The Case for ALLOWING ID

Concerning a Debate beween Michael Behe and Stephen Barr (Wintery Knight Blog)

Keep in mind that the dividing line in the debate on intelligent design vs. Darwinism is between open-minded scientists who think that there might be objective evidence that material cause-and-effect may not be able to account for specific kinds of complexity (specified complexity) in nature, and philosophers who believe that is never permissible to overturn the philosophical assumption of materialism, regardless of what the scientific evidence shows.

So the pro-ID side is like “let’s look at the evidence and see what naturalism can and can’t do” and the anti-ID side is “the presupposition of materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”. It’s ID scientists vs naturalist materialism pre-supposers. Reason vs faith. Inquiry vs dogmatism.

http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/michael-behe-and-stephen-barr-debate-intelligent-design/

The Biblical contribution to science

from a blog with a lot of atheism motivational posters.

Question:  We know this is part-parody, but does this view accord with reality, or does it represent a grave distortion of both history and the philosophy of science?

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Outline from the Soul of Science by Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton  (note, some of these headings are theirs, others are my attempt to sum up thoughts contained in the opening chapter.

The Bible teaches Nature is real

God made it Good.

Nature is Good, but it is not a god.

God is rational, His creation is orderly.

Natural law flows naturally from the conviction that God is the Divine Legistator

the Creation of the world "Ex Nihilo" suggest that God alone has absolute, or final control over nature.

The World itself is not necessary, The World is contingent.

God is free

God created us as personal and rational beings.

The Creation Mandate gives man certain authority to exercise constrained dominion over nature

Science, proper used, unleashes "obedience."

We are commanded to Love God , and to do all things to his glory

We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, which may take the form of improving his 

condition.

More resources.

http://www.doxa.ws/meta_crock/SN_science.html

critical of Christian claims to advance science

http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2006/11/science-and-medieval-christianity.html

When Opposites Agree

http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/09/13/the-war-between-spirituality-and-science-is-over/

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/spirituality-the-great-communicator-fails-again/

What is a Necessary Being?/ Brute Fact

If we are to understand the nature of reality, we have only two possible starting points: either the brute fact of the physical world or the brute fact of a divine will and the purpose behind the physical world.    John Polkinghorne

"As the Father useth this expression I AM, so also doth Christ, for it signifieth continuous being, irrespective of all time"- John Chrysostom

"The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be." - Carl Sagan

Hawking V Hawking.

Just dumping some links.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704206804575467921609024244.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553805371?ie=UTF8&tag=fidelitas-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0553805371

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/09/daily_view_stephen_hawkings_un.html


http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/henry-f-schafer-assesses-stephen-hawkings-no-boundary-proposal/


http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/bigbang.html

http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/09/07/no-need-for-god-stephen-hawking-defies-divine-creation/


http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/much-ado-about-ldquonothingrdquo-stephen-hawking-and-the-self-creating-universe

http://creation.com/stephen-hawking-god



Excerpt, Walter Percy, Lost in the Cosmos.

AH! Here's one passage -- fairly lengthy -- where the last point has the phrase. Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos," by the way, really does read in part like a self-help book, though it is subversive in that regard as it also is in many others. ...So below reads as a self-help question w/ multiple-choice answers... hope you enjoy it:


Question: Why does it make scientists uneasy that it appears to be the case that Homo sapiens sapiens, a conscious languaged creature, appeared suddenly and lately-- when scientists profess to be interested in what is the case, that is, the evidence?

1. Because scientists are understandably repelled by the theory of the special creation of man by God, in Biblical time, say 6004 B.C. at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.

2. Because scientists find it natural to deal with matter in interaction and with energy exchanges and don't know what to make of such things as consciousness, self, symbols and even sometimes deny that there are such things, even though they, the scientists, act for all the world as if they were conscious selves and spend their lives transacting with symbols.

3. Because scientists are uneasy with discontinuities, even when there is evidence of such discontinuity in the appearance of man in all his contrarieties. Revealed religion has its dogmas, e.g., thou shalt not kill. But so does science: thou shalt not tolerate discontinuities. The question is which is the more entitled.

4. Because scientists in the practice of the scientific method, a non-radical [radical = `to the root'] knowledge of matter in interaction, often are not content with the non-radicalness of the scientific method and hence find themselves located in a posture of covert transcendence of their data, which is by the same motion assigned to the sphere of immanence. Hence, scientists operate in the very sphere of transcendence with is not provided for in science. Given such a posture, it is not merely an offense if a discontinuity turns up in the sphere of immanence, the data, but especially if the discontinuity seems to allow for the intervention of God. A god is already present. A scientist is god to his data. And if there is anything more offensive to him that the suggestion of the existence of God, it is the existence of two gods.

(CHECK ONE)

****** Intro Teleology

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