The Teleological Argument

[keep_it_real]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A teleological argument, or argument from design, is an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction—or some combination of these—in nature. The word "teleological" is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose. Teleology is the supposition that there is purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature.

Although there are variations, the basic argument can be stated as follows:

1. X is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
3. God is that sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
4. Therefore, God exists.

X usually stands for the universe, the evolutionary process, humankind, a given animal species, or a particular organ like the eye or capability like language in humans.

Plato (c. 427–c. 347 B.C.) posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work Timaeus.

Aristotle argued that all nature reflects inherent purposiveness and direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

[shain from kane]

1. "... sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being." Ok, but what's all that worshipping bit?

Wouldn't such a being know His place in life, but yet still feel the need to be worshipped?

[cosmik debris]

2. Well, that's just bat crap.

None of your three major premises are proved. Therefore your conclusion is not proved.

I thought it ironic that the creator of Aristotelian logic could make such a glaring error of confirmation bias. That is, he assumed "purposiveness and direction" and then found evidence to support his assumption.

[Jim__]

3. Why do you cite this argument?

Are you implying that its true? Hume and Kant put this argument to rest even before Paley raised it.

[keep_it_real]

5. I am looking for feedback on the argument

For example you're saying, "Hume and Kant put this argument to rest." So now I will look up Hume and Kant and see what they have to say about it. And I'm reading Hume now on the web. So thanks.

[Occam Bandage]

4. #1 and #3 are nonproven, nonprovable, and nonfalsifiable assertions.

[keep_it_real]

7. So you are saying the statement:

The universe, the human eye and all of nature is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally is a nonproven, nonprovable, and nonfalsifiable assertion? Is that correct?

[Occam Bandage]

9. Actually, you're right. I was hasty. The statement is nonproven, nonprovable, but yet

entirely falsifiable. One could simply present a theory as to how the human eye evolved without explicit design, and the statement would be rendered false. There are many such theories, and until they are all completely disproven, your statement as written is false.

[unpossibles]

6. thankfully no one really believes that. nt

[GodlessBiker]

8. Even if God existed to create the universe, what is the argument to show that he still exists.

[varkam]

10. Each of those premises makes gigantic assumptions

As a consequence, the entire argument falls apart once you look at it through the lens of argumentum ad ignorantiam. In other words, it seems somewhat reasonable to rely on that argument until science comes along and blows it out of the water.

As an example, for years creationists have posited the human eye as being entirely too complex to have come about as a result of evolution and natural selection. Recently, however, scientists have been able to trace the eye's evolutionary linage back to a relatively simple photosensitive cell in a hydra that could detect only detect the difference between light and dark.

Another point, though, is that it relies on subjective and fallible perceptions in order to make claims about the unknown. For example, what does it mean to say that something is complex? What does it mean to say that something is adaptive? What does it mean to say that something is beautiful?

Furthermore, even if it is generally agreed that X is complex, adaptive, or beautiful, then there's a giant leap in logic to assert that X must of been created by a sentient being. It makes the assumption that such a thing could not be accounted for by physical processes, which is really just naked ignorance.

[trotsky]

11. The pastalogical argument.

1. God is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
2. Therefore, God must have been created by an even more sentient, more intelligent, wiser, or more purposeful being.
3. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is that being.
4. Therefore, the FSM exists.

I await your conversion to Pastafarianism with my air-tight proof. After all, it's just as sound as yours.

[Duppers]

14. LOL

recommended. ;)

[Unvanguard]

12. The trouble is that natural law can and does create order on its own

so we don't need to explain it with an (even less explicable) omnipotent creator.

[uberllama42]

13. This argument is another example of our anthropocentric conceit

The suggestion that a complex universe must have been designed for our use by a demiurge is, at base, the same as the ancient assumption that one's own country is the center of the world. First we thought we were the geographical center of the universe, but we learned more about the shape of the world and found it wasn't true. We still thought that the earth was the center of the universe, until early astronomers showed that the earth in fact orbits the sun. But we still by and large imagined that we were the only solar system, the cosmological center of the universe.

After some time we came to understand that we are merely one star in a galaxy of millions and had no real claim to centrality. The discovery of other galaxies by Edwin Hubble was more or less redundant at that point. But some now assume that we are the teleological center of the universe. I don't see any evidence for that, and I think it's likely that as we learn more about physics, it will someday be clear to us that the universe exists for our benefit no more than it exists with us at its physical center.

Also, Aristotle likely fell victim to the brain's natural tendency to assign purposes to everything it observes. That's not surprising, since so many biological structures appear (superficially) to have been designed by an intelligent creator. Again, many of the things we have learned since Aristotle's day have shown this to be a specious observation. For instance, engineers have examined many structures in the human body and devised more efficient designs for them. A hypothetical synthetic red blood cell, for instance, could be hundreds of times as efficient in carrying oxygen as a natural one.