Riewe said:
Because of the total rigidity of the universe, with its laws and such, and because nearly everything is so perfectly ordered with expected results, it has led me to believe in intelligent design, then evolution taking place.
Doing a science degree, i see all these rules and laws but wonder to myself "why are they like that? Why is that so?" And the only real logical answer i can think of is some almight being(s) who by their power created the laws which we all live by.
Then because of the evidence that the evolutionary theory brings to the table, i have to accept that evolution is a truth. But it never explains the BEGINNING. It is only explaining the process of how we came to be, not that instantaneous instant it all started.
So that is why i believe in evolution being a result/process of intelligent design.
Courtesy of talkorigins.org --
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Claim:
Intelligent design has explanatory power.
Response:
1. Merely accounting for facts does not make a theory scientific. Saying "it's magic" can account for any fact anywhere but is as far from science as you can get. A theory has explanatory power if facts can be deduced from it. No facts have ever been deduced from ID theory. The theory is equivalent to saying, "it's magic."
2. "Intelligent" and "design" remain effectively undefined. A theory cannot have explanatory power if it is uncertain what the theory says in the first place.
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Claim:
Complexity indicates intelligent design.
Response:
1. This is an argument from incredulity. Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.
2. In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.
3. Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.
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Claim:
Every event has a cause. The universe itself had a beginning, so it must have had a first cause, which must have been a creator God.
Response:
1. The assumption that every event has a cause, although common in our experience, is not necessarily universal. The apparent lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay, suggests that there might be exceptions. There are also hypotheses, such as alternate dimensions of time or an eternally oscillating universe, that allow a universe without a first cause.
2. By definition, a cause comes before an event. If time began with the universe, "before" does not even apply to it, and it is logically impossible that the universe be caused.
3. This claim raises the question of what caused God. If, as some claim, God does not need a cause, then by the same reasoning, neither does the universe.
