A complex case against intelligent design

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I'm ok with that. I certainly see no logical reason to believe that there is any flaw in human design.

This is known as "head in the sand" syndrome. It's fairly rampant among theists.

 

[74x12]

I'm pretty sure our omnipotent God knew exactly what was going to happen to the apple in the garden with a naked woman prancing about!

I still stand by my original post. The way our body works does not seem to me to be the best possible intelligent design, and therefore, our bodies were not designed but are the result of random chaotic adaptations from the environment which explains all our inconsistent imperfections we all have.

Why would God give us the best possible design? In that case; we would be immortal don't you think? That's the real best possible design.

So, since it is a fact that we are indeed mortal; therefore --if God made us-- then God must not have wanted us to be the "best possible design".

This means we were probably put here to be tested. Rather than this being a permanent state of being. In fact the whole concept of mortality is a concept of a transient state of being.

 

[Axe Elf]

That explains a lot. You don't care about verifiable reality and prefer to accept a comforting fantasy 'possibility' instead.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course I care about verifiable reality. I think, therefore I am. That is the extent of verifiable reality; I exist. Beyond that, we choose what we will accept on faith. There is nothing verifiable about the existence of God, or the non-existence of God. We merely choose whether to believe God exists, or we don't. I do. You don't. ::: shrug :::

You're not alone

You can't prove that.

Of course you're okay with that, because before you even explored the possibility of there being any flaw in human design, you've chosen to blindly accept that it's not possible for humans to have any flaws in their design.

Not at all. I have chosen to blindly accept (because there is no other basis for choosing) that the omni-God exists. Because I have chosen to believe that, I am logically constrained to conclude that it's not possible for there to be any flaws in the universe (humans included).

Because the entire concept that you're proposing is that God created humans perfectly. IF that were the case, you're right, humans wouldn't BE subjected to any biological pathogens. A perfectly designed system would originate with an immunity system capable of defending against any biological intrusion that's ever been or ever will be created. However, a system that has no idea what biological intrusions might exist would have to be able to develop immunity to biological intrusions as they were encountered.

That is such an egocentric, short-sighted position that it's really quite laughable. God created humans perfectly to fit perfectly into a perfect universe. For the universe to function perfectly, humans sometimes have to get sick and die, be drowned in floods or smashed in earthquakes or blown away by tornadoes--or the Earth couldn't have the kind of ecosphere that can support life in the first place. To say that humans aren't perfect unless each and every one of them physically lives forever in perfect health and happiness is just a silly definition of perfection. You have to consider the place of human beings in the larger system of the earth and the universe as a whole to determine whether or not they are flawed--and to me, they seem to fit in perfectly. You are, of course, free to have your own opinion, but at least try to make it a reasonable one.

 

[Axe Elf]

So. The limit appears to be in the creative ability of this god of yours.

Sad, really: A high school level engineering student can easily point out how to improve the human "design".

Making the creative ability of any god(s) involved, very questionable at best.

Please read and digest my lengthy reply to It Aint Necessarily So above. It renders your objection ineffective, but I don't feel like explaining it all again.

 

[Axe Elf]

This is known as "head in the sand" syndrome. It's fairly rampant among theists.

Your latter sentence is probably correct, although it doesn't apply in this case--as my lengthy posts addressing the topic can attest.

Disagreement with a conclusion is not the same as avoiding it, especially when extensive reasoning for said disagreement is provided.

 

[dfnj]

Why would God give us the best possible design? In that case; we would be immortal don't you think? That's the real best possible design.

So, since it is a fact that we are indeed mortal; therefore --if God made us-- then God must not have wanted us to be the "best possible design".

This means we were probably put here to be tested. Rather than this being a permanent state of being. In fact the whole concept of mortality is a concept of a transient state of being.

I think my OP is probably a better argument. A better design as opposed to the best possible design. I think the sheer number of blatant flaws seems to indicate a degree of lacking intelligence in the design. I have argued are numerous flaws and blatant design problems and quirks seems to better support the idea of randomly introduce adaptations.

 

[exchemist]

God made Adam perfect but he sinned. So his descendants are not perfect. Death has a grip on everyone now. Along with his buddy decay.

