Someone else on the mailing list has joined in. He started out claiming that Creationism and Intelligent Design are not the same thing. After a couple of back and forths, we determined that his definition of ID was different than the current one, and he accepted that the current ID is the same as Creationism.
Then he explained his version of ID thusly:
I believe that God designed all the laws of nature, including evolution and natural selection. God is there in the picture the whole time. Laws of nature like evolution are all cogs that fit into the big machine that is the universe. When the species man became man the cognizant being, that is debatable. If you want I will share the theology behind that.
Someone else chimed in with:
Fascinating— I love this thread!
I guess it depends on what the definition of “cognizant being” is…
Do you mean humans/Man as hunter/gatherer?
The rise of Cities?
Or specialization; thus removing the substinence jobs of hunting and
farming from every man’s daily regimen?
He replied:
Actually, none of the above. Many Theologians would define that moment as the point when man was given an immortal soul, I would agree with them. What point in the great history of the planet did that occur, don’t know. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say maybe about 10,000 years ago, maybe less. From a theologic stand point, the traditional story of creation fits okay. Not the part about seven days, or taking Adam’s rib but instead the metaphor of why we are.
Then I chimed in with:
Ah, but I have a problem with this. What proof do you have that man has an immortal soul?
Verifiable, reproducible proof. Not the Bible. Not what the preacher man says. No leap of faith allowed.
I refuse to believe, on some human’s word, and without proof, that I have, or anyone else has, a immortal soul that is seperate from my body.
The first person that I was debating with then chimed in with this statement:
I guess you just to have to faith that your’s is the correct view, don’t you? ‘Cause you really don’t have proof that your view is correct either.
So this was my reply:
Ah, no. I don’t know that my view is correct. But, unlike the religious people, I can admit that I don’t know.
But as my view is that something does *not* exist, and you can’t prove that something does *not* exist, the burden of proof does not lie on me.
Examples: Prove to me that the Easter Bunny does not exist. Prove to me that there is not a teapot orbiting the sun exactly 180 degrees from the earth.
The religious people on the other hand, are claiming that something *does* exist: God, the soul, etc. Therefore the burden of proof lies on them. And yet they can’t come up with any evidence.
You don’t seem to understand that believing that something exists for which there is no proof is completely different than refusing to believe that something exists for which there is no proof.
They are not opposites. One is faith. One is reason.
The priest says “You must believe there is a God”
The faithful say “Okay”
The reasonable say “Show me”
If I were to tell you that I had invented a way to make my motorcycle run on plain water, but refused to show you how it was done, or to let you examine my motorcycle, would you believe me? Would you have faith in my invention?
Or would you be skeptical? (I certainly hope you would be skeptical.)
So the priests are trying to tell me that this invisible person is watching me, and will send me to this magical place (heaven) or this nasty place (hell) based entirely on how well I worship him and how well I behave. But they can’t show him to me (he’s invisible.) And they can’t offer any proof to me (other than some writing in a book that is 2000+ years old.)
And you think I should believe them? Or should I be skeptical?
But, you say, religion is different than making your motorcycle run on water.
Yes, okay. Why?
These are both claims made by men. Priests are men. The people who wrote the bible are men. The people who translate and interpret the bible are men. The only difference between these two examples is that religion has a special status.
Why does religion have a special status? That’s a big question, with lots of history behind it. But it really boils down to the fact that the religious leaders managed to convince the kings in days of old that there was a God, a Heaven and a Hell and that they should worship God or they would burn in Hell forever.
This all happened back in the Dark Ages, don’t you think it’s time to come out of the Dark Ages?
