is more likely than the divine theory."
"Moreover," continued the scientist, "science tells us that we are all the products of exceptionally unlikely events. How is the divine origin of your precious 'message' any more likely than what we already know to be true? Over countless millennia, a handful of star-stuff and carbon atoms evolved into human beings, all by accident. Is that likely? Human cells are tiny universes of activity and function, wherein proteins weave tools of astonishing complexity to accomplish delicate tasks vital to life -- all by accident. Is that likely?"
"Your absurd conclusions are a disgrace," growled the professor, jabbing a finger at the journalist, "and indicative of the shabby state of science education in this country. The scientific method demands that a theory must be falsifiable before it can be accepted as fact. This is schoolboy stuff -- how can you not know it? Your inane belief in some holy 'message' cannot be falsified. Tell me, young man -- what experiment do you propose to test the validity of this message? How do you plan to prove that your message doesn't really mean 'I, God, didn't design this cell?' Or, for that matter, 'Eat at Joe's?' Will you convince God to recreate his message in a laboratory? Will you be dusting those particles for God's fingerprints? No, your theory of a 'message' might count as theology, or philosophy, or as a charming folk legend, but whatever it is, realize: It. Is. Not. Science."
The journalist shook his head. "It's amazing. God has signed every cell on the human body, and you're unpersuaded. Even when intelligent design wins, it loses. Will anything convince you?"
"No. You could bring me God's own scaffolding and the Book of Life and all the angels and archangels and the Ghost of Darwin himself, and I would not be convinced. The appearance of design has no objective content -- no reality outside my own perception. There is no coincidence so extraordinary, no message so clear, no miracle so fantastic, but that I cannot devise some explanation for it that is consistent with an accidental, scientific, un-designed universe. No matter how intricate the watch, the watchmaker is always blind."
The professor got up to leave. "Professor," asked the journalist, "if you can't be convinced that anything in the universe bears the hallmark of a designer, how is your belief in an un-designed universe falsifiable?"
The professor paused, then smiled. "Tell me this, young man: let's say I'm wrong. Let's say that I'm irrationally opposed to intelligent design. If I'm wrong -- does that necessarily mean that you're right? Or could it be that your opposition to an un-designed universe is just as irrational as my belief in it?"
Great news for New Agers, Theosophists, spirit rappers, chiromancers, and advanced thinkers of every stripe! There's a new frontier a-beckoning, and you can get there by VW minibus. If you're not on the bus, you're off the bus, and last one to Emporia's a rotten egg!
This New Day in Kansas is brought to you by the Kansas State Board of Education, which has revised the state standards for teaching science and along the way changed the definition of science itself.
"Such power exists?" you ask, along with Dr. Barnhardt.
"Such power exists," I assure you, echoing Klaatu, who for all we know may have been the Intelligent Designer, since the Intelligent Design theorists are so very careful not to rule anything out unscientifically. Or it may have been Xenu, the Galactic Overlord worshipped by Scientologists (sorry if I didn't get this exactly right, folks -- it's a very complicated theology y'all got there).
What the Board did is the essence of simplicity, something we look for but find all too seldom in boards. They removed one word from their definition. Just one. The word is "natural." Where previously the aim of science was said to be the seeking of "natural explanations" for phenomena, now, in Kansas, they are looking simply for "explanations." You see how this broadens the field, or levels it. And this is so democratically apt, for there are many fields in Kansas, and they are mainly level.
Explanations there are in plenty in California; they are thick upon the beach and a (you should pardon the expression) drug on the market. It's high time to look for more fertile ground.
So if you subscribe to harmonic convergences as explanatory of what's happenin', or if you go in for some other kind of vibe, Kansas is prepared to welcome you and your illumination. Do you attribute the cosmos to Tiamat? Or Chaos? Are your personal or medical problems the result of voodoo? Did you miss out on Heaven's Gate? Do you hope to be buried in sight of a pyramid? Then go East, young seeking person, and grok Kansas!
Mind you, this sudden opening up of the prairie is not entirely without precedent. When I was in high school in Missouri, some of the brasher boys would make occasional forays across the border to obtain thaumaturgical quantities of 3.2 beer, and it was said that if you drove deep enough into Kansas you could even find the fabled Coors, the weekend drug of choice believed by some to be the soma of the Aryans. And did you never wonder why, despite the magical charms of Munchkin Land, Dorothy was so all-fired anxious to get back to Kansas? There has always been a certain alternativeness about Kansas. This recent development should be seen from that perspective.
You may anticipate difficulty in relocating some of the more established institutions -- your Esalen, your Self Realization Fellowship, your various Buddhist retreats. But this is materialism and hence mere illusion! When the Spirit calls, let not the flesh be weak. So, as Bishop Berkeley would have written had he been the kind of psychic I'm confident will soon bring enlightenment to Atchison, Goodland, Garden City, and all the rest,
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Retreat! Retreat! This science stuff can't last.
