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Choose anything in the natural world that has design, how could it be used
- Thread starter Preety.
- Start date
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hundoviro
Guest
I'm afraid that this is a classic example of "begging the question" - that is, assuming in the premises what you are trying to prove.
To say that something in "the natural world" is "designed" is already to assume a designer (God, presumably). But the question is, IS there anything in the natural world that is "designed"?
People like to use the analogy of finding a watch on a beach. The existence of the watch suggests the existence of a watch maker.
But why assume the world is like a watch and therefore has a designer/maker?
What if you found a carrot on a beach? You wouldn't assume the carrot had been manufactured would you?
Is the world more like a watch, or more like a carrot?
This shows the problems inherent in arguing from analogy.
To say that something in "the natural world" is "designed" is already to assume a designer (God, presumably). But the question is, IS there anything in the natural world that is "designed"?
People like to use the analogy of finding a watch on a beach. The existence of the watch suggests the existence of a watch maker.
But why assume the world is like a watch and therefore has a designer/maker?
What if you found a carrot on a beach? You wouldn't assume the carrot had been manufactured would you?
Is the world more like a watch, or more like a carrot?
This shows the problems inherent in arguing from analogy.
Yaoi Shonen-ai
New member
That's just the point: that anything can be used to argue for "design" just because someone sees "design." President Reagan tried to argue for design by comparing the universe to a 7 course meal: you don't think the meal created itself, do you? he asked.
"Existence is a self-sufficient primary. It is not a product of a supernatural dimension, or of anything else. There is nothing antecedent to existence, nothing apart from it—and no alternative to it. Existence exists—and only existence exists. Its existence and its nature are irreducible and unalterable." Leonard Peikoff: “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy”;
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
"Existence is a self-sufficient primary. It is not a product of a supernatural dimension, or of anything else. There is nothing antecedent to existence, nothing apart from it—and no alternative to it. Existence exists—and only existence exists. Its existence and its nature are irreducible and unalterable." Leonard Peikoff: “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy”;
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
Pope Lizzie
New member
a watch:
a man was walking along when he saw a watch. He picked it up, and opened the back. Inside he saw all the tiny, complicated cogs and levers. He said "Something this detailed cannot have come about by accident.There must be a watchmaker"
Then he thought "If the world is so complex and beautiful, it cannot have come about by coincidence. There must be a creator"
a man was walking along when he saw a watch. He picked it up, and opened the back. Inside he saw all the tiny, complicated cogs and levers. He said "Something this detailed cannot have come about by accident.There must be a watchmaker"
Then he thought "If the world is so complex and beautiful, it cannot have come about by coincidence. There must be a creator"
D
Doctor Why
Guest
The question, of course, is that of design itself. To have something that you say is designed is to imply that is was intentionally formed by an intelligent being for a specific purpose.
Taking this backwards is what forms the basis of what is called the 'teleological argument' for gods. If a thing seems to serve a purpose and seems well-suited to do so, then perhaps we can say that it was designed and therefore has a designer.
The problem we always run into, however, is that we know that our brains are fantastic at associating possibility onto reality (by design?). We can look at a river-smoothed rock and see how it would fit perfectly into our hand for throwing or smacking things with. Yet we also know that the formation of that rock was no design at all... just a coincidence of need and placement, or a projection of purpose onto an object capable of receiving it.
So, then, how do you tell between a DESIGNED purpose and an IMPOSED one? It is to date an unresolved question. Some folk are working on it, however, trying to produce rules and models to distinguish the two. In other words, we're open to suggestions! ( :
Taking this backwards is what forms the basis of what is called the 'teleological argument' for gods. If a thing seems to serve a purpose and seems well-suited to do so, then perhaps we can say that it was designed and therefore has a designer.
The problem we always run into, however, is that we know that our brains are fantastic at associating possibility onto reality (by design?). We can look at a river-smoothed rock and see how it would fit perfectly into our hand for throwing or smacking things with. Yet we also know that the formation of that rock was no design at all... just a coincidence of need and placement, or a projection of purpose onto an object capable of receiving it.
