BTW, I cringe everytime I see that UPromise nonsense in my grocery store flyers. Kids don't need $4/box cereal to save for college. Buy the store brand and bank that $2!
Any intelligent discussion regarding the subject at hand requires a minimal understanding of the subject. Now, the subject is not really biology but epistemology and the philosophy of science: the objections to ID are not based on the content of the assertions it proposes, but on their standing with regards to the methods of science.
That a statement such as "The complex combinations of chemicals needed for blood coagulation are too complex to have evolved on their own" (and any other statement for that matter) needs to be verifiable to acquire the lustre of scientificity is tautological. This is independent of its being a statement about biology: it is a condition of scientificity. I for one have absolutely no idea of what the biology of coagulation is, yet it seems obvious to me that such an assertion requires to be verifiable.
As it happens, while I do not know much about science, I do know a great deal about philosophy of science. (My BA is in Philosophy, and I took 4 courses focused on epistemology and 2 on philosophy of science.) Therefore, I feel quite competent to say that you are deeply mistaken, or at best oversimplifying.
You are assuming a sort of doctrinaire verificationism rising out of the positivist school. However, most contemporary philosophy of science gives at least a nod to the importance of falsification. In this view, first articulated by Popper, what makes a theory scientific is not that it is verifiable, but that it is falsifiable. What makes it meaningful to talk about a theory is that you can come up with an experiment (or observation) that would falsify said theory.
In your naive dismissal of Intelligent Design, you are attacking the second point of ID without addressing seriously step 1 of the ID argument.
Observation: there exists biological diversity which cannot be explained by appeal to natural selection.
Assertion: having disqualified natural selection, an intelligent designer is the best available explanation.
That is, ID theorists are claiming that they have made some falsifying observations regarding Evolution by Natural Selection. This is not a theory, but an observation. Step 2 is an assertion which, while it cannot be verified, can most certainly be falsified (as some scientists have tried to do by demonstrating elements of biological diversity incompatible with the notion of an Intelligent Designer.)
Tell me something: natural selection, as it's being shoved down the throats of high school students - which is what's under attack, not evolution - is really a universal affirmative assertion. It says, in effect, that "all biological diversity is created by natural processes." (Obviously, this is a very simplified statement of it - but I'm not trying for rigor in a/. conversation.)
Such an assertion is trivially falsifiable, with a single counter-example, if only one could be found which was undisputed. But how on earth do you propose to verify such a claim? The short answer is you can't - your preferred theory is one that cannot be verified. It can only be falsified - so why on earth are you clinging to the rotting corpse of the Austrian school?
However, I am the father of twin 4-year-old girls who were diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and I have to say that we are a lot better off WITH the diagnosis than without. Prior to the diagnosis, all we knew was that the twins were "different" in some inexplicable way, and that we found them utterly impossible to cope with. Literally, prior to the diagnosis (about a year ago) they would spend hours and days in uncontrollable tantrums, hitting their mother, etc. In fact, they were kicked out of two pre-schools they were so difficult.
The diagnosis opened up all kinds of new possibilities for us. First of all, with a "label" we were able to clearly articulate to people exactly HOW the situation with the twins was "different." (Usually, we explain Asperger's as being a form of Autism.) Second, the diagnosis helped us to get them into a special ed pre-school with the local public school system. This has enabled us to get them professional speech therapy, occupational therapy, and most of all a chance for my wife to do something other than mind the twins. Finally, the developmental pediatrician who did the diagnosis was able to prescribe a medication that helped dramatically with the tantrums and violence.
The point here is that, before the diagnosis, we had no ideas and no options. We just knew that it was a matter of time before me or my wife "cracked" from the strain. At the time of the diagnosis, it really was a matter of time before one of us left - not because we didn't love each other or weren't committed to each other, but because the strain of living with twin Incredible Hulks was just too great. We were to the point where we were having to consider whether the twins should be institutionalized, because they had come close to hurting our one-year-old on several occasions.
