The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Angrboda]

What's often lacking in discussions referencing Ockham's razor or Pareto's law is the caveat that such simpler explanations are preferred with the caveat being that the additional complexity of the rejected alternatives is not necessary. If a god and some natural explanation both account for all necessary aspects of a phenomenon, and the natural explanation is simpler, we may have reason to prefer the natural explanation as a matter of principle. If two explanations account for functionally identical aspects of the world, it would seem the only differentiating properties between the two are metaphysical. Since we can't directly access those metaphysical properties, we must look for other reasons for preferring one set of metaphysical assumptions. In the case of religion, the argument from demographics and multiple religions challenges all specific religious backstories in a way that naturalism is not challenged.