Atheism 8. Design doesn't mean a designer

It never ceases to amaze me that in this modern day and age people still think that because something APPEARS like it was made by a designer that it WAS made by a designer. Such people do seem oblivious to the myriad scientific explanations for their world and before they bother to contemplate the often complex answers of science they will defer to the very simple and often very ignorant views of mysticism and religion. In pretty much every area of life people will prefer to believe in an often very silly and antequated explanation rather than actually try thinking and giving science a chance to explain something rationally -if one does this - one is usually met with a reasonable argument as to why the religious/mystical view CANNOT be right,and often times the person has not given science the chance or is just oblivious to the scientific explanation which is usually a much better and clearer answer than their own. So many times have I heard the response "You can say that...but then why is X the case then?" - meaning that they do not know WHY X is the case,or they have some flawed reasoning - such as saying evolution is wrong because a lizard can regrow a tail and we cannot regrow limbs - this sort of thing is facile and is what leads to religious dogma and contempt for real facts. Religion breeds wanton ignorance - it holds onto beliefs which can be proven wrong,and diminishes the capacity of the individual to search and understand what is actually the case. Many natural processes on the surface appear to show hallmarks of design - that is - they look created - they have a mathematical structure that seems as though it was formed by an artificer - those who do not understand see this and immediately jump to the wrong conclusion - "it looks created so it must have had a creator". They have not taken the time to study the laws of physics and realise how those things have come to be under the guidance of complex interactions and principles whose "guiding hand" is no more than chemical and atomic processes. Such statements leave believers aghast and they say "How can you believe THAT?" - I do not BELIEVE anything - I understand why it MUST be so -it is not a matter of credibility but of comprehension, and if one reads around the various links on these pages or connects to my other sites then one should be left with no doubts that no designer is needed - if any reader is - then they can always mail me,or better yet - read a science book. Volcanoes clue to life on earth VOLCANIC eruptions have wiped out entire cities, such as Pompeii, but volcanoes could also be the missing link in understanding how life began. The answer may lie hidden in a scorching volcanic gas called carbonyl sulphide, scientists said yesterday. The gas helps amino- acids to form into chains which are the crucial linkages that make the building blocks of life known as peptides. Without peptides, made up of two or more amino-acids, there can be no proteins, which are the fundamental construction material of living things. Experts think amino acids were either formed on Earth by chemical processes or carried here by comets billions of years ago. Luke Leman, of the Scripps Research Institute in California, said it was likely that COS gas acted on amino-acids near volcanic eruptions. [The Metro Oct8,2004]