But first I would like to give some insight into my perspective on the topic of God.
Belief in God requires Faith. Without faith there cannot be a God (in our minds at least). Some seek God out of desperation for identity. Some seek him out for the hope of something better than what they have. Some just need to believe in something! And then some of us look at the world around us and cannot honestly believe that something so miraculous just poofed into existance through some random, chaotic order of chance and coincidence. And then you have those who need ABSOLUTE proof to believe... Sorry, I don't think God feels the need to walk up and tap you on the shoulder and tell you he's God. And even if he did would you believe it? Trully? No. Just some whack job with a God complex right? So how then can one Absolutely proof the existence of God? Can it be done? I don't believe it can and I definatly don't believe I can convince anyone who chooses not to believe that God does exist. Reality is nothing more than our perception. And if God is outside your realm of perception no one is going to MAKE you see it from a different one. One must choose to percieve God and when they do the Majesty of God becomes abundantly clear!
But before I get to that data I think is enjoyable let me touch on the subject of Agnostic:
The English term "agnostic" is derived from the Greek "agnostos," which means, "to not know." An agnostic is one who admits, "I don't know."
(a=without/ gnostic=knowledge) They are people without knowledge.
They are just running all around not knowing a damn thing about anything and for that I feel I should not listen to a single thing they don't know about.
But lets not confuse an Agnostic person for an Gnostic person. They are exactly the opposite of each other. Gnostics, as mentioned above, is Knowledge. Therefore the Gnostics seem, at least to me, to be the foundation of most religions today. In my opinion, the Gnostics are the purest form of learning the mysteries of our faith. They teach us the fundamentals of sacred knowledge. I don't know why the Christian faith created such a dogma around Gnostics. It confuses me a great deal actually. But I am getting way off topic here. My entire point of mentioning Agnostics is that if a person has trully sought out knowledge of God and still comes up with "I don't know" then are they trully Agnostic? They do have knowledge, they are not ignorant to the world around them and the fundamentals of faith and religion. So why proclaim themselves to not know? I feel this Agnostic title has taken on this COOL feel to it and people are ignorantly stating themselves as such when in all actuality they have no idea what they believe so they use Agnostic as the scapegoat for there own ignorance! It's not so bad that they don't know because they have this cool title to lable it and at least they are something. I don't feel a person that trully is Agnostic would ever admit to such a title because they are learned and educated and know that they know, they just have no idea and would not willingly proclaim themselves to be ignorant!
Soooo anyway, I know the Creationist thing is played out here already but I would enjoy hearing someone debate on the example being set forth here:
Design necessitates a designer. This is a fundamental axiom. Thus, design detection methodology is a prerequisite for many fields of human endeavor.
In general, we find "specified complexity" to be a reliable indicator of the presence of intelligent design. Chance can explain complexity but not specification; a random sequence of letters is complex but not specified (it is meaningless). A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified (it is meaningful). You can't have a Shakespearean sonnet without Shakespeare. (William A. Dembski, "The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities," 1998.)
When we apply the general principles of detecting specified complexity to living creatures, we find it reasonable to infer the presence of intelligent design. Common sense demands a Designer. Let's take the e-coli bacterial flagellum for example. The e-coli bacterial flagellum is what propels e-coli bacteria through their microscopic world. It consists of about 40 different protein parts (which come into focus when magnified 50,000 times using electron micrographs), including a stator, rotor, drive shaft, U-joint, and propeller. It is not simply convenient that we've given these parts these specific names - that's truly their function. The bacterial flagellum is a microscopic outboard motor! These microscopic outboard motors are absolutely amazing - a marvel of engineering. They can run at an incredible 100,000 rpm. Nevertheless, they can stop on a microscopic dime. In fact, it takes only a quarter turn for them to stop, shift gears and start spinning 100,000 rpm in the other direction! The flagellar motor is water-cooled and is hardwired into a signal transduction (sensory mechanism) so that it gets feedback from its environment! ("Unlocking the Mystery of Life," documentary by Illustra Media, 2002.)
The point is, if you were to find a stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, or propeller in any vehicle, any machine, any toy or model, you would recognize it as the product of an intelligent source. No one would expect any outboard motor, much less one this incredible, would ever be the product of a chance assemblage of parts. That is absurd. Outboard motors are the product of intelligent design. (Michael Behe, "Darwin's Black Box," 1996.)
The term "Irreducible Complexity" was first coined by Michael Behe in describing these molecular machines. Each mechanical part is absolutely necessary for the whole to function. Thus there is no naturalistic, gradual, evolutionary explanation for the existence of a bacterial flagellum. Not only does common sense demand a Designer, there is no plausible naturalistic explanation to explain away the necessity of a Designer.
The bacterial flagellum is only one among many thousands of intricate well-designed molecular machines. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." (Michael Denton, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," 1986, p. 250.)
So how do you argue this example of an Intelligent design? I don't really enjoy the title of Intelligent design but that is the PC way these days, but in my opinion that Intelligent design is GOD!
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