Intelligent Design
From a friend of Ex-C ~
Hi everybody,
The subject of Intelligent Design has come up a lot, so I thought I'd share this with you. I recently got into an argument, or debate with a Christian apologist called Kyle Butt. What happened was this: I read this debate:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/frank_zindler/morris-zindler.html
which was between Zindler (an atheist) and Morris (a creationist) about whether or not Noah's Flood and Ark were real.
Then I read this article, written by Kyle Butt:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1855
in which Mr. Butt took a few lines out of the debate and twisted them around to blame atheists for being arrogant. Butt said Zindler said he could make a better Universe than God, and that this was arrogance typical of these unholy atheists. Shock horror! What Zindler actually said was, "If I were God I could have done better". I wrote to point this out, and we started debating it. He started off by sending me the following three articles designed to prove the existence of God:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/269
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2518
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/271
Their basic arguments are:
(First one) God is the only possible explanation for the existence of the Universe
(Second one) The Universe shows evidence of design (because it's so beautiful and complicated and all works together so well), therefore it must have been designed by an entity which we could call God.
(Third one) Theism is the only satisfactory ethical justification for the meaning of life (proceeds to list alternatives and debunk them).
My idea is to poke holes in the logic in all of these. It's the first time I've been in a debate, but if that's the calibre of the material offered (check the articles and I'm sure you'll see what I mean) it shouldn't be too difficult. Some of the points I'm thinking of making are:
* The first article: Just because we don't know where the Universe comes from, does that follow that it was God who made it? And, by the way, if it was designed (how, and from what, and by what method?) how do you know the designer is still alive?
* The second article: The universe is like it is because it's evolved to be that way. Don't go trying to impress us with a lot of nonsense about how fortunate it is that the Earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life. It could have turned out otherwise and, if you look at the some of the trillions of other planets in the Universe, you can see that it did.
* The second article: It also doesn't impress us when you say things like, "Gosh, isn't it amazing that the earth's atmosphere is just right for us to breathe? Surely that CAN'T be a coincidence!" Look, if the earth's atmosphere had been methane then we would have evolved to breathe methane. Or not at all (see argument above)
* The third article: Look, criticise moral and ethical systems all you want. It still doesn't prove God has to exist just because you want him to!
In addition, in response to the articles in general:
* How exactly do you make the leap from a deity to the God of the Bible?
* Why bother looking for evidence of God's existence like Sherlock Holmes examining footprints and match ends? If God IS an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who exists, why not just ask him to part a sea or two for us? (What do you mean it doesn't work that way? Have things changed since the Bible was written?)
* And on that subject: How come God doesn't do miracles any more? Or, to put it another way - how come as the number of scientists has gone up, miracle workers have gone down?
After six months spent reading through exchristian.net, Farrel Till's “The Skeptical Review” and other similar websites, I feel sure I'll have no trouble answering the nonsense in these articles. Yes, I know it sounds arrogant, but really! If you read through them, you'll see that a lot of the time they're preaching to the choir. And a lot of the time they're talking nonsense. For example (from the conclusion of the first article):
"Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. The Universe is here; intelligent life is here; morality is here; love is here. What is their adequate antecedent cause? Since the effect never can precede, or be greater than the cause, it stands to reason that the cause of life must be a living Intelligence that Itself is both moral and loving. When the Bible records, "In the beginning, God..." it makes known to us just such a First Cause."
To be honest, that one sounds more like faith and wishful thinking than logic.
Thanks for reading through all that. If anybody wants to look through the articles and has any ideas about them, feel free to post them.
Hi everybody,
The subject of Intelligent Design has come up a lot, so I thought I'd share this with you. I recently got into an argument, or debate with a Christian apologist called Kyle Butt. What happened was this: I read this debate:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/frank_zindler/morris-zindler.html
which was between Zindler (an atheist) and Morris (a creationist) about whether or not Noah's Flood and Ark were real.
Then I read this article, written by Kyle Butt:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1855
in which Mr. Butt took a few lines out of the debate and twisted them around to blame atheists for being arrogant. Butt said Zindler said he could make a better Universe than God, and that this was arrogance typical of these unholy atheists. Shock horror! What Zindler actually said was, "If I were God I could have done better". I wrote to point this out, and we started debating it. He started off by sending me the following three articles designed to prove the existence of God:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/269
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2518
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/271
Their basic arguments are:
(First one) God is the only possible explanation for the existence of the Universe
(Second one) The Universe shows evidence of design (because it's so beautiful and complicated and all works together so well), therefore it must have been designed by an entity which we could call God.
(Third one) Theism is the only satisfactory ethical justification for the meaning of life (proceeds to list alternatives and debunk them).
