Oxymoronic design
The New York times is running an op ed piece in defence of evolution. It might be nothing you haven't seen elsewhere, but it's nevertheless pleasing to come across a cogent argument with all the nonsense about intelligent design that's currently flying around.
Personally, I don't think I can adequately convey my dislike for intelligent design. However it pretends otherwise, it's nothing more than religious dogma wrapped up in pseudo-science. That said I do find it rather amusing that it regards the identity of the intelligent designer to be irrelevant when it's clearly anything but. Hmm, could it be Penry, the mild mannered janitor? What I'd really like to see is the opponents of intelligent design use it to suggest that space aliens are the progenitors of the human race, or otherwise use it to deny the existence of God. The reaction from the religious right would surely be interesting to behold.
The biggest problem with intelligent design is that it's trying ascribe values to God's workings that make sense from a human perspective, and a blinkered perspective at that. This is what God would do, because this is what I would do, as it were. Now say what you will about Catholicism, but the idea of an ineffable God actually has something going from it (from a purely atheistic perspective at least). It presents it's congregation with the concept of a supreme being who's motivations are not merely unknown, but by definition unknowable. It's a lovely dichotomy isn't it? Here's God in all his mysterious glory, so mysterious, in fact, that you can never understand it (Naturally, the conclusion I came to was why bother believing in something I can't ever understand; One mans faith is another's bunkum). So who, I want to know, is arrogant enough to deny that evolution might be part of God's plan? Who claims such insight in the divine workings of a being they can't begin to comprehend? It makes no sense to me. It really doesn't. If someone's belief in a supreme being is so fragile that it can't withstand the evolution of a scientific theory, let alone the theory of evolution, does attempting to discredit the theory begin to address the underlying problem?
This is why I dislike religion, or any attempt to organise belief systems. I have no problem with the concept of belief (why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast), but to me belief is a very personal issue. I'm free to revise my beliefs as I encounter new information. I can take aboard new theories. I don't feel any great desire to denounce other humans beings who don't share my viewpoints (though a small number of exceptions do exist - those who believe the world will be a better place if they stick sharp pointy things in people I care about, for example). Religions are oil tankers of belief. Vast repositories of the stuff, of near unstoppable momentum, in which new concepts are but a drop in the ocean (I wonder, is there an analogy to an oil spill? A religion spill?)
Sigh. Why can't we all just get along?
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For more on creation versus evolution, see MommyCool.com for a great short story of a man-making contest pitting God against scientists...the outcome makes sense.
It's a cute joke, but it's not going to sway me to the side of creationism anytime soon.
One of the aspects of this whole 'debate' that amuses me is that God is always pitted against scientists. When, frankly, I think the argument should be with engineers.
In particular, all the arguments that go 'Look, your hand, it's an amazing thing - how could that possibly have come about by anything other than deliberate design?'
To which the engineers reply 'You know, you're right, it's an elegant bit of engineering. Unlike the eye, which appears to be inside-out in the most ridiculous manner possible, and the lower lumber region, which appears explicitly designed to cause debilitating pain for a significant proportion of the population. And let's not even get started on the internal plumbing, some of which is plain ridiculous. Are you *sure* you want all this stuff to have been designed by $DEITY, because frankly - He's a lousy engineer.'
[shrug]
Mark, as always, makes a wonderfully obvious and cogent argument with which it would be impossible for any sane person to argue. Unfortunately, many God-botherers aren't quite in that category ... and is it quite abhorrent to be someone like me who can happily go along both with the concept of a (mostly) rule-based universe (even if the rule is that there are no rules really). What bothers me most is that, as a species, we seem DESIGNED to believe passionately, to a point where we cannot understand or accept others' point of view, whether that's as a religious believer, or a just-as-obstinate non-believer. I guess we just don't do well in large groups, be it a congregation, nation, political party, school or any other 'organised' mass of persons.
To play devil's advocate:
Isn't religion as believed and practiced by the masses not just Popular Christianity/Islam/whatever?
Surely the better theologians must spend their time persuing questions deeper than evolution vs creationism?
Surely science has been perverted to such a degree that during the short time it's ben in favour, it must be responsible for the deaths (directly or indirectly) of hundreds of millions (people/seagulls/etc)?
This hasn't a thing to do with actual science, of course - just its misuse (intentional or not). Carry the process forward a few more years and what do you have - not much (people/cod/etc).
Put this way, where's the harm in a little religious questioning by an intelligent few? Dig a bit deeper and you may discover what exactly it is they study and the methodology behind it. And why even bother with the Popular form of religion - we all know it's nonsense anyway.
Which isn't to say I believe one way or the other. I've just had too much coffee once again.
Interesting you should say that, Adam ... the former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard I'm-not-sure-of-the-surname, wrote a book, about 10 years ago and, from a religious standpoint, it caused a bit of a ruckus. It was called 'Godless Morality' and it made a case for a moral and ethical code and, I think, humans being capable of being moral beings (lots of beings) regardless of their personal ideology. I always wanted to read it but can't remember his name to find it. An interesting case of theology rising above religious doctrine, though.