Message #100969

[Rebecca]

Hello Andrew,

For some innately held reason I do accept intelligent design as a matter of 'faith.' This view of mine however allows no interest whatsoever in the religious trappings that some affix to it other than to simply say an unknown has turned into a known for many (but not me) i.e., God said it so that's it. That said I do respect those who have some mystical affinity with the creators whomever they may be, male and female. After all this is some of that no easy answers to complex questions you mentioned earlier.

The trouble with those who commit to an intelligent design point of view, from a religious standing is that they simply don't tell us how - just that there is a god behind all this, that he is a designer and that we are not to ask anymore questions about the process other than what apparently is to be found in religious teachings.

Well, with all due respect to them, that is not actually a scientific argument but a philosophical one.  Alright, let's say that it is.  An equally philosophical argument can be made that the design to living creatures and the univserse isn't complex at all, we simply perceive that is is because this is the only existence we have ever know.  Perhaps the only thing we know for sure is that nature is cyclical and ever evolving and therein lies what is behind the thing we know as "life."  There need not even be a beginning or an end to all this, perhaps it always "was."

For the record, I am a religious person, but I don't allow my religious beliefs to intrude on my scientific beliefs.