What are some of your favourite responses to the watchmaker argument? Either from yourself or others you've heard. Asking because it gets exhausting repeating myself after a while, though I still do it because I welcome dissent and debate and enjoy the act of intellectually engaging with another person. My arguments against the watchmaker argument have essentially evolved into either:
A: A short debunk followed by "and even if it were proof that a god exists, it only proves that the universe had a creator, not the creator you purport it to be
or
B: No debunk, instead, to preserve my sanity and not repeat myself for what surely would be the millionth time, entertaining the idea that the universe had a creator, and follow it up with the same "it only proves that the universe had a creator, not the creator you purport it to be"
What do I think if I find a watch laying on a path
Some clumsy bugger has given me some ebay stock.
Still doesn't prove there is a god, just careless people
People that use the watchmaker argument are looking at things backwards. They look at complexity and think that it couldn’t have happened on its own when they never even proved that it couldn’t. It’s arrogant.
Math can very easily get complex. That doesn’t mean a god created math. Because that shit will still be true with or without a deity. 1+1 will always equal 2 with or without god. Science, like math, can get complex too and it doesn’t require a deity. Science is simply following math.
Another point I’d like to make which I feel is on a similar subject is this: in any universe, there inevitably may be some form of life that arises. They will always think they are special when it just so happens that existence is large enough to allow it. It might be extremely unlikely for a particular person to win the lottery yet someone always does. Extremely unlikely things happen all the time.
Creationists think that a creator designed things that were fitted specifically for us when in actuality we evolved to fit those things, not the other way around.
I’m rambling now but I think that covers all the points I wanted to get across.
Just say that you agree and the creator is Insert a divinity from a religion that will make the believer in question spin And watch him using arguments that you can simply copy to your divinity.
After some time you show that
In the watchmaker argument you have parts of something you see and know about being assembled into something else. This is to appeal to your logic but evolution does not work that way.
OK, I was walking along one day and I found a bat wing. I knew instantly that this was proof of Batman.
It depends on what type of watchmaker is proposed. Is it a, A fundamentalist christian who says that all the species are immutable and therefore come straight out of the workplace? or b, An R&D watchmaker who sets up conditions that they know will lead to a good watch then lets everything just happen?
In other words, do they say that god created everything wholesale or was evolution his method?
The former is easy to dispel. Fossil evidence showing the development of species which do not appear in the same time line as each other. I need not go into darwinism here except to add malaria and earthworms. One has evolved to stay alive despite all of mans attempts to eradicate it. The other has evolved to survive in toxic environments thus becoming a new species in our timeline.
The latter is harder to dispel but here goes. When looking at this we are in a similar predicament as some chess nuts I heard of. What they do is look at a chess position that may be in a photo on a magazine or somewhere. Then they then try and recreate a game that could have plausibly led to that position. (You think that youre nerdy lol). If so then there are a lot of discarded pieces in this game. Dinosaurs, neathatals and countless others that have not made the cut. It also presupposes the game is over, when it is not. Pieces are still being discarded and we may very likely be one of them. Are we then protected somewhat like the king and never taken? It would seem to asque the whole point of evolution if we were to be invulnerable to its most effective tool? So what part of our dominion over the earth that the bible tells is ours accounts for our possible destruction? The proposition that all this was done so that we may end up where we are is convoluted at best. Much more plausible is that we could have had an infinite number of positions and this was just the one we got to here and now.
Concentrate on biology; we’re all related, we randomly mutate, and it’s those mutations (over time most humans can’t comprehend) that have led to every living thing. We’ve evolved, we’re not static; consider the fossil record, explain the hominids having lived before us…
I walk away from useless discussions.
But what is the fun of doing this =).
Sometimes you just want to see the world burn XD
@Pedrohbds You are young! I am old and quite worn out from useless discussions and confrontations that do not lead anywhere.
@Spinliesel fight on the mud with a pig and a useless discussion with me, when you are tired after a lot of time, you understand that your opponent like it XD.
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? Douglas Adams
Yer 19, why aren't you out being wild and discovering the world? I'd be disappointed if my lads were chatting to a load of middle aged ppl online. There is no god...go and enjoy being 19.
...part of what sparked my atheism was having listened to such debates on the occasional bus ride home from college.. Let him rip
I usually ask them, along with any other argument, if that was the argument that made them believe, or if they believed before they heard the watch argument. I think most people would say that wasn't the argument that convinced them. Them just keep asking what it is. The truth is, no one logics themselves from the arguments into Christianity, it usually comes down to feeling, emotion, maybe they would say personal relationship. Then I have the conversation about that.