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Loin Girders

A passionate orthodox Christian man's occasional blog to support those who stand firm. Gird your loins, noble warriors for Christ.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Intelligent Design?

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-07-27/news/feature_print.html

Phillip E. Johnson gave a talk at our church last summer. If you would like to see what is new with the founder of Intelligent Design, this is a pretty balanced article from the East Bay. I correspond with Phil and Kathie, his wife. He had another stroke last December and is a little worrysome as a result.

This week President Bush extolled the virtues of "teaching the controversy" about Intelligent Design in a question and answer session. This startling development makes a re-examination of Phil's work timely. If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Phil, you will love the aquaintance. Truly a gentleman and a scholar, he is one of the most important intellectuals of our time. What he has done is bring into sharp focus the atheism and flawed reasoning of Darwinism and its insidious stepchild, Social Darwinism, which was the central idea behind many of the last century's greatest evils. His work and his life are a gift from God.

posted by Unknown @ 8:39 AM  

11 Comments:

  • At 8:51 AM, August 04, 2005, Blogger voixd'ange said…

    From what I have heard, and I have no data to back this... it is Academia that is holding tenaciously to evolution, while the scientific community has for the most part abandoned the theory... but I could very well be mistaken about this.

     

  • At 11:48 AM, August 04, 2005, Blogger Dan Trabue said…

    1. So you disbelieve in Darwinism and social darwinism, do you also disbelieve in economic darwinism?

    2. Can someone give my poor little liberal brain an easy-to-understand explanation of Intelligent Design Theory?

    I look at this wonderful creation and can certainly see God's hand in it all, but that is a philosophy of mine. It's not science. Is there some actual science to IDT?

    Thanks.

     

  • At 12:31 PM, August 04, 2005, Blogger Unknown said…

    The link is to an article that will get you that info, Dan. ID is a recognition that Darwinism has enormous holes and is not, therefore, a good creation story for humans or a good theory to use to construct economic theory or survival of the fittest theories which are the basis of Margaret Sanger's work or Lenin or Freud or anyone else. So much of the modern cultural edifice stands on this "theory". In fact, Darwinists use Darwinism as a surrogate for religion. They are true believers, though they have little data on which to base their belief. Your "intuition" about God's hand is veridical. Your religion is rational and fact based. Your faith is from the heart. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.

     

  • At 1:06 PM, August 04, 2005, Blogger Dan Trabue said…

    1. I read the article, Bro Kevin, couldn't make much out of it. I'm telling you this ol' brain's running down. Can you provide a link to a better summary?

    2. You gonna bite on economic darwinism?

    3. "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." waxing poetic?

     

  • At 12:49 AM, August 05, 2005, Blogger Constantine said…

    Kevin,
    Just curious. Really. What reasonable difference would it make if God didn't create us by Divine fiat in a quick "poof!" action, but instead chose a slow incremental process? In other words, why is the How, When, and Where so important vs. just the Why? Does the Christian community major in minors and minor in majors?

    Also, if one were to claim belief in theistic evolution how would that NOT be ID?

     

  • At 11:39 AM, August 05, 2005, Blogger Unknown said…

    Great question, Constantine. What difference would it make?

    First, our secular crisis in education stands on the substitution of one worldview for another. The substituted worldview, atheistic naturalism, makes it possible to eliminate God, faith and religion from public education finds legitimacy in a worldview that puts Faith (and other fantasy) in the realm of Subjectivity, which by naturalist first principles, is not real knowledge. REAL knowledge is, by naturalism's defining principles, only scientific, tangible, repeatable in scientific experiment by dispassionate observers, and lots of other stuff besides. Who says? The philosophical naturalist worldview leaders say so. Who are they? They are the people who Phil Johnson calls the "Mandarins", or the high priests of the this currently extant worldview. They are true-believer "scientists"; their hallmark is that they think their worldview cannot be subject to review or scrutiny. To them, it is not based on philosophical premises, it just is. To stay in power and in control, they must keep their worldview central to all we know.

