Intelligent Design

[Pat Mustard]

You can't let the people of Ireland sort out Local Property Tax for themselves, now can you? It'll be a disaster of biblical proportions, I'm talking murder, chaos, dogs and cats mating in the streets here, people!

As I remember it, taxation in Ireland was more of a goal than a process.  

Boru

It depends on who you are, if you're a PAYE pleb like myself, it happens, a lot. If you're DOB or Bonio (as my mother so delightfully calls him) you pretend to live in Amsterdam or the Bahamas and then get someone else to design fancy graphs to show that you're actually too poor to pay any taxes (although given the mountain of debt DOBs empire is built on, and the fact that he can't find any more markets for his telecoms empire to bleed, this may actually be true).

[The Grand Nudger]

Didn't intend to say the folly is exclusively American, but even with the stats you quote the Brits are already miles ahead of us in leaving that woo behind. Therefore, I find it a little hard to see Britain being any easier for the Creatards. But ID is still a menacing danger, wherever it catches on.

You're reading them wrong..they aren't miles ahead..they're miles behind.  Those stats were from -before- ID hopped the pond and began it's work in earnest.  

That was their baseline.....the field in which they planted the first seed.....and what fertile earth it was. Perhaps we should reserve judgement...took awhile for ID to get going here as well.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Didn't intend to say the folly is exclusively American, but even with the stats you quote the Brits are already miles ahead of us in leaving that woo behind. Therefore, I find it a little hard to see Britain being any easier for the Creatards. But ID is still a menacing danger, wherever it catches on.

You're reading them wrong..they aren't miles ahead..they're miles behind.  Those stats were from -before- ID hopped the pond and began it's work in earnest.  

That was their baseline.....the field in which they planted the first seed.....and what fertile earth it was.  Perhaps we should reserve judgement...took awhile for ID to get going here as well.

Yeah, I guess you're right, although at least they seem less afraid of evolution. Don't have time to search it right now, but I'd be surprised if 69% of Americans wanted it in school classrooms.

[Rhondazvous]

That is not the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution, at least the one I am arguing against is that we share one common ancestor and that life could start from molecules. If that is how we will define evolution, then all species will eventually be unfit once enough mutations accumulate to degrade the functions of the genomes.

Evolution does not demand that we came from one common ancestor,
It looks like we do but that is an observation and not part of the process itself. Life starting from molecules would be abiogenesis not evolution. I also see how you don't know how mutations act within the theory. I am a product of an English education system where they taught us properly, I take it by your poor understanding of very basic biology you are an American.

Hey, I’m an American. Then again, notice how this AAA person ignores my posts. That should tell you something.

[Aroura]

No, that is not what it says.  But I guess you aren't actually interested in educating yourself on what it DOES say, just setting up a straw man and knocking it down.

Did you watch the video I posted? If not you are a hypocrite. Just save us both some time and summarize your video if you want me to respond to it.

I posted a < 1 hour video...you RESPOND with a nearly 7 hour video, and tell me I'm a hypocrite if I don't watch yours.....and you imply I must watch it first before you will watch mine.

Yes, that is how discourse works.....

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Did you watch the video I posted? If not you are a hypocrite. Just save us both some time and summarize your video if you want me to respond to it.

I posted a < 1 hour video...you RESPOND with a nearly 7 hour video, and tell me I'm a hypocrite if I don't watch yours.....and you imply I must watch it first before you will watch mine.

Yes, that is how discourse works.....

In fairness, it requires much time, plus sleep deprivation to show one the light of indoctrination.

[Rhondazvous]

I posted a < 1 hour video...you RESPOND with a nearly 7 hour video, and tell me I'm a hypocrite if I don't watch yours.....and you imply I must watch it first before you will watch mine.

Yes, that is how discourse works.....

In fairness, it requires much time, plus sleep deprivation to show one the light of indoctrination.

Actually church has never deprived me of sleep. It’s better than Valium, in fact. As a Christian, I learned to sleep with my eyes open while the people around me had their eyes wide shut.

[Esquilax]

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?

[robvalue]

Perfect Esq

This AAA guy, if he is for real and not a troll, has a big opportunity for an attitude adjustment here. One that could actually make his scientific career viable rather than being stuck with creationist museum only. I'd be very impressed if he took it.

In other words, don't throw good money after bad. (It's a poker term; don't stay in a hand you realize you aren't going to win just because you already put loads of money into the pot.)

[The Grand Nudger]

What scientific career?  Don't tell me you bought that shit for a minute...lol?