That’s a good question. Given that most of the ID arguments I’ve seen include discussions of eyes and flight, I’d say that anything before the major categories of organisms is out. But that’s not treating the idea seriously, that’s evaluating the claims of current proponents. To treat the idea seriously, we’d have to answer all of your questions.
Yes, that does help frame the question. If you are talking about natural laws, then God is the only answer. Just us, then aliens, Atlanteans or intelligent dinosaurs could have done the job (we were the back-up plan in case the asteroid-deflecting solar sail wasn’t up to it.)
Gods in the heavens who throw lightning bolts in the form of cosmic rays that alter genetic structure. Sometimes their aim is a little off.
I’m much more inclined to accept Arthur C. Clarke’s vision of alien visitation as expressed in 2001 than I am the idea of a magical sky fairy.
For the sake of this conversation(and sanity), let’s limit it to this planet.
God is WAY more “irreducibly complex” than an eyeball. I mean, the chances of God just coming into existence are a lot lower than say, a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a fully functional Boeing 747. A LOT lower.
So I think if you take Intelligent Design at face value, you’d have to be an atheist and conclude that the intelligent designer is not, in fact, God.
I would say that the being who did it in these circumstances would qualify as a God. Even if it turns out to be an alien or whatever, then it is indistinguishable from a God from our perspective. Erm, unless we find out it is an alien.
I’m pretty sure it was a race of giant spiders living on one of Jupiter’s moons.
Whoever did it is really, really, into math.
I don’t see the debate erupting, here. There are a lot of opinions, (even if mostly tongue-in-cheek), but no serious differences of those opinions being argued.
Off to IMHO.
[ /Moderating ]
If you are interested in an explanation for all life on Earth, alien-directed Panspermia would be the theory that causes the least disruption to our existing knowledge of science. It’s compatible with evolution. If you want to single out the the human race, hidden Atlanteans would be slightly more plausible than alien overlords. It would probably require less technology to hide on Earth than to travel between stars.
But who designed them?
Don’t need a designer for them if we are just considering the Earth. Abiogenesis and evolution can do the job for us.
Yes. The laws of physics still don’t have room for the existence of gods, and the claims made about gods are just as logically contradictory whether or not you postulate ID to be true.
Other aliens, of course! It’s turtles all the way down!
Why are beings who could be described as gods logically impossible? It is true that there does not exist an immortal humanoid with a long beard who lives on giant palace at the summit of Mt Olympus, and who can fly, change shape, turn invisible, use powerful electric sparks as a weapon and who fucks more human women than Wilt Chamberlain. Such a being does not exist. But such a being is not physically impossible just because it doesn’t exist.
Are you still on that “Cecil isn’t real” kick?
I didn’t say “beings who could be described as gods”, I said “the claims made about gods”.
There’s also the problem that if a god doesn’t violate the laws of physics and doesn’t fit the claims made by any religion - then why call it a god instead of an alien?
If your argument is that everything that exists in our universe is natural, and that gods are supernatural beings, then it follows that there are no gods in our universe.
But that’s just winning by definition. I can easily imagine Zeus existing in our universe. Except that I wouldn’t believe his powers were supernatural or magic. Or rather, whatever his powers were, I’d call what they were “natural” even if I didn’t understand them. Because even if they amounted to magic as an ordinary person understands the word, my scientific training leads me to believe that calling them magic wouldn’t be helpful. Everything in our universe is a natural process, and if magic exists then magic isn’t supernatural. So if Zeus can create an electrical arc powerful enough to kill a human just by thinking about it, well, so can an eel.
Anyway, this is an argument over semantics. Immortal entities that can create human life ex nihilo are close enough to gods that if someone wants to call them gods instead of aliens, I’m not going to argue too hard.
In fact, this was the basic plot behind Kurt Vonnegut’s novel The Sirens of Titan – Arguably, I think, Vonnegut’s weirdest story.
I only steal from the Masters.