Steven,
My number two son would disagree with you...he says he's an intelligent structural designer(Boom boom?) Not what you meant I know.

Sadly I tend to agree that ALL religions are simply mans attempt to describe the unknowable.

While I am a secular Humanist I would add one caveat to the conclusion that all is wrong. I would suggest that by and large it is innate in man to have the need to be able to explain creation....simply put man can't generally cope with the unknown. Part of that is their insecurity. So man has created imperfect explanations to salve their troubled brow. The problem comes when individuals become chauvinistic about 'their' explanation and it becomes a justification for division and war.

As stated elsewhere I have no problem with some shamanistic beliefs in so much they specify living with nature rater than futilely/temporarily trying to conquer it. The end result then tends to be ultimately destructive to both human and nature.

Because of my SH I have real doubts about the rituals...headhunting etc.
But their taboos tend to have real value. The problem with all the above is humans in their pursuit of power, status and passing on 'their' selfish genes.

The concept of Intelligent Design, jumped on as fact, by the very people, (believers in God), who would have you believe that this GOD, got a single family to build an arkt so that he (the intelligent designer) could drown all his creations.

This same GOD states in Genesis 7:1-2 that Noah is the only one who has done what is right. In 2 he instructs Noah to take 7 pairs of ritually clean animals and 1 pair of unclean animals.

But Noah who is "right" in Genesis 7:8 takes only "a female and a male of every kind of animal". Noah broke GOD's explicit instruction. This is confirmed in Genesis 7:15.

I know you asked us to forget "the dusty old books" but I'm afraid that is a tough ask. How can a person believes Bible bunkum and present a theory of Intelligent Design?

I think there is a Universal life force that has been hijacked by the religions.

BUT it designs nothing!

Evolution- Finding "Lucy" was an incredible leap. Here we have a female whose Pelvic bone is transforming from the flat open flatter type pelvic bones of the ape who generally walks on all fours to the human cup-like pelvis which allows upright 2 legged movement.

http://www.anthro4n6.net/lucy/

http://www.allianceforscience.org/Lucy/Jellison_Lucy_Article.html

(Note....Christians again bearing false witness Exodus 20:16)

The big bang caused by a singularity is only theory. WE can't see what is outside our Universe so we can only theorise what our Universe is expanding into.

So at this stage, I think the expanding and then contracting Universe model appears more logical...and yet I could well be wrong.

http://soi.blogspot.com/2005/11/cyclic-theory.html

The Universe may have existed forever or be part of an even bigger series of Universes. The intelligence of the intelligent designer (if one existed) seems to be undermined daily by believers in Creation.

Why would the most intelligent being in the Universe need to model something from clay? It is laughable! Why didn't he model it from hydrogen like happens in space the building block, GOD allegedly chose to build all matter.

There has been a lot of discussion of Lucy's knee joint..[there simply isnt one...the missing bits compared to the lost bits is pathchy at best

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/lucy.html

The best I can now determine is that there were 2 knee joints,one found nearby and one far away....and there is no complete knee joint..the actual fragments of ribs are laughable..note picture right top link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(skeleton)

The one found far away was found two to three kilometers away from the skull and 60-70 meters deeper in the strata...Dr. Johansen does not claim that the knee joint belonged to Lucy....but we are allowed to be decieved by the joke...

looking at the reconstructions on your rebutting creationists link..it becomes clearly a joke...also no mention of wear on the joints is made...that some accept as science fact is so much based on selling the deception

Instead,..it was part of another fossil he found some time earlier..put them together..claiming that they were of the same species.

This whole issue is discussed at length in the talk.origins FAQ...Lucy is an example of Australopithecus afarensis,and other examples of this species have been found since then.

Dr. Charles Oxnard completed the most sophisticated computer analysis of australopithecine fossils ever undertaken,..and concluded that the australopithecines..have nothing to do with the ancestry of man whatsoever,..and are simply an extinct form of ape(Fossils,Teeth and Sex:New Perspectives on Human Evolution,University of Washington Press,1987).

but believe as you will..you may give hundred percent BELIEF on what is claimed to be 40 percent of...one skeleton..lol..but look at the wiki-picture..do the math visually...as patchy as the rest of the evolution THEORY

If humans did not posess awareness and imagination, could the concept of God exist?

Yes, because God created humans to recognise God?

Or No, because without human awareness God could not exist?

Oh please, let there be light.

an excellent series of questions...spin doc]..quote<<..If humans did not posess awareness and imagination,..could the concept of God exist?>>..could is a flexable word..[anything could teqniclly egsist..[or by the same token...be claimed not to egsist]..

.lacking the facts anything is..[could]..be possable...if the will is lacking..the the impossability becomes supreem..to the point of not even looking

and like evidence for evolution..evidence for good must be sought...i funnilly enough in looking for science evidence..found god..others no doudst could make the inverse claim..others simmply could not care either way

i think of it much like sexual-preferance...the first lover was amasing ...thus all was able to be met...without the need..to find other gratifications...or even to the other sex

..hence why science needs to get us as kids..[molestors say/..give me the child before the age of 8...and we have them for life..]...science thus..is convincing enough..[or god]...for those getting their satisfaction unthinkingly..if programed early

sadly..i realised science was decieving and..sought the reality[finding god]..its dependant on what level of prooof/we accept..[or seek..or need

<<..because God created humans..to recognise God?>>>i like to think of god as giving life...and underpinning logic...thus[for me]..yes...

but for others..seeing the logic..[of the laws of gravity/electricity/life etc]...calling the observations and confirmations...limitations../of the affect..[not the cause]will...say science...

and present their..'proof'..ie...laws/limitaions.[of the affect]..[and the likely..or theoretical...cause...as defined within faulsifyables..[that if refuted..would rebut the science..accorded 'cause'...sans faulsifyable's..[its not science]

<<Or No,..because without human awareness God could not exist?>>fortuinatly god loves all its life...not judging good from vile..thus this is inlikely able to be fully proved [or disproved]...

as proof..one way or the other ..would/could remove our freewill to deney the cause of causes...and god dont want mindless adoration...but thinking free-spirits...fully able to decern facts for them selves

<<Oh please,let there be light>>>....but let the light have a clear oppisite...so we can learn the difference..[between the good/vile...dark/light]..

good night means nothing..if we have no day...as all would simply be light..[or simply be eternal night]by having the opposing daRK WORD ON THIS WHITE PAGE YOU ARE ABLE TO READ MY UNSEEN THOUGHT..damm cap loc...were there no darkness you could see no words

The idea that our universe is all part of a computer simulation is quite interesting. Someone once put this idea to me and said it nicely explained the strange behaviour of the quantum world i.e. the subatomic falls below the resolution of the model and it thus produces strange unpredictable effects not evident at larger scales that are adequately resolved. Another idea, slightly off topic is that Jesus was an highly advanced alien. This makes more sense to me than the supernatural. He may have come from a civilization 10,000 years farther down the road than we are. Advanced technology could explain miracles and His moral teachings may be the simple result of experience. His world might have started off much like ours and suffered numerous wars and social catastrophies by following false philosophies. He might have just been telling us what has worked in his world, of course using language and analogies that the people could understand.