Robert McHenry is Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and author of How to Know.
In 1970, a young physicist named Leonard Susskind got stuck in an elevator with Murray Gell-Mann, one of physics' top theoreticians, who asked him what he was working on. Susskind said he was working on a theory that represented particles "as some kind of elastic string, like a rubber band." Gell-Mann responded with loud, derisive laughter.
Within a few years, however, many physicists saw string theory as a promising line of research (and Gell-Mann had apologized to Susskind, one of the theory's co-founders). String theory -- which posited the existence of unimaginably tiny, vibrating strands of energy -- evolved into "superstring theory" and then "M theory" (and expanded to include not just strings but wider "membranes"). String theory, broadly defined, became and remains the most prominent candidate to unify the physical world's diverse particles and forces into a single mathematical framework.
Susskind, now a professor at Stanford University, has written a book that is certain to stir up controversy, not only about the merits of string theory but over the charged question of whether the natural world displays evidence of an intelligent designer. The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (Little, Brown) provides a valuable explanation and history of string theory, and has much of interest to say about cutting-edge physics and cosmology. However, Susskind's conclusions, including on matters of intelligent design, are debatable.
The variety of intelligent design with which Susskind is concerned consists of claims that the laws of physics were deliberately fine-tuned for the benefit of life. For instance, such arguments note that nuclear reactions in stars are well-suited to produce the carbon on which Earth life depends. Many such examples are quite ambiguous. (The "tuning" of carbon actually may not be that "fine"; the element could exist in a range of scenarios.) One feature of the universe, however, does appear to be strikingly fine-tuned; commonly referred to as the "cosmological constant," it is an energy level that infuses empty space. This energy level is extremely small -- which is fortunate because if it were even slightly larger, the universe would have expanded too rapidly to form galaxies, stars and planets.
String theory, according to Susskind, presents a compelling explanation of why the cosmological constant is so small, without invoking an intelligent designer. The answer lies in what Susskind calls "the Landscape," which is the set of all possible universes that are compatible with string theory. The Landscape can be thought of as having various locations, corresponding to different values of the cosmological constant and other parameters. In Susskind's estimate, the Landscape contains 10500 types of possible universes -- a stupendously large number far bigger than a googol (which is 10100).
According to Susskind, we live in a "megaverse" (also known as a "multiverse"). The Landscape, as he puts it, is "populated." That is, the universe we observe is just one pocket of a far larger cosmos, in which different pockets exhibit the highly diverse conditions possible under string theory. As space expands, such pockets proliferate as bubbles, an implication of the theory of cosmic inflation (which states that our own universe expanded extremely rapidly in its earliest moments). There are innumerable uninhabited bubbles, but some patches of the megaverse have life-friendly features such as a tiny cosmological constant; not surprisingly, we live in such a place.
Susskind may be right. However, he exhibits a confidence in his position that seems unwarranted, given the speculative nature of the material. For one thing, nobody knows if string theory is true. It does not, as yet, have experimental or observational evidence to support it. Rather, string theory has gained the enthusiasm of many physicists because of the intriguing nature of its mathematics; string theory offers a way to reconcile general relativity, which describes gravity and large objects, with quantum mechanics, the physics of the extremely small. Oddly, though, string theory requires extra dimensions of space (which are assumed to be unseen because they are very small or "compactified").
Some scientists regard string theory as an unjustified and over-hyped speculation. Peter Woit, who teaches mathematics at Columbia University, has a blog and upcoming book criticizing string theory as "Not Even Wrong." Moreover, contrary to longstanding hopes, string theory has not provided a concise formula -- something like Einstein's E=mc2 -- giving a deep mathematical explanation for why the cosmos is as it is. Instead, string theory increasingly has seemed compatible with diverse universes. That's something celebrated by Susskind but disturbing to some of his fellow string theorists; and to critics such as Woit, it's a sign the theory makes no sense.
Furthermore, The Cosmic Landscape presents an overly stark dichotomy between string theory and intelligent design. A reader may come away from the book thinking that if string theory (as elaborated by Susskind) is wrong, the evidence points to fine-tuning by a supernatural agent. Not really. For one thing, cosmic inflation and other possible mechanisms for producing multiple universes are not dependent on string theory. For another, any claim of fine-tuning relies on enormous guesswork as to the types of life and types of universes that are possible. Nor for that matter does intelligent fine-tuning necessitate a supernatural entity; one highly speculative theory suggests the universe was fine-tuned by its own inhabitants.
On the flip side, some enthusiasts of intelligent design suggest that a scenario of multiple universes with varying parameters is itself suggestive of a designer. In this view, a fantastic proliferation of universes was the designer's way of producing one or more universes compatible with life. Such a method seems remarkably inefficient, but we have little basis for saying what a designer would or would not do. If excessive flexibility is a problem for string theory, it is an even greater problem for intelligent design.
