Intelligent Design is not creationism
- Thread starter Teleologist
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According to you, Buddhists don't believe in your own dogma ' ignorant chance' and they don't believe in an intelligent designer, (the universe being subject to "Karma and the endless cycle of reincarnation."). So in another flurry of flowery wordplay, you have merely managed to demonstrate how all three of these statements are in fact wrong...
You've made it quite clear that in terms of Buddhism alone, ID/Creationism meets none of your claims . But that is what I pointed out to you in the first place. Apparently you prefer to 'disagree to agree'.
jes dude,Quote from I am...:
No right mind can believe that its will is stronger than God's.
If, then, a mind believes that its will is different from His, it can only decide either that there is no God or that God's Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr, who believes that God demands sacrifices.
Either of these insane decisions will induce panic, because the atheist believes he is alone, and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him. Yet no one really wants either abandonment or retaliation, even though many may seek both.
Any attempt to deny what is must be fearful, and if the attempt is strong it will induce panic. Willing against reality, though impossible, can be made into a very persistent goal even though you do not want it. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are devoting your mind to what you do not want. How real can this devotion be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it were never created, it is nothing.
Can you really devote yourself to nothing?
Jesus
It's nothing to do with my will or anyone else's that Gilbert is what Gilbert is.
As Gilbert is every bit what God is +1, then as much as God is, .. Gilbert is , and some.
As Gilbert so clearly is, so then by your own words, you should not deny what is.
Or are you now at last just showing signs of reverting to the usual religious fear model, pull the terrorism card to frighten folk into a must only believe your God stuff., The "our way or the highway" crap.
stu
Then so be it. Thy will be done. And God will never destroy what you want, nor will he ever attack it. From what you want he will never save you. This is the ultimate respect for an equal.
Here is your quandary. You start out omnipotent, so what you wish is going to have some kind of result. To wish a will beyond omnipotence you will have to make one up: Gilbert + 1. You will have to make one up because your original will to be omnipotent does not change. And believe me brother, we know what your true will is.
You can empower Gilbert + 1 to make something. And what he will make is this world. Given a little more time, he will make you and all of your circumstances.
I have merely described the status quo from your point of view. This is the "highway" that is other than your way. Because this is exactly what has happened.
The good news is that no such thing can happen, which is why you must be devoted to nothing. It may astonish you to learn that your will and God's Will are the same. For this reason you must be dreaming when you wish to have another will besides your own.
This is what was meant when I said, "a house divided against itself cannot stand". It is not a "punishment"...it is a result and a prophecy. This house is built on fear and thus has a foundation of sand.
In short, you have brilliantly summed up the persistent thought process that went into the making of this world. You're a billion years in and maybe you can persist for another billion. But all you prove is that you can be a very persistent dreamer.
Jesus
neophyte321
Guest
Ok, this was a useless rant, and I apologize in advance.....
soon they'll need the same type of bill about climate change. The problem rests at the feet of the bigoted, closed-minded, politically motivated liberals that dominate the halls of academia. Anyone who has stepped foot on a college campus knows, they can be filled with the most stiffling, political correct, kool-aid drinkers to be found anywhere.
Why wouldn't they be? Colleges are basically communist enclaves. In public universities, which I am a product, the staff virtually gets their money for free. Profs work, MAYBE, 6-8 hours a week, get their summers off, etc ... Capitalism for them DOES SUCK.
traderNik comes to mind. He would make your prototypical college professor. Perfect grammer, alot of two dollar words, and ........you can fill in the rest ........
soon they'll need the same type of bill about climate change. The problem rests at the feet of the bigoted, closed-minded, politically motivated liberals that dominate the halls of academia. Anyone who has stepped foot on a college campus knows, they can be filled with the most stiffling, political correct, kool-aid drinkers to be found anywhere.
Why wouldn't they be? Colleges are basically communist enclaves. In public universities, which I am a product, the staff virtually gets their money for free. Profs work, MAYBE, 6-8 hours a week, get their summers off, etc ... Capitalism for them DOES SUCK.
traderNik comes to mind. He would make your prototypical college professor. Perfect grammer, alot of two dollar words, and ........you can fill in the rest ........
