Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

[Krsqk]

Geo, that's an excellent representation of my position. Thanks for speaking for me. Now, don't go edit your post to make it say I favor throwing onions at hapless passers-by.

RE: Language as interpretation

E. Albright, you are exactly right. However, if something is written down, it must be interpreted in the context in which it was written.

For example, if I write a book about someone who plays with acid, it makes a major difference if I'm writing it during the 1860s or the 1960s. All language is subject to that change, although not usually in that magnitude.

RE: Design argument in my own words. Here goes (I don't claim to speak for other creationists, but this is the design argument as I understand it)...

Intelligent design requires intelligent designer. Man creates (or more properly, organizes what is already created), based on his intelligence. It's like a child playing with Tinkertoys--he's not truly creating, but rearranging what's already been given him.
Given the fact that we see design and order around us, it is logical to assume there is an intelligent Designer behind it. So far, we're okay with Hume's representation, but here we must part ways.
Hume uses the wording "like results, like effects" to say that the process of creating nature is identical to man's creative process, only several orders of magnitude higher in ability. Thus, God's creative process, like man's, must be imperfect and subject to limitation. This renders God no longer infinite, and few Christians will accept that.
The problem lies in Hume's extension of the principle. To continue our analogy, he extrapolates the child building with Tinkertoys to the factory making the Tinkertoys from other materials (still an imperfect process, but much less limited than the child's ability). The correct analogy from creation would be the child building with Tinkertoys and the factory creating the Tinkertoys out of nothing (an infinite order of magnitude higher). Hume, as a materialist, is operating from the assumption that something had to exist for God to use in creation; otherwise, his analogy falls apart. It's just a fancy straw man.

RE: Why do I believe in God? It all boils down to faith. Belief in no God requires faith, too. If you knew half of everything there was to know, you still couldn't prove that in the other half, there was a God. There is evidence that convinces me of God's existence, but the evidence is totally unnecessary. Welcome, but unnecessary.

RE: Why Christianity? Of course, this comes down to faith as well. One could go to several things in the Bible that have proven true, even after being ridiculed (i.e., the existence of the Hittites), or the historical accuracy, etc.; but no proof for one religion or another exists.

Any worldview is totally based on faith. That is the overall point I've striven for here. There is more than one worldview, but they do tend to boil down into two main types: 1) God made the world and makes the rules, or 2) The world made itself and we make the rules (or power makes rules, or money makes rules, etc.--that varies with interpretation). Several flavors of each exist, and some attempts have been made to marry the two, but they are unwilling partners

If an evolutionist accepts that his worldview is a faith, he's already halfway to becoming a creationist. No one would naturally look at the complexity found in nature and say, "Wow! That happened by chance!" any more than they think the space shuttle happened by chance. We have to be taught to think that way.

[edit: i like to out words ]

[ December 13, 2002, 03:17: Message edited by: Krsqk ]