I'm not sure what you mean by chaos here, but you should realize that natural selection is not random. The variation is random but the selection is not.
By chaos I mean a universe that has come into existence, without any design, intellect or purpose behind it; purely from the disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space, in respect to a dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence upon its initial conditions, supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe. And ask how can such orders and cosmological constants, aligned and tuned so perfectly, in all probability and rationality, merley be the result of nothing more then the chaotic system of mother natures hand alone.
The universe just seems to wonderful and nurturant, in all respect of what can be observed and percieved, to be only, the child of chaos in genesis.
Again only my opinion.
I was neither implicating nor proposing that natural selection is random in its-self. Though the variation over time is random I would agree. What I ment was that evolution is the result of random events (genetic mutations, deletions, duplications, etc) that are acted upon through the process of natural selection.
As for the Goldilocks effect, ask yourself if it is just lucky that we happen to live on Earth where water can be found in life-supporting liquid state ("just right") rather than on Venus where it is too hot or Neptune where it is too cold.
I say that luck is an act of will rather then an act of nature. A man makes and gives his own luck, rather then life being a game of luck. It is not lucky just the causality of natural constants acting in equilibrium. For if we lived on Venus or Neptune, we wouldnt be having this conversation now, because life would never have Evolved to the general state at which we are now...right this second.
a)What exactly is this 'god' thingy that we are trying to prove the existence of ?
Hello Blunderov, I am slightly curious as to why you placed your post here, but no matter.
Allow me to awnser your basic problems systematically from a personal point of view.
a) In effect God is everything, the energy that 'Is' throughout the eternity of existence and which reside's within all material creation. But then this, like the sensitive balance of the cosmological constants is difficult to visualize or even imagine....only eternity is beyond numerical value or understanding for us. So the next best thing for mans limited brain in understanding lies in Love. But then even atheist's can find Love and still not any connection or contentment in God. In this case it is Pride that is the root of ones sin.
b) God simply is, as eternity has no beginning or designer. Asking who designed God is like asking who created all the energy to exist. The awnser is it has always been.
Occams razor suggests to me that a universe which has always existed is a simpler proposition to deal with than the proposition that a god thingy, which had always existed, then went on to create a universe.
Sometimes the simplest things in life are not the awnser in life its-self.
One difficulty with the second position is that it would necessarily mean that 'god' would have to be able to create something from nothing, otherwise we would be back at square one.
Not something from nothing but something from Himself.
Of course, maybe it did. But we know of no single instance of this occuring in our experience of the universe.
Well there was Jesus where he fed the 5000, with only five loaves and two fish and did someother pretty amazing things. Of course you did not say evidence but instance and the experience lives on in the knowledge of today.
Re:Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
« Reply #68 on: 2005-12-02 01:16:43 »
The author(s) make(s) multiple errors of composition, causation and conclusion. The central errors should be glaringly obvious, are well known as the "anthropic fallacy", and may be formally dissected by any moderately competent debater, being based in classical and well understood logical errors.
The primary failure is that we weyken our Universe could have evolved in many, many different ways, with many possible rules ("laws"). A substantial number of those ways could well result in (possibly different from stars and planets) heat sources and voids with sufficient energy and matter in proximity for long enough for some kind of thing which we would grant is a life form, were we around to analyse it, to develop. Such life forms may be very different from us, but then, e.g. Sulfolobus thermoacidophile archaea are different from us too. And had our planet been just a little closer to the Sun, the Sun a little warmer, or the Earth a little better insulated, the planetary temperature might have stayed over 100C all the time and the descendents of Sulfolobus might well have ruled the Earth, rather than us eukaryotic types. And the Sulfolobus could then make exactly the same erroneous apologies (not arguments) as this writer has, with just as little support. As the apology (or possibly special pleading) can't be true for both cases, it is, I submit, invalid for any one of them. I'd summarise this by saying that the author looks at us here in the middle of this local corner of the Universe, at a particular instance in time, which we have evolved to fit and suggests that this proves that the Universe was constructed for our convenience. It does not follow.
A secondary failure is the implicit argument to incredibility. Until it is shown that there are no other instances of universii arising (difficult, as any other universii are by definition inaccessible to ours (or they would be part of our Universe))*, the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of a Universe such as the one we occupy is merely hypothetical. The fact that our Universe exists, proves that it possible for it to exist, but does not speak to the likelihood of it existing as it is. The fact is, we don't know how many universii like or unlike ours exist or do not exist. This means that we cannot validly assert anything about universe origination statistics except that the probability of our Universe originating as it has, is at least unitary. Which, as we see here, does not mean that true believers will not talk about such statistics. It just means that, in the absense of improbable evidence, their talk has no significance.
