Hey Philip:
I'm not going to argue with you about the universe being "impressive" or who's best to describe it that way. However, your statement that an argument from incredulity is the only way to view the world is a bit weak.
quote:
Its precisely the reason men begin to infer an ID from the data, a Creator, a Judge, and/or a Savior.
Although our knowledge in some areas may be weak or we may be missing some details today, I begin with the premise that there is nothing unknowable in nature. The universe, in the final analysis, makes perfect sense using known physical laws. The actions of a Supreme Being are not required to explain it. Peering through a microscope at the myriad of amazing organisms present in a sample of water from the leaves of a rainforest bromeliad — an entire ecosystem in a cup of water — I find myself marveling at their nearly indescribable beauty and complexity. How could these creatures exist? And then I remind myself that these organisms only
appear complex because I am looking at the end result of billions of years of ruthless natural selection — they exist because their ancestors for millions of generations were slightly more fit than their competitors. No step on the path life took to achieve the complexity of the simplest one-celled bromeliad dweller can be analyzed or understood in the context of any subsequent step. Each must stand or fall on its own merit, with reference only to the preceding step. Life has no goal and is not moving toward anything. Life exists only in an eternal
now. It has no purpose except to be. Life is, for me, all the more marvelous for that.
I don't need the additional burden of an incomprehensible and ultimately unknowable entity to find Life (and by extension, the universe
in toto) completely wonderful, fascinating, and, yes,
impressive. The more I see and experience of the natural world, the more intricate, beautiful and precious it becomes to me.