With the medication, things are better.
The point of all this is that the label doesn't CREATE the disorder. The twins suffered from Asperger's Syndrome before we had a name for it. The label gives us, as parents, access to many, many resources that enable us to take better care of our children who have AS.
I am a Christian. I believe in the teachings of Jesus. I strongly dislike evangelical, charismatic "interpretations" of those teachings.
Hmmm... So I guess the great commission was just a momentary lapse?
When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
This kind of makes me wonder which teachings of Jesus you follow, if you can reject evangelistic interpretations of the Christian faith.
A bar of soap is not damaging. Religion (in my view) is.
As I wrote in a different reply, if someone is knocking on my door trying to sell me cocain, I'd be pissed off about it.
The difference, in this case, is that no reasonable cocaine pusher could think that cocaine benefitted you. However, the majority reasonable people have some sort of religious belief, and believe that they derive some sort of benefit from it. I can't be held responsible for not knowing your foolish prejudices.
Come to think about it, if some salesman actually approaches me out on the town, or knocks on my door early weekend mornings I don't care if they sell soap, cocain or religion - I'd be angry about it. In the case of the overly pushy salesman I can call his company and complain. With a drug pusher I cal call the police. Where do I complain about religious people?
It's called "prayer."
I've found that undressing will make them leave pretty quickly.
Mark 11 is distinctly ambiguous - the Greek word "drive" leaves open the question of physical force. (The word in this case is EKBALLW, which means literally to 'throw out'. In the words of a good Greek Lexicon, Louw Nida, EKBALLW has as one meaning " to cause to go out or leave, often, but not always, involving force" (LN 15.44))
Take a look, instead, at Jn 2.13-16 (here in the NRSV):
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!"
This is the most detailed account we have of the incident, and it makes it quite clear that he drove out the livestock, but did NOT use physical force against the people.
Seems to me a lot of those airguns are used against live targets, ie. humans.
Seems to me you must have no idea what an airgun is or what you're talking about. Why would one bother to shoot a human with an airgun? It MIGHT pierce the skin. barely. It certainly wouldn't maim or kill.
What does raise my hackles more than other is prozelysation, though. This of ocurse includes some Christian evangelcal sects and writers, but I am just as annoyed by prozelytising Hindu and Islamic sects as well. Hint: if I'm interested I promise to come over to your church/synagogue/temple/kiva/bloodstained sacrificial altar and discuss it, but knocking on my door, pushing leaflets in my hand or harassing me on the town is making me less - not more - likely to have a kind thought about what you believe in.
So... if I want to sell you a bar of soap, I'm allowed to spend a great deal of money, time, and effort to convince you that my brand of soap is the best brand. But if I believe that you are in danger of eternal damnation, I'm supposed to sit around and wait for you to discover it on your own?
This point of view clearly rises out of a worldview that has already dismissed religion outright.
You may not like folks trying to make religious appeals to you, but you need to at least give them the purity of their motives. Believe it or not, most religious people are sincerely trying to help you out - which is better than you can say for Proctor and Gamble. This is not to defend overzealous attempts, folks "witnessing" who just won't leave your door, etc. But as a Christian, I have a positive moral obligation to attempt to present my faith to others - i.e. to proselytize. For me to give up that obligation entirely I would have to be either a hypocrite or a moral wretch who didn't give a damn about his fellow man.
Perhaps those that can't work the Wine team should put in "not supported" messages for? That way, folks wouldn't tend to blame WINE, but the application.
What you, and others like you, who critique me for my lack of detail really demonstrate is that you HAVE NOT READ the seminal work of Intelligent Design, Behe's Darwin's Black Box. That example was the first one he used.
Look, I'm not a scientist - I'm a student New Testament. And I'm not capable of holding my own in a discussion of any kind of biology. However, as a theologian, I like to think I know at least a little bit about the interaction between religion and secular culture. And I've got to say that I am struck again and again by the unreasoning venom that "scientists" direct at religious perspectives. You have clearly demonstrated that you are violently criticizing a book you have not read, and that makes you no better than the benighted fundamentalists who critique Harry Potter without bother first to read it.
