Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
8 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,816 Year: 3,073/9,624 Month: 918/1,588 Week: 101/223 Day: 12/17 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Why is the Intelligent Designer such an idiot?
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 50 (478143)
08-12-2008 12:01 PM


Blasphemy
Blasphemers, Thank Jehovah, god, god of mercy and slow to anger that he's not the Muslim god, Allah, as Mohammed depicts him. You'd all get your wonderfully designed heads chopped off by his most devout Jehadists!
Your wonderfully designed soul does not die. It's designed, as the dead kernel of corn to arise again and produce what's been sowed.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 12:11 PM Buzsaw has not replied
 Message 23 by Granny Magda, posted 08-12-2008 1:26 PM Buzsaw has replied

Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 17 of 50 (478146)
08-12-2008 12:08 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by cavediver
08-12-2008 12:00 PM


And if I were an Intelligent Designer and could make a living thinking person, I'd make such a good job of it that they would not choose to be ungrateful, recalcitrant and blasphemous
Programmed robots, even, incapable of choice.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 12:00 PM cavediver has not replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 18 of 50 (478147)
08-12-2008 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Buzsaw
08-12-2008 12:01 PM


Re: Blasphemy
Blasphemers, Thank Jehovah, god, god of mercy and slow to anger...
Buz - for too long have I heard here at EvC about how this great design so obviously apparent in the Universe is evidence for a designer. I'm just pointing out that if this designer had carte blanche and our physical selves are what he came up with, then he made a really crap job. There is no blasphemy there - it is just coming to conclusions via the evidence. Now, if I wanted to blaspheme, I'd say something like...
quote:
all I said was that bit of fish was good enough for Jehovah...
ABE
Programmed robots, even, incapable of choice.
Sorry, just saving posts.
Why does not having a crap design imply incapable of choice? In fact, it's the other way zaround. The designer made us up out of the physical laws of this Universe - which to all intents seems to rob us of free choice. If I were the designer, I'd simply make everyone out of magic, and simply give them free chocie. I think he missed trick there...
Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Buzsaw, posted 08-12-2008 12:01 PM Buzsaw has not replied

LucyTheApe
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 50 (478150)
08-12-2008 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by cavediver
08-12-2008 12:00 PM


A paranoid Designer!
cavediver writes:
And if I were an Intelligent Designer and could make a living thinking person, I'd make such a good job of it that they would not choose to be ungrateful, recalcitrant and blasphemous
A paranoid Intelligent Designer! I think I'd prefer it the way it is, I'm just not comfortable with paranoids.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 12:00 PM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 12:18 PM LucyTheApe has replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 20 of 50 (478152)
08-12-2008 12:18 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by LucyTheApe
08-12-2008 12:13 PM


Re: A paranoid Designer!
A paranoid Intelligent Designer!
Sorry, I don't follow. Why would actually taking care to make a great creation imply that the ID was paranoid?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-12-2008 12:13 PM LucyTheApe has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-12-2008 1:16 PM cavediver has replied

Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 21 of 50 (478156)
08-12-2008 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Rahvin
08-12-2008 11:12 AM


