This very typical JW "logic" is easy to debunk. It consists entirely of bad analogies, straw men and false conclusions.
: Wickedness does not in itself prove that God does not exist. To illustrate: A man may design a knife to be used to carve meat. A customer may purchase the knife and use it, not to carve meat, but to commit murder. The fact that the knife was misused in no way disproves the existence of its maker. Similarly, the fact that the earth has not been used in harmony with its intended purpose does not mean that it did not have a Creator.
This is known as the straw man argument: set up a hypothetical situation somewhat like the one you want to argue against, but easy to knock down; knock it down and pretend the real situation has been dealt with.
Here the straw man is substituting an object designed for extremely generalized use for an object or situation that is unrelated. A knife is a specific object designed for the general act of cutting. Obviously, almost anything can be cut with a knife. But the earth is not an object that can be demonstrated to have been designed to do a specific job on general objects. It's an extremely generalized system (although it's easy to argue that it's not even a system with a designed purpose) with what can be argued to be a huge number of purposes. Obviously, the Society's comparison fails.A more apt comparison would substitute an AK-47 automatic rifle for the knife. Clearly, an AK-47 has no purpose other than to kill people. Simply substitute "AK-47" for "knife" in the Awake! argument, and you'll see the point.
This false argumentation is easy to see with another straw man the Society has used on occasion to "prove" that predators weren't been designed to eat other animals. Their idea is that God designed predators to be herbivores, but after Adam sinned, they somehow turned to eating other animals. They illustrate this with the gorilla, which has big canine teeth and eats vegetation. They argue that cats could similarly eat only vegetation, but for unknown reasons now prefer meat. But this ignores the fact that cats are unable to synthesize a necessary amino acid and must get it exclusively from the meat they eat, because this particular amino acid is not found in any vegetation.
The fact is that cats, if designed by a creator at all, were designed to eat meat. So were plenty of other predators. The muscle and nerve toxins produced by poisonous snakes illustrates this. If these creatures were designed, then according to Watchtower reasoning, God designed them. This contradicts a number of Watchtower teachings, including the notion that the Christian God is a loving creator concerned with the well-being of all his creatures. So much for the Society's straw man.
The purpose of the straw man argument is to fool one's audience because they're ignorant of enough facts to see through the false analogy.
: The Swedish man mentioned earlier was moved when he saw the suffering of fellow humans. Really, his tender concern for others confirms the existence of God. How so?
Another false argument is coming right up.
: For most people, the only alternative to belief in God is belief in evolution. Evolutionists teach "survival of the fittest"—that humans and animals compete within their kinds for survival. The fittest live; the weakest die. That is the natural order of things, they say. But if it is "natural" for the weak to die in order to make room for the strong, how can we explain the fact that, like the Swedish man, some strong humans are moved at the sight of the suffering of their fellowman?-Awake!
A basic tenet of evolution, as taught today, is indeed "survival of the fittest". But the Society's presentation of that is another straw man. "Fittest" doesn't necessarily apply only to individuals, but demonstrably applies to populations in a number of ways. Humans survive better in groups, and so do plenty of other creatures. In modern terms, "fittest" means fit in the sense of passing on one's genes to the next generation. If "noble" behavior, in terms of sacrificing individual needs for the group or other individuals, results on average in better survival for one's genes, then that is behaving according to "survival of the fittest". But Watchtower writers are too ignorant (and often dishonest) to account for such subtlties, and only use transparently stupid false arguments to prove their points to the equally ignorant.
AlanF