Behe's entire argument can be reduced to "So far as I know, science cannot explain these structures, so I'm guessing someone must have designed it".
I don't think you're characterizing his argument correctly. HIS argument, as I read it, is that unguided natural selection is not a sufficient explanation for observed diversity. That is, he's not trying to PROVE God, he's trying to point out some weaknesses in evolution.
I swear, the venom with which the scientific community defends ANYTHING that could go against evolution continues to astound me.
Me too. They make a very satisfying "plink" when you hit them.:)
Also, I would challenge the ggp (or whatever) to explain why, if most gun use is to hit people, why airguns have become so outrageously popular among adults? Given that airguns are only used for target shooting...
If you read carefully in a good translation, or in the Greek, you will discover that he didn't drive the salesmen, but their stock. Take a look at Yoder's The Politics of Jesus for a much better understanding of who Jesus really is as opposed to the guy that the religious right and religious left want to expropriate for their agenda.
Well, who says there has to be a first? I personally like the "Rama" theory, which I first read in the Asimov's Rama trilogy (or quadralogy, whatever). In it, universe is a constantly contracting and expanding thing... it's a perpetual loop, there's a big bang, universe expands, then contracts into one point, then big bang again, then expansion, contraction. Just like you can say there always was a god, always will be a god, why can't you just say there always was a universe, and always will be a universe, always with randomness involved?
And call it a day. No supernatural explanations involved.
This reminds me of an old story from Hegels, when he was ranting on about his evolutionary theory of the origins of religion. A student confronted him, saying, "But, Herr Professor, the facts are otherwise!" Hegels famously responded, "So much the worse for the facts."
In this case, I can only say, "the facts are otherwise":
However, recent experimental evidence (namely the observation of distant supernovae as standard candles, and the well-resolved mapping of the cosmic microwave background) have - to most scientists' considerable surprise - shown that the expansion of the universe is not being slowed down by gravity, but instead, accelerating, suggesting that the universe will not end with a "Big Crunch", but will instead expand forever. (The evidence of an accelerating universe is considered conclusive by most cosmologists since 2002.)
This is incorrect. First, mutation is not "random." The driving force is genetic diversity within a population, filtered through natural selection. The process of genetic diversification is not fully understood, and this leads a *lot* of otherwise-intelligent people to assume there is something fundamentally wrong with the theory of evolution through natural selection.
What ID says, simply, is that they think that process of genetic diversification can best be understood by appeal to a designer. If you choose to call that "god", that's fine, and most of them would.
HOWEVER. I don't think that Intelligent Design in and of itself seeks to, in your words:
ID enters into the argument with an agenda-- to "prove" the existence of God.
Rather, it is, in its purest form, an attempt by those who already believe in God to reconcile that belief with evolution. It is not an attempt to prove God - believe it or not, most Christians realize that God cannot be proven.
To me, it seems that ID no more has an agenda to "prove" God than many on the evolutionary side of the debate have an agenda to disprove God. It is, in my not-so-humble opinion, idiocy to suppose that anyone in our culture can be neutral on this question.
This is one of things that makes me think ID is more faith than application of the scientific technique. Since you have a background in theology maybe you could answer a question I had posted elsewhere in this story: You mention a single personal god, but Hinduism has multiple gods. Are you then referring to ID as a Christian/Muslim (since these religions have 1 God) theory? Or is it religion independent?
First of all, I wouldn't call my musings ID. While I've read a few books on ID, I'm by no means an advocate for it. As I've mentioned in another post, I'm comfortable enough with evolution that it simply doesn't matter to me.
