Southern Methodist University speaks out against Intelligent Design

[techboy]

Of course, the wisdom of emptiness makes you a very slippery debater on a message board.

Or anywhere else. It can be very frustrating for a theist to discuss with a practitioner of Eastern thinking.

Example:

"Jesus is the only way to Heaven."

"Yes, I agree."

"You agree?"

"Yes."

"But you're not a Christian."

"No, I seek enlightenment through another path."

"But there is no other path..."

"You're right."

"I'm right? But you just said you follow another path..."

"Yes, I do."

"And it's equally good?"

"Yes."

"Except you agree with me that there is no other path."

"Yes."

"Those two statements contradict each other."

"Yes."

"But you think they're both true."

"Yes."

My latest experience was this was watching a group of Muslims "debate" a Hindu when Amy and I were at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park over Christmas Break.

It was quite amusing, really.

[PeterMP]

Sounds to me like you're talking about the here and now--or at least the near-future. Today's basic limitations on medicine, today's still slowly increasing expected lifespans, today's expected "quality of life" lifespans. In my post you quoted, though, I was talking more in terms of a several centuries or even millenia down the road. The question was is there a benefit to extending life indefinitely. I read that to mean useful, productive years of life.

Even today we're replacing limbs, joints ... hearts. It's not a big leap to imagine that in the relative short term we'll be able to replace any body part other than perhaps the brain with a more efficient and as necessary replaceable model. And I'd not rule out the brain, either. The parallel advances in study of the way the brain works and advances in computer technology suggest to me a not-too-distant future where memory and "thought" itself will be downloadable into permanent accessible storage capable of interfacing with the aformentioned replaceable parts. With guys like little old you and me at the controls.

The day of the Manchine is coming, my friend.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - A. C. Clarke

I'm talking about in the near future where I would guess in the next 40 to 50 years, I would guess we will have people that are capable of living to 200 years w/ technology, but for as much as half of their life they will physically and/or mentally limited and for about a 1/3 of their life they will be both physically and mentally incapacitated even though they are "concise".

I think you are talking about something that is likely to occur much further into the future. There are issues, such as thinning blood vesseles that can not be fixed by simple replacement. Even heart transplants only last about 7 years. I think what you are talking about will take a rather large leap in either our understanding of DNA and the ability to manipulate it, our ability to integrate mechanical things w/ biological tissues, or our ability to grow organs, and realistically some combination of all three.

Interestingly, it seems to reach the future you forsee people will have to make a decision about being human and what that means. It will be interesting what decisions people make. Of course, this requires that we reach this point before society unevolves.

[Zguy28]

The evidence for a Big Bang is compelling.

Yes it is.

Anticipating your next question ... no, a god isn't required to cause the Big Bang.

You're just chomping at the bit to come at me and expose me for just another anti-intellectual Christian aren't you?

At the quantum level, the common sense rules of cause and effect we rely on are suspended. Quantum cosmology, and in particular the work of Hartle and Hawking, shows that the Universe coming from 'nothing' is perfectly within the laws of physics and consistent with other phenomena we observe. :geek:

I read Hawking's A brief history of time a long time ago. There are quite a few scientists, I believe, who disagree with his opinions on quantum physics.

Doesn't he believe that the Big Bang came from a quantum fluctuation?

Isn't a quantum fluctuation required to exist for an indefinite time? And doesn't that require the universe to have zero energy which in turn means the universe is flat, according to general relativity? Yet Hawking believes the universe is not flat, but closed. Which is it? Am I off base here? :geek:

Sorry that's not what you were hoping for.

That's probably not a very satisfactory answer for you, but I didn't make the natural world and can't be blamed for how bizarre it seems to our simple brains conditioned as they are to our earthly experiences.

Ah, so I at least know you don't hold to the view of folks like John Wheeler.

[Sisyphus]

And doesn't that require the universe to have zero energy which in turn means the universe is flat, according to general relativity? Yet Hawking believes the universe is not flat, but closed. Which is it? Am I off base here?

The Universe appears to be flat locally, but possibly hyperbolic and not closed ... but where was this line of questioning headed originally?

[dfitzo53]

The Universe appears to be hyperbolic and not closed ... but where was this line of questioning headed originally?

Maybe if you'd quit sidetracking him with your scientific mumbo-jumbo we could find out.

[PokerPacker]

back to the topic of teaching intelligent design, here's a penn and teller episode on creationism (NSFW) enjoy.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8092395371217203993&q=genre%3Areligious+is%3Afree

[Jumbo]

I just wish they'd change the term "Intelligent Design."

I get the same sense I'd get when I used to hear "beautiful Anna Nicole Smith."

[Jumbo]

Are they as bad as Roman Catholics and Jews?

