Has the universe been Intelligently Designed?

[QED]

The thing I find ironic about ID is that it posits design where none needs to exist with relation to biological evolution, but seems to completely ignore the more powerful or compelling (to me anyway ) desigin that might be posited regarding the laws of the universe as present at the big bang.

It is at least more reasonable to me to consider that the nature of matter and space and the laws governing their interaction were the true 'elements of design' if any such elements exist. Of course objections can be made here, but at least intelligent design at this level is much more defensible than the anti-evolutionary version that is being pushed by the Discovery Institute.

In addition, if one assumes design at this 'initial stage' with no subsequent intervention necessary, then this certainly bespeaks of a much greater intelligence then the 'designer' posited by Dembski, Behe, and Wells, et. al.

What do we know about our universe that could lead us to conclude it was Intelligently Designed?

[zepper899]

wow, somebody's bitter. it may be a scam, although by that reasoning every other religion is also a scam.

Straw man. Christianity isn't a scam specifically because it has a mythology. It's a scam because it seeks influence over people in return for worse than nothing.

not strawman. all other mythologies seek to influence people for "worse than nothing." if you believe in something not strictly provable by physics, are you not being influenced in the same way?

i thought that simply having a direction in life gives hope. christianity may be that direction

Why does one need Christianity for that?[/quote]
i did not say that one NEEDS christianity, but one MAY draw hope from christianity.

i don't think of ID to be a concrete theory, just a viewpoint that admits ignorance.

Admitting ignorance is stating "I don't know". ID is far worse than that. ID is like stating "even though I know the evidence says X is true, I think X is false."

again, please look more closely at my statements regarding my opinion of ID. it goes where no evidence exists. it is a philosophical theory.

you can prove the hypothesis that god exists false?

1) The god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis. Anything that exists or doesn't exist. Anything that has a definite yes or no answer to it is a scientific question. Our technological limitations are irrelevant.

2) The god hypothesis necessarily implies the following:
a) Energy can be created from nothing. God has to be able to create things.
b) Intelligence can exist independently from a biological matrix (i.e. the brain). God has to be sentient.

3) Like any scientific hypothesis, the god hypothesis is subject to comparison against other hypothesis, theories, and laws. We don't need to test every hypothesis we come accross. Rather, we can simply compare a hypothesis to evidence we've already collected. For example, I don't need to look up every post you've made to dc.com to know the hypothesis, "Zepper's post count is zero" is a false hypothesis.

4) For the god hypothesis to be possible (the first necessary step before being proven true) premises 2a and 2b require evidence. We know energy cannot be created from nothing. Even the mighty string theories still imply particles which pop into existence are coming from another dimension to ours. We know intelligence only exists as the result of the brain. Believe otherwise? Provide evidence. Until then...

5) The god hypothesis is false.

our technological limitations are indeed relevant. consider the analogy. although admittedly imperfect, i try to convey a sense of the undiscovered.
-people used to think that their was no space. existence ended with the heavens. we now know that there is more to existence (outer space).
-speed affects time. we did not know this, let alone think it possible, until very recently. even as a theory, it was unprovable for many years.
-gravity affects light. again, we did not know until we had the appropriate technology to sense other dimensions
-other dimensions than our current ones are hypothesized, however they will be unknown for several years, until we have teh technology to prove them.
agreed, a creator god doesn't fit our current laws of thermodynamics, but other laws have been proven wrong in teh past, and most likely others will in teh future.
the god hypothesis is not known. we cannot prove anything false unless we can conclusivly prove every force in existence. we cannot, therefore there is something we don't know. it is god? i don't know.
we know everything about excel, we don't know everythign about the universe
i agree religon gets a free pass, but i'm not the one you should be debating against for that. i'm not a christian, i don't know why people depend on it.

[QED]

okay. i have heard of one theory for the cause of religion. it is to explain phenomena beyond one's control or knowledge (eg. afterlife, natural phenomena [in earlier times]).

Religion would seem to be an inevitable consequent of a restricted understanding of some greater body of potential knowledge.

I did not use these points to say that God did or didn't exist, but MAY be responsible for earlier occurences. It is philosophically and physically impossible to prove either case. In any case, I have not said that gods are all-powerful or intentional. I have never thought of them as that, and most likely won't. In addition, i did not propose an anthropomorphized God. Often, i reference the christian God differently than my references to god. I do not support God (in a YHWH sense), but instead god as a being of super-natural (or possbily natural) properties.

I think it confuses the issue unnecessarily to refer to a non-intentional creation process as God. I've stated before that a multiverse would be functionally equivalent to a fine-tuning, intentional creator-God. Thus the apparent fine-tuning that suggests to some a deliberate desire to produce a universe like ours has an alternative interpretation as an unintended consequence of a wider statistical process. I would recommend restricting mention of God to the former interpretation -- but you're in good company as even Einstein was prone to being loose with the term.

[zepper899]

okay. i have heard of one theory for the cause of religion. it is to explain phenomena beyond one's control or knowledge (eg. afterlife, natural phenomena [in earlier times]).

Religion would seem to be an inevitable consequent of a restricted understanding of some greater body of potential knowledge.

I did not use these points to say that God did or didn't exist, but MAY be responsible for earlier occurences. It is philosophically and physically impossible to prove either case. In any case, I have not said that gods are all-powerful or intentional. I have never thought of them as that, and most likely won't. In addition, i did not propose an anthropomorphized God. Often, i reference the christian God differently than my references to god. I do not support God (in a YHWH sense), but instead god as a being of super-natural (or possbily natural) properties.

I think it confuses the issue unnecessarily to refer to a non-intentional creation process as God. I've stated before that a multiverse would be functionally equivalent to a fine-tuning, intentional creator-God. Thus the apparent fine-tuning that suggests to some a deliberate desire to produce a universe like ours has an alternative interpretation as an unintended consequence of a wider statistical process. I would recommend restricting mention of God to the former interpretation -- but you're in good company as even Einstein was prone to being loose with the term.

you're right. perhaps i souldn't have brought it up, but i did so to try and persuade teh 'strict atheists' that a greater power is indeed possible. all that i was trying so say, although my methods need work, is that one cannot place conclusive limits upon the unknown.

[Rathpig]

...... is that one cannot place conclusive limits upon the unknown.

And one should not explain the unknown with conclusions.