Having said that, I think that someone from a Hindu or Buddhist background would probably be more comfortable with Evolution than ID, since these faiths don't tend to emphasize the creative aspect of God. In Christian thought, the aspect of God that is most important is his role in the creation of the universe - if you will, the Christian God is a bit more transcendant than the Hindu gods individually. Hinduism (as I understand it) only approaches the Christian notion of "God" through pantheism, conglomerating all the "gods" into "God". (Qualification: I'm not particularly knowledgable of mainstream Hinduism, so would welcome correction on this point.)
But as I have said, the biggest drawback of ID is that, as far as I know, it does'nt follow the scientific method, but feel free to correct me with some examples.
Well, I'm not particularly qualified in science. However, the book I found most convincing from a scientific perspective was "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe. Basically, his argument is that, at the micro level, many cellular functionas are irreducibly complex - that they require a host of different parts to work, none of which do anything independent of the rest. So, how would all these parts have evolved gradually when each of them was useless without the others?
Here's the thing. Behe (and most other true ID types) are not attacking evolution per se. He is attacking the notion that natural selection alone is a sufficient explanation for Life As We Know It. And he is founding that argument in scientific fact, asking the very legitimate question of how certain structures at the micro level could happen naturally. What I find unhelpful is the ranting and raving that goes on in the scientific community that refuses to actually address the arguments in anything resembling a systematic way.
The problem with ID as far as I can see is that it seems to violate Occams Razor. Now, theres no hard and fast rule, that the simplest theory is the correct one. But by including a designer I think ID is adding a whole lot of complexity based on assumnptions which don't seem to be very valid.
Perhaps. However, I think that you are missing the point - an Intelligent Design theorist (and the only one I take particularly seriously is Behe) would say that a designer is necessary precisely because it is simpler to postulate a designer than to postulate the world we know coming about without one.
Here we get into some deep juju, which I can't deny is speculative. However, it has always seemed to me that if anything had to simply exist - i.e. if something were to spontaneously come into being utterly ex nihilo - that matter, the laws of physics, the point that became the big bang, etc. were too complicated to be that something.
To my way of thinking (and I have a fair background in academic theology although my specialty is New Testament) the best way to conceive of God is as pure, creative will. (I'm going to go ahead and say "God" here rather than trying to dance around it.) Out of that will - that ability to decide, if you will - everything else comes into being and is sustained in its being. God's will made the point that exploded in the primordial bang, and God's will made the laws of physics that made that explosion develop into our universe, and God's will made the peculiar set of circumstances that make it possible for other intelligentm, creative wills to exist.
However, before all this, there had to be ONE thing to be "first". Occam's razor requires that that one infinitely improbable thing that was "first" be the thing most able to account for everything else. And I am convinced that the best account for this is a single, personal God.
Seriously - you want me to believe that the simplest explanation is that sex, butterflies, and Picasso "just happened"???? I'm not there.
Look - as I read this sort of article (and the comments already posted) it is quite evident to me that most who are commenting have not made any effort whatsoever to understand Intelligent Design - and that this is true across the scientific community.
Intelligent design is NOT creationism, although creationists often use it to bolster their arguments. Here are some differences.
In creationism, YHWH created it all. In ID, there is an unknown, unseen designer who might be YHWH, but might also be Mongo Bongo, god of the congo. In evolution, it is assumed a priori that random mutation is the only factor.
In creationism, it happened in 7 days, 6-10000 years ago. In ID, it happened over a period of 4.5 billion years by a process of gradual change. In Evolution, it happened over a period of 4.5 billion years by a process of gradual change.
in creationism, the beginning, middle, and end of the argument is that "God said so in Genesis." In Intelligent Design, some significant questions about the ability of random evolution to create certain structures are raised. In evolution, ALL structures are assumed to be achievable by random mutation alone. (Consider this: for blood clotting to occur, one needs a dozen proteins to be present, none of which serve ANY OTHER PURPOSE in the absence of all of them. How could this evolve?)
