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Intelligent Design?

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
The human body is riddled with design mistakes. Examples include the deadly birth canal, the unforgiving prostate, the exploding appendix, the fragile spine (America's #1 cause of disability), the idiotic crossing of airway and esophagus (that causes history's greatest killer--pneumonia), and our useless male breasts whose only claim to fame is cancer.

Given all the mistakes in human design, how can the doctrine of “Intelligent Design” have merit?
 

meogi

Well-Known Member
(Turns into a fundamentalist)
But god didn't make those mistakes! It's our sin that makes us suck!
(Returns)
Good point, I'm curious of the response. Wern't we made in god's image as well? He must not be doing so well either (maybe 'the cancer' got him a LOONNNNGGGG time ago).
 

Pah

Uber all member
YawgmothsAvatar said:
Don't forget the blindspot in our eye that squids don't have and males having nipples.

In another thread, I mentioned that male nipples are responsive in sexual activity. I think that's a GREAT design feature

You might consider comparison to other animals. We don't have the speed or indurance of a horse, the olfactory sense of a dog, the acuity of the eagle's eyesight. Man is supposed to be God's best????

-pah-
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
Man is supposed to be God's best????


This is a fabulous point, pah. Our only "redeeming" feature is our intelligence, yet it seems to me that the only thing that ever did was give us the capacity to sin in new and creative ways. That's one messed up situation right there. Maybe god doesnt want to be loved....
 
interesting site anders... definitely some good points being raised...

"Our only "redeeming" feature is our intelligence, yet it seems to me that the only thing that ever did was give us the capacity to sin in new and creative ways. That's one messed up situation right there. Maybe god doesnt want to be loved...."
there is a "purposeful" reason for giving us free will though... but that's another thread! :)
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Ceridwen018 said:
Our only "redeeming" feature is our intelligence...
Ceridwen! Are you lasping into forgetfulness in your old age? What about the capacity to love as a redeeming feature? Have you forgotten love?
 

standing_on_one_foot

Well-Known Member
Hmm...y'know though, intelligence is a redeeming feature and all, but I personally am rather fond of thumbs as well. *twiddles thumbs* I mean, could you have the world twiddle without having thumbs? I think not!

Still, 'tis an interesting point. Although I don't think the whole "image of God" business means actually looking like God.
 

meogi

Well-Known Member
standing_on_one_foot said:
*twiddles thumbs* I mean, could you have the world twiddle without having thumbs? I think not!
*twiddles fingers/toes* ;)
standing_on_one_foot said:
Although I don't think the whole "image of God" business means actually looking like God.
What do you think "image of god" means then?
 

standing_on_one_foot

Well-Known Member
Well, to get a bit off-topic here, I figure it means more spiritually and mentally than physically. The ability to reason, the ability to know the difference between right and wrong, an inherent sort of worth and dignity, the ability to create, to communicate and care for one another, etc., etc...although it's all open to interpretation, of course.
 

meogi

Well-Known Member
Ah, I see, thanks :)

Back on topic, I just remembered something about the human makeup that doesn't quite fit intelligent design. That being mitochondria. It's found in (I think) every multi-celled non-plant organism that we know of. It's part of each 'cell', and is what provides the cell with energy to survive. Problem is, it's a parasite, interacting with the cell in symbiosis. It has it's own dna, and is always passed down from the mother (the egg has her mitochondria in it already, which then reproduces itself).

Technically, if there was an adam and eve, mitochondria would be key to proving it, because every person on earth would have the exact same mitochondria. Alas, this is not the case. But to intelligent design, why parasites!?
 

kbc_1963

Active Member
Before we sinned there was no destructive entities our bodies were perfect and we didn't even have need of clothes so attempting to compare the state of everything now to our own concept of what we think good or perfect is will not work.
saying that anything is imperfect as you see it now doesn't reflect on our maker rather it points out how far away from perfection we have devolved since our initial state of perfection and our sin has also affected the world and all created things as well.
In order for anyone to be able to judge any perfect design of anything would require the judge to know perfection otherwise your opinion is relevant only to your own perception.
This much I am certain of we did not create ourselves and random chemical interaction did not create us so all that is left is intelligent design. for any one to believe that the complexity of even the simplest cell (which can be compared to an average city in complexity) came about randomly and is as perfect as it is and then made stupid mistake during what you call evolution is idiocity, how to you get the perfection of the smallest thing and yet have everything else be stupid? if as you say there are unintelligent designs in the living things we can see then why wouldn't there be stupidity in the micro thing we can't see? why doesnt a cell have odd things that make no sense for form and function?
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
Before we sinned there was no destructive entities our bodies were perfect and we didn't even have need of clothes so attempting to compare the state of everything now to our own concept of what we think good or perfect is will not work.
saying that anything is imperfect as you see it now doesn't reflect on our maker rather it points out how far away from perfection we have devolved since our initial state of perfection and our sin has also affected the world and all created things as well.
In order for anyone to be able to judge any perfect design of anything would require the judge to know perfection otherwise your opinion is relevant only to your own perception.
From someone who so adamantly demands empirical evidence for absolutely everything, I am positively shocked to hear to hear this sort of fanciful tale escape your little typing fingers. Perhaps there's been a mistake...

