The problem with ID is that it’s specifically trying to cross the how/why line - and it does this by asserting the existence of a God who at some point directly affects the mechanics of the universe. How a thing happens exists entirely independent of human consideration - we just describe it with varying degrees of accuracy. I find “why” to be a bit of a dodgy question. It sounds merely like a way of trying to get around asking “how” in the first place. It assumes, in the first place, that there is a reason independent of natural causes that something happens. Q: “Why did all the dinosaurs die ?” A: “Because you touch yourself.” (Family Guy) rather than Q: “How did all the dinosaurs die?” A: “A comet/asteroid hit the Earth, which upset the global climate to such an extent that the local biology couldn’t handle it.” It’s a loaded question.
I’m aware of that infuriating bit about not being able to prove a negative. It’s annoying. I could just say, though, that any one of you is merely a figment of my imagination, and any evidence of your existence another person brings to me is just another dreamed-up falsehood. People who are actually qualified to throw this question around have handled it better than I could possibly do so here, though. Suffice to say, at some level of evidence we accept that some things aren’t true even though we can’t prove it to be so - the tooth fairy, magic, free lunches (the latter which also exist perfectly well in theory, but never seem to incarnate into the realm of mundane reality).
Rogue I would like to ask about rational action, are you saying this is just part of our species experience from living so long? If that is the case, why haven’t any other animal species developed the same type of institution? Why is it that only human’s have this?
Yes, rational action, born of an intelligence whose foundation lies in the physical architecture of our brains, is nothing more than the result of god-knows-how-many ages of evolution. Human intelligence is not the be-all-end-all of cognition, and there probably will be something better at it in the future. Other animal specials fill other niches that humans and their predecessors did not and could not. We can’t run as fast as cheetahs, we can’t trace scents like a wolf, and we certainly can’t swim like a dolphin. They ended up better at those things, which enabled them to survive in ways that our ancestor’s could not. Intelligence can be explained away as nothing more than a happy accident, like all other successful evolutionary forms.
Family is the corner stone, and foundation of governments, rational thinking and morals have brought families together. Now animals do have family units, and do have organized groups, but nothing to the extent of the human species, why is this?
Biology engendered the family unit, not rational thinking or morals, which are purely intellectual and weren’t possible for the first creatures (whatever they were) that cared for their young. Your argument here doesn’t particularly deserve much attention, since nature contains many examples of organisms who act according to established hiearchies - insects (ants, bees), birds (I was mowing the lawn at my grandmother’s the other day, and it looks like the parents were kicking the kids out. There were baby birds bouncing around EVERYWHERE! So cute…), and mammals - herds are one type of social behavior. Rather than setting humans apart from other animals and asking why they’re not more like us, if you look at how our own behavior reflects aspects of the animal world you get a better sense of how we really fit into it.
I have nothing against evolutionists, though I strongly disagree with them, “What Got Banged, and Who did the banging?” So to speak if there was absoultely nothing in the beginning? Or was there always something there, and time truly has no end?
Current knowledge gets us to certain points that no one’s quite figured out yet. From some type of dense…thing…that expanded started with the Big Bang (so yes, I suppose evolution does depend on different Bangs at different points), we get a universe where the conversion of certain chemicals into others in the early atmosphere of prehistoric Earth presents an entirely plausible scenario for the start of life without supernatural intervention (though evolution has much better support than the “primordial ooze + lightning = life” experiments in a flask from back in the 50s). Not to say we know everything. I don’t think anyone’s quite figured out black holes, though we’ve figured out some. I haven’t heard any solid suggestions for what was what before the Big Bang that enable the later billion-year orgy of banging that resulted in modern man.
Philosphy will always be around, even if religion, coughcough yeah righ cough* were to disappear. Evolutionary thought is a philosphy, and some would argue a modern day “religious” thought. Such is humanity, it can’t be helped.
We need to keep the ideas of evolution as a theory separate from the various theories-of-everything cranks of all sorts have used it to support over the years - like racial purity or genetic cleansing or all that other unsavory stuff. Evolution in itself is not a philosophy. It’s a description.
<small><i>Edited for typographical erros.</i></small>