This is a very different animal from the Scopes trial, at least from a legal and theological perspective. What is at issue is not theology vs. science - i.e. church vs. state - but two competing scientific interpretations. That you may regard ID as a sort of reverse Lysenkoism is not so much relevant as the question of who gets to determine what is taught in the schools? Do you really want to declare that current scientific orthodoxy, whatever that changes into every five minutes, is what must be taught in the schools, without regard to the social consequences? If so, I urge you to consider the prominent role "science" and even "evolution" played in the Eugenics movement. It is wrong - even disasterous - to suppose that the fads of scientific orthodoxy should drive our social process.
And, for what it's worth, I'm neither a creationist nor an Intelligent Design advocate - although I see some merit in the latter. I'm perfectly comfortable if Evolution turns out to be the case all along, because I believe in a God who can work through the random.
"The lot is cast into the lap,
but the decision is the Lord's alone. "
Proverbs 16.33
Now, you don't have to like ID - that's fine. But I would urge those ranting and raging to consider whether their oppositions to Intelligent Design is founded in a considered evalution kof the theory, or in a knee-jerk reaction against your perception of where it will lead?
Antivirus checking is, by nature, an invasive procedure. Is it really surprising that these products have such a lousy reputation for impacting system stability?
Oddly, my Solaris and/or Linux and/or OSX servers are able to get by without any sort of AV protection (other than promptly installing patches). And, oddly enough, they are more stable.
An acre is roughly 40000 square feet, meaning a square acre is only 200 ft on a side. That means that your father's farm, if it's roughly square, is probably only 300 ft from center-to-edge. (Obviously, if the shape varies, that changes.)
I have a five acre farm, and the wireless from my airport in the house makes it to my sheds, etc., about 100 ft. away - I do, however, have the external antenna.
I strongly suspect that, if you simply put a standard, commodity wireless access point w/antenna on the top of a mast, that will give you most of the coverage you're looking for - at least as long as you have line of site to the mast.
Alternatively, you can plant an access point anywhere there's power and link them together. But I doubt it's necessary.
Oh and the fact that the early christian church, being middle eastern rejected the writings of mary magdeline? because she was a woman and therefore unworthly? (typical of middle east treatment of women today also)
This is idiotic. Nobody who knows enough about New Testament to know why it is redundant to write "the 'hoi polloi'" believes that we have any writings of Mary Magdalene.
That is to say, only conspiracy nuts think that Mary Magdalene actually wrote a gospel that is still extant. (N.B. just because it's says 'the gospel of Mary Magdaline' doesn't mean it IS 'the gospel Mary Magdaline'.)
Contained within that true statement is that you, sir, are a conspiracy nut.
First of all, I wasn't the one who compared extra-canonical gospels to "Unabombber manifesto-types." However, I think that poster had a legitimate point - namely that a new gospel doesn't necessarily tell us much of anything about the beliefs of the church in its period.
The thing that you (and others who are commenting here) don't seem to realize is the sheer number and variety of non-canonical material we already have. Literally, there are hundreds already extant. The reason these are not in the canon is because they were found by the church as a whole to be of limited value. The number of truly interesting new documents (like the didache) is vanishingly small. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in most cases there was a REASON why the church lost interest in these documents, and for the most part the reason was not prejudice against the content, but a measured judgment of the documents' theological, ecclesiological and historical value.
As an example, one major category is the "gnostic" gospels. Said gospels advocate gnosticism, and in particular advocate a form of Christian "mystery religion." Gnostic beliefs, to be frank, were just wacky, and they were not found to be useful in the advancement of the Christian faith. This is particularly the case since gnostic ecclesiology tended to be quite secretive. So, they were left behind. It wasn't so much that gnostics were persecuted - that came later, esp. in the middle ages (such as with the Albigensian issue) - they were just ignored, because those who held more public, accessible theologies won the evangelistic battle.
