Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Design Disquisitions: How/Why I Became a Design Advocate

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One of the main pages on my new blog has a brief account of my journey towards accepting ID. I’ve taken a few different stances on the biological origins question in the past so it’s been a bumpy ride for me. This article is mainly autobiographical, but it gives me a chance to lay my cards on the table so I don’t have assumptions made about me and so readers know roughly where I’m coming from.

Here’s a snippet:

So, how and why did I become an intelligent design advocate? It’s a long(ish) story…

I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and, with the exception of a period of ephemeral teenage agnosticism, I have remained a Christian my whole life. But that’s not why I support ID. Over the years my views on origins have fluctuated several times. As a teenager, when I began to give my Christian faith some thought, I became interested in the creation/evolution dispute. At that point I basically assumed the Young Earth Creationist (YEC) position and stuck with it for a while. After a little research however, I soon changed my mind and rejected YEC for a theistic evolutionary perspective.

Why the change of mind? Whilst perusing the shelves of my local Waterstones one day, I noticed a book in the science section. It was Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution written by Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University. Being a YEC, I was naturally intrigued by the title of the book, so I eagerly found the nearest counter and purchased it. After some assiduous reading, I came to the realisation that YEC and anti-evolutionism is a profoundly mistaken viewpoint.

What interested me most about Miller was that in addition to being an orthodox neo-Darwinian, he’s also an orthodox Catholic. Of course, I was previously well aware that there are many good Christians who do reconcile their faith with evolution, but I had never taken the time to hear their side of the story.

You can read the rest of my account here.

