DNA Proves Existence of a Designer

[T0 Th3 M4X]

Sorry for the slow response. I decided to take a couple days as a breather from this place.  Although I enjoy a lot of the conversations, it can be a bit over the top at times, so for my own good I needed to step back.  Had to go back and find your post as well.

I'll try to provide thoughtful answers, but if I don't tough on something, feel free to follow up.  I also agree with your statement about rare phenomena being natural.

1. I'm mostly speaking subjectively here, so please keep that in mind.  I think that once you see something at what would be considered the "point of no return" and that somehow changes with no apparent natural explanation, then it becomes a piece of a larger puzzle.  He had what was called "Wegener's Granulomatosis", which is an autoimmune disease that constricts the blood vessels and as such it begins to shutdown various organs.  He was in an advanced stage of this, and I believe the prognosis was less than 30 days.  It was also over 30 years ago when there were less known treatment options. I think I mentioned earlier that he had to go to another state so they could administer an experimental treatment.  Addtionally, he was getting blood transfusions.  When everything was thought to have failed, the doctors were the ones who prayed for him.  From that moment, he began to recover.  Maybe a year or two later, it had completely vanished and he was back to work.  He went back and worked about another 25 years, until he retired around age 72-73. A little bit grumpier than he used to be, but regardless, he's still around.  In fact, visited me yesterday.  So to answer your question more directly, I don't know that there is, or even has to be, a method to distinguish.  If something happens, we just measure it against ourselves and do our best to understand.  Over the course of life, hopefully that leads us down a path we are content with.

Sorry for my tardy response!  The holidays were a blur, as I'm sure you can relate! So, I'm hoping that you don't mind if I critique some of the logic you've laid out in your response above.  Please understand, I am not criticizing you as a person, nor your emotions as they relate to this experience with your dad.  I don't find pleasure in putting others down, but I do think that it is fair to critique an idea or a belief, which is what I will do here. Though you did not explicitly state as such, you seem to be suggesting that because your father recovered after the doctors began praying for him, this would indicate that the cause of his subsequent recovery was the prayer itself.  I'm not sure if you are familiar with logical fallacies, but there is one here.  In plain language, this is a, 'after it, therefore because of it', fallacy.  In other words, just because event B follows event A, this does not necessarily mean that event A caused event B.  You would need some supporting evidence for this proposition, and/or be able to demonstrate that you have ruled out other possible causes for your father's recovery; for example, a currently unknown, yet natural cause. This point circle's us back to my original question to you: how can we determine what point is the "point of no return", as you put it? Since we both agree that rare, naturally caused medical phenomena do occur, by what method can we reach the conclusion that an affliction is 'beyond the point of a rare, yet naturally caused healing, and requires a miracle?'  If we have no method by which to make this distinction, than we can never reasonably conclude that a miracle had to be the cause. We can’t even conclude that was most likely the cause. Does that make sense?  Would you agree with me when I say that a reliable methodology is crucial to reaching conclusions that are highly likely to be true?

2. I think it reflects genuine love for the human condition from God (if you will).  If just for the sake of discussion, we assume God, and we see a belief from various backgrounds that He does intervene very directly at times, then maybe it would be better to understand why it is like that.  My belief (again subjective) is that there is a greater understanding of where we are at as individuals, rather than just being bound by our interest in a religion of ideology.  I know everybody doesn't accept the Bible, but if we go by it, then a woman named Rahab, who was regarded as a prostitute and a harlot, through an act of faithfulness, managed to end up being the great great great great great etc... grandmother of Jesus.   Of course some may say "it didn't happen", but if it did, then for me I can consider it, and that is another piece that can go into that larger puzzle.

Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly: you're saying that these experiences and interventions by god, don't necessarily lead people to a specific religion, but rather, to the more general notion that things happen to us for a reason that is important to our own individual experience with god. Would that be a correct summation of what you said above?  Please correct me if I've misunderstood.  I think that, as you said, if we assume for the sake of the argument that a personal god does exist, and does intervene in the lives of humans, than your point is a reasonable one, yes. 

Feel free to respond at your leisure, and I hope you had a nice Christmas!

