Believing in God and Evolution: Where's the Intelligence in the Intelligent Design Model of Creation?

I believe in God, but that doesn't mean I must agree with the intelligent design model of creation.

Has anyone ever wondered just where is the intelligence to the design? The fact that the "design" is chock-full of errors, supports the theory of evolution.

The evolutionary process is a far better explanation for all the things that go wrong in nature, than is intelligent design. For instance, what intelligent designer would make it so that just about every zebra and gazelle eventually get strangled to death by lions? What kind of way is this to go? And hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis have killed millions of people since the beginning of time. But perhaps one of the biggest blunders in the "design" is that the life span of our beloved pet dogs is one-fifth that of humans. What a raw deal.

By definition, a designer of the universe would have infinite intelligence. So, assuming that a designer exists, how is it that this creator botched things up so badly? Some examples:

1) The "design" is infiltrated with flies, mosquitoes, gnats, spiders, cockroaches, termites and billions of other pests and vermin that serve no purpose other than to infect and frighten people, destroy homes and crops, and create major nuisances. Why would an intelligent designer create billions of disgusting pests, including viruses and bacteria? Proponents of intelligent design might argue that pests are the food source for birds, and that deadly microbes are the designer's way of punishing humans for being so bad.

Well, an intelligent designer would make it so that birds could feed off leaves and grass. Proponents of intelligent design would then argue that if all birds fed off leaves and grass, there'd be no beautiful trees or majestic mountainsides. However, an intelligent designer would make it so that birds need to eat only six times a year or that vegetation would grow back instantly! As for deadly viruses, if the designer wanted humans to die as punishment, seems to me the designer would just drop people like flies without a viral infection, and innocent children would be spared this "punishment."