This is a thread about the absurdity of ID. Your argument needs to be pretty contorted if you accept, as IDers do, the age of the Earth and the presence of fossils, i.e. of billions of DEAD creatures from long before the time of Man. You need to argue that all creatures except Man were created to suffer death, pain, predation and disease, that Man was uniquely made immortal and perfect, but suffered the Fall and, er, became just like all the other creatures, suffering death, pain, predation and disease. Ockham's Razor would have something to say about that.

If you are a full-on YEC your argument has more self-consistency, at least superficially, since you can deploy the get-out of rejecting all of geology and physics and then pretend the fossils date from a time after Man (saddle up those dinosaurs etc). But IDers don't do that, because part of their shtick is to pretend they are doing science.

 

[exchemist]

I think my OP is probably a better argument. A better design as opposed to the best possible design. I think the sheer number of blatant flaws seems to indicate a degree of lacking intelligence in the design. I have argued are numerous flaws and blatant design problems and quirks seems to better support the idea of randomly introduce adaptations.

Just a quibble here: adaptations are not "random", they are selected.

 

[Koldo]

While I do believe that evolution is the mechanism of creation, I think this argument fails for the same reason as the arguments that God is not benevolent because there are so many bad things in the world.

An omnibenevolent God would WANT to create the best of all possible universes. An omniscient God would know HOW to create the best of all possible universes. And an omnipotent God would have the POWER to create the best of all possible universes. Therefore, if an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God exists, then we are forced to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes.

Anything that we think could be "better" is just a manifestation of our own profoundly limited (in time and space) perspective, as it would require something like omniscience on our own part to say definitively that the chain of events resulting from ANY change in the universe as it is would make the universe better overall.

We really don't know if the human body is as perfect as it can possibly be for this time and place or not, so assuming that it is not is an unwarranted assumption.

Pangloss, are you still alive ?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I assume this is a post to debunk God having created man. That's fine, but you should perhaps note a few details in the book of Genesis. I am not offering this as a "proof" of creation. I merely wish to give you the opportunity to see exactly what the book (scriptures) itself says on the matter. Belief, of course, is optional.

How is scripture relevant? The OP is examining nature for evidence for or against the existence of an intelligent designer. He referenced cancer and limb generation. How can scripture help answer whether man was intelligently designed?

As an unbeliever, I find no value in referencing scripture. If I turn to scripture, it is to evaluate what the religion is teaching, not what is true.

For truth, we need to consult nature. If truth is the quality that facts possess making them facts, and facts are linguistic strings that accurately map some aspect of reality, then truth and facts are only available to us by consulting our senses to accumulate evidence, and applying valid reason to it to arrive at sound conclusions. If these conclusions can accurately predict outcomes, then we can call them correct, or at least useful. We don't arrive at truth through faith or holy books.

Gen 1:31 says that everything God made was "good." When we think of that word we tend to think of goodness in a moral sense, but that is not at all what the ancient Hebrew would have thought. It is the Hebrew word "tov" and a much better translation would have been "functional."

Once again, nothing in Genesis helps us resolve the matter of an intelligent designer. Scripture helps us know that whoever wrote the words wasn't an intelligent designer of universes, but that doesn't mean that such a creature unknown to the scripture's writers doesn't exist.

Another reason not to go to scripture for answers is this translation issue you bring up. Apparently, the words can't be taken at face value. If the translations aren't accurate, why read them?

Which brings us to this: Look at the book with all of its ambiguity, internal contradictions, failed prophecies, unkept promises, and errors in science and history, then look at the world, and then decide if they originate from the same source. Is the author of any holy book also the universe's designer and builder? It's kind of like looking at a huge suspension bridge with some misspelled graffiti about bridges sprayed onto one of its steel girders, and trying to decide if the source of the bridge and of the graffiti are the same.

So when God first made people all was functional. Everything worked right. There would have been no disease or even death ... God did everything just right. All the shortcomings you mentioned happened later, namely after they disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil

According to this, God made a faulty prototype, and it failed. You put the blame on the prototypes, I put it on their designer. It's kind of uncharitable to the prototypes, who were designed to fail. If we believe scripture, they were created with what would be a flaw in the eyes of their creator, like a car built with a defect that would lead to problem long after driving it off the lot. One cannot claim that the car was perfect because it ran perfectly for awhile. Blaming the prototypes is like blaming the car without blaming either of their designers.

