There’s simply no evidence of any planning in the evolution of humans, or any other beings - not when the circumstances of our existence are far more parsimoniously explained by unthinking physical forces.
Sair:
Of course there is, but some people are just too blinded by their own preferences to see it.
Natural explanations are simply that - explanations that are accessible to investigation by natural beings.
A generalistic and silly definition designed to fit a preference, blatantly
If your designer was natural, then he/she/it would leave evidence of interaction, evidence detectable through investigation by natural beings such as ourselves - bound as we are by the demands and limits of a natural existence.
If our designer was ‘natural’, he would not have been able to create the universe.
But that isn’t the way of ID, is it? We are obliged to give up the search and just accept that the designer has more profound knowledge and understanding than we could possibly attain!
Another silly definition designed to fit a preference.
And you are simply trying to muddy the waters by blaming me for the introduction of ‘supernatural’ design - the very recourse to ‘supernatural’ explanations, as I’ve pointed out many times before, implies that those who believe in the efficacy of such explanations already think they know the limits of nature, and are prepared to cast aside natural explanations as inadequate before having engaged in any real exploration of same.
If only there were some ‘natural’ explanations. Even the IC rebuttal only describes groups of structures, rather than one, complex structure at a time - which is how evolution supposes it all to have occurred. That’s akin to looking out at your lawn and recognizing that the grass was mowed, the bushes trimmed, the garden weeded, and all the debris picked up and placed on a pile next to the road for pick up, and vehemently attributing it all to ‘natural’ causes.
It’s much easier to just say, “God did it!” and thus close your mind to the real marvel - that blind, unthinking phenomena can produce something like consciousness, for example.
Yes! It’s much easier - and much more frugal - to say, “The lawn service guys did it.”
You reject even the possibility, when the exploration has barely begun.
I know you’re not talking about Tony, or about me. Tony has never decried science, and I was a science teacher and practitioner. The difference between you and us, is that we recognize limits, you don’t.
Scientists - especially neuroscientists - are well aware that they don’t know everything about consciousness and how it arises. That’s why they’re still looking!
I, for one, hope they find something. But, one thing is for sure, what they find, and what they have found so far, is a far cry from a chance compilation of inert, purposeless particles.
Your claim of ‘conclusive’ evidence for design is nothing of the kind, especially when you can’t offer independent evidence of the existence of a designer. All ID has ever offered is a denial of the possibility that natural forces and phenomena can produce the effects we experience as conscious beings. But no ID proponent knows this, nor can they demonstrate it objectively.
Actually, we don’t have to work that hard. We can wait for the scientist to discover ever greater complexity and ever more information. The greater the complexity and the greater the information, the more it all shouts out Design. Look! It comes right down to this: if our God were not in the picture, you, and others, would have no problem with “design,” and you know it. Why decry God so much?
As others have said on these fora, please produce conclusive evidence of supernatural design - scientists would love to see it, and undoubtedly there would be a Nobel Prize involved.
Wow! We Christians are so blown away by that line! If you could come up with something new, you might win a prize for creativity!
But all ID theorists have ever done has been to say, “Well, scientists haven’t explained X, therefore X must be designed.”
No so. I have said, “God created everything. Scientists, now you figure out how!”
Scientists haven’t given up looking for explanations, though - that is left to the supernaturalists.
Another unwarranted, self-serving attack, bordering on
ad hominem, that indicates an unwillingness to concession of any kind. You want the Christian to do all of the conceding so that you can effectively dispense with God altogether, don’t you. Just examine your intentions.
Rather than fighting amongst ourselves, we should be cooperating. Atheism, resulting in ‘scientism’, has become so ardent that the sort of cooperation that found Catholics and Catholic Priests making real scientific discoveries, up until some decades ago, will not be tolerated. Is it because, deep down, you guys have no way to apologize for the atrocities committed against Priests and Christians and Jews this past century? Apologies are not necessary. We are able to, and have, forgiven.
Examine your intentions. Know thyself.
God bless,
jd
Your imagery sums it up perfectly. Goals and ends appear out of the blue in the materialist’s scheme of things. It would be more consistent to reject the lot as illusions - like everything else that is intangible…