    They have one opposing worldview warrior general opposing them: Phillip E. Johnson. The worldview he espouses is the previously extant Christian worldview, held by the founders of science, math and logic, the heroes of Western Civilization. Their worldview used to be the predominant one.

    In order to make room for a Christian worldview, Johnson has taken on the Mandarins. His method? Create doubt in how solid naturalistic Darwinism is. How? Point out the weaknesses in the data and the fact that it rests on philosophical presumptions: materialism only (nothing else can be knowledge), tangible only(no personal or "faith" or "belief" notions), subject to scientific inquiry only (no experience based knowledge). When people see the reality of his position, they are amazed. The truth will out. Then the Mandarins get nervous. They thought they had control of the field. They see it slipping. Maybe they don't. They've been exposed by a great warrior and an enormous body of facts. The "reality" of God and knowledge that comes from personal experience and historical facts may also be allowed.

    Oops. Eeeek. The emperors (Mandarins) wear no clothes.

    The last hundred years we have lost our way, abandoned God, and created science and social science that is profane and inhuman by following the Mandarins. They are about to fall. Phil Johnson is in the center of this battle. The facts are with him and they support ID. He will win. Hide and watch. Go here for resources on Phil and his scientist team of troublemakers:http://arn.org/authors.htm

     

  • At 5:19 PM, August 06, 2005, Blogger Unknown said…

    I realize in reviewing my long answer to your question, Constantine, that I didn't give you the short answer. The short answer is that it may make little difference to us or to God. However, Darwinism has been a great opportunity for atheists to encroach on all aspects of culture. As it turns out, Darwin, Freud and Marx just about did us in in the last century. Their ideas, all atheistic, were deeply flawed. Freud and Marx are now in the ashbin of history, but Darwin lingers on. Let's put him in the trash, too. Erase the board. Begin again, from the teleological premises we wrongly abandoned.

     

  • At 10:21 PM, August 06, 2005, Blogger Constantine said…

    Thanks Kevin for the follow up clarification. It helps.

    I personally don't buy into Darwin's theory of the origin of the human species. Now, as to the age of the earth, I suspect science is probably right in their estimation. But to my earlier point, it wouldn't make a difference either way to me.

    Whether the earth is 4 billion years old or 6,000 (six literal days of creation) to 10,000 years old makes little difference to me (When). Same answer as to whether our first appearance as a species was on the plains of the Serengeti or in a Garden somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Where). Whether God used the "poof!" method or the slow, incremental process doesn't make a difference to me (How). What does make a difference is…Why. And you already know the answer to that question--because God is Love.

     

  • At 3:02 PM, August 07, 2005, Blogger Unknown said…

    I once asked Maharishi Mahesh Yogi how important re-incarnation was to him. He said, "What does it matter? The only life you remember and act upon is the one you have right now."

    Like that, it is tempting to wonder about dinosaurs and weather so wild that we get the Grand Canyon in a "short" time, not a long one. But, since the dinosaur tracks are there quite visibly in Morrison at Dinosaur Ridge. With my grandson I pay attention to the dinosaurs and wonder about them, but I consider the creation myth used by Paleontologists to be epistemological white noise. They can't help it; it came with the field.

     

  • At 12:11 AM, August 08, 2005, Blogger Constantine said…

    "I consider the creation myth used by Paleontologists to be epistemological white noise."

    Why Kevin?

     

  • At 5:48 AM, August 08, 2005, Blogger Unknown said…

    Constantine,

    Because it has been assumed by them to be true, rather than examined and tested against the evidence. As such, it is a sacrosanct creation myth. The elaborate story and tower of assumptions that it rests on is very shakey. Some parts of it are true and based on good evidence. But so much of it is hand waving. Relationships between data points are taken for granted, not certain. I think scientists, but especially science reporters and teachers know way too little and assume way too much. So, when I hear that x dinosaur is related to y mammal or bird or fish or man, I just let it go by...not believing the relationship, not disbelieving it. I hear the data that is incontrovertible. I hear the rest, as I said, as "white noise."

     

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