Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster appeals to Kansas School Board

Your take on irreducible complexities is incorrect--it is one of many such evidences. No fair poisoning the water, it's an invalid and transparent rhetorical technique. And no, there are not many plausible naturalistic explanations for the majority of observed irreducible complexities.

Stanislav, go take a look at some of the writings of many physicists, some even agnostic, vis-a-vis evidences of something beyond the naturalistic realm. Such as, for example, the properties of the Universe which seem startlingly fine-tuned to produce matter and life: I believe if the strong nuclear force, for example, were just a bit greater, the only thing that could exist would be hydrogen; if it were just the slightest bit weaker, no matter whatsoever could exist. That is one of many many many evidences. They're there, and you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage in your quest for the meaning and truth of the Universe if you remain willfully ignorant. One could probably start putting together such evidences and not stop for a year, and I don't think I'm qualified to be the one to do it.

I have no fundamental problem with scientists, except those who try to extrapolate that which cannot be extrapolated from the study of the natural--namely, that nothing can exist beyond it. Why, exactly? Who knows, perhaps because they don't like to envision that which cannot be quantified by them or heated in a beaker--rather diminishes their own sense of self-worth.

As I said earlier, I'm busy at least today, I've spent too much time on this as it is.

Best to you,

LF

 

But lf, how do you justify jumping from "we can't explain THIS with modern science" to "only a supernatural being (or force or whatever" could be back of it all"?

 

Ok I going to say something a bit controversial(and will probably get beat up for it)to some here but generally it is agreed that we (humans) left the trees a few thousand years ago. We may not be able to now (or even ever) be able to explain all phenomenons with the scientific method. What the Scientific method does allow us to do is replicate conditions and observe certain phenomenon.
Now if we can not explain it with science it must be divine argument is VERY weak. First of all what makes it divine? You must remember the fact that we can not explain it to day does not mean it is inexplicable! One must remember how many elements existed in at the turn of the 20th century (a mere 100 years ago). Look how far we have come. IMHO to equate an unknown phenomenon to divinity is the same as the Romans explaining Apollo crossing the sky in his "chariot".

As far as the bible is concerned, generally it is accepted by most biblical historians that the first book of the bible was written 33 years after the death of Jesus. If the bible was full of fact it would not have different groups of people finding Jesus not in his tomb (compare Luke, Matthew and John)! Now that is the New Testament.
In the Old Testament it again is generally accepted that the "omniscient God" we all talk about came forth in the time of the babloyain rule over the Jewish. Before then there was no mention of omnipotence. TO take this a step further there is a theory that in the beginning of Christianity that there was a huge problem with the Trinity. How can you have three gods when the first commandment forbids it! It was then that the three in one concept was born. Why has the bible left out scriptures? One famous example is the gospel of Mary Magdalene. IMHO to take the bible literally is doing a disservice to yourself. It is meant as stories about morality and how to live your life. Not as an exact book of facts.

Ok I got off on a rant. Sorry

 

Rivers,

Interesting point about the all knowing God.

IIRC, the commandment as recorded from Mt. Sinai actually translates something like, "You will have no strange gods before me." The verb is in imperfect tense which in Biblical Hebrew can either mean future indicative or a command form.

As a command, oddly, it's not the most emphatic form; emphasis is achieved by doubling the verb, usually translated as "You will surely not..." do thus and so.

In any event, God started out as the tribal diety of the Hebrews. He made no claim to being the only God, only to the undivided loyalty of the Hebrews.

The words, "before me" always struck me as odd. It is a common enough phrase, "before the Lord", but I always assumed it meant something like "in my face" a kind of defiance, I mean.

HOWEVER...Judaism in the prophetic period definitely DID develop the notion that all other gods were mere frauds of wood and stone.

I wonder when that belief became more or less universal?

 

Wouldn't this mean that you can have as many strange gods as you jolly well please, provided they all come after YHWH?

 

TH:

It might well mean exactly that.

Certainly, the Hebrews not only had other gods, they continued to serve them.

Much of the internal battle throughout the prophetic period concerned establishing a SINGLE temple in Jerusalen for the worship of a SINGLE God in a uniform manner.

Significant stretches of Mishnah deal with what constitutes serving a false goad and what does not. Why would they need this if it wasn't happening?

 

I'll try once again. "Scientific worldview", explicitly, accounts for existance of YET unexplained phenomena, and even for the possibility of any "leading theory" to be "incorrect". In fact, one of the strict REQUIREMENTS for a "scientific theory" is FALSIFIABILITY. That's why ID is not a theory: you can explain anything with the "action of the Designer", so no evidence can conceivably exist to disprove it. Which, logically, means that no reliable predictions can be made, rendering the whole notion scientifically worthless. ID might be a perfectly fine worldview or "philosophy" (although, for my taste, a bit... disheartening), though, if not for the political actions of twisting scientific terminology and reasoning to attack science.

Yeah, it kind of DOES diminish one's self-worth. I would not put it in such terms though. The thing is, it's a perfectly valid reason for holding a belief. You see, a scientist has at least the same right to try and extrapolate unextrapolable as you do - and he has some centuries of a tremendous success of classical mechanics, chemistry, biology and electronics to back him up. Carl Sagan expressed strong metaphysical belief (I should definitely read it some day), you expressed strong metaphysical belief. What's the difference? None of you has a "scientific evidence" for your belief by friggin' definition (science is not used to prove metaphysics, 'cause metaphysical statements are "unfalsifiable" by form).