Intelligent Design Isn't So Intelligent

[columbus]

None that outweigh our present system: The beast with two backs.

This attitude might be influenced by the fact that you are not in danger of some useless man following his natural instincts by raping you.
The world would be an extremely different place without gender and sexual tension and our procreation instincts. Instincts shaped by our evolutionary forebears. Long before we developed abstract thought, much less moral codes.

Where was God during all those millions of years?
Tom

 

[BilliardsBall]

Don't know the "why." I just know the "what": Along with some pretty neat stuff he also made a lot of imperfect things. The problem is, god, if that's who one is claiming to be the designer, is said to be perfect,

Deuteronomy 32:4
"The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.

Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.​

the implication being that everything he does would be intelligent. Of course if one doesn't care to claim that god is the intelligent designer in question, then it's a whole other kettle of fish.

.

All God does involves God's intellect. It also involves tutoring man, the passion of the Christ, love and judgment. The Bible you're quoting also says you can search and search without knowing all God's ways...

 

[BilliardsBall]

Randomly created a whole bunch of things, some of which we humans find wonderful and beautiful. Much of Creation, not so good. We don't even agree on what's beautiful. Your attitude towards a snowfall will vary hugely depending on whether you are snugly at home or outside homeless.

The real question here is why Creation is the way it is If it is the creation of a benevolent Omnimax God. I have never seen a rational answer to that question. Just the opposite, much of Abrahamic apologetics is contorted arguments attempting to plaster over the logical issues with that.
Take Rabbi Kushner's book, 'When bad things happen to good people" . I remember when it was extremely popular with Christians. I was a little stunned to find that he simply dumped the Almighty part from God, without quite saying so. God wants to help us more than He does, but His Hands are tied. He just can't work Miracles any more.
It seemed more rational than what Christianity teaches, generally. But quite irreverent to me, having been raised by conservative Christians.

Tom

Why in counterarguments is God always benevolent but never just? God says wrath and vengeance are His also, does that help your interpretation of the matter?

 

[BilliardsBall]

We are the ones that put the "wonder" into nature through our interpretation of it. A snowflake is clearly "wonderful" if one looks at it through a microscope. Yet we can see that it does not require and intelligent designer. Life is wonderful, but again when observed no designer is needed.

What do you mean, you can SEE that snow and the water evaporation/transportation cycles do not involve intellect or design? You excerpt that ALL SNOWFLAKES, like ALL animals and plants, even "identical" twins, and ALL GRAINS OF SAND are different under the same microscope you are using!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[columbus]

Why in counterarguments is God always benevolent but never just?

Who said they're mutually exclusive? That is a rather primitive ethical idea. I don't believe that God is as ethically backwards as people were in OT days, which is why I don't believe that they knew any more about God than I, or any modern people, know about God.

God says wrath and vengeance are His also, does that help your interpretation of the matter?

Vengeance is the sort of concept Bronze Age people believed in. Primitive ethical beliefs that had nothing to do with justice or benevolence.

Nothing to do with an omnimax, supernatural, Being.
Tom

 

[Subduction Zone]

What do you mean, you can SEE that snow and the water evaporation/transportation cycles do not involve intellect or design? You excerpt that ALL SNOWFLAKES, like ALL animals and plants, even "identical" twins, and ALL GRAINS OF SAND are different under the same microscope you are using!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! This indicates a total lack of education in the sciences. Water turns into vapor by adding heat. No god needed. Water vapor is lighter than air. As a result it rises. The natural gas law explains this. Once again, no god needed. As this water rises the air pressure drops, again we understand this. Less air from above pushing down means that the pressure will be less. Once again no god need apply. When the pressure drops the temperature drops. Once again that is the natural gas law being applied. No god need apply. When the air that the vapor gets cool enough the water goes back to either liquid or if cool enough ice form. Once again no god need apply. As I said when cold enough ice will begin to crystallize. Those crystals vary due to natural laws of chemistry, again, no god need apply.