My idea is to poke holes in the logic in all of these. It's the first time I've been in a debate, but if that's the calibre of the material offered (check the articles and I'm sure you'll see what I mean) it shouldn't be too difficult. Some of the points I'm thinking of making are:
* The first article: Just because we don't know where the Universe comes from, does that follow that it was God who made it? And, by the way, if it was designed (how, and from what, and by what method?) how do you know the designer is still alive?
* The second article: The universe is like it is because it's evolved to be that way. Don't go trying to impress us with a lot of nonsense about how fortunate it is that the Earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life. It could have turned out otherwise and, if you look at the some of the trillions of other planets in the Universe, you can see that it did.
* The second article: It also doesn't impress us when you say things like, "Gosh, isn't it amazing that the earth's atmosphere is just right for us to breathe? Surely that CAN'T be a coincidence!" Look, if the earth's atmosphere had been methane then we would have evolved to breathe methane. Or not at all (see argument above)
* The third article: Look, criticise moral and ethical systems all you want. It still doesn't prove God has to exist just because you want him to!
In addition, in response to the articles in general:
* How exactly do you make the leap from a deity to the God of the Bible?
* Why bother looking for evidence of God's existence like Sherlock Holmes examining footprints and match ends? If God IS an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who exists, why not just ask him to part a sea or two for us? (What do you mean it doesn't work that way? Have things changed since the Bible was written?)
* And on that subject: How come God doesn't do miracles any more? Or, to put it another way - how come as the number of scientists has gone up, miracle workers have gone down?
After six months spent reading through exchristian.net, Farrel Till's “The Skeptical Review” and other similar websites, I feel sure I'll have no trouble answering the nonsense in these articles. Yes, I know it sounds arrogant, but really! If you read through them, you'll see that a lot of the time they're preaching to the choir. And a lot of the time they're talking nonsense. For example (from the conclusion of the first article):
"Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. The Universe is here; intelligent life is here; morality is here; love is here. What is their adequate antecedent cause? Since the effect never can precede, or be greater than the cause, it stands to reason that the cause of life must be a living Intelligence that Itself is both moral and loving. When the Bible records, "In the beginning, God..." it makes known to us just such a First Cause."
To be honest, that one sounds more like faith and wishful thinking than logic.
Thanks for reading through all that. If anybody wants to look through the articles and has any ideas about them, feel free to post them.
Comments
Psalm 139:14 “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knows right well.”
Your body has 100 trillion cells; 3 billion die and are replaced each minute
Your brain continuously receives and sends signals far more sophisticated than the best of computers
eyes: 130,000 light receptors
ears: 100,000 hearing receptors distinguishing 2,500 different tones
taste: 3,000 different receptors in your mouth
30,000 receptors for heat
250,000 receptors for cold
500,000 receptors measuring pressure of touch
4 million pain sensors
10 billion nerve cells
100 billion brain cells for storing memory.
The human eye is the most perfect camera ever known to man automatically adjusts to light and distance, and focuses instantly. Two eyes on a horizontal plane are able to measure distance can distinguish between one million colors, can increase its ability to see 100,000 times. The eyes have brows, lashes, tears and a nose for protection.
Unlike any other creature, the human can speak and understand
3,000 languages and millions of words
Your heart beats an average of 72 times per minute. Each year it pumps five quarts of blood through 60,000 miles of veins and arteries (total 600,000 gallons).
If you cut yourself, your blot has a clotting system
You have a well-engineered skeletal system of 206 bones
You have a rugged yet sophisticated digestive system
You have a sensitive, analytical, taste-smell system
You have a marvelous muscular-connective tissue system
You have a programmed glandular-hormone system
Your lungs filter and warm the oxygen it places in the blood and take away the carbon dioxide
You have skin that both insulates and ventilates
You have a waste disposal system
You have a system to take oxygen and nutrition to every cell
You have a white cell defense system to fight disease
Your body has a self-restoring, self-healing system
Your two and one-half pound brain is the most complicated structure known to the universe with each cell connected to every other cell
The Human Eye
Then there is that wonder of wonders: the human eye! How could anybody look at a human eye and suppose that it just happened? Evolutionists tell us that where there is want, nature will provide what is needed. Can you imagine that we needed sight? No one had ever seen anything, but there was a need to see something. So nature created an eye. Imagine creating two eyes on a horizontal plane so that we not only can see but we also have a range finder that determines distances.
