Detecting design or intent in nature

[Chili]

Oh sorry, I thought maybe you knew what love was like, that to me is the leading edge of life.

Certainly I know love. I love and am loved and I see others love and be loved. But that has nothing to do with whether there is a god.

Oops, sorry, maybe you idea of God is different then mine.
Do you know what 'first cause' means? And do you also know that it ends with 'second cause'?

[BlackMason]

When people see design or the guiding hand of God in something, how would we define that?

Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.

1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.

Therefore nature has no goals.

[watchamadoodle]

When people see design or the guiding hand of God in something, how would we define that?

Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.

1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.

Therefore nature has no goals.

I'm not sure about that argument.

Sometimes we design special tools, jigs, scaffolds, etc. when building something. Those things get discarded after we are done just like species of life go extinct, but that doesn't mean they weren't serving a goal.

Also look at airplane designs. Cloth and canvas biplanes are extinct, but they were a stepping stone that served a goal. Or sometimes we build prototype airplanes that are not practical, but they allow us to test an idea.

Of course human designs (like airplanes) are not that different from the evolution of life. Most new designs are just a slight evolution of old designs. Designs reproduce and go extinct partly in response to their effectiveness in the environment at the time.

So the whole issue of distinguishing intelligent design from evolution is based on the assumption that they are fundamentally different when actually they aren't so different?

[Brian37]

Certainly I know love. I love and am loved and I see others love and be loved. But that has nothing to do with whether there is a god.

Oops, sorry, maybe you idea of God is different then mine.
Do you know what 'first cause' means? And do you also know that it ends with 'second cause'?

That is the problem with all god claims, they always match the desires of the claimant.

Oh and there is no watchmaker FYI. "First cause" in religion is a human invented result of imagination.

Think about all the god claims you rightfully reject. The atheist simply rejects one more god claim than you do. Understand why you reject the god claims of others and you can understand why the atheist rejects ALL god claims.

[robvalue]

If everything needs a cause, what caused the first cause?

[FreeTony]

If everything needs a cause, what caused the first cause?

Theist will say that God has always existed and/or exists outside of time* and therefore doesn't need a cause. And this isn't special pleading because blah blah blah blah blah you're going to hell if you ask questions like that.

*They tend to have zero understanding of time, which means that they can both convince themselves that this is true, and throughly confuse anyone with a modicum of knowledge about physics. Time is actually not very well understood by the brightest of physicists, yet the Theist claims to know more about time than they do. This insistence that they know more about science than the experts is the thing about Theists that annoys me more than any other.

[Brian37]

If everything needs a cause, what caused the first cause?

Infinite regress is a bitch.

[Chili]

When people see design or the guiding hand of God in something, how would we define that?

Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.

1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.

Therefore nature has no goals.

Nature does not have a mind, but we do.
We may have red hair too, and get a shave,
and then we no longer have red hair,
So obviously we are not our hair.

[robvalue]

Sure is

Infinity is an odd concept. Say there's a postman who is delivering mail to the houses down an infinitely long street. If he chooses to go up one side of the street first, he will never get to any of the houses on the other side. But if he covers both sides of the street by alternating, he will eventually get to any house, no matter how far down the street.

I'd stop trying to find out who is responsible for this universe, unless you are trying to lodge a complaint against them.

[Brian37]

Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.

1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.

Therefore nature has no goals.

Nature does not have a mind, but we do.
We may have red hair too, and get a shave,
and then we no longer have red hair,
So obviously we are not our hair.

^^^^^^^^^^^What the?

None of that steamy pile of a metaphor explains anything.

If a Muslim typed what you just did to claim Allah to be the one true god, would you blindly become a Muslim?