Evidence against Design?

[tonyrey]

Christians follow Christ, not Design, scripture says nothing about an entity named Design.

Design is not an entity but an activity. God’s Design is implied in the reference by Jesus to the beauty of the lilies as evidence of divine Providence…

That’s also excellent evidence against Design, thanks for pointing it out.

?

Your OP is about evidence. If you think the positions and shapes of stars are evidence for Design then please present it, otherwise it remains true that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design.

Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence. Otherwise the reference of Jesus to the beauty of the lilies is meaningless.

I wasn’t referring to a scientific error, but to the Galileo affair, where centuries ago the Church accepted that any religious belief that the stars and planets are perfect and that the universe was designed with the Earth at is center is wrong.

Are you now saying the thread was mistitled, and is actually about metaphysical speculations rather than evidence?

Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence. Science is based on metaphysical principles.

 

[buffalo]

**The Church- foreshadowed from the world’s beginning **
760 Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church."153 God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the “convocation” of men in Christ, and this “convocation” is the Church. **The Church is the goal of all things,**154 and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels’ fall and man’s sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the love he wanted to give the world:

Just as God’s will is creation and is called “the world,” so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called "the Church."155

 

[oval]

I’m not very educated and was reading this the other day , I’m not understanding this word design and how it fits in with things.I don’t understand what people mean when they say design. A sophistication that is convenient for life and the universe to exist, is that the meaning?
If some kind of a shell creature was in the middle of the ocean, matured and took to the currents now 1000 miles away or maybe up on shore dangling around, where does that leave the shell with the imprint design of the ocean current and maturing creature? In time little microbe thingys in the shell mature and enjoy what appears to be a purposeful perfect design in the imprints of the shell for their existence. They get smart in time and start going to church trying to connect with what they believe is responsible for the imprints in the shell which was caused by a combination of many things allowing for the contrasting ideas in the shell. How are the beliefs in a maker or religion connected to design?

 

[grannymh]

I’m not very educated and was reading this the other day , I’m not understanding this word design and how it fits in with things.I don’t understand what people mean when they say design. A sophistication that is convenient for life and the universe to exist, is that the meaning?
If some kind of a shell creature was in the middle of the ocean, matured and took to the currents now 1000 miles away or maybe up on shore dangling around, where does that leave the shell with the imprint design of the ocean current and maturing creature? In time little microbe thingys in the shell mature and enjoy what appears to be a purposeful perfect design in the imprints of the shell for their existence. They get smart in time and start going to church trying to connect with what they believe is responsible for the imprints in the shell which was caused by a combination of many things allowing for the contrasting ideas in the shell. How are the beliefs in a maker or religion connected to design?

Welcome to CAF.

You have some good questions in a good contribution to the discussion. Regardless of our background, all of us are struggling to make sense of the universe surrounding us.

 

[buffalo]

I’m not very educated and was reading this the other day , I’m not understanding this word design and how it fits in with things.I don’t understand what people mean when they say design. A sophistication that is convenient for life and the universe to exist, is that the meaning?
If some kind of a shell creature was in the middle of the ocean, matured and took to the currents now 1000 miles away or maybe up on shore dangling around, where does that leave the shell with the imprint design of the ocean current and maturing creature? In time little microbe thingys in the shell mature and enjoy what appears to be a purposeful perfect design in the imprints of the shell for their existence. They get smart in time and start going to church trying to connect with what they believe is responsible for the imprints in the shell which was caused by a combination of many things allowing for the contrasting ideas in the shell. How are the beliefs in a maker or religion connected to design?

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/i...UTKrUIGCUr5-Gz1pTTipDsEQXngtYq160u0j-KLEF0PwQ

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/i...dpg4Rws-uK6V_CmvP25X3vAiSln0wdlHzeWENBT_VOx5g

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/i...U50YoBZi5GZf61BvSFICOqHfzvrIA6PnOo-mxIMRmjk4Q

 

[oval]

Welcome to CAF.

You have some good questions in a good contribution to the discussion. Regardless of our background, all of us are struggling to make sense of the universe surrounding us./QUOTE

Appreciating the kind ackowledgement to be sure, and again for the welcome. I am a christian and believe Jesus is the King of existence representing the Tri God that created everything so there is no quarrel related initiative. My parents decided to join a Carmelite idea after reading some books called Opus dei from some friends. They let me know about it so I asked them to send me these writings. I’m concerned about people they associate with as a regular member of a family would be. So I’m certainly not educated in science or philosophy or anything else for that matter. I thought to mention this because as we know the public is struggling with identity fear overload and can enjoy putting there foot out to trip people for something to feel real about themselves in a lost world of un-realism due to imparting nonrealism to others in lack of being charitable. The post below I must say thank you as well and it looks facinating.

