How do you answer this...

[Guest guest]

In yesterday's local paper there was an editorial about the fallacy of Bush proposing that schools teach 'Intelligent Design' along with the theory of evolution.

 

The point the writer, an atheist no doubt, was making was this: If all of this 'just couldn't happen by itself' as we like to preach, and the Christians preach too, then how could God, being so incredible, 'just happen'...doesn't God require a creator too, and on and on and on?

 

How do you talk to someone that his this opinion? How do you explain it so it can be understood that God doesn't have a creator?

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna,

 

Christianity has no answer since it is false.

 

Lord Krishna teaches in Gita, that there are three eternal entities that always exist.

 

1. Ishwara(Lord Krishna) or GOD

2. Jivas(Living beings)

3. Jada(Matter)

 

Among these Ishwara in the only independent entity.

 

Even the mere existence of Jiva and Jada is dependent upon Ishwara moment after moment. Eventhogh all the three entities are eternal, Ishwara's existence is not dependent on anything while that of Jiva and Jada are depend on Ishwara for their mere existence.

 

Analogy would be flower(Ishwara) and its scent(Jada or Jiva).

[gHari 0]

 

Has hit on the crux of God's most incredible nature. Let him keep thinking and he will do fine. It is not a paradox - it is incredible. Staring at it long enough, perhaps they will see and feel.

 

 

[Gauracandra 1]

Let me suggest that this newspaper writer does not understand the nature of his question. His question is right but he misses the point.

 

The one thing we all understand not simply intuitively but practically is matter. When asking questions about ultimate things we inevitably run into a problem. What came before everything. The atheistic view point basically states that "Everything came from nothing." The theistic point of view can be stated as "Everything came from something."

 

Now one thing we know about matter is its finitude. We can have a copper pan, but we can't conceive of an infinitely large copper pan. Matter takes up space. It even exists within time. Even something which is huge, say the universe, is still finite. It does not extend forever.

 

The theist concludes that the universe does not explain itself. Matter cannot be a first principle. The theist therefore says "There must be something that is "Not Matter", something outside space, outside time, from which matter can rest upon." This something we call spirit. Now we may not fully understand it. Christians will say one thing about it. Vaisnavas will say something a bit different. But all theistic groups sense this problem. Its as if the universe is masking something. Something or Someone is behind the veil.

 

Now one problem people have with evolution is it is often taught in schools as giving answers to ultimate questions. What is man? Man is a machine. Where did he come from? He is the result of random processes. What is his relation to the universe? He and the universe are a piece of clockwork. Once wound, it goes on ticking until unwound.

 

Now the mind of man naturally revolts against this. No atheist can give a credible defense of "meaning" from random processes. Art has no meaning if it is simply the next step in the random sequence. Love has no meaning if it is simply the dead leaf on an unconscious tree. The atheist in fact has to live a double life. They say one thing but live another way. They will say "I have free will" but can't truly defend it philosophically. If everything is random then so too is your "free will" even if you try to confuse the issue. If there is some meaning to art or beauty or ethics or love, it must be based on some standard, and the theist would say a 'perfect standard'.

 

Finally, I think it worth questioning the nature of this 'science'. We are often told "Look at how much science has done for us? How can it be wrong?" But here I would assert that we are talking about two different types of science. Is psychology a science? What evidence is there for Jungian archetypes? None. Jung told a story that he thought fit the human mind. What evidence is there to Freud? None. He manufactured a story that all objects are phallic objects. Buildings are tall because they represent man's desires. I would say this is preposterous. Buildings are tall because with finite space it makes sense to build upwards. This is logical. Yet Freud was/is taken seriously as a scientist, when in fact his story is more a fairy tale than the Grimm brothers could produce.

 

So what of evolution? It too is a story. So a story is told. A tooth bone is found and they tell some story. They truly don't know who the bone belonged to, what the person felt, what stories they told or really anything about these people. Things which are prehistoric naturally have very little evidence precisely because they existed before "history".

