Design Does Not Necessarily Imply a Designer

My two favorite movements are “Intelligent Design” and bowel. Both expel shit, permeate the air with a foul scent, and I enjoy flushing them away.

First, there is nothing apparently intelligent about the design of the world around us when you consider all that is terribly flawed within it. And this is doubly true when you consider the alleged omnipotence, omniscience, and perfection of its so-called creator.

From this, one thing becomes patently clear. Any apparent intelligent design in the world that one may infer is negated by just as much apparent unintelligent design. And given this little dichotomy, no certainty may be derived about “design” or any intelligence behind it in the first place.

Imagine you’re an all-powerful, all-knowing car manufacturer. Would you build a car that you knew would shut-down every 5 minutes whenever a CD was playing in the stereo? Of course not. With the knowledge of that future flaw you would be pre-emptive in your design to prevent it.

Christians attempt to get out of this mess by playing the “after the fall” card, that god’s perfect creation went bad after that cunt fucked Adam over. Sorry, but there is no “after” when you’re omniscient. God knew that would happen long before he even created universe. Likewise, an omnipotent and omniscient god would know that cancer, or any other devastating flaw or threat, would eventually infiltrate his allegedly “perfect” creation. And being all-powerful, he’d have the ability to design our bodies in such a way that we’d be immune to it. After all, we’re his children and he loves us. If any mortal human would move heaven and earth to save their child from such a fate, then so would their allegedly omnipotent creator.

Sure, the appearance of “design” in the structure of the human eye is quite impressive, but don’t you think this all-powerful, no-limitation-having god could have “designed” us so as to be spared the unpleasantness of having to squat over a bowl and expel this horrid brown stuff? He knew we’d go to extreme lengths to get it far away from us, and he knew how infectious and disease-causing this substance would be. He even knew there would be an entire industry based on trying to cover up its foul odor. I can deal with having nipples that I don’t need. I can overlook such a harmless and inoffensive design flaw, but the stench of human excrement is unforgivable.

Intelligent design, my ass. It seems to me that most of our human existence serves to fix his “design” flaws.

The Root of All Evil

Christians argue that apparent design in the world is proof of their god’s existence, and I say that the billions upon billions of flaws in the universe are proof that this allegedly omnipotent and omniscient god doesn’t (and can’t) exist.

But to indulge the faulty notion that “design implies a designer” I respond. While I offer no comprehensive refutation of the notion that “design implies a designer,” I wish to offer a perfect real-world example pointing to the contrary.

From Wikipedia: Currency evolved from two basic innovations: the use of counters to assure that shipments arrived with the same goods that were shipped, and later with the use of silver ingots to represent stored value in the form of grain. Both of these developments had occurred by 2000 BC. Originally money was a form of receipting grain stored in temple granaries in Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia.

Evolution (as a general concept) is observable fact. Organisms, relationships, mindsets, technologies, attitudes, and economies evolve. Many things evolve.

The world economy has as complex a design as just about anything else you can point to. It’s bigger than ourselves and incomprehensible to (and unexplainable by) most of us. It’s a living, breathing thing. It even heals itself from time to time – just as our bodies do. Did one person sit down and design the world economy? Of course not. Did many people sit down and design it? Nope. Not that either.

The world economy has evolved over the centuries (it’s still evolving) and continues to be influenced by thousands of variables and worldwide occurrences like technological advancements, corporate mergers, government policies, international diplomacy, wars, consumerism, the supply of natural resources, and even weather patterns. It has evolved, like everything else, since man first conjured up the concept of currency (initially counters, grain, stones, and ingots) and bartered them in exchange for goods and services.

Today the largest monetary transactions are digital. But who specifically, thousands of years ago, first came up with the idea of using receipting grain as a measure of currency from which the world economy evolved? I have no idea, and neither do you. No one knows for sure.

But one thing is clear: Complexity and design do not necessarily imply a designer.
 

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