 

[oval]

Interesting link and I noticed an excellent clip on the design nature of butterflies. I enjoy insect behavior and have done a few hobby experiments with them in communicating. These ideas from the biologist are a few things I thought of before. They have an inner evolving mechanism or double life work plan which is anything but simplistic or even reasonable which helps along in mans idea in an inner evolving limb or soul design. I wouldn’t paste it in here unless I thought it was teriffic. One comes around here in the fall that looks like it has eyes on the wings, with 13 dots. I tried to get a pick of it but it took off twice on me. last year and the year before. Maybe this fall. You can’t help but think there may be codes in their color wing design

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AZk6nZGH9Xo

 

[wanstronian]

Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.

Scientific evidence is empirical, objective and repeatable. I can’t think of any other kind of evidence worthy of the title. So what sort of evidence are you thinking of?

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/i...UTKrUIGCUr5-Gz1pTTipDsEQXngtYq160u0j-KLEF0PwQ

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/i...dpg4Rws-uK6V_CmvP25X3vAiSln0wdlHzeWENBT_VOx5g

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/i...U50YoBZi5GZf61BvSFICOqHfzvrIA6PnOo-mxIMRmjk4Q

Pictures like these are often rolled out as “evidence” of design. The truth is, nature never precisely follows a logarithmic spiral. The nautilus shell picture you’ve posted is laughable - the blue line does not even follow the centre of the shell’s spiral. It’s miles out. Same thing with the galaxy picture, which is of course best explained by Newton’s law of universal gravitation, an entirely natural phenomenon in no need of a designer.

Moreover, the mathematical diagram you present is not even a true spiral, it’s made up of quarter-circles and so the resultant curve is a connected series of constant radius arcs, rather than one steadily increasing one. Now if that sequence were ever found in nature it would be highly convincing of some sort of design! But no, what is found in nature are increasing spirals and ratios that fluctuate in keeping with the natural growth of the organism in question. Again, no designer required.

Just like all the other “evidence” that ID Creationists haul out to support their claims, this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m not very educated and was reading this the other day , I’m not understanding this word design and how it fits in with things.I don’t understand what people mean when they say design. A sophistication that is convenient for life and the universe to exist, is that the meaning?
If some kind of a shell creature was in the middle of the ocean, matured and took to the currents now 1000 miles away or maybe up on shore dangling around, where does that leave the shell with the imprint design of the ocean current and maturing creature? In time little microbe thingys in the shell mature and enjoy what appears to be a purposeful perfect design in the imprints of the shell for their existence. They get smart in time and start going to church trying to connect with what they believe is responsible for the imprints in the shell which was caused by a combination of many things allowing for the contrasting ideas in the shell. How are the beliefs in a maker or religion connected to design?

Welcome to the forum.
Design is a philosophical explanation for which there is abundant metaphysical, epistemological, scientific, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence. It regards reason and purpose as fundamental facts rather than accidental products of blind forces.

 

[tonyrey]

Scientific evidence is empirical, objective and repeatable. I can’t think of any other kind of evidence worthy of the title. So what sort of evidence are you thinking of?

Metascientific, epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence.

 

[tonyrey]

Interesting link and I noticed an excellent clip on the design nature of butterflies. I enjoy insect behavior and have done a few hobby experiments with them in communicating. These ideas from the biologist are a few things I thought of before. They have an inner evolving mechanism or double life work plan which is anything but simplistic or even reasonable which helps along in mans idea in an inner evolving limb or soul design. I wouldn’t paste it in here unless I thought it was teriffic. One comes around here in the fall that looks like it has eyes on the wings, with 13 dots. I tried to get a pick of it but it took off twice on me. last year and the year before. Maybe this fall. You can’t help but think there may be codes in their color wing design

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AZk6nZGH9Xo

Magnificent! “None are so blind as those who will not see…”

 

[wanstronian]

Metascientific, epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence.

Can you give me an example of each of these kinds of evidence?

 

[inocente]

Designs always contain patterns. Natural patterns do not contain languages, symbols, maps or codes.

Designs always come from a mind.

This is your opinion, but the thread is about evidence.

The following video shows continuous, infinite, beautiful patterns which look as if they are designed by a mind, but it’s just a computer program iterating simple arithmetic (z := z[sup]2[/sup] + c), the Mandelbrot set.

youtube.com/watch?v=WAJE35wX1nQ

Certainly everyone should come over all spiritual looking at this, but the amazement is surely that these designs don’t come from a mind but just simple, mechanistic, blind arithmetic.

 

[inocente]

I simply said, somewhat poetically, that design exists because patterns exist. Clouds that form faces are forming patterns or designs. I don’t recall implying evidence of a designer or evidence for design the theory.

Perish the thought.

Glad we can enjoy the same, pretty cool clouds, without getting entangled with some kind of philosophy.

Yes, I think the best answer to anyone so uncool as to ask what it all means is 42.

