Detecting design or intent in nature

[Esquilax]

We've never observed an intellect originating anywhere other than earth. But I blame that on our lack of action/ability to look anywhere other than earth. Still, your question only backs my thinking.

So, when atheists do it, making assumptions based on no observations is a bad thing, but when you do it, it's perfectly alright? Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?

Suppose one night, your mom tucks you into bed, kisses you on your forehead, turns on your nightlight, slowly closes the door while telling you to have sweet dreams. The next morning you awake to find yourself in a strange room without any apparent doors or windows. You realize you've been kidnapped.....but by who? If you've only ever observed earth intellects, and never observed non earth intellects, you'd conclude you were kidnapped by humans from earth. Your conclusion would be reasonable given your observation.

However, suppose you've just got a job with the Men in Black and have been introduced to all sorts of non earth aliens. Now you wouldn't be so sure you've been kidnapped by humans. You'd probably be checking your backside for probes placed by others instead of the ones placed there by yourself.

How does this hypothetical support your position? The latter scenario features a person with additional evidence to support the idea of extraterrestrial life, evidence that you do not have. Unless you're claiming to be a member of the Men in Black, now?

Asking where the intellect is that was necessary for the evolutionary system which created us is a very reasonable question. But it doesn't magically mean there was no intellect or there couldn't be an intellect....so it doesn't falsify my argument.

But you're still making the assumption that an intellect was necessary, despite never observing it, which is the exact same line of reason you denigrate when we do it. Surely you see your own hypocrisy there?

Again there is observational evidence that intellects create evolutionary systems. There is also observational evidence that evolutionary systems create intellects. You assume, because your atheistic faith demands it, that evolutionary systems had to come first.

I assume no such thing, and how dare you try to dictate to me what my position is? Especially after you've been told, in this very thread, what it actually is; how can I take this as anything other than a lie, when I've told you before that neither of us know how life originated. I don't need to take the exact opposite position just to reveal the tangled, contradictory logic and self serving hypocrisies of your argument here. Drop the simplistic binary and actually listen to what someone else is saying before you disagree with them, next time.

I don't make such an assumption and your atheistic faith isn't a good enough reason for me to believe your assumption.

You don't make such an assumption? We're 109 pages into a thread of you defending the idea that intellect created evolutionary systems, assuming that to be true despite not having any evidence for it. Just denying that your hypocrisy exists is a tactic fit for a toddler, Heywood.

Maybe the bottom of the hierarchy is an evolutionary system. Maybe it is an intellect. Again your question doesn't falsify my argument. Its just an interesting question that isn't answered by any of our observations.

It puts your argument on self-refuting ground; you continue to use a lack of observations to dismiss the idea of natural means out of hand, yet your own argument ultimately relies on the same lack of observation. At the very least, that puts your argument on equal ground with the contra-positive, not the higher ground you want to place it on with your talk of observing evolution coming about via intellects, and your continued defense of this argument as somehow better is baffling and hypocritical because of these obvious weaknesses that you refuse to even acknowledge.

This is only compounded, by the way, by your constant shifting of the burden of proof, demanding that everyone else falsify ideas you've provided no evidence for. That's not how this works, and simply ignoring all the problems with your argument does not make it perfect, it just means you're being dishonest.