So your an Athiest

[AAA]

It's not ignorance!!!!!!  There are positive characteristics of design. I don't have to wait for a naturalistic explanation to arise, when the origin of such characteristics have always been the product of an intelligence.

"Argument from ignorance" is a logical fallacy that you continue use, i'm not calling you ignorant!!!!

It seems like it is only an argument from ignorance if you assume that naturalistic explanations are the only ones. What if I said you were arguing from ignorance by saying that it occurred without a designer just because we haven't proven the designer yet?

[Silver]

What would count as proof? How would you expect a designer to communicate with us?

He's an ALL POWERFUL deity. Isn't it his job to ensure we believe in him rather than have lackeys do his job?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That depends on what you mean by "religious beliefs". If your religious beliefs prevent you from doing impartial science, as in the Discovery Institute and Answers In Genesis crew, then you're not a scientist at all. But yes, as I said, many scientists are also Christians, including my Beloved.

I agree that Answers in Genesis put their religious beliefs ahead of science, but I think the Discovery Institute is more impartial. Steven Meyer is one of the most rational people that I have heard, and I think you should watch some of his debates (if you haven't already) and see if you find flaws in the argument.

Seriously? Or is this more sarcasm?

The Discovery Institute (renamed from the Creation Institute) has openly admitted their bias, and that they are willing to lie to promote Biblical literalism. They most infamously do this via "quote mining", where they misrepresent something a scientist said by taking it out of context in order to make it appear the scientist is saying something they would never have said, as a way of making it sound like there's a controversy over the fact of evolution.

They formerly had what is now known as "the Wedge Document" on their main website, openly admitting their purpose and intentions, including the propaganda campaign about "Intelligent Design" in place of Creationism, which in 1998 (when they wrote it) had already lost court cases concerning religion in schools. This document was taken down later, but which the National Center for Science Education was kind enough to preserve for posterity:

http://ncse.com/creationism/general/wedge-document

I have spent the past 20 years disembowling their misrepresentations and outright lies. In fact, I credit their BS with helping me attain my BSc in biology/chemistry, since I mad a hobby of debunking those things online after they came to our college with a "presentation" that challenged one of our biology professors to a public debate-- I looked up the disingenuous tactics they use, and came up with a strategy to help our professor overcome the public speaking tricks, with which he was unfamiliar. The most prevalent was what I call "the Machine-Gun Tactic", but which others have dubbed "the Gish Gallop": they will fire off, say, ninteen questions in rapid sequence, and ignore that the first 19 were answered when the scientist says, "I don't know the answer" on the 20th question, and they'll go "AHA! You don't know!!" I countered by hooking up a database to the Berkeley website that contains most zoological and biochemical information known at the time (this was 2001), and printing off the question before the guy could even finish his bit, handing the paper to the professor on stage. For this, I spent my entire senior year being called "that evolution guy" by people who were in the audience, when they saw me on campus.

[Mr.wizard]

You must forego all reason and logic and just believe for the sake of believing, much like children being asked to clap for Tinker Bell to live during a Peter Pan movie, because goodness knows credulity is solely dependent upon one's inability to reason rather than one's ability to be an adult.

What would count as proof? How would you expect a designer to communicate with us? Maybe a chemical language within each of us? Oh wait, that exists. Maybe mathematical structures that arise from inanimate materials such as the Fibonacci sequence governing the shape of hurricanes and spiral arms of galaxies? that's there too. How about sound waves that have a built in way to arrange objects into complex geometric mathematical structures? That exists too (look up cymatics). It seems to me that you and Mr. Wizard will only accept that there was a designer if he walks right up to you and creates a new universe right in front of you so you can watch. That may not even be enough

Your just listing things that already exist and then asserting that there is a designer behind the scenes, your not proving anything.

[AAA]

Supposedly this designer could effortlessly confirm his existence to me without relying on you to spread the word.  I'll just be waiting for his call.

Ok, well I don't think that is a valid excuse for disbelief. Let's speak hypothetically and say that when you die and meet God, He asks you why you didn't believe. You're just going to say because you didn't get a call from Him?

[FatAndFaithless]

Supposedly this designer could effortlessly confirm his existence to me without relying on you to spread the word.  I'll just be waiting for his call.

Ok, well I don't think that is a valid excuse for disbelief. Let's speak hypothetically and say that when you die and meet God, He asks you why you didn't believe. You're just going to say because you didn't get a call from Him?

I'll simply say he never gave me any evidence.

[Silver]

Let's speak hypothetically and say that when you die and meet God, He asks you why you didn't believe. You're just going to say because you didn't get a call from Him?

Precisely, the dick of a god should have made some sort of effort rather than just us relying upon ignorant and fallible faith.

[AAA]

What would count as proof? How would you expect a designer to communicate with us? Maybe a chemical language within each of us? Oh wait, that exists. Maybe mathematical structures that arise from inanimate materials such as the Fibonacci sequence governing the shape of hurricanes and spiral arms of galaxies? that's there too. How about sound waves that have a built in way to arrange objects into complex geometric mathematical structures? That exists too (look up cymatics). It seems to me that you and Mr. Wizard will only accept that there was a designer if he walks right up to you and creates a new universe right in front of you so you can watch. That may not even be enough

Your just listing things that already exist and then asserting that there is a designer behind the scenes, your not proving anything.

What counts as proof? Nothing in existence can prove God's existence in your mind, so how do you want me to prove it?

---

Let's speak hypothetically and say that when you die and meet God, He asks you why you didn't believe. You're just going to say because you didn't get a call from Him?

Precisely, the dick of a god should have made some sort of effort rather than just us relying upon ignorant and fallible faith.

I don't know what to tell you. You have to be more open minded than that. That is a really simple minded excuse for denying a designer.

[Mr.wizard]

"Argument from ignorance" is a logical fallacy that you continue use, i'm not calling you ignorant!!!!

It seems like it is only an argument from ignorance if you assume that naturalistic explanations are the only ones. What if I said you were arguing from ignorance by saying that it occurred without a designer just because we haven't proven the designer yet?

No because Im not asserting anything, I am only claiming to know what is known. You are the one asserting a designer and the reason you gave is because to you things could not be how they are without a designer. This why I asked you to prove a designer, which you cannot do.

[FatAndFaithless]

By 'be open minded' you of course mean 'believe what I believe'. You do realize the vast majority of atheists were religious once, yeah?