Intelligent Design

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The blueprints are in the genetic code, and when we can't explain the origin of things that have characteristics found in design, then I think we can rationally assume design.

Okay, let's have some fun: let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is indeed rational to assume design.

What are we left with? A vague, nebulous designer. Where did that designer come from? Did it, perchance, come about abiogenetically, due to natural processes that led to it forming from molecules? If so then you no longer have a basis for discounting it on Earth as you did to come to the designer conclusion in the first place. The argument from ignorance of "there's no current explanation for abiogenesis," that you used officially goes out the door. Did the designer not come about that way? Did it always exist, pop into existence from nothing, or something of that ilk? Well, now you're in trouble because you have no observations at all in support of that even being possible, meaning you've abandoned your scientific pretense entirely the moment you have a conclusion you want to reach.

So which is it? Will you abandon your argument in support of design on Earth, making it unnecessary to presume design at all? Or will you abandon the scientific method? Because, to be clear, it is impossible to get to a designer that has any form of justification at all, without allowing some of the things you've asserted to be impossible as a lynchpin argument in your case. Either your argument is wrong, or your designer cannot exist.

For that matter, assuming you can find your way out of that dilemma adequately, would your designer look anything like the organisms that it designed (you're a christian, so I feel like you should be taking that "made in god's image" thing seriously)? Given that your whole argument thus far has been that you infer design because you see the appearance of design... wouldn't that mean that your designer itself has the appearance of design and thus would be, under your own logic, designed too? And if it doesn't look designed, which would mean you're abandoning your religious views... what would that even look like? If all life on Earth looks designed to you, then what would a non-designed life form look like? To make a determination that something is one way, as opposed to another, then clearly you'd need a point of contrast between the two states, so what is it? What would a non-designed organism be like, and how did you determine that, since you're so sure that life on Earth is designed?

I was going to leave this thread alone, but this was an interesting question. We can't tell much about the designer based solely on observations of the design, but there are several possibilities. We could assume that it was some natural intelligence like extra terrestrials. They would have to have a much simpler biological setup in order to make it more reasonable to assume that they could have potentially formed from abiotic materials. The reason I object to our life forms having arisen from abiotic materials and evolved is due to the fact that DNA replication involves dozens of proteins. Proteins are produced with the help of hundreds of different proteins (each of which needs previous proteins to be built). The molecules needed to build proteins and DNA also need to be synthesized with the help of other proteins. It's a lot of chicken or the egg problems. If some extra terrestrial life forms had a simpler setup, we may see a more reasonable way that they could have gotten there naturally. 

Of course I don't think this is the case. I think there is some form of intelligence outside of our universe that designed the universe and life. The big bang theory seems to point to the fact that there are other things outside of our universe. A cause that led to our universe. Obviously it is impossible to try to explain these extra-universal ideas (unless they are capable of entering into our universe). Based on our current understanding of physics, nothing should be eternal, but the fact that things exist shows that something must always have existed. I personally believe in a being (or beings) of higher spacial dimensions. For example think of a 4 dimensional creature. This is difficult to imagine. Picture a two dimensional plane such as a slice of paper with 2D creatures on it. They can only move within the 2 dimensions of the paper. They have no way to conceive of the third dimension. However, a 3D creature could observe the 2D creatures. We could literally be as close as possible to the 2D realm (slice of paper), and still be undetectable to them. We could even enter their realm. Imagine a 3D creature sticking its finger into the 2D realm. The 2D creatures would only be able to see the horizontal cross section of the finger which would appear as a 2D circle. We could then pull our finger out of the 2D realm and it would appear as though the circle simply disappeared. Now imagine that there is a 4D creature that could interact with our 3D realm. We would have no way to observe the 4D realm (in fact only some mathematicians and children can visualize it). The 4D creature could then interact with the 3D realm be inserting part of itself into our realm, which we would perceive in its 3D form (this may be where Jesus comes in, and why it is implied that Jesus and God are the same entity). I realize that this last paragraph is not scientific, but it makes sense of some strange phenomena that is supposedly observed. 

What I don't like about being told that I'm arguing from ignorance is that the person telling me that is making the assumption that their view is right. It seems to go something like this. The proponent of neo-darwinian evolution says something like:"just because we don't know now how abiogenesis occurred doesn't mean it didn't, we just don't know how it did and we will find out later. Saying it didn't happen is a premature conclusion when we will find the answer later." If this is not a good summary of the argument from ignorance, then please let me know.

Where did this being come from? I have no idea. What does it look like? I have no idea. The infinite regress leads to two possibilities. The original cause being intelligent, or the original cause being unintelligent. Neither makes sense, and it seems like there shouldn't be anything, but there is. Just because we aren't capable of studying this potentially higher dimensional being doesn't mean that it won't make sense if we had the chance to.