Why would an intelligent designer design these?

You'll disagree vehemently I suppose, and not all ID's are Christian and not all Christians are YECs and believe that Noah's Flood is responsible for the fossil layers, but I am and do.It isn't that there is a continual "improvement" by the forces of evolution, but rather that only a relatively few major kinds of creatures have survived the Flood. The Flood caused the massive extinction and is responsible for the fossils and layers, in which the fossils are found.That is the answer from the YEC paradigm -- so far as I understand it.Your problem is that you are examining certain of the ID theories by mixing its postulates, paradigms, assumptions, etc. with your own postulates, paradigms, assumptions, etc. You cannot truly examine it that way.In this case, you are assuming that the prevalent (certainly not the only) body plan today is an "improvement" over what you think are ancient body plans -- improved upon, of course, by natural selection.The YEC paradigm doesn't assume that anything has "improved" in the way you are thinking. Instead, we see a massive, world-wide extinction (Noah's Flood) -- therefore, there are now fewer body plans whereas there used to be greater diversity.There are other ID paradigms (like panspermia), but I am unfamiliar with those...I am a YEC.--Jason

yeah, but does anyone count the raelians? how do you explain angular unconformities? (never seen a flood-layer-person answer this one yet)

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אָרַח

All Christians are IDers, but not all IDers are Christian -- in other words, not all IDers say that the intelligent designer is the omnipotent, omniscient God of the Bible.The God of the Bible (who is the God I believe in) is omnipotent and omniscient, and he has not been trying to come up with the best body plan over the last 3 billion years.However, your statement: Contradicts your own position if you are trying to argue against ID, because humans are intelligent designers and you have just argued that the evidence (as you interpret it) indicates that there is an intelligent designer behaving much like us humans.Funny, no?--Jason

I don't know what raelians are.However, IIRC, one of the co-discoverers of DNA (cant remember the name), eventually decided that aliens planted the first life forms (or something like that), because he understood the DNA and related cellular machinery to be too complex to have arisen spontaneously.It is as many here say, abiogenesis is not evolution. Not all IDers are anti-evolution, but some are (me, for instance)No, I probably can't explain angular unconformities. But if they can occur slowly, can they occur quickly? If the land can shift axis slowly can it shift axis quickly? Can the flood deposit layers on one axis, and then on the other axis, wash away some of the original layers and then deposit more? I think that is the standard YEC explanation, but if it gets overanalyzed here it will drag the thread into the realm of "Geology and the Great Flood" -- i.e., go off topic.--Jason

Why does God have Nipples?

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However, your statement:

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Why would an intelligent designer seem to be following the same path as us?

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Contradicts your own position if you are trying to argue against ID, because humans are intelligent designers and you have just argued that the evidence (as you interpret it) indicates that there is an intelligent designer behaving much like us humans.

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Funny, no?

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No, not really. Rather than being a contradiction, the observation that god would seem to have gone about his design work in the same way that we do makes him just as clumsy as us. Look at how long we both took to master the art of flying for example. The pattern of wide initial diversity followed by later convergence towards optimality parallels the human engineering aproach -- we learn on "the job" finding optimal solutions as we get to know more about our materials and theories. I very much doubt that you would wish to translate similar limitations upon your concept of your almighty designer?

because people suck.

the believe we were intelligently designed -- by space aliens. that sounds entirely apocryphal. well, they indicate that the strata were formed sequentially. each new layer requires the every one below it to be entirely solid. many of the events that do it ARE quick events, such as earthquakes. but it means that such a thing has to happen before new layers are put on it.

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However, IIRC, one of the co-discoverers of DNA (cant remember the name), eventually decided that aliens planted the first life forms (or something like that), because he understood the DNA and related cellular machinery to be too complex to have arisen spontaneously.

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that sounds entirely apocryphal.

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Francis Crick was a believer in directed panspermia - as far as I remember he felt it unlikely life had evolved on Earth (don't know why) and proposed that aliens had seeded the Earth in the distant past. He co-authored a paper called Directed Panspermia in 1973.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

it may appear I was talking the piss with that question - I was not.If man is created in the image of the intelligent designer (in this case, the christian god), then why would he have them?

it may appear I was taking the piss with that question - I was not.If man is created in the image of the intelligent designer (in this case, the christian god), then why would he have them?

it is my opinion that "created in the image of god" is not exactly 100% literal. more that we are patterned after god's qualities.but that's just my take.

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I very much doubt that you would wish to translate similar limitations upon your concept of your almighty designer.

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You are missing my point.The OP indicates that at least a human-like intelligence is at work and therefore actually supports the general notion of ID.It is true that the OP does not support the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God (i.e., the Christian God). But the OP, as currently stated, is arguing against ID in general, not the Christian God in particular. Therefore, since the OP presents "evidence" that a human-like intelligence is at work while trying to disprove ID in general, the OP contradicts itself.Christianity is only ONE form of ID -- there are many others. The general idea of ID does NOT require that the intelligent designer be all-knowing and all-powerful (as the Christian God is).My comments -- far from placing any limitations on the One, whom I consider to be the Intelligent Designer -- indicate that the person who wrote the O.P. is confusing ID in general with Christianity in particular.--JasonAbE: before I get inundated with comments, I DO understand what the OP is trying to get across, but all too often I see people confuse ID in general with Christianity, and I think it's good to point out that they are different. Christianity is a subset of ID, just like humans are a subset of "mammals"...if thinking of it that way helps.Just like evolutionists keep telling YECers "You can be a Christian and believe in evolution, too"...You can be and IDer and not believe any of the Bible at all. You can even be an atheist and be an IDer.The distinction is important, that's why I brought it up.This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 07-28-2005 03:16 AM

Thanks for the info, Mangy Tiger.AbE: perhaps I have erroneously supplied a "reason" for Francis Crick to have chosen to believe in "directed panspermia" -- i.e., that the DNA and related cellular machinery are too complicated to have arisen via chance (i.e., abiogenesis). If it turns out that was not his reason, then I will rescind that particular assertion.This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 07-28-2005 03:05 AMThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 07-28-2005 03:38 AM

Well, I DID think it was rude...at first...and was planning on simply ignoring it.If it's a sincere question, well, then it's rather different than most I get asked, I must say.I'm not sure I have a good answer for it, either.To echo Arach (which I will not often do, I assure you -- our beliefs being so dissimilar), yes, I have never taken "in God's image" to mean an exact copy of God.But the question is more difficult than that because God is an omnipresent Spirit and does not have nipples (as a Spirit).However, God (I refer to the God of the Bible), for the last 2000 or so years HAS had and DOES have a body, which is the Christ (the Son of God). Christ is the incarnation of God Himself (I am NOT a trinitarian, btw...I consider the trinity to be polytheism...and a bit strange for "God the Father" (who is mentioned in the Bible) to send "God the Son" (who is NEVER mentioned in the Bible) down to die for His creation. No, in the Bible, God Himself suffers in the flesh for us as Jesus Christ. The term "Son of God" is referencing the body, which was born of the Holy Spirit ("Holy Spirit" is just another way to reference God the Father -- you might say, "the Spirit of God" -- it is NOT a different person in the Godhead, or whatever -- in the same way that when I say "the spirit of Jason" I am not referencing another person in me).So, we are patterned after Christ, imo. But really Christ now has a glorified body, which I assume is different from the ones we have now in significant ways. The glorified bodies may not have nipples, but I assume the same basic bipedal form will be kept. I would tend to think that nipples are temporary thing, but I could be wrong about that.I wish I could do better answering it than that. Hope it helps in some way.--JasonThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 07-28-2005 03:33 AM