@spendius,
I was too late to correct my post so here it is again- hopefully
@wandeljw,
The proper theological argument against "Design" wande is that it implies a transfer to regions beyond experience of an idea which is rooted in human experience and is limited by it. That human action contrives outcomes has nothing to say about unseen and supernatural powers. The design argument is a
non sequitur. For one thing it infers, improperly, that there is a connection between an effort, a desire, and its result, or, to put it another way, that there is a causal nexus between natural processes and the ends they fulfill. That animals get frisky in springtime in order to provide for the continuation of their species. That holly has berries so that birds have something to eat when it snows.
Even if that proposition is granted, which no scientific mind would grant, it still does not entitle us to assume that such a causative association can be attributed to an intelligent mind or will.
We are habituated in contriving things to assume intended consequences but those things are products of human ingenuity. We cannot simply take a given result and work backwards as if human ingenuity is in play and then trace the results to a provident intention in a ****. We have no word. Whatever word we choose--God, Supreme Being, Intelligent Designer, Nature--derives from human experience and to use any of them is to shift ideas from ourselves into a supernatural region about which we know nothing, nor ever will. Thus fundamentalist anthropomorphism. A non starter.
Hence social consequences are the only game for serious people. As I have been telling you silly sods for six years. We can contrive results in that area.
And by the argument from authority. Those who have anti-authoritarian natures, they don't like some of the rules derived from the ages and the sages because they get in the way of their self indulgence, reject the argument from authority. And they get into a theological tangle from which there is no escape and their only solution, as your threads prove time and time again, is bullshit and insults. Some rules they do accept but only those that fit in with their wants.
They have, and argue for,
a la carte rules and in doing so justify everybody else choosing whichever dish they fancy at any particular time. A recipe for anarchy of course. What else could it be?
They have a deep seated psychological problem which cannot tolerate being one of those "to whom it is done" as Lenin famously phrased it. Freud would have traced the roots of the difficulty to the playpen. They want to be one of those "who do" but they cannot get their arse in gear sufficiently to be in that small elite. Hence the permanent anger and confusion. The barrack room lawyer type.
And the argument from authority can be justified on Darwinian grounds by the success of our authority structures over what is, in terms of evolutionary time, the blink of an eye. And other cultures have lasted long periods of time on the argument from authority.
But there is one advantage of anti-authority relating to religion. The anti-authority mindset is exercised harmlessly. Wind and piss is easily dealt with. Were it not authority would impose itself more strenuously. It is confident enough to allow some wind and piss to go by. And it saves the anti-authority mindset from risking jail time. It's a soft option.
Thus ID, and Creationism, can be justified sociologically and that's scientific although the subject matter is rather more difficult than animals and inorganic matter both of which an aloof view can be taken of in which the viewer is not personally implicated. One might observe and take notes on the behaviour of hungry rats in a maze but one might feel a little uncomfortable if someone else was observing and taking notes on one's own activities.