Hermit
*Naturally the onus is on those attempting to raise this as an argument to substantiate it.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
When President Bush declared his support for the teaching of intelligent design (ID) theory in public schools along with Darwinian evolution, both he and the theory itself drew a lot of criticism. Among the many lines of attack the critics launch, one theme remains strikingly constant: the notion that ID is a Trojan Horse of Christian fundamentalists whose ultimate aim is to turn the U.S. into an theocracy.
In a furious New Republic cover story, "The Case Against Intelligent Design," Jerry Coyne joined in this hype and implied that all non-Christians, including Muslims, should be alarmed by this supposedly Christian theory of beginnings that "might offend those of other faiths." Little does he realize that if there is any view on the origin of life that might seriously offend other faiths — including mine, Islam — it is the materialist dogma: the assumptions that God, by definition, is a superstition, and that rationality is inherently atheistic.
That offense is no minor issue. In fact, in the last two centuries, it has been the major source of the Muslim contempt for the West. And it deserves careful consideration.
An Old Wall The conflict between Christian Europe and the Islamic Middle East has a long history, marked by many crusades and jihads, all of which had both sacred and mundane motives. Yet in the last two centuries, a new kind of West, a modern one, arose, and the relationship between the two civilizations became asymmetrical. Western Europe became overwhelmingly superior to the world of Islam and its sole superpower, the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans' realization of the West's ascendancy led them, in the late 18th century, to initiate a process of Westernization. The process, which began by importing Western technology, broadened throughout the 19th century with the adaptation of Western educational systems and legal structures, including a system of constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. Other than marginal fanatics such as the Wahhabis of the Arabian Peninsula — who launched a revolt against Ottoman rule, asserting that "the Turks became infidels" by abolishing slavery — the Ottoman ulema (religious scholars) and Islamic intellectuals welcomed these reforms.
But it was more than just telegraphs, trains, and constitutions that started arriving from the West; philosophies came as well. And since late-19th-century European thought was predominantly atheistic and anti-religious, these philosophies alarmed Muslim thinkers. When the theories of Comte, Spencer, and Darwin became fashionable among the Westernized Ottoman elite, an intellectual war began. Istanbul, the Empire's capital, became the stage of hot intellectual debates. While Francophile atheists such as Abdullah Cevdet and Suphi Ethem were quoting the works of Darwin and Ernst Haeckel to argue that man is an accidental animal and religion a comforting myth, Muslim scholars were writing tracts to defend the Islamic faith and refute the "theories of disbelief" pouring in from Europe.
Sadly, it was secularist Europe — and especially, theophobic France — rather than the religious United States that the Islamic world encountered as "the West." No wonder, then, that the West eventually became synonymous with godlessness. Moreover, within Muslim societies, Europeanized elites grew in number and were seen — with a lot of justification — as soulless, skirt-and-money-chasing men drinking whiskey while looking down upon traditional believers as ignoramuses.
The Muslim reaction to this kind of Westernization was to erect a wall of separation between the West and their communities. "We will get the technology of the West," declared Said Nursi, a leading Muslim scholar of late Ottoman and early Turkish life, "but never their culture." That culture, according to Nursi, had a major problem: It was "plagued by materialism."
The gap between the West and the Middle East deepened owing to the political faults of the West, such as European colonialism and the American support for Middle East tyrannies, and, more recently, the barbaric terrorism of fanatics who act and kill in the name of Islam. Yet, despite these political conflicts, the perception of the West in the minds of devout Muslims remains the greatest underlying problem. Although they admire its freedom, they detest its materialism.
In a recent Spectator piece, titled "Muslims Are Right about Britain," Conservative British MP John Hayes pointed to the same problem. "Many moderate Muslims believe that much of Britain is decadent," says Mr. Hayes, and adds, "They are right." He explained that because of the prevailing culture, "Modern Britons . . . are condemned to be selfish, lonely creatures in a soulless society where little is worshipped beyond money and sex," and asked, "Is it any wonder that the family-minded, morally upright moderate Muslims despair?"
The distaste for American culture in the Islamic world is based on similar feelings. The America that people see is one represented by Hollywood and MTV. A recent poll in Turkey revealed that 37 percent of Turks define Americans as "materialistic" while a mere 8 percent define them as "religious." Not surprisingly, 90 percent say that they know the U.S. mainly through television.
From all this, one can see that the much-debated cultural gap between the West and the Muslim world is actually a two-sided coin: While the latter has some extremely conservative or radical elements that turn life into joyless misery, the former has extremely hedonistic and degenerate elements that turn life into meaningless profligacy. And if we look for a rapprochement between Westerners and Muslims, we again have to see both sides of the coin: While Muslim communities need reformers of culture that will save them from bigotry, the Western societies need redeemers of culture that will save them from materialism. Of course, the manifestations of the former (such as support for terrorism) are far more dangerous and intolerable than those of the latter, but as root causes, both must be acknowledged.