 

The problem we have with evolution is that it is a story much like Jung and Freud. But there is no way to prove this story. There have in fact been many changes to the evolutionary tale to try to compensate for problems in the story. Originally it was stated that evolution happened slowly. But this ran into some serious problems when people analyzed the issue on the microlevel. So then a new story was told that evolution actually happens quickly in spurts. Once a story was told that the Neanderthal was the ancestor of man. Today a new story is told that the Neanderthal was just a offshoot that lived side by side with man. Stories are told but they can't be tested. Other sciences can be tested and shown wrong. But we can't put a monkey in a lab and watch him evolve.

 

To reiterate:

 

First we must understand the question - what is the basis of everything? The theist says everything does have a basis in an eternal person. The atheist says everything comes from nothing.

 

Second, we must understand the consequence of these two stories. For the theist, love can exist because it is some deviation off of a perfect standard. For the atheist, love (or beauty or ethics) is simply the result of a random process having no ultimate basis.

 

Finally, we must ask ourselves what is science? Is it objective or subjective. I would suggest evolution if it be counted as science not be given the same level of credibility as physics or chemistry or any other testable science.

[Guest guest]

 

Sri Ramanuja Acharya said that even if it can be proved that this world was created by a Creator, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Creator is the only Creator, or that the Creator is all powerful or indeed God.

 

If it could be proved that God created this universe, it is nevertheless possible that there are other universes created by other creators, and that the creator of this universe is not the Supreme Being.

 

Also, there are statements in the Vedas saying that God cannot be known through logic and argument, but only through the gift of revelation which is given by God himself.

<blockquote>

Katha Upanishad 2, 23: "This Supreme Self cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, nor by the intellect nor even by much learning; by him It is attained whom It chooses. To him, the Atman reveals Its own form."

</blockquote>

Considering these points, it seems to me that the idea that the notion of "intelligent design" is contrary to the teachings of the Vedas.

 

In fact there are many statements in the Upanishads and Vedic literature speaking about how life can arise spontaneously from material nature.

<blockquote>Manusmrti 1.42-48

"What kind of acts is ordained for what creatures here, that I shall declare to you, also (their) order in origin. Cattle and also deer and also wild beasts with two rows of teeth, demons (rakshas) and devils (Pisachas) and men (manushas) are born from a caul (jarayu, womb). Produced from eggs (are) birds, snakes, crocodiles and fish, and tortoises; and likewise all other kinds (of reptiles which are) produced on land or (are) aquatic. From moisture are produced gnats and flies, lice, fleas and bugs; and from heat is produced whatever else is of this kind. All plants (which are) fixed grow from seed or slips. Herbs (are) those which perish with ripening of fruit, (and) abound in flowers and fruit. Those (trees), which have no flowers (but) have fruit, are called vanaspati (forest-lord); those that have flowers, and also that bear fruit (are) both called trees. Plants with one stem and many stems are of many kinds; so also grasses; but convolvulus and creepers spring from seed or a slip."

</blockquote>

 

It is debatable whether gnats and flies really are produced from moisture. Or whether this was simply an observation by some sage who didn't know that insects are born from tiny eggs. But nevertheless, it is a fact that there are many stories in the Veda about people who were born from fire (Vrtrasura) or water (the apsaras) or from a dead body (Prithu). So in principle the idea that a living being can be born from matter is not contrary to what the Vedas teach. In fact the Vedas teach that a living being can be born from matter.

 

The idea of evolution is also inherent in the Vedic literature. But in the Vedas there is a recognition of the fact that there is a soul which is existing, separate from the body, and that the soul simply inhabits a body which is formed from material elements. Given that the soul enters a material body, which all Vaishnavas agree is the fact, I have no problem envisaging a soul in a ghostly body coming down and entering into a beautiful female body that arises from the churning of the waves of the ocean, at the time when the gods and demons were trying to get nectar (Bhagavatam 8.8.7)

 

Really, if a soul awakens in this world and looks at his parents and thinks, "we are ape men", but still he has the intelligence of a man (a more highly evolved type of intelligence than common apes), then he may begin to search for the Absolute. Just as the monkey devotees of Rama such as Hanuman did. What is there in this story of monkey evolution which is against the teachings of the Vedas? Nothing. This in fact is the message of the Vedas, that people are constantly trying to evolve to a higher state of existence.

