Intelligent Design - What Kind of Designer

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I recently came across this quote by Einstein in "The God Effect" by Brian Clegg:

"This theory (quantum theory, which Einstein opposed) reminds me a little of the system of delusions of an exceedingly intelligent paranoic, concocted of incoherent elements of thought."

Well, Einstein has been proved wrong, or so modern physicists say; God does play dice with the universe. So, what kind of Designer do we have, when we speak of Intelligent Design? "An exceedingly intelligent paranoic?"

Could be. Could be. Be careful what you bring up, you could open up a whole new can of worms.

Einstein was pantheistic after high school and reading Hume...


But to answer the question of "what kind of Designer", let me ask you:

What kind of Designer would account for the astrophysics of this certain planet?
What kind of Designer would develop a type of nano-robotic system as exists in all known life?
What kind of Designer would be able to create mass and energy from His own power?
What kind of Designer would want to be friends with the creatures He made, but allows them to freely choose whether or not to be friends or not?
What kind of Designer would reveal Himself in history and manifest Himself as one of His creatures in order to die temporarily as the Sacrifice to redeem His creation back to Himself?

The mere fact that Dr. Einstein may (or may not) have believed in God does not prove (or disprove) His existance.

Yes, Dr. Einstein has been proven wrong, but far less often than he's been proven right, since E still equals mc², and his theories of relativity have not been refuted.

An intelligent designer, as is obvious from the context. Whether or not reality requires such a being is left entirely to conjecture, for according to Dr. Einstein himself, “A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be,” and “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.”

Last edited by Fnord on 07 Oct 2008, 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

An in'tel'lig'ent de'sign'er? A de'sign'er of in'tel'lig'ence?

As the evolution of physics has shown us, God does play dice with the universe. He also hides the dice and cheats when adding up the pips.

Doesn't ID mean that something was created in a way that was so complex that science couldn't explain it?

Saucy!!

Man's first Mistake :

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

'Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.'

The dog said: 'That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?'

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said:

'Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span.'

The monkey said: 'Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?'

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said:

'You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.'

The cow said: 'That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?'

And God agreed again

On the fourth day, God created man and said:

'Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years.'

But man said: 'Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?'

'Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.'

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I'm doing it as a public service.

No designer needed for explaining that. In such a huge universe, small pockets of order are expected to arise.



No designer needed for that. Darwinian evolution, revised by the work of modern biologists, suffices as an explanation.



This begs the question of whence your purported designer came from.



... and punishes them to endless torture if they make a choice he doesn't like?



Let me see... what god would need to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease himself for the mess he had made himself in the first place? Either one with a twisted sense of logic, or a sadist who doesn't want justice, only blood--whoever's.



Enough of this "God is good" BS. The whimsical, genocidal, megalomaniac god of the Bible is the worst role model you could choose.

Tolerance, people! You guys scream more against religion than Limbaugh does against idiots like yourself.

Makes me cry.

If there is a God it's evident He's pretty stupid. Better to figure there isn't one. That way we can take the blame for the mess ourselves and maybe do something about it than blaming some idiotic fantasy.

Anyone thought of the parallel with human creativity? Because that's the closest and most obvious (if not indeed the only one - the jury, I believe, is out on whether other higher animals truly show it) example of creation we have.

How we create is by making something, seeing if it works, changing it if it doesn't, and sometimes ripping it up, chucking it in the trash and starting over. And we sometimes say 'Oh, the heck with it, I'm not going to worry over this any more, it'll do!'. And we often use bits of an old creation to rig up something new. And we quite often use things for purposes they were never intended for.

Maybe, like any human creator, God just did the best job he could under the circumstances, with the materials available. I know, I know, God's supposed to have made the materials. But he presumably gave them the qualities they have because he couldn't do otherwise and still come up with a universe that 'worked' in any sense. Maybe this is actually the best he could do.

This makes a lot more sense than the idea of a 'perfect' God creating an imperfect universe. You then have to blame someone or something else for the bad bits, and you're left with the basic problem of where that something came from.

I find that leaving God out of it altogether makes more sense than anything else.

This reminds me of a joke.

I highly recommend this book.

Well, there is the supposed fine tuning problem.


No. It really doesn't. I just got through dealing with the argument from causality in the religion bashing thread. Please refer to that.

You need to remember that many atheists here can only speak their mind in forums like this. Thus they do take the opportunity. I guess if people lived only with moderate religion, their comments would be much milder.

(Also remember that we Aspies have no tact anyways )