Intelligence "designed" from within rather than from the outside (was: Monist Zoroastrianism)

Dear Parviz

I believe that the mistake being made in the debate is that somehow people believe that if we remove the designer we also remove the intelligence. But we don't and I never understood why we should. Science does not, as you so correctly point out. Where western dualists are either for "intelligent design" or against it, as Zoroastrians we have always been able to skip the designer and embrace the intelligence wholeheartedly directly (the Mazda of Ahura Mazda). In other words: The Universe is the manifestation of intelligence, coming from WITHIN itself, not from some spooky wrongly assumed outside. Whether we THEN refer to this as Pantheism or Panentheism, we do all believe in something distinctly different from Western dualism or the Abrahamic faiths. We share the belief in Ahura with the Brahmanists in India (their Brahman), what is unique to us is the belief in the Mazda. This is why we are Mazdayasni and not Brahmanists.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/11/1 Parviz Varjavand



Dear fellow Mazdayasni Philosophers,
(I have explained before why I believe Mazda-Yasna and Philo-Sophia mean the same thing, Lovers of Thinking)

The "Intelligent Design" argument can and does work against itself in trying to prove that an ultimately Wise Creator must have created the very complex parts of this creation. Richard Dawkins is the best modern scientist-philosopher for taking the Intelligent Design argument apart and making it work against an Abrahamic Monotheistic view of a Wise Creator having a workshop outside His/Her creation doing it all.

When we consider that billions of universes exist and they are constantly being born and dying, then it would not be surprising if in one of these billions upon billions of chances, in one of these universes and in a tiny planet in one of them, our kind of life has accrued. A "Designer Free" evolutionary theory works better for explaining our situation than does an "Intelligent Designer" doing it all as the Abrahamic faiths teach.

We still know Ostad Jafarey as a good teacher of Zoroastrianism. I would truly appreciate it if he would join us and tell us where we Monist Zoroastrians are going wrong and that a Monotheistic view of Zoroastrianism should be the only proper one to undertake.

Mehr Afzoon,
Parviz Varjavand