 

- m.

[Guest guest]

The Vedas contain many descriptions of one species being produced from another. Kadru and Vinata were two wives of the sage Kasyapa, and they became the mothers of snakes and birds. Hanuman's father was a god, and his mother was an apsara, Anjani, but Hanuman was counted as a monkey.

[theist 1]

 

In fact there are many statements in the Upanishads and Vedic literature speaking about how life can arise spontaneously from material nature.

 

 

 

Manusmrti 1.42-48

"What kind of acts is ordained for what creatures here, that I shall declare to you, also (their) order in origin. Cattle and also deer and also wild beasts with two rows of teeth, demons (rakshas) and devils (Pisachas) and men (manushas) are born from a caul (jarayu, womb). Produced from eggs (are) birds, snakes, crocodiles and fish, and tortoises; and likewise all other kinds (of reptiles which are) produced on land or (are) aquatic. From moisture are produced gnats and flies, lice, fleas and bugs; and from heat is produced whatever else is of this kind. All plants (which are) fixed grow from seed or slips. Herbs (are) those which perish with ripening of fruit, (and) abound in flowers and fruit. Those (trees), which have no flowers (but) have fruit, are called vanaspati (forest-lord); those that have flowers, and also that bear fruit (are) both called trees. Plants with one stem and many stems are of many kinds; so also grasses; but convolvulus and creepers spring from seed or a slip."

 

 

[theist 1]

This word also does not refer to life. First principle -aham brahmasmi.

 

The best book I have ever read on these distinctions is Who Are You by Chris Butler aka Siddhasvrupananda.

[theist 1]

 

The Vedas contain many descriptions of one species being produced from another. Kadru and Vinata were two wives of the sage Kasyapa, and they became the mothers of snakes and birds. Hanuman's father was a god, and his mother was an apsara, Anjani, but Hanuman was counted as a monkey.

 

 

Even if you take this literally how in the world does this possibly describe evolution? If anything it describes a devolution.

 

You can try to extract anything from such stories. I could just as easily say it describes the devas genetically engineering lower lifeforms. And I think my speculation would be more likely than yours and certainly a better fit per the description.

[theist 1]

 

Sri Ramanuja Acharya said that even if it can be proved that this world was created by a Creator, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Creator is the only Creator, or that the Creator is all powerful or indeed God.

 

 

What is being refered to by Intelligent Design is the One Supreme Prime Cause. Also Brahma did not create this universe separate from the Supreme Lord so ID would refer to the source of his intelligence.

 

You would think devotees would be happy to hear of such a move but most of what I have read on this forum would indicate otherwise. Strange days.

 

[Guest guest]

Theist, I wrote that unembodied souls can enter into bodies created by material nature, and I gave the example of apsaras who were born from the ocean. see Bhagavatam 8.8.7

 

Vritrasura was born from a fire. See Bhagavatam for that story too.

 

The verse I quoted from Manusmriti, manu samhita, states that creatures such as gnats get born "from moisture" and other creatures get born from heat or warmth. There are statements in the Upanishads that say the same thing.

 

It is a fact that the Vedas speak of many beings beings getting born from material nature.

 

You said: <blockquote>Do you think life arises from a woman's belly 9 months after being impregnated by a man? If so you haven't a clue what life is.</blockquote>

 

All living, material bodies have a beginning.

 

But the soul is different from the body and it animates the body just as the sun brings warmth and light into the world.

 

I never said that the soul comes into existence at any point in time. Did I?

 

That is a belief that the creationists believe in.

