What would you say?

[Darwinian]

I've just answered this conundrum..

you know once a Muslim and a non-believer decided that they would debate infront of all the people of that region that their respective perspactives are right. The Muslim saint has to prove that there is A God and the non-believer has to prove that there is no such power like God.
A date and time was given to both by the poeple and they had to debate on that day and prove themselves right.
On the Day of the debate the Muslim saint reached very late, and all other people and the non-believer reached at time. when the Muslim reached there to debate, the non-believer said to him that how will you debate with me you dont even know the worth of time. you came so late and you wasted our time waiting.
The Muslim person said that he is sorry for coming late but actually there is a reason. He said that on the way here there was a long huge river, and i could not swim across it so i sat on the bank and started thinking any possible solutions.
suddenly i saw a tree which was near the bank broke down into plane boards by itself. and then those plane boarda started to meet each other in a way that it took a shape of a boat. and after few minutes it became a complete boat and on of the branch of the tree turned into a paddle, so i sat on the boat and float across.
thats the reason i came late.
the non believer said, thats ridiculus, absolute non sense, how can a tree turn into a boat by itself? thats just not possible.

Then the Muslim replied that If a small tree can not turn into a boat by itself how can this huge humongous earth came into existance by itself?
(the non-believer had no answer)

Can you answer this?

With this..

Yes Because this is a fallacious analogy that panders to the undisciplined mind.

So, my answer to the Muslim Saint would be as follows..

"That's a loaded question, when did I ever say the Earth came into existence by itself? The Earth came into existence because of a complex web of cause and effect emanating from the point of the big bang, possibly before which followed entirely natural laws devoid of any conscious intent.

The reason that we both know the tree did not turn into a boat is simply because it would have had to have violated all these natural laws rendering a supernatural explanation very probable indeed.

As we can agree that this clearly did not happen and therefore no supernatural event occurred, all you have succeeded to demonstrate is your total lack of analogical understanding and critical thinking, giving further weight to my claim that there is no god or gods."

And then I would ask him for the real reason he was late.

At this forum..

http://forumpromotion.net/forum/viewtopi...77#p432177

How would you have answered?

[Violet]

It isn't much of a conundrum honestly... though the nonbeliever's position that there are no gods is untenable by the same reasons a position that there is a god is untenable.

[leo-rcc]

Another person that confuses creation with formation.

[Welsh cake]

Simple. The Muslim's take on a teleological argument does not prove the existence of their God as it relies on 'perceived evidence' of order, purpose, design, or direction.

It seeks to assign a subjectively true "purpose" onto the world while blissfully ignorant of the fact that complexity does not always entail intelligent design. It also does not appreciate the complexity of reality and examples of systems in it that are random occurrences or 'ordered' simply because of natural ongoing physical processes.

Actually, I'm disappointed the Muslim's argument about boats is nothing more than a revised watchmaker analogy, since its easily refutable.

[tavarish]

I love arguments from ignorance.

[downbeatplumb]

Ah these things seem to be very popular in some folksy American literature. Sounds good means bugger all.