God gave man free will. He did not create robots

If so, that was a design error right there. Free will, by which I mean will that is not the effect of any prior cause, is a recipe for disaster from the perspective of a god that wants obedience and hates rebellion.

Notice that if the will is caused rather than freely originated in the consciousness by the conscious observer, then we are robots receiving instructions from unseen neural circuits outside of consciousness, and executing their instructions.

Bottom line, God did not create people with all the flaws you mentioned. He created them completely functional and they made themselves dysfunctional.

You're blaming the creation rather than its creator. You probably have to in order to reconcile your beliefs with one another. You believe that there is a perfect creator and a flawed creation, so the creation must be at fault. It's not reasonable, but it allows the believer to continue saying that his god is perfect.

But the unbeliever doesn't need to sanitize the story. He is free to see it with all of its scars and blemishes, and feels no need to make them go away. He is free to see the internal contradictions such as the imperfect perfect god, and accept them as such. The Bible writers made a mistake.

But once again, none of this helps resolve the matter of an intelligent designer. Scripture is not the place to turn for answers about reality. Reality itself is, and our reality appears as we would expect if it evolved in an undirected, unplanned, and undesigned manner according to blind physical forces, including the anatomical flaws that arose because there was no long-term planning involved.

 

[David T]

My basic premise is our design doesn't appear to be intelligent as much as it could be. There are so many problems with the human body. The fact that disease exists at all is an indication of imperfections in the design. For example, take DNA and cancer. The DNA mechanism certainly could be more corrective to make cancer impossible. Another example, is limb regeneration or regeneration in general. We have to many organs and body parts that are not capable of regeneration. Yet cuts in skin can regenerate and heal.

I'm sure there are hundreds more I could cite. But my basic premise is a truly intelligent design, and assuming it was God doing the design, there is so much room for improvements it just doesn't seem an intelligent agent was consciously involved. You would think with God's infinite capacity for intelligence if God were the agent our bodies would be more tightly organized and self-correcting.

It seems to me evolution and adaptation is better explanation for what we experience in our lives. Say you have a million apes running around and one get's a gene upgrade or improvement. It takes hundreds of generations before the change migrates throughout the entire species if it migrates at all. There are so many differences and quirks in human genes it seems to me migratory adaptation is the only explanation to explain all the inconsistencies across the entire population.

Prefrontal cortex design!!! What designed it? Itself?

Facinating can ee talk about yetis and bigfoot? Are they related?

And while we are at it multiple dimemsions string theory dark matter dark energy and the easter bunny. Did you know the easter bunny came from scientific observation!! ?

 

[ecco]

I'll repeat...

• Your Eternal God did nothing for 99.999999999-99999% of His existence.
• Your Omnipotent God designed Adam in such a way that he would sin.
• Your Omniscient God knew beforehand that Adam would sin.

Where did you get those ideas? Tradition or the actual scriptures? If tradition, forget it, if the scriptures perhaps you could cite chapter and verse.

If you want, I can save you time by just telling you that while they may indeed be tradition, there is nowhere in the actual scriptures to support them in any way, shape, or form.

Most Christians believe their God is Eternal, Omnipotent and Omniscient. If that doesn't include you, then feel free to ignore my comments.

 

[viole]

In my belief, that is so. It would take something like omniscience on our part to say definitively one way or another, though; otherwise, all we are left with is our faith.

In other words, your faith asserts that the two scenarios

1) viole shot a child
2) viole did not shoot the child

Are, ceteris paribus, equivalent for what concerns goodness. For, if this the best of all possible worlds I cannot, even in principle, make it deviate from its optimality without defeating it.

Right?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Axe Elf]

In other words, your faith asserts that the two scenarios

1) viole shot a child
2) viole did not shoot the child

Are, ceteris paribus, equivalent for what concerns goodness. For, if this the best of all possible worlds I cannot, even in principle, make it deviate from its optimality without defeating it.

Right?

Ciao

- viole

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. First you say that both scenarios are equivalent, insofar as their "goodness" is concerned, but then you go on to (correctly) assert that any deviation from what exists in the best of all possible universes would defeat its optimality.

Given that the second assertion is correct, your first statement must be incorrect. The two scenarios are not equivalent; only the one which actually occurs can be a part of the best of all possible universes. The other scenario would not be as "good."

Also keep in mind that it is not my faith which asserts this (at least not directly); it is logic that asserts this. IF the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes. It is only because my faith accepts the premise that the omni-God exists that my faith requires me to accept what logic dictates.