Did you ever wonder what happens to your tears that continually flow across your eye? Dr. William Paley wrote a classic work entitled Natural Theology in which he discusses the eye. “In order to keep the eye moist and clean—which qualities are necessary to its brightness and its use—a wash is constantly supplied by a secretion for the purpose; and the superfluous brine is conveyed to the nose through a perforation in the bone as large as a goose quill. When once the fluid has entered the nose, it spreads itself upon the inside of the nostril, and is evaporated by the current of warm air which in the course of respiration is continually passing over it. . . It is easily perceived that the eye must want moisture; but could the want of the eye generate the gland which produces the tear, or bore the hole by which it is discharged—a hole through a bone?” Let the atheist or the evolutionist tell us who bored the hole in the bone and laid a water pipe through it for the dispersion of our tears.
Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, famous English physiologist of Oxford who wrote a classic work on the eye, said: “Behind the intricate mechanism of the human eye lie breathtaking glimpses of a Master Plan.” When confronted with darkness the human eye increases its ability to see one hundred thousand times. The finest camera ever made does not even vaguely approach such a thing, but the human eye does it automatically. Furthermore, the eye will find the object it wants to see and focus upon it automatically. It will elongate or compress itself. Both eyes moving together must take different angles to fix themselves upon what is to be seen. When the eye got ready to create itself, it also had the forethought for its own protection, and built itself beneath the bony ridge of the brow, and also provided a nose on which to hang the glasses that most of us need. Then it provided a shutter to protect itself from any foreign object.
The Ozone Layer
Forty miles up there is a thin layer of ozone. If compressed it would be only a quarter of an inch thick, and yet without it life could not exist. Eight killer rays fall upon this planet continually from the sun; without ozone we would be burned, blinded and broiled by them in just a day or two. The ultraviolet rays come in two forms: longer rays which are deadly and are screened out, and shorter rays which are necessary for life on earth and are admitted by the ozone layer. Furthermore, the most deadly of these rays are allowed through the ozone layer in just a very thin amount, enough to kill the green algae, which otherwise would grow to fill all the lakes, rivers, and oceans of the world. How little we realize what God is continuously doing to provide for our life. We see that we live with a tiny ozone layer protecting us from an unseen deadly bombardment that constantly comes down upon our heads. Beneath us is a thin rock crust, thinner than the skin of an apple in comparison.
Lava
Beneath that is the molten lava that forms the core of this earth. So man lives between the burning, blackening rays above and that molten lava below, either of which would burn him to a crisp. Yet man is totally oblivious that God has so arranged things that he can exist in such a world as this.
Red Blood Cells
Within human beings, there are many things that tell us God has made us. Our life is based upon the blood that flows in our veins. The amazing red blood cell, created in the bone marrow, immediately gives up its nucleus when it reaches the bloodstream. For any other cell, this would mean death, like cutting the heart right out of a man. A red blood cell is farmed like a doughnut with a thin membrane across the hole. Without a nucleus it is able to carry more oxygen for the body because of this membrane and the shape of the cell. If it were shaped like other cells, it would require nine times as many cells to provide oxygen for the human body.
Some Concluding Remarks:
Consider what Dr. A. Cressy Morrison, a physician and former president of the New York State Academy of Science, has to say:
The evidence is strongly suggestive of this directive purpose back of everything…. We have found that the world is in the right place, that the crust is adjusted to within ten feet, and that-if the ocean were a few feet deeper we would have no oxygen or vegetation. We have found that the earth rotates in twenty-four hours and that were this revolution delayed, life would be impossible. If the speed of the earth around the sun were increased or decreased materially, this history of life, if any, would be entirely different We find that the sun is the one among thousands which could make our sort of life possible on earth, its size, density, temperature and the character of its rays all must be right, and are right. We find that the gases of the atmosphere are adjusted to each other and that a very slight change would be fatal.... Considering the bulk of the earth, its place in space and the nicety of the adjustments, the chances of some of these adjustments occurring is in the order of one to a million, and the chances of all of them occurring cannot be calculated even in the billions. The existence of these facts cannot, therefore, be reconciled with any of the laws of chance. It is impossible, then, to escape the conclusion that the adjustments of nature to man are far more amazing than the adjustments of man to nature. A review of the wonders of nature demonstrates beyond question that there are design and purpose in it all. A program is being carried out in all its infinite detail by the Supreme Being we call God.
By: Brandon McClain, Sr.
Comments: Logoscampus@email.com
Website: www.freewebs.com/logoscampus/
Sooo... I spend fifteen years building a space shuttle so I can travel between the stars. It works great, and has all the bells and whistles that NASA puts into their shuttles, and then some. A really nice piece of engineering..
But over time I notice slight flaws in the programming, etc. But in my infinite intelligence I decide not to correct the problem, but instead spend the rest of my life smashing the shit out of my engineering masterpiece; twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year...
Sounds like your unintelligent designer, doesn't it? Can do all these wonderful things, but has no interest in correcting mistakes, or working towards improvement. What a sorry ass he would be if he existed...
