h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is the argument from design as stated by William Paley in the 18th century.

“Imagine that you are walking through a forest. You come across a watch. You see that this watch is two things: one, it is complicated; two, it works. You assume that the things that make this watch work did not get there on their own; they must have been put there by a watch maker. By analogy, the universe is also complicated and works, there must be a universe maker, and therefore there is a God."

I'm looking for around 4 or 5 athiests and theoists to look at this in a debate form, if you are intereseted, please leave a response and ill get back to you. Please bear in mind that no knowledge on the sbject is required.

You can put me up as an atheist if you like.

Noggin

Rationalist. ("Atheist" implies a degree of respect for "theism" as a position worth opposing. I have no such respect, and therefore while many would assume I'm an "atheist" - I'm not. Does that help?)

no

I wouldn't mind getting in on this, and offering my theist's point of view.

I'm not getting involved...

But if anyone is interested Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker is full of counter arguments to the Watchmaker analogy

kiltedjedi, I can heartily recommend that book! Covers most of the bases.

Satchmo, are you looking to approach this from a different angle? Or pick up where current theological thinking has got to? Obviously, as you note in your post, this is a very old argument and most of the points of view have been presented here and there. I may join in if it is a discussion of modern views on the subject. As an agnostic .
Remember an issue never has only 2 sides.

I'm an agnostic - fully noncommittal and everything (and plenty hypocritical in that as well), should you need one.

I'll join in... confirmed atheist.

brilliant, we're gonna work with one thesist one atheist an agnostic and me!

ill set everything up and you are the thesist

I'll jump in on the atheist/scientist side if there's room.
I'm only a computer tech/engineer by training, but have quite a reasonable amateur scientific interest in evolution.

i believe in the Teleological argument if that is of any help

You can count me in as a large scale agnostic and a local scale atheist.

Satchmo. I'm prepared to debate on the Theist side. I'm not crazy about the argument from design in its original form though. In the forest we'll see trees that are complicated and 'work'. Dammit, they're alive! So why do we need to introduce a watch?

toxx

I think the point of the watch, Toxx, is that it actually was made by design whereas the 'creation' of the trees is subject to debate.

F

like the question i got in the RE exam, 'you find a watch in the middle of the desert. how does this aid in the proof of the existence of God?'

the answer was that every component in the watch had a function which enabled the watch to fulfil it's purpose. if one of these components were to be missing, the watch would stop. bearing that in mind we are then meant to take a look at the natural world and see that each being can be compared to a component. that there is a design in place that enables all the components to work together. and the only being that could create such an elaborate 'watch' is God.

i don't like the idea of God in the Teleological arguement, but i do like the idea of a design and a purpose.

I could also get into the debate, though I`m not sure which side I feel like defending.

I'm going to pick the 'lurk' option and improve my philosophy.

B

Lurk option for me too!

az

Fathom.



That perhaps is *supposed* to be the point, but we are expected to infer the designed nature of the watch by examining its components and functioning, not by knowing that watches are made by someone. This is not at all easy to imagine, and we can more easily do the same thing for trees without the need for any analogy. Therefore, the argument in this form is flawed.

If, on the other hand, we imagine seeing someone dancing to ballroom music, we may infer that the movements have been deliberately planned, instead of being the twitchings of someone with Tourette's Syndrome! We may compare this with the regularity in the behaviour of the materials of physics and chemistry. The laws of nature appear to have been carefully choreographed too.

Let those who will, also argue against that version of the argument.

toxx