When left to their own devices, the laws of nature tend toward death, not life. So what does it take for life to exist? On a new episode of ID the Future, host Eric Anderson talks with physician Howard Glicksman about some of the remarkable engineering challenges that have to be solved to produce and maintain living organisms such as ourselves. Glicksman is co-author with systems engineer Steve Laufmann of the recent book Your Designed Body, an exploration of the extraordinary system of systems that encompasses thousands of ingenious and interdependent engineering solutions to keep us alive and ticking. In the “just so” stories of the Darwinian narrative, these engineering solutions simply evolved. They emerged and got conserved. Voila! But in this chat, Anderson and Glicksman explain that it takes more than the laws of nature to keep us from dying. “Chemicals on their own don’t have any desire or tendency to turn into living organisms,” says Anderson. “They tend to degrade, they tend to break down, they tend to go back to their basic constituents.” Glicksman and Anderson discuss examples, including how the human body handles friction, heat transfer, and the crucial task of maintaining chemical balance at the cellular level. And where does all this essential innovation come from? Glicksman points to an intelligent cause that transcends matter and energy. Download the podcast or listen to it here.
Luke ch.6:20-26KJV"20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 21Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
24But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. 26Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."
Here is strong's on the word rendered "poor":
4434. ptóchos ►
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance
beggar, poor.
From ptosso (to crouch); akin to ptoeo and the alternate of pipto); a beggar (as cringing), i.e. Pauper (strictly denoting absolute or public mendicancy, although also used in a qualified or relative sense; whereas penes properly means only straitened circumstances in private), literally (often as noun) or figuratively (distressed) -- beggar(-ly), poor.:
Taken literally Jesus said happy/ blessed are you beggars. There were certainly no literal beggars among the twelve apostles that He had just chosen. So what kind of beggar does JEHOVAH bless ,the parallel account of Matthew is helpful.
Matthew ch.5:3NIV"“Blessed are the poor in(Beggars for the) spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
The simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to the spiritual we are all poor. Some are aware of that critical poverty in their own particular case and are eagerly pursuing the one source that can alleviate it, our Lord promises that all such are due for a blessing.
Others imagine themselves to be "rich" but Paul warns that our evaluation of ourselves is of no consequence
1Corinthians ch.4:4NIV"My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."
So the "rich" are "poor" in JEHOVAH'S eyes and the "poor" are "rich" in JEHOVAH'S eyes.
It's time again to address some misunderstandings of intelligent design. First, is the inference to design in biology based on a mere analogy to other forms of design, by humans?
Let’s consider the question. To start, let’s ask: Why can we make this inference in the first place? It’s because natural systems contain the type of information and complexity that in our experience come only from intelligence. This is not merely an “analogy” but derives instead from the sequence-based specified complexity that we see in living systems (e.g., DNA), which is precisely the same, at the mathematical level, as we see in written language. Hubert Yockey makes this clear:
It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis [that the exact order of symbols records the information] applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical.
HUBERT P. YOCKEY, “SELF ORGANIZATION ORIGIN OF LIFE SCENARIOS AND INFORMATION THEORY,” JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY, VOL. 91:13-31 (1981).
So what we see in living systems has mathematical and informational properties that are identical to written language.
Aligned with Mainstream Science
We also see machines in living systems. That’s not to say that cells or living systems on the whole are “machines,” but they do contain machines. It’s not a stretch to say that calling these things a machine is more than an analogy — it’s an identity. This is because you see the same design logic in molecular machines within cells that you see in human-designed machines.
The classic example would be ATP synthase where you find a stator, a rotor, an energy source, and you are converting one form of energy into another (with ATP synthase you are converting the electrical potential of proton flow into mechanical energy and that mechanical energy is then converted into the chemical energy of ATP). You’d be hard pressed not to call these things machines, and the idea is not unaligned with mainstream science. As former President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts stated:
The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines…. Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.
BRUCE ALBERTS, “THE CELL AS A COLLECTION OF PROTEIN MACHINES: PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGISTS,” CELL, VOL. 92:291 (FEBRUARY 6, 1998).
