When Atheists Can't Think Episode 1: No Evidence for God?

[AAA]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

[downbeatplumb]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells

What you've done there is to confuse our ability to observe and obtain information from what we observe with someone imputing data and making plans.

  and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design.

The fine tuned universe has been so often refuted that i'm not even going to bother doing it again. There are threads and thread on it here suffice it to say that it is a silly argument that does not hold any value.

 When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously,

No they don't.

 which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

You may think that, but you would be wrong.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

So you say, and because you say - facts need not apply!

[AAA]

What you've done there is to confuse our ability to observe and obtain information from what we observe with someone imputing data and making plans.



The fine tuned universe has been so often refuted that i'm not even going to bother doing it again. There are threads and thread on it here suffice it to say that it is a silly argument that does not hold any value.



No they don't.

You may think that, but you would be wrong.

Even atheistic biologists would not disagree with the fact that cells contain information. The information itself is useless without proteins to interact with it. The proteins by themselves are useless without the DNA to code for their structure. Fine tuned universe is not a silly argument, you change the strength of gravity or the rate of expansion of the universe by the slightest bit and planets don't form. Of course planet formation is poorly explained by natural means. You just say that these arguments are wrong without offering a reason why.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause.

Begging the question isn't my cup of tea.

Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct.

Wait, you think it's more plausible that some undefined sky-being poofed this into existence than it is for 13 billion years of physical processes to have sculpted it? Why is that?

I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

I disagree. The numerous "design flaws" demonstrated throughout nature tell us that biology was a ground-up enterprise building on what came before it without the guiding hand of some invisible sky-being that you cannot even define in meaningful terms.

[robvalue]

Scenario 1:

God set up a system where there had to be certain universal constants, which would cause his plan to fail if he didn't then set them to extremely precise amounts; and even then, he set it up so that life only barely managed to be created, and almost the entire universe would kill the life instantly.

Scenario 2:

The system was already set up, and god had to do the best he could with it and fine tune the constants already in place, so that he could salvage a really bad design.

Unfounded assumption 1: the constants could have been anything other than what they are.

Unfounded assumption 2: that life wouldn't have still developed, in some form we can't imagine, under different constants.

Unfounded assumption 3: that all the possible values for the constants aren't already in place in multiverses, ultimately meaning that the correct one had to be somewhere.

Unfounded assumption 4: that this particular creator, if there is one, is anything other than a nameless, faceless programmer with no interest in us, especially considering the relatively minuscule amount of time we will have been alive on this planet.

Unfounded assumption 5: that the creator is very concerned about where we stick our nobs.

That's Numberwang!

[Cecelia]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

Plenty of evidence points to no designer.

The human body has many flaws.  For example the Appendix serves absolutely no purpose (and when inflamed is incredibly dangerous).  Women are the only ones capable of producing breastmilk.  Our retina is backwards.  We are vulnerable to many diseases and injuries.  Other species have regenerative limbs, and yet we don't.  Men have private parts in a very vulnerable spot.  If we go by the story of Adam and Eve, animals were vegetarians and designed with teeth sharper than would be necessary for vegetation.

And certainly if humans were specially designed, why is the universe so enormous--and for the most part, unlivable. 

We also share much of our DNA with Chimpanzees.  So this intelligent designer would have had to be incredibly lazy.

[robvalue]

If we were designed, the designer is an incompetent fool.

[AAA]

There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

So you say, and because you say - facts need not apply!

Facts do apply. How about we just pick one fact and look at it. All organisms have some ability to organize their DNA. They have proteins that twist and tighten the DNA, which allows very long strands to fit into the cell neatly. This is necessary because long strands of DNA can impair cell functions if they get in the way. The ability to store DNA efficiently would only evolve if the DNA was getting too long for the cell to function. Unfortunately the only way to gain the ability to store DNA is to gain many proteins. These would all require hundreds of additional nucleotides to the genome. Adding new nucleotides would make the problem worse. This would get selected against immediately. You cannot evolve it, because it would make the problem worse unless it appeared in fully functional form. It fits perfectly with the the design theory.

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If we were designed, the designer is an incompetent fool.

If we were designed, the designer was unmatched in intelligence by all mankind from all time put together.

