This entire post warrants being dragged up and refutted tirelessly.
Chalnoth,
I am able to tell that evolutionism is based on creatorless assumptions,
Wrong. It's based on science and science is not born of assumptions -- that's the playground of religion. The reason science doesn't proclaim a creator is simple -- there isn't any evidence of one and science must be based on evidence, (as is the Theory of Evolution), or it's simply not science. If you refuse to learn what science is, you'll never be credible in trying to refute any findings based upon such a process.
I am able to tell that it has no viable or demonstrable mechanism,
The fossil record shows you to be wrong. Endogenous retrovirus show you to be wrong. The dozens and dozens of cases of observed, studied and documented speciation both in the wild and the laboratory show you to be wrong.
and I am able to tell that it doesn't make sense,
When something makes perfect sense to those who dedicate their life to its study, when they can demonstrate the mechanisms and the outcome, when they can show the results over millions of years and they understand it: the claim of someone who doesn't understand it because they prefer to live in a world of hope and assumption, that it doesn't make sense is really nothing more than an admission that that they do not understand. Anything you don't understand isn't likely to make sense. If you want it to make sense you'll have to learn about it. Of course, you don't want it to make sense because you feel if it did, it might threatened beliefs you've assumed to be true, without evidence, for many, many years. And your assumed beliefs offer you a feeling of comfort, security and the lack of anxiety of a finite life. Understanding the reality offers only truth. And it's a truth you'd prefer not to recognize so you attempt to talk others into joining your delusion.
even when I have been analyzing it for quite a period of time. I have read, re-read, and read again the most prominent evidence said to be in favor of evolutionism, and I fail to see it as anything but wishful thinking.
You're not the first to read something and either just not understand what they were reading, or allowed their personal prejudices to influence their ability to grasp and retain the information and apply it to the logic of the mechanisms inherent to the concept.
I can see the dots that many evolutionists are trying to connect, and I can see the logic that they are using with regard to biological relationships meaning ancestral relationship. The problem is that their logic doesn't equal empirical science.
Logic can do nothing but be equal to empirical study of empirical evidence. Otherwise, it wouldn't be logic. It would be beliefs not unlike those leading to acceptance of religion.
It doesn't take a scientist to see the evidence, or to see the conclusions they are drawing from the evidence. The problem is, when you take away any possible chance of a creator, you are going to be able to come to only one conclusion.
You're demonstrating the thought processes you're utilizing to misguide yourself. Science doesn't "take away" the possible chance of a creator. It simply finds no evidence consistent with the chance of a creator. Science doesn't assume anything just because it finds a step missing or finds the evidence lacking for any common assumption. If anything is missing, or appears to be missing, science must plod on until the evidence either accounts for the missing step/mechanism or until evidence arises which demonstrates why such a step or mechanism isn't necessary. Such is the case with creation -- it's simply not necessary or indicated.
What has really happened here is that your belief system has added an unevidenced creator. You've
assumed that if things exist, they must have been created. But this is a terribly flawed assumption. You're applying mixed concepts and failing to recognize that they are different. You see a cabinet maker build a set of cabinets and call him the "creator" of the cabinets. But he has created nothing. All of the materials already existed. What he has done is change the form. What, in your entire life, have you ever seen created? The simple and honest answer is; nothing. Everything which exists at the Newtonian level has, for all we can determine, always existed. Yet you insist upon a creator even though you have never witnessed an act of creation. But because you have witnessed acts of transformation and equate that to creation, you assume that where matter exists, there must be a creator for that matter. Yet you have likely never spent any real time contemplating a scenario opposite to your assumptions. You assume nothingness to be a more likely default state than somethingness. Why?
Have you ever witnessed nothing? Certainly this is beyond your ability because you are something -- you're made of matter and even your thoughts can be referred to as something since, when you die or are rendered fully unconscious, your thoughts cease to exist. So it's not really possile for you to witness nothingness. In fact, none of us can ever witness or even correctly conceive of nothingness. Yet because you confuse transformation with creation, you assume nothingness to be the proper default state. Indeed there is nothing to indicate that the existence of everything isn't the proper default state. Why wouldn't it be? And don't bother trying to answer for anyone else. Do some critical deep thinking about it. Answer it for yourself. There is really no reason to assume that anything which exists now hasn't always existed in some form or another. To assume an uncreated entity is necessary for creation or the existence of anything is an argument which is self-defeating. If all that exists needed to be created, then the creator too would have needed to be created. If the creator you suggest is without the need for creation, then everything else is also without the need for creation. What you're doing here is called "special pleading" and it's a well documented logical fallacy; that is -- it violates logic.
The intellectual/"scientific" community has taken away any possible chance of intelligent design,
Well, if they've taken it away, then it doesn't exist. And if no possibility exists, then why are you arguing for the possibility that it does? You've created your own paradox by proclaiming that the scientific community has done something it simply hasn't done. Science is not in the practice of taking away anything. But through implementation of the scientific method, they are able to illustrate where natural, demonstrable mechanisms are more rational and consistent with reality than are superstitious assumptions.
...and created a required a priori asumption for the secular scientific community to abide by, so of course they are stacking the deck in order for you to come to only one conclusion.
Again, you're placing the assumption on the wrong side of the issue. The assumption is yours. You assume a creator, even though there is no evidence of one and no need for one. You continue with that assumption even though it is a concept which defeats itself. Again; if the creator need not be created, then nothing which you attribute to his act of creation needs to be created. And if the universe cannot exist without having been created, then neither can your proposed and assumed, creator. It's really an obvious all or nothing proposition. You can't isolate any item of existence or assumed existence and simply proclaim that it is the one thing not in need of creation without explaining and demonstrating why. You might be able to toss out some assumed rhetoric as to why God needn't be created while everything else required creation, but you'll never be able to demonstrate any logic to support your assertions.
What I want many evolutionists to understand is that just because a creator is not able to be detected by natural mechanism, does not automatically disqualify it as a possibility.
And what I would like you to understand is that just because a creator was assumed and written about by men who had little understanding of the natural world, 2000 years ago, does not automatically indicate a creator as a possibility. This is especially so when you consider all of the similar proclamations for creators of various features and affects of the universe over the course of man's history -- the vast majority of which have proven false. Man has continually proclaimed creators and entities to explain that for which he lacked other explanations. This was done for volcanos, earthquakes, storms, droughts, plagues and most every other phenomena for which science has brought us answers consistent with reality. Yet people continually fail to learn from that history and continue to proclaim that concepts born of superstition and assumption are superior to those born of science. And they do so for one simple reason -- they're human. And as humans, they have a need to feel comforted and secure -- even if that comfort comes in the form of a fairytale.
We don't have to even "prove" a creator to "prove" intelligent design, but when we look at the evidence of design in nature, then we must accept the possiblity of a Designer.
The only way you can ever "prove" intelligent design is to compare it to known designs lacking intelligence. All we have is what exists naturally, and what man creates. But man's creation runs a full spectrum from poorly designed to well designed. And if measured against such a spectrum, what you proclaim as "intelligently designed", falls more in line with poorly designed. This implies a poor designer from your perspective, or a process of random trial and error, with a guiding mechanism from a non-created perspective.
When we understand this, then intelligent design in living things makes a mountain of sense. But like I said, the deck has been stacked.
The deck is stacked on your side by your unevidenced and illogical assumption that anything has been created. If you can't speak from a position of demonstrable evidence, then all you're offering are ancient superstitions. And the history of ancient superstitions tells us all we need to know about their validity.
