Happy Atheist Forum

Today I got hit with a line I didn't hear in a while. "How can you not believe in intelligent creation? If you behold a picture, you know there had to be an artist designing it. It is the same with our earth, our life."

No. If you want to go with an artwork comparsion, it is more like this: You take a bowling ball. A long and broad, wooden pole. Various tubes of oil paint. Various canvases. Plant the wooden pole into the earth. Place the bowling ball on top of the pole. Freely distribute the tubes of paint and canvases all over the floor surrounding the wooden pole. Then leave. After quite a while, the wooden pole will wither and mold away and at some point, the bowling ball will tumble, and fall down. Now in 99.^9% of cases, nothing interesting will happen. Either the bowling ball won't hit any of the paint tubes. Or the tubes it hits have dried out long before the pole withered into collapse. Or the bowling ball hits still functioning tubes, but the paint just sprays into useless, random directions. Or the paint hits one of the canvases standing around, but the result is nothing to write home about. Yet there is one tiny chance - so dwindingly small that you will need X00.000.000.000 x X00.000.000.000 x Y amount of trials - that the bowling ball induced chain reaction of perfect circumstances will create a random masterpiece, fit to be displayed in the Louvre.

And you see, there was no artist involved in creating said masterpiece. No care. No interest. No steered creativity. No thought process. No passion or desire. All you needed was a perfect coincidence born out of more attempts most human minds can comprehend. The right components in the right place. And an incredibly long amount of time.

You just described Deism, haha!

But seriously, I think it's funny when people point to what (in their analogy) amounts to humans mimicking what they see in nature, as proof that a cosmic superhuman must have used a similar process (in imitation of what, who knows?).

"Of course Bob Ross is god; how else did everything get here?"

A designer who is perfect will be incapable of designing an imperfection. Further, it will not know what an imperfection is. One who knows  " ALL " and  " ALL POWERFULL " , at the recognitions of some flaws in its design will had corrected it. There are too many wrongs with this picture vs. the rights. The odds are against a design model but to the beleivers, thats the best that they can hold themselves to. They don't see the flaws in their beleives.

Perfection is a subjective concept.  One person's shattered cup is another person's thousands of pieces of perfect glass.  Arguing about perfection seems like a waste of time.

Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Buy a copy and hit your interlocutor around the head with it until they agree you are right. Don't bother getting them to read it, they won't understand it, or want to understand it for that matter (https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg34.imageshack.us%2Fimg34%2F2438%2Fheheoc.gif&hash=50cf1131f6316b9f48965cce1bfe1877dc8f90e7)

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg268.imageshack.us%2Fimg268%2F7475%2Fteah.gif&hash=974e3ef02680bc29a956eeb3296cd6601baa8c94)

Sure there's an artist. But the artist doesn't have to be a being. Mother nature can make some beautiful patterns but her "art" is the product of natural processes, not done deliberately like Andy Goldsworthy. I suppose gravity is an artist too!

All in all, two sentences isn't about to shatter over a century of work in the field of Biology.  

My short version answer is "Well, if I ever come across a rock where god signed the earth "Made by me", I will be convinced", but I do find the long version more thought stirring.  

Until then I am simply just living on a random blue marble flying through an alarmingly vast space.
And you know what? I'm completely okay with that. I like it here.

Sounds like another version of the teleological argument.  Which has been proven false, time and time again.  Of course if you're arguing with someone who believes in it, they're probably not going to understand when you poke holes in their argument, anyway.

But life and the universe isn't a picture. My coffee cup isn't Socrates. The jar of peanuts that sits on my desk isn't a motor yacht.

Pokemon is an example of intelligent design. Real life is not.

Quote from: "Ellainix"Pokemon is an example of intelligent design. Real life is not.

I think that is probably debatable.  

On the flip side, the existence of Twilight has to guarantee there is no such thing as intelligent design.

If half the creatures from Pokemon existed, Evolution would surely be refuted.

Quote from: "Ellainix"If half the creatures from Pokemon existed, Evolution would surely be refuted.

Counterpoint:
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage3.examiner.com%2Fimages%2Fblog%2Fwysiwyg%2Fimage%2Fpokemon_evolution_chart_1.jpg&hash=8072332d735c297b3ec94ac607c045b2f27aa7b7)

That's a metamorphosis, not evolution.

Quote from: "Albino_Raptor"Today I got hit with a line I didn't hear in a while. "How can you not believe in intelligent creation? If you behold a picture, you know there had to be an artist designing it. It is the same with our earth, our life."

A simple retort: "Faulty comparison thus your argument is invalid.  Thanks for playing."

