hmmm....i came to this discussion a lil' late.....i have a book on the subject, well, religious philosophy actually, but this is discussed within said book....

anywho....i'd like to just bring up one issue if i may...

somewhere in this thread someone stated (i believe it was errant) that perhaps thought created existence.....

this very idea contradicts the very notion of "existence".....how can "something" CREATE existence?

existence cannot be created.....existence is......or better yet, it is infinite, eternal, ever-lasting, etc.......i'm sure you've heard me go on this rant before, but to suggest something, and labeling it as "non-existent" does nothing more than contradict itself, as it implies that even something "non-existent" exists as such......if thought created "existence," then surely thought must have existed....hence, it can't create what is already applied to it.....

HOWEVER, there is a very valid argument for the idea of "non-existent" things when concerning the physical realm.......for example, you before you were born.....but then this takes into account theories pertaining to "destiny/fate" and "time" and "physical vs' metaphysical".........

nonetheless, i have yet to see any argument justify the notion of "non-existence" in a philosophical manner (not to say there isn't one)....science on the otherhand is another argument altogether (and in my honest opinion, a flawed one)

anywho....the idea behind "intelligent design" i think is flawed.......it gives more credit to the "intelligent being" and not enough to "existence".......it also has problems concerning metaphysical and physical natures of things.....for example, as "thought" is considered to be a metaphysical nature (philosophically more so than science would state) where did it get the idea of the physical? and then this in turn could be argued all the way down to the a-priori and a-posteriori ideas as well as empiricism....

all in all, intelligent design....meh.....to speak bluntly, i find it to be nothing more than religious hocus-pocus