Just check it out.

http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.1720691/k.B5CB/History_Our_Story.htm

Then get a load of this:

http://www.smu.edu/facts/

[headexplode]

Going back to the discussion Om and I were having yesterday, I went back and reread The Doors of Perception, and if I may be permitted to indulge myself I'd like to quote a few passages that illustrate clearly the point I was trying to make about the things we might miss when we're so busy trying to figure everything out. Although Huxley describes his experiences on mescalin, I think it's possible to have these moments of clarity without the use of drugs (I've just never had any luck without them).

"I took my pill at eleven. An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase only contained three flowers--a full-blown Belle of Portugal rose, shell pink with a hint at every petal's base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-colored carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris . . . I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation--the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence."

"Istigkeit--wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? "Is-ness." The Being of Platonic philosophy--except that Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were--a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence."

And one more, just for fun.

"This was something I had seen before--seen that very morning, between the flowers and the furniture, when I looked down by chance, and went on passionately staring by choice, at my own crossed legs. Those folds in the trousers--what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And the texture of the gray flannel--how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous! And here they were again, in Botticelli's picture."

Again, I think these moments are available to us without the use of hallucinogenic drugs, but because we think too much, and talk too much, and strive too much we can miss out on them. There is beauty everywhere, but in the day-to-day mud slopping it's all too easy to ignore.

[portisizzle]

The evidence for a Big Bang is compelling.

Anticipating your next question ... no, a god isn't required to cause the Big Bang.

All you just said to my ears is this "The Big Bang is my version of GOD".

And for the record, your explaination of nothing actually being something, is....well..... "inspirational". In a spiritual kind of way. Where does faith end and science begin with you? Really.

[portisizzle]

I just wish they'd change the term "Intelligent Design."

I get the same sense I'd get when I used to hear "beautiful Anna Nicole Smith."

And I wish that science would change the term "Quantum Physics" to "In search for GOD". I just get the impression from many on this board that they are so damned intent of believing that science gives them the intellectual high ground on this issue.

It comes off as condescending. What do you guys fear? That there is power and influence that is beyond all of us?

You seem to swallow the "11 dimensions and nothing from something bit" hook line and sinker.

[Zguy28]

Maybe if you'd quit sidetracking him with your scientific mumbo-jumbo we could find out.

The Universe appears to be flat locally, but possibly hyperbolic and not closed ... but where was this line of questioning headed originally?

To be honest, I got so sidetracked yesterday that I can't remember where I was originally going with it! :laugh:

Must be age getting to me or maybe three kids and a job.

[Om]

Of course, the wisdom of emptiness makes you a very slippery debater on a message board.

Because of techboy's response below ... let's not confuse "the wisdom of emptiness" with either "an empty head" or "an intellectually dishonest head."

I interpreted your use of the term "wisdom of emptiness" to reflect the old adage that a man can only begin to attain true wisdom once he has come to grips with how precious little he actually does "know."

Or anywhere else. It can be very frustrating for a theist to discuss with a practitioner of Eastern thinking.

Example:

"Jesus is the only way to Heaven."

"Yes, I agree."

"You agree?"

"Yes."

"But you're not a Christian."

"No, I seek enlightenment through another path."

"But there is no other path..."

"You're right."

"I'm right? But you just said you follow another path..."

"Yes, I do."

"And it's equally good?"

"Yes."

"Except you agree with me that there is no other path."

"Yes."

"Those two statements contradict each other."

"Yes."

"But you think they're both true."

"Yes."

My latest experience was this was watching a group of Muslims "debate" a Hindu when Amy and I were at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park over Christmas Break.

It was quite amusing, really.

The fictional "slippery debater" in this dialogue, for instance, is not a lousy example of a guy who's attained any kind of wisdom. He sounds more like a guy who's lazy, or not very bright, or perhaps irritated at the bald presumption of a guy throwing the loaded statement "Jesus is the only way to Heaven" at him in line at Starbucks and apparently expecting a meaningful response, or just messing with the guy for grins, or simply trying to extricate himself from another situation where a dogmatist equates "debate" with quoting scripture.

[headexplode]

And I wish that science would change the term "Quantum Physics" to "In search for GOD". I just get the impression from many on this board that they are so damned intent of believing that science gives them the intellectual high ground on this issue.

It comes off as condescending. What do you guys fear? That there is power and influence that is beyond all of us?

You seem to swallow the "11 dimensions and nothing from something bit" hook line and sinker.

What comes off as condescending? Beliefs different from yours. Do you fear there isn't "power and influence that is beyond all of us?"

Do you think that there has always been "something?" Or do you think that god created "something from nothing?"