 

I said the soul enters into a physical body and animates that body. And if the Vedas say that some souls entered into some waves of water and became apsaras in living bodies, in the physical plane of existence, then I just marvel at the greatness of the power of the soul.

 

I can't see why devotees go along with "intelligent design" and creationism when the Vedas are full of stories about living beings who just arise in living forms that come out of the elemental forces of nature. The soul is eternal and it can "animate" a material body. Like I said before, Vritrasura animated a body that was generated in a fire.

 

- murali

[Guest guest]

<blockquote>

I could just as easily say it describes the devas genetically engineering lower lifeforms.

</blockquote>

 

Funny you should mention this, Theist.

 

In fact I could argue that life on earth may have been engineered by aliens who had a really "intelligent design" plan for life, which was that they created life on earth so they could have a nice food chain here that they can come and feed from every now and then.

 

Anyway, like Ramanuja Acharya said, the fact that someone can prove there is a "creator" is not proof that there is a god.

 

Do you get my point?

 

My point is, it doesn't matter if anyone happens to be able to prove to a bunch of school children that life on earth was created by some "intelligent designer of life". When the children grow up many of them will realize that what their "intelligent design" teachers were saying is simply a theory, just like Darwinism.

 

And God? God is dancing in his own dance, independent of the material existence.

[theist 1]

 

I never said that the soul comes into existence at any point in time. Did I?

 

 

Yes actually you did.

 

 

 

In fact there are many statements in the Upanishads and Vedic literature speaking about how life can arise spontaneously from material nature.

 

 

 

The life particle is the soul.

 

 

I can't see why devotees go along with "intelligent design" and creationism when the Vedas are full of stories about living beings who just arise in living forms that come out of the elemental forces of nature. The soul is eternal and it can "animate" a material body. Like I said before, Vritrasura animated a body that was generated in a fire.

 

 

So you don't think there is Intelligence behind all this manifestattion!?!?! Forms are just spontaneously arising from elemental forces of nature etc. etc. Who designed those forms and Who designed those elemental forces of nature?

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Theist,

 

I wrote about souls entering into bodies. I said there are stories in the Vedas about living bodies arising spontaneously from matter and gave a number of examples. But NOWHERE did I say that the soul is created.

 

Don't misunderstand what I said. It is simply that souls can descend into living bodies that may be generated by nature, as per the example of gnats born from moisture.

 

Were random forces the cause of life on earth?

 

No.

 

The baddha-jiva soul has a subtle body of materialistic ideas associated with it, and from the subtle world some jivas will "come alive" as apsaras, and some might come alive in the form of fiery asuras.

 

[theist 1]

 

T:"I could just as easily say it describes the devas genetically engineering lower lifeforms."

 

 

 

Funny you should mention this, Theist.

 

In fact I could argue that life on earth may have been engineered by aliens who had a really "intelligent design" plan for life, which was that they created life on earth so they could have a nice food chain here that they can come and feed from every now and then.

 

 

 

Don't try this misdirection. You attempted to prove evolution from those stories and that is just plane wrong.

 

{quote]Anyway, like Ramanuja Acharya said, the fact that someone can prove there is a "creator" is not proof that there is a god.

 

Do you get my point?

 

My point is, it doesn't matter if anyone happens to be able to prove to a bunch of school children that life on earth was created by some "intelligent designer of life". When the children grow up many of them will realize that what their "intelligent design" teachers were saying is simply a theory, just like Darwinism.

 

 

[Guest guest]

<blocquote>

So you don't think there is Intelligence behind all this manifestattion!?!?! Forms are just spontaneously arising from elemental forces of nature etc. etc. Who designed those forms and Who designed those elemental forces of nature?

</blockquote>

 

Well, according to the Vedas, the material elements and the forces of nature are beginningless.

<blockquote>

Mandukya Upanishad, 1.16.

When the individual Self, sleeping under the influence of Maya that is beginningless, is awakened, then he realises the unborn, sleepless, dreamless and non-dual Brahman.</blockquote>

[theist 1]

TRANSLATION Bg 7.10

 

O son of Pritha, know that I am the original seed of all existences, the intelligence of the intelligent, and the prowess of all powerful men.

