But there I think lies the big difference between us and the theist. I think that there is an impossible gulf, not in the quality of thinking but in its style, which could never be bridged. Because the sceptic approaches truth, thinking that. "It will be best won if I do not care how much discomfort and loss of joy the winning of it requires, truth is its own reward." While the religious believer approaches it, thinking that. "Truth is that which brings me the greatest joy and comfort, and most confirms what I wish to see."

One of the tricks of creationists is to falsely claim that you either have to accept ID/Creationism or total randomness and chance. Science does not teach this. There is nothing random about natural selection. Mutations are often referred to as random, but even this is a relative randomness at the individual level. It may not be possible to predict when an individual genetic mutation will occur, but mutations do occur in predictable mathematical patterns on a large scale. If rates of mutations are predictable, and they are, then this is not pure randomness or chance in any absolute sense.

Another creationist trick is the design/designer argument. Humans design objects. What we really see in nature are patterns, not design. By conflating patterns with design they like to claim that God must exist. The real reason one associates a watch with a watchmaker is because watches don't grow on trees, but require a human to design one. If watches grew on trees one would never make that association. No one ever points to a tree and says that proves God exists. If one does not conflate natural patterns with human design the whole argument disappears.

Given the state of and the history of humanity, there seems to be very little intelligence behind this design.

The shit of it is, is that humans are indoctrinated with imaginary sky fairies at an exceptionally young age. We get imprinted with it. Then the christians tell the kids that they were just joking about Santa Claus, but not about their other sky fairy. Which validates it even more. And of course all the other bronze age superstition believers do the same thing.
That's the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
That and they can't stand not knowing answers, so they make shit up, and the more people that validate it, the more it's believed.
Millions of people all with similar indoctrination, satisfying their fears with fairy tales.

“Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.” - Isaac Asimov

I have often thought that terms like, "intelligent design," or, "creation science," were devised to make religous stories sound scientific for the sake of getting them in public schools.

A biology professor in college hit this on the head simply and hard, in a way which would violate school rules these days I'm sure. Somebody had mentioned a knee injury, and we were talking about mammals, evolution and knees. Looking at graphics of knee changes as we became more upright over tens of thousands of years, he pointed out something . . . its not done yet. It has not finished adapting to our modern uses of them. They will get there, evolution is never "done", but the knees are not there yet. If it was designed by a truly intelligent being? Then he said clearly it was either an inept or evil creator!

"when we look around at the complexity and beauty of the world, it could not have been the result of chance", and it was not, it is the result of the process of natural selection.

Also if you look at human physiology there are some major design flaws. I would not call the design intelligent.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings. No intelligent design but maybe feeling design.
A man hears what he wants to hear & disregards the rest. Paul Simon

It's all semantics.Terms like design, creation, code are all begging for a creator, designer and coder.

I find it ironic that people who claim that they are saved by faith, and faith alone, try to hijack science in order to "prove" that what they believe is true. If they have actual proof, then faith is no longer necessary; and how then can they be saved by their faith?

"intelligent design" is a bullshit concept, made up by believers to justify their
delusions and stubborn refusal to accept scientific fact.

But who designed the designer?

Science and religion should not be compared, it leads to people adopting beliefs and calling it science simply because the concept of "I don't know" [agnosticism] is too uncomfortable for them to accept freely. That being said, everything we know and call science today is flawed and incorrect and will eventually be replaced by better theories once we develop the science beyond our current limitations and ignorance. Food for thought...

The human mind has a disease, in effect, in “…that it gets polluted by its own superstitions,” which lead people to think they already know the answers to scientific/life issues. One has to begin with uncertainty, and look for evidence, about ideas (theories), and do trials, then judge the unbiased reporting of the evidence objectively. Richard Feynman, in a talk celebrating the birth of Galileo, in Italy.
"Evidence," and "...unbiased reporting..." therof! That would be the direct opposite of Rev. Hamm's response, which led him to establish the "Creation Museum." He found that "...when the evidence for evolution became overwhelming...," he had to bury his head even deeper in the sand. The quotes come from an interview he did, with Ted Koppel, on the old "Nightline" show.

Intelligent design. Sometimes you cannot even find that in a house or a car. As for god the creator, we all know that he liked animals and liked them so much that he wanted to see some of them eat others for food. It was just sport to him. Of course, he also liked to smell the savor of their burned bodies once man came onto the scene.

If you think the above is funny just imagine how idiotic I would sound if I argued logically for some sort of intelligent design. It would be like begging to be believed, and for what? Why do people do this?

Intelligent design - bad backs, limited lifespans, illness, obesity, poor eyesight.... the list goes on.
D minus, must try harder God.

Intelligent Design = Bullshit

I read a most excellent book about Intelligent Design. It was mostly why intelligent design isn't, but it was also an expose of why ID is being pushed in our schools. To make kids dumber and keep them sheeple and obedient. Not So Intelligent Design by Abby Hafer, excellent book!

I can definitely see the appeal of intelligent design. It’s pretty astonishing that all of life, love laughter and Lucky Strike cigarettes emerged from four fundamental forces.

Faith is belief without evidence. Science is built on objective evidence. If there is a designer, how do we prove which one it is? We would have to start by using objective evidence to prove any designer exist.

Apparently there are some knobbly bone things inside the skull that, if you hit you your head at the wrong angle with a sufficient amount of force can cause brain damage!

Can’t remember what they are called but that sounds pretty stupid to me for an intelligent design!

It amazes me how they undermine their own ideas with their own logic. I remember a religious biologist using an example of a fish who had a feature that had no use what somever and therefore had no evolutionary purpose so it must be nonsense......

Alternative explanation: Some all powerful deity gave a creature a set of features that have absoltely no use what so ever.

Awe... The watchmaker argument... A man walking on a beach stumbled on a watch laying on the sand. He reaches down and picks up the watch, now he has no idea what a watch is, but because of its complexity, he knows it has a designer. Using that, everything on earth are so vastly different than each other, therefore the earth had a designer. My reply to somebody who presents this argument was what Matt Dillahunty said best. You're saying that the water, trees, sand, and everything, including your watch was designed by god. So you're walking on a beach of watches, beside a ocean of watches, and you're picking up a single watch, and say this watch is so much different than the other millions and billions of the other watches on the earth, so that proves the existence of god. I hope this helps somebody that gets this argument from christians. After I say that, I just say, have a good day, and walk away. If you try to stay and argue, they'll try to twist your words, and get you to admit something in their word salad.