Benevolent Creator God?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The teleological argument doesn’t seem so much an argument as it does an expression of confirmation bias. Thusly:

-I believe in a god.

-The god in which I believe designed the universe.

-Since this god designed the universe, evidence of design should be observable.

-Everything I see exhibits design.

-This design is clearly the work of the god in which I believe.

-Therefore, the god in which I believe exists.

The only irrefutable clause in the above it the first one. Everything else is supposition, unsupported assertions, wishful thinking, and dizzyingly circular logic. I think even Voltaire was much too forgiving when he said that the most the TA could ‘prove’ was an Architect, not a god.

Boru

That's not the formulation of the teleological argument, and it doesn't yield the theistic God as a conclusion, just an intelligent designer with some desirable properties. Also, if you include the word "God" in the premises, you have a circular argument that has nothing to do with design arguments;

I grant that it’s a rather informal statement of the TA, but is in essence accurate. Proponents of the argument point to design in nature and conclude ‘god’. Since the argument was original formulated to prove God, it is - in and of itself - circular. An intelligently designed Universe is implicit in the argument.

Nothing to do with me, mate.

Boru