 

PURPORT

 

Bijam means seed; Krishna is the seed of everything. There are various living entities, movable and inert. Birds, beasts, men and many other living creatures are moving living entities; trees and plants, however, are inert -- they cannot move, but only stand. Every entity is contained within the scope of 8,400,000 species of life; some of them are moving and some of them are inert. In all cases, however, the seed of their life is Krishna. As stated in Vedic literature, Brahman, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is that from which everything is emanating. Krishna is Parabrahman, the Supreme Spirit. Brahman is impersonal and Parabrahman is personal. Impersonal Brahman is situated in the personal aspect -- that is stated in Bhagavad-gita. Therefore, originally, Krishna is the source of everything. He is the root. As the root of a tree maintains the whole tree, Krishna, being the original root of all things, maintains everything in this material manifestation. This is also confirmed in the Vedic literature (Katha Upanishad 2.2.13):

 

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam

 

eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman

 

He is the prime eternal among all eternals. He is the supreme living entity of all living entities, and He alone is maintaining all life. One cannot do anything without intelligence, and Krishna also says that He is the root of all intelligence. Unless a person is intelligent he cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna.

 

[Guest guest]

<blockquote>

there are statements in the Vedas saying that God cannot be known through logic and argument, but only through the gift of revelation which is given by God himself.

<blockquote>

Katha Upanishad 2, 23: "This Supreme Self cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, nor by the intellect nor even by much learning; by him It is attained whom It chooses. To him, the Atman reveals Its own form."</blockquote></blockquote>

 

Theist, my children attend a Christian school but they don't attend any religious instruction classes. For the reason that I am opposed to them being told any false fables about creationism, Noah's ark and wotnot.

 

- muralidhar

 

 

[theist 1]

Muralidhar,

 

Again, please focus on this point. Intelligent design is NOT Biblical creation stories. Intelligent Design is a science based, non-sectarian approach that argues for intelligence being behind the creation instead of blind random chance.

 

This is essential to understand.

[theist 1]

Anthony Flew was the leading atheist philosopher in perhaps the world ,at least the West until recently when he was won over by the Intelligent Design arguments.

 

He was not persuaded by the Bible story or the Brahma on the lotus flower story. Intelligent Design is THE powerful argument for bringing a shift from Darwinian atheistism to theism.

 

Here is a portion of a recent article by Chuck Colson who is a Christian conservative and leading social commentator and has a website called townhall.com or .org

 

 

 

On solid ground: evolution versus intelligent design

Chuck Colson (archive)

 

 

August 4, 2005 | Print | Recommend to a friend

 

President Bush sent reporters into a tizzy this week by saying that he thought schools ought to teach both evolution and intelligent design. Students ought to hear both theories, he said, so they “can understand what the debate is about.”

 

Well, the usual critics jumped all over the president, but he’s absolutely right. Considering all competing theories was once the very definition of academic freedom. But today, the illiberal forces of secularism want to stifle any challenges to Darwin—even though Darwin is proving to be eminently challengeable.

 

Take biochemist Michael Behe’s argument. He says that the cell is irreducibly complex. All the parts have to work at once, so it could not have evolved. No one has been able to successfully challenge Behe’s argument.

 

In fact, the scientific case for intelligent design is so strong that, as BreakPoint listeners have heard me say, even Antony Flew, once the world’s leading philosopher of atheism, has renounced his life-long beliefs and has become, as he puts it, a deist. He now believes an intelligent designer designed the universe, though he says he cannot know God yet.

 

I was in Oxford last week, speaking at the C. S. Lewis Summer Institute, and had a chance to visit with Flew. He told a crowd that, as a professional philosopher, he had used all the tools of his trade to arrive at what he believed were intellectually defensible suppositions supporting atheism. But the intelligent design movement shook those presuppositions. He said, however, on philosophical grounds that he could not prove the existence of the God of the Bible.

