Design

Common Questions

Q: How can you distinguish between naturally formed and designed pillars?

A: There are many ways, I will mention but a few. One way to distinguish between naturally formed and designed pillars would be by looking at the tolerance to which each pillar seems to be designed to support the roof. Another way would be by looking at the number of those pillars. The probability of a coincidence becomes absurd if the tolerances are as tight as are the constants of the universe in my argument. It becomes even more absurd if you find as many "pillars" as Dr. Ross has found that support life in the universe.

A way to rule out natural pillars would be to notice that they are usually not distinguishable from the roof they support, thus most natural pillar-roof examples are not analogous to mine. If such examples are not analogous to mine, they cannot be used against it.

Is it possible to distinguish design in pillars that are a part of the roof? Yes, but we're not interested in such in my argument. What about natural pillars that are distinguishable from the natural roof? I would imagine that if any exist, the roof would be simply a pillar sideways on another or on a few other pillars. The roof would not be distinguishable from the pillars themselves in most of their features and composition. Also, its placement would probably be obvious. So this example is not analogous to my example either.

So what if a natural pillar-roof combination is found for which none of the above applies? One could deduce the history and evolution of a pillar itself through a study of the pillars. By reversing that process, naturally formed pillars can be determined as such. Just back up the process of their current degradation. Most of the constants in my argument cannot be determined to have evolved from anything else, thus they were always seemingly designed to support life.

I'll have to handle any additional attempts to refute my analogy as they are proposed. One more thing to note - like designed pillars, many of the constants of the universe have not evolved much, if at all, since the beginning of the universe nor can their origins be determined from a study of any changes they may be undergoing, if applicable, to have come from some natural process or object.

Q: How can you distinguish between something that is designed if it looks like something that is not designed.

A: The example that often accompanies this question states that if some great designer designed something that looked exactly like cow dung, how could we tell the difference between it and real cow dung? To state the obvious, this does not refute what I've said about detecting design in pillar-roof type relationships. This is something totally different and not applicable to my specific analogy which shows design of the universe itself. So this cannot be used against my analogy. It is interesting to note that in such an example, you must imply intelligent design and deception at the start. I would imagine that if an intelligence capable of designing the universe wanted to do so in such a way as to prohibit our discovery of the design, that intelligence could easily accomplish such a desire. Because I can formulate the argument we are currently discussing, it appears that that intelligence did not create an undiscoverable design.

Q: You show what is "reasonable," or what is "beyond a reasonable doubt" in your argument. Doesn't Christianity require more than that?

A: Yes, but one cannot prove this subject to to a higher degree than "beyond a reasonable doubt" to most atheists. My argument accomplishes the following:

• It strengths the faith of weak Christians by showing that Christianity doesn't have to be a "blind" faith.
• It gives non-Christians a good reason to let go of their bias and become saved.
• It shows that atheists and non-Christian scientists reject Christianity for other than totally scientific and logical reasons despite their claims to the contrary. For many atheists, agnostics and non-theists, their system of belief is indistinguishable from a religion. Even from a religion that operates on "blind" faith. Christianity does not operate on blind faith.

Q: What if the science that you base your argument upon is one day thought to be untrue?

A: Where science has contradicted the Bible in the past, science has always been found to be wrong. Not enough Christians claim this historic fact. I'm not talking about past church doctrines that have clearly contradicted science (and the Bible). I'm talking about the Bible itself. For example, the Bible says that the universe had a beginning. Science has recently been dragged, kicking and screaming to this same conclusion. In the future, non-Christian scientists WILL do everything they can to find a way out of such a conclusion because of the obvious implications a beginning to this fine-tuned, complex, ordered universe has. Their attempts to find another answer is and always will be religiously based and not based in science or logic. When faced with a beginning of the universe [Arthur Eddington] said, "the notion of a beginning is repugnant to me..."

Q: How do we know that there wasn't more than one creator/designer or how do we know that the creator/designer is still around?

A: This would be an interesting position to take. I would have to question the motive for such a position. It sounds like an attempt to avoid, in the words of [Arthur Eddington] , a "repugnant" idea. Science and logic shouldn't work that way. You can't make up stuff when the evidence makes you uncomfortable. If a designer once existed and if that designer took so much apparent care in the design of a universe that supports life on this tiny planet, it would be logical to assume that designer is still around, being too powerful to be destroyed and too caring to abandon his work. It would also be logical to assume that such a caring designer would want to communicate with the creation, possibly through the most prolific, though persecuted, ancient text known. He might even have a plan to visit his creation, a creation that defied him and even denied his existence. He would have to be an awesome and incredibly loving creator to actually try to redeem his creation and save them from themselves.

