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How do you detect "design"?

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
This makes sense to me now.
1 Corinthians 15:38 -
"But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body."
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Walking in the woods and come across a well-built cabin one knows that cabin was designed by a designer.
In order to build a cabin there has to be intelligence, with intelligence there is a mind, with a mind there is a person and with a person there is personality.
To me, the Earth (our cabin home) shows design and the design shows a designer aka the intelligent person and personality of God
Yes, a cabin, pocket watch, or 747 airliner requires intentional design. A cat or an oak tree do not. My cat's anatomy and biochemistry are the result of a whole different process.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Yes that is the point, we can say the cabin is designed because we know who can and how they do it.
As you say nature does the seeds. I.e. beyond that we don't know, maybe there is design, maybe there isn't, we may believe something but we don't know. Hence we are agnostic to a designer.
Huh? Would you sit under a watermelon tree ? or a might oak ?
Design shows it is safer to have acorns above you rather then sit under a big tree that grows watermelons on it.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Yes, a cabin, pocket watch, or 747 airliner requires intentional design. A cat or an oak tree do not. My cat's anatomy and biochemistry are the result of a whole different process.
Aren't small acorns growing on a huge oak tree showing intentional design, or would you rather sit under a big pumpkin or watermelon tree ?
Intentional to me that cats (and dogs) have 4 legs instead of 3 and we don't
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
......................... Things that we already know have to be designed are designed.
......................... Ah, so it is nothing more than "to you"?
Earth does Not show design to you ? Gravity doesn't show design to you ? Earth's water cycle doesn't show design to you ?
You know when you go to sleep at night that securely in the morning the sun will be there in the sense dawn will happen
You never worry that the sun light will not be there when you wake up
You know if you turn on the morning NEWS the reporter will never say, " The sun did Not come up this morning "
 

Pogo

Well-Known Member
Aren't small acorns growing on a huge oak tree showing intentional design, or would you rather sit under a big pumpkin or watermelon tree ?
Intentional to me that cats (and dogs) have 4 legs instead of 3 and we don't
We have 4 limbs as do cat, dog, whales, everything on earth with a backbone because we are all evolved from the same tetrapod ancestor. Not design, evolution.
as for acorns, why do my little Osage orange trees have softball size fruit. There is nothing alive big enough to eat them on this continent and they don't grow where elephants are which might be big enough. incompetent design maybe or just evolution again.
We know how evolution works and it is not design.
 

Pogo

Well-Known Member
Earth does Not show design to you ? Gravity doesn't show design to you ? Earth's water cycle doesn't show design to you ?
You know when you go to sleep at night that securely in the morning the sun will be there in the sense dawn will happen
You never worry that the sun light will not be there when you wake up
You know if you turn on the morning NEWS the reporter will never say, " The sun did Not come up this morning "
Nope, all those things have natural causes due to the fundamental makeup of the universe, no evidence of design anywhere.

I assume you don't really care about knowing about any of this, because your ignorance makes it easier to continue your belief in ancient mythology.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Earth does Not show design to you ? Gravity doesn't show design to you ? Earth's water cycle doesn't show design to you ?
No. Not intentional design. I see complexity and complex function, which can be explained without inventing any intentional designer. Ergo, the designer is an unnecessary special pleading.
You know when you go to sleep at night that securely in the morning the sun will be there in the sense dawn will happen
You never worry that the sun light will not be there when you wake up
You know if you turn on the morning NEWS the reporter will never say, " The sun did Not come up this morning "
I do assume sunrise, because it's been a recurring event all my life, historical records report its happening throughout recorded history, and the physical mechanisms producing it are understood and fairly stable.

We have no such constant, common experience of God, nor any clear, unambiguous evidence.
One's personal experience of common structures, objects, tools, and such as manufactured items does not mean all structures, objects &c, however intricate, are necessarily manufactured. That would be a fallacy of composition.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Aren't small acorns growing on a huge oak tree showing intentional design, or would you rather sit under a big pumpkin or watermelon tree ?
Intentional to me that cats (and dogs) have 4 legs instead of 3 and we don't
You're doing it again. Are you unaware of the natural, unguided mechanisms that produced these?


My cat Gremlin has only three legs.... ;)
 
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Brian2

Veteran Member
View attachment 91994

We are all equally evolved, evolution does not have a goal but favors solutions to suit the local environment. Chimpanzees are way stronger than we are, Whales can hold their breath much longer than we can and so forth. That we have specific abilities is not about a goal.

It's not about a goal of nature or a goal of the organisms, it is about the goal of the designer. The universe and life were made in such a way that it is possible to have the tree shape instead of the ladder shape, and organisms could fill every niche.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
This view requires a lack of research or knowledge in science, and conclusions based on your religious agenda.