My judgment as to the value of potential new gospels is not founded in fear or threat from these texts, but out of a realistic assessment of what they will contain (i.e. nothing new - recycled gnostic diatribes) and from when (3rd-5th century, since Oxyrynchus was abandoned in the 6th century. Having read dozens of these sorts of documents, I am simply not impressed with them, and certainly don't see them telling me anything significantly new about Christianity or Christian belief.
To be frank, your rant leaves me with the impression that you haven't read many of these documents, or you would be much less ready to insist that they are of great value.
Slashdot Mirror
You are assuming a sort of doctrinaire verificationism rising out of the positivist school. However, most contemporary philosophy of science gives at least a nod to the importance of falsification. In this view, first articulated by Popper, what makes a theory scientific is not that it is verifiable, but that it is falsifiable. What makes it meaningful to talk about a theory is that you can come up with an experiment (or observation) that would falsify said theory.
In your naive dismissal of Intelligent Design, you are attacking the second point of ID without addressing seriously step 1 of the ID argument.
- Observation: there exists biological diversity which cannot be explained by appeal to natural selection.
- Assertion: having disqualified natural selection, an intelligent designer is the best available explanation.
That is, ID theorists are claiming that they have made some falsifying observations regarding Evolution by Natural Selection. This is not a theory, but an observation. Step 2 is an assertion which, while it cannot be verified, can most certainly be falsified (as some scientists have tried to do by demonstrating elements of biological diversity incompatible with the notion of an Intelligent Designer.)Tell me something: natural selection, as it's being shoved down the throats of high school students - which is what's under attack, not evolution - is really a universal affirmative assertion. It says, in effect, that "all biological diversity is created by natural processes." (Obviously, this is a very simplified statement of it - but I'm not trying for rigor in a /. conversation.)
Such an assertion is trivially falsifiable, with a single counter-example, if only one could be found which was undisputed. But how on earth do you propose to verify such a claim? The short answer is you can't - your preferred theory is one that cannot be verified. It can only be falsified - so why on earth are you clinging to the rotting corpse of the Austrian school?
However, I am the father of twin 4-year-old girls who were diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and I have to say that we are a lot better off WITH the diagnosis than without. Prior to the diagnosis, all we knew was that the twins were "different" in some inexplicable way, and that we found them utterly impossible to cope with. Literally, prior to the diagnosis (about a year ago) they would spend hours and days in uncontrollable tantrums, hitting their mother, etc. In fact, they were kicked out of two pre-schools they were so difficult.
The diagnosis opened up all kinds of new possibilities for us. First of all, with a "label" we were able to clearly articulate to people exactly HOW the situation with the twins was "different." (Usually, we explain Asperger's as being a form of Autism.) Second, the diagnosis helped us to get them into a special ed pre-school with the local public school system. This has enabled us to get them professional speech therapy, occupational therapy, and most of all a chance for my wife to do something other than mind the twins. Finally, the developmental pediatrician who did the diagnosis was able to prescribe a medication that helped dramatically with the tantrums and violence.
The point here is that, before the diagnosis, we had no ideas and no options. We just knew that it was a matter of time before me or my wife "cracked" from the strain. At the time of the diagnosis, it really was a matter of time before one of us left - not because we didn't love each other or weren't committed to each other, but because the strain of living with twin Incredible Hulks was just too great. We were to the point where we were having to consider whether the twins should be institutionalized, because they had come close to hurting our one-year-old on several occasions.
With the medication, things are better.
The point of all this is that the label doesn't CREATE the disorder. The twins suffered from Asperger's Syndrome before we had a name for it. The label gives us, as parents, access to many, many resources that enable us to take better care of our children who have AS.
Take a look, instead, at Jn 2.13-16 (here in the NRSV):
This is the most detailed account we have of the incident, and it makes it quite clear that he drove out the livestock, but did NOT use physical force against the people.This point of view clearly rises out of a worldview that has already dismissed religion outright.
