Why a Designer?

Sounds as ambiguous as “designed”; so the “Designer” is ambiguous; “design” is ambiguous; and “purpose” is ambiguous. In other words, it seems, Bard is a less than satisfactory resource on the matter.

I don’t know who or what Bard is. I’ll just refer you back to the opening post: to those students, “design” was not at all ambiguous, though just who the Designer was required further investigation.

As an example, what would one expect as intermediate between Pelycidion matthewsi (~3.8-3.2 MYA) which had a shell smooth other than growth lines, was relatively narrow, and had a noticeably detached aperture; and the recent Pelycidion megalomastoma which has a subsutural groove, is a bit broader, and has only a very weakly detached aperture? It would be something with a weak subsutural groove, intermediate width, and a weakly detached aperture. As it turns out, the range of variation in those characters of the 2.4-2.2 MYA ones overlaps with the ~3.2 MYA ones and with the 2.0-1.8 MYA ones, and the range of variation of the 2.0-1.8 MYA ones overlaps with the recent ones.

Here’s one of the ~1.9 MYA ones (it’s an adult, and ~1.7 mm):

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Firstly, I’ve encountered many an atheist who states that there is no God (or gods). Check out any atheist website and you’ll find plenty of them.

Secondly, athesits don’t believe in God because they don’t want to believe in God … they simply don’t want God to exist.

Atheists say there is no convincing evidence of God, but they lie …
“Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been CLEARLY PERCEIVED in the things that have been made. So they are WITHOUT EXCUSE” -Romans 1:20.

The evidence is there but atheists refuse to acknowledge that it exists because they don’t want God to exist.

This is how it works: If you want to believe in God, you’ll find a way. If you don’t want to believe in God, you’ll find a way.

Not necessarily. Tim Keller tells of one of his parishioners:

Some people resist finding God, but he finds them anyway.

Have you ever heard of “The Hound of Heaven”? And I don’t think Phil Yancey wanted to find him. Neither did Maggie, really. The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed help!

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There are atheists who want God to exist, but intellectually are convinced otherwise.

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Like I said, if you want to believe in God, you’ll find a way.

Atheists, on the other hand, find a way to not believe in God, because that is their heart’s desire. As Romans 1:20 says, they are “they are without excuse” … in other words, an intellectual excuse is no excuse at all.

Atheists also deny the reality of miracles … because the desire of their hearts is wilfully deny any evidence of God’s existence.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)

God wants to “find” everyone and so offers his grace to everyone. It is by grace we receive faith, but only for those who choose to accept that grace.

Those poor souls who are eternally determined to reject God will not receive faith no matter how much grace God sends them.

And there are those who will reject God even if they do believe he exists … just as Lucifer and the other rebel angels did.

??? I don’t see what this has to do with what I said. The woman wanted to believe in God and in the end, she did.

He wants to find his lost sheep and offers his grace to all, but not all are his lost sheep.

For I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city.
Acts 18:10

That doesn’t say “l will have”, it says “I have”.

I don’t expect that you do.

What I meant was, I don’t know of any natural mechanism that can produce a living organism from inanimate matter.

Really? Which scientist has managed to produce a viable organism from inanimate matter? I didn’t hear about that miraculous feat.

Are you sure you haven’t been watching too many science-fiction movies?

Would your faith be devastated if life was developed in the lab? It needn’t be. God is sovereign, but his providential interventions are inscrutable and undetectable, except in the meanings of the results. Did he necessarily ‘poof’ life into existence miraculously?

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News Flash: Testing an hypothesis by seeing if the evidence agrees is how a theory is formed … which is what I said: All science can do is theorise about (alleged) ancient evolutionary history.

Wait … are you trying to equate a theory with a fact? A theory is not a fact - a theory attempts to explain why facts (observations) exist … and all theories can be wrong.

Now that’s funny!! You really have been watching too many science-fiction movies!

Maybe you haven’t heard about mRNA vaccines for cancers and genetic therapies for cycle cell anemia. Maybe you are entertaining us. :grin:

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It’s called gravitational theory or the theory of gravity. Yeah, it’s a fact.

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No point me speculating about an impossibility.

You might be in trouble. Do you think God in his providence can’t have a bunch of prebiotic molecules come together in unique circumstances with some groupings of others already formed, have it hang around for a while and then just ‘by chance’ combine with some more groupings ‘pre-prepared’ to produce a minimalistic prokaryote? And from there more of the same to a eukaryote?