@brianjakub,
farmerma, setanta, roseborn979
If we use our intelligence to reproduce the conditions for abiogenisis in a lab (or outside a lab) our intelligence ends up being a factor (and possibly a requirement) for the lab experiment to be successful.
If our is intelligence not a requirement we should see pools of water without life one day, containing life the next without our intervention. But running around daily checking sterile pools for life (which is the only way to truly observe abiogenisis) has not been fruitful, and I doubt ever will be.
If there was an intelligent initiation that set up the environment in the universe, it does not have to be the omnipitent Christian God of the bible.
It could be a smaller god that can only order a small part of the universe(the part we can see and live in, similar to a lab but larger in scope). It's intelligence could have a beginning similar to abiogenis. This intelligence could have been established as a natural part of the initial matter by or with the laws of physics, and through trial and and error (learning through experience) caused abiogenis and biological evolution.
This would make this initial intelligence a purely part of a purely natural process like ours, and abiogenis in an ancient universe, would be an exact replica (maybe even in size) of what we are attempting to do again in labs today.
Maybe this intelligence was known to the ancient men as Pantheism, Paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc. . . and is now come to be understood as Naturalism.
You can believe in this form of intelligent design and still be an atheist.
You think we could scientifically approach intelligent design from this point of view?