 

In the question period, I walked to the microphone and told him as nicely as I could that he had put himself in an impossible box. He could prove theism was the only philosophically sustainable position, but he could not prove who God was. I said, “If you could prove who God was, you could not love God—which is the principle object of life.”

[....]

 

 

[theist 1]

Here is a reprint of an article first posted by krsna some time back.

-----------------

 

The Scientific World Is Turning to God

 

 

HARUN YAHYA

 

 

 

"As people have certainly been influenced by me, I want to try and correct the enormous damage I may have done." (Anthony Flew)

 

The newspapers these days are echoing with these regret-filled words by Anthony Flew, in his time a well-known atheist philosopher. The 81-year-old British professor of philosophy Flew chose to become an atheist at the age of 15, and first made a name for himself in the academic field with a paper published in 1950. In the 54 years that followed, he defended atheism as a teacher at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele and Reading, at many American and Canadian universities he visited, in debates, books, lecture halls and articles. In recent days, however, Flew has announced that he has abandoned this error and accepts that the universe was created.

 

The decisive factor in this radical change of view is the clear and definitive evidence revealed by science on the subject of creation. Flew realised, in the face of the information-based complexity of life, that the true origin of life is intelligent design and that the atheism he had espoused for 66 years was a discredited philosophy.

 

Flew announced the scientific reasons underlying this change in belief in these terms:

 

"Biologists' investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved." (1)

 

"It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism." (2)

 

"I have been persuaded that it is simply out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and then developed into an extraordinarily complicated creature." (3)

 

The DNA research which Flew cites as a fundamental reason for his change of opinion has indeed revealed striking facts about creation. The helix shape of the DNA molecule, its possession of the genetic code, the nucleotide strings that refute blind chance, the storage of encyclopaedic quantities of information and many other striking findings have revealed that the structure and functions of this molecule were arranged for life with a special design. Comments by scientists concerned with DNA research bear witness to this fact.

 

Francis Crick, for instance, one of the scientists who revealed the helix shape of DNA admitted in the face of the findings regarding DNA that the origin of life indicated a miracle:

 

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. (4)

 

Based on his calculations, Led Adleman of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles has stated that one gram of DNA can store as much information as a trillion compact discs. (5) Gene Myers, a scientist employed on the Human Genome Project, has said the following in the face of the miraculous arrangements he witnessed:

 

 

"What really astounds me is the architecture of life… The system is extremely complex. It's like it was designed… There's a huge intelligence there." (6)

 

The most striking fact about DNA is that the existence of the coded genetic information can definitely not be explained in terms of matter and energy or natural laws. Dr. Werner Gitt, a professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, has said this on the subject:

 

A code system is always the result of a mental process… It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required… There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this. (7)

 

Creationist scientists and philosophers played a major role in Flew's acceptance of intelligent design, backed up by all these findings. In recent times Flew participated in debates with scientists and philosophers who were proponents of creation, and exchanged ideas with them. The final turning point in that process was a discussion organised by the Institute for Metascientific Research in Texas in May, 2003. Flew participated together with author Roy Abraham Varghese, Israeli physicist and molecular biologist Gerald Schroeder, and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane. Flew was impressed by the weight of the scientific evidence in favour of creation and by the convincing nature of his opponents' arguments, and abandoned atheism as an idea in the period following that discussion. In a letter he wrote for the August-September, 2003, edition of the British magazine Philosophy Now, he recommended Schroeder's book "The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth" and Varghese's book "The Wonderful World."(8) During an interview with the professor of philosophy and theology Gary R. Habermas, who also played a major role in his change of mind (9), and also on the video "Has Science Discovered God?," he openly stated that he believed in intelligent design.

 

The "Intelligence Pervading the Universe" and the Collapse of Atheism

 

In the face of all the scientific developments outlined above, the acceptance of intelligent design by Antony Flew, famous for defending atheism for many years, reflects a final scene in the process of collapse being undergone by atheism. Modern science has revealed the existence of an "intelligence pervading the universe," thus leaving atheism out of the equation.

