What does "Intelligent Design" even mean?

[FreeTraveler]

Okay, if the answer truly is that there must be a designer because life is too complex to generate spontaneously...

Who designed and created God? This all-powerful, all-powerful being must have been created instantaneously, and that's a lot harder to believe than that the simple life form we call man evolved over billions of years.

 

[american.swan]

It means the chair your sitting on did not just happen by accident and neither did you.

Is it only design if one moment the life form was not there, the next moment it was?

Say there really is a natural process that can spontaneously generate a living cell. Would scientists say they've disproved the existence of God if such a process were discovered? The question would still remain: how did the universe itself get created such that order can spontaneously generate?

To make an analogy to music: maybe God is an improviser, not a composer? Either way there would be intelligent design, a mind creating something.

I guess I think the whole debate is silly. Religious minded people should not feel threatened by evolution, and atheist minded people should not feel threatened by creationism. Neither religious minded people nor atheists can possibly know whether there was a God---but it would be nice if the more vociferous factions on both sides would admit this.

Atheists often assert there is no evidence for something supernatural such as a God---but then again, that's taking scientific evidence out of context. Evidence for a theory is only evidence for a description of something, not evidence for an explanation.

Fire away...

 

[american.swan]

Okay, if the answer truly is that there must be a designer because life is too complex to generate spontaneously...

Who designed and created God? This all-powerful, all-powerful being must have been created instantaneously, and that's a lot harder to believe than that the simple life form we call man evolved over billions of years.

Good question. Is not it interesting that we can ask questions we cannot answer.

 

[Theocrat]

The Glory of the Uncreated Creator & Man's Place in Science

Who designed and created God? This all-powerful, all-powerful being must have been created instantaneously, and that's a lot harder to believe than that the simple life form we call man evolved over billions of years.

I wasn't going to answer this question for the sake of being germane on this thread, but I now feel compelled to do so, due to some of the responses that will inevitably come from such a question. The answer to the question, "Who designed and created God?" is a ridiculous question. God, by His own character and nature, is uncreated. This is due to the fact that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as the Bible tells us.

The question of asking who created God is similar to asking if a triangle has four sides. By definition, a triangle has only three sides. If it had four sides, then it would no longer be a triangle but a square or rectangle. By the same reasoning, God cannot be created or else He would cease to be God, and the person (or thing) which "created" Him would be "God." God is eternal by nature; therefore, He has no beginning nor end.

Some skeptics like to use the hypothetical syllogistic argument (in a weak attempt to shut down creationists arguments for God's existence) that if God doesn't need to have a Creator, then perhaps the universe doesn't require a Creator, either. I think that's what you're implying, FreeTraveler, but consider the reversal of that argument. If the universe doesn't require a Creator (as most evolutionists would postulate), then neither does God require a Creator. As I've mentioned before, the attributes of God presuppose a Being Who simply does not have an origin. Yet, God is wise enough and powerful enough to create life and non-living materials that we observe in natural sciences today. For the creationist, the purpose of scientific experimentation and exploration is to venture into the deep mysteries and wonders of how God has created His own creation so that we may praise Him for His wondrous works and use His creation for the benefit of all mankind as we take dominion of the earth (Genesis 1:28; Matthew 5:5) to His glory. In many ways, that is what intelligent design is all about. It's about acknowledging God's handiwork in His own creation, which, rationally speaking, we know did not and could not come about on its own.

 

[Aratus]

aquinas was comfortable with the idea of a creator.
the arrival of everything via god. the creator of the creator?
one of my initial postings here was in a thread where
a 6 day creationist happily told me i might be correct...
namely the span of time before our lil' world came into being
could have been trillions of years insted of billions!!!

stephen hawking has this 12 billion or 13 billion figure being
way more accurate than either less than seven days or perhaps
more than a 100 trillion years. stephen hawking like aquinas
does not say what happens before the big cosmic singularity
that "BIG BANG" implodes at the start of this current universe
cycle. this is like a modification of john milton via modern standard
text physics. even string theory or scalar theory is a modification
of einstein, dirac and nils bohr. the science of the current day has
the same issues in a more scientific manner that GENESIS and
theology have. aquinas's science was almost the same as aristotle's.
our science is after newton and einstein. the question of a creator of a
creator and/or a creation is also a question at the core of all the sciences...

 

[Truth Warrior]

Okay, if the answer truly is that there must be a designer because life is too complex to generate spontaneously...

Who designed and created God? This all-powerful, all-powerful being must have been created instantaneously, and that's a lot harder to believe than that the simple life form we call man evolved over billions of years.

IF you want the correct answers, it is often necessary to ask the correct questions.

Can an amoeba comprehend a galaxy?

 

[Banana]

Can an amoeba comprehend a galaxy?

