complexity as evidence for creator

Some examples of wonderful complexity without the direct hand of God:Can we discuss how snowflakes form by invoking properties of physics and chemistry or is God up there tossing each one down?Can we discuss rainbows in terms of the refracitve capacity of H2O, or is God painting each one?Can we discuss fractals in terms of mathmatic formulas, or does God do graphic design?Can we discuss quartz crystals in terms of geochemistry, or must we assume that God sculpted each?Opals, gypsum crystals, hurricanes, the Aurora Borealis, the rings of Saturn, lightening, magnets, gravity...are we allowed to try to explain these phenomena - is it "Just God and why look further."What about "life" that is not so complex? Might viruses have happened without the direct hand of God? bacteria? amoebas? worms? ants? frogs? lizards? dinosaurs? mammals? apes? humans?Why do we have to explain the complex phenomena of life by just saying "God did it."Don't forget that the following things are real and documented:DNA
Human fossils and zillions of other fossils of extinct animals and plants
Evolving viruses
Animals that seem hell-bent on reproduction
Plate techtonics
Billions of other planets
Dometicated animals that we changed through a form of evolution
Really old rocks

I can see what you are saying, but, the main position with the whole complexity thing is there is no explanation for it otherwise. Science is constantly trying to find an explanation for things and why things work or how they are created (such as the evolutionary theory). The complexity of snowflakes, viruses, etc. has absolutely no explanation for it.Something that you mentioned that I really wanted to discuss was viruses. What would be the purpose of a nonliving particle with the sole purpose to harm living things? There is no scientific explanation for it's purpose. But there is a creationist explanation. In a creationist view, viruses are works of god. If we didn't have viruses, diseases, sickness, etc. we would pretty much have heaven on earth.So, I'm not going to get too in depth with this, but just to give you a general idea why these could be considered works of a devine creator.

Of course without viruses the world would quickly become extremely over populated. Instead of being heaven it would be closer to hell. So I don't think that god would make viruses to keep us from attaining heaven.As for all the complexity of this world and how unlikely it is that it is all random and so there must be a god. I think that it is a flawed argument.
Which is more likely a finitely complex universe appearing randomly, or a infinitely complex being that exist outside of time creating a finitely complex universe?I hope i'm making sense...

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I can see what you are saying, but, the main position with the whole complexity thing is there is no explanation for it otherwise. Science is constantly trying to find an explanation for things and why things work or how they are created (such as the evolutionary theory). The complexity of snowflakes, viruses, etc. has absolutely no explanation for it.

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So we should postulate more complexity (a creator) just because we don't know why physical laws are exactly the way they are today? Once you have the laws, explaining everything else is pretty reasonable (if not guaranteed to occur the way it has)

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Something that you mentioned that I really wanted to discuss was viruses. What would be the purpose of a nonliving particle with the sole purpose to harm living things? There is no scientific explanation for it's purpose.

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Funny things, viruses. They have nucleic acids just like all the living things on earth. If we weren't dead set on grouping everything into "life" and "non-life," we would be perfectly happy to see them as a more complex activity than most rocks, but not as complicated as bacteria. As far as purpose, it is an invented human concept and its inability to make any sense in the realm of viruses is really of no concern to a rational person. Why does a virus have to have a purpose? I really don't give a damn if it does, let's just figure out how they work and how to avoid them.

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But there is a creationist explanation. In a creationist view, viruses are works of god. If we didn't have viruses, diseases, sickness, etc. we would pretty much have heaven on earth.

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Hahaha! You're thrashing your own reasoning here. We'd be in the same boat if we only had bacteria and fungi, which are most definitely alive and do the same things as viruses. Even without those, we would still have predators, starvation, accidents, violence, and death of old age, which pretty much ruins your heaven-on-earth hypothesis right where it lies.

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So, I'm not going to get too in depth with this, but just to give you a general idea why these could be considered works of a devine creator.

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Sure, they could be the acts of a divine creator, but they would be the acts of a spiteful, weak, and unimaginative one.

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Of course without viruses the world would quickly become extremely over populated. Instead of being heaven it would be closer to hell. So I don't think that god would make viruses to keep us from attaining heaven.

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Oh, another reason. Thanks. Maybe god had created viruses to prevent the world from being overpopulated. And, in addition to what I had said before, maybe the pain caused from viruses is in prevention from heaven on earth...I mean, think about it, there are less painful things god could do to prevent overpopulation. Pretty perfected theory now, eh?

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So we should postulate more complexity (a creator) just because we don't know why physical laws are exactly the way they are today? Once you have the laws, explaining everything else is pretty reasonable (if not guaranteed to occur the way it has)

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I’m not saying this at all. I presume what I said could be misleading. I don’t feel we will ever have laws for these complex objects, and if we do, they will be inappropriate or untruthful (much like evolution, just kiddingeh em).