Mr. Pinkocommie; if someone were to say to you that you are ETERNAL and as an eternal being you have no needs and wants. You are the PERFECT EXISTENCE. YOU ARE GOD. Now lets not make any comparison as to what may be perfect to one human or another. We are talking about GOD and what GOD is as to what GOD is not. In this case GOD IS PERFECT and contradicts itself creating the opposite of itself. It saids in the likeness of us and if it were in the likeness of God that humans were created then that likeness had a series of conflicting issues. Its all very simple, we don't need to go into philosophy or science or the whatever to answer the question. :rant:  

The concept of a perfect entity is a paradox in and of itself.

Quote from: "Squid"The concept of a perfect entity is a paradox in and of itself.

What is the paradox?  

Quote from: "Squid"The concept of a perfect entity is a paradox in and of itself.

Actually, God has access to magic super logic. Therefor, there is no paradox.

Quote from: "Logikos"

Quote from: "Squid"The concept of a perfect entity is a paradox in and of itself.

What is the paradox?  :rant:

Quote from: "Squid"

Quote from: "Logikos"

Quote from: "Squid"The concept of a perfect entity is a paradox in and of itself.

What is the paradox?  :rant:

A perfect entity could surly choose to make something less than perfect?

Quote from: "hvargas"Mr. Pinkocommie; if someone were to say to you that you are ETERNAL and as an eternal being you have no needs and wants. You are the PERFECT EXISTENCE. YOU ARE GOD. Now lets not make any comparison as to what may be perfect to one human or another. We are talking about GOD and what GOD is as to what GOD is not. In this case GOD IS PERFECT and contradicts itself creating the opposite of itself. It saids in the likeness of us and if it were in the likeness of God that humans were created then that likeness had a series of conflicting issues. Its all very simple, we don't need to go into philosophy or science or the whatever to answer the question. :rant:  

That's what you think of as perfect.  Your perception of perfection is only the model of perfection for yourself.  

Also, I am not a man.  Considering your often condescending tone of what we atheists think and don't think, assume and forget to think about, I would think you yourself would be a bit more careful about making assumptions.  Makes you seem additionally hypocritical.

Quote from: "Tank"A perfect entity could surly choose to make something less than perfect?

How could we say that though, if this being is perfection incarnate then producing something less than perfect wouldn't be perfectly made though.  This would imply that this perfect being is capable of producing something less than perfect and if this is part of that beings traits then wouldn't that being less than perfect?   Also we can't intermix perfect with "all-powerful" either as perfection does no equate to all-powerful nor can we equate it to "optimal" as less than perfect beings can produce optimal and less than optimal results. - This is why I don't like these discussions because "perfection" is an abstract concept for which there isn't any real ability to measure even though we use the term all the time.

Quote from: "Squid"

Quote from: "Tank"A perfect entity could surly choose to make something less than perfect?

How could we say that though, if this being is perfection incarnate then producing something less than perfect wouldn't be perfectly made though.This would imply that this perfect being is capable of producing something less than perfect and if this is part of that beings traits then wouldn't that being less than perfect.

Something that is not ideally suited for its purpose could be considered sub-standard and thus imperfect. I contend a perfect entity could conceive of a bucket with a small hole in the bottom and presumably produce it. However who defines perfect? Us or the perfect entity? From our perspective a bucket with a hole in it is imperfect. However from the perfect entities point of view they may well have conceived of the 'perfect' bucket with a hole in it. Irritating subject isn't it  

Quote from: "Squid"Also we can't intermix perfect with "all-powerful" either as perfection does no equate to all-powerful nor can we equate it to "optimal" as less than perfect beings can produce optimal and less than optimal results.

We can intermix perfect with 'all-powerful' as some would contend a perfect being, by definition, would have to be all powerful and an all-powerful being would be perfect.

Quote from: "Squid"- This is why I don't like these discussions because "perfection" is an abstract concept for which there isn't any real ability to measure even though we use the term all the time.

I'm with you here as human language has not developed sufficiently to adequately elucidate the issues being discussed here. One gets into a semantic argument with no anchor in reality which is ultimately fruitless. But this fruitless argument style suits the deist/theist as it can't be refuted, they thus claim victory by default. So as the concept of a perfect entity can not be rigorously defined in human language it is a meaningless term that has been used colloquially to mean 'something really, really good!'  It is not a term on which a productive logical argument can be based.

^This

In addition, any arguments from the slippery concept of perfection is moot; the theist can merely step down a notch to 'nearly perfect' and 'nearly omnipotent', thus eliminating that paradox. It seems to me, in most debates between atheists and theists - especially christians - we give their god the same attributes and argue based those beliefs, even though they're not held by all christians, let alone theists. That's why the theist must be asked to define their god before a real debate can be entered; if we assume theirs is a "perfect god" and it's not, we commit the strawman fallacy when we bring up perfection.

