Has anyone read William Paley's "The Watchmaker"?

Paley's argument is a non sequitur. Essentially, he's saying that because everything of human origin has a maker, natural objects must have a maker too.

It's an argument from personal incredulity. All it says is I think that looks designed, therefore it is designed, therefore god did it. We know watches are designed because humans design watches. You can't extrapolate that to natural phenomena.

It's an argument from personal incredulity. All it says is I think that looks designed, therefore it is designed, therefore god did it. We know watches are designed because humans design watches. You can't extrapolate that to natural phenomena.

It's horrible. Stones are natural. Watches are not. He is looking at an object that was designed and concluding that because someone designed a watch, everything that exists must have a designer. How he makes that tragic leap of bad logic, I have no idea. How the faithful seem to think it is a solid argument, well it goes to show their capacity for logic.

It's horrible. Stones are natural. Watches are not. He is looking at an object that was designed and concluding that because someone designed a watch, everything that exists must have a designer. How he makes that tragic leap of bad logic, I have no idea. How the faithful seem to think it is a solid argument, well it goes to show their capacity for logic.

1802? Who cares what anyone said 210 years ago? Anyway, it is a very bad analogy - watches cannot spontaneously appear out of nowhere - they are made by people. "Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation." <<<<< This is simply his opinion about what he desperately wants to believe and it is untrue.

The argument has also been rejected as it leads to anthropomorphism. It says that God is like a human and therefore is limiting God. This is not compatible with an infinite and unlimited God. In our experience, things of some intricacy need a designer, but our experience is limited. Hume rejected it for this reason. “There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted …….No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in such an absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so anxious concerning their future fortune, should immediately acknowledge a dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment and intelligence. The unknown causes, which continually employ their thought, appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or species.”

The argument has also been rejected as it leads to anthropomorphism. It says that God is like a human and therefore is limiting God. This is not compatible with an infinite and unlimited God. In our experience, things of some intricacy need a designer, but our experience is limited. Hume rejected it for this reason. “There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted …….No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in such an absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so anxious concerning their future fortune, should immediately acknowledge a dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment and intelligence. The unknown causes, which continually employ their thought, appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or species.”

1802? Who cares what anyone said 210 years ago? Anyway, it is a very bad analogy - watches cannot spontaneously appear out of nowhere - they are made by people. "Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation." <<<<< This is simply his opinion about what he desperately wants to believe and it is untrue.