Jonathan McLatchie: Does God best explain design in nature?

God best explains EVERYTHING…except God. Such a Being ought to be worshipped. Mung

PPS: I should further note that infinite explanatory regress and question-begging circularity are equally futile. So, finitely remote, factually adequate, coherent, explanatorily elegant first plausibles framing worldviews are where we must go. Where, such stand in the face of comparative difficulties and are best, worldview level grand explanations. As one result, the complaint against terminus to explanation in necessary, reality-root level being as though it were a defect, is equally futile. The real issue is which such candidate, not whether. KF kairosfocus

LT, You have philosophical knowledge so you know or should know about being, impossible vs possible, contingent vs necessary. Where, the observed cosmos is credibly contingent and calls for underlying necessary being root of reality. Where too, necessary being is integral to world-framework such that a world without, say, two-ness is impossible -- itself connected to distinct identity and distinction thus first principles of reason and the problem of the one and the many. In that context God is a serious candidate necessary being and unifying principle at the root of reality (which we already are looking for), so the suggestion that God is an arbitrary and unintelligible imposition on our understanding fails. Further to this, the fine tuning observations point strongly to awesomely powerful extra-cosmic design of physics and cosmology, as root of the material reality we inhabit. By contrast (per comparative difficulties), lab coat clad evolutionary materialism repeatedly ends in self-referential incoherence when challenged to simply account for that responsible, rational, self- and world- aware, morally governed contemplative freedom that is a premise of simply being able to have credible reasoning, warranting and knowing. Evolutionary materialist scientism is patently an irretrievably self-refuting non-starter. So, instead of dismissiveness, let us look again seriously at cosmological, ontological, moral and even teleological issues at world-root level. KF PS: On the FSCO/I origin issue, cf response to LM: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/fyi-ftr-a-headlined-response-to-lm-you-guys-steadfastly-refuse-to-offer-any-evidence-at-all-for-intelligent-design-or-for-the-existence-of-an-intelligent-designer/ kairosfocus

God best explains EVERYTHING...except God. LarTanner

They could take millions of years.

Except when they don't. Vy

Some of us don’t see how we can get anywhere until we get rid of the superstition of Darwinism, that random changes can produce vast masses of complex information. Much believed, never demonstrated.

How does the existence of "Darwinism" prevent you from developing and testing your alternative theory of ID? The existence of Newtonian mechanics didn't prevent Einstein from developing his theories of relativity.

And if it were true, life forms would be coming into existence from lifeless matter all over. Never happens. The only argument I ever heard against that was the lame excuse that current life forms would expunge new ones.

If all available habitats and niches are already occupied with relatively advanced and successful organisms then simpler and more primitive lifeforms trying to start from scratch are just not going to be able to get a foothold. What's lame about that? And how do we know new, primitive lifeforms are not trying to emerge? These things don't happen over a weekend. They could take millions of years. Seversky