Q: How can we know what design in nature would look like since we cannot ask the designer the purpose of the design?

A: In archeology, can we not make a reasonable assumption that what we found was designed even though we cannot ask the designer the purpose? You might say, if we are familiar with human designed things, we can make a reasonable assumption about the design. What about animal designed things? Or what if we found pillars holding up a roof on Mars? Could we not make a reasonable assumption that the pillars were designed to hold up the roof? All we're familiar with (and could ask of the designer) is human design (assuming the human we asked would tell us the truth). Can we extrapolate human design to animal and alien (if such exist) design? In the case of the alien structure on Mars, it is intuitively obvious that we can make a reasonable assumption that the pillars were designed to hold up the roof by studying the pillars and noting that they are holding up the roof. Such extrapolation is not unreasonable.

Q: How can we extrapolate human design to design in nature?

A: On what basis does one assume we cannot? Why would one assume that human design would be totally dissimilar to natural design? Most non-creationists believe that humans are but a product of nature. Even creationists believe that humans have very natural physical bodies and many natural modes of thinking and designing. So if humans are a product of nature, doesn't nature beget nature? How can humans do something unnatural? If they did, would you not have to conclude that there is something more than natural within them - a soul perhaps?

Is this argument a contradiction for a creationist who believes that humans are more that purely natural? I don't think so simply because humans do in fact get their designs from nature most of the time. Even Christians don't believe God has told too many people how to design structures, etc. (the Ark and the Temple are rare exceptions to this rule).

You might say that we call tell by observation that some things designed by humans do not follow things in nature. But nature begets nature, right? And didn't those unnatural things start off following nature and over the millennia merely change such that some designs don't appear to follow natural designs anymore? Many might argue that we cannot recognize as designed anything that we don't have experience of. Since we cannot recognize if something is designed, we certainly cannot design something we have no experience of. So totally unique invention is out of the question. Backing this up to the beginning of mankind, where did mankind take his first designs from? Nature. Thus it follows that we can extrapolate natural design from human design because humans rarely design anything totally unique to nature (I say rarely here for the sake of Christians who believe there are a few divinely inspired exceptions to this rule as mentioned above).

Q: Why couldn't there be some undiscovered law that fine-tuned the universe for life?

A: There could be such a law but what/who fine-tuned the law? You're just pushing the argument back one step without addressing the real issue.

Q: Why can't we assume that the universe cannot be any other way than our universe is?

A: Because to do so, we would have to assume that the universe came into existence with rules attached. This is impossible if the universe came into existence from nothing.

Q: Since we cannot reliably talk about Planck Time, can't we say that the universe wound up and fine-tuned itself during that time?

A: Because we would just be pushing the beginning up a short time. All the arguments about the beginning would still hold right after Planck Time.

Q: Why is it unreasonable to say that we just don't know yet? People appeal to God when they don't know.

A: Because this would be a statement of faith (in our ability to someday discover the design of the universe), not an argument. We may never find out - or it's just as likely that we will find a designer behind the design. In fact, since we can only deal with what we observe, it is more reasonable to assume God than not. And why would the beginning of the universe be totally opposite of the universe itself? In the universe, design requires a designer. It is reasonable it assume the universe and the beginner/designer are consistent.

Q: Why couldn't the designer/beginner of the universe be something besides "God"?

A: Because that "something else" would fit the description of what we think of as "God."

Q: How can one know for sure?

A:How can you know for sure about anything? I'm showing that God exists beyond a reasonable doubt. If you only want to deal with what you know for sure, science won't give you that. If you only want to deal with what's empirical, you most throw out many scientific disciplines, especially the theory of evolution and any theory of the origin of the universe or life itself. Are you willing to do that?

Q: Some scientists have hypothesized that a "superforce" set up the design we see in the universe, could this be the explanation for design?

A:Let's see, we have a transcendent creative force able to design and give order to everything. I agree with this idea. Of course, that "superforce" describes God perfectly. Why appeal to a God called "superforce" over a God called "God"? It seems the only difference between the two is the name we call them.

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