Your whole post reeks of "God Did It" syndrome. There are perfectly valid explanations for everything you have posted above - explanations that make a whole heap more sense to rational human beings than just blathering, "Duhhh!! GOD DID IT! GOD DID IT!!" -Wes.
Nose for protection? Picture if you will the huge smirk on my face right now as I conjure up images in my head of how you might be using your nose to protect your eyes... Hee hee. -Wes.
Yes, that's astonishing, isn't it? But of course, to someone with sickle-cell anemia, this really wouldn't be very convincing evidence for a perfect Creator, would it?....well, at least not for an African-American Creator.
docbrm: Your brain continuously receives and sends signals far more sophisticated than the best of computers
Then again, compared to an anencephalic, my "computer" runs circles around them, and my computer is reparable.
docbrm: eyes: 130,000 light receptors
Woah!..that IS amazing....'maybe Stevie Wonder will write a song about it? "My Yah-weh Amour, you're the stupid god that I abhor..."
docbrm: ears: 100,000 hearing receptors distinguishing 2,500 different tones
Thankfully, we have Miracle-Ear® hearing devices when we need a real "miracle".
docbrm: taste: 3,000 different receptors in your mouth
How's your foot taste?
docbrm: 30,000 receptors for heat
Right...'getting me acclimated for "hell". Very resourceful, our Creator is!
docbrm: 250,000 receptors for cold
Finally---"snow" makes perfect sense, now.
docbrm: 500,000 receptors measuring pressure of touch
Praise Isis!....touch me, baby!
docbrm: 4 million pain sensors
LOL! Gee...tHaNkS Gawd!
docbrm: 10 billion nerve cells
That's a lot of nerve.....and you've got a lot of nerve, too, using these ridiculous facts as an argument for a "PERFECT creator".
docbrm: 100 billion brain cells for storing memory.
That seems like an awful waste of space, considering that "faith" only takes up 2GB.
docbrm: The human eye is the most perfect camera ever...(edit) [blah, blah, blah]
Right, that's why I'm sitting here with artificial lenses strapped to my face...because my "eyes" are "perfectly designed". Good grief!....snap OUT of it!
docbrm: Unlike any other creature, the human can speak and understand
Unlike "any" creature?...you forgot donkeys and snakes. Fluent Hebrew, no less. And then there's their distant cousin, the talking bush.
docbrm: Your heart beats an average of 72 times per minute. Each year it pumps five quarts of blood through 60,000 miles of veins and arteries (total 600,000 gallons).
That's a lot of blood, it's a wonder Jesus doesn't drown in there("Satan" in my case).
docbrm: If you cut yourself, your blot has a clotting system
Unless your were created a hemopheliac.
docbrm: You have a well-engineered skeletal system of 206 bones
What?...and a Siamese twin was engineered with twice that many? I'm jealous.
docbrm: You have a rugged yet sophisticated digestive system
Fleas poop too, will they go to heaven?
docbrm: You have a sensitive, analytical, taste-smell system
I smell a fundy.
docbrm: The Ozone Layer
...is depleating; skin cancer on the rise.
docbrm: A review of the wonders of nature demonstrates beyond question that there are design and purpose in it all.
A review of the wonders of nature demonstrates that NATURE is wonderful. The end.
There is never a "need" for hell-like places. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself for trotting out such a morally repugnant idea as that.
"God is jelous and wants to be recognized and served. This hasn't been kept a secret and who would want to spend eternity with disobedient children?"
Um... A loving, patient, non-jealous, non-narcissistic parental unit?
"If you look hard enough, you will find the truth of what you are looking for and I don't have to tell you."
Absolutely right! I found that your imaginary god to be a complete waste of time.
"I don't choose to argue with anyone that doesn't believe in the Bible as the inspired word."
CL, it was too late for that when you pressed the "Publish Your Comment" button. Your very presence is 'arguing'.
"You will be prayed for...like it or not..."
(sighs heavily) Fine, fine. If you say so, ChurchLady. Your prayers will be duly collected, scanned for hate-viruses, and dispatched to random gods for fulfilment. Depending on Who answers, you'll either get a really good parking spot, a coupon for a free Fetuccine Alfredo dinner, or three drunken Valkyries singing bawdy songs on your front porch at five in the morning. Enjoy!
"If you're so intersted in nature and darwinism, look at the animals and how they learn and survive, or not, by trial and error"
--
Astreja, let me add one more to your own thoughts to the churchy lady.
I'll try and paraphrase what she said here, to see if I understood her correctly.
I put god on TRIAL and found he was full of ERROR, so he didn't LEARN to SURVIVE his own doomed fate.
ATF(who looked "hard enough" and found god was always MIA)