Back to Plan A ...

[nilsigma]

... as apparently there is no plan B.

This is my attempt at deduction and you can blame kloroform for it.

Since it covers matters (evolution and intelligent design) which some people hold sacred it is behind a cut ...

Comments

[kloroform]

You might be right.

On the other hand, if we were designed, I believe we were designed faulty on purpose.

Imagine a race of homo sapiens in genetically perfect, disease-free bodies (homo superior, anyone?), spreading through the universe like cancer (or locusts, pick your choice), after having exhausted the resources of Earth.

If there was a designer, he/she/it soon realised the true nature of homo sapiens and possibly decided to throw some sand into their biological clockworks to make sure that they won't crawl out of their primordial ooze too soon. Or possibly ever.

Still, you might be right. But as an agnostic, I'm relatively open to all suggestions!

P.S. The most frightnening question in my mind is not the existence or absence of a "Designer", but what will come of all the future generations in USA who are force-fed Intelligent Design theory in schools?

[nilsigma]

If I was designing a body for a specified life-span I would build in a 'killer' - say a heart that only worked for a specified number of beats, or a fuse in the brain - not just rely on unspecified parts failing in unspecified ways. The latter may be Design, but it fails on Intelligent - and it also becomes indistinguishable from the random effects of evolution. You can argue that the intelligent design is actually randomness, but then you hit the blind watchmaker problem head on.

As for future generations in the USA, well, they will probably be just as good or bad as past generations in the USA, or indeed anywhere else. Accurate knowledge has never been much of a plus-factor in this excuse for a world.

(Sorry, feeling more than a little pissed-off at the moment.)

[kloroform]

Don't you think that an exact, specifically built-in fault would give away too many clues about the existence of a Designer, or, a Creator..?

A piece of information like that, once verified, would be enough to create more fundamentalist cults on the face of this planet than anyone 'sane' could tolerate without going absolutely bonkers. Methinks that if there indeed is a Designer, he uses some extreme sort of random generator to keep us off his ultra-secret tracks.

As for whether or not "accurate knowledge has never been much of a plus-factor in this excuse for a world", I agree with you whole-heartedly, whether or not you wish you never made this statement in the first place or not. This world has always been running on something entirely different than knowledge, so I guess that makes me rather pissed off, too.

Edit: Just shaved off a rather embarrassing html error.

[nilsigma]

I love the 'mysterious ways His wonders to perform' argument

[kloroform]

Your arguments are quite convincing, but still not enough to convince me 100%. But then, neither are the opposite camp's. Ergo, I remain as an agnostic, willing to go with either camp if an absolute truth is presented.

You know what? That makes me sound even worse than a "cynical old bugger" or a "religious fanatic". Even you, with your seething atheism, have more faith in the absence of God than I have faith in anything. You're pretty much on the same level than a strongly religious person, only on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Where am I? I try to say that I'm neutral like Switzerland but instead come off as a completely faithless old bugger.

[nilsigma]

Oh dear. I am not trying to convince you or anyone else. Although the idea of being a Jehovah's Non-Witness and getting people up on a Sunday to earnestly explain that 'God is not coming so don't wait up' does have a kind of perverse attraction.

At least you can be sure that you will never be presented with an absolute truth about God - not until it is too late that is ...

This is from Revelations Chapter 3 and is God's message to the church in Laodicea -

"I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to spit you out of my mouth."

You just can't win with God ...