The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[John 6IX Breezy]

Even Hitler made art, did he not?

[The Grand Nudger]

Which one?

[Angrboda]

Even Hitler made art, did he not?

The problem comes when you try to link the demonstration to other aspects of god, similar to what Aquinas did. Not only does the whole not equal the sum of its parts, you just end up going back to the beginning again.

[John 6IX Breezy]

The problem comes when you try to link the demonstration to other aspects of god, similar to what Aquinas did.

Perhaps, but it sidesteps the current issue by bringing up a different one. (I'm unfamiliar with Aquinas).

[The Grand Nudger]

What issue?

I'm just agreeing with you. A hypothetical designer of this world is both evil and incompetent. I suppose that it could probably paint a house if it wanted to?

[Pat Mustard]

But its not about what is preferrable but about what's perfect.  A perfect being cannot create imperfect things.

A good illustration of that idea is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker.

I'm not familiar, could you hum a few bars?

It are a book. A damned good one.

[Angrboda]

The problem comes when you try to link the demonstration to other aspects of god, similar to what Aquinas did.

Perhaps, but it sidesteps the current issue by bringing up a different one. (I'm unfamiliar with Aquinas).

Far be it from me to debate your wisdom. I believe it was the great strategist Sun Tzu who once said, "Here. Hold my beer."

[John 6IX Breezy]

It's not wisdom it's psychology. People are not unfiltered perceivers of information―they latch emotional and moral coloring to propositions. Ad hominems exist because people perceive this coloring and interpret information through it: "You're wrong because you're bad; God doesn't exist because he's evil."

God's existence is independent of his goodness; and yet Hell creates more atheists than science. Hence why a thread about design keeps wanting to become a thread about morality. My hypothesis: If we gather data from this forum we'll find a significant correlation between atheists and the "God is evil" narrative (perhaps stronger among ex-Christians) than theists, which believe "God is love."

[The Grand Nudger]

You appear to have lost the pulse entirely.

To suggest that we can determine whether a thing is a product of a given designer, and that we can determine some things about a designer by it's alleged designs, is not any argument against the existence of a god you've posited to be incompetent and evil nor is it an ad hom. It's your own proposition. That, just as we might look at earthly hitlers paintings and say that he was an intelligent designer who was fond of architecture but artistically incompetent, we can look at this world as a gods paintings and say he probably liked birds and beetles quite a bit, but he's a moral fuckup with a limited range of knowledge and ability.

If we see some brilliant piece of art, and someone is trying to sell it as earthly hitlers, we declare it a forgery, which is just a fun way of saying - nope, not that guy, he didn't make that - according to everything we know of his character and attributes. The same could be done for the evil and incompetent god.

People are only made atheists™ by not believing in gods. You may be quite eager to cosplay a maltheist, but an atheist is not and cannot be a maltheist, by definition. God is love is just a bit of semantic arglebargle, not what theists believe. Though, I suspect, if you posit that god is love, but determine that the designer of this world is evil and incompetent, you've got an even bigger problem on your hands - and that may explain your gods reaction to all the ladies who say no. Evil and incompetent love is a known quantity.

[John 6IX Breezy]

If we see some brilliant piece of art, and someone is trying to sell it as earthly hitlers, we declare it a forgery, which is just a fun way of saying - nope, not that guy, he didn't make that - according to everything we know of his character and attributes.  The same could be done for the evil and incompetent god.

Yeah, that's not how things work. These are faulty conclusions people make. Consider the recent controversy with Kim Kardashian's daughter and a painting she had made (which people accused of not making).