I appreciate your questions and your kindness.  If you would like me to clarify or expand on anything feel free to ask.  Also, can you share a little about your background in terms of life, religion, atheism, or whatever it is you define yourself by? Thanks.

Well, I'm married with two young boys.  I'm a dietitian, but currently a stay-at-home mom for the kids until everyone is in school.  I was raised Christian (Episcopalian), but Christianity fell apart for me in my late teens.  I was in sort of the, "I'm not sure what's out there, but I'm not really interested in thinking about it too hard" camp until about a year after the birth of my first son.  For some reason I started spending many nights awake perseverating on that very question, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't have any reasons or evidence to hold onto a belief in god, and it just sort of fell away.  I grieved that loss for a long time, but this community has helped me process that grief, and has been personally fulfilling on a number of levels.  The people here have become an important part of my life.  Hope that helps you understand me a little better!  What about you? Any kids?  What do you do?  Do you identify as a member of a specific religion?

Sorry for the late response. This thread seems to grow rather quickly and I didn't realize there was a response, the I had to go back and find it when you mentioned it.

- I would have to sorta agree and disagree with your initial statement.  I agree that it wasn't conclusive, but I had also mentioned that it was part of a piece of a larger puzzle.  That's how life is and some things we believe or make decisions are the culmination of past events.  It wasn't even at that time when it led me to be more decisive about the whole matter.  Logical fallacies focus on an individual comment or point, and assert that they aren't sufficient on their own.  That doesn't mean the overall idea if false.  As such, I wasn't saying it was meant to be conclusive.  It also wouldn't have been feasible for me to drop everything into one post.  Thanks for sharing this though, and I understand where you are coming from.

- I would agree with your description about what I was suggesting.  I don't believe God asserts less value to someone based on if they are a Christian, an atheist, or hold to any other ideology or belief system.  People often use the term "relationship" because that's the underlying idea.  At face value, a lot of people tend to focus on the idea of sin, morality, and laws.  If I had to describe what is meant by Christianity, my initial thought would be to describe "community."  A church can be a building, but "the Church" is the people under God.  Things like "sin" are more about disinterest.  It doesn't have to be there, but unfortunately it is.  If you swapped the word "sin" with "rebellion" then I think that would be an accurate representation.  We have things we should follow, but we don't always follow them.  It could be for various reasons, but regardless we created a gap that doesn't need to exist.  Reconciliation is how that gap is eliminated.  Not only it is eliminated, but it is said to be forgotten.  The Bible describes it as being cast "as far as the east as from the west" and it's literally forgotten by God.  So overall, the idea is to not have those gaps and to function as a community.  If we follow the same rules, then we have a more functional community.

- I understand where you are coming from.  It's important to ask ourselves what we believe and why we believe it.  I personally believe that it's important to assess personal responsibility. If there is a God, what does that require of me?"  It doesn't necessarily mean I'll get the right answer, but it gives me something to ponder. Equally, I have to ask myself "What is God's responsibility to me if He exists?" I don't believe it's just me seeking, but God seeks us as well.  In all of it, we meet Him somewhere in the middle.  That is relationship.

- So what about me?  Short version, I'm a U.S. Army veteran.  Was married way back during my Army days.  The woman I was married to got pregnant once, but she was on BC, so the baby ended up being stillborn.  I grieved over it because I knew a decision "we" made contributed to what had happened.  The relationship also gradually dissolved due to Army life, conflict with her family, and I was stationed overseas.  I was working long hours, she was bored, and when I got out it all fell apart.  So after that, I went back to college, got a dual degree in the social sciences.  Almost finished a triple, but I was sick of school and just wanted to focus on career.  Worked mostly in severe mental health, mental retardation, and family stabilization.  Had a health issue of my own so I had to take time to recover, but at the same time I didn't want to be stagnant, so I became an independent publisher, and not only began publishing my own work, but maybe 50 or so other authors/writers.  Have been doing that since.  Although I probably sound like I'm a loud mouth here, I'm actually not so much when working with people.  I like to be in the background and helping others shine.  Currently I live in a community with a decent population of military folk and contractors, so I also enjoy helping out neighbors when they're deployed somewhere.  And I can't forget, two hound doggies and two Siamese cats.  They're like kids and follow me around everywhere.