It sounds as if you are saying that science knows how life began. Maybe you should let the abiogenesis gang know that they can stop looking.
 

Pogo

Well-Known Member
It's not about a goal of nature or a goal of the organisms, it is about the goal of the designer. The universe and life were made in such a way that it is possible to have the tree shape instead of the ladder shape, and organisms could fill every niche.
So the designer is hiding in such a fashion that it is indistinguishable from not existing.
I think I will listen to William of Ockham and take his recommendation of ignoring superfluous entities,
or:
Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe.
Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis.
Later when told by Napoleon about the incident, Lagrange commented: Ah, but that is a fine hypothesis. It explains so many things.
Quoted in A De Morgan Budget of Paradoxes.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
There is evidence that life got to its present state on its own. Believers in ID cannot even properly define their terminology much less find any evidence for their beliefs. That is why it is only pseudoscience at best. You still have not learned why the DI lost in the Dover Trial.

Are you saying that the only possibility is that life got to it's present state on it's own from pre existing chemicals?

Yes, we can never have all of the data. But it has to explain all of the existing data. That is infinitely better than an idea that is without any support at all.

One of the reason that people like Behe are properly called IDiots is that they know how to make a proper scientific hypothesis. They know how to form an idea so that it is testable. In fact when Behe first presented his idea he did so in a testable manner. Unfortunately for him it failed that test. So why don't these people that have the ability to put an idea into a scientific form do what they have the training to do?

I'm not sure what Behe first presented but when it comes to the flagellum motor the IDers seem to say that it has not failed and that the science points to it having succeeded.

No, that is inaccurate. The claims of IDiots such as Behe should be testable. You are implying something else now. You are implying that gods are very sneaky and try to hide their existence. How much sense does that make?

What are you saying? Are you saying that because science cannot find spiritual being that it is and improbably game and so they actually do not exist?
Personally I just put spirits outside the realm of the physical and of science.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It's not about a goal of nature or a goal of the organisms, it is about the goal of the designer. The universe and life were made in such a way that it is possible to have the tree shape instead of the ladder shape, and organisms could fill every niche.
But there is no evidence of a designer or a goal.
You keep making these mythology-based assertions. We'll accept them only if you can back them up with real, objective evidence.
It sounds as if you are saying that science knows how life began. Maybe you should let the abiogenesis gang know that they can stop looking.
Science can investigate concrete, observable, testable things and phenomena. The method has generated more information and understanding of the world in the past century or so than in the entire previous history of mankind.

Current science does not know how life began, at least not all the details. So what? It wasn't that long ago that we didn't understand what caused earthquakes or disease, either. Unknown ≠ unknowable.
Give it time. It's an active area of research.

I get the impression you consider the origin of life unknowable. Why is that, if I may ask?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Are you saying that the only possibility is that life got to it's present state on it's own from pre existing chemicals?
Nobody's saying that's the only possibility, but it's where all the evidence points, it's a reasonable hypothesis, and there are no viable alternative hypotheses.
Do you know of any?
I'm not sure what Behe first presented but when it comes to the flagellum motor the IDers seem to say that it has not failed and that the science points to it having succeeded.
The claims that the flagellum or eye are irreducibly complex have been roundly rebutted a thousand times.
There are better apologies. Try using one of them.
What are you saying? Are you saying that because science cannot find spiritual being that it is and improbably game and so they actually do not exist?
Science is not even trying to find spiritual beings, and makes no claims about them.

Science needs tangible, measurable, testable evidence to investigate something. Without these science has no tools to operate, and no indication that there's anything to investigate.

If there is no objective, tangible evidence for a thing, or need for it to exist as explanatory, it is not logical or reasonable to claim it exists.

Do you believe in færies, or leprechauns? Why not? Lots of people used to believe in them, and even claimed sightings.
I don't believe in them for the same reason I don't believe in God -- no real evidence.
How about you? Why don't you believe in them?
Personally I just put spirits outside the realm of the physical and of science.
So do I. So do most scientists.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Are you saying that the only possibility is that life got to it's present state on it's own from pre existing chemicals?

No. I am not. It is only the only concept that is supported by reliable evidence. You should know that creationist "scientists" tend to be cowards. They could put their ideas into testable scientific forms but they never do that.
I'm not sure what Behe first presented but when it comes to the flagellum motor the IDers seem to say that it has not failed and that the science points to it having succeeded.
Then the IDers are either incredibly ignorant or incredibly dishonest or both. Do you want to know how he failed? We can go over that in a different post or more.
What are you saying? Are you saying that because science cannot find spiritual being that it is and improbably game and so they actually do not exist?
Personally I just put spirits outside the realm of the physical and of science.
Once again no. When one cannot find any evidence for a concept it only means that it is irrational to hold that belief. Who know, it could be true, but how likely do you think that Bigfoot or leprechauns are?
 
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