Re: Unappreciative Blasphemy Thread
Hi, Rahvin.
Rahvin writes:
I'll say it very plainly, Buz: if the human body was specifically designed, the designer was on crack. An idiot. A fool. A complete and total moron.
I have to say that I really don't like this line of argument at all.
First off, all the human designers, engineers and scientists that have ever lived, put together, couldn't have created something like a human body with the tools we have available, so we at least know that, if there's a Designer, it's superior to the best we can muster on our own. I’ll let you decide on your own whether that means anything in particular, because I’m not sure what I think yet.
Second, even though I know it’s basically an untestable cop-out, I have to agree with Iano (whom I quoted above) that we just don’t know the mind of the Designer (assuming there is one), so it’s hard to place a judgment call on the Designer’s skills or reasoning. I just don’t think we can honestly, objectively say that the lack of physical perfection correlates with divineincompetence: there’s still too much we don’t know.
Now, if you’re talking about half-witted jackass idiots who insist that God loves us infinitely, has the ability to do absolutely anything that could ever be conceived, and whose only reason for creating us is so that we can live forever in a happy place where we’ll just be singing His praises non-stop for all eternity, then maybe I’ll retract my second point. But, if you’re willing to consider a God that follows a set system of rules and obligations, whose purpose is the continual growth and progress of beings below Him, then my second point stands: a God like that could have myriad reasons why physical imperfection is contrary to His plan.
To me, the Evangelical/Protestant views are nonsense, not because it relies on an intelligent designer to have created something that seems unintelligently designed, but because they insist that God designed a plan whereby a person must pass through this painful maze of physical life in order to get to a happy place because somebody else broke one of His rules long time ago, while also insisting that He is fully capable of just putting us in the happy place from the start. Not only is that unfair, but it seems completely pointless.
Assuming that there is a God, the fact that adversity is an integral part of this life is a sure indication to me that any afterlife is not going to be all happy and carefree: if it were, why would God be wasting His time teaching us things like patience, endurance and humility? Why not just give us a flawless body and let us live somewhere happy, beautiful and carefree now? If His love for us is real, why would He be hammering us so hard in this life if the hammering isn’t going to do any for us in the next life?
To me, any afterlife that there may be will still be life as we know it: work to do and problems to solve (allbeit, different work and different problems). That’s why God didn’t iron out all the flaws for us here: because we need to learn how to deal with them to prepare us for the life to come.
Sorry for the sermon. Feel free to ignore it if you’d like: it may not have contributed much to the topic, anyway.

Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Rahvin, posted 08-12-2008 11:12 AM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Rahvin, posted 08-12-2008 3:10 PM Blue Jay has replied

LucyTheApe
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 50 (478159)
08-12-2008 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by cavediver
08-12-2008 12:18 PM


Re: A paranoid Designer!
Sorry, I don't follow. Why would actually taking care to make a great creation imply that the ID was paranoid?
Why, as an all knowing designer, would you be afraid of making humans with all their failings (each have their own)? Afraid of rebellion? ungratefulness? blasphemy?
And what about lifespan? Their body may as well live forever or else they'll complain about that too.
And then they'll complain about...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 12:18 PM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 1:57 PM LucyTheApe has replied

Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 23 of 50 (478163)
08-12-2008 1:26 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Buzsaw
08-12-2008 12:01 PM


Re: Blasphemy
Blasphemers, Thank Jehovah, god, god of mercy and slow to anger that he's not the Muslim god, Allah, as Mohammed depicts him. You'd all get your wonderfully designed heads chopped off by his most devout Jehadists!
What do you want Buz, a medal? You seem to want points for not cutting our heads off. That's not how morality works. You're not supposed to cut peoples heads off. You don't get credit for not doing things that you're not supposed to do anyway.
Besides, your accusation that blasphemy against the Muslim god (who, despite your usual protestations, is the same god as yours, the god of Abraham) will result in beheadings is just bullshit. Let's test it out shall we;
The Muslim god, Allah, if he is the creator of this world and all its life, is a fucking idiot. What an incompetent. He's useless, unable to even give me a functioning pair of kidneys. The ones he made for me were crap.
I look to having my head chopped off in the near future. If any would-be Jihadis could pop round to execute me between 6pm and 9pm weekdays, that would be most convenient. Thank you.

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Buzsaw, posted 08-12-2008 12:01 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by Buzsaw, posted 08-12-2008 9:59 PM Granny Magda has replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 24 of 50 (478165)
08-12-2008 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by LucyTheApe
08-12-2008 1:16 PM


Re: A paranoid Designer!
Why, as an all knowing designer, would you be afraid of making humans with all their failings (each have their own)? Afraid of rebellion? ungratefulness? blasphemy?
No, you've completely lost me here. You seem to be saying that God proves that he is not afraid of making substandard humans by making substandard humans. Is that why we have so many hideous birth defects - it's just God proving that he's not afraid to do such things?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-12-2008 1:16 PM LucyTheApe has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-12-2008 2:36 PM cavediver has replied