So you like intelligence but hate intelligent people...
neophyte321
Guest
............. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. You've drawn a poor conclusion. I consider myself an intelligent person, relative to the average intelligence of people in general, and don't hate myself, (well, not all the time anyway)
Intelligence is not confined to academia. I've done work at some of the largest and most successful companies in the country. They are filled with very capable and intelligent people.
Intelligence says nothing about a person's motives.
Here is an article by Tom Armstrong from a Buddhist group political blog. He has been the guru behind Zen Unbound since its inception in 1998. Currently, he is the reporter for Blogmandu, a Buddhist metablog.
Let us welcome the teaching of Intelligent Design
Writted by Tom Armstrong
All Buddhists should support teaching Intelligent Design in the schoolhouse. Not the Intelligent Design youâve heard about that has been excoriated in the liberal press and by progressive blogs, but a strip savonarola ID, with a faceless stick figure Creator, shorn of identity and religious affiliation, not availed to be worshipped or praised.
Itâs an odd thing to say, perhaps. It would seem that if Buddhism had a chit in this game it should be in opposition to what seems to many to be a stealth effort by the Christian Right to sneak a cloaked Jesus into the public classroom. But while it might be the Christian Right that came up with the idea, and has Machiavellian plans for it, the basic concept is genius. Instead of pitting some All Powerful Cisteen Chapel-ceiling God against the brigade of monkey-loving evidence-up-the-kazoo evolutionists, a DNA-adjusted stick-figure Creator â The Designer of No Name â passes the separation-of-church-and-state barrier, allowing for a face-off with the Forces of Darwin in schoolroom Smackdowns, nationwide.
First off, let me try to be very clear about what I am saying: The ID that I am proposing does not purport to disprove the rigorous discoveries and connections that have been made about the origin of our species and other species on this planet. It is not an effort to argue about the difficult evolutionary leaps that created the eye, or gave sea creatures the ability to walk on land.
The ID that I propose argues that it is possible that intelligence is a factor in evolution, and that consciousness is more than purely a function of brain activity.
Swallowed whole, and without objection, evolution as it is now taught in our schools is a physicalistic theory of creation. Basically, everything is dirt. Life evolved by a random process from the muck, and all of life we see today came about by long chains of random events.
You are dirt. I am dirt. Everything is dirt, dirt. Your sense of self is an illusion, and so is your sense of having consciousness. In no sense is anything more valuable than anything else. It is worthless clay as far as the eye can see [by the illusion of sight]. Your life is meaningless, as is your joy, your pain, your suffering, and your death. âGive up [your illusion of] hope, all who enter here.â
Now, I am not saying that the physicalist evolutionists are wrong â only that it is not an unconscionable thing to suggest that their theory be taught in public schools challenged by the other theory that must be at least concomitant to explaining the creation and evolution of life.
I submit that the physicalists cannot explain, in terms of dirt, my experience or your experience of the color green. How ever refined scientific knowledge may become explaining electrical and chemical activity in your brain and mine, it is hard for me to see how it could translate to our experience. See that green grass? Can you witness the experience of the greenness of it? Explain in terms of the ounces and position of your brain cells, and their chemical and electrical activity, your experience of greenness.
It seems to me that consciousness is a function in the universe or of the universe that is separated from dirt, so far as the reach of our intelligence can now inform us. Perhaps, in the future the physicalists will be able to explain âform is emptiness; emptiness, formâ so vividly that all mysteries are solved, but this is not where we are today. So today our schoolchildren should be taught that intelligence makes a difference. Intelligence matters; Matter is not intelligent.
Let us welcome the teaching of Intelligent Design
Writted by Tom Armstrong
All Buddhists should support teaching Intelligent Design in the schoolhouse. Not the Intelligent Design youâve heard about that has been excoriated in the liberal press and by progressive blogs, but a strip savonarola ID, with a faceless stick figure Creator, shorn of identity and religious affiliation, not availed to be worshipped or praised.