For some odd reasons, this made me thinking of the phrase, "strain at a gnat but swallow a camel!"

 

[Truth Warrior]

For some odd reasons, this made me thinking of the phrase, "strain at a gnat but swallow a camel!"

It causes me to think of Alexander Pope's, "The Riddle of the World". Different strokes, .... etc. I guess.

 

[Kade]

Faith and religion have nothing to do with evidence and hypotheses. They deal with things that are by definition outside the realm of evidence and scientific description. For example: can you tell me what an electron is? Oh, it is a subatomic particle? What's that? A small point of energy? A vibrating string? What are those? What is energy? All of these things are labels. We can put labels on as many things as we want---none of it will explain *WHAT* an electron is. It just is. Thus, asking how it got here, why, and what it really is EXTERNAL to the universe is impossible to answer scientifically. Therefore it is a logical fallacy to suggest that science might one day refute faith or God or anything else. It cannot. Correct me if I misunderstood your post.

This response was so absurdly off topic and without qualification that I can only estimate that you have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

[sophocles07]

I wasn't going to answer this question for the sake of being germane on this thread, but I now feel compelled to do so, due to some of the responses that will inevitably come from such a question. The answer to the question, "Who designed and created God?" is a ridiculous question. God, by His own character and nature, is uncreated. This is due to the fact that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as the Bible tells us.

Yeah. I knew that, I had it written down in my red notebook. I wish I was so many omnis as God.

The question of asking who created God is similar to asking if a triangle has four sides. By definition, a triangle has only three sides. If it had four sides, then it would no longer be a triangle but a square or rectangle. By the same reasoning, God cannot be created or else He would cease to be God, and the person (or thing) which "created" Him would be "God." God is eternal by nature; therefore, He has no beginning nor end.

Wow that’s some super-diaherea logic. Calm down and think before you write, man.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

intelligent design is an intellectual dead end. It has no value, and does nothing to broaden our understanding of the universe.

Intelligent Design is NOT science. Its not even a theory. It hardly qualifies as a hypothesis.


And about this, "Teach the controversy/other side of the argument" nonsense. Complete bullshit. Scientific arguments are not debated by high school kids who lack a rudimentary understanding of the basic ideas being discussed. Science is debated by peer review, evidence, and stringent scrutiny.


Just because a theory has holes, it does not mean you fill those holes with mythical gods and superstition. When the Periodic Table was first thought of, only 66 elements had been discovered. Huge gaps, noble gases were missing, no room for isotopes. Science didnt fill in all the missing elements with "God". The missing elements were filled in over time by scientific discovery.



On a seperate note, I have come up with a theory to compete with the existing theory of "lift" in aerodynamics. There are still huge holes in that theory, and there is no scientific consensus as to what actually causes it. Lift is only a thoery.

 

[yongrel]

^he's more than just a pretty face

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

And while Im at it, I have just solved 108 years of scientific idiocracy. Take that Planck. Quantum theory can suck it.

That there is no quantum leap. Its God.

 

[Truth Warrior]

You tell Ron!

 

[Dr.3D]

What in the world makes people automatically connect God with Intelligent Design?

The designer could have been an alien for all we know.

People need to stop and think before they make an association between things.

 

[amy31416]

And while Im at it, I have just solved 108 years of scientific idiocracy. Take that Planck. Quantum theory can suck it.

That there is no quantum leap. Its God.

I'm sure you can also give Heisenberg some certainty--brilliant!

While you're at it, can ya fill in the holes in the theory of gravity as well?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

atheist minded people should not feel threatened by creationism

We already went through a thousand years of intellectual dark ages brought on by religious doctrine and superstition. I for one am not looking forward to trying that again.

Religion is a danger to human civilization.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

What in the world makes people automatically connect God with Intelligent Design?

The designer could have been an alien for all we know.

People need to stop and think before they make an association between things.

Because by its very nature, an intelligent designer could only have been a super-natural designer.


Who designed your hypothetical alien? The alien must have been a sentient life form. Where did it come from?

You really have to stop and think before making such illogical statements.

 

[Truth Warrior]

We already went through a thousand years of intellectual dark ages brought on by religious doctrine and superstition. I for one and not looking forward to try that again.

Religion is a danger to human civilization.

Unlike state, I assume.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

I'm sure you can also give Heisenberg some certainty--brilliant!

While you're at it, can ya fill in the holes in the theory of gravity as well?

Thanks in advance.

Quantum physics fills in the holes of Relativity. Relativity fills in the holes of Newtonian Physics.

Too bad all that "science" is a waste of time. There is no need to go to college and study physics. No need to waste money on fancy book learn'n. Just open up your bible. Says right there God created everything. Gravity works because God says so. Doesnt get much more simple than that.