''God’s own complexity implies that He also had a designer.  Either the theist is arguing for an infinite regress of God-designers and designers of God-designers, etc., or he is contradicting his own assumption that complexity requires design.  By using God as an “explanation” the theist is doing nothing more than explaining complexity (in living things) with complexity (God’s).  But this amounts to assuming what one is trying to explain, which is no explanation at all.  It just moves the mystery back a step.''

''assumes humans determine whether or not something is designed by seeing if it has an accurate adjustment of parts—that is, if it shows complexity.  But this is certainly mistaken.  We know that something is designed not by its complexity, or even the degree to which it appears to serve a purpose, but by looking for ways in which it differs from nature.  In other words, nature is the benchmark against which we compare an object to see if it is designed.

For example, many naturally occurring rock fragments just happen to have a sharp edge that is well-suited for serving the purpose of chopping meat, though this does not lead us to believe that these fragments were designed.  Yet, we have found clearly manufactured prehistoric chopping and cutting stones that were designed.  How do we know they were designed and not just examples of fortuitous rock fractures?  Clearly it is not because they are sharp, since naturally occurring rocks are also sharp; and not because they are complex, since they have neither parts nor complexity; and not because they serve a purpose, since obviously random events can make a rock very sharp.  We know these stone hand axes were designed because they have markings on them that differ from what one would find in nature—that is, they have signs of manufacture.

Because the proper criterion for establishing design is difference from nature, and not complexity or apparent usefulness, we can know that something was designed even when it is both extremely simple and has no identifiable purpose at all. ''

''we don’t know something is intelligently designed because it shows complexity; we know it is designed because it shows signs of manufacture, and the only way we know something is manufactured is by comparing it with nature or by having direct experience of its manufacture.  Now, if the criterion for determining design is comparison with nature, then it makes no sense to apply that criterion to nature itself since nature provides the very benchmark for making the comparison.''

Badecker: ''Scientifically speaking, I don't know what the Creator really is''

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg19350390#msg19350390


'Even assuming that there is a first cause, the argument utterly fails to address how we can know its identity. The assertion that it must be the particular God that the arguer has in mind is a complete non sequitur. Why not the deist God? Why not some kind of impersonal, eternal cosmic force? Why not shape-shifting aliens from another dimension? Why not a God that sends Christians to hell and atheists to heaven? Or maybe the simplest of all, why not the Big Bang as the first cause? There is nothing in the argument that would allow one to determine any attributes of the first cause. (You have failed to explain this problem over and over)

There is nothing in the argument to rule out the existence of multiple first causes. This can be seen by realizing that for any directed acyclic graph which represents causation in a set of events or entities, the first cause is any vertex that has zero incoming edges. This means that the argument can just as well be used to argue for polytheism. (You yourself say that machine have makerS with S)''



''If you get a bunch of engineers together, and manufacturers, etc., they build a car. A car might last a long time if it is not used. But without replacing parts, it might last only 20 years.

The point is that this is the best the combined will of a bunch of people can do.

When we are talking about component parts of God, we could be talking about many spirits and minds working together. But, if this is the case, jointly, they are one God, just as there is one Ford or one GMC.''



You don't answer at all here, the point is simple, even if all your arguments were true you still don't know what the first cause is, there is no evidence pointing to anything. You have failed to address this question like 10 times by now.

The other huge problem as I mentioned is that when you say everything has a cause and then you say God did it the most immediate and obvious reply is to ask, “But what caused God?”. The standard answer is, “Ah, but God has no cause, god is an exception to that rule”. So essentially, an entire layer of pointless complexity called God is invented and then declared to be an exception to the rule that everything has a cause. If you want to get into the game of deciding that there is no cause for the first cause, then it would be far simpler to simply decide that the universe itself has no cause, there is no need to invent additional and utterly pointless layers of complexity, especially when there is no credible objective evidence that can justify such a leap. So you see, you basically say that everything has a cause and then you are saying that not everything has a cause, you understand this?