"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
-Biologist Richard Dawkins
I seem to be seeing Richard Dawkins everywhere, now.
He sure can phrase something pretty gloomily. But, we wouldn't know what a g[b][/b]od was trying to achieve - even if we take the Christian G[b][/b]od as an example then we don't know that this wasn't part of his plan or anything, there are so many reconciliations for suffering and a Christian G[b][/b]od. It's not something you can argue for or against convincingly; I don't really consider his words to be anything even close to unarguable, nor do I consider them anything nobody's already said before.
What's so amazing about that statement exactly?
lemme guess, this fruit is considered some type of expert, amiright?
Like Sabredog said, we can't know God's design, as mortal minds wouldn't be able to comprehend it.
And even without a God, this is bullcrap. Everything has a purpose, and everything lives and dies for a purpose. It's no one's fault but his that he's too short-sighted to see what the purposes are.
Theres nothing intelligent about intelligent design.
[quote=Lord of Spam]Theres nothing intelligent about intelligent design.
There's just as little thinking in Dawkins theory. Why do we really care about this, anyway? It's no more useful then questioning which came first- the the chicken or the egg.
I thought it was pretty obvious that I find religion a complete waste of time.
"Intelligent design" does not equate to "religion". Intelligent design was created by people who clearly misenterpreted the Bible's meaning and preached the exact thing the Bible was trying to prevent.
On the other hand, a "random universe" defies it's own scientific theories, and has absolutely no proof against the common arguments against it. For example- if everything is random, isn't it possible that his theory is just a random spark of falsehood that randomly came into his head?
I prefer the multidimensional approach- that what is material on one level is lifeless and uncertain, and what is spiritual is life and defined. Imagine the spiritual level like you would if you were blind and trying to imagine colors- it seems impossible, but is perfectly real.
[quote]For example- if everything is random, isn't it possible that his theory is just a random spark of falsehood that randomly came into his head?
Take this in a constructive manner, but that's one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.
Anyways, what exactly *is* it about the fundamental structure of the universe that makes people think there's any underlying design to it? If it is designed it was a pretty slapdash piece of work. Inefficient energy transferrence means ever increasing entropy which is an essentially terminal design flaw. (If there's no big crunch eventually we'll have [url=http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=911255]Heat Death of the Universe[/url]). Nature is unavoidably cruel and full of things like asteroids, parasites and [url=http://www.asylumeclectica.com/malady/archives/harlequin.htm]Harlequin babies[/url], life is stupidly fragile, blinkingly brief and full of tragedy, and so forth.
If it's all random then these are acceptable because hey, it's pretty wonderous that we're here at all... but if it was designed this is all pretty unforgivable.
Intelligent design is nothing but assumptions based on ignorance... total crap. :/
If you're gonn believe in creationism go ahead and do it. It's wrong, but hey, that's faith for you and that's cool. But the moment you try to use pseudo-science to dress up your faith and legitimise and rationalise it, this confuses and muddies the waters of real science, then it gets stupid.
[quote=Arwon]It's wrong
Now that this is all agreed on, mind explaining what ideas you happen to have on the creation of the universe?
[quote=Arwon][URL="http://www.asylumeclectica.com/malady/archives/harlequin.htm"]Harlequin babies[/URL]
THAT SHOULD CARRY A BLOODY WARNING.
I worry more about whether or not my farts stink enough than how the universe was created
[quote=Arwon]Scientist: "Fine, believe whatever you want. The world was created ten thousand years ago and it took a week, and natural selection does not happen. Now can you please let me get back to dating these rocks and/or breeding specific strains of bacteria for medical purposes?"
Isn't life grand?
[quote]Scientist: "Fine, believe whatever you want. The world was created ten thousand years ago and it took a week, and natural selection does not happen. Now can you please let me get back to dating these rocks and/or breeding specific strains of bacteria for medical purposes?"
http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html
Many of the more hard-line sects of Christianity don't even believe in ID, such as [URL="http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/11/07/1526216.shtml?tid=99&tid=14"]Catholics[/URL].
As has been said, don't equate this malarky with religious people in general.
Catholics learned their lesson about science back in the day of Galileo. The church has, for some time, deferred to science on scientific issues.
Funny that.
Also I object to the characterisations of catholics as a "hardline sect".
Not nearly as hardline as many, but still fairly conservative. I'm a Catholic myself, and fairly devout. "Hardline" doesn't necessarily equate to Bible-thumping lunatics who picket gay funerals.
Thoooouuuugh... I could have chose a better word. Yes.
How about "differently crazy"? (I'm kinda sorta catholic. Well, culturally catholic, an atheist who identifies with the church to some extent)
actually, Catholicism is pretty liberal
Contraceptives are not allowed, homosexuality is unnatural = liberal?
Dont forget about how all non-catholics are going to hell!
Archaic Catholic dogma != average lay-catholic practise.
Honestly, we've been through this.
I'm just going by what the Pope said. I figure is he says contraception is wrong then that's what the whole of catholicism's (sp?) stance is.
See, a great many catholics don't even really "go by what the pope said" all the time. That's kinda the odd beauty of the whole weird religion.
Isnt what ever he says while on the chair of Saint Peter considered to have the effect of the word of god or some such nonesense?
Well if we can't go by the leader of the religion, who the heck can we go by?
[url=http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/raptorjesus-36752.jpg]I think we all know how the real man upstairs is.[/url]
Hah. NonExistent_One should have that in his sig.
Thanks a lot, thread killer.
[COLOR="Wheat"]I think the Bible is an encryptic puzzle book. The answer to this mystery could be right under our noses. Someone could load the Bible on to the computer, and by using some mathematical equation, find each letter from a common sequence that would join each other to make a word, and each word in their order would make a sentence. Maybe God doesn't want anybody to solve the Bible, until Jesus returns in his Second Coming - only
he can tell us this hidden secret. [/COLOR]
Have you ever read the bible? It's pretty straightforward.
You know, like that thing that says "never interpret the bible, only follow what it says, and never change the bible in any way."
Nice shot, King James and every idiot revisionist after him. You'll bring ****ation to us all.
the bible has been getting raped since the Nicean councle, it isnt anything new.
Edit: Fei, clerification, please.
Which means that everyone who interprets the bible to it's fullest extent nowadays is, by its own original words, a sinner, or at least misguided. Since I doubt the original version of the bible still exists, true faith (for the Christians at least), seems like it would be almost impossible to ascertain. That means they'd have to make due with the 10 commandments, which have not been changed, and possibly the extensions of the bible, such as the Book of Revelations, which still have the same content. After all, the biggest edits seem to be only reserved for the main book.
Even the commandments are open to interpretation. Changing it from "do no murder" to "thall shall not kill" makes a rather large difference. One allows "justified" killing, the other allows none. And yes, I have seen it presented both ways.
What I meant is that the Ten Commandments hadn't been changed over time to the point where we're unsure of it's original content.
Uh, yes, we are. Read above. It depends on how you interpret it, which means that we dont know for sure. If we did know for sure, there would be no "I think it means this." You would be able to point to some sort of solid evidence and say to anyone who disagrees with you "you are wrong, and here is why."