You may not like folks trying to make religious appeals to you, but you need to at least give them the purity of their motives. Believe it or not, most religious people are sincerely trying to help you out - which is better than you can say for Proctor and Gamble. This is not to defend overzealous attempts, folks "witnessing" who just won't leave your door, etc. But as a Christian, I have a positive moral obligation to attempt to present my faith to others - i.e. to proselytize. For me to give up that obligation entirely I would have to be either a hypocrite or a moral wretch who didn't give a damn about his fellow man.
Perhaps those that can't work the Wine team should put in "not supported" messages for? That way, folks wouldn't tend to blame WINE, but the application.
Look, I'm not a scientist - I'm a student New Testament. And I'm not capable of holding my own in a discussion of any kind of biology. However, as a theologian, I like to think I know at least a little bit about the interaction between religion and secular culture. And I've got to say that I am struck again and again by the unreasoning venom that "scientists" direct at religious perspectives. You have clearly demonstrated that you are violently criticizing a book you have not read, and that makes you no better than the benighted fundamentalists who critique Harry Potter without bother first to read it.
I swear, the venom with which the scientific community defends ANYTHING that could go against evolution continues to astound me.
If you read carefully in a good translation, or in the Greek, you will discover that he didn't drive the salesmen, but their stock. Take a look at Yoder's The Politics of Jesus for a much better understanding of who Jesus really is as opposed to the guy that the religious right and religious left want to expropriate for their agenda.
In this case, I can only say, "the facts are otherwise":
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch. Cheers!HOWEVER. I don't think that Intelligent Design in and of itself seeks to, in your words:
Rather, it is, in its purest form, an attempt by those who already believe in God to reconcile that belief with evolution. It is not an attempt to prove God - believe it or not, most Christians realize that God cannot be proven.To me, it seems that ID no more has an agenda to "prove" God than many on the evolutionary side of the debate have an agenda to disprove God. It is, in my not-so-humble opinion, idiocy to suppose that anyone in our culture can be neutral on this question.
Having said that, I think that someone from a Hindu or Buddhist background would probably be more comfortable with Evolution than ID, since these faiths don't tend to emphasize the creative aspect of God. In Christian thought, the aspect of God that is most important is his role in the creation of the universe - if you will, the Christian God is a bit more transcendant than the Hindu gods individually. Hinduism (as I understand it) only approaches the Christian notion of "God" through pantheism, conglomerating all the "gods" into "God". (Qualification: I'm not particularly knowledgable of mainstream Hinduism, so would welcome correction on this point.)
Well, I'm not particularly qualified in science. However, the book I found most convincing from a scientific perspective was "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe. Basically, his argument is that, at the micro level, many cellular functionas are irreducibly complex - that they require a host of different parts to work, none of which do anything independent of the rest. So, how would all these parts have evolved gradually when each of them was useless without the others?Here's the thing. Behe (and most other true ID types) are not attacking evolution per se. He is attacking the notion that natural selection alone is a sufficient explanation for Life As We Know It. And he is founding that argument in scientific fact, asking the very legitimate question of how certain structures at the micro level could happen naturally. What I find unhelpful is the ranting and raving that goes on in the scientific community that refuses to actually address the arguments in anything resembling a systematic way.
Here we get into some deep juju, which I can't deny is speculative. However, it has always seemed to me that if anything had to simply exist - i.e. if something were to spontaneously come into being utterly ex nihilo - that matter, the laws of physics, the point that became the big bang, etc. were too complicated to be that something.
To my way of thinking (and I have a fair background in academic theology although my specialty is New Testament) the best way to conceive of God is as pure, creative will. (I'm going to go ahead and say "God" here rather than trying to dance around it.) Out of that will - that ability to decide, if you will - everything else comes into being and is sustained in its being. God's will made the point that exploded in the primordial bang, and God's will made the laws of physics that made that explosion develop into our universe, and God's will made the peculiar set of circumstances that make it possible for other intelligentm, creative wills to exist.
