RE: The Watchmaker: my fav argument
February 28, 2021 at 7:34 pm
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2021 at 7:36 pm by Simon Moon.)
And another reason why the watchmaker argument completely fails, is that theists claim that their god designed everything.
So, when they say, they find a watch on the beach, or in the forest or wherever, their failed analogy has them walking past example after example of 'watches' (after all, god designed everything, right, including the sand, rocks, seaweed, trees, etc., etc.). And they pick up the one thing (the watch) that everyone that has been exposed to watches, agrees has been designed, and that's what they use as their example to compare to cells, DNA, humans, etc,.
The argument doesn't sound so impressive if stated like this: "Anyone finding a watch pinecone in a forest will recognize that it was designed intelligently; living beings are similarly complex, and must be the work of an intelligent designer". But don't theists also believe that the pinecone was designed by their god also?
And yet another failure. The watchmaker is more complex than the watch. If complexity proves intelligent design, then the question arises who designed such a complex watchmaker?
So, when they say, they find a watch on the beach, or in the forest or wherever, their failed analogy has them walking past example after example of 'watches' (after all, god designed everything, right, including the sand, rocks, seaweed, trees, etc., etc.). And they pick up the one thing (the watch) that everyone that has been exposed to watches, agrees has been designed, and that's what they use as their example to compare to cells, DNA, humans, etc,.
The argument doesn't sound so impressive if stated like this: "Anyone finding a watch pinecone in a forest will recognize that it was designed intelligently; living beings are similarly complex, and must be the work of an intelligent designer". But don't theists also believe that the pinecone was designed by their god also?
And yet another failure. The watchmaker is more complex than the watch. If complexity proves intelligent design, then the question arises who designed such a complex watchmaker?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