Comments
Hey Joshua, I read the About section and there's one glaring problem: there's nothing about you. It's all about what you think but there's nothing about your life. Especially why we should take your opinion seriously. What education do you have? Are you a scientist? What is your specialty? There's just nothing about you there.tragic mishap
January 29, 2017
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Silver Asiatic, Thanks for you thoughts. I have another post nearly ready which will be up on the weekend. Looking forward to dialoguing with you further. For me it is a 'personal-made-public archive of resources' but I'd like it to also be a place of fruitful dialogue. So you are most welcome. ThanksJoshua G
January 26, 2017
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Part 2 of 2: Alternatively, you say at # 4, “I think ‘officially’ the Catholic church has made its peace with Darwin but there is much variety and disagreement. It’s interesting to note that there are quite a few ID advocates who are devout Catholics (Behe, Jay Richards, Ann Gauger etc).” Divine and devout was Christ in keeping divine law to the letter for our sakes. No other person comes close. ‘Officially,’ is appears Catholics have been beguiled and have accepted a false peace by dancing for Darwin. Yahweh/Jesus says: “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.” (Prov. 6:16-19) If the word of divine law is false, then God casts himself out: having a lying tongue; being a lying witness to his creation, and sows discord in the family of Judaeo-Christianity. On top of that, he is a murderer from the beginning, and certainly at Sinai, as he personally gave out the death penalty for a man breaking his Sabbath law (Num 15:32-36). Surely, faith (Heb 11) is greater than any human science, which cannot use equations facilitating miracles in its theories because science does not understand them and their power or their effects on data. Darwin dismissed miracles. A blind leader who cast out divine intelligence. Darwin dismissed the Bible, beguiling Christians to believe God could not create as he commanded. Surely, all laws must be clear and literal to be good laws. Made is Jesus, “the truth” (Jn 14:6) an hypocrite in word and worship by not creating in six days. I will take your comments Joshua as ‘friendly fire.’ Intelligent design is worthy of containing a pattern of intelligent divine law chiselled into unbendable rock solid truth. Leave room, Joshua, in your efforts that your God has spoken the truth, however unbelievable. Otherwise, in the beginning, God was not powerful and intelligent enough to create a major pivotal law, fit for worship every seven days and that was fit for truth for all days.mw
January 26, 2017
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Part I of 2: Joshua, it’s interesting to read of your journey to intelligent design. Your new blog is packed with information: https://designdisquisitions.wordpress.com/why-i-am-an-id-proponent/ You say: “After some assiduous reading, I came to the realisation that YEC and anti-evolutionism is a profoundly mistaken viewpoint.” You mention of aiming to be “an intellectually fulfilled Christian.” And, “I certainly deny that the Bible necessitates a literalist YEC view of the days in Genesis.” _________________________________________________________________________ I believe, that in all honesty, any first reading of the Bible simply and clearly points to creationism and not evolutionism. However, does it not follow, that by your testimony, the testimony of Yahweh at Sinai “is profoundly mistaken,” or, that in order to ‘save’ it from being literally true, God then had to bring in nebulous circumstantial ‘days’ not set down in any divine law in order to correct the witness statement of the Holy Trinity through the Father! However, it is not Genesis that is the prime consolidator, but Sinai, which Jesus, “the truth” (Jn 14:6) fulfilled (Matt 5:17-19). Laws sanctified in the truth of the Father (Jn 17:17); therefore, accurate to the dot. Jesus, God of Sinai, the Holy Trinity, publicly testified to the emerging house of Israel that he created in six days. He then wrote his publicly witnessed statement as law and in stone. Moses then wrote the commandments in a book and placed it next to the ark. How many more witness statements do we want? Jesus/God of Sinai worshipped on the Saturday Sabbath (Matt 12:10), he also healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. Did Jesus leave his intelligence at the synagogue door, or at the foot of Sinai by commanding us to believe he created in six days? In the synagogue, he could not remember how long his creation took? Or, on the Sabbath, he was worshipping by ‘porkies’ in order to save us. That the information he gave at Sinai was divisive and unhealthy? Surely, we Christians have made a withered commandment out of a divine law, such cannot be healthy. ______________________________________________________ ‘At Sinai, the Holy Trinity through the Father wrote the only scripture written by God. Holy commands placed in the ark of God’s testimony covered with the lid of the mercy-seat over which God spoke plainly to Moses; not in “riddles” (Num 12:3-9). Jesus said, if we do not believe Moses we will not believe him (Jn 5:47), no doubt speaking of future Christians. ‘Jesus, one Sunday, the “Lords day” (Rev 1:10) revealed to St John at Patmos, the ark of the testimony of the Father in heaven (Rev 11:19). He and the Father are one (Jn 10:30), but “the Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28). ‘Obedient to the command of the Father, Jesus worshipped on the Saturday as the original true Sabbath in memory of the true creation; and as one God, he should know. ‘If creation in six days is false, God/Jesus gives major false Judaeo-Christian teaching and worship. ‘However, Christ plainly teaches, “I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father” (Jn 8:38)… ‘The Catholic Church has eclipsed the vitality and importance of the Saturday Sabbath.’ (my Letter to the Editor, The Catholic Times (UK), 13, Jan 16) _____________________________________________________ Evolution theory has destroyed/disfigured divine law. Expect trouble, hope for a miracle.mw
January 26, 2017
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Interesting and true. As I see it, there could really be no way the Catholic church could fully accept Darwin, even though many try to claim this. It seems they end up in one of two positions: 1. God is actually ignorant and powerless over what happened on earth. Molecules just combined randomly, exactly as materialist-atheism would claim, and God just watched it, and then luckily, bacteria formed, moving to life forms, to humans. God was surprised by all of this, but it worked out fine (some call this Open Theology). 2. God plans and directs every movement in the universe, so what we consider 'random' is actually God causing everything to happen. This is the Stephen Barr approach. But this gives no evidence for God since all miracles would be just as scientifically explainable as random mutations. In any case -- this is all a side topic to your blog, and I'll conclude by wishing you a lot of success! Once it gets going and you get comments, I'd enjoy participating. Unless you're not really looking to it as a place of dialogue and discussion but more of a personal-made-public archive of resources (a worthy purpose in itself)?Silver Asiatic
January 26, 2017
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Thanks for reading and for the feedback. Good point. I think 'officially' the Catholic church has made its peace with Darwin but there is much variety and disagreement. It's interesting to note that there are quite a few ID advocates who are devout Catholics (Behe, Jay Richards, Ann Gauger etc).Joshua G
January 25, 2017
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Joshua, Just a bit of a quibble in the intro posted here:
he’s also an orthodox Catholic.
I think technically (meaning he hasn't been officially named otherwise), you could call him an orthodox Catholic. I would even say that he thinks he, himself, is one. However, his stated belief on the nature of God - or the attributes of God - is so wildly unorthodox, I have to wonder if he is a believer of any kind at all. But that's the necessary result of the absolute embrace of Darwinism that Miller takes. He puts Darwin first and tries to fit God in the picture somewhere around a materialist theory. He ends with a god who doesn't really know what's going on on planet earth and who can do nothing about it anyway. But quibbling aside - again, great job on the blog and I enjoyed the story of your journey.Silver Asiatic
January 25, 2017
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Ah that will be because I haven't published any posts yet. I only put it online a day or two ago. Just the stuff on the static pages at the moment.Joshua G
January 25, 2017
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What's up with your blog? I have added it to my RSS reader. But when I visit the blog, it says "Nothing Found". The link in your post here works. But, from that linked page, if I click on "Home" for your blog it says "Nothing found".Neil Rickert
January 25, 2017
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