The Design Argument For the existence of God

The Design Argument For the existence of God

Learning Objectives: • To understand Willliam Paley’s Watch Analogy; • To be able to explain counter arguments to this; • To give your own assessment of this argument. The Design Argument For the existence of God This is a twoweek Power. Point.

The Design Argument Hummingbird Task: For each of the following slides explain how parts of the body perform function. E. g. thea hummingbird has a long beak that enables drinking nectar from long flowers. It has feathers that allow flight; eyes that allow sight; lungs for breathing; a heart to carry oxygen to its body cells via the blood

The Design Argument Boxfish

The Design Argument Crocus

The Design Argument http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=_U 1 k. Pbvj 8 Q Bombardier Beetle

The Design Argument Bombardier Beetle This beetle has different chemicals stored in resistant chambers of its body. When they are mixed it causes a violent reaction that only the beetle

The Design Argument http: //www. youtu be. com/watch? v =45 yabrnry. Xk http: //www. youtu be. com/watch? v =K 1 vw. Hv. R 9 j. T 0 Jesus Christ Lizard

Plants and animals are incredibly complicated. They each have many different body parts and organs that perform all sorts of tasks. Each part is vital; if you take just one part away Believers argue that it is the creature ridiculously unlikely that all of dies. these very complicated creatures came about by accident; there must be an intelligent being who designed all of this.

The Design Argument Even just one organ – the human eye – has many parts that must all fit together perfectly or the human would be blind, even down to having the right type of Human Eye

The Design Argument William Paley, a philosopher educated in Yorkshire wrote a book called Natural Theology in 1802.

The Design Argument He asked his readers to imagine they were on a walk in the countryside in a field. William Paley Natural Theology 1802

The Design Argument You hit your foot against a stone. You don’t think anything of it because a stone is a simple thing with no particular purpose. William Paley Natural Theology 1802

However, you then see a pocket watch in the field. You wonder how it got there because it is a very complicated thing with many parts that have to fit together for the watch to work. If you take out just one small cog the whole thing will stop working. William Paley The Design Argument Natural Theology 1802

The pocket watch obviously has a designer. No sensible person would argue with that. William Paley then argued that animals and plants are extremely complicated with many parts like a watch has. Why, then, would we not think that they too have a designer, a type of supremely William Paley being? intelligent The Design Argument Natural Theology 1802

Paley argued that this designer is what we call God. He believed that there has to be a god because it’s just too unlikely that animals and plants just happened accidentally by natural causes. The Design Argument This is called William Paley … Natural Theology 1802

The Design Argument William Paley’s Watch Argument Natural Theology, 1802

Challenges to the Design Argument At this point open the file called ‘The Design Argument Challenges’ and read it. John Stuart Mill Charles Darwin

Challenges to the Design Argument John Stuart Mill 180673

Challenges to the Design Argument John Stuart Mill argued that if there was a designer he must be cruel because of the cruelty in nature. A cat naturally enjoys inflicting pain on a

Design Fault The mayfly lives for months as a larva but the adult form has no body parts for eating. Some adult females live only five minutes. Male adults live about one day.

Challenges to the Design Argument Charles Darwin The Origin of Species, 1859

Challenges to the Design Argument Darwin’s Theory of Evolution provided an explanation of life that did not necessarily require Charles Darwin The Origin of Species, 1859

Challenges to the Design Argument • At Cambridge University researched stellar nucleosynthesis (how atoms are made in stars) • Winner of the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal • Developed a more modern version of theory of Sir Fred Hoyle FRS 1915 -2001 evolution • From Yorkshire The Intelligent Universe, 1984 • Originally an atheist as we know by it is, his among other things, dependent on at least • ‘Life Persuaded discoveries 2000 different enzymes. How could the blind forces of the primal sea that carbon-based life forms manage to put together the correct chemical elements to build cannot have happened by

Challenges to the Design Argument According to Fred Hoyle's analysis, the probability of cellular life's arising from non-living matter (abiogenesis) was about one-in-1040, 000. ‘The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a Sir Fred Hoyle FRS tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 [airplane] from the materials therein. ’ The Intelligent Universe, 1984

The Design Argument Final Task: Answer the following question: ‘The Design Argument proves that God must really exist. ’ Do you agree? Give reasons for your view.