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There is plenty of evidence that points to a designer. Information rich cells and the fine tuned universe are old but good arguments that give the appearance of design. When you first see it, the conclusion should be intelligent cause. Materialistic explanations fall short continuously, which ironically inadvertently ends up making it more likely that the design conclusion is correct. I think there is plenty of evidence from biology that supports a designer.

Plenty of evidence points to no designer.

The human body has many flaws.  For example the Appendix serves absolutely no purpose (and when inflamed is incredibly dangerous).  Women are the only ones capable of producing breastmilk.  Our retina is backwards.  We are vulnerable to many diseases and injuries.  Other species have regenerative limbs, and yet we don't.  Men have private parts in a very vulnerable spot.  If we go by the story of Adam and Eve, animals were vegetarians and designed with teeth sharper than would be necessary for vegetation.

And certainly if humans were specially designed, why is the universe so enormous--and for the most part, unlivable. 

We also share much of our DNA with Chimpanzees.  So this intelligent designer would have had to be incredibly lazy.

The human body is remarkable, and the Appendix does serve a purpose, which I think that pretty much all doctors would acknowledge. It serves immune functions, and cultivates bacteria that help digest our food. There are books about why the eye has an optimal structure for its function. We are not that vulnerable to many diseases if we take proper care of our body with natural nutrition and exercise. Plenty of herbivores have sharp teeth (panda), yet they eat plants. The universe is mostly unlivable, which shows just how privileged and rare our planet is. We share about as much DNA with mice as we do with chimpanzees, but nobody is saying that we share the most common ancestor with them.

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Scenario 1:

God set up a system where there had to be certain universal constants, which would cause his plan to fail if he didn't then set them to extremely precise amounts; and even then, he set it up so that life only barely managed to be created, and almost the entire universe would kill the life instantly.

Scenario 2:

The system was already set up, and god had to do the best he could with it and fine tune the constants already in place, so that he could salvage a really bad design.

Unfounded assumption 1: the constants could have been anything other than what they are.

Unfounded assumption 2: that life wouldn't have still developed, in some form we can't imagine, under different constants.

Unfounded assumption 3: that all the possible values for the constants aren't already in place in multiverses, ultimately meaning that the correct one had to be somewhere.

Unfounded assumption 4: that this particular creator, if there is one, is anything other than a nameless, faceless programmer with no interest in us, especially considering the relatively minuscule amount of time we will have been alive on this planet.

Unfounded assumption 5: that the creator is very concerned about where we stick our nobs.

That's Numberwang!

1. There is no reason to think that they had to be the way they are
2. Life does not have the plasticity that you seem to think that it has. It needs planets and stars. They can only form under highly specific conditions according to the materialists models. Without planets or stars, no fusion would occur, and the elements needed for life could not form. 
3. Multiverse theory has the least evidence supporting it out of any theory I know of. The only thing we can observe, test, or examine is this universe, and assuming there are others is possible, but mostly just wishful thinking. 
4. Maybe the creator doesn't care about us, but it seems like there was one.

[Cecelia]

The human body is remarkable, and the Appendix does serve a purpose, which I think that pretty much all doctors would acknowledge. It serves immune functions, and cultivates bacteria that help digest our food. There are books about why the eye has an optimal structure for its function. We are not that vulnerable to many diseases if we take proper care of our body with natural nutrition and exercise. Plenty of herbivores have sharp teeth (panda), yet they eat plants. The universe is mostly unlivable, which shows just how privileged and rare our planet is. We share about as much DNA with mice as we do with chimpanzees, but nobody is saying that we share the most common ancestor with them.

The many people who have their appendix removed do not miss it.  We don't need it for digestion.

Sure if we take proper care of our body.  Too bad your Jesus told people that illness was caused by demons, rather than by germs.  Now there's something that would have been actually useful for a god to relay to his people.  Yet he never did.  Funny.

We still never regenerate, while other animals do.  Why did your god supposedly give this ability to other animals, but not to his beloved humans?

The universe is mostly unlivable.  That doesn't make our planet rare or privileged.  Why did god create such an enormous universe, with so many uninhabitable planets?  There are other planets out there that are inhabitable.  Many of which are beyond our reach.

No, we don't share as much DNA with mice as we do chimpanzees.  We share many of the same genes, as we do with most mammals.  DNA and genes however aren't the same thing.  And this just points to no creator, or an incredibly lazy and incompetent one.