Teleological Argument Analysis

This paper takes a persuasive stance (from the perspective of an atheist) against the existence of a monotheistic 4-O god. The paper examines several common arguments presented by theists – “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” the Teleological Argument, and the Argument from Universal Experience – in support of such a god and attempts to refute them. The Problem of Evil is also discussed as a positive argument employed by atheists. The subject of how the universe came to be has permeated our consciousness for centuries. How did we get here? What is our purpose? Were we created by a higher power? Religion developed in an effort to answer those aching questions, and the three major religions of the world today – Christianity, Judaism, …show more content…
In the analogy, one is asked to imagine finding a watch on the beach. One would naturally assume that the watch was created by a watchmaker and did not evolve naturally. Like the watch, the universe is complex and intricate; therefore, as the analogy goes, the universe must also have a creator (2011b). This argument/analogy suffers from four particular flaws: (1) our ability to recognize design depends upon our ability to differentiate between objects not found in nature. We don’t look for a watchmaker when we see a rat, for instance, because we know that rats are “produced through the well-understood natural processes of mammalian reproduction” (2011b). Nature itself is essentially excluded from producing proof of design; (2) if a complex, intricate, and highly ordered universe is so unlikely, then surely a being capable of creating such a universe is infinitely more complex and unlikely. This begs the question of “Who created the Creator?”; (3) the analogy is weak because a watchmaker makes watches from smaller, pre-existing materials, while God is often purported to have created the universe from nothing; and (4) this analogy works better as proof for a multitude of gods rather than the monotheistic 4-O god it is intended as. A watchmaker makes watches, but if one stumbled upon a chair on that very same beach, one would not assume it was also made by the

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