Most people understand the idea behind the Watch Maker. We see something that is complex and appears to be designed. This would therefore warrant the belief of a designer being present. I see this argument to be very popular among believers. They don’t always point out the argument directly though. It seems to always come out of looking at nature and seeing what they describe as being designed. Then they automatically jump to the designer. One thing you can always really on though is them refusing having a designer of the designer, and a designer for that designer.
I understand that a watch appears to be designed. We can agree on that. A lot of things can appear to be designed. There is a difference in something appearing to be designed and something actually having a designer. We have examples of a complex watch being designed. The good thing about the watch is we can find that designer, we can see how that designer designed the watch. When you look at a building that we as mankind has designed and built, we can find that blueprint, know the designer, and how and why it was designed. In most cases, we even talk to that designer. We have good evidence to support when we say conclude that something was designed.
A Theist or Deist fails to understand what makes something designed. They will look at nature and claim to see something that is designed. They may see a tree with patterns and an environment that has patterns that fit together well. What I have come to understand is their faults come from their ignorance. They just come to understand how a tree or a natural environment can have a natural pattern in which it came together. Their failure is due to not trying to understand or even look at the explanations for a natural pattern occurring.
The funny part about their claim is that it only applies until they don’t want it to anymore. A watch appears to be designed due to its complexity and has a designer. Lets say that the human body appears to be designed because of its complexity. If the human body has a designer, then this designer must have more complexity to be able to design. With even more complexity that a god would have, wouldn’t that designer or god also need a more complex designer or creator as well? This is where believers stop. Their god just couldn’t have a more complex designer. Well I jump to the fact that if their god doesn’t need a designer, then neither does anything else.
We have examples of designers designing things. None of those examples relate or correlates at all with the natural human body and the natural world being designed by a designer. Everything mentioned about knowing a designer, seeing how it designed, why it designed and even replicating the designer’s work, none can apply to their god. We can only come to the conclusion that there are no legitimate reasons to claim a designer for things that have natural explanations. We can’t have an unknown, unverifiable and a designer that cannot be studied.
Applying the Theists logic of the Watch Maker without cause fails. If you can claim that everything must have a cause, then that must include the god you claim is the cause. If you can say that not everything must have a cause, so that your god doesn’t need a cause, then nothing else needs a cause either.
Arguments against the Existence of God