Richard Dawkins & the Material Girl Yes, but what exactly is materialism? Isn't it more obviously represented by the extravagance of pop stars than by the sophisticated theories of atheist scientists and scholars? Isn't the cultural materialism of, say, Madonna, quite different from the philosophical materialism of Richard Dawkins?
Well, it is self-evident that they look dissimilar, but the worldviews they represent are intertwined. Cultural materialism means living as if there were no God or moral absolutes, and all that matters is matter. Philosophical materialism means to argue that there is no God to establish any moral absolutes, and matter is all there is. The former worldview finds its justification in the latter. Actually, in the modern world, philosophical materialists act as the secular priesthood of a lifestyle based on hedonism and moral relativism. The priesthood convinces the masses that we are all accidental occurrences who are not under any Divine judgment; and the masses live, earn, spend, and have relationships according to this supposition. A popular MTV hit summarizes this presumption bluntly: "You and me baby ain't nuthin' but mammals; so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."
The biological justification for promiscuity — that we are "nuthin' but mammals" — is no accident: The idea that we are all mere animals is at the heart of cultural materialism. And that idea is, of course, based on Darwinism. That's why Darwinism, in the words of Daniel Dennett, one of its hard-core proponents, acts as a "universal acid; it eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake a revolutionized worldview."
That "revolutionized worldview" — in which God is denied, attacked, and ridiculed — is the grand problem we Muslims have with the West. It is true that some fanatics among us hate the West's liberty and democracy, too. Yet for the sane and pious Muslim majority, those are welcome attributes. This majority's only problem is the materialism that encompasses the West. And they would welcome those who would save the West — and thus the whole world — from it.
A Discovery Zone That's why something called the Wedge Document — although horrifying to America's secularist intelligentsia — offers a message of hope for Muslims. The Wedge Document is a 1999 memorandum of the Discovery Institute (DI), the Seattle-based think tank that acts as the main proponent of ID. In this document, the Institute explains that its long-term goal is "to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies." Much of the fuss made about the Document by its opponents is absurd; it does not propose the transformation of the U.S. into a theocracy. But, as official DI documents point out, there is nothing wrong in expecting cultural impact from a scientific theory; Darwinians, after all, revel in the cultural impact of their own doctrines.
By its bold challenge to Darwinian evolution — a concept that claims it is possible to be an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" — ID is indeed a wedge that can split the foundations of scientific materialism. ID presents a new perspective on science, one that is based solely on scientific evidence yet is fully compatible with faith in God. That's why William Dembski, one of its leading theorists, defines ID as a bridge between science and theology.
As the history of the cultural conflict between the modern West and Islam shows, ID can also be a bridge between these two civilizations. The first bricks of that bridge are now being laid in the Islamic world. In Turkey, the current debate over ID has attracted much attention in the Islamic media. Islamic newspapers are publishing translations of pieces by the leading figures of the ID movement, such as Michael J. Behe and Phillip E. Johnson. The Discovery Institute is praised in their news stories and depicted as the vanguard in the case for God, and President Bush's support for ID is gaining sympathy. For many decades the cultural debate in Turkey has been between secularists who quote modern Western sources and Muslims who quote traditional Islamic sources. Now, for the first time, Muslims are discovering that they share a common cause with the believers in the West. For the first time, the West appears to be the antidote to, not the source of, the materialist plague.
Is ID True? Of course, ID — like any other scientific theory — stands or falls not according to its political and diplomatic utility, but according to the evidence. So: Is ID true?
There is a huge and growing body of ID literature produced by some of the world's finest minds, and I won't attempt even to summarize the overwhelming evidence it presents for design in nature. Yet I think an examination of the main premise behind the current opposition to ID might be helpful.
To see that premise, we first have to note how ID theorists criticize Darwin. They do this by applying his own criterion for falsification. "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," said Darwin, "my theory would break down." ID theorists, such as biochemist Michael J. Behe, apply this criterion to complex biochemical systems such as the bacterial flagellum or blood clotting and explain that they could not have been "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications" — because they don't function at all unless they are complete.
What is the Darwinian response to this? Here's Jerry Coyne again, in The New Republic: "In view of our progress in understanding biochemical evolution, it is simply irrational to say that because we do not completely understand how biochemical pathways evolved, we should give up trying and invoke the intelligent designer." Note that Coyne is here denying the falsification criterion that Darwin himself acknowledged. According to Darwin, if you demonstrate "that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," the theory will break down. According to Coyne, you will only be pointing to a system about which "we do not completely understand how [it] evolved."
