Oh, and as for any argument for intelligent design; they all irk me immensely. The whole recursion of what created the intelligence to create the intelligent design, makes it hard to swallow.

Occam's Razor comes to mind. Simpler and more probable to assume the universe just is, which we have "evidence" of, rather than the existence of a hypothetical intelligence far more complex than the universe as it is already, "just being" and subsequently creating the universe.