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I still haven't seen any argument for that "we" live in an ordered universe, other then the fact that "we live".
The Universe and especially life seems much more random and chaotic, and based on chance.

Arrylium wrote: Well, if the prerequisites for being a Young Earth Creationist are believing in a 10 000 year old Earth and not believing in Evolution, I would say I'm in that category.

Ok, I see. This means your beliefs actually are in contradiction to a lot of scientific facts and you will have to completely ignore entire discplines like geology, paleonthology and biology, as well as vast areas of knowledge. There has been previous discussions about Young Earth Creationism here on this board, you can find it here:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9918

If you, like I, think science and religion should be kept apart, you have choosen the most difficult position by choosing a religious view that actually denies vast areas of scientific facts.

I have heard the watch version before, but never one to do with a mousetrap.

The mousetrap analogy comes from a book by Michael Behe. Behe claims that a mousetrap is "irreducibly complex" because it consists of five parts: a hammer, a spring, a catch, a holding bar, and a platform. He claims "if any of the parts are missing the trap does not function", and this is one of his misguided arguments for why evolution is impossible. Behe's idea is that a sole organ, let's say the kidney, would not function on it's own, therefore it cannot have evolved - all pieces of something must have been placed there in their current form, at the same time. What Behe totally fails to address is that evoution does not work so that first, a kidney evolve, then a liver. Evolution is a gradual change, so simple organs with kidney- and liver-like functions evolved before the more complex forms we can find in humans today, evolved.

Behe is an example of an advocate for Intelligent design who use a lot of erranous information to argue for his case. His book is full of outright lies about facts, and lies are never a good way to argue for your opinions.

1) What exactly do you mean by order being 'subjective,' so to speak? If something is ordered so intricately as to allow life to take place, how can others see it as being un-ordered?

1. When using the "design from appearant order"-argument, I mean that it's a subjective interpretation that the world is "orderly". Things don't need to be "ordered" for life to take place, they just need to exist. Arguing that development of life happened in an orderly way, is equal to saying order=we live just as Xandax commented above.

Order and chaos are subjective terms, but let me give some examples:
A) During evolution, different type of eyes have appeared, disappered and reappered many times: wouldn't it be more "orderly" if one, perfect eye was created once and for all and then it was finished?
B) Humans, like other species, have a lot of "pseudogenes", reduntant genes that are not expressed, that do not code for any protein. I would think it would be more "orderly" to create a set of genes that functioned, without a lot of DNA that have stop-codes on them so they can never be expressed.
C) Why do humans and other species have reduntant organs, like the appedix? What is orderly about them?

What I mean is simply that what one person (you, for instance) may view as order, may not be viewed as order by another person (I, for instance). I don't think our world has any special "order" other than "it functions". Many other alternative ways of abiogenesis and evolution would also have led to functioning life.

2) I don't view the Argument from Design as being irrefutable proof for the existence of God - you yourself seem to agree that such proof is impossible. The argument from design, in my view, just questions (and hopefully encourages others to question) why people would choose to believe in a (supposedly) possible random design from chaos, rather than in what would probably seem quite obvious to most people in most situations - that if something is structured it was designed by someone who understood that structure.

What I view as problematic with the Argument from design and similar arguments that are build on analogies, is that an analogy says nothing. I could make an analogy between my foot and a steam train (both consists of many parts, both are used for transportation of people, both make use of the leverage effect to work, etc) and thus I could argue that my foot is made of stainless steel. I could also make an analogy between a god and Santa Claus, and conclude that Santa does not exists so god does not exist either. You can always find lots of analogies between all sorts of things if you look, but an analogy is not a valid argument.

I also need to point out that nobody has ever claimed evolution works by "blind chance", evolution works by selection although mutations occationally happens by chance. Abiogeneis on the other hand could well have happened "by chance" in the sense that the combinations of molecules that led to the development of RNA and then DNA, were by chance.

In this paragraph, you again return to the idea that the world is structured, and therefore it should be obvious that is must have been designed by somebody who holds some knowledge. My question is still: 1) what makes you believe the world is structured, other than that is exists and 2) even if we choose to view the world as structured, why does that mean somebody must have designed it? It could function anyway. There is no relationship between existence and that somebody must have created everything that exists.

Belief in blind chance is a choice, just as belief in God is. An analogy I found interesting (obiously, you don't have to read it if you don't want to): http://www.defendyourfaith.com/evolution-analogy.htm

"Beliving" in evolution and abiogenesis is not equal to "belief in blind choice", it is believing in scientific facts. Thus, it is justified belief, whereas no evidence exists to support a belief in gods existence. Belief that abiogenesis happened by chance, or because a god had a finger in it, is a choice. Please notice the difference.

The story about the tribe was cute, but I don't understand why the link is called "evolution-analogy of closemindedness" since the story totally lacks any analogies to how science works, it only says that "if you find a thing you may believe it evolved naturally but it may also have been created by somebody. If you think it evolved naturally, you are closeminded." What is supposed to be the point of this story? You could claim that anyone who doesn't share your belief is "close-minded", it's a very common ad hominem if you dislike other peoples opinions, but what was it in the story you found interesting?

But why does the analogy to life have to be perfect in order to communicate the idea - that a structured object implies a structured designer?

As I stated above, an analogy does not say anything and does not implicate anything, but a flawed analogy says even less and certainly implicates nothing!

You say we know a manufacturer for 747's exist - true. So if you saw a plane and you didn't know of someone or something that could make it, would you conclude it was designed, or made by chance?

I wouldn't conclude anything, I would look for data that gave evidence for a creator, a random mechanism or a mechanims or selection.

Belief is still a choice. I don't know a single atheist (and I know plenty) who accidentally doesn't believe in God. And it's still faith.

Now it sounds like you are confusing terms. "Faith" is belief without evidence. "Belief" can be classified in justified or non-justified beliefs.

I believe gravity exists is a justified belief. (Plenty of objective evidence to support this belief exists)
I believe you are made of green cheese is an unjustified belief (I have no evidence to support this belief)

The choice is whether you want to hold justified or unjustified beliefs. Choosing to hold an unjustified belief = having faith. Thus, your notion about "accidentally" not believing in a god is irrelevant, it has nothing to do with the question of justified v unjustified belief.

I don't mind you or other people having faith in a god. But science can not per definition be "faith" since it requires the high level of objective, repeated and consistent evidence that makes it justified belief. Or would you call it "faith" to believe tuberculosis is caused by tubercle bacteria, or that gravity exists?

Purely out of interest, and if you don't mind me asking - why do you admit science cannot explain everything and that things are outside the realms of science, yet you won't believe in God unless science proves he exists?

For the same reason as I don't believe unicorns, fairies or S:t Claus exist unless science demonstrate they exist: the scientific method is the lest error-prone way to assure that observations are independent and objective, and do correspond to objective phenomena. Things do not necessarily exist because humans can think them. That's why I require scientific evidence to believe they exist.

Other issues, such as "is this or that immoral", or "what is the meaning of my life" are examples of questions that are not suited to investigate with the scientific method, although science can provide facts that in turn can serve as a basis for formation of opinions and decisions.