Itâs an odd thing to say, perhaps. It would seem that if Buddhism had a chit in this game it should be in opposition to what seems to many to be a stealth effort by the Christian Right to sneak a cloaked Jesus into the public classroom. But while it might be the Christian Right that came up with the idea, and has Machiavellian plans for it, the basic concept is genius. Instead of pitting some All Powerful Cisteen Chapel-ceiling God against the brigade of monkey-loving evidence-up-the-kazoo evolutionists, a DNA-adjusted stick-figure Creator â The Designer of No Name â passes the separation-of-church-and-state barrier, allowing for a face-off with the Forces of Darwin in schoolroom Smackdowns, nationwide.
First off, let me try to be very clear about what I am saying: The ID that I am proposing does not purport to disprove the rigorous discoveries and connections that have been made about the origin of our species and other species on this planet. It is not an effort to argue about the difficult evolutionary leaps that created the eye, or gave sea creatures the ability to walk on land.
The ID that I propose argues that it is possible that intelligence is a factor in evolution, and that consciousness is more than purely a function of brain activity.
Swallowed whole, and without objection, evolution as it is now taught in our schools is a physicalistic theory of creation. Basically, everything is dirt. Life evolved by a random process from the muck, and all of life we see today came about by long chains of random events.
You are dirt. I am dirt. Everything is dirt, dirt. Your sense of self is an illusion, and so is your sense of having consciousness. In no sense is anything more valuable than anything else. It is worthless clay as far as the eye can see [by the illusion of sight]. Your life is meaningless, as is your joy, your pain, your suffering, and your death. âGive up [your illusion of] hope, all who enter here.â
Now, I am not saying that the physicalist evolutionists are wrong â only that it is not an unconscionable thing to suggest that their theory be taught in public schools challenged by the other theory that must be at least concomitant to explaining the creation and evolution of life.
I submit that the physicalists cannot explain, in terms of dirt, my experience or your experience of the color green. How ever refined scientific knowledge may become explaining electrical and chemical activity in your brain and mine, it is hard for me to see how it could translate to our experience. See that green grass? Can you witness the experience of the greenness of it? Explain in terms of the ounces and position of your brain cells, and their chemical and electrical activity, your experience of greenness.
It seems to me that consciousness is a function in the universe or of the universe that is separated from dirt, so far as the reach of our intelligence can now inform us. Perhaps, in the future the physicalists will be able to explain âform is emptiness; emptiness, formâ so vividly that all mysteries are solved, but this is not where we are today. So today our schoolchildren should be taught that intelligence makes a difference. Intelligence matters; Matter is not intelligent.
Tom Armstrong is as much a Buddhist as Mao Tsetung a Christian.
The story below is from the original Buddhist teaching.
Once one of the Buddha's followers, a monk named Malunkyaputta, came to him and asked four questions that had been troubling him:
1. Is the world eternal or not eternal?
2. Is the world infinite of finite?
3. Is the soul the same as the body or are they different?
4. Does the Buddha exist after death or does he not exist?
The Buddha responded to these questions through an analogy with the purpose of showing Malunkyaputta that such speculative questions were ultimately unprofitable.
Poisoned Arrow
He asked Malunkyaputta to imagine a man who had been wounded by a poisoned arrow. His friends and relatives send for a surgeon but when the surgeon arrives, the wounded man says: 'I will not let the surgeon pull out this arrow until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble or a brahmin (priest), or a merchant or a worker...tall, short, or middle height...brown or golden-skinned...whether he lives in such a village or town or city...whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a cross bow...' and so on.
Of course, the man dies before all of these questions can be answered.
The story below is from the original Buddhist teaching.
Once one of the Buddha's followers, a monk named Malunkyaputta, came to him and asked four questions that had been troubling him:
1. Is the world eternal or not eternal?
2. Is the world infinite of finite?
3. Is the soul the same as the body or are they different?
4. Does the Buddha exist after death or does he not exist?
The Buddha responded to these questions through an analogy with the purpose of showing Malunkyaputta that such speculative questions were ultimately unprofitable.
Poisoned Arrow
He asked Malunkyaputta to imagine a man who had been wounded by a poisoned arrow. His friends and relatives send for a surgeon but when the surgeon arrives, the wounded man says: 'I will not let the surgeon pull out this arrow until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble or a brahmin (priest), or a merchant or a worker...tall, short, or middle height...brown or golden-skinned...whether he lives in such a village or town or city...whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a cross bow...' and so on.
Of course, the man dies before all of these questions can be answered.