 

[viole]

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. First you say that both scenarios are equivalent, insofar as their "goodness" is concerned, but then you go on to (correctly) assert that any deviation from what exists in the best of all possible universes would defeat its optimality.

Given that the second assertion is correct, your first statement must be incorrect. The two scenarios are not equivalent; only the one which actually occurs can be a part of the best of all possible universes. The other scenario would not be as "good."

Also keep in mind that it is not my faith which asserts this (at least not directly); it is logic that asserts this. IF the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes. It is only because my faith accepts the premise that the omni-God exists that my faith requires me to accept what logic dictates.

I am not making any statement here. I cannot since I don’t think that “goodness” is applicable to the Universe. And therefore “the best of all possible worlds” is, from my vantage point, meaningless.

I would say, from my fallible perspective, that I would favor the version where the child is not killed. But I would not promote my feelings to eternal truths involving the whole Universe.

I just asked you if both scenarios are equivalent. At least according to your belief.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Segev Moran]

My basic premise is our design doesn't appear to be intelligent as much as it could be.

Interesting.
Do you know our human biology or life biology well enough to claim this?

There are so many problems with the human body.

It depends.

The fact that disease exists at all is an indication of imperfections in the design.

What do you define as disease?
The majority (grand majority) of illness is caused due to abusive or wrong behavior (or maintenance) of one's body.

For example, take DNA and cancer. The DNA mechanism certainly could be more corrective to make cancer impossible.

Do you know what causes cancer? Its not a random mutation of your DNA if that is what you think it is.
The truth is humans don't really know the cause of cancer, we know what makes the possibility for cancer bigger, but the root cause is very subjective.
Basically, cancer is caused to the a long period of neglecting or abusing the body. at times, it appears much faster and at times it doesn't appear at all, but our body constantly "fights" cancerous cells. everyone has them yet our body is complex enough to maintain the body healthy.

Another example, is limb regeneration or regeneration in general. We have to many organs and body parts that are not capable of regeneration. Yet cuts in skin can regenerate and heal.

Humans are not a specie that will survive much if we had "immortal" abilities. besides that, it will pretty much act in contrary to humans purpose on earth

I'm sure there are hundreds more I could cite. But my basic premise is a truly intelligent design, and assuming it was God doing the design, there is so much room for improvements it just doesn't seem an intelligent agent was consciously involved.

Lol, can you give an example? I mean a genuine example and not things that are not a natural part of the human body or things that are caused due to external influences.

You would think with God's infinite capacity for intelligence if God were the agent our bodies would be more tightly organized and self-correcting.

Your body is 100% self correcting! if you keep it in order and treat it as you should

It seems to me evolution and adaptation is better explanation for what we experience in our lives.

Maybe the physical changes we see happening to live organisms. it fails to explain even the simplest things that make you what or who you really are.

Say you have a million apes running around and one get's a gene upgrade or improvement. It takes hundreds of generations before the change migrates throughout the entire species if it migrates at all. There are so many differences and quirks in human genes it seems to me migratory adaptation is the only explanation to explain all the inconsistencies across the entire population.

Yet all humans regardless of the minor changes in their genes, can think the same, hate the same, love the same.

 

[ecco]

What do you define as disease?

dis·ease
/dəˈzēz/
noun

1. a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

The majority (grand majority) of illness is caused due to abusive or wrong behavior (or maintenance) of one's body.

Tell that to the millions who died of the Black Plague or Malaria.

Basically, cancer is caused to the a long period of neglecting or abusing the body.

Perhaps you should notify the CDC that you have discovered the cause of breast cancer.

Humans are not a specie that will survive much if we had "immortal" abilities. besides that, it will pretty much act in contrary to humans purpose on earth

What do you suppose is "humans purpose on earth"?

Your body is 100% self correcting! if you keep it in order and treat it as you should

Nonsense.

 

[Axe Elf]

I just asked you if both scenarios are equivalent. At least according to your belief.

Then I guess you got your answer.

 

[rrobs]

This is known as "head in the sand" syndrome. It's fairly rampant among theists.

If I'm not mistaken, Axe Elf doesn't claim to be a theist. Ay least I don't think he does

How is scripture relevant? The OP is examining nature for evidence for or against the existence of an intelligent designer. He referenced cancer and limb generation. How can scripture help answer whether man was intelligently designed?