Isn't it reasonable to assume god itself came from nothing? (Or maybe even that god is nothing? and from nothing came something?)

Isn't eleven dimensions just as plausible as a guy walking on water and turning water into wine and rising from the dead?

*passes the bong*

[Sisyphus]

All you just said to my ears is this "The Big Bang is my version of GOD".

I have a feeling you will hear that, no matter what is put in front of you.

None of us here, including me, have the background for a serious discussion of quantum cosmology. My point was that, having asked about cause and effect and then the Big Bang, it seemed that we were heading in the direction of the well worn theist view that a god was required to light the fuse on the Big Bang ... that "you can't have something from nothing", and all that.

Quantum phenomena observed in laboratories, and the discipline of quantum cosmology which is consistent with all this, suggest that there does not have to be a 'first cause' nor indeed 'something' from which the Universe emerged. The Universe might be the ultimate free lunch.:cool:

[headexplode]

, or perhaps irritated at the bald presumption of a guy throwing the loaded statement "Jesus is the only way to Heaven" at him in line at Starbucks and apparently expecting a meaningful response, or just messing with the guy for grins, or simply trying to extricate himself from another situation where a dogmatist equates "debate" with quoting scripture.

I went to the movies over the weekend, the day before Easter, actually, and the ticket-taker asked me if I knew Jesus Christ was my salvation. The ticket-taker! I stared at him in disbelief. His is not a position from which he should be proselytizing, especially at an easily-agitated agnostic who came to see a movie with gratuitous violence and objectification of women. A simple god bless you would've been fine. I can handle that. But some people take it too far and try to insinuate their beliefs on everyone they meet in any situation and that pisses me off to no end.

I think I might have an evil aura or something because every two-bit religious crackpot always feels the urge to come talk to me whenever I'm at the grocery store. (And now the movies aren't even safe.)

[Zguy28]

What comes off as condescending? Beliefs different from yours. Do you fear there isn't "power and influence that is beyond all of us?"

I think he meant how some atheists act like folks who believe in God are stupid or something.

Do you think that there has always been "something?" Or do you think that god created "something from nothing?"

Yes. There has always been God, and Creation has not always existed, hence the name.

Isn't it reasonable to assume god itself came from nothing? (Or maybe even that god is nothing? and from nothing came something?)

Only if you believe the universe itself is God.

Isn't eleven dimensions just as plausible as a guy walking on water and turning water into wine and rising from the dead?

*passes the bong*

Sure its concievable, do you deny its concievable that the Bible is true?

[Om]

headexplode,

In case you were wondering, I haven't been ignoring your posts. Just havent' been sure where to go with them. Not sure how to say any of this without sounding condescending, so if it does please accept my word it's not intended that way.

You sound very much like I did in my 20's. Like a guy deeply interested in the human condition and his own and Man's place in the Big Picture, coming to grips with the inherent deep contradictions and unanswered (and unanswerable, says me) questions associated with them. I hope you never stop.

I hope you will succeed in finding the right balance, for YOU, no matter what life brings. That you can live within and fully appreciate the moment ... while also keeping in touch with your past ... while also looking to and planning for your and your family's future ... and while also having the human condition in mind, looking far ahead, because you never know if yours might not be the mind that comes along and creates the idea or inspiration that inspires and ultimately improves the lives of all the humans yet to come. Someone is going to be that person ... it could be you.

For what it's worth, in my own life I've found it is possible to have a job and pay the bills and fix the toilet and take the kid to karate practice, while ALSO stopping in utter awe by a sunset, and moved to tears at sight of a fellow human being's triumph OR tragedy, and continuing to challenge my mind and sharing what little I think I've I've learned as best I can. I don't plan to stop until my time is up. Of that I am sure.

What I'm not sure of yet is whether one can do all that and not sound like a condescending rambling old idiot on a football message board.

[Zguy28]

I went to the movies over the weekend, the day before Easter, actually, and the ticket-taker asked me if I knew Jesus Christ was my salvation. The ticket-taker! I stared at him in disbelief. His is not a position from which he should be proselytizing, especially at an easily-agitated agnostic who came to see a movie with gratuitous violence and objectification of women. A simple god bless you would've been fine. I can handle that. But some people take it too far and try to insinuate their beliefs on everyone they meet in any situation and that pisses me off to no end.

I think I might have an evil aura or something because every two-bit religious crackpot always feels the urge to come talk to me whenever I'm at the grocery store. (And now the movies aren't even safe.)

Wow, you sound like me 5 years ago! I was the exact same way.

[portisizzle]

What comes off as condescending? Beliefs different from yours. Do you fear there isn't "power and influence that is beyond all of us?"

Do you think that there has always been "something?" Or do you think that god created "something from nothing?"

