LIE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

 
Intelligent Design is a magical explanation for the seeming design of the universe and what is in it and for how it seems to be largely organised.
 
It is not science or an explanation for there is no explanation given as to how a supernatural being who has no body or parts could design things or be intelligent.
 
It cannot be used to make predictions about how things will turn out. Science predicts and then tests and knows it is on the right track when the prediction comes to pass.

Many believe that we are designed and so is the universe. Many build on this belief to get people to believe in a designing God.
 
If design needs a designer then it needs a better designer to undesign it. The perfect mathematical calculation seems like a masterpiece but it takes more effort to design a calculation that looks as good but which is actually wrong!
 
Christians often confuse design with purpose. God may design the universe but he designs it for a purpose. The purpose is not the design but what the design is for. They regard an eternity in a supernatural heaven as the purpose. The purpose matters more than the design. The argument is incomplete if you just stop with design and don't wonder what the design is really about. Science cannot be expected to hold that design is real for it must be about getting us to Heaven!
 
Design and order are two different things. Something can be in order but not designed. There can be no design unless order exists first. Order is the essential not design. Order is a default. It is automatic. Design is not. Even disorder is only a form of order that looks messy. Even God cannot create order. He can only implement it.
 
Science tends towards the confidence that there was no agent that produced the universe and therefore no purpose. And it notes as well that even if there were an agent and a purpose, is the purpose a real one? An insane person who intends to kill you has the semblance of a purpose but it's not really a purpose for he is mentally incapable of having a real purpose. There might be no agent that made the universe. Maybe a disturbed agent did it. Or a sane agent. There are two possibilities against the sane agent. The sane agent then is made unlikely.
 
Not all believers in God agree that the universe shows signs of intelligent design. If it does not then it is designed to hide God or it is designed to get us to believe in his non-existence or absence!! To believe in God without design would be as ridiculous as saying you remember boiling your eggs but something has told you this is wrong and the Holy Spirit boiled them for you magically.  Or that God is inspiring you to hold that you died five minutes ago and rose again and that God hide the indications.  Jesus' own resurrection would be useless as a sign.  It would not even be interesting or should not be.

DNA

DNA is a battlefield between those who say it is where the design starts and is amazingly well ordered in its own right.  DNA however shows traces of terrible design.  It makes errors during replication and there is no word for these errors only mistakes.  Insertions of the wrong genetic codes happen.  It can be taken from a virus.  Some of the genetic code does nothing and is useless.  The errors in DNA are so serious but intelligent design believers take advantage of how this seriousness goes right over our heads.  It is like how we think DNA is so tiny that it does not matter.
 
SCIENCE
 
The believers are making a scientific claim when they say the universe is designed. Science is about why things work they way they do thus if design is real then science has to be about it and recognise it. But science vehemently rejects design as a lazy magical doctrine that is not supported by the evidence of science.
 
COMPLEXITY AND DESIGN ARE DIFFERENT THINGS
 
Complexity and design are not the same thing. That is logic and a scientific fact. Also, some things that appear designed may just be down to complexity rather than design. And some things that seem to be complexity could be designed. An artist can design a creation that looks like junk. But none of that changes the fact that complexity is not design.
 
Complexity can happen without intelligence being involved. Believers are saying it does not and cannot. They say that all complexity comes from a divine mind so it is a design. It is a contradiction to say that all things depend on divine intelligence and that there are events in the universe that have nothing to do with intelligence at all. Science and God then are in combat. Believers in God are enemies of science whether they realise it or not. If complexity cannot exist unless there is an intelligent God then there is in fact no such thing as a difference between design and complexity. Logic says there is so if you want to believe in God then you have to ditch logic.
 
ERRORS IN DESIGN

If there is design it does not point to a perfect creator but to a flawed designer who made many blunders. Female rabbits die of uterine cancer unless they are sterilised. The sinuses do not drain properly in humans for the lower ones hamper draining. The head of a baby is too big for the vagina when giving birth. Humans are ready to have sex before they are emotionally and physically ready. Nearly all of human DNA is rubbish and garbage. To say that all this has a purpose means that the design argument is useless on its own. You need a good theodicy, that is argument that shows that God is right to let evil happen, and yet it is nearly always presented in apologetic books without one. This is quite underhand.
 
THE BRAIN

The supreme proof that no loving and all-powerful God designed us is that the brain can hold as much data as all the large libraries of the world put together and only 1 percent of this potential is used up by the time we hit 70 or 80. So our brains are meant to live for thousands of years. Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that this proves that God considers death unnatural and bad (page 5, The Watchtower, June 1, 2002). That is just a rationalisation because God made the rules about death and that the brains would die without using their full potential.