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If we weren't dead set on grouping everything into "life" and "non-life," we would be perfectly happy to see them as a more complex activity than most rocks, but not as complicated as bacteria.

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But the whole fact that they aren’t living kind of goes against the entire theory of evolution does it not? Aren’t living things supposed to try to survive? Why would something that is not living want to succeed in reproduction?... It just doesn’t make too much sense to me.

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Why does a virus have to have a purpose? I really don't give a damn if it does, let's just figure out how they work and how to avoid them

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Well, because Science is constantly trying to find the purpose of certain things. If viruses don’t have a purpose, then

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Hahaha! You're thrashing your own reasoning here. We'd be in the same boat if we only had bacteria and fungi, which are most definitely alive and do the same things as viruses. Even without those, we would still have predators, starvation, accidents, violence, and death of old age, which pretty much ruins your heaven-on-earth hypothesis right where it lies.

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I guess I was misunderstood on this area, too. I didn’t mean if we had no viruses we would have heaven on earth, I meant without viruses among many other things. Of course viruses aren't the only cause of suffering on this earth, I just figured it would be obvious enough that viruses are a leading cause of suffering... (I probably should have said this to prevent the nave from posting comments about this one)

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but they would be the acts of a spiteful, weak, and unimaginative one.

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There isn’t even reasoning for this statement!

Just today, I saw a recent National Geographic in a doctor's office, and looked at its article on zebras. It has a picture of a female lion chasing some zebras. One has to marvel at:How marvelously adapted lions are for catching zebras
How marvelously adapted zebras are for escaping lionsDoes this look like the work of a single designer or of more than one designer, one of lions and one of zebras? Or do the lions and zebras do their own "designing"?

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Oh, another reason. Thanks. Maybe god had created viruses to prevent the world from being overpopulated. And, in addition to what I had said before, maybe the pain caused from viruses is in prevention from heaven on earth...I mean, think about it, there are less painful things god could do to prevent overpopulation. Pretty perfected theory now, eh?

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Not even close. It's incredibly unnecessary and inefficient. Come to think of it, why do you argue a creator from complexity? A good creator could have made things a lot more simple. She also wouldn't need to create new things after the first ones went bad (poor design!), further complicating life.Besides, the party line is that people became mortal after the fall and were doomed to suffering (toil in the fields for men and labor pains for women) and ultimate death of old age. Sounds bad enough without a totally unscriptural introduction of viruses at the same time. Paradise on earth was already lost.One more question - are you arguing that viruses uniquely support your case or not? Because you don't seem to be self-consistent here. Below you throw my rejection of the viruses-only argument back at me, but here you say they're special.

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I’m not saying this at all. I presume what I said could be misleading. I don’t feel we will ever have laws for these complex objects, and if we do, they will be inappropriate or untruthful (much like evolution, just kiddingeh em).

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But I'm talking about things we do know: the physical properties of the universe itself, like the speed of light and the properties of matter. We don't know where they all came from, but understanding them makes a naturalistic explanation of all life quite possible. We pretty much have it all now, except for the specifics of the first life....

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If we weren't dead set on grouping everything into "life" and "non-life," we would be perfectly happy to see them as a more complex activity than most rocks, but not as complicated as bacteria.

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But the whole fact that they aren’t living kind of goes against the entire theory of evolution does it not? Aren’t living things supposed to try to survive? Why would something that is not living want to succeed in reproduction?... It just doesn’t make too much sense to me.

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If you try to make substantial arguments from the definition of life, you're just playing with semantics. What we know about viruses is that they have qualities resembling what we call life. Evolution requires natural selection of a replicating thing. Whether you call it life is not especially important. Viruses do evolve, however, which is why influenza and AIDS are so troubling to humanity.

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Well, because Science is constantly trying to find the purpose of certain things. If viruses don’t have a purpose, then

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NO. Science looks for patterns of repeatable results. It produces hypotheses to explain these regularities, and if tested well enough the hypotheses become theories. Whether viruses have a purpose is completely irrelevant to understanding their replication, evolution, and means of infecting and affecting hosts (among them, humans and other animals). Again, I don't care in the slightest whether they have a purpose. It is by no means self-evident that they must. They are a successful replicator that happens to harm and kill people, and that is why I care about them.

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I guess I was misunderstood on this area, too. I didn’t mean if we had no viruses we would have heaven on earth, I meant without viruses among many other things. Of course viruses aren't the only cause of suffering on this earth, I just figured it would be obvious enough that viruses are a leading cause of suffering... (I probably should have said this to prevent the nave from posting comments about this one)

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Are you calling me nave because I took your post at face value? Can't expect me to read things you don't write, man. You implied a unique quality of viruses that supported your idea, and I responded.