In other words, Coyne leaves no way that the theory can break down. Whatever problem you find with the theory today will somehow be solved in the future. Actually Coyne, quite generously, does give a criterion to refute Darwinism: Should we "find human fossils co-existing with dinosaurs, or fossils of birds living alongside those of the earliest invertebrates," that would "sink neo-Darwinism for good." But ID proponents aren't questioning the fact that dinosaurs predated humans and invertebrates predated birds; our question, rather, is how they came to be. Coyne sounds like someone who would silence a serious critique of the theory of plate tectonics by saying, "Hey, show me that the Earth is flat and thus sink my theory for good, or shut up forever."
With his solid faith in Darwinism, Coyne also assures us that the gaps in the fossil record — which should have been filled by the 150-year-long desperate search for the fossilized remains of numerous, successive, slight modifications — "are certainly due to the imperfection of the fossil record." But why can't we consider the possibility that the gaps might be real — that forms of complex life might have appeared on Earth in the way they are, as the fossil record suggests? The standard reply to this question is the "god of the gaps" argument: that theists have imagined divine powers behind natural phenomena in the past, and science, in time, unveiled the natural processes behind those phenomena. But if we had seen a cumulative filling of gaps since Darwin, we would have agreed. What we have actually seen is the reverse: Ever since Darwin, and especially in recent decades, the problems with the theory of evolution have been deepening and widening. With the discovery of the unexpected complexity of biology, and the sudden leap forward in the history of life with the Cambrian explosion, the Darwinian theory turns out to be based on an atheism of the gaps, in which lack of knowledge about life led to the wrong assumption that it is simple enough to be explained by a non-design theory.
God & Muslims There are many other attacks on ID in the media, and they are all useful in that they demonstrate the true intellectual force behind Darwinism: a commitment to materialism. The most common argument against ID, that it invokes God and so cannot be a part of science, is a crystal-clear expression of that commitment. Instead of asking, "What if there really were an intelligent designer active in the origin of life?" the Darwinists take it for granted that such a designer doesn't exist and limit the definition of science according to that unproven premise. Similarly, the evidence for the existence of a pre-Sumerian civilization would not be "a part of history" if you define history as "the discipline that examines the past of human societies starting from the Sumerians and never, ever, accepting the possibility of something else before." A saner approach would be to question the definition of the discipline that is challenged by evidence — not to ignore the evidence in order to save the definition of the discipline. The reason this saner approach is not the mainstream view in biology is the same old dogmatic belief: materialism.
Of course, Darwinians have the right to believe in whatever they wish, but it is crucial to unveil that theirs is a subjective faith, not an objective truth, as they have been claiming for more than a century. This unveiling would mark a turning point in the history of Western civilization, by reconciling science and religion and letting people become intellectually fulfilled theists. Moreover, it would mark a turning point in the history of the world, by changing the meaning of "the West" and "Westernization" in the eyes of Muslims. They have been resisting the influx of godlessness from the West for a long time; they would be much less alarmed in the face of a redeemed West.
Phillip E. Johnson once said that the ID debate is about the question whether the U.S. is a nation under God or a nation under Darwin. We Muslims see the latter as a plague; we have no problem with the former. We might have disagreements, but we agree on the most fundamental truth of all — that there really is a God out there, and He is the One to Whom we owe our very life and existence.
Mustafa Akyol is a Muslim writer based in Istanbul, Turkey, and one of the expert witnesses who testified to the Kansas State Education Board during the hearings on evolution.
...But ID proponents aren't questioning the fact that dinosaurs predated humans and invertebrates predated birds; our question, rather, is how they came to be...
...With his solid faith in Darwinism, Coyne also assures us that the gaps in the fossil record — which should have been filled by the 150-year-long desperate search for the fossilized remains of numerous, successive, slight modifications — "are certainly due to the imperfection of the fossil record." But why can't we consider the possibility that the gaps might be real — that forms of complex life might have appeared on Earth in the way they are, as the fossil record suggests? The standard reply to this question is the "god of the gaps" argument: that theists have imagined divine powers behind natural phenomena in the past, and science, in time, unveiled the natural processes behind those phenomena. But if we had seen a cumulative filling of gaps since Darwin, we would have agreed. What we have actually seen is the reverse: Ever since Darwin, and especially in recent decades, the problems with the theory of evolution have been deepening and widening. With the discovery of the unexpected complexity of biology, and the sudden leap forward in the history of life with the Cambrian explosion, the Darwinian theory turns out to be based on an atheism of the gaps, in which lack of knowledge about life led to the wrong assumption that it is simple enough to be explained by a non-design theory.
[Blunderov] The same old rubbish. But this rubbish is quite interesting from the point of view of so blatantly wishing to have it's cake and to eat it too. The quotes above show, I think, a contradictory claim: that god instituted a perfectly good process of evolution but, strangely, that very same divine process has manifest imperfections in it which, therefore, prove the existence of said god. Talk about the exception proving the rule!
