http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2007/02/27/more-nonsense-about-jesus/
http://christopherbutler.wordpress.com/

Overall, you can review current topics at these blogs:

http://upontruth.com/categories/christian-apologetic-blogs.html

I certainly was. I was one very ANGRY and BITTER person after I left the faith, having concluded that it was false. I realize now the truth of Psalm 1:

Psalms:1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

I did that for five years, and I was miserable. I thought I would find freedom away from religion, but I didn’t. I found anger and misery. Nobody is more miserable, I think, than a Christian who is away from God.

The mercy of the Lord endures forever! My sins have been cast as far as the east is from the west, and I learned a lot about who to listen to during my time away from God. There is no greater joy in life than knowing and serving God!

Most people understand that Darwin, in “Natural Selection”, believed that he found an impersonal designer. But lets move closer to origins for a moment; Darwinism cannot account for MANY necessary conditions for life to begin in the first place. For example:

a. How does (Darwinian) Naturalism account for the mechanism used for passing on inherited traits in simple life — before DNA even existed? Without a mechanism for passing on new characteristics that contribute to the survival of the life form, then Darwinism has nothing on which to operate. And yet even the simplest cell, and its genetic code that guides its self-replication, is complex beyond the creative ability of humankind.

b. How does Naturalism account for the inanimate universe and its incredible fine-tuning for the existence of life? The inanimate universe, with no genetic code for inheritance, cannot be not subject to Darwinian evolution.

c. Your argument that some things are designed well and others not-so-well implies that you, being an intelligent agent, can tell the difference. Are you quite confident here? I would make the point that, when humans design an artifact, they always design with real-world constraints in mind. Take the design of a PDA for example. It will be a compromise of manufacturing cost, power consumption, assembly cost, and many other factors balanced against its end-purpose. PDA’s can be designed with longer battery life or more memory, but this will increase the cost. Can you identify all of these factors in a life form that you believe to be inadequately designed?

d. You are also falling into the trap of using what you perceive to be negative evidence for God (i.e. “God wouldn’t have done it that way”) as a substitute for positive evidence for evolution. In this you are in good company — Darwin did much the same. Is this also why many cling so strongly to Darwinian Naturalism (evolution) — because the only perceived alternative is a creator God?

e. “Why do I find it interesting that there are atheists who believe in Intelligent Design?” Because design implies a designer! I’m suggesting that when one sees the hand of the designer, she probably doesn’t remain an atheist for long. Witness the famous atheist Anthony Flew’s departure from atheism last year (abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976). That being said, ID doesn’t require its adherents to believe in God, but it does provide substantial evidence for such belief.

As I have said before, my primary complaint is the presumption of “random chance” / purposelessness which is used as a prerequiste nowadays before a theory can be considered legitimate scientific inquiry. How can science know enough about the universe to determine that no purpose lies behind it?

This much should be CRYSTAL CLEAR. IF there is a design behind our existence, then prematurely disqualifying as “out-of-bounds” anything that looks like design will guarantee that we will NEVER be able to discover it! Again, I submit to you that this approach is not a search for truth!

Why require purposelessness as a prerequisite to be qualified as science? Why not keep an open mind and follow the evidence where it leads?

It seems that ID, as it’s presented now, is based on blind chance. You say “ID doesn’t identify the designer”. My whole point is that eventually it will have to, because this idea that some things were designed and not others—well, what determines what gets the designer’s attention? Looks like random chance to me. Eventually, ID will have to answer the question of how the designer(s) make decisions, because otherwise the whole thing is an even bigger scientific travesty. That’s the point I was trying to make — it’s a refutation of the first point you make in your post. The fact that ID doesn’t specify the nature of the designer actually makes it a worse theory. Maybe it’s just incomplete, but if it’s incomplete, uh, why don’t we complete it before teaching it to children?

Dan, I’m going to try and ignore the obvious cynicism in your article and answer your questions:

1. “What long-term impact should ID have on how science gets done?” For starters, stop requiring that only solutions powered by blind-chance be considered. Isn’t it obvious that this is an arbitrary philosophical precondition like the creationism that some people try to equate ID to? One way to start will be to take an honest approach in studying what appear to be irreducibly-complex structures in microbiology. Also, admit that we know far too little about the nature of reality to disqualify intelligent causes out of hand.

