Intelligent Design

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The nature and existence of God has been, and still remains, one of the most widely debated topics in philosophy and everyday life. Arguments such as the intelligent design, or the teleological argument, are one of many that attempt to validate the existence of God. This argument uses the watchmaker analogy - if a watch simply appeared on the ground, one would either believe that the watch appeared randomly on its own, or its parts have come together in a particular way to accomplish the goal of a watch. If this is the case, one would believe that the watch must have been designed by an intelligent creator on purpose. One would not assume that a watch simply came to be, exhibiting perfect design for its specific function, without someone creating …show more content…
The problem with God’s existence in this sense is that one does not get to claim that God designed what one wants God to design and not the other aspects that don't seem to have a specific purpose or a negative one. These include what God’s purpose was when creating hurricanes or deadly diseases such as cancer. This can lead individuals to the problem with the existence and overflowing amount of evil in the world. If God is aware of evil and has the power to stop it, it is only right that He would want to do so. It is argued that good cannot exist without evil and that one cannot understand the true meaning of pleasure without knowing pain and sorrow. John Hick explains in his Soul - Making Theodicy that God deliberately leaves humans “unfinished” and that one’s life on earth is meant to toughen them up. He explains that God wants to train humans and turn them into a particular kind of being, and for that, we need an environment that gives individuals the opportunity to grow. This explains why evil exists, but not why there has to be such an overloading …show more content…
It is difficult for God to relate to us or feel our pain if He does not even experience the same time as we do, as well as if he already knows what is going to happen to us. Besides, if God already knows what is going to happen, how could he ever feel sympathy and change his mind? If God is omnitemporal, it may not even be possible for Him to feel enough sympathy to even change his mind as a response to one’s prayers. There would be no point in praying if God already knows everything, including the future. In this sense, God has already decided what will happen, regardless of what someone is praying for. Either someone’s prayer is asking God to do something that He has already planned to do or something that He has already decided not to do. To this extent, if God would change his mind and answer one’s prayer, they would not want him to because it would completely change the course of history and would probably make things worse than it would have been if one had just let God stick to his plan. In both cases, it would seem that a prayer would make no difference, other than making us feel better about the situation. In conclusion, it is exceedingly difficult to form logic around the nature and existence of God, seeing that there is may aspects to the existence of God, whose lack of certainty can be quite
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