Show me where the "god" enters the equation. The same applies to your other pointless examples. One does not need a god to make snowflakes different from each other.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Who said they're mutually exclusive? That is a rather primitive ethical idea. I don't believe that God is as ethically backwards as people were in OT days, which is why I don't believe that they knew any more about God than I, or any modern people, know about God.


Vengeance is the sort of concept Bronze Age people believed in. Primitive ethical beliefs that had nothing to do with justice or benevolence.

Nothing to do with an omnimax, supernatural, Being.
Tom

Tom, vengeance is not justice. Justice is not vengeance. God is just in taking or adding vengeance when one considers His patience. This point is made by multiple authors in the Bible, in multiple ways.

If you will continue to disregard the Bible in your belief system, I would ask you to explain precisely how you came to know God is just but not vengeful, benevolent but not wholly just, wholly just without punishing anyone for doing anything, etc.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Wow! This indicates a total lack of education in the sciences. Water turns into vapor by adding heat. No god needed. Water vapor is lighter than air. As a result it rises. The natural gas law explains this. Once again, no god needed. As this water rises the air pressure drops, again we understand this. Less air from above pushing down means that the pressure will be less. Once again no god need apply. When the pressure drops the temperature drops. Once again that is the natural gas law being applied. No god need apply. When the air that the vapor gets cool enough the water goes back to either liquid or if cool enough ice form. Once again no god need apply. As I said when cold enough ice will begin to crystallize. Those crystals vary due to natural laws of chemistry, again, no god need apply.

Show me where the "god" enters the equation. The same applies to your other pointless examples. One does not need a god to make snowflakes different from each other.

I never said God made individual snowflakes, obviously He has set the natural world with the fluctuating temperatures and moisture densities and etc.

I guess I was appealing to the fact that atheists see everything, including diversity, beauty and individuality, with their typical glass-half-full viewpoint.

Not one science fact you've shared explains BEAUTY, but you would say we evolved the capability to regard beauty, so why bother? HOW DID WE EVOLVE THE CAPABILITY to see faraway telescope images of galaxies as BEAUTIFUL?

Beauty and design are everywhere, you're a fish in a beautiful tank and cannot see the water or the water giver--or you see them, but hide from their BEAUTY.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I never said God made individual snowflakes, obviously He has set the natural world with the fluctuating temperatures and moisture densities and etc.

I guess I was appealing to the fact that atheists see everything, including diversity, beauty and individuality, with their typical glass-half-full viewpoint.

Not one science fact you've shared explains BEAUTY, but you would say we evolved the capability to regard beauty, so why bother? HOW DID WE EVOLVE THE CAPABILITY to see faraway telescope images of galaxies as BEAUTIFUL?

Beauty and design are everywhere, you're a fish in a beautiful tank and cannot see the water or the water giver--or you see them, but hide from their BEAUTY.

You need to drop the silly false claim of "glass half full". It is an attempt at an insult that you cannot support. I will let a biologist explain beauty to you. But let's say that I can't explain it. An unexplained problem is not evidence for your beliefs. Perhaps we should discuss the nature of evidence.

 

[Darkstorn]

HOW DID WE EVOLVE THE CAPABILITY to see faraway telescope images of galaxies as BEAUTIFUL?

That's like asking the question "how did we evolve the capability to have opinions about things?"

I don't know HOW we evolved that capability specifically. But i'm willing to guess that it's the exact same way we evolved the capability to see dog **** as not beautiful.

I.E your question is silly, naive and fails to go in depth enough. Nothing special about you having the capability to form an opinion about the aesthetic merits of galaxies.

But we do know this: People's subjective opinion of things can be changed through conditioning. Acquired tastes for example. Consider this: perception of beauty could be the result of your environment itself. I think it's more to do with "cultural norms" than just biology.

 

[BilliardsBall]

That's like asking the question "how did we evolve the capability to have opinions about things?"

I don't know HOW we evolved that capability specifically. But i'm willing to guess that it's the exact same way we evolved the capability to see dog **** as not beautiful.

I.E your question is silly, naive and fails to go in depth enough. Nothing special about you having the capability to form an opinion about the aesthetic merits of galaxies.