Isn't it reasonable to assume god itself came from nothing? (Or maybe even that god is nothing? and from nothing came something?)

Isn't eleven dimensions just as plausible as a guy walking on water and turning water into wine and rising from the dead?

*passes the bong*

Logical fact.

Something can not come from nothing.

Science is trying to prove that something comes from nothing. Logically that means that the nothing is in fact "something".

We are back to square one....and fact.

Something can not come from nothing.

Asking me if 11 dimensions is the same as walking on water is a meaningless question.

The important question in my mind is why is "science" the ONLY human discipline that is trying to seek an alternative answer via a unifying theory of everything.

Logically, philosophically, AND spiritually this is firm ground.

It is nice to say that science is trying to understand and learn. But do not take 30 years of science to equal FACT just because logically you can not grasp what it means that WE are here, but in fact WE come from NOTHING.

[Sisyphus]

And I wish that science would change the term "Quantum Physics" to "In search for GOD".

What's your point here ... are you saying that quantum physics and quantum effects aren't real? That it's all theoretical and philsophical?

I just get the impression from many on this board that they are so damned intent of believing that science gives them the intellectual high ground on this issue.

I can speak for the motives of others but in spite of what you believe, I've never met a scientist who choose their career in order to disprove god. Their goal is simply to ask the questions about the physical world and find out answers that stand up to independent scrutiny. For some people that means making a more efficient refrigerator, for others (who think that is too challenging ) they investigate the origin of the universe.

It's more than a little ironic that you acuse people who are searching for answers of claiming the intellectual high ground, while you are one of the people who apparently already knows the answer to such questions.

[Sisyphus]

Logical fact.

Something can not come from nothing.

Science is trying to prove that something comes from nothing. Logically that means that the nothing is in fact "something".

We are back to square one....and fact.

Something can not come from nothing.

Powerful logic.:laugh:

How about this fact. The Universe exists.

Another fact. Quantum cosmology explains why it didn't need a creator.

Zguy raised the subject of zero point energy which explains how we can indeed have 'something' from 'nothing'. If that means you want to call it 'nothing' rather than nothing, be my guest, I'll concede that point.

[portisizzle]

I have a feeling you will hear that, no matter what is put in front of you.

None of us here, including me, have the background for a serious discussion of quantum cosmology. My point was that, having asked about cause and effect and then the Big Bang, it seemed that we were heading in the direction of the well worn theist view that a god was required to light the fuse on the Big Bang ... that "you can't have something from nothing", and all that.

You can't have a discussion about this topic without "something coming from nothing" being the one and ONLY topic of conversation. The topic may be well worn, but the logical reality endures.

Quantum phenomena observed in laboratories, and the discipline of quantum cosmology which is consistent with all this, suggest that there does not have to be a 'first cause' nor indeed 'something' from which the Universe emerged. The Universe might be the ultimate free lunch.:cool:

The words I read in this excerpt. "Observed" "suggest" "does not have to be" "might be".

You see I am OK with you saying what you said so long as you include all of these key words in the discussion. IF you believe what you just wrote, though, remember you are taking this on faith. YOUR faith.

[portisizzle]

Powerful logic.:laugh:

How about this fact. The Universe exists.

Another fact. Quantum cosmology explains why it didn't need a creator.

Zguy raised the subject of zero point energy which explains how we can indeed have 'something' from 'nothing'. If that means you want to call it 'nothing' rather than nothing, be my guest, I'll concede that point.

Is zero point energy what you guys are calling GOD these days? :laugh:

Zero point energy is "something".

[portisizzle]

What's your point here ... are you saying that quantum physics and quantum effects aren't real? That it's all theoretical and philsophical?

I would liken quantum physics and such as an attempt to reveal that which has been created. Nothing more and nothing less. Do you see it differently?

I can speak for the motives of others but in spite of what you believe, I've never met a scientist who choose their career in order to disprove god. Their goal is simply to ask the questions about the physical world and find out answers that stand up to independent scrutiny. For some people that means making a more efficient refrigerator, for others (who think that is too challenging ) they investigate the origin of the universe.

It's more than a little ironic that you acuse people who are searching for answers of claiming the intellectual high ground, while you are one of the people who apparently already knows the answer to such questions.

I don't know the answers. I just know the right questions. "How can something come from nothing?" What came before the Big Bang?" "If science can prove that something came before the Big Bang then what came before it? And it? And it? And it?"......and so we come to the human explaination of what we do not logically understand then..... infinity. A purely human invention to describe the universe in which we live because "we ain't got nuthin'" better floating up in our heads.

Now I hear some on this thread say the universe is NOT infinte. That it has bounds and limits. GASP!!!! What is on the other side of that boundary then? :laugh: