“Squirrel, Your capacity to argue at the edges of an issue – while apparently pleasing yourself intellectually – is not in question.”
Agreed. I don’t say that as a criticism, but as an observation that you are beneath the point of all this, Squirrel. I’ll respond to your comments:
Point: At issue here ultimately is not the Bible, and therefore, ultimately, is not ID or Creationism — I’d go so far as to say that 100% of the theological experts, phil profs, religious scholars and experts, and 100% the Christian laymen anywhere near these subject that I regularly associate with believe neither in the infallibility of Scripture, the Creation account as a literal device or sequence, the absolute, parallel historicity of biblical accounts, the universal integrity of all sums of alleged divine Christian inspiration, et al. This canard (this trotting out all the fallacies and factual conflicts and illogic incumbent in the texts and their improper uses) is indeed self-satisfying, but it has no merit. It is to argue beneath the level of the discussion.
Point: Science, by the precise definition you gave it, violates philosophical discovery (the seeking of wisdom in all things) if and when it is used to the exclusion of logic, reason, and most amazingly, the obvious experiments that only the mind can perform — the human consciousness, as has been pointed out here at least a few times in relation to Derb’s definition of reality. The entire quantum realm, for example, consists entirely of abstracts and properties — griefer’s mass and decay — and even it’s accorded the right to do precisely whatever it pleases, simply because it does precisely what it pleases, beholden only to what surely resembles only pattern and “habit”, a point yet lost on griefer, the QM student.
Because science can no more trace infinite numbers of sub-atomic causes and effects than it can explain how it’s holy grail, the God Particle (or whatever the irreducible is called these days) can point to a great and spontaneous origin from sheer void and subsequent and a flawlessly self-motivation according to the Laws of Physics. The Ultimate Law of Physics, that law on which all matter, energy, and action are created and then somehow faithfully balance, is akin to the first turtle: both are projected faith. Ah, the irony.
Point: Combining these points reveals that the secular scientist who demands proofs of others and none (at this level) of himself, save to insist that they’re forthcoming, is engaging wild irony and amazing arrogance.
And he’s engaging in faith. The sheer semantic issues that immediately crop here — “God” versus scientific faith — should be enough indication but they’re typically not. The reason is perspective.
Interestingly, that same limited perspective frequently conflates evolution with natural selection. The latter is scientifically evident fact. The former, as an origin theory, is laughable. The reasons should be quite obvious: Origin theory runs right into the brick wall CB and others here have amply illustrated and I’ve tried clumsily to add to.
Oh yes, it becomes entirely philosophical at that level. Which is to say, that the mind that conceives such philosophies also naturally conceives God, at worst. (Or discovers God, at best?) That you cannot define the difference or that you cannot label the terms at that level is not a problem with the philosophy any more than it is a problem with science. But the lack of understanding there is surely a problem, and one that bad science uses as a cudgel just as vigorously as ID does in the reverse.
