# Was It All An Accident...Or Did An Intelligent **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721 "2013-01-19T17:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/441 "2013-01-27T03:36:57Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You’ve said a lot more than that. Are you going to back it up at some point? I suppose I could point to all the charitable organizations, the Vatican, the accumulation of wealth by the Jews etc. But for me personally, the reason religion works is it represents 2000 years of man’s spiritual quest, and all I have to do is modify this and change that a little and the value system works smoothly and the quest continues. To me it’s superior to trying to build a value system from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/442 "2013-01-27T03:42:22Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I suppose I could point to all the charitable organizations, the Vatican, the accumulation of wealth by the Jews etc. But for me personally, the reason religion works is it represents 2000 years of man’s spiritual quest, and all I have to do is modify this and change that a little and the value system works smoothly and the quest continues. To me it’s superior to trying to build a value system from scratch. Your definition of both “working” and “religion”, of course. Worse than useless. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/443 "2013-01-27T03:47:18Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I suppose I could point to all the charitable organizations, the Vatican, the accumulation of wealth by the Jews etc. Um… I am going to just ignore this except to say that highlighting the accumulation of wealth by _Jews_ right after you mentioned _the Vatican_ is kind of hilarious. Everybody understands that you think religion is good. They have been trying desperately to explain why you’ve come to believe that’s so, why you think things like revelation are trustworthy and reliable guides to the world. You have done pretty much everything except break into song and dance to avoid answering these questions. I don’t see how this could possibly be worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/444 "2013-01-27T04:15:32Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Everybody understands that you think religion is good. They have been trying desperately to explain why you’ve come to believe that’s so, why you think things like revelation are trustworthy and reliable guides to the world. Let me use a metaphor, Magic Johnson dribbles down the Court and from the corner of his eye sees a teammate but realizes that man is double-teamed. So he immediately realizes that James Worthy on his right must be free and passes the ball to him without even glancing in his direction. Magic Johnson’s unique skills and intuitive grasp of basketball can only be understood by people who watch and love basketball. In the same manner, unless you are religious yourself, it is difficult for you to have the sense of wonder I experience when I’m in church with my Pastor explaining passages in the bible to me. Or when I’m at religious services at a great cathedral. Or the sense of calm I feel when God reveals the proper course of conduct for me. Because I knew most of you were not religious, I felt it was pointless to go into detail about intuition and revelation. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/445 "2013-01-27T04:26:15Z")
Fine, but then you needed to start a thread on that, not on silly Intelligent Design. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/446 "2013-01-27T04:27:52Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Let me use a metaphor, Magic Johnson dribbles down the Court and from the corner of his eye sees a teammate but realizes that man is double-teamed. So he immediately realizes that James Worthy on his right must be free and passes the ball to him without even glancing in his direction. > > Magic Johnson’s unique skills and intuitive grasp of basketball can only be understood by people who watch and love basketball. > > In the same manner, unless you are religious yourself, it is difficult for you to have the sense of wonder I experience when I’m in church with my Pastor explaining passages in the bible to me. Or when I’m at religious services at a great cathedral. Or the sense of calm I feel when God reveals the proper course of conduct for me. > > Because I knew most of you were not religious, I felt it was pointless to go into detail about intuition and revelation. Do you feel that it is your divine duty to drive as many people away from religion as you possibly can? That is the _only_ way I can make sense of your participation in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/447 "2013-01-27T04:34:01Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > In the same manner, unless you are religious yourself, it is difficult for you to have the sense of wonder I experience when I’m in church with my Pastor explaining passages in the bible to me. Or when I’m at religious services at a great cathedral. Or the sense of calm I feel when God reveals the proper course of conduct for me. > > Because I knew most of you were not religious, I felt it was pointless to go into detail about intuition and revelation. I’m religious; I happen to be Jewish; we happen to believe Christianity is false; by your definition, are there enough of us to make that belief “rational”? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/448 "2013-01-27T04:38:17Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Let me use a metaphor, Magic Johnson dribbles down the Court and from the corner of his eye sees a teammate but realizes that man is double-teamed. So he immediately realizes that James Worthy on his right must be free and passes the ball to him without even glancing in his direction. > > Magic Johnson’s unique skills and intuitive grasp of basketball can only be understood by people who watch and love basketball. > > In the same manner, unless you are religious yourself, it is difficult for you to have the sense of wonder I experience when I’m in church with my Pastor explaining passages in the bible to me. Or when I’m at religious services at a great cathedral. Or the sense of calm I feel when God reveals the proper course of conduct for me. > > Because I knew most of you were not religious, I felt it was pointless to go into detail about intuition and revelation. Since when was religion required to understand ‘intuition’ or ‘revelation’? While we would always dismiss “divine revelation” as, well, - whta it is - we certainly understand what the term means and what people claim it is - Intuition is certainly not limited to the ‘faithful’. I honestly think you don’t have a clue of what you are talking about - and with the number of inconsistencies, I think you are not at all what you claim to be (whatever that is). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/449 "2013-01-27T07:33:29Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Fairly accurate, that’s why I can say that Human Action made a rational summary of this thread at that point and time and still disagree with his conclusions. And for those that say the difference is science works. Well…there are plenty of people I know that are willing to say that religion works. All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it. There are plenty of people willing to say that astrology works, or that homeopathy works, or that voodoo works. The difference is that science defines what it means by “works” and works hard to demonstrate that something works or not. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/450 "2013-01-27T07:40:52Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I suppose I could point to all the charitable organizations, the Vatican, the accumulation of wealth by the Jews etc. But for me personally, the reason religion works is it represents 2000 years of man’s spiritual quest, and all I have to do is modify this and change that a little and the value system works smoothly and the quest continues. To me it’s superior to trying to build a value system from scratch. I’m Jewish, and you guys are newbies. But I’m curious about the accumulation of wealth. I don’t remember anything in any of the services I went to about making money. In fact in the old days it was very honorable to be a scholar who lived with the support of his family. (My great-grandfather was one.) Accumulation of wealth might have come from the economic illiteracy of the dominant religion back then. I also don’t know what you mean by the Vatican working. Their ATMs don’t. 🙂 Architecture does not equal religious truth - even an atheist can be blown away by Notre Dame. (I was.) And religious services are carefully tuned to have the impact you mention. It has nothing to do with God. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/451 "2013-01-27T10:29:18Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Interesting. I’ve not had these experiences. Would you mind to describe the mechanism for this revelation as best you can? Perhaps illustrated with an example, as specific or general as you’d like. > > Also, I understand intuition to mean direct perceptions of truth and fact, independent of any reasoning process. Do you mean that God delivers the correct answers to you, or that religious study enables one to make the correct decisions on their own? Or another meaning? > > Can you definitely say there is a God, on this basis? I never claimed that. I am saying that you can’t say there ISN’T a god. The only way to definitively prove the existence or not of god is to die and come back with proof. Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/452 "2013-01-27T10:50:10Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > I am saying that you can’t say there ISN’T a god. Yes, I can. The evidence is as strongly against there being any gods as there is against anything else that people dismiss as not existing. The difference is that people keep insisting that a special standard of evidence be used for popular religions. Not unpopular ones though; _somehow_ we don’t get the same lectures about how “you can’t prove there is no Zeus!” ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/453 "2013-01-27T15:28:51Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I’m religious; I happen to be Jewish; we happen to believe Christianity is false; by your definition, are there enough of us to make that belief “rational”? Of course, Judaism is rational. But Christianity is also rational. Judaism comes from different premises makes a rational argument and comes to a conclusion. Christians happen to believe that Christ is the Messiah and the Jewish don’t, but they also make a rational argument and come to similar conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/454 "2013-01-27T15:32:04Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Of course, Judaism is rational. But Christianity is also rational. Judaism comes from different premises makes a rational argument and comes to a conclusion. Christians happen to believe that Christ is the Messiah and the Jewish don’t, but they also make a rational argument and come to similar conclusions. You said you were going to quit using the term “rational” in that manner. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/455 "2013-01-27T15:45:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You said you were going to quit using the term “rational” in that manner. Yes I did, but it was a special request from a friend…so when are you going to decide we are friends. What…are you going to check the data on the probability of meeting a friend through an internet MB? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/456 "2013-01-27T15:59:09Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Yes I did, but it was a special request from a friend…so when are you going to decide we are friends. What…are you going to check the data on the probability of meeting a friend through an internet MB? 1. You told a moderator you would refrain from using that term that way. 2. What is this stuff you are spewing about “friends” got to do with anything? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/457 "2013-01-27T16:07:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. You told a moderator you would refrain from using that term that way. > 2. What is this stuff you are spewing about “friends” got to do with anything? Look are we debating on a friendly basis or are we debating on a cutthroat basis. If we are debating on a cutthroat basis, I’ll be more than happy to start asking questions about why U.S. scientists were more than happy to design nuclear weapons for Dept. of Defense before entering WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/458 "2013-01-27T16:19:48Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > If we are debating on a cutthroat basis, I’ll be more than happy to start asking questions about why U.S. scientists were more than happy to design nuclear weapons for Dept. of Defense before entering WWII. No one ever claimed science is a good method for deciding questions of ethics. It is, however, a good way of determining facts. Religion falls notably short in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/459 "2013-01-27T16:25:14Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Look are we debating on a friendly basis or are we debating on a cutthroat basis. > > If we are debating on a cutthroat basis, I’ll be more than happy to start asking questions about why U.S. scientists were more than happy to design nuclear weapons for Dept. of Defense before entering WWII. And I’ll be more than happy to point out that that would be as off-topic as your attempt to turn this into a personal matter about how I make friends. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/460 "2013-01-27T16:27:10Z")
The OP: > [@pchaos](#): > > Being Start the Ball Rolling. Here’s the problem…if the Universe just developed in an evolutionary manner and let’s say it just happened randomly, then the thoughts of agnostics and atheists are just random thoughts and have little or no validity. > > On the other hand, if there’s a logical source (for convenience called God), that started the ball rolling then the thoughts of agnostics and atheists may have some validity. Of course, my bias is towards God starting the ball rolling… What evidence do you have to support your bias that your god “started the ball rolling”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=24)