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One more question - are you arguing that viruses uniquely support your case or not? Because you don't seem to be self-consistent here. Below you throw my rejection of the viruses-only argument back at me, but here you say they're special.

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I said they were meaningful, not especially unique. In other words, they have purpose, but they aren’t the sole purpose. This is in no way inconsistent.

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But I'm talking about things we do know: the physical properties of the universe itself, like the speed of light and the properties of matter. We don't know where they all came from, but understanding them makes a naturalistic explanation of all life quite possible. We pretty much have it all now, except for the specifics of the first life.... If you try to make substantial arguments from the definition of life, you're just playing with semantics. What we know about viruses is that they have qualities resembling what we call life. Evolution requires natural selection of a replicating thing. Whether you call it life is not especially important. Viruses do evolve, however, which is why influenza and AIDS are so troubling to humanity.

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Okay, I do understand your point. And yes, Micro Evolution does involve the constant replication and random change. However, the theory of evolution states that the living will struggle to survive, and in doing so the strongest or ones with best characteristics survive. One question though, According to the theory of evolution, when did viruses come into play?

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Are you calling me nave because I took your post at face value? Can't expect me to read things you don't write, man. You implied a unique quality of viruses that supported your idea, and I responded.

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I thought it was pretty obvious, I mean, unless you actually believed that viruses were the main cause of suffering in the world. I guess I should remember to fully explain what I’m talking about to the very detail around these forums...

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is the smallest known prokaryote
and is intermediate between virus and bacteria. This
pathogenic agent infects the respiratory tract and can
cause bronchitis and pneumonia.Structure, function, and assembly of the terminal organelle of Mycoplasma pneumoniae
Krause DC, Balish MF
FEMS MICROBIOLOGY LETTERS
198 (1): 1-7 APR 20 2001

Scientists make artificial virus out of DNA
Last Updated Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:20:10WASHINGTON - American researchers have successfully created all the parts of an artificial virus. They hope to use it to clean up pollution and produce energy.The scientists used commercially available DNA to build an artificial virus from scratch. Its genetic code matches a virus known to infect and kill E. coli bacteria.Phi-X174, a bacteriophage, was created in 14 days. Craig Venter, who backed the Human Genome Project, was one of the lead researchers on the project.Researchers at the Institute of Biological Energy Alternatives in Rockville, Md., performed the experiment, which was described at a news conference on Thursday.In 2002, another team of researchers announced they had synthesized the polio virus using DNA sequences obtained through the mail from a biotechnology firm.Their effort took three years and the viruses had defects.Venter's team adapted a common technique called PCR to reconstruct the phage genome. The adaptation allowed researchers to make double-stranded copies of genetic sequences, which are ideal for assembling into a genome.At a news conference, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said it is "easier to imagine in the not-too-distant future a colony of specially designed microbes living within the emission-control system of a coal-fired plant, consuming its pollution and its carbon dioxide, or employing microbes to radically reduce water pollution or to reduce the toxic effects of radioactive water."The Energy Department funded the three-year project.Venter called the research an interim step towards the technology, but added much more basic science needs to be done first.The research will be published in a scientific journal and Venter says his company has no plans to file for patents on the research.

Let me play Devils advocate for second on viruses:
An alternate explanation could be that God created all things in perfectly working order, man screwed up, and the universe was punished: hence death, disease, disorder, mutations, violence etc..
Essestally makeing life a struggle. Viruses also fit into this, they could have been designed for some other purpose and now just run amuck.Their original purpose could have been (part of the immune system; that would explain how some animals can be carriers of viruses but not contract the "disease", or to keep dna stable by elimanating mutations; we are trying to do this right now to combat genetic diseases)
or someother unknown function.

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An alternate explanation could be that God created all things in perfectly working order, man screwed up, and the universe was punished: hence death, disease, disorder, mutations, violence etc..
Essestally makeing life a struggle.

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Wouldn't this be self-defeating? If God created things simple, and man complexified it, then complexity stops being a reason to suspect God's involvement. So God gets lopped out of the picture, and all we're left with is man as a simple life form progressing to a complex one.

Perfectly working? yes, Simple? no...For example:
If you see the workings of a super computer do you say "wow how simple it must be, because it works"?... My original point was akin to a perfectly working supercomputer is partially damaged due to corporate sabotage. The device still functions but not quite as well as it did origanlly... So did the sabatuer add complexity or just introduce chaos into a finely tuned system?

But if man was created in perfect working order then how could he mess things up? That is unless god made a mistake when making man, in which case he wouldn't be in perfect working order....