Simon Paynton

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@kyrani – I hope you are better now.

Your argument in favour of Intelligent Design, or Young Earth Creationism, is:  “I don’t know”, “I don’t fully understand it“, “one way or the other“.

Also, you seem to agree that the present situation makes it look as if evolution is true: “Maybe God thought to have a joke and plant a whole lot of fossils“, “a genome, which has great similarities right across all of life on Earth”.

You can see why people would be skeptical.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Do you believe that God made it look as if evolution is true, and as if we’re all descended from a common ancestor that existed billions of years ago, through planting fossils in the Earth, and creating genetic and other similarities between living and extinct species – but that really, this is just an elaborate deception on the part of God, to make us believe in evolution?

That would be possible.  But then, you would have to agree that the present situation makes it look as if evolution is true.  And then, that would imply that all science is meaningless.

I feel that your positive arguments in favour of Intelligent Design are under-rehearsed.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@kyrani – if evolution isn’t true, then what is the alternative explanation for how all the animals and plants got here, and how the ground is full of fossils, which all link up into a family tree extending back from the present day, through geological history, getting generally simpler and simpler as we go backwards?

You’re not filling me in on what you DO believe, only on what you DON’T believe.  You don’t believe in evolution.  What DO you believe, instead?  You must have thought about it, or there must be an off-the-shelf explanation for all this, available from the Intelligent Design camp.

What is the generally accepted Intelligent Design explanation, for species as we know them?  Can you state what it is, without mentioning evolution and how that’s not true?

 

 

“bring creation into being”

– that’s not it.  That is Goddidit again.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@kyrani – how do you account for all the present day species, and all the fossil species?  How do you account for the family tree of life?

What did God do?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@kyrani – so – Goddidit?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@_robert_ – it’s not a case of one-off interventions, or a magic wand that prevents disaster.  There’s no dispute that sickness, death and natural disaster happen to everyone.

It’s also not exclusive, since it is given to everyone unearned.  It’s a regenerative power that people can use to make the most of situations.  Presumably, the child with cancer and her family, all made the most of her life even though she had cancer.  Without some underlying power or force – if the little girl was just a plastic doll, with no regenerative power – this would have been a pointless exercise.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@david Boots – it’s unearned favour, which implies that everyone gets it regardless of anything else.  It’s not there to save people from car crashes or cave collapses – it’s not a superpower.  But it is a force for growth, regeneration, and redemption.

Naoki Higashida, in “Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight”, says:

“A worthwhile existence lies in playing whatever cards life has dealt you as skilfully as you can.”

Without God’s grace, this would be pointless: we would effectively be dead things.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

It ignores “grace”

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@belle – which statement of Hitchens?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega –

“That this creator then gave a shit about a tiny blue dot in its massive creation”

“regular communication with the primal force”

what I mean is that I agree with you that the Bible is not evidence or proof of anything on its own; but I can have some understanding of the sentiments or meaning – I do kind of get it.  It’s a good way to look at the situation, that in my terms, makes some solid sense.  What it describes is a two-way love, or caring, between each of us and the thing that sustains us.  This has a full-on sense and logic.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega – I don’t agree with it, obviously, since I’m a confirmed atheist.  I’m just saying that it’s consistent: if you want to be a Christian, or whatever, then these ideas don’t contradict.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@Kyrani – how does Intelligent Design account for cancer? Was that a smart move? What about the river worm that burrows into the back of people’s eyeballs? Why did God Design that? What does Intelligent Design amount to, apart from Goddidit? Presumably, its explanatory power, when you come to a new situation, is limited to Goddidit.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega –

“That this creator then gave a shit about a tiny blue dot in its massive creation is highly questionable.”

“regular communication with the primal force”

– to be fair, I think these are reasonable propositions given the frame of reference.  It says in the Bible that God loves every little sparrow, and knows every hair on your head.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

In other words, isn’t it a bit silly to claim that the Bible is a science textbook?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@Kyrani – you’re a “primate change denier”?  How is evolution incompatible with religion?  Why not just give this one up?  By this stage, it really looks medieval and backward.  If you love science so much, why is evolution rubbish?

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