Refuting the ARGUMENT BY DESIGN.

by nicolaou 122 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Hoffnung

  Hello Nic,

  indeed the comparison between a rock and a watch are not strong enough to sort it out once and for all the evolution - creation issue. However, the big argument I hear coming back in documentaries about the origin of life, is that things developed over many millions of years. IMO, millions of years in itself do not make things happen, and prove nothing at all. It leaves a lot of gaps and unanswered questions. I find it at least as weak an argument as the "God designed it" argument, if not weaker. This is only amplified by the fact that all life on earth has disappeared a number of times, the youngest occurrence not that many million years ago, and life had to start from scratch again, so many million years of developments lost. The God I like to believe in is an experimental architect, who had to review quite often his design, hence the various clean-ups. It might not make him a nice personality, bit I find it more logic.
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  sizemik

  Perhaps Nic included the snowflake for a reason. By the basic definition we often apply . . . this snowfake shows design. It is balanced, uniform, symmetrical, multifaceted and complex . . . it surely must have a designer?

  But no . . . a snowflake forms in a few seconds or minutes . . . randomly, as a result of environmental conditions. It has no designer and serves no obvious purpose. It, in actuality, evolved, and given the right conditions will continue to do so . . . or disappear.
• 

  bohm

  IMO, millions of years in itself do not make things happen, and prove nothing at all. It leaves a lot of gaps and unanswered questions.

  but why does god offer a plausible explanation at all?
• 

  sizemik

  IMO, millions of years in itself do not make things happen, and prove nothing at all. It leaves a lot of gaps and unanswered questions.

  This is not the same as saying over millions of years nothing happens. Some things take millions of years . . . like the time it takes light to travel across a galaxy.

  Like A Einstein pointedly said . . . "Time only exists so everything doesn't happen at once"
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  Nickolas

  The God I like to believe in is an experimental architect, who had to review quite often his design, hence the various clean-ups. It might not make him a nice personality,

  The mad genius, bumbling god. That's a new one.

  bit I find it more logic.

  I'm shaking my head in incredulity.
• 

  Hoffnung

  but why does god offer a plausible explanation at all?

  Because it is very similar to something we know already, with a similar end product: a human designer. That is why it sounds plausible.

  With regards to the snowflake, and many other beings, death material or alive, that come to exist without any external influence, it does not answer the questions about how the complicated circles of life in nature came to exist, with other words, who or what designed the conditions that make snow flakes build themselves? To name just one, strictly related to the snowflake, why is the specific gravity of ice lower than the SG of water, making ice cover the water and not sink in it? Most other "solid" materials are multiple times heavier than their "fluid" form. Why not so with water? Is that one of many "very lucky" but hard to explain coincidences? Can it have developed over millions of years? I think the answer is no.

  In the ultimate machine design, the end product is produced continuously without any external adjusting influence, as long as the raw materials and the power supply are continuously provided. Systems in nature are very similar to that.

  Yes, I absolutely agree that nobody has built the snowflake in the picture, but that proves or disproves nothing at all.
• 

  Hoffnung

  ---

  The God I like to believe in is an experimental architect, who had to review quite often his design, hence the various clean-ups. It might not make him a nice personality,

  The mad genius, bumbling god. That's a new one.

  "Not a nice personality" is not the same as "mad". The USA have quite a few politicians to prove that point.
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  sizemik

  An unusual property of ice frozen at atmospheric pressure is that the solid is approximately 9% less dense than liquid water. The density of ice is 0.9167 g/cm³ at 0°C, whereas water has a density of 0.9998 g/cm³ at the same temperature. Liquid water is densest, essentially 1.00 g/cm³, at 4°C and becomes less dense as the water molecules begin to form the hexagonal crystals[2] of ice as the freezing point is reached. This is due to hydrogen bonding dominating the intermolecular forces, which results in a packing of molecules less compact in the solid. Density of ice increases slightly with decreasing temperature and has a value of 0.9340 g/cm³ at −180 °C (93 K).[3]

  The effect of expansion during freezing can be dramatic, and is a basic cause of freeze-thaw weathering of rock in nature. It is also a common cause of the flooding of houses when water pipes burst due to the pressure of expanding water when it freezes, then leak water after thawing.

  The result of this process is that ice (in its most common form) floats on liquid water.

  Different elements have different properties . . . you can say it's by design if you like . . . but it does not make the existence of a creator any more plausible. It just shows that different elements have different properties.
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  Hoffnung

  An unusual property of ice frozen at atmospheric pressure is that the solid is approximately 9% less dense than liquid water.

  "Unusual"... Interesting... Is water not vital for all life?
• 

  sizemik

  All of the elements are vital for life.

  There is much we don't understand . . . there is much that is unusual . . . therefore it must come from intelligent design?

  It's just not a compelling argument.

  "I don't know" rather than "It must be God" just seems a more logical response IMO.

  Not understanding the unusual, and the inability to accommodate the unknown, is the precise reason for the presence of religious belief, and always has been. We just can't live with mystery.

  That's what attracted me to the JW's . . . they had all the answers. I won't be fooled again. I prefer to live with the unknown now.