So, then, how do you tell between a DESIGNED purpose and an IMPOSED one? It is to date an unresolved question. Some folk are working on it, however, trying to produce rules and models to distinguish the two. In other words, we're open to suggestions! ( :
The mind with a sense of absolute freedom would find itself in a state of absolute captivity. For instance if I were asked to do wherever I liked and absolutely assured of the fact I could in fact do whatever I desired, I believe I would be completely spellbound, and virtually unable to do anything at all, and thus unable to make up my mind I will remain suspended in a state of inaction for until I would see a good reason of doing of just one things out of countless others. I would then have realised the futility of action, or ineffectuality of my doing, when completely deprived of my morally reasonable standpoint.
I can choose any object to build the case for the grandest of all arguments, you say. Then may be you are not aware of the very fact I have no choice – to have infinite choices is the same as having no choice at all, in my view at least. Now, since I have proved, again at least to myself, that given the situation I have no other choice but a choice of my own. I therefore choose myself as that ’anything in the natural world that has design’ and therefore a reason itself in the argument in favour of the existence God.
Do I need to say more? I think therefore I am, but what am I? I am not certain, even though I am certain that I am, I am not certain about all the question that are appended to my knowledge of my being. If I cannot deny with all my knowledge the fact of my own humble existence then how can I with all my knowledge I can deny what is so believable in the mind. I can ether say that there is God, or I stay quite!
I can choose any object to build the case for the grandest of all arguments, you say. Then may be you are not aware of the very fact I have no choice – to have infinite choices is the same as having no choice at all, in my view at least. Now, since I have proved, again at least to myself, that given the situation I have no other choice but a choice of my own. I therefore choose myself as that ’anything in the natural world that has design’ and therefore a reason itself in the argument in favour of the existence God.
Do I need to say more? I think therefore I am, but what am I? I am not certain, even though I am certain that I am, I am not certain about all the question that are appended to my knowledge of my being. If I cannot deny with all my knowledge the fact of my own humble existence then how can I with all my knowledge I can deny what is so believable in the mind. I can ether say that there is God, or I stay quite!
This is quite an old approach to arguing for God's existence. It's not bad; it's just been around for a long time. Anything designed argues for a designer. Evolution tries to say that it all happened by chance over a very long period of time. The long period of time is supposed to make up for the improbability of it happening at all via chance. Science does not offer any better evidence for evolution and what caused the Big Bang than Christianity does for God creating it, in fact to a lot of us, a great deal less evidence or none at all.
Don't left arrogant science worshippers put down your efforts. for example, one answerer above wrote that you could go back 3000 years and argue for a Designer. He didn't mention that there are notable scientist that believe in God, did he?
Don't left arrogant science worshippers put down your efforts. for example, one answerer above wrote that you could go back 3000 years and argue for a Designer. He didn't mention that there are notable scientist that believe in God, did he?
I
I <3 Brownies
Guest
Go for William Paleys watchmaker analogy. He was walking through a field one day when he came across a stone and compared it to the world. He then compared the world to a watch and said that the world is so intracately designed that it must have an intelligent designer i.e. God.
Uncle Remus 54
New member
What exists in man's universe? Intelligence life and nonlife.
And within man's intelligent mind is the realm of ideas that have no place in the physical universe. They do not need the physical universe in order for them to exist. Instead ideas need man to recognize their intangible existence.
These are undeniable attributes of the universe that man intelligently acknowledge.
From where did existence get these attributes that man recognize?
I say God.
And within man's intelligent mind is the realm of ideas that have no place in the physical universe. They do not need the physical universe in order for them to exist. Instead ideas need man to recognize their intangible existence.
These are undeniable attributes of the universe that man intelligently acknowledge.
From where did existence get these attributes that man recognize?
I say God.
Honestly, i hesitate to offer suggestions, since any such argument would be completely disingenuous. Replace "god" with Odin, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, Amerasu, or whatever and it becomes an argument for THEIR existence. What does that accomplish?
If you are doing this as an exercise in debate class or something, then just take anything (birth, death, lightning, earthquakes, whatever), remove all thoughts of science and reason from your mind, and think of how someone 3,000 years ago might have explained it.
If you are doing this as an exercise in debate class or something, then just take anything (birth, death, lightning, earthquakes, whatever), remove all thoughts of science and reason from your mind, and think of how someone 3,000 years ago might have explained it.