LucyTheApe
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 50 (478168)
08-12-2008 2:36 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by cavediver
08-12-2008 1:57 PM


Re: A paranoid Designer!
You seem to be saying that God proves that he is not afraid of making substandard humans by making substandard humans.
No, I'm asking you why you, if you were an Intelligent Designer, would be afraid of making every human imperfect?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 1:57 PM cavediver has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 3:27 PM LucyTheApe has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 26 of 50 (478171)
08-12-2008 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Blue Jay
08-12-2008 12:25 PM


Re: Unappreciative Blasphemy Thread
Hi, Rahvin.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
I'll say it very plainly, Buz: if the human body was specifically designed, the designer was on crack. An idiot. A fool. A complete and total moron.
I have to say that I really don't like this line of argument at all.
First off, all the human designers, engineers and scientists that have ever lived, put together, couldn't have created something like a human body with the tools we have available, so we at least know that, if there's a Designer, it's superior to the best we can muster on our own. I’ll let you decide on your own whether that means anything in particular, because I’m not sure what I think yet.
Only partially true. We have not as yet designed a superior immune system to that of the human body...but most of our creations don't need to fight disease. We have not been able as yet to create a sentient being, but that's not the part in question. The useless and even outright harmful vestigial organs like the appendix or wisdom teeth, the parts prone to malfunction or deformity like the eyes, and the silly design where even a little forethought would have resulted in a more survivable organism like the breathing/eating tube, all are examples that we can and have improved on nature. A modern digital camera off the shelf at Best Buy is superior to the human eye.
Second, even though I know it’s basically an untestable cop-out, I have to agree with Iano (whom I quoted above) that we just don’t know the mind of the Designer (assuming there is one), so it’s hard to place a judgment call on the Designer’s skills or reasoning. I just don’t think we can honestly, objectively say that the lack of physical perfection correlates with divineincompetence: there’s still too much we don’t know.
That is a cop-out, so I'm not even sure why you're mentioning it. The "god has a plan" or "you cant understand the motivations of the divine" arguments are idiotic and always have been. It falls into the "we don't know everything, so we can't know anything" category. The data we do have suggests that an intelligent designer would not design anything like the human body. There are just too many obviously inefficient, harmful, or simply risky design features in the human body to say that it in any way coincides with an "intelligent" design.
That said, all of my arguments apply only to Creationist "made from mud" scenarios, not any scenario in which a deity simply allowed humanity to evolve through natural processes. Our own experimentation with evolutionary design has shown that, left to its own devices, the evolutionary process can come up with some outlandish results that still work very well, even if they are inefficient. It is entirely possible that a deity orchestrated the processes of nature with perfect precognition to result in the eventual evolution of humanity. But those like Buz who believe that human beings were specially Created, not evolved, must also believe that human beings were designed exactly as they are. We have many examples of features in other parts of the animal kingdom that work better than their analogues in humans, and so there is no conceivable reason for a designer to not give humanity eyes that function like an octopus, or remove that appendix that becomes so risky when left in.
Now, if you’re talking about half-witted jackass idiots who insist that God loves us infinitely, has the ability to do absolutely anything that could ever be conceived, and whose only reason for creating us is so that we can live forever in a happy place where we’ll just be singing His praises non-stop for all eternity, then maybe I’ll retract my second point.
Well, yes, those would be some of those I'm talking about.
But, if you’re willing to consider a God that follows a set system of rules and obligations, whose purpose is the continual growth and progress of beings below Him, then my second point stands: a God like that could have myriad reasons why physical imperfection is contrary to His plan.
I'm sure you can conceive of a "reason" to have a third thumb jutting from the back of your head if you allow that its purpose is to encourage "growth through hardship." But that only works when assuming the existence of an incomprehensible deity - it is not in any way evidence of design. From all objective analysis, that third thumb would be an idiotic addition from an engineering standpoint, which means that the evidence we do have points to any such designer being a moron.
You can't use "any explanation I can pull out of my imagination" to bypass the fact that many of the features of the human body simply don't make sense from a design standpoint. Your approach is one of apologetics, where you begin with the conclusion (humanity was designed) and look for supporting evidence while either ignoring contradictory evidence or trying to "interpret" it in such a way that supports your premade conclusion. That's not a valid method of investigation.
To me, the Evangelical/Protestant views are nonsense, not because it relies on an intelligent designer to have created something that seems unintelligently designed, but because they insist that God designed a plan whereby a person must pass through this painful maze of physical life in order to get to a happy place because somebody else broke one of His rules long time ago, while also insisting that He is fully capable of just putting us in the happy place from the start. Not only is that unfair, but it seems completely pointless.
That's a theological argument, and I'm not going to address it very far. All I'll mention is that you just claimed above that the deity's motives may be completely incomprehensible to "mere humans," and this represents an inconsistency in your argument. Frankly, though, I could care less about theological arguments - all I care about is the objective evidence we have of the human body itself, and that evidence is not suggestive of an intelligent designer.
Assuming that there is a God, the fact that adversity is an integral part of this life is a sure indication to me that any afterlife is not going to be all happy and carefree: if it were, why would God be wasting His time teaching us things like patience, endurance and humility? Why not just give us a flawless body and let us live somewhere happy, beautiful and carefree now? If His love for us is real, why would He be hammering us so hard in this life if the hammering isn’t going to do any for us in the next life?
To me, any afterlife that there may be will still be life as we know it: work to do and problems to solve (albeit, different work and different problems). That’s why God didn’t iron out all the flaws for us here: because we need to learn how to deal with them to prepare us for the life to come.
Sorry for the sermon. Feel free to ignore it if you’d like: it may not have contributed much to the topic, anyway.
Really, it all boils down to apologetics. None of this involves following evidence to conclusions, but rather using predetermined conclusions to shape our interpretation of evidence. I could just as easily make up such "explanations" by assuming that a malevolent unicorn created the world as an exercise in torturing humanity like a child with ants, and that those parts of us that do work or give us pleasure were intended only to make our misery all the greater when our flawed bodies fail us.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Blue Jay, posted 08-12-2008 12:25 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Blue Jay, posted 08-12-2008 7:55 PM Rahvin has not replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 27 of 50 (478175)
08-12-2008 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by LucyTheApe
08-12-2008 2:36 PM


