Hi everyone again,
Just to see if people can be bothered to reply to this; If JW's argument for the existence of God is 'Just look around you, look at how beautifal and amazing it all is, it MUST have been created!!', why do they then not carry that argument on and say 'which means the creator of this amazing planet must be even more amazing, and therefore MUST have DEFINATELY been created!!'????
Instead when I asked that question, they just said 'well, u know, if u carry on asking questions like that, u'll end up spinning around in circles, u have to just accept that Jehovoid has lived forever', for me it's easier to accept that the world evolved than it is to believe that God has lived forever!!.
If u ask questions, you're doubting your faith- brainwashing technique or good Christian advice-I dunno?!!?!?
C ya's
Chris
I'm just bein' silly
by chrisauld 3 Replies latest jw friends
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chrisauld
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Skimmer
The "Argument by Design" holds that:
1) There is a great deal of regularity in the universe.
2) Regularity implies a designer.
Note that the argument does not require the designer to be part of the universe. Therefore, the designer does not have to have ever been part of the spacetime continuum. As far back at the tenth century (From Boethius, a monk), we have explicit commentary on how God is outside of time and so there is no real "before" or "after" for God, at least with respect to our reference frame. It is like when an author creates a novel: he sees it all at once, although the characters within the novel could be said to experience a flow of time in their frame.
God is not a created being; to claim otherwise would imply a past or future for God in our frame of reference.
On a personal level, the design argument appears very strong. Atheistic arguments against it are unconvincing as the best they can do is argue that the particular arrangement of physical laws is due to chance.
My version of the design argument goes like this. Here in the United States, the most common pencil used is the Faber #2. Each of them comes in the same color, length, and mass; each operates in the same way. Any person going through the twelve or so years of public education in the US has seen hundreds of these Faber #2 pencils. The proposition is that somewhere there is some common source for these pencils. Maybe there is a single Faber #2 factory or there might be dozens of them, but at some point there was a Faber #2 pencil factory designer. It may be that examination of a Faber #2 will not immediately reveal the location of the pencil factory or the identity of the designer. Yet it would be perverse to claim that the commonality of the old Faber #2 pencil was due to chance or was just unexplainable; Occam's Razor shaves away those objections.
Instead of Faber #2 pencils, think of electrons. Each of them comes in the same charge, size, and mass; each behaves in the same way. There are uncounted octillions of them. The electron factory is generally held to be the universal electromagnetic metric field which pops out electrons under specific physical conditions. The parameters of the electron factory are the fixed physical constants such as the speed of light, the lepton family mass ratios, the strength ratios between the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear forces, etc. If the parameters of the electron factory were somewhat different, none of the higher level structures like atoms, stars, and life would be possible. To claim that there is no designer of the electron factory is as perverse as saying that the Faber #2 pencil factory was also due to chance.
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Flip
To claim that there is no designer of the electron factory is as perverse as saying that the Faber #2 pencil factory was also due to chance.
per·verse
adj.1. Directed away from what is right or good; perverted.
2. Obstinately persisting in an error or fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn.Interesting choice of word, Skimmer,...Freudian slip?
Flip
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Skimmer
The particular choice of word "perverse" was taken from a similar usage in the well recommended text _Handbook of Christian Apologetics_. An alternative would be to use the word "stupid", but "perverse" better gives the sense of "turning away from common practice".