 

In his book "The Hidden Face of God," Gerald Schroeder, one of the creationist scientists who influenced Flew, writes:

 

"A single consciousness, a universal wisdom, pervades the universe. The discoveries of science, those that search the quantum nature of subatomic matter, have moved us to the brink of a startling realization: all existence is the expression of this wisdom. In the laboratories we experience it as information that first physically articulated as energy and then condensed into the form of matter. Every particle, every being, from atom to human, appears to represent a level of information, of wisdom." (10)

 

Scientific research into both the functioning of the cell and the subatomic particles of matter has revealed this fact in an indisputable manner: Life and the universe were brought into being from nothing by the will of an entity possessed of a superior mind and wisdom. There is no doubt that the possessor of that knowledge and mind that pervade the universe at all levels is Almighty Allah. Allah reveals this truth in the Qur'an:

 

Both East and West belong to Allah, so wherever you turn, the Face of Allah is there. Allah is All-Encompassing, All-Knowing." (Qur'an, 2:115)

 

 

 

 

 

_________

 

i Richard N. Ostling, "Lifelong atheist changes mind about divine creator," The Washington Times 10 December 2004; http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041209-113212-2782r.htm

2- Antony Flew, "Letter from Antony Flew on Darwinism and Theology," Philosophy Now; http://www.philosophynow.org/issue47/47flew.htm

3- Stuart Wavell and Will Iredale, "Sorry, says atheist-in-chief, I do believe in God after all," The Sunday Times, 12 December 2004; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1400368,00.html

4- Francis Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 88

5- John Whitfield, "Physicists plunder life's tool chest", 24 April 2003; http://www.nature.com/nsu/030421/030421-6.html

6- San Francisco Chronicle, 19 February, 2001

7- Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, CLV, Bielenfeld, Germany, pp. 64-7, 79

8- Antony Flew, "Letter from Antony Flew on Darwinism and Theology," Philosophy Now; http://www.philosophynow.org/issue47/47flew.htm

9- "Atheist Becomes Theist: Exclusive Interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew;" http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/index.cfm

10- Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God, Touchstone, New York, 2001, p. xi

 

 

[Guest guest]

Theist,

 

my problem with Intelligent Design is manifold.

 

Firstly, the Vedas do teach that life forms can arise from nature. The upanishads and vedanta sutra both discuss life forms arising from water etc., and in the vedanta Vyasa says this type of life is called germination, for it is similar to the sprouting of plants.

 

Second, I think Intelligent Design is a political effort to start to introduce christian doctines such as creationism as if they were "truth".

 

Third, from what I've seen, all the arguements in favor of intelligent design were proven to be foolish long, long ago.

 

Fourth, the Vedas give an entirely different view of the beginnings of life and for what i can see it is different from creationism.

 

Fifth, there are other theories around which are worth considering, such as the proposition that life on earth came to earth from other planets where higher life forms live.

[Guest guest]

A certain

section says, "There is God. Surely He exists." Others say, "No, there

is no God, He never existed." This quarrel is useless; still it will

continue. In a particular section this argument will have no end. Those

who have no eyes will be unable to see the sun.

- Srila Sridhar Maharaj

[Guest guest]

A certain section says, "There is God. Surely He exists." Others say, "No, there is no God, He never existed." This quarrel is useless; still it will continue. In a particular section this argument will have no end. Those who have no eyes will be unable to see the sun.

 

- Srila Sridhar Maharaj

[theist 1]

Well you and I must agree to disagree. I think you are way off base bro. but it's not my position to push it. This quote contains the point but it's already been made.

 

 

Firstly, the Vedas do teach that life forms can arise from nature. ...

 

 

Such lifeforms are not life and since they are themselves material in nature then of course they arise from material nature. BUT UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE INTELLIGENT DESIGNER. Why you disagree with this I can't figure out.

 

Haribol