Its quite funny reading the Intelligent Design folk's. Evolution cant explain some thing which clearly show a designer (to them). They do however stop short of saying who the Designer is. And then they wonder why people laugh at them. Here are my reasons.
a. Who is the designer. God(and which one?)? Aliens? Our descendants from the future? Fairies? Our duplicates from a parallel world? To be taken seriously the Intelligent design theory would have to make some guesses (including how to verify the guess) about the designer and his motivations. The utter hypocrisy where they stop short of saying the designer is the god of the religion I happen to believe in causes them to be the subject of much ridicule.
b. Who designed the designer? if he always existed or himself evolved then why is it so difficult to believe life evolved.
c. Why did so many species become extinct (even without man's interfering). Was some of the design flawed?
d. Why call it 'Intelligent ' design. Except for our brains, a lot of the other bits of human is not very intelligent. Why wouldn't you have designed man (who is made in god's own image after all) as someone who could tolerate extreme temperatures, be the fastest, strongest species? Why have human's vulnerable to most sickness? Why have two kidneys (when humans can get by with one) but only one heart and one brain? Why have the universe and then have humanity needing to breathe so that we cannot (without a lot of help) explore it? We seem to be as well designed as early version's of MS DOS!. Call it somewhat workable barely intelligent design if you will (we are talkign about an omnipotent designer so I assume the designer could have made us more efficient if the designer wanted that).
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Atheists
Seeing a slew of youtube debates on Atheism and related matters. Primary Atheists being Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Those on God's side being Dinesh D'souza, The Reverend Al sharpton, Tom Haggard et al. Christopher Hitchens appears to come across as someone who is severly disillusioned with humanity and has now given up trying to convince other people and is satisfied insulting them and feeling smug and superior to them. It then quite surprising that I still find I side with some of his views than those opposing them , though Christopher is too extreme (and so are the people who oppose him).
I guess its something to do with the way debates are structured in the wester world. When they debate Atheist's v/s People who believe in God or Atheist's v/s Religion, they are actually debating Atheists v/s Christianity. Or to quote Richard dawkins - I just believe in one less god than you do(or 30,000 lesser if your Indian or a handful if your greek).Which isnt the same debate. The believer's also make the same point's which sound non-sensical to a believer in a non interfering god but not religion.
a. How can morality exist in the absence of God - Easy. Its called a brain.
b. How can you create something out of nothing(referring to the origin of the universe) -The same way in which God was created. There is no way to answer this type of question.
c. Religion has done good too - Oh of course. And it has done some bad. Why not to move towards some scheme that has the good and eliminates the bad? Religion is static(unless you create new ones like scientology - oh waits thats a cult or is it?) and doesnt account for changing culture and sensibilities!
d. Atheists have killed more people than religion (Mao , Stalin, Pol Pot and arguably Hitler) - Umm yes , and it proves what exactly? That some atheists are bad? I wonder why god created them! Free will of course. Oh and thats why we were handed down a set of doctrines?
e. My religion didnt do anything like this! - Umm yes thats kind of the point.
f. Science has been wrong before! Science doesnt know everything - Yes and it freely admits to it. Unlike extremists (on both sides) who claim to know everything. Only an idiot can be 100% certain of anything (Scott Adams). The difference is in ideal science , you question everything and you hope to improve from where you are today noting that tomorrow you may find that you were wrong today. religion on the other hand says its is eternally right, That questioning belief is not good (and for those who say , no way my religion believes that questioning makes the faith grow stronger , try asking these questions out loudly in public). As Isaac Asimov stated , when asked a question to which he doesnt know an answer to, He says as a rationalist he isn't compelled to answer. There are some things he doesnt know. Whereas an extreme religious person will always say it's because God wants it to be so.
It is also quite heartening and not very surprising to see the debates are of much better quality than political ones
One thing that really irritated me watching the Dinesh Dsouza - Christopher Hitchen's debate was Dinesh's assertion that even though his ancestor's might have disagreed , he's quite glad that the portuguese forcibly (in some cases) converted people to Christianity because that's why he's christian today, Its sort of like the British argument that India progressed only because of them , they laid down the trains tracks etc - so the looting and killing is quite acceptable.
There is of course no evidence that we wouldnt have managed it on our own.
Funny too seeing the Reverend Al Sharpton denounce mormon's in the debate with Christopher Hitchens and then try to spin the story to appear that he's not the one to blame. Americans politicians have lots in common with their Indian counterparts. They think their audience are fools. Unfortunately they are quite correct.
I guess its something to do with the way debates are structured in the wester world. When they debate Atheist's v/s People who believe in God or Atheist's v/s Religion, they are actually debating Atheists v/s Christianity. Or to quote Richard dawkins - I just believe in one less god than you do(or 30,000 lesser if your Indian or a handful if your greek).Which isnt the same debate. The believer's also make the same point's which sound non-sensical to a believer in a non interfering god but not religion.
a. How can morality exist in the absence of God - Easy. Its called a brain.
b. How can you create something out of nothing(referring to the origin of the universe) -The same way in which God was created. There is no way to answer this type of question.
c. Religion has done good too - Oh of course. And it has done some bad. Why not to move towards some scheme that has the good and eliminates the bad? Religion is static(unless you create new ones like scientology - oh waits thats a cult or is it?) and doesnt account for changing culture and sensibilities!
d. Atheists have killed more people than religion (Mao , Stalin, Pol Pot and arguably Hitler) - Umm yes , and it proves what exactly? That some atheists are bad? I wonder why god created them! Free will of course. Oh and thats why we were handed down a set of doctrines?
e. My religion didnt do anything like this! - Umm yes thats kind of the point.
f. Science has been wrong before! Science doesnt know everything - Yes and it freely admits to it. Unlike extremists (on both sides) who claim to know everything. Only an idiot can be 100% certain of anything (Scott Adams). The difference is in ideal science , you question everything and you hope to improve from where you are today noting that tomorrow you may find that you were wrong today. religion on the other hand says its is eternally right, That questioning belief is not good (and for those who say , no way my religion believes that questioning makes the faith grow stronger , try asking these questions out loudly in public). As Isaac Asimov stated , when asked a question to which he doesnt know an answer to, He says as a rationalist he isn't compelled to answer. There are some things he doesnt know. Whereas an extreme religious person will always say it's because God wants it to be so.
It is also quite heartening and not very surprising to see the debates are of much better quality than political ones
One thing that really irritated me watching the Dinesh Dsouza - Christopher Hitchen's debate was Dinesh's assertion that even though his ancestor's might have disagreed , he's quite glad that the portuguese forcibly (in some cases) converted people to Christianity because that's why he's christian today, Its sort of like the British argument that India progressed only because of them , they laid down the trains tracks etc - so the looting and killing is quite acceptable.
There is of course no evidence that we wouldnt have managed it on our own.
Funny too seeing the Reverend Al Sharpton denounce mormon's in the debate with Christopher Hitchens and then try to spin the story to appear that he's not the one to blame. Americans politicians have lots in common with their Indian counterparts. They think their audience are fools. Unfortunately they are quite correct.
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