[Avodah] Intelligent design

[david guttmann]

>[A] It may be that the universe is the product of Intelligent Design --
that the Creator set it up to develop along certain lines.
Toby Katz

>So God intelligently designed a system that deliberately extinguished 95 %
of all life forms over a period of a few million years? Hmmm!

Perhaps a better approach is D) God created something from nothing,
including nature. Nature then created something from something
--


RTK and RMB argue about ID. ID can be assumed, not proven. There is a macro
logic to the world even the extinsion of species. The universe comes into
being  and continues to finalize its form cataclysmically so that it
survives eternally at the cost of some species that somehow are able to
reemerge in different forms. The ID is not in every detail but the whole
enterprise. But this is only a subjective argument. We can also say that
this "intelligence" is evolutionary through a mechanism that came into being
on its own just like evolution explains the existence of biological species
without necessarily having an "intelligence" directing it.  

That is the issue. Proponents of ID are trying to use 'intelligence" as
PROOF that there is an "intelligent" and that is a fallacy. It is only once
one has proven or accepted (I go for the former, others claim that my proof
is fallacious) one can look back and say things make better sense with ID
and using that I am going to try and find the "Intelligent" behind it all
and emulate Him. Because that is all that I will ever know about Him - the
result of His actions. 

My point is that both RTK and RMB are right but miss the point of the issue.
It is a common occurrence in these arguments and using ID as proof for
existence of HKBH rather that using it to seek out Chochmato always falls
flat and in Kiruv may be harmful when confronted with a logical mind.

Chag Kasher Vesameach to all and thanks for great reading and thought
provoking discussions . 


David Guttmann
 
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