An Evolving Conversation
A buddy of mine and I have been playing e-mail tag and it's been interesting enough to post here.
It started with me sending to him a link to a news story about a local school teaching "Intelligent Design" in an effort to balance the teaching of Evolution.
His reply: Probably even proselytizing according to the American Civil Liberals Union.
Mine: Evolution can be explained and accepted under the idea of "Intelligent Design" -- so what's the problem? Why can't God be responsible for Evolution? We may never know -- before leaving Earth.
His reply: The philosophy of naturalism explains a great deal.
Mine: And naturalism opens some worm cans, too. 'Naturalism is a metaphysical theory which holds that all phenomena can be explained mechanistically in terms of natural (as opposed to supernatural) causes and laws. Naturalism posits that the universe is a vast "machine" or "organism," devoid of general purpose and indifferent to human needs and desires' (The Skeptic's Dictionary). If the last clause was removed I'd be interested. Then God could be put back into the equation. Why couldn't God create one "vast 'machine' or 'organism'" for His needs? Check out what the same source says about Intelligent Design. I'm beginning to like the concept, if only to get both sides engaging in a healthy debate.
His reply: That is Deism
My Reply: No, because simply removing that clause doesn't imply the lack of a revealed religion (the basic tenet of Deism). It simply means that God does care. He can reveal His presence by sending His Son to an Earth changed by evolutionary forces that He designed. Makes sense to me. The Garden of Eden was perfect and didn't need to evolve. So what better way to destroy it than with a batch of Evolution-induced entropy? But does it all really matter as long as we accept God's love and the penance paid by Jesus? Nope. It just gives us something to do while we are here.
I'll post more of the conversation if it continues and I think you might find it interesting. As a side note, I used to consider myself a Deist until I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. That, of course, made me a Christian but it didn't strip me of reason. But I am now mature enough to step beyond the observable, concrete fabric of our universe to have faith.
