Re: OFF TOPIC: Intelligent design

[Jones Beene]

From: "Jed Rothwell" >>Whoa...we have yet to establish any evidence whatsoever that it happened elsewhere.   > You misunderstand my argument, which was admittedly terse. I meant that:   > IF we postulate some other species seeded earth with life in an artificial > (or intelligent) manner THEN we have to ask how that other life form appeared.   > Did some other form of life seed that one? Bad answer. Somewhere back in > the chain, at some point, some form of life had to appear on its own, > without artificial assistance from any pre-existing form of life. The logical error here seems to be in confusing the "physical" (time delineated) with the "nonphysical" (timeless influence). ID is the characteristic of a nonphysical and timeless influence. There is no need for a pre-existeing life form at all when there is a timeless pre-existing formative *influence.* Secondly, there is no assurance that we even had a physical "beginning" anyway - or that there really was a "big bang" ... but even if there was, the hidden meme-like influence, which is one way to envision ID (or spirituality) would survive the cyclical big crunch or big bang or whatever. "It" has always existed, as difficult as that concept is for humans to grasp. IOW there is no chance for life to "appear on its own," even if that was possible in a first instance because... at least in this understanding of ultimate reality, that force is prexistent and eternal. It was already present when the very first planet capable of supporting life cooled out of the fireball - if there was one. There is a huge trade-off here. You have to give up all the grandiose business about "all-powerful" in an immediate context - and all of that other hyperbole which comes from ancient dogma, and accept the fact that divinity works very slowly. The universe is incredibly vast in the present tense but even far more overwhelming in its perpetual repetition, that there is plenty of room for both a minimal and awesome presence to coexist when you stop the clock. This is a force that ordains, not in megalomaniacal haste, but in millineal meticulousness, whose most important ally is timelessness.   I am waxing poetic here becasue I took this out from an old manuscript.   Jones