Intelligent design (Introduction)

by Abel , Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 23:40 (4755 days ago)

I am new to this site and still reading much of what I am finding to be a well-written an insightful commentary on the topic of evolution. I was beginning to believe that minds that are actually open to scientific inquiry was the thing of myth and legend. My congratulations to you all.

I am a theist, not conventional by any means, but a theist just the same. But as a theist, I don't believe in magic or miracles. I believe that an advanced science or technology might appear to be magical or miraculous, but it is not. The Old Testament, I believe, is primarily myth passed down by word of mouth over hundreds of years (and evolving all the time) before it was committed to paper (with all its' inaccuracies). But still that legend possesses a few kernels of truth.

Resolving the conflict between theists, atheists and agnostics requires that each group defines the words or concepts that they are arguing about first (a topic already touched upon in this forum). Theists are boxed into a corner by their own flawed definitions. I say flawed, because they are not supported by the bible, rather they were the suppositions of men that wanted an all-powerful and all-knowing God. The story of Genesis is also tainted by theist's flawed interpretations of creation. Unfortunately, since theists have believed this stuff for thousands of years, it might actually take an act of God to change their minds.

The book of Genesis is a simplified (as it had to be)story of creation. If God's "days" were considered an age or era (millions of years, rather than thousands), I could generally live with it says. According to the Genesis, God created man on the sixth day then he rested for a day before making Adam and Eve on the eighth day. Given that God's days are now potentially millions of years long, we can now see that man was here for a very long time before Adam and Eve arrived on the scene.

But who was Adam and Eve and why were they created? It is my belief that Adam and Eve represented the final race of man placed upon this world in an on-going effort to improve the genome. I also believe that they were placed upon this world about 4000 years ago, not the 6000 stipulated by most theists. Of course they they arrived at this figure simply by summing up the ages of the patriarchs in the bible, unaware that at that time in history, lifespan was traditionally measured in moons, not years. When the bible was written, the conversion from moons to years was never made. Shorter lifespans reported later, were not because people's ages were reported in years at that time, but rather because of God's decision to shorten lifespans.

And if the above opinion was not enough to alienate me from traditional theists, let me add this:

I don't believe that God created the universe, I believe the universe created God. I also don't believe that God is an individual, all-powerful, all-knowing being. I believe that "God" is a race of beings, brought about by the process of abiogenesis followed by evolution. This race's design is much simpler than our own.