Atheism vs. God's Existence

[Angrboda]

If he isn't, I am.

Hah, ok. They possess highly unique and non-random structures. From the specificity of the characters in the genetic code to the actual design that displayed in the phenotype, they all function extremely well. Ask yourself if we could design a better cell. What would you do differently if you were to design a cell?

What do you mean by highly unique? (And calling them non-random structures is begging the question.)

[Cyberman]

I'm not a designer. It's not my job to make the case for design.

No, but you say it doesn't contain features of design. Then I ask what features could it have that would make it count as design and you refuse to give some. Do you want it to have the ability to communicate using electrical signals? Do you want it to be able to repair itself? Do you want it to read an information dense code? Oh wait, it does all those things. Just tell me one characteristic of a designed sytems that life doesn't have

You're the one trying to make a case for design. You supply the evidence. See, it's not up to me to make your case for you and then refute it.

[Crossless2.0]

I don't follow. Why would it be downgraded if it were designed? And why would it mean God is not that bright?

Quite simple. There are certain animals that have one over us. Regrowing limbs or teeth, better sensual capabilities, the works. If we are supposed to be the masterpiece, we're a pretty poor example as it is. Not to speak of the evolutionary remnants in our own body. Google is your friend if you were to look them up. Not that I think you would do that, since your type never does.

For that matter, the jury is still out -- in terms of evolutionary fitness -- on human-grade intelligence. We might prove to be yet another evolutionary dead end: unable to collectively overcome our emotional 'wiring' and therefore too smart for our own good.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I'm not a designer. It's not my job to make the case for design.

No, but you say it doesn't contain features of design. Then I ask what features could it have that would make it count as design and you refuse to give some. Do you want it to have the ability to communicate using electrical signals? Do you want it to be able to repair itself? Do you want it to read an information dense code? Oh wait, it does all those things. Just tell me one characteristic of a designed sytems that life doesn't have

I don't know what features you'd expect to find that would count as evidence of design, since for there to be actual evidence of design, we'd need to see that something tampered with the natural processes that DNA (and the related chemistry) undergoes.

ID has proposed no such mechanism. All you do is point to anything that's not yet fully understood and say, "There! There's the gap! God's in that gap!", or you try to imply that a high degree of complexity that has developed over 4 billion years can only be explained by outside intervention. There is absolutely no reason to make such an assumption, nor can I even grasp what kind of evidence you'd put forth to try to suggest it is. Saying that it appears to be too complex to have occurred naturally isn't an argument, except The Argument from Personal Incredulity, unless you can show that there's no possible way a natural mechanism could be discovered that would explain the phenomenon... Irreducible Complexity is a poor argument, especially given that all of the original IC systems pointed out by Behe (for instance) have been shown to be naturally occurring.

In that case, you'd have literally the greatest discovery in the history of science-- namely, that magic is real. Everything that occurs without magic is simply biochemistry, and thus not ID. Show me how something could meddle in the pie, and how we'd spot that, and we can talk. "Too complex" is not an answer. "Appearance of" is worse.

[Cyberman]

I submit again DNA's* puddle. If not for the perfectly designed hole, the puddle wouldn't be able to fit.

(DNA - Douglas Noel Adams)

[abaris]

For that matter, the jury is still out -- in terms of evolutionary fitness -- on human-grade intelligence. We might prove to be yet another evolutionary dead end: unable to collectively overcome our emotional 'wiring' and therefore too smart for our own good.

Of course we will be gone at some point. Does anyone think, we will survive the estimated 4 billion years until the sun quits?

[The Grand Nudger]

Minor aside (but really...why are we still humoring AAA?), but I think we've at least got a shot at it.  We're not limited, in the way that others animals are and have been, to our biological inheritance.  Because of this, the rates of success or failure for those other creatures cannot be pointed to as a 1-1 indicator of our future success or failure.  Further we've -already- survived billions years of what the cosmos has thrown at us -without- the advantages we now possess. I do expect us, at the least, to be among the last things standing on this rock (and not for the most pleasant of reasons in every conceivable case), which we already are.

[Crossless2.0]

For that matter, the jury is still out -- in terms of evolutionary fitness -- on human-grade intelligence. We might prove to be yet another evolutionary dead end: unable to collectively overcome our emotional 'wiring' and therefore too smart for our own good.

Of course we will be gone at some point. Does anyone think, we will survive the estimated 4 billion years until the sun quits?

My point is that we could be gone much more quickly than seems to be the average for species -- whether through wiping ourselves out with nuclear weapons, degrading our envirionment to the point that it becomes largely uninhabitable, or at the 'hands' of some virus or bacteria that we either "intelligently designed" or that evolved in some kind of biological arms race faster than our ability to deal with it medically.

No, of course I don't think we'll be around until the sun quits.

[AAA]

You're the one who thinks there is no evidence of design in nature. If you don't like their chapter titles, then take it up with them. They don't believe in intelligent design, but don't laugh when I say scientists think it has features of design. If they didn't want their chapter titles to be repeated, then they shouldn't have called them that. Are you seriously going to tell me that life doesn't have features of design?

No one outside of the Intelligent Design movement thinks that there's evidence of design in nature. Worse, you willfully try to use "appearance of design" as synonymous with "is apparently designed", when they are nothing of the sort. It's why I used the simple example of snowflakes, in our prior discussion on this subject, which can easily appear to be the intricate work of a specialized artist, but really are only the result of the way the electrons "orbit" around the water molecules at an angle.

We're baffled at the level of skull density it takes to think that the way he's (actually, the book has three authors, so I'm referring to whichever author or editor chose the chapter titles) using "Design" in the chapter headings of a biochemistry book indicate that life or DNA is literally designed by an Intelligent Designer.

RocketSurgeon, please listen to the words I'm about to say because I've said it before and you're still saying the same things. I KNOW THEY DON'T THINK IT WAS LITERALLY DESIGNED BY INTELLIGENCE. All I'm saying is that life does have features of design. Genuine or not, it has the characteristics of designed systems.

[AAA]

Hah, ok. They possess highly unique and non-random structures. From the specificity of the characters in the genetic code to the actual design that displayed in the phenotype, they all function extremely well. Ask yourself if we could design a better cell. What would you do differently if you were to design a cell?

What do you mean by highly unique?  (And calling them non-random structures is begging the question.)

Well DNA sequences are highly irregular. Also, the structures in cells work together extremely efficiently meaning they are non-random and clearly purposeful.