GPLindsey

I had a discussion with a Christian not too long ago about whether the universe shows signs of design. She spoke of the orderly way that the moons circle planets, planets circle stars, stars circle galaxy hubs, etc.--thus a God had to be behind it all! Those events were true, I said, but what about asteroids crashing into planets, stars exploding, galaxies colliding and ripping each other apart, the universe's expansion into emptiness--doesn't that look purposeless and chaotic? NO, she says, that is also design!!! All these events create new patterns, which are also part of God's design. But then why did he bother to create the initial pattern in the first place--why didn't he just leap ahead to what he wanted to achieve??? Etc. Etc.

Basically, her viewpoint was that the clockwork regularity of the universe is evidence of design, and the chaotic irregularity of the universe is also evidence of design. What am I missing here--how can Christians argue that both order and chaos are evidence of design?

Abacus

You have to remember that Christians (and Muslims, Jews, etc.) believe the universe was created. Therefore, everything, by definition, is a product of design. Of course, this claim is unfalsifiable.

Brian63

The problem with that argument was refuted well by Hume, in my opinion.

To use the infamous "watch analogy," we can conclude that a watch was designed (and thus requires a designer) because we have previous experiences with watches (and other known man-made machines), and we know that they are man-made (man being the designer).

It is a mistake to carry that reasoning to the universe itself though. If a person somehow was able to travel to other universes, in which it is known that that particular universe has a designer, and did it for many many universes, while observing the characteristics unique to "designed universes," they could come back to our universe, and if they see those same unique characteristics of our universe, they could infer that ours is designed and thus requires a designer.

Unfortunately, nobody has traveled to other universes and thus cannot claim that our universe has characteristics that we can conclude must have been designed.

(Hume said it much more eloquently than I could have though)

Brian

Undercurrent

I might add to that that the only objects we know are designed (cars, buildings, computers, aerosol cheese-food products) look nothing like a great many things in the universe (stars, planets, trees, penguins.) To assert that the latter are designed, too, when they don't even resemble those things we know to be designed is silly.

m.

GPLindsey

The watchmaker argument also has a problem in that it has a chicken/egg aspect. The ancients noticed that the sun, moon, and planets move about with some regularity. The predictability of the sun allowed them to make sun dials to divide the day into even parts, so that people could plan their activities. Unfortunately, sun dials didn't work at night, so they invented water clocks and sand clocks. Then the catch/escape mechanism for clocks was invented, and before you knew it there were big tower clocks in the center of towns across Europe.

Then some philosopher looked up in the sky and said, "My, isn't it remarkable how much the movement of the heavenly bodies are like the regularity of a clock?" Well Duh!!

Roger

Have any of you guys heard of the "Chaos Theory"?

Abacus

Sure. What about it?

Skepticwithachainsaw

Yeah one thing I find interesting about the watchmaker analogy is that people say that a watch is blatantly ordered so it must have an intelligent creator, likewise the universe is complex and ordered and so must have an intelligent creator.

However they assume that the Watch is different from nature in that it is ordered, surely implying that nature isn't ordered and so doesn't have a creator...

Abacus

And besides, conscious forces aren't required to create order. Look at gravity and the solar system, or the electromagnetic force and ice crystals. I don't think anybody would consider the fundamental forces to be intelligent.

Synaesthesia

Random Number Generator,

Actually you are incorrect. There are indeed people who believe consciousness to be the fundamental composition of the universe. Hence fundamental forces like gravity, electromagnatism and stupidity are all attributed to it.