Anyway that's the best I can come up with before breakfast on a Sunday. I hope it makes sense.

Nature can supply us with something which we can use to define  "  PERFECTION  ". A comparison can be made for example; " GOLD " in its pure form and " DIAMOND ". You can mixed gold with other metals and make it less perfect while a diamond value depends on its cuts, color clarity, carat weight and so on. Giving a diamond its best quality, we can then grade such a diamond a being PERFECT. If we create a mental bieng and we give it " PERFECTION " , this being is then without defects or blemish, more than a perfect diamond. We give it eternaty. We don't need to go into the phylosophy or abstract idea of perfection to argue the nature of the created being cause we are giving that being ( GOD ) everything that we are not and can never be. A one of a kind that can into existence at the moment of creation, that is creating itself while at the same time creating the Universe.This mental being that we create presents " US " with a problem, we are in no way near its perfection. We are the opposite of its perfection, we suffer and we die.If you see a picture and the picture is that of human existence the artist has a choice of neglecting the truth or presenting an illusion of a happy existence. In this case the artist is a CRIMINAL. :bananacolor:

Quote from: "elliebean"^This

In addition, any arguments from the slippery concept of perfection is moot; the theist can merely step down a notch to 'nearly perfect' and 'nearly omnipotent', thus eliminating that paradox. It seems to me, in most debates between atheists and theists - especially christians - we give their god the same attributes and argue based those beliefs, even though they're not held by all christians, let alone theists. That's why the theist must be asked to define their god before a real debate can be entered; if we assume theirs is a "perfect god" and it's not, we commit the strawman fallacy when we bring up perfection.

Anyway that's the best I can come up with before breakfast on a Sunday. I hope it makes sense.

I would think that if one asked 1,000 people (arbitrary big number) to sit down with a pen and paper and get them to write down their idea of what God is then we would get 1,000 different replies with a few common themes running through them. I think you are right though, in that before debating what God is, the theist is required to define how they describe their particular version of the God hypothesis.

Quote from: "hvargas"Nature can supply us with something which we can use to define  "  PERFECTION  ".

Perfection is not an intrinsic quality of anything at all. Perfection is a word, in fact a symbolic audible representation of a concept unique in every mind that has ever been exposed to it. The neural pathways in each brain that holds the concept of 'perfection' are different and change as a result of discussions like these. Perfection does not exist in nature beyond our imperfect ability to describe something indescribable.

Quote from: "hvargas"A comparison can be made for example; " GOLD " in its pure form and " DIAMOND ". You can mixed gold with other metals and make it less perfect while a diamond value depends on its cuts, color clarity, carat weight and so on. Giving a diamond its best quality, we can then grade such a diamond a being PERFECT.

No. You have made a personal choice to ascribe perfection to purity of an element. The pure element has no concept of perfection, none whatsoever. So is pure water imperfect? It is a compound of two elements but by your arbitrary personal definition it is imperfect.

Quote from: "hvargas"If we create a mental bieng and we give it " PERFECTION " , this being is then without defects or blemish, more than a perfect diamond. We give it eternaty. We don't need to go into the phylosophy or abstract idea of perfection to argue the nature of the created being cause we are giving that being ( GOD ) everything that we are not and can never be.

You can not possibly know what we can never be simply because you can not say with any certainty what we can be, you do not have the gift of foresight do you? Logic a bit faulty here.

Quote from: "hvargas"A one of a kind that can into existence at the moment of creation, that is creating itself while at the same time creating the Universe.This mental being that we create presents " US " with a problem, we are in no way near its perfection. We are the opposite of its perfection, we suffer and we die.If you see a picture and the picture is that of human existence the artist has a choice of neglecting the truth or presenting an illusion of a happy existence. In this case the artist is a CRIMINAL. :bananacolor:

Superstitions that cause you problems that do not cause me problems are your problem  

Paintings are known to be man made objects. As far as we know, paintings didn't exist until we decided to start painting them.

On the other hand, the origin of the universe is unknown.

A man-made object has an intelligent creator, but this does not have any bearing on something whose origin is unknown.

Quote from: "CHOOCHOO!"Paintings are known to be man made objects. As far as we know, paintings didn't exist until we decided to start painting them.

On the other hand, the origin of the universe is unknown.

A man-made object has an intelligent creator, but this does not have any bearing on something whose origin is unknown.

No, no.

You have it all wrong.

Don't you know that everything can be extrapolated?

Like the circulatory system of a worm can be extrapolated to that of a human... the human's is just larger.
 :yay: