Intelligent Design, Science & Religion

[enoob57]

45 minutes ago, one.opinion said:

I believe in God the Creator and I believe His Holy Word, yet I accept the evidence for evolution and believe God made life with the capability of unfolding itself. Would you say that disqualifies me from being a Christian?

I would say you are standing just outside of the verbal authority of God's Word.... fundamental belief is verbal plenary.

[one.opinion]

1 hour ago, maryjayne said:

No I didn't. I stated fact that it is incorrect to assume all Christians believe in evolution when people are looking at polls etc.

If you truly cast no judgement on a sibling in Christ for having a different view on the timeframe of God's creation, then you have my sincere apology.

[one.opinion]

48 minutes ago, enoob57 said:

fundamental belief is verbal plenary

Yes, we've been over this before. You believe that everyone must hold your beliefs about the Bible, or be outside of acceptable Christian doctrine. I know where you stand.

[enoob57]

1 minute ago, one.opinion said:

Yes, we've been over this before. You believe that everyone must hold your beliefs about the Bible, or be outside of acceptable Christian doctrine. I know where you stand.

Seeing how you didn't address my statement but diverted to something else … I guess were done here.

[one.opinion]

3 minutes ago, enoob57 said:

Seeing how you didn't address my statement but diverted to something else … I guess were done here.

Based on our past exchanges where I have repeatedly defended what I believe and why I believe it, that sounds like a good idea. Grace and peace, brother.

[enoob57]

still does not affect what I have said fundamental belief is verbal plenary.... When God says days in a direct 24 hour period we who believe in fundamental verbal plenary will in fact repeat 24 hour time frame according to God's Word... God was there we weren't!

[one.opinion]

20 hours ago, bcbsr said:

I found it interesting that at the SAO meeting many of the scientists in expressing their personal opinion were troubled by the idea advocated by the ID community - namely that the scientific evidence "seems to suggest" an intelligent designer. 

I once saw a quote (that I wish that I recorded) that I have never been able to find again. It was regarding the untestable hypothesis of the "multi-verse". An astronomer said something to the effect of "The fine tuning of our universe is a compelling reason to believe in a God. Since I cannot accept this hypothesis, then I must believe in a multi-verse". It was incredibly sad that this person chose a hypothesis (with no supporting evidence) over another hypothesis (with considerable supporting evidence) because of a refusal to consider the existence of God.

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One of the objections to "Intelligent Design" being taught as science is that it purportedly adds nothing to science.

The court ruled in the Dover trial that there was insufficient evidence supporting "Intelligent Design" as a valid scientific theory. You can check this out for yourself by looking at the work that Discovery Institute does - 99% of it is simply attempting to show (unsuccessfully) why evolution cannot account for the complexity of life we see today. If you look at their journal, Bio-Complexity, it contains virtually no articles with scientific evidence for a hypothesis to replace evolution.

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Much as with the Flat Earth position the YEC position is counter-intuitive to the known facts derived by scientific inquiry. Their only strength is in keeping people ignorant of the facts by misrepresenting and underrepresenting the facts while shielding themselves from skepticism under a cloak of religious zealotry.

This is perhaps a bit stronger than I would put it, but I cannot actually disagree with this summary.

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There's nothing inherent in the idea of common origin contrary to intelligent design per se. In fact, is there any conflict between evolution and intelligent design to speak of?

I agree with this. I certainly believe in an Intelligent Designer, that an omniscient and omnipotent God is the Creator of the universe and everything in it, down to the smallest subatomic particle. However, I disagree with the concept of "Intelligent Design" as it is now described. The major proponents of Intelligent Design, like Michael Behe, argue that life as we see it today must have come to be through directly-detectable action of the Creator. Although Behe accepts the evidence for common descent, he argues that the process of evolution is insufficient to bring about what we can directly observe today.

I firmly believe that the evidence available to us today shows that the earth and universe are billions of years old and not thousands, and that life as we see it developed through the process of evolution, also over billions of years. God simply took His own timetable to bring about the organisms that He would choose to imbue with His image.

[one.opinion]

15 minutes ago, maryjayne said:

If I previously expressed myself clumsily I apologise.

The fault was likely mine, since I tend to be a little overly-sensitive about the topic!

[missmuffet]

5 hours ago, one.opinion said:

You may be surprised, but a significant portion identify as Christian. I should have looked further into the article (https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/) before responding last night, because a more detailed breakdown followed. 

Apparently, the Pew Report lumped those identifying specifically as atheist (17%) with those that believe "nothing in particular" (20%) and possible those that did not answer (4%) to reach that 41% I mentioned yesterday.

Here is a similar figure shown for the general population:

I don't know how much these percentages have changed in the last 10 years, but it likely isn't much, judging from the lack of change from a similar survey done several decades previously. I think it is safe to say that the statement "A majority of scientists are atheists" is factually incorrect.

They may not be atheist but I am not impressed with their denominations. 

[one.opinion]

41 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

They may not be atheist but I am not impressed with their denominations. 

I would suggest that it is difficult to judge the Christian walk of another based on their denomination. I once had the tendency to lump Catholics together and consider their theology largely faulty. Working with several over the last 15 years or so and observing their daily walk with Jesus first-hand has since changed my mind.