Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[Edwardo Piet]

Where are the non-creationists when ya need 'em?

Oh wait! Pretty much everywhere!

But this one creationist fucker is annoying as crap!

[vorlon13]

The problem is, usually religion contradicts evidence. And that causes people to reject the evidence just to save their precious religion.

People's Exhibit A: the infamous Answers in Genesis "Statement of faith":

By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

 . . . and when the scriptural record notes Christ being crucified on Thursday and Friday, we have quite the scriptural chronological contradictory conundrum, don't we ?

And what extra-Biblical evidence could possibly help the believers with that problem ?

[Anomalocaris]

People's Exhibit A: the infamous Answers in Genesis "Statement of faith":

 . . . and when the scriptural record notes Christ being crucified on Thursday and Friday, we have quite the scriptural chronological contradictory conundrum, don't we ?

And what extra-Biblical evidence could possibly help the believers with that problem ?

If scripture say Thursday and Friday, then that means the Thursday in question was a Friday!

[vorlon13]

I'm going with Jesus got nailed twice.

The Romans were a thorough people, they wanted to make sure Jesus was not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

[Edwardo Piet]

He did? I thought he was a virgin.

The dirty, drity, crucified messianic fucker!

[Cyberman]

Dirty deity.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yesh.

DD.

[The Grand Nudger]

Other than the evidenced cause, you mean?  It wouldn't and doesn't matter.  The question is malformed and uniformative regardless.

"If not god than what" ignores demonstrable fact, and even if it didn't...would amount to no more than a failure of your own imagination.

I didn't say "If not god than what".

I don't see the point in dancing around what you said.  Do you?

You know that there is only one known cause capable of producing this type of information. It is possible that there is another cause that has eluded scientists for decades, but I don't see a reason to stretch my imagination to believe that.

What might that one known cause be....lol?

[AAA]

The claim was that "intelligence is the only known cause capable of producing specified/sequential information". If I describe the other alternatives and why they are wrong, then this is support for the claim that intelligence stands alone. Rather than shout argument from incredulity, think about the nature of the claim I'm making. For example, imagine someone claims "idea A is the only good idea". In order to support this claim, they must show why ideas B, C, and D are not good ideas. Does that make sense? In order to show that intelligence is the only cause capable, I must show why the other causes are not sufficient. 

Moreover, intelligence is observed to be capable of producing it all the time. Through the input of intelligence, we have developed computer code, written language, radio communication, and have even tampered with genetic code. All of these are specified and sequence based. Intelligence is an adequate cause.

It's the only known cause TO YOU.  All you are trying to give me is negative evidence for other claims and jumping to the first alternative that you prefer in its stead without actually backing it up in its own light. It's just another form of the god of the gaps kind of argument. It doesn't work.

Fuck it. I don't think you're going to get this one. Enjoy your fantasy.

Don't run off just yet, this can be settled. It is the only known cause to anybody, or else the person that does know of a different one doesn't feel like sharing. I already described that the negative evidence is essential for this type of claim. I also did give you evidence that intelligence is an adequate cause. It is not based on what we do not know about how information arises that leads to design, it is about what we do know. I think you should consider the argument more carefully, because I'm concerned that we are misunderstanding each other.

---

I didn't say "If not god than what".

I don't see the point in dancing around what you said.  Do you?

You know that there is only one known cause capable of producing this type of information. It is possible that there is another cause that has eluded scientists for decades, but I don't see a reason to stretch my imagination to believe that.

What might that one known cause be....lol?

Intelligence

---

I think you are hinting at a bigger question, though.

I am.  You asked if nature exhibited evidence of design.  My point was that we can see the signs of design in nature, but as we look deeper we see that it might also be an illusion.  To put it another way, this is the kind of evidence that would indicate that the world is flat, or that the Sun is a relatively small light source that travels across the sky.  As we learn more we realize that while it looked like those assumptions were correct, they were actually wrong.

Why isn't everything in the universe perfect if it were designed by an all-knowing God? I don't know, but I think that perfection is too much for us imperfect people to ask for. If it were perfect, then there would be more room for us imperfect beings to corrupt and ruin it. Would you create an extremely intricate and "perfect" enclosure to house a group of rowdy animals? It would be all the more disappointing for you to see your perfect enclosure be ruined by the inevitable actions of the flawed.

If God was anything like us, I expect that his designs would be flawed and require constant tweaking and testing as he improved them.  He would still have far more tools and fewer limitations than we do, but he could enjoy the journey as much as we do when we're chasing after a goal that we can't achieve right away.  That would be a very nice God to have, assuming he didn't exhibit any of the less-pleasant attributes that humans do all too often.

You're right, the appearance of design might be an illusion, but I have not seen a compelling reason to think it to be so. In fact, the more I learn the more I think it may be genuine. We have those historical examples of times when things were not as they seemed to be, and that should keep us cautious and fair minded when evaluating the appearance of design. However, just because things aren't always as they appear does not mean that they are never as they appear. 

And you're right again, who knows if God is actually all-knowing. Maybe He did tweak things to get it the way He wanted it. In fact, this is why some members of intelligent design think that the designers were likely extra-terrestrial and not all knowing. If someone came back to Earth 100,000 years from now and found a bunch of buried cell phones, they would notice a seeming progression in technology as they moved toward the more recent ones. They may be tempted to project some evolutionary scenario to explain the seeming pattern, but like the information found in living systems, the only known cause of the specified circuitry that makes up a cell phone is intelligence. Living systems may represent a directed enhancement of design rather than a slow accumulation of mutations.

[Jesster]