However, before all this, there had to be ONE thing to be "first". Occam's razor requires that that one infinitely improbable thing that was "first" be the thing most able to account for everything else. And I am convinced that the best account for this is a single, personal God.
Seriously - you want me to believe that the simplest explanation is that sex, butterflies, and Picasso "just happened"???? I'm not there.
Intelligent design is NOT creationism, although creationists often use it to bolster their arguments. Here are some differences.
This is a very different animal from the Scopes trial, at least from a legal and theological perspective. What is at issue is not theology vs. science - i.e. church vs. state - but two competing scientific interpretations. That you may regard ID as a sort of reverse Lysenkoism is not so much relevant as the question of who gets to determine what is taught in the schools? Do you really want to declare that current scientific orthodoxy, whatever that changes into every five minutes, is what must be taught in the schools, without regard to the social consequences? If so, I urge you to consider the prominent role "science" and even "evolution" played in the Eugenics movement. It is wrong - even disasterous - to suppose that the fads of scientific orthodoxy should drive our social process.
And, for what it's worth, I'm neither a creationist nor an Intelligent Design advocate - although I see some merit in the latter. I'm perfectly comfortable if Evolution turns out to be the case all along, because I believe in a God who can work through the random.
"The lot is cast into the lap,
but the decision is the Lord's alone. "
Proverbs 16.33
Now, you don't have to like ID - that's fine. But I would urge those ranting and raging to consider whether their oppositions to Intelligent Design is founded in a considered evalution kof the theory, or in a knee-jerk reaction against your perception of where it will lead?
Oddly, my Solaris and/or Linux and/or OSX servers are able to get by without any sort of AV protection (other than promptly installing patches). And, oddly enough, they are more stable.
Go figure. :)
I have a five acre farm, and the wireless from my airport in the house makes it to my sheds, etc., about 100 ft. away - I do, however, have the external antenna.
I strongly suspect that, if you simply put a standard, commodity wireless access point w/antenna on the top of a mast, that will give you most of the coverage you're looking for - at least as long as you have line of site to the mast.
Alternatively, you can plant an access point anywhere there's power and link them together. But I doubt it's necessary.
Cheers!
That is to say, only conspiracy nuts think that Mary Magdalene actually wrote a gospel that is still extant. (N.B. just because it's says 'the gospel of Mary Magdaline' doesn't mean it IS 'the gospel Mary Magdaline'.)
Contained within that true statement is that you, sir, are a conspiracy nut.
whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not stay near you.
Psalm 32.9
The thing that you (and others who are commenting here) don't seem to realize is the sheer number and variety of non-canonical material we already have. Literally, there are hundreds already extant. The reason these are not in the canon is because they were found by the church as a whole to be of limited value. The number of truly interesting new documents (like the didache) is vanishingly small. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in most cases there was a REASON why the church lost interest in these documents, and for the most part the reason was not prejudice against the content, but a measured judgment of the documents' theological, ecclesiological and historical value.
As an example, one major category is the "gnostic" gospels. Said gospels advocate gnosticism, and in particular advocate a form of Christian "mystery religion." Gnostic beliefs, to be frank, were just wacky, and they were not found to be useful in the advancement of the Christian faith. This is particularly the case since gnostic ecclesiology tended to be quite secretive. So, they were left behind. It wasn't so much that gnostics were persecuted - that came later, esp. in the middle ages (such as with the Albigensian issue) - they were just ignored, because those who held more public, accessible theologies won the evangelistic battle.
My judgment as to the value of potential new gospels is not founded in fear or threat from these texts, but out of a realistic assessment of what they will contain (i.e. nothing new - recycled gnostic diatribes) and from when (3rd-5th century, since Oxyrynchus was abandoned in the 6th century. Having read dozens of these sorts of documents, I am simply not impressed with them, and certainly don't see them telling me anything significantly new about Christianity or Christian belief.
To be frank, your rant leaves me with the impression that you haven't read many of these documents, or you would be much less ready to insist that they are of great value.