Materialists use their mind to start with the premise of nothing, often not realizing that the very use of their mind in that act of hypothesizing is always and unavoidably a "something". In other words, a mindless origin for *anything* is functionally impossible, as your act of comprehending that origin always originates from a mind.
Using the mind to imagine and assert an origin of mindlessness is peak nonsense.
One of the reasons I find the argument from design compelling is that it starts with something we actually, directly know.
We know minds exist.
And we know what minds do, they generate information, specified complexity, language, codes, engineering, and intelligible systems. These are all things we directly observe minds producing.
What’s interesting is that when it comes to the world, atheists reason in the opposite direction. Instead of starting with the known, they begin by assuming nature is not the product of a mind. They say the world is “natural” meaning that it isn’t caused by a mind. Then, because the “natural world” contains information, complexity, and intelligibility, they conclude these things must be capable of arising without a mind.
This is totally backwards.
If we’re trying to determine whether something comes from a mind, we shouldn’t begin by starting with an unknown and assuming the answer. We should start with the only known source of information rich, specified, goal directed systems that we have direct experience with… minds.
Then we ask whether the natural world exhibits the kinds of features that minds produce.
And it does.
The atheist starts with the assumption that nature is undesigned and then concludes that information, complexity, and intelligibility must be capable of arising without a mind.
The design argument starts in the opposite direction by observing minds are the only known source of information, meaning, codes, and specified complexity. The world is filled with these things. Therefore, the most natural inference is not that minds are unnecessary, but that the world itself is the product of a mind.