As an unbeliever, I find no value in referencing scripture. If I turn to scripture, it is to evaluate what the religion is teaching, not what is true.

For truth, we need to consult nature. If truth is the quality that facts possess making them facts, and facts are linguistic strings that accurately map some aspect of reality, then truth and facts are only available to us by consulting our senses to accumulate evidence, and applying valid reason to it to arrive at sound conclusions. If these conclusions can accurately predict outcomes, then we can call them correct, or at least useful. We don't arrive at truth through faith or holy books.



Once again, nothing in Genesis helps us resolve the matter of an intelligent designer. Scripture helps us know that whoever wrote the words wasn't an intelligent designer of universes, but that doesn't mean that such a creature unknown to the scripture's writers doesn't exist.

Another reason not to go to scripture for answers is this translation issue you bring up. Apparently, the words can't be taken at face value. If the translations aren't accurate, why read them?

Which brings us to this: Look at the book with all of its ambiguity, internal contradictions, failed prophecies, unkept promises, and errors in science and history, then look at the world, and then decide if they originate from the same source. Is the author of any holy book also the universe's designer and builder? It's kind of like looking at a huge suspension bridge with some misspelled graffiti about bridges sprayed onto one of its steel girders, and trying to decide if the source of the bridge and of the graffiti are the same.



According to this, God made a faulty prototype, and it failed. You put the blame on the prototypes, I put it on their designer. It's kind of uncharitable to the prototypes, who were designed to fail. If we believe scripture, they were created with what would be a flaw in the eyes of their creator, like a car built with a defect that would lead to problem long after driving it off the lot. One cannot claim that the car was perfect because it ran perfectly for awhile. Blaming the prototypes is like blaming the car without blaming either of their designers.



If so, that was a design error right there. Free will, by which I mean will that is not the effect of any prior cause, is a recipe for disaster from the perspective of a god that wants obedience and hates rebellion.

Notice that if the will is caused rather than freely originated in the consciousness by the conscious observer, then we are robots receiving instructions from unseen neural circuits outside of consciousness, and executing their instructions.



You're blaming the creation rather than its creator. You probably have to in order to reconcile your beliefs with one another. You believe that there is a perfect creator and a flawed creation, so the creation must be at fault. It's not reasonable, but it allows the believer to continue saying that his god is perfect.

But the unbeliever doesn't need to sanitize the story. He is free to see it with all of its scars and blemishes, and feels no need to make them go away. He is free to see the internal contradictions such as the imperfect perfect god, and accept them as such. The Bible writers made a mistake.

But once again, none of this helps resolve the matter of an intelligent designer. Scripture is not the place to turn for answers about reality. Reality itself is, and our reality appears as we would expect if it evolved in an undirected, unplanned, and undesigned manner according to blind physical forces, including the anatomical flaws that arose because there was no long-term planning involved.

If you could have read my first reply to the OP, I said I assumed the poster was saying an intelligence did not create man. You can see that in reply #24. I think it was a good assumption because of the context of his post and the fact that usually when people use that phrase it does refer to God. Plus the guy that made the OP didn't correct my assumption.

As far as finding truth in nature, I offer the following: Quantum mechanics is certainly part of nature. One of the main things about QM is that everyone has their own view of reality. Therefore, thare are no two people who see nature in the exact same light. Doesn't seem like a good yardstick for truth, does it? Maybe trying to come up with another source for truth would be in order.

 

[rrobs]

Most Christians believe their God is Eternal, Omnipotent and Omniscient. If that doesn't include you, then feel free to ignore my comments.

I see no need to ignore your comments. They are your thoughts and they deserve consideration. It's rude to ignore someone who is talking to you. Well, maybe not these days, but that is the way I grew up. Not that my day was any better than what goes on today. Things change on their own. I understand I gotta go with the flow. Anyway, that's why I didn't just ignore you.

Besides, I thought maybe you had never considered that much, most is probably better to say, of what the churches teach is not really scriptural. As I said, they are much more interested in tradition than the scriptures themselves. You hit the nail on the head in saying that most Christians say those things about God, but a majority is not the determining factor for truth. I was just giving you an alternate and perhaps new view of things, albeit with few details. I figured if you wanted details you'd ask.

Take care.