ILLUSION

Some say that if there is no designer then the seeming design of the universe must be a supernatural illusion (not real as in a dream) or a natural illusion – only looks designed but is not.
 
Let us look at the magical dream notion. A dream design would need as much designing as if it would if the universe were real. Or would it?
 
Not if you imagine a dream no matter how complicated is still less designed and needs less designing than concrete reality. Our instinct says that our dreams are not as "real" as the real thing so design proves a dream illusion if it proves anything. It cannot help buoy up science which assumes matter is real.
 
THE THREAT!!

If the unbeliever thinks there is no God or designer at all, then he is accused of saying nature is totally irrational or non-rational. Totally amoral. Totally without any purpose. 100%. Do you see how extreme that charge is? We simply know that rationality exists and can work and can benefit us. We know then that if natural is irrational we are the part of it that is not. And as the rational simply means that a is a and not b the universe is rational in that sense. It cannot exist otherwise.
 
THE QUESTION OR THE QUESTIONS?
 
To ask if the universe is designed is a manipulative question for it oversimplifies.
 
In fact we should be asking several individual questions instead of summarising them as one question.
 
Does good have to exist before evil can happen? Is evil parasitic on good? Or does it not matter? Do both come together? Who designs evil?
 
If good is smart then evil has to be smarter to get it out of the way. Evil must need a bigger designer! The designer if he exists then is designing evil more than good.
 
If evil is not parasitic on good then the designer is not God and is not all good. You would be better to see the bad side of life as an accident rather than something maliciously intended.
 
Does the positive have to exist before the negative can happen? Is the negative parasitic on the positive?

What do we mean by positive and negative? Positive is a form of energy that builds up while negative is energy that breaks down. It is obvious that by positive we mean what suits us. But the energy is not about us so positive energy is negative in its way and negative is positive. If you want good to exist then it follows something has to happen - it does not matter if it is intended or just random - to make it possible. In other words, you need luck to have goodness and you do not need goodness to have luck.
 
Does the simple have to exist before the complex can happen? If the answer is no or that it does not matter then the notion that a simple designer is needed to explain a big complex creation is rubbish. The designing power might need to be very simple but it certainly does not need to be simple as in how God is supposed to be simple. In fact God is supposed to be real but have no material aspects and is something that has no parts at all. Believers only guess that that is simple. If it is impossible then it is as far from simple as you can get. If something partless can exist why can't the most simple origin of all things be simply one almighty part that cannot be broken down into other parts? Assume that if there is a simple designer it is one part. At least we know part makes sense but something without parts is just absurd. And it is also absurd because it is assumed to exist while you pretend you believe it can exist!

 
Does the planned have to happen before the unplanned can happen? Does everything have to be right before an accident can happen? But then how can an accident happen? The answer is that accidents can cause things to fall into an order of their own. From our perspective there is order but if we destroy the world that shows this order is not much to crow about! It is only apparent order if it leads to that!!
 
SPIRIT OR INTELLIGENCE?
 
It is more important for God to be intelligent than spirit. It is more important for me to be able to think than for me to have a body. That I need a body is not the point. If there is a choice between the two concepts then thinking of God as intelligence matters not thinking of him as spirit. For that reason as God is intelligence it follows science can look for him. The concept demands scientific investigation. Even if science cannot find him directly it can indirectly for it catches out murderers indirectly. Religion seeks to put God outside the reach of science but it fails.

FINALLY

Design and functionality are not the same thing. In theory a clever computer could be made by accident and that does not imply it is designed.
 
Design and purpose are not the same thing. The computer can design new things but just because it can and it has no purpose for them.
 
And if design exists we can only guess why something is designed. A painter can paint a picture and the picture can have no purpose but to show his creativity. We can tell ourselves that he painted it for our pleasure but that is going beyond the evidence.
 
Design if it has signs of purpose cannot show that our purpose is to be happy holy perfect beings for all eternity. Don’t read more purpose into a design than it needs.
 
Nobody wants to believe in a God who creates a universe that falls away from goodness but which demands that we be prepared to suffer for all eternity for the good of somebody else. Morality is about what is right and cannot change just because it can be dreadful. Design arguments contain the hidden assumption that no matter what we should have the option of attaining everlasting happiness. That is selfish and obscene for it suggests that suffering is designed to get us to this happiness. A selfish reason to believe that is why people suffer is just simply proof that you have no moral compass.
 
Everything that exists can be explained without imagining that there is a designer God. The argument that design proves God is really insulting God. It implies a wish not to see evil as bad at face value but to rationalise it as useful. That is vulgar.