 

[inocente]

Design is not an entity but an activity. God’s Design is implied in the reference by Jesus to the beauty of the lilies as evidence of divine Providence…

I’m sure we could find implied references to all kinds of things if we looked hard enough but as I said, Design isn’t mentioned in scripture, and it has nothing to do with what Jesus was teaching in that passage, which is don’t make things complicated and don’t worry.

So why do we need to worry about this complicated modern concoction of Design, why can’t we just have simple faith as Jesus taught?

?

I was thanking you for pointing out that scripture is not about Design.

Your OP is about evidence. If you think the positions and shapes of stars are evidence for Design then please present it, otherwise it remains true that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design.
tonyrey;9613360:

Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence. Otherwise the reference of Jesus to the beauty of the lilies is meaningless.

There may well be different forms of evidence, but again you’ve not disputed that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design, so can I take it you agree that the vast majority of the universe is evidence against Design and we can move on to considering our own neck of the woods?

Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence. Science is based on metaphysical principles.

We don’t need to worry about what science is based on, since what you call scientific evidence is more properly called empirical evidence, meaning simply that which is seen or sensed.

 

[Sair]

Certainly everyone should come over all spiritual looking at this, but the amazement is surely that these designs don’t come from a mind but just simple, mechanistic, blind arithmetic.

A pertinent observation, from the point of view of those of us who feel a real sense of awe not just at the scale of the natural universe, but its intricacy - where is the wonder if someone (someone fundamentally like us, as the monotheistic God is commonly imagined) designed all this? Everything we are, everything we experience, everything we observe - the whole panoply of ‘creation’ - is nothing to a complex, all-knowing mind with omnipotent powers. Surely the true wonder is that all of this, including our ability to imagine such a deity, came about by blind, unthinking natural forces and fluctuations…

 

[tonyrey]

A pertinent observation, from the point of view of those of us who feel a real sense of awe not just at the scale of the natural universe, but its intricacy - where is the wonder if someone (someone fundamentally like us, as the monotheistic God is commonly imagined) designed all this? Everything we are, everything we experience, everything we observe - the whole panoply of ‘creation’ - is nothing to a complex, all-knowing mind with omnipotent powers. Surely the true wonder is that all of this, including our ability to imagine such a deity, came about by blind, unthinking natural forces and fluctuations…

The more meagerly an explanation is the more eagerly it is welcomed!

It goes to show that we get what we deserve…

 

[tonyrey]

I’m sure we could find implied references to all kinds of things if we looked hard enough but as I said, Design isn’t mentioned in scripture, and it has nothing to do with what Jesus was teaching in that passage, which is don’t make things complicated and don’t worry.

So why do we need to worry about this complicated modern concoction of Design, why can’t we just have simple faith as Jesus taught?

I was thanking you for pointing out that scripture is not about Design.

Jesus pointed to the beauty of the lilies as evidence of divine Providence…

There may well be different forms of evidence, but again you’ve not disputed that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design, so can I take it you agree that the vast majority of the universe is evidence against Design and we can move on to considering our own neck of the woods?

Non sequitur.

We don’t need to worry about what science is based on, since what you call scientific evidence is more properly called empirical evidence, meaning simply that which is seen or sensed.

What is seen or sensed is not the **sole **form of evidence.

 

[Sair]

The more meagerly an explanation is the more eagerly it is welcomed!

It goes to show that we get what we deserve…

Meagre, you say? Show me the forces or laws or random fluctuations that could bring about the existence of a complex, all-knowing, all-powerful creative mind and I will feel a suitable level of awe. Until such is evidenced, the assumption of an eternally-existing deity of the kind imagined by monotheism is vastly less parsimonious an explanation for the natural universe than mindless forces and particles - if anything, it looks like an easy way out of actually finding an explanation.

And, really, what would you find more marvellous - a highly accomplished, established and experienced artist creating a painting of great intricacy and merit, or the same painting being created by a five-year-old throwing paint at a canvas? Modern art has such vague parameters (Blue Poles, anyone?), this is not entirely inconceivable…what the observer reads into it seems almost more important than the original intention!

 

[inocente]

A pertinent observation, from the point of view of those of us who feel a real sense of awe not just at the scale of the natural universe, but its intricacy - where is the wonder if someone (someone fundamentally like us, as the monotheistic God is commonly imagined) designed all this? Everything we are, everything we experience, everything we observe - the whole panoply of ‘creation’ - is nothing to a complex, all-knowing mind with omnipotent powers. Surely the true wonder is that all of this, including our ability to imagine such a deity, came about by blind, unthinking natural forces and fluctuations…

I think you’ll have to get two gold stars for that thought. No, make it three.

Mind, I’m not supposed to agree with that kind of thing and yet again will get branded a very naughty Christian. But Jesus said the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children, and little children get excited about anything. For me it drains the color out of everything when, instead of admitting we don’t know, we invent answers that give the illusion of knowing.