The question about the existence of God has been an unsolved argument for generation. Philosophers and other researchers have debated to explain why each claims their side of the argument. The belief that there is no God or a supreme maker is known as atheism. I cannot just look at the planets, trees, rivers and the sea, sun, moon, stars, and the universe and say that no one made them, yet some scientists and philosophers do and support their argument with their evidence. If our cars, houses, dresses, phones, laptops, airplanes did not make themselves, then it is logical to conclude that there must be someone who made the universe .There must be someone who made the earth, trees, animals, stars and everything else. Can one look at the world and everything in it and conclude that no one has put these things in their place?. If I am to say that your car made itself or your shirt popped into existence and that no one made them, would you believe me?
William
Paley (1743-1805 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paley.
In the design argument looked at the complexity of the human
eye and concluded that they might have been made
by someone. So we can conclude that something as complex as the world might have been
made by a supreme being. There have been some critics of the design argument by the
philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) in his Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding. Some authors claim that the design argument does not support Monotheism-
the view that there is only one God. this critics further ask questions such as, why would the
world not at least have been designed or created by a team of
lesser gods who worked together. I believe that
even if the world was created by a group of lesser gods, there might be one
boss in charge of the group and that person is what we call God.
http://www.desy.de/gna/interpedia/greek_myth/olympian.html
The Greek Methodology was a group of 12 gods
who work after they overthrew the Titans.
Because there were no supervision or that one boss among them each god
wanted to rule and in the end causing them to disappear. Just like the school or an institution the
student, faculty members work together as a team but there is this one boss
called the President who is in charge of all the activities of the faculty
member and student body. If there is no supervisor, faculty members might do
their own thing or teach something different other than the course the
requirement just as the 12 god did in the Greek Methodology and for that matter
we all needs directions from someone in order to succeed in one way or the other.
The God who created the world might not have all the attributes giving to him
by Christians or Muslims but it does not mean that no supreme power was behind
the creation. He/she might have worked with smaller god and an example could be
angels. I believe that we all think
about God whether we have belief in him/her or not and for that matter. I believe
that we cannot look at our cars and building conclude that no one made them so therefore
we cannot not look at the universe and conclude that no one made it.
The Greek Methodology was a group of 12 gods
who work after they overthrew the Titans.
Because there were no supervision or that one boss among them each god
wanted to rule and in the end causing them to disappear. Just like the school or an institution the
student, faculty members work together as a team but there is this one boss
called the President who is in charge of all the activities of the faculty
member and student body. If there is no supervisor, faculty members might do
their own thing or teach something different other than the course the
requirement just as the 12 god did in the Greek Methodology and for that matter
we all needs directions from someone in order to succeed in one way or the other.
The God who created the world might not have all the attributes giving to him
by Christians or Muslims but it does not mean that no supreme power was behind
the creation. He/she might have worked with smaller god and an example could be
angels. I believe that we all think
about God whether we have belief in him/her or not and for that matter. I believe
that we cannot look at our cars and building conclude that no one made them so therefore
we cannot not look at the universe and conclude that no one made it. 
Thanks, John. I know you've been working hard on this, and that philosophizing in a relatively-unfamiliar language isn't easy.
ReplyDeleteI confess that I continue to find Hume's response to Paley compelling, and Darwin's eventual reinforcement decisive. But Darwin also said that the whole God question is finally too large for the mind of man, and I'm inclined to agree that no final and coercive resolution is available. Meanwhile, we'll all continue to believe what we think we must, in order to make sense of our lives and experiences.
Looking forward to your next installment!
The watch analogy is hopeless. Experience tells us that watches always have makers, but experience is silent as to what causes universes. Indeed, in so far as experience tells us anything at all about natural objects, it is that they grow organically and do not emerge from some cosmic workshop. All this Hume argued a century before Darwin came up with a decent answer to how complex life actually emerged.
ReplyDeleteEven if you did think that for some reason the universe had to have had a creator, the only attribute you would be entitled to attribute to it would inconceivably great power. "The supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis," said Hume. It is too big a jump from the conclusion that there must be intelligent design behind the universe to the claim that such a designer is one being, personal in nature, benevolent, or even worthy of worship.
These same arguments are just as powerful today as they were in 1748. Contemporary Intelligent Design theory may be much sophisticated than its eighteenth century ancestor, but it is just as vulnerable to Hume's argument. Even if it could be shown that there are aspects of certain organisms which could not have emerged through Darwinian natural selection, that does not justify us attributing to its actual cause any purpose, intention or foresight, let alone the specific features of the Judaeo-Christian God. Hume puts it succinctly:
"You find certain phenomena in nature. You seek a cause or author. You imagine that you have found him. You afterwards become so enamoured of this offspring of your own brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene of things, which is so full of ill and disorder."
Human beings are far too prone to such anthropomorphic imaginings. Hume is advocating a more modest approach to life's big questions. When experience has nothing to tell us about why things are the way they are, it is better to accept the limits of our knowledge than it is to try to extend it by use of analogies we have no reason to suppose hold. Like Hume, we use reason best when we appreciate its limits.
Julian Baggini
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/20/religion-philosophy-hume
Darwin’s work is usually viewed as undermining natural theology by replacing Paley’s model of an ingeniously designed creation with a theory of functional adaptations, acquired through a process of random variation, and then accumulated through natural selection.
ReplyDeleteDarwin’s own view, presented in his Autobiography, seems to support this:
The old argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Autobiography, p. 50
Yet Darwin’s beliefs about the role of a Creator changed over time...
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin-and-design-article