What's the lamest defence of Theism you've ever heard?

[LadyForCamus]

The funny thing is, if god designed us, who designed god? Unless, and here's where it falls apart, he magically came into existence.

Nobody wins in an infinite regress.

Way to perfectly avoid jello's question.

Ps, sorry everyone for arriving late to this discussion and bombing the thread!

[robvalue]

A bit of crap being carried on an asteroid being a precursor to abiogenesis is something I consider plausible.

I don't think there's anything magical about Earth. Stuff happens when the conditions are right. It's looking at it backwards, as if it was the goal all along, which causes all this magical thinking.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Actually, stuff don't happen because the conditions are right. Stuff happen so as to survive in a given condition(evolution). There is no right condition.

Now let me savour this rare moment...mmmmm

[Cyberman]

Of course another explanation wouid be that life couldve formed(achieved its stable state) elsewhere,ie,other than earth and then somehow reached earth.. And after reaching earth was then subject to evolution ..and got to what it is today..

Even then, that life would have been subject to some analogous form of Darwinian evolutionary pressures before ending up here. And we 'only' have the current lifetime of the Universe to play in.

[robvalue]

Pool: Sure, at an abstract level that is true. I meant at a more fundamental, microscopic level. If the conditions are right for something to happen, in accordance with whatever rules apply, then it happens. It's a tautology, I'm not trying to say anything profound!

As an overall pattern, life generally "tries to survive", I agree. This is an emergent property of all these rules interacting at the fundamental level.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

An example is our immune system gradually adjusting itself rendering many antibiotics useless in the near future.(Right?)

[Angrboda]

The cell is more complex than the circuit board on the asteroid. It was an analogy. We don't know how it could have gotten there. There is only ONE cause that is so far sufficient to lead to the phenomena that are observed in the cell. That is intelligence. But this answer is unacceptable, and according to you anyone who reasons this way is a caveman. 

For intelligence to be even viable as an alternative, you need evidence that an intelligence capable of filling that role existed in the first place. When people study stone tool making technology, they do so within the bounds of established hypotheses as to the existence of a suitable intelligence in the area in question at the right time. If we found stone tools in a 10,000 year old layer of antarctic soil, then design would not be a reasonable hypothesis as there was no designer around at the time. You need to provide some evidence of a suitable designer before the design hypothesis becomes realistic. You have not done so, aside from the fine tuning argument, which is inconclusive at best; we don't know why the parameters of the universe are what they are, and neither do you.

Second, evolution provides a naturalistic explanation for the development of intelligence. So claiming that it "looks like an intelligence was involved" gets you nothing as intelligence itself may be the result of natural processes. (Unless you're proposing that the designer evolved naturally, which you're not.) You're making an argument by analogy to human design without realizing that this very appeal to human intelligence may undermine your entire argument about the nature of the designer. Is it possible that your designer evolved to the point of having the capabilities of intelligence and technology necessary for designing life? If not, then you are proceeding from a false analogy because it is possible that human intelligence evolved. You are sneaking in the assumption that intelligence is not the result of natural processes into the basement of your argument. The fact that intelligence and its evolution may be a natural process unravels your entire argument.

I notice you using a lot of William Dembski's terminology. In particular, you claim that intelligence is the only known cause of a specific sequence. Dembski never succeeded in giving any meaning to the term 'specified' in specified complexity. Since you appear comfortable with it, could you explain what makes one sequence 'specified' and what makes another sequence not 'specified'?

As I see your argument, you are claiming:

1. evolution cannot account for what we see in the natural world;
2. a designer can account for it;
3. therefore a designer is the most plausible hypothesis for what we see.

Is this not an accurate summary? If that is so, I'd like to know the details of what it is you see which you claim can only be explained by design. Simply being complex isn't enough. Simply being improbable isn't enough. (Which is the basis of claims about complexity.) So what is the magical ingredient that spells 'design' when we have complex and improbable phenomena?

[Cyberman]

A more accurate example would be the viruses adapting to our immune systems over many generations.

[robvalue]

Pool: Yeah sure, that sounds good

I'm on a treatment for Crohn's at the moment, and I was told that eventually my body will start rejecting it. (There are plenty of others to move on to so it's not of concern). It's just interesting that my body will create antibodies or something which will stop the treatment working. I suppose it sees it as a threat, of some sort.

Also diseases mutate, and if they aren't "getting anywhere" one way, they try and find another. (Giving the illusion of intelligence.) I have a really annoying verruca I'm getting treatment for. My wife had loads, many years ago, and she got them all treated and removed in one session. Apparently the strains have changed so much since then that they have become much more resistant. Killing them in one go is extremely unlikely. I've had two treatments so far, and I'm told it could take many more.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Actually the time frame available after big bang for advanced life forms such as ours to have formed isnt that far fetched, it wouldve been if this was an experiment conducted in a lab but its not. When you consider the sheer size of the universe - these reactions couldve been happening all accross our universe simultaneously, perhaps earth was lucky enough to have had stable stuff like cell form here or this thing got here from somewhere else, completely plausible.