2. Turning this into a discussion about “why?” takes us outside of the realm of science and into the philosophical realm. I’m willing to go there, but ID doesn’t identify the designer and I don’t want to lose focus. A scientific recognition of the possibility of intelligent causes and a methodology for detecting such causes, however is not a religious study — it is a search for the truth. ID cannot identify the “why” or “who” as is related to an intelligent cause. But when science excludes even the possibility of intelligent causes, then it is no longer a search for the truth — it has degenerated into dogma.

Clear? Please refer to my category on ID for more context: http://upontruth.com/blog/?cat=2

You’ll probably think I made some of the mistakes you write about, but I think the question holds no matter how vague your notion of a Designer is. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

That depends upon whether or not you want to be able to keep singing our National Anthem. Some might claim that its “unconstitutional”!

I cannot deny that design implies a designer, and I have my own world-view; I write from the perspective of a follower of Jesus Christ. However, I do not advocate blind-faith but one with strong evidence to back it up. My faith claims testability (Rom 1:20, Ps 19:1) — that’s what this site is all about.

As you’ll see if you keep reading here, my primary complaint is the naturalistic assumption of modern “science”; i.e. the circular argument that everything in nature occurred through blind chance and that nothing else is science. This approach, that allows ONLY random chance as a cause, is NOT an honest pursuit of truth. And isn’t truth what really matters?

The credibility of Darwinism depends upon the presumption of naturalism; which is itself a faith-based philosophical belief that only blind-chance operates in nature. Evolution is testable only in the production of limited change; only through assumption and extrapolation can it do more. Also, and very importantly, Darwinism has NO ABILITY to operate upon the natural laws and the properties of the inanimate universe. The extreme fine-tuning of the natural laws for life deserves a reasonable explanation, but naturalism comes up empty here.

If you are really interested in understanding what is proposed by Intelligent Design, then I can suggest some of the following web sites, articles, and resources:

Sites:
http://www.discovery.org/csc/ “Center for Science and Culture”
http://www.idthefuture.com/ “ID the Future”
http://www.arn.org/ “Access Research Network”
http://www.designinference.com/ “Design Inference”
http://www.ideacenter.org/ “Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center”
http://www.origins.org/
http://www.iscid.org/ “International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design”
http://www.iconsofevolution.com/

Some articles on the topic:
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html
http://www.leaderu.com/science/ross-justright.html
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9810/dembski.html
http://www.leaderu.com/science/thaxton_dna.html
http://www.creationdigest.com/summer2005/Braun_Intelligent_Design.htm
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/docs/bd-optimal.html
http://www.arn.org/id_faq.htm
http://www.ideacenter.org/resources/faq.php

Highly Recommended Videos on Intelligent Design

“The Priviledged Planet”
“Unlocking the Mystery of Life”
“Icons of Evolution”

Also see my links pages for additional resources:
http://upontruth.com/readinglist.html
http://upontruth.com/links.html

And finally, I’m sorry for the delay in posting these comments — the “Blogasphere” is still a bit new to me!

You wrote:

“When an ingrained establishment wields dogma to silence credible researchers, we all lose.”

“[ID] merely looks for evidence that can only be explained by an intelligent agent.”

“If science is truly interested in discovering truth, then the debate should be won by exposing all the evidence – not by trying to gag the proponents of a competing theory.”

With these things in mind, I’m curious about a few things.

* Who are the “credible researchers” involved in Intelligent Design (ID) and how are they credible? Surely they would have published something or, failing that and operating on the idea that mainstreamers are blacklisting their efforts, proposed something meaningful in their own niche realms. Oddly, though, there’s nothing out there to support this idea.

* What would be (or is) the evidence of conscious design in nature? That is, what is being suppressed by “Darwinists”? As things stand, natural selection acting on the grist of genetic mutations explains with uncanny predictability and accuracy exactly why we would expect to find evidence of *apparent* design resulting from natural processes extended over long time scales and involving successive incremental changes or a non-random sort. With such a successful theory extant, why the rush to embrace an alternative that, well, doesn’t offer anything but an already-debunked argument from incredulity?

* What exactly is the theory of ID? That is, how does it merit the designation of a scientific theory? What does it do other than posit that evolution is incomplete (not a failing of evolution or any theory; quite the opposite) or rife with flaws (outright bunk) and that it therefore makes sense to plug existing knowledge gaps with a guiding force that bears an undeniable resemblance to the Christian (triune) deity?