Which proposition are we supposed to accept; that god set the process of evolution in motion that resulted in humankind, (ID proponents aren't questioning the fact that dinosaurs predated humans) or that humankind was custom built to devine specification (the wrong assumption that it is simple enough to be explained by a non-design theory) ? Both?
The distaste for American culture in the Islamic world is based on similar feelings. The America that people see is one represented by Hollywood and MTV. A recent poll in Turkey revealed that 37 percent of Turks define Americans as "materialistic" while a mere 8 percent define them as "religious." Not surprisingly, 90 percent say that they know the U.S. mainly through television.
From all this, one can see that the much-debated cultural gap between the West and the Muslim world is actually a two-sided coin: While the latter has some extremely conservative or radical elements that turn life into joyless misery, the former has extremely hedonistic and degenerate elements that turn life into meaningless profligacy. And if we look for a rapprochement between Westerners and Muslims, we again have to see both sides of the coin: While Muslim communities need reformers of culture that will save them from bigotry, the Western societies need redeemers of culture that will save them from materialism. Of course, the manifestations of the former (such as support for terrorism) are far more dangerous and intolerable than those of the latter, but as root causes, both must be acknowledged.
Also interesting is this explicit assumption that scientific materialism leads directly to licentiousness and decadence, and it is this that the Muslim world really fears.
And the Sulfolobus could then make exactly the same erroneous apologies (not arguments) as this writer has, with just as little support. As the apology (or possibly special pleading) can't be true for both cases, it is, I submit, invalid for any one of them. I'd summarise this by saying that the author looks at us here in the middle of this local corner of the Universe, at a particular instance in time, which we have evolved to fit and suggests that this proves that the Universe was constructed for our convenience.
Lol, I guess special pleading is theoretically possible with the idea of parallel dimentions, but I can safely say that it has no grounds here.
There are however "possibility's" for these remarks and there meaning to the degree of anonymity in which they are shrouded, in respect to who they are based on.
1) Misinterpretation.
2) Manipulation, to ones own design of thought/opinion.
But then I have not come here to argue (as possibly mentioned), only discuss. I offer only my opinion and suggestion based on what I know and expect no one to follow in my thoughts or cognition.
Of course the possibility to a multiverse existence was mentioned in one of my previous posts, yet not elaborated, which holds with me as valid an opinion to which an unfair observation accused otherwise without question.
In responce I simply emphasize on that which has been misjudged, in respect to whom it is needed.
String theory, a revolutionary attempt into a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating strings; which in theory predicts a large number of possible universes, called backgrounds or vacua. The set of these vacua is often called the anthropic landscap or simply the landscape. Some physicists argue that the existence of a large number of vacua puts the anthropic reasoning on firm ground. Others argue that this is not predictive. However, M-theory attempts to deal with this problem, though it has been suggested that its general formulation will probably require the development of new mathematical language. Technically, yes, you do need the extra dimensions, 6 curled and wrapped up dimentions + M-theory in respect to the 3 + 1 of observable spacetime. M-theory is not as yet complete but can be applied in many situations (usually by exploiting string theoretic dualities), but the full theory is not yet known as the theory is still only in its infancy. However, yes it is possible that string theory could be wrong. But if it is in fact wrong, its amazing that its been so rich and has survived so many brushes with catastrophe and has linked up with the established physical theories in so many ways, providing so many new insights about them. It shouldnt seem likely that a wrong theory should lead us to understand better the ordinary quantum field theories or to have new insights about the quantum states of black holes.One could suggest that the question is alittle bit like the question about interpreting fossils. When fossils were first explored 100 or 200 years ago, some people thought they were traces of past life that had survived in the rocks and others thought that they had been placed there at the creation of the universe by the creator in order to test our faith. Lets imagine a theory that predicts the strength of a cosmological constant which says nothing about the sensitivity of a habitable universe to the calculated value. We would still have the same fine tuning "problem." If anything, the appearance of design would be strengthened, for no longer would the "just right" value seem to be the result of a convenient accident, but rather the inevitable result of a highly designed first-principle law. But the cosmological constants are not justifiable in themselves or our universe alone.
When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than 1 in 635 billion. Yet, it would seem absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, and exclaim, “wow, the odds against getting these exact cards are 635 billion to 1. I couldnt possibly have been dealt this hand by chance. There must have been supernatural intervention.” That, for some is the fallacy of this idea. The assumption that the universe and world as it exists was a predetermined outcome while for others it is something that was ment to happen because it was always going to happen. With the proposition that there is a meta-universe with parallel dimentions and universes all around us, the awnser becomes simple and the existence of God is not infringed upon ones own choice of faith in any way of evidence, for or against, as all possibilities are played out and so all becomes rational based on personal perspective. The order of the idea is that universes born with life were formed from an order of such while those with no life are simply chaotic existences, to unstable for life, formed within there own matrix, with an existence of time based on formation. In a sence you have chaos from order and order from chaos in pretty much the same way as you have good from evil and evil from good, or at lest the possibilities for such, but each existing and growing individually while at the same time both being apart of the same field in which to grow in.
