In a message dated 9/24/2000 3:20:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
sejones@iinet.net.au writes:
<< SB>This tidbit sounded hauntingly familiar.
>
>"In a belief system that uses magic as the most logical
>explanation for illness, accidents, and other unexpected
>occurrences, there is no room for natural causes, accident, or
>chance. Witchcraft provides the explanation--it can be the
>cause for most effects. "
SJ: No doubt. If witches were *real* they could be an explanation for claimed
ID effects.
>>
And as poor an explanation as well if the premise for the statement were to
hold. Furthermore I am somewhat confused by SJ's statement "If witches
[designers of ID] were real....". But since ID says nothing about witches,
perhaps he meant "if witchcraft were real this could be an explanation for
claimed ID effects"? Or is the reality of designers a requirement for ID? Can
ID only be an explanation for supernatural design if it can be shown that God
is real? If that is the case then we have come around in a full circle. But I
thought that ID said nothing about the designer? Susan's reference pointed
out an interesting similarity between this statement and the design
inference. It is interesting to see how the cause of design seems to be
confused with "design/withcraft", infered from the absence of chance or
regularity though.
<< BTW in the past Susan has claimed to be "heavily influenced by ... Wicca":
-------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 09:44:38 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
SB>You seem to be assuming that atheism and Christianity are the only moral
>alternatives. Obviously that is not the case. My own morality is heavily
>influenced by the Baha'is, Buddhism, and Wicca. The truth is, that all of
>the key principles of Christianity are found in nearly every human
>religion. That is because they are *human* moral principles and humans
>merely attribute them to the religion at hand.
>
>Susan
-------------------------------------------------------------------
which I understood to be a form of "witchcraft":
"Other interesting essays on this site: If you found this essay
worthwhile, you might find some of these others of interest:
abortion, Christianity, death penalty, doomsday cults, female genital
mutilation, homosexuality, physician assisted suicide, the religious
sources of the war in Kosovo, and Witchcraft (Wicca) These are
the 8 most popular essays on our web site." (Robinson B.A.,
"Ethical aspects of human cloning," 2000-JAN-15.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/cloning.htm)
If "Wicca" is in fact a form of "witchcraft", then why is Susan defending
RM&NS? If witches were real they would defeat Darwinism too! Susan's
own quote says this:
>>
This seems to not follow logically from Susan's comments. Susan is talking
about how her sense of morality is influence by among others Wicca. That
Wicca involves witchcraft hardly means that Susan adheres to these aspects of
Wicca or even more relevantly that Susan considers witchcraft to be a
alternative to RM&NS. Even if witches were real, and some people claim they
are witches, this hardly would necessarily defeat Darwinism.
Wicca and morality http://home.earthlink.net/~josquin88/morality.html
http://www.mothersmagic.net/witches/wicca/moral.html
Of course Susan can explain best what part of Wicca inspired her sense of
morality.
<< "SB>In a belief system that uses magic as the most logical
explanation...there is no room for natural causes... Witchcraft
provides the explanation--it can be the cause for most effects. "
>>
Now you are conflating Susan's previous statement about Wicca and other
religions having influenced her sense of morality with her quote which was
meant to show a remarkable similarity with the ID filter. Does the claim that
Susan's morality is partially based on Wicca have any relevance to her
position on RM&NS? I doubt it.
<< Remember Darwinism does not *know* that all genetic changes in the 3.9
billion year history of life were random with respect to adaptive
improvement. It just *assumes* they were because it *believes* as an
article of faith that there was nothing else available to direct genetic
changes
towards adaptive improvement.
>>
It's hardly an article of faith since genetic changes are observed as are
adaptive improvements. Were they necessarily random? Even if they are not,
this would merely result in an extension to the evolutionary theory that
explains the evolutionary evidence. Darwinism's success lies in the fact that
it uses observed data to extrapolate and explain the data and quite
succesfully.
<< Therefore *any* form of preexisting intelligent designer(s) would be an
insuperable problem for Darwinism as a universal explanation of biological
design.
>>
Not really. Only if the designer intervened in a manner that could not be
explained using naturalistic forces and showed a pathway that was
non-Darwinian. But we already know that such pathways exist: Genetic drift
for instance. These and other findings have lead to an update to the
evolutionary theory in the form of neo-Darwinism. Would Darwinism or
evolutionary theory suffer if God had created our universe? Not necessarily.
<< Of course neither ID nor Christian theism would claim that "there is no
room
for natural causes" as Susan's quote says that "magic" and "witchcraft
would. Both ID and Christian theism would limit non-natural causes to unique
>>
That's not what the quote says. The quote clearly states that ""In a belief
system that uses magic as the most logical
explanation for illness, accidents, and other unexpected occurrences, "
o<< rigin events, and in any cause would not even then rule out the Designer
working through "natural causes".
Indeed, at its most basic, ID (and at least some versions of Christian
theism)
would see the intervention/guidance of the Designer as no more mysterious
than that of human intelligent designers.
>>
From a scientific perspective, the intervention of an unseen, unkown designer
with unknown powers, unkown intentions would for all practical purposes be
indistinguishable from "magic or withcraft". That different religious
philosophies accept such designers on faith hardly means that it should be
accepted by science.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Sep 24 2000 - 22:14:16 EDT