[Nice tautology. Now -- explain to us how you distinguish the complex functionality of an actual "design" from the complex functionality that arises naturally via, say, evolutionary processes.]

You're asking me to distinguish between an orange tree (the intelligent design) and an orange(a natural process emanating from the design).

No I'm not. Try again.

Well, one is the source and the other is the fruit, if you will, of that intelligent source.

Since you brought it up, how do you know that it's not the other way around -- that the orange was the thing designed, and the tree is the natural process "emanating" from the seeds in the orange?

How, *exactly*, do you decide which is the product of "design", and which is the indirect result of natural processes acting on that design? And how, *exactly*, did you determine that *either* was actually designed -- why not *both* being the result of natural processes acting on existing objects?

You, too, seem to believe in the existence of mules (the offspring or source), but deny that of horses and asses (the source).

Oh, I *definitely* believe in the existence of asses.

Or, in other words, you believe in the process, but not in the entity that started the process.

Wrong -- I'm asking *you* how exactly you distinguish "design" from "the appearance of design due to other processes".

Or as Niven and Pournelle put it in "Inferno", their sci-fi spoof on Dante, "I'm not sure I want to worship a god who keeps a torture chamber in his basement."

Sublime!

Oh, I *definitely* believe in the existence of asses.

We have PROOF!

Congress