But we do know this: People's subjective opinion of things can be changed through conditioning. Acquired tastes for example. Consider this: perception of beauty could be the result of your environment itself. I think it's more to do with "cultural norms" than just biology.

It's a cultural norm that when people first looked through telescopes and microscopes, and always since then when using these instruments, they saw beauty, design and wonder?

Baloney.

 

[BilliardsBall]

You need to drop the silly false claim of "glass half full". It is an attempt at an insult that you cannot support. I will let a biologist explain beauty to you. But let's say that I can't explain it. An unexplained problem is not evidence for your beliefs. Perhaps we should discuss the nature of evidence.

It's not a silly claim, and cannot even be an anecdotal claim, since I've personally witnessed to hundreds of atheists, and found them all to be fatalists, gloomy about the meaning of their life in the future and without hope in this world. It's wholly true.

No one wants to believe in fairy tales and be THAT fool, not even me. I have MANY more sound reasons to trust Christ that the obvious "atheists are full of doom and gloom and do little to help their fellow man and Christians see true beauty."

 

[Darkstorn]

It's a cultural norm that when people first looked through telescopes and microscopes, and always since then when using these instruments, they saw beauty, design and wonder?

Baloney.

Well, our perception of things changes over time according to environmental and social needs: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when we share views regarding what's beautiful, I would say yes, cultural norms and conditioning have a lot to do with it.

Or it could just be magically given to us. Whichever sounds more plausible.

Just because you can't imagine a person who thinks galaxies are ugly, doesn't mean one can't exist.

And I don't see design in galaxies for one. I guess I don't exist because I don't share your collective's consensus.

 

[Darkstorn]

"atheists are full of doom and gloom and do little to help their fellow man and Christians see true beauty."

I think you are projecting. You can't constantly make claims of other people and expect people not to consider you a massive hypocrite.

 

[Derek500]

It's easy. Unintelligent Designers did it. Or, maybe Under-achieving not-so-intelligent Designers did it.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I think you are projecting. You can't constantly make claims of other people and expect people not to consider you a massive hypocrite.

I don't constantly make unfounded claims regarding people. I am rather asserting that decades of witnessing to and living alongside atheists shows they are miserable persons whose glass is half-full. That's an assertion made upon massive amounts of observation, a scientific or reasoned observation.

It can be seen here, at this forum!

 

[BilliardsBall]

Well, our perception of things changes over time according to environmental and social needs: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when we share views regarding what's beautiful, I would say yes, cultural norms and conditioning have a lot to do with it.

Or it could just be magically given to us. Whichever sounds more plausible.

Just because you can't imagine a person who thinks galaxies are ugly, doesn't mean one can't exist.

And I don't see design in galaxies for one. I guess I don't exist because I don't share your collective's consensus.

You don't see any evidence of design, beauty or order in GALAXIES?

 

[Darkstorn]

You don't see any evidence of design, beauty or order in GALAXIES?

Read my post again. I was being very clear.

 

[Darkstorn]

I don't constantly make unfounded claims regarding people. I am rather asserting that decades of witnessing to and living alongside atheists shows they are miserable persons whose glass is half-full. That's an assertion made upon massive amounts of observation, a scientific or reasoned observation.

It can be seen here, at this forum!

No offence but your subjective assessment of your own observations isn't reasoned just because you say so. In a debate, you must also show it.

Right now my point still stands.

Your claims of other people are unfounded unless you can show us examples. It's just an irrational blanket statement.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't constantly make unfounded claims regarding people. I am rather asserting that decades of witnessing to and living alongside atheists shows they are miserable persons whose glass is half-full. That's an assertion made upon massive amounts of observation, a scientific or reasoned observation.

It can be seen here, at this forum!

Actually you do. I just pointed out that you did that in my most recent reply to you.

And no, you really should not make false claims about others. If you can't do better than that the discussions will get nowhere. By making claims about others that you cannot support you are breaking the Ninth Commandment. At best you can only say that you believe that, but you would need to do that in each and every post. Lastly you appear to be a science denier. It is not wise to both deny science and to try to claim that you use scientific observation.