In this blog I just want to discuss my own reasons for not believing in intelligent design and the idea that a loving, benevolent god created us exactly as we are.
One major argument creationists use to defend the creation myth is "complex things like the human eye could not have evolved as perfect as they are now, they work like a machine and therefore can't have evolved".
I'd like to present an analogy to disprove this. Let's say we have a designer of cars. The cars he designs are generally good, they work. You can drive around, there's a windscreen to see through and the engine is very cleverly designed to used fuel to power the car. However the clutch might stick sometimes, that's just a minor flaw, you can take it to the garage and get it fixed, that's how clever he is! He designed something that when it breaks, you can spend lots of money and time fixing it. Not only that, but sometimes his cars break beyond repair before you've even used it, but you are refused another one so you have to use a car which you can barely even drive on the road for the rest of your life. What an intelligent car designer, right?
In this scenario, if this man really designed cars, nobody would buy them because of how faulty they are. Would you describe this man as intelligent? Because I definitely wouldn't.
By comparison, let's look at the human body. It's generally good, you can walk around and there's eyes to see where you're going and you're very cleverly designed to run on food. However your heart might stop sometimes, but that's alright! You can just go to hospital and get it fixed. How clever! Not only that, but sometimes you get cancer or heart disease or leukaemia or a severe mental disability or deafness or blindness or physical deformity before you're even born, but you can't get another one so you have to live with this horrible illness for the rest of your life. Whoever designed this must be really intelligent.
And FYI, the human eye is anything but perfect. Not only are the light-receptive photo cells all facing the wrong direction, there is a big blind spot through which the nerve fibres and blood vessels pass. The only reason we can even see is because of the huge amount of work the brain has to do to restore the image to how it should be, otherwise we'd be seeing upside-down. And that's just the start. Eyes are prone to myopia, astigmatism and retinal detachment. If it wasn't for HUMAN inventions like glasses and laser eye surgery which were all made by SCIENCE, some of us wouldn't be able to see a thing. ( For more information on this, please visit this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7yAEh-PU4M ) Personally my eyes are bad to a factor of -4.5, and to put that into perspective, average reading glasses are about -1.25.
My question to people who believe in intelligent design can be summarised like this. If there was an intelligent designer who made us perfect, why don't my eyes work? Why do they require science to function? Sorry, but to me this seems like science 1 - 0 religion.
Ok, onto the second part. The other most annoying argument that creationists often use is "Well look at the mountains, sunsets, oceans, they're all so beautiful! It must be a gift from God."
This is probably the argument that upsets me the most. You think the world is perfect and beautiful and made by a loving creator who loves each of his "children"? The world itself disproves this ridiculous notion.
First let us quickly consider the thought of beauty. I'm sure we all would agree that sunsets are a very nice sight to see and preferable to other things, like a slug. Not many people watch slugs for their astounding grace, beauty and peacefulness. But it is true that if we had nothing like the slug to compare the sunset with, the concept of beauty to describe that item would not exist.
Beauty is entirely a socially constructed concept, which is incredibly obvious in modern society. Why is a slim woman with lots of makeup and smooth hair more beautiful a larger woman with greasy hair and a droopy face? And don't give me the "everyone is beautiful" crap, a very small number of people would look at the second woman and think about her beauty. There is a certain socially established idea of what beauty is and isn't, and it differs from culture to culture (in certain societies, a fat woman is seen as more beautiful).
So now we've determined that beauty is defined by humans. This is only one reason that beauty is not a reason for God's existence.
But even with that argument aside it's not viable to believe that the wonder of nature was made by the intelligent, loving god of the bible. I think to believe so is to be incredibly incredibly ignorant of the world around you.
According to you, god lovingly allows poverty, famine, plague, birth defects, autism, asperger's syndrome, down syndrome, conjoined twins (parasitic and otherwise), miscarriages, drought, earthquakes, wild fires, floods, tsunamis, greed, hunger, selfishness, murderous intent, depression, suicide, genocide, leprosy, avalanches, sandstorms, lightning which kills, deadly animals everywhere which kill us...
That's not to mention the environment he bestowed upon us. Most of the planet is totally uninhabitable, plus we depend on fossil fuels which will one day run out and we orbit around a star which is one day going to explode. We risk every day random climate change and a meteor strike. He also gave us deadly bacteria which are perfect for living in our bodies (I did see an excellent video about this, will put it here if i find it).
In summary, we live in a hostile environment where everything wants to kill us. If god can do amazing things like save a baby in an earthquake (out of the thousands that he killed) and create the Earth in seven days, making Adam from dirt and Eve from bone, why can he not help us out a bit?
What I can conclude from this is that if there is a divine creator, he is one of three things: cruel, stupid or uncaring of his creation's fate. I think you would agree that none of these accurately describe the god of the bible as most people like to see him. Although, the word 'cruel' can be very nicely given to a god who demands worship based on no reliable evidence or else burn for eternity in the flaming pits of hell.
If there is a god, he hates us. I'd rather not believe something like that, it's completely stupid.
If anyone would like to see some interesting youtube videos relating to the creation/science debate, just hit me up and I'll recommend you some brilliant ones!
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