Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: November 15, 2024, 11:40 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Atheism vs. God's Existence
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 1:00 pm)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote:
(May 21, 2016 at 12:45 pm)AAA Wrote: Yeah, every engineer who ever lived working together could not do a better job, but YOU have the audacity to say that it is a poor design. People die because the system has degraded. When the DNA mutates, enzymes become misshapen and don't function properly. Then people lose a function and die. It mutates because we live such unhealthy lifestyles. Obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise, the intense number of chemicals in our environment, and many other factors lead to mutations. Are you saying that you want God to literally intervene to fix mutations?

Absolutely I have the audacity to call out a bad design. When the design flaws are the cause of failure, that's bad design. There are a huge number of flaws that would be trivial for an omnipotent designer to have designed better.

I really hate the poor design argument. Are signal transduction pathways poorly designed? Is the ribosome poorly designed? Is the clathrin molecule poorly designed? What about motor proteins? How about the nuclear pore complex? What about ATP synthase? What about the DNA repair enzymes? What about the way that receptors relay a signal? If it were designed, the designer was unbelievably intelligent. [

And again, we are suffering DNA damage because of our lifestyles. Maybe the design wasn't intended to experience the environmental conditions we experience. If I smashed your laptop with a bat, you wouldn't complain that it was poorly designed.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 1:01 pm)AAA Wrote:
(May 21, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Helios Wrote: They all share a powerful illusion of design - but like someone else said in the thread earlier, each species fits nicely into their 'niche' because they have been evolving for millions of years to do so.

Well that's the story, but is it true?

That is what the evidence leads us to conclude, yeah.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 10:17 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Funny thing about the ID crowd:  They almost universally posit a Designer that is perfect, then credit it with a sub-optimal creation.  Doesn't really help explain things like AIDS, tooth decay and Harlequin Foetus Syndrome.

On the other hand, if life-as-it-exists is the result of natural selection acting on situationally favourable mutations, we'd expect exactly what we see - organisms that aren't perfect, but suited to their particular environments.  In other words, just good enough to get by.

Boru

NO, those problems that you mentioned are the result of the mutations that are supposed to be your hero. When DNA gets damaged, enzymes may not function properly, and they can lead to the phenotypic problems that you complain about. It's not that it was designed to be that way, it's that it got damaged.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
So, AAA, assuming there is this "unbelievably intelligent" designer behind the cellular processes you mentioned, how does it follow that this designer happens to be the Biblical god you worship -- you know, the deity whose "designs" were scuttled by a single act of human will and who couldn't conceive of a more intelligent and believable means of extending redemption than the barbarism of a blood sacrifice? I call bullshit and special pleading.

Ordinarily, this would be a derail, but you aren't making your case in the biological sciences sub-forum; you're making in the Christianity sub-forum. Does old "iron chariot" Yahweh really strike you, as a character, as the sort of deity you're trying to push here? Be honest.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 1:06 pm)AAA Wrote:
(May 21, 2016 at 1:00 pm)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote: Absolutely I have the audacity to call out a bad design. When the design flaws are the cause of failure, that's bad design. There are a huge number of flaws that would be trivial for an omnipotent designer to have designed better.

I really hate the poor design argument. Are signal transduction pathways poorly designed? Is the ribosome poorly designed? Is the clathrin molecule poorly designed? What about motor proteins? How about the nuclear pore complex? What about ATP synthase? What about the DNA repair enzymes? What about the way that receptors relay a signal? If it were designed, the designer was unbelievably intelligent. [

And again, we are suffering DNA damage because of our lifestyles. Maybe the design wasn't intended to experience the environmental conditions we experience. If I smashed your laptop with a bat, you wouldn't complain that it was poorly designed.

Straw man much? Who (other than you) has argued DNA damage as evidence of bad design. How about your breathing tube and your eating tube sharing the same plumbing resulting in thousands of deaths every year? How about reproductive organs and wast elimination organs being right next to each other (women) or sharing the same pipe (men). The "design" sucks and the "designer" should be held accountable. All you'll ever do is make excuses.
Thief and assassin for hire. Member in good standing of the Rogues Guild.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
The prostate. There's damning evidence against a competent design.

