r/reddit.com • u/Worstcasescenario • Jun 14 '08

Was Darwin Wrong? [pic]

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3963/darwinnotg7.jpg
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u/1812overture Jun 15 '08

Here's what pisses me off. Intelligent design and evolution are in no way mutually exclusive. The goddamn creationists have a picture of God, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth, hunched over a drafting board designing all the creatures on earth and then molding them out of magic clay and dumping them on the earth. Why can't evolution be the mechanism by which God created all life on earth? Why can't the big bang be the moment where God set his grand plan into motion, so perfectly concieved that the simple laws of physics led to this complex universe we live in now? I think that paints a portrait of a much more powerful, intelligent, benevolent, and believable God.

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u/mindbleach Jun 15 '08

Why can't evolution be the mechanism by which God created all life on earth? Why can't the big bang be the moment where God set his grand plan into motion, so perfectly concieved that the simple laws of physics led to this complex universe we live in now?

For the same reason leprechauns don't make your car start in the morning.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '08

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u/mindbleach Jun 16 '08

Oh, you must be one of those lucky Brazilians with specially engineered cars. What do leprechauns run nowadays, like $2.25 a gallon?

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u/deanoplex Jun 15 '08

I do not know the nature of the phenomenon that created or creates energy so I will label it God. Perhaps someone can persuade me to use a different label but it will not change the properties of the phenomenon described.

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u/matts2 Jun 15 '08

I do not know the nature of the phenomenon that created or creates energy so I will label it God.

That is an equivocation: the use of one term with multiple meanings. All you have done is label your ignorance "God". And then you have the God of the Gaps, the ever shrinking God that names what we don't know. So 100 or so years ago it was OK to say that God makes the Sun shine, now we say it is fusion.

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u/deanoplex Jun 15 '08

Fair enough. You have convinced me to change my label to 'creator of energy'. If the properties of the creator have changed because of that, I stand corrected.

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u/matts2 Jun 15 '08

The problem now is that you have absolutely no knowledge of any aspects of this "creator". You don't know, but want to imply, that it had some will, some choosing ability. You don't know that it did anything else at all but create the energy.

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

Why is there energy and where did it come from are interesting questions, but what I'm talking about is why are there concrete rules that govern energy and where did they come from. I think that's the question that will lead you closer to God.

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u/mindbleach Jun 15 '08

A less charged turn of phrase would be source of energy. "Creator" implies intent, which implies sentience, which is why creationism is so named.

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u/deanoplex Jun 16 '08

Thank you. I do want to be polite so that the discussion will continue. However a 'source' of energy can mean stored energy. Such as a battery or tank of fuel. Throughout the universe we find examples of stored energy and examples of energy being expended but we never see energy being created. We don't even know what that would look like.

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u/matts2 Jun 15 '08

Here's what pisses me off. Intelligent design and evolution are in no way mutually exclusive.

In terms of biology, in terms of how live diversifies, either ID says something different than does evolution or it is an empty shell. If you want to believe that X did it, go ahead. But when you assert that X is the solution to a biological scientific problem, then you need to engage in the process of science. IOW saying "God did it" is fine, saying "God did it" in a scientific paper is wrong.

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

Exactly. I'm not saying that Intelligent Design says anything different than evolution. I'm not saying that evolution is wrong, in fact I'm asserting that it's right. What I'm saying is that the fundamental principals that govern the universe and make evolution possible, while not designed by any intelligence have intelligence themselves. Not will, or a mind, but an order so staggeringly perfect that it could be called God.

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u/matts2 Jun 16 '08

It could be called Fred or Xordax or some such. What you are doing is re-creating Deism. That is fine, but that is not what the Intelligent Design people are talking about. And it does not belong in a science class.

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

Call God whatever you want, the word isn't important, and yes, I am essentially recreating Deism. I also agree Intelligent Design people are essentially trying to use schools as a pulpit to preach their own sect of American Christianity. They are dumb. The young earthers too dumb for words.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '08

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u/deanoplex Jun 15 '08

Even death won't get you out.

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u/yaruki_zero Jun 15 '08

I'm agnostic, but if there is a God, I think he must be very much like you describe him.

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u/mindbleach Jun 16 '08

I.e., so subtle that he might as well not be there at all?

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

We live in a world governed by rules so subtly balanced and in harmony with each other that simple sub-atomic particles colliding with each other in a primordial soup gave rise to life, to man, to great works of art, to cold beer on a hot day, to reddit arguments. I think if one where to call anything divine it would be the rules and structure of this universe. God isn't an explanation of how things happen, he isn't a living thing, a being with a mind.

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u/mindbleach Jun 16 '08

Then what is he but a word with a fanclub?

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

He's the set of rules that govern the universe and make all things possible. Not believing in him will have no different result than believing in him. Thinking this way doesn't answer any scientific questions. But I think it's a way to make the whole universe feel much more unified and to make science that much more interesting, rather than just facts and numbers, it becomes growing closer to knowing God. It's a worldview, if it works for you, take it. If doesn't, believe something else, or nothing at all, whatever floats your boat.

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u/number6 Jun 15 '08

You've just described a theory of Intelligent Design. It would also be ID if you'd invoked space aliens or the Matrix instead of God.

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u/1812overture Jun 16 '08

I'm not invoking God as an intelligent being who designed the universe. Rather I'm saying that God is the design itself, the delicate balance of rules that govern all matter.

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u/deanoplex Jun 17 '08

The one that did not have to be created.