This much I am certain of we did not create ourselves and random chemical interaction did not create us so all that is left is intelligent design.
Lol, fogive me, but you sound like a caveman.

"Holy crap! What was that!?"

"Oh, round here we call that lightening."

"Wow, where does it come from?"

"Well, none of us do it, that's for sure, and we're pretty positive the woolly mammoths don't do it, although a neighboring tribe swears it shoots out of their tusks, bloody heretics. Anyhow, we figure the most logical explanation is that some dude with a beard who lives in the clouds throws it down when he's angry."

"Huh. Yeah, that's good thinking! I mean, if it's not you or the mammoths, crazy people no one's ever seen before who throw destructive objects out of the sky for no reason MUST be the best explanation!"

why doesnt a cell have odd things that make no sense for form and function?
They do. It's called cancer.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
Meogi, chloroplasts are another example of a cellular organelle that may have descended from a prokaryotic organism. It's worth noting though that endosymbiosis is not a host-parasite relationship, and such examples do not entirely contradict the ideas behind intelligent design. (Common sense however doesn't agree with ID very well).
 

meogi

Well-Known Member
Gotcha truth, perhaps I've played too much 'Parasite Eve'! ;)

kbc_1963 said:
Before we sinned there was no destructive entities our bodies were perfect
Hey, I already said that!
kbc_1963 said:
This much I am certain of we did not create ourselves and random chemical interaction did not create us so all that is left is intelligent design.
How can you be certain? Everything's still up for debate. I've never heard of the we crated ourselves argument though... new meaning to the chicken and the egg. Intelligent design does not point to a god either. (You're assuming that). Perhaps aliens IDed us. And Intelligent design isn't 'all that's left,' because there could be undiscovered ideas/evidence for how we came to be. Just pointing out some logical errors in that statement.
kbc_1963 said:
for any one to believe that the complexity of even the simplest cell (which can be compared to an average city in complexity) came about randomly and is as perfect as it is and then made stupid mistake during what you call evolution is idiocity, how to you get the perfection of the smallest thing and yet have everything else be stupid? if as you say there are unintelligent designs in the living things we can see then why wouldn't there be stupidity in the micro thing we can't see? why doesnt a cell have odd things that make no sense for form and function?
First, there are a lot of different cells. Some complex, some not. Why? (Look at #2!)
Second, natural selection is a damn good process at weeding out bad/uncessesary things. Eventual outcomes are seemingly 'perfect' (perfect in terms of what they are neccessary for). You can see the see the starting points along the way as well (like simple prokaryotic life forms). This takes a long time, so sorry, no insta-perfection.
Third, they arn't perfect. Like Ceridwen pointed out, cancer. Why are they so easily 'utterly annihilated' by things such as viruses? They die all the time due to blunt trauma (scratching, putting your fingers together, sitting down) as well. Not very perfect.
 

kbc_1963

Active Member
How can you be certain? Everything's still up for debate. I've never heard of the we crated ourselves argument though... new meaning to the chicken and the egg. Intelligent design does not point to a god either. (You're assuming that). Perhaps aliens IDed us. And Intelligent design isn't 'all that's left,' because there could be undiscovered ideas/evidence for how we came to be. Just pointing out some logical errors in that statement.

by saying we were created by aliens you only transfer the onus of the beginning of life and I could still say that my GOD created the aliens that created us so we get no where fast.
I do however have one thing on my side against aliens as an answer, there is no evidence of any kind that any life exists beyond our world, so a belief in that manner turns you into what christians might call a pagan and an evolutionist should never theorize without some evidence to back the idea so seeing as how this thread is evolution vs. creation we should keep it in those 2 area's althogh it is kinda neat to think of an evolutionist with the faith of Job to believe of an alien possibility. hehehe

"it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for
natural phenomena"
(Science and Creationism, a view from the National Academy of Sciences (2nd edition), Nat Acad Press, 1999. Pg. 20. At(http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/)

See that is the duty of science and evolution chose science as its backer so let the "plausible explanations" begin.
 

meogi

Well-Known Member
The aliens was just support for how your claim was logically flawed. I by no means believe it. And I coulda swore I was a pagan in the eyes of christians before hand. ;)
 

kbc_1963

Active Member
The aliens was just support for how your claim was logically flawed

What true logic would exclude intelligent design?
you easily accept that a program as complex as windows XP was intelligently designed
and the space shuttle was made by intelligent design and just one of our cells is more complex than either of those items by a long shot.
Why do we assume that there is intelligent life outside our planet but don't consider it possible that we could have been created by intelligent design? if we found something as complex as we are would we only believe it was accidental?
to exempt the possibility of intelligent design we hobble our own possible understanding of that which science cannot explain. a true scientist should always assume that he doesn't know all the variables and never rules out anything, if I remember my Sherlock Holmes correctly I believe it was stated that once you rule out every logical explanation then whatever is left no matter how improbable is the truth, and unless you can come up with another possibility besides:
1) natural beginnings
2) intelligent design (whether by GOD or the little green creatures)

then if I can easily rule out natural beginnings you would only have I.D. left

I wonder why the is such opposition to I.D., is it too hard to believe that you were created? it seems so strange to me to believe otherwise when you consider that every cell in your body is as complex as any city and together your body has the complexity of this whole world and the entire universe as well all wrapped up in the fragile little body that is you.
 
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