Go investigate the laryngeal nerve in mammals, particularly the giraffe. It's simultaneously supportive of common descent and an indictment of competent design, and if you can't see that plainly, you're hopelessly biased.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 2:21 pm)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote:
(May 21, 2016 at 1:06 pm)AAA Wrote: I really hate the poor design argument. Are signal transduction pathways poorly designed? Is the ribosome poorly designed? Is the clathrin molecule poorly designed? What about motor proteins? How about the nuclear pore complex? What about ATP synthase? What about the DNA repair enzymes? What about the way that receptors relay a signal? If it were designed, the designer was unbelievably intelligent. [

And again, we are suffering DNA damage because of our lifestyles. Maybe the design wasn't intended to experience the environmental conditions we experience. If I smashed your laptop with a bat, you wouldn't complain that it was poorly designed.

Straw man much? Who (other than you) has argued DNA damage as evidence of bad design. How about your breathing tube and your eating tube sharing the same plumbing resulting in thousands of deaths every year? How about reproductive organs and wast elimination organs being right next to each other (women) or sharing the same pipe (men). The "design" sucks and the "designer" should be held accountable. All you'll ever do is make excuses.

There's so much going on in the cell that you don't even want to acknowledge. There are control mechanisms that make our electronic circuits rediculously childish. There are layers upon layers of information that are being continuously unpacked, read, and repacked. But you complain that your esophagus is too close to your trachea? You better be thankful that someone just happened to have an epiglottis in order for our species to survive the evolution of that setup.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 2:28 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: The prostate.  There's damning evidence against a competent design.

Go investigate the laryngeal nerve in mammals, particularly the giraffe.  It's simultaneously supportive of common descent and an indictment of competent design, and if you can't see that plainly, you're hopelessly biased.

Have you ever dissected a cadaver? In our anatomy and physiology labs we had to memorize and identify all the major nerves in the human cadavers. One thing that you will notice about the nerves is that they continuously branch off. I have never dissected a giraffe, but I'm guessing the laryngeal nerve takes the seemingly strange route because it branches off at specific locations. Many times the nerve branches off close to the target so that communication between the target and the CNS can occur more quickly.
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
(May 21, 2016 at 1:06 pm)AAA Wrote: If I smashed your laptop with a bat, you wouldn't complain that it was poorly designed.

Yes I would. I have a Panasonic ToughBook and it would take more than a bat.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
Reply
RE: Atheism vs. God's Existence
After all this, I have concluded that atheism is real as opposed to god's existence.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Existence of Marcion questioned? JairCrawford 28 2938 March 4, 2022 at 1:34 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  The existence of god Silver 16 3733 May 5, 2018 at 3:42 am
Last Post: Wyrd of Gawd
  There is no argument for the existence of "God" Silver 38 8588 March 15, 2016 at 8:50 am
Last Post: popsthebuilder
  Two ways to prove the existence of God. Also, what I'm looking for. IanHulett 9 3936 July 25, 2015 at 6:37 am
Last Post: ignoramus
  20 Arguments for God's existence? Silver 17 4511 May 9, 2014 at 2:43 pm
Last Post: Brian37
  Telephones Prove God's Existence Mudhammam 9 4524 February 6, 2014 at 6:41 am
Last Post: Mudhammam
  God is god, and we are not god StoryBook 43 13833 January 6, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Last Post: StoryBook
  Debating the existence of Jesus CleanShavenJesus 52 26504 June 26, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Last Post: Bad Writer
  Science explains the existence of God. Greatest I am 1 1626 August 13, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Last Post: 5thHorseman
  God get's angry, Moses changes God's plans of wrath, God regrets "evil" he planned Mystic 9 7179 February 16, 2012 at 8:17 am
Last Post: Strongbad



Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)