Addressing Kaiser's astonishment that religion is still a thing. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum where I'm astonished that so many non-believers buy into the "God doesn't exist" theory. The more I understand the human body, animal interaction, outer space, etc. the more I am baffled that people believe that these things came to be just by chance. It absolutely astounds me. Some of the smartest people the world has ever seen, and the best thing they can come up with is more unbelievable than a miracle itself.
I'd love hear what you've seen about the universe and animals that makes intelligent design more plausible that either a cyclical natural "creation"
or eternal expansion via the big bang. This by the way is THE question I'm most interested in when I talk to creationists.
I believe in micro evolution, not macro evolution. I was just thinking about this the other day: take for instance a mother, whether it be an animal or a human. When the mother has a baby, its mammary glands produce milk. This is an essential part of animal life. Taking humans out of the equation, without mother's milk, the baby will not survive.
Macro evolution teaches me that over time, a species evolved to contain these glands, as well as produce a substance suitable for its species survival. Obviously the species didn't develop these glands overnight. It took thousands, maybe millions of years to develop. Where is this transition period, and how does the species survive during this transition? When did the species "decide" that milk would be its sustenance rather than (whatever the old method was)? I see a lack of proof of transitional development, let alone transitional species in archaeological findings. It's there, but not on a large enough scale to convince me macro evolution is a thing. I'm only talking about one thing here, not to mention the millions of other developments in macro evolution that must have happened in synchronicity to get us from point A (single cell organism) to point B (humans).
That's just the science side of it all. As shafnutz alluded to, the majesty and beauty of the universe holds no purpose, yet it exists. Why?
I also cannot fathom how a big bang could create a universe in such order, yet coincidentally in such chaos, without intelligent design. How many big bangs must there have been before THE Big Bang actually worked? Where there big bangs that were soooooo freaking close, but just didn't get it? Were there bb's that were perfect in constructing a universe full of planets and stars, but failed to make any life forms? Being that THE BIG BANG was a 1 in a ~quadrillion chance, there have to be other, observable, parallel universes where other big bangs existed. Otherwise, you're 1/1,000,000,000,000 chance is more like 1/10^10^10^10 and so on shot that the very first and very only big bang worked. If you're going to believe that, you might was well believe it was an intelligent designer behind the whole charade.