On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:46:32 +0000, Cary Kittrell wrote:

In article Xns982284D935994vicmanŽ.196.97.136 Uncle Vic
writes:

Once upon a time in alt.atheism, dear sweet Victor Faraday
) made the light shine upon us with this:

Fantastic design without designer is a harder thing to buy into than
belief in an Almighty alpha and omega. These atheist types are
trying hard to reply in clever & witty ways, but they remind me of
hayseeds who see priceless works of art as miscellaneous smearing of
paint on a canvas.

One must believe something is a design before he can designate a
designer. Take the human body, for example. Perfect in every way. Or
is it? If we were designed, why did the designer build in a
self-destruct module known as the appendix, which serves no purpose
other than to become inflamed and destroy us? And what can be said of a
designer whose design fails during the critical stage of reproduction?
A designer (described by worshipers as perfect in every way) that allows
horrible birth defects to happen is either a monster, or a figment of
your imagination.



And beyond that, the Intelligent Design enthusiast needs to justify a
moral Designer who creates the various astonishingly clever mechanisms
which allow organisms to inflict endless misery and death on humanity.

Such examples are endless, but my favorite is the trypanosome which causes
malaria. This organism sports a mechanism whereby it continually shuffles
the proteins on its cell surface, thereby causing the human immune system
to be forever one step behind, playing an endless futile game of catch-up.
This amazingly simple and elegant Design feature has caused the death of
countless millions.

As I say, such examples of intricate, elegant, and seemingly malevolent
Design can be multiplied endlessly; parasitology alone provides many more.
It's hard to see any way out of this dilemma for the ID'er. I suppose
some possible justifications might be:


-- the Designer didn't create THOSE bits, subsequent
evolution did.

-- the Designer's evil twin, the Malicious Designer,
got to muck about in the Workshop.

-- humans deserve it, so what's the problem here?

-- the Designer's ways are mysterious indeed.

-- any other suggestions?



-- cary

You forgot the best one of all:

-- suffering is good for you.

--
MarkA
(this space accidentally filled in)