Re: A paranoid Designer!
No, I'm asking you why you, if you were an Intelligent Designer, would be afraid of making every human imperfect?
Me? I would not be afraid of anything... I would just not deliberately choose to make my creatures with such idiotic body plans.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-12-2008 2:36 PM LucyTheApe has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 28 of 50 (478181)
08-12-2008 5:19 PM


How I See It
In the context of this thread, I see two different primary arguments for design. One is the argument from perfection or perfect design, whereby the universe is perfectly designed for life, and each organism is perfectly designed for its environment.
The other is the argument from just plain old design, whereby the appearance of design is obvious by inspection.
The former argument, the argument from perfection, loses just from sheer incompatibility with the real world. More than 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, and no current species is perfectly adapted to its environment - so much for perfection. Anyone pushing the argument for perfection has to immediately begin qualifying their definition of perfection, usually in theological and religious ways having nothing to do with science. This form of the argument from design usually comes from traditional creationists trying to argue from an ID perspective, but like Pandas and People all they've done is substitute the phrase "intelligent designer" for "creator" in their vocabulary.
The latter argument, the argument from just plain old design, usually referred to as intelligent design, does not require perfection. A frequent response to this argument is that the designs are too poor to be considered intelligent, but I don't myself understand this argument. If we're correct in believing that human beings are intelligent, then quite obviously intelligence is capable of not only non-optimal designs but even piss-poor designs. The quality of a design is a function not only of the degree of intelligence brought to bear on a problem, but also a matter of practical constraints, of existing technology and expertise, and of available resources in both time and materials.
If we are designed, then it seems to me that whoever designed us is pretty darn intelligent. Given the difficulty we're having designing even just a simple cell, technologically they'd have to be far beyond us. And given that they're doing it on the scale of an entire planet, their resources must be far beyond our own. And given that they never leave any evidence of their handiwork behind they must be extremely clever, even going to the extreme of designing in a way that precisely resembles evolution, including DNA sequences.
Of course there are other variations to these two arguments from design, such as the "design-and-go" designer who, for example, just creates the universe and sets it in motion, then steps back to watch, but those kinds of arguments aren't being considered in this thread.
What the IDists have is an idea, a hypothesis. But instead of submitting their hypothesis to science and the scientific method they instead insist to the public at large that it is valid scientific theory being suppressed by a paranoid scientific community intent on protecting the dogma of evolution at all costs. Unfortunately, the public at large loves conspiracy theories.
Anyway, if I'm correct in claiming that there are actually two distinct arguments from design being considered in this thread, then I think it would be a good idea to make clear which one this thread addresses.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by cavediver, posted 08-12-2008 6:05 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 30 by onifre, posted 08-12-2008 6:10 PM Percy has replied
 Message 45 by bluegenes, posted 08-13-2008 7:32 AM Percy has replied

cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 29 of 50 (478185)
08-12-2008 6:05 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Percy
08-12-2008 5:19 PM


Re: How I See It
What the IDists have is an idea, a hypothesis. But instead of submitting their hypothesis to science and the scientific method they instead insist to the public at large that it is valid scientific theory being suppressed by a paranoid scientific community intent on protecting the dogma of evolution at all costs. Unfortunately, the public at large loves conspiracy theories.
I think the true ID'ists are few and far between... the vast majority fall straight into the Pandas and People category, and it is they plus the good old vanilla YECs that I am addressing. They may mumble on about information and DNA codes, but it doesn't take much reading between the lines (and usually, just reading the lines) to see the creation aspect hiding behind - if in doubt, just hammer them down on when humans first appeared. I would hazard that this goes for most of our recent ID/YEC crowd here.
True ID, of the Salty and Behe mold, are most definitely scientific - pretty much falsified - but scientific non-the-less. I'm not addressing space-alien designers, pan-dimensional children playing with their toys, scientists creating universes in test tubes, nor whomever it was that made us look just like Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, etc.
Perhaps I should change my title to "Why is the creator such an idiot?" - I was going for that but I was afraid of the taunts of "blasphemy"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Percy, posted 08-12-2008 5:19 PM Percy has not replied

onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 30 of 50 (478188)
08-12-2008 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Percy
08-12-2008 5:19 PM


Re: How I See It
The former argument, the argument from perfection, loses just from sheer incompatibility with the real world. More than 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, and no current species is perfectly adapted to its environment - so much for perfection.
I am not disagreeing with your entire post but wouldn't this suggest that the enviroment was imperfect, and not the species that is doing everything it can to adapt/survive?
LIFE has not become extict...if we are all the descendants of those past species then we are all connected, as long as ONE species survives LIFE continues. The species tries to survive, some make it, some don't, but LIFE continues. Seems like a perfect system.
Anyone pushing the argument for perfection has to immediately begin qualifying their definition of perfection, usually in theological and religious ways having nothing to do with science.
But scientifically organisms are perfect in the sense that they can adapt. Maybe the definition of 'perfection' needs to be redefined when we discuss natural phenomenons. Im NOT an ID supporter but if you made a design wouldn't you make the design adaptable to all kinds of different conditions? That to me would seem to be a perfect creation, one that can reconfigure its body structure(granted over a long period of time), to adapt to new conditions for the sole benefit of survival.
So I would say that individual species are NOT perfect when seen independently of the system, but when viewing the LIFE system as a whole, the fact that there is still life, and intelligent life, seems to indicate that it is perfect, if not we'd be dead.
The OP is in regards to the hands-on Diety that designed us to specifics, in that respect I agree that it is a poor design. But lets also note the fact that if such a Designer simply had the desire for LIFE to survive then He/She nailed it.

"All great truths begin as blasphemies"
"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Percy, posted 08-12-2008 5:19 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Percy, posted 08-12-2008 7:51 PM onifre has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024