Freeman Dyson - Is Intelligent Design Evidence of God?

I don't think Intelligent Design is explicit evidence of any religion or their deities ~ but it is most certainly very strong evidence for an intelligence, an engineer, of some capacity. We can only kick the ball so far ~ aliens, highly advanced civilizations, space gremlins?, what-have-you ~ before we're forced by necessity to consider a non-physical consciousness of also necessarily complex and vast intelligence and capability that can logically and intuitively create / manifest / etc the extremely complex system of material and physical existence and forces that we observe.

I don't think intelligent design is evidence for God, I think it is God.  What else is God but the intelligence that designed everything?  You might not like the word because of its religious connotations but the two are the same thing.

I don't think intelligent design is evidence for God, I think it is God.  What else is God but the intelligence that designed everything?  You might not like the word because of its religious connotations but the two are the same thing.

Do you mean that the universe is the expression of God's rationality as God is the source of Universals including the Rules of Logic?

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by Intelligent Design simply *being* God, and I've been going over a lot of David Bentley Hart who takes the above position I just mentioned that Idealism of a sort is true because Reality holds together in a rational way and thus reflect's God's rationality.

I don't think Intelligent Design is explicit evidence of any religion or their deities ~ but it is most certainly very strong evidence for an intelligence, an engineer, of some capacity. We can only kick the ball so far ~ aliens, highly advanced civilizations, space gremlins?, what-have-you ~ before we're forced by necessity to consider a non-physical consciousness of also necessarily complex and vast intelligence and capability that can logically and intuitively create / manifest / etc the extremely complex system of material and physical existence and forces that we observe.

I don't think it is necessary to hypothesize that God was necessarily the intelligent agent behind evolution. The God hypothesis seems required for instance for the fine tuning of the laws of physics, and definitely for the existence of our physical/spiritual reality, but for the evolution of life the designing agent or agents could have been lesser entities having at least some limitations such as very high spiritual beings of some sort. The actual fossil record with its repeated abrupt creative innovative jumps in organismal complexity implies limitations of some kind. I think there probably is some sort of heirarchy of creative beings, with humans at the bottom level.

I don't think it is necessary to hypothesize that God was necessarily the intelligent agent behind evolution. The God hypothesis seems required for instance for the fine tuning of the laws of physics, and definitely for the existence of our physical/spiritual reality, but for the evolution of life the designing agent or agents could have been lesser entities having at least some limitations such as very high spiritual beings of some sort. The actual fossil record with its repeated abrupt creative innovative jumps in organismal complexity implies limitations of some kind. I think there probably is some sort of heirarchy of creative beings, with humans at the bottom level.

For me... "God" is simply an abstract entity used by religion to point to something vaster. When someone has a mystical experience, they report the experience of blending, merging, with the "godhead", as it were, a vast infinite awareness. "God" is just a label, a pointer, to a something that is very much beyond human comprehension.

So... fine-tuning doesn't require a "God" in the religious sense ~ just an intelligent agent that some might use the pointer "God" to attempt to describe.

For New Agers, there is "Source", for Hindus "Brahman", for Taoists "Tao", and so on and so forth. Just words to attempt to describe a transcendent something that is beyond human ken.

I don't think intelligent design is evidence for God, I think it is God.  What else is God but the intelligence that designed everything?  You might not like the word because of its religious connotations but the two are the same thing.

"What else is God ...?"

I suppose those of a religious inclination would answer the question of the nature of God by saying, 'God is love'. I'm not sure this moves the discussion forward, but it certainly ought to enter into consideration.

"What else is God ...?"

I suppose those of a religious inclination would answer the question of the nature of God by saying, 'God is love'. I'm not sure this moves the discussion forward, but it certainly ought to enter into consideration.

I do think Love does enter into these considerations because it's been proposed as having a role at least back to Plato's Dialogues but probably earlier and continues today even in people like Bill Mensch who revive suggestions that the attractive impulses in nature are in some way comparable to the romantic love between people. [For reference the Dialogue I was thinking of was Symposium.]

We also know Love plays an important role in many NDEs and Mystic Visions and seems to empower some souls to choose - to at least some degree - which mothers will birth them when they reincarnate.

I do think Love does enter into these considerations because it's been proposed as having a role at least back to Plato's Dialogues but probably earlier and continues today even in people like Bill Mensch who revive suggestions that the attractive impulses in nature are in some way comparable to the romantic love between people. [For reference the Dialogue I was thinking of was Symposium.]

We also know Love plays an important role in many NDEs and Mystic Visions and seems to empower some souls to choose - to at least some degree - which mothers will birth them when they reincarnate.

I think that love has something to do with an emotional resonance... perhaps even psychic or spiritual. Those who are similar in nature will find themselves at ease with each other ~ strong platonic friends who are together through thick and thin are like this too. Like attracts like...

I think that love has something to do with an emotional resonance... perhaps even psychic or spiritual. Those who are similar in nature will find themselves at ease with each other ~ strong platonic friends who are together through thick and thin are like this too. Like attracts like...

Yeah it could be less love specifically and more all emotions could be the driving force for various causal events.

I'm admittedly sympathetic because I think all causation is mental causation.