Likewise, in 2000, Marco Piccolini wrote in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology that “extraordinary biological machines realize the dream of the seventeenth-century scientists … that ‘machines will be eventually found not only unknown to us but also unimaginable by our mind.’” He notes that modern biological machines “surpass the expectations of the early life scientists.” (Marco Piccolino, “Biological machines: from mills to molecules,” Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Vol. 1:149-153 (November, 2000).)
So, is it just an analogy or is it an identity? Or perhaps both? When we look at the mathematics and physics behind what is going on, the similarities between biological machines and biological information and written language and human-designed machines go beyond mere analogy and become an identity. If it’s an identity then it’s more than just an analogy.
How Things Become Themselves
Other people (or sometimes the same people) label arguments for intelligent design as “theology” or “metaphysics.” Are they right?
Now science is in the business of explaining how things originate and form. This is done through the historical sciences. A historical science starts by observing causes at work in the world around us. Some of those causes include:
Random mutation
Natural selection
Intelligent agency
We can observe each of these causes and understand the kind of information and complexity they are capable of generating. Because we have observation-based experience with these causes we know what they can and cannot do. Because we can observe, study, and understand the causal powers of these causes in real time, they are therefore proper subjects of scientific study and are causes that we can potentially invoke to explain things in nature. Full stop.
And here is what some of those observations reveal, in simple terms:
Random mutation and/or natural selection does NOT generate high levels of complex and specified information.
Intelligent agency DOES generate high levels of complex and specified information.
Random mutation and/or natural selection does NOT generate machines.
Intelligent agency DOES generate machines.
In all of our experience, high levels of complex and specified information and machines have only one known source: intelligence. We know that intelligence can produce these things due to our experience-based observations of intelligent agents in the world around us. Thus, we have empirical grounds for inferring that an intelligent cause was at work.
So, it’s true that some label these arguments metaphysics or theology, or call it a “distortion” to say this type of reasoning is science. But no, everything above is based the methods of science. That’s all there is to it
The ONLY Way that Trinitarians can appear to prevail in debate is by confusion. That is why it is so important to clarify definitions from the begining. Who/what is the most high God? Is this most high God triune? Is this trinity composed of three distinct Gods.
Is any of these three distinct persons/Gods the most high God?
This is especially the case when they attempt to use/misuse disputed scriptures like
Romans ch.9:5NCB"to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah,[b] who is over all, God blessed for ever.[c] Amen."
Obviously Paul is glorifying the one and only most high God for favouring Israel spiritually. The greatest of these favours is that of having the saviour of mankind as a descendent of their patriarchs and prophets. Some Trinitarians in a desperate attempt to extract proof for their extra biblical claims of a triune most high God, claim that Paul is making the Messiah who sprang from Israel according to the flesh numerically identical to the most high God.
The problem of course is that if the very unipersonal Messiah is made to be the MOST HIGH GOD then the obvious result is a falsifying of the Nicene creed. Which plainly declares that the constituents of the trinity are merely distinct persons but not distinct Gods or Lords and certainly not that most distinct most high God and most high Lord who/which is tri-personal.
Romans ch.9:5CJB"the Patriarchs are theirs; and from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah, who is over all. Praised be Adonai for ever! Amen."
Romans ch.9:5CEV"They have those famous ancestors, who were also the ancestors of the Christ.[a] I pray that God, who rules over all, will be praised forever![b] Amen."
Romans ch.9:5GNT"they are descended from the famous Hebrew ancestors; and Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race. May God, who rules over all, be praised forever![b] Amen."
Romans ch.9:5TLB"Great men of God were your fathers, and Christ himself was one of you, a Jew so far as his human nature is concerned, he who now rules over all things. Praise God forever!"
Romans ch.9:5NAB(RE)"They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5 theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Messiah. God who is over all[c] be blessed forever. Amen."
Romans ch.9:5NLV"The early preachers came from this family. Christ Himself was born of flesh from this family and He is over all things. May God be honored and thanked forever. Let it be so."
Romans ch.9:5RSV"to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever.[a] Amen."
Romans ch.9:5Goodspeed"and the patriarchs, and from them physically Christ came—God who is over all be blessed forever! Amen. "
