could reality itself be an illusion?
Thinking about the awesome power available to a Designer, this morning I began to wonder what if any limits such a Designer might have on His actions. If the very fabric and laws of the Universe were created by the Designer, then even logical contradictions could coexist peacefully. If the Designer controls how logic itself works, then the Designer could make exceptions to it. An example would be the ability, say, for the Designer to Design Himself. Or (in an example already known to physicists) a photon could be both a particle and a wave simultaneously.
Such thought opens up a rabbit hole for the truly imaginative among Intelligent Design Scientists. It also gives comfort to those who struggle with their faith, wondering if perhaps they have chosen the wrong one from among the hundreds of seemingly contradictory ones available. One outcome of this thinking is that a literal interpretation of the Bible AND fundamentalist Islam AND Mormonism AND Hinduism AND Tom Cruisian scientology AND atheistic Darwinism are all simultaneously 100% correct.
But perhaps reality is even stranger than that. Perhaps it is all an illusion, with thoughts being dictated in real time by a constantly-interceding Designer, one with the power to feed all of our minds with a constant stream of every-changing thoughts like an old-timey fireman stoking a locomotive engine. It could be that there are no laws of physics or economics or biology, that all of us are being animated continuously by an extremely industrious puppet master and that any patterns we see in the "show" are purely accidental and temporary. In such a reality, science would cease to have any fundamental explanatory power.
Unfortunately, though, it's doubtful that this radical challenge to scientific orthodoxy will ever be taught in our public schools.
If what I'm saying is true, then the Bible can say anything it wants and be 100% accurate while (simultaneously) something seemingly contradictory (such as the Universe being a trillion years old and our brains being made of sets of small steam-powered analogue computers designed by the dinosaurs - "designosaurs" if you will) can also be 100% true. Obviously the Bible doesn't contain all truth (since there is nothing in it describing what I did this morning, how many protons are in the nucleus of a Sodium atom, or who will win today's Florida primaries), so (if you're willing to concede that a Designer has the power to alter the rules of logic) then contradictory philosophies might coexist and and it might be impossible for the human brain to comprehend it all. In this case it wouldn't matter what the Bible said.
Qunitillis,
One of the things that attracted me to ID in the first place is that we have the freedom to ask the big "What If?" questions. I'm talking about the kind of questions that mainstream science considers off-topic or not worth thinking about.
This certainly qualifies as one of the biggest "what ifs" in the whole of science.
I like to think that life on earth is a kind of test-run, or as we scientists say a "simulation", to see which life-forms or souls have the required qualities of intelligence and goodness. Those that follow the rules will be be rebooted in some kind of subsequent simulation.
"Follow the evidence, wherever it leads you" - Michael Behe
so (if you're willing to concede that a Designer has the power to alter the rules of logic) then contradictory philosophies might coexist
This sort of thing is no problem to us non-materialists, however just try arguing this one with a fundamentalist naturalist. They believe they have a monopoly on logic. Of course a designer can change the rules of logic - I believe that logic is a view into the ordered mind of the designer.
So are you saying that God can lie? Can He go against His Word? These and a myriad of other problems arise with such a thought -- that God can violate the laws of logic.
Who said that the designer was God? Dembski has argued that the designer might be some form of sufficiently advanced space-alien. ID never names the designer we only seek to investigate it's actions in a rational, calm, scientific manner.
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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
NOTICIA NUEVA: I APPENDED THIS HERE BECAUSE THE MY BLOG DOESN'T APPEAR TO BE ACCEPTING NEW POSTS
I just saw a video of Christopher Hitchens giving his latest argument for why there is no God. You can view it here: http://digg.com/lbv.php?id=5031265&ord=1
Now we all know that Mr. Hitchens is part of the secular left (even if he did support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) and that anything that comes out of his mouth should be discounted to dollar store levels. But he does make a valid point here: why would a just, compassionate, non-sadistic God let us suffer for 98 thousand years in pre-Christian misery before finally getting off His duff and sending down His only begotten son? Would that be the sort of God anyone would actually want to worship? And here in the ID movement - is that any sort of Designer you'd want to trust with drafting the blueprints for your body? Hitchen's critique is devastating and makes God out to be a slackerly delinquent of galactic proportions. The only hopeful rebuttal I can muster is that Hichens is wrong about the age of the Earth and humans had only been around for four thousand years before Jesus died for our sins so that we might be saved. But still, 4000 years is a long time, and Hitchens is still correct that dropping Jesus into the Roman-era Palestine wasn't good timing considering the media and communication technology available in those days. Why didn't God wait until the invention of television, the Internet, the Web, YouTube, and Facebook? That question is an imponderable and ranks up there with other mysterious ways in which the Good Lord acts. But I'm wondering if perhaps that 4000 years preceding the birth of Christ is correct. I know medieval scholars (Archbishop James Usher) calculated the Beginning as happening in the year 4004 BC. But how accurate is this figure? Have modern scholars and scientists revisited Usher's calculations? Could it be that the age of the Earth is even younger than that? If the Earth was created a couple hundred years before Christ instead of four thousand, then it would make more sense in terms of the timing of the Birth of the Saviour of the World. The vast distances in historic time between episodes of sin and redemption would be reduced, thereby showing God to be as merciful as we know Him to be.
One possible critique of Christopher Hitchens is that, in some ways, the timing of Jesus's birth was most fortuitous from a marketing standpoint. It came at a time when the Roman Empire was at its geographic peak and hungry for a new religion. The Roman Empire would go on to bring Christianity to a large block of people who would have missed it had Christ been born in, say, Australia, or even China. Because He was born in the Roman Empire, the Empire became Christianized. And after that it broke up and became many subsequent and geographically ambitious empires, ones that went on to introduce Christ's message to a whole new half of the planet.
Serious Problems Here...
So are you saying that God can lie? Can He go against His Word? These and a myriad of other problems arise with such a thought -- that God can violate the laws of logic.
See John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Many Christian philosophers see the logos as logic. That is to say, God's nature is one of logic. Logic was not created by God, but flows from His very nature.
Therefore, to suggest that God can violate His very nature is an impossibility. I would strongly disagree with any suggestion that, as you say, "Islam AND Mormonism AND Hinduism AND Tom Cruisian scientology AND atheistic Darwinism are all simultaneously 100% correct."
"The Designer designing himself" --???? Please. Why do you say that it is "unfortunate" that is "radical challenge to orthodoxy will never be taught"?
I believe your reasoning on this one is fundamentally flawed.