The idea of a designer or a creator, God, is an applicable principle for those of faith in God.
Science in the end can only go so far in truth and certainty, so in such respect, faith will always be needed, we just have to judge cearfully and trust ourselves as to where we place it, after all in the end we all have our own idea of the perfect world...
The quotes above show, I think, a contradictory claim: that god instituted a perfectly good process of evolution but, strangely, that very same divine process has manifest imperfections in it which, therefore, prove the existence of said god.
I would say, in respect to this that creation was never intended to be perfect as imperfection, evil and sin are needed for the purpose of faith. If, I was God, I think, I would want to test the faith of those who I was to live and spend eternity with to. It seems logical. You could try thinking about it this way, if you truly loved someone would you marry them if you had no faith in them?
The quotes above show, I think, a contradictory claim: that god instituted a perfectly good process of evolution but, strangely, that very same divine process has manifest imperfections in it which, therefore, prove the existence of said god.
I would say, in respect to this that creation was never intended to be perfect as imperfection, evil and sin are needed for the purpose of faith. If, I was God, I think, I would want to test the faith of those who I was to live and spend eternity with to. It seems logical. You could try thinking about it this way, if you truly loved someone would you marry them if you had no faith in them?
The Great Virian Pheith Wars were before my time, fortunately from what I can gather. There is a big semantic problem here. It has been comprehensively dealt with. "Weyken, a bright, shiny and needed word?" is Hermit's most recent post on the subject I think. (FWIW I also had a moment of doubt about the distinction between 'faith' and 'confidence' once.)
If I was intending to marry someone (other than the Politburo? Perish the thought!) I would need to have some confidence, based on my experience of her, that we might be able to get along together, not a hopeful little wish that my bride-to-be did perhaps actually exist somewhere in the universe and might even actually turn up for the ceremony. Do you see the equivocation here? We are not talking about faith in the same sense. One is based on evidence of the senses. The other one is pure speculation based on inference and no other evidence whatsoever. Mysticism, in word.
"...creation was never intended to be perfect as imperfection, evil and sin are needed for the purpose of faith..."
Yes, but why is this "faith" at all 'needed' (God is needy?!) except as an ex post facto patch for the problem that there is no evidence at all for the existence of the previously asserted god? It seems to me that, by definition, an omnipotent god should be able to create any kind universe that it decides upon. Why not create one in which the existence of god is completely obvious to all it's denizens?
Which is where, I suppose, we get to that other, subsiduary, ex post facto patch; 'god', I have heard, wants us to love 'him' of our own free will, unemcumbered by any brutally obvious evidence of his actual existence. Why? How is it possible to 'love' something the existence of which it is only possible to dimly suspect, if at all? An omnipotent god would presumably be able to arrange these matters to his complete satisfaction at any time he chose without, unless he is a sadist, having to torment his creations with uncertainy and doubt. In any case, an omnipotent god would have absolutely no need to 'test' it's creations in this fashion. An omnipotent god would know in advance which of his creatures would be faithful.
I suppose that an omnipotent god would be able arrange for his own amnesia in this regard, but only, as far as I can see, at the expense of his own 'omnesia'.
Would he then still be 'god' and deserving of worship?
Re:Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
« Reply #74 on: 2005-12-04 06:09:00 »
If Hawking Radiation exists (and it may, as in July 2004 Hawking suggested that he had derived a theorem permitting information to escape from a singularity - though it is still AFAIK unpublished) and can be validated, then it is possible that far from a mere 'hypothetical' concept, there may be a 'Ultimate ensemble' compatible multiverse with at least theoretical one way traps out of our Universe. But I wouldn't hold my breath. All 'modal reality' concepts, though endlessly fascinating to certain mathematicians, physicists and sci-fi authors are essentially mathematical masturbation which, while it apparently can provide as much pleasure to those playing with their surds, as most people get from the other kind, are nevertheless inherently unscientific in the absence of any visible necessity (Ockham again).
Hermit
PS Any meme-bers of the Interuniversal Society for Eschatological Pantheistic Multiple-Ego Solipsism here?
PPS Blunderov, if there were such things as gods involved in fashioning humans, then other than using a cabbage as the source for about 28% of our DNA (very obvious in the faithful) it seems to me that e.g. Mongolism, Pancreatic Cancer and other blissful delights reflect these gods as being brutal, nasty, and, or incompetent - and more deserving of erradication than "worship" no matter what their motives.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Author
Logged
