Teleological argument

[CJK]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

• 1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
  2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
  3. God is that intelligent being.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

[McCulloch]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
3. God is that intelligent being.
4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

Are you using this as an argument for the existence of God or as a proof for creationism|ID? ID tends to stop at step 2.

[CJK]

This is the established, creationist argument for the existence of God. I'd like to know how others feel about the reasoning involved.

[juliod]

Is it plausible?

No. It has unsupported premeses.



But you can instead write:

3. God is an example of X.

4. Therefore god was created by an intelligent being.

Not the same conclusion that creationists want you to make.

DanZ

[CJK]

I suppose no one is interested.

Occam's Razor is sufficient in debunking the reasoning.

[McCulloch]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
3. God is that intelligent being.
4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

Where to start?
Premise 1. Not true or proven. Therefore, 2 does not follow. 3 is a tautology, the universe must have been created by intelligence, we'll call that intelligence "God". Therefore, 4, even if it did follow, proves only a vague deist kind of god, certainly not the God preached by most creationists and ID advocates.

[QED]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

• 1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
  2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
  3. God is that intelligent being.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

1. X might look to be too complex to have occurred naturally, but upon what basis is such an assessment being made? It's usually made in ignorance of the existence of proven principles of self-organization that have been codified in the last 25 years. These principles give rise to the generation of design without intelligent input and operate through the logical interaction of natural materials.

2. would be reasonable given 1. But this requires that it can be demonstrated that X is neither man-made or natural, and as implied from the statement regarding 1. above, the latter requires a lot more than just looking at something and saying "hmm, that looks like it was designed".

However, for all practical purposes, 3. is a wholly unsupportable assertion. Man might very easily not be the only intelligence capable of making things in the universe. So 3. is only supportable if it can be demonstrated that no other intelligence in the universe could have made X.

4. Therefore rests on the outcome of this exhaustive search.

[Curious]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

• 1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
  2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
  3. God is that intelligent being.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

Point 1 must read X exists and all other points must follow it.

The argument is plausible but not for creationism. It could work for a watch but then all watchmakers would be considered as gods since no definition of god has been put forward in the argument other than the ability to make a complex thing (ie. a watch). If the watch exists then the watchmaker must also exist. Proving the watch could not be made naturally would be considerably harder than actually finding the watchmaker who would admit to making the watch.

[Cephus]

The teleological argument goes as follows;

• 1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
  2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being.
  3. God is that intelligent being.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

This is the core argument for creationism. Is it plausible?

It's a ludicrous argument that's easily disproven.

If the universe is too complex to have occurred without a creator, then God, who must be infinitely more complex, must have a creator. And that being must have had a creator. If you state that God doesn't need a creator, then neither does the universe.

So where is God's creator?

[Nirvana-Eld]

It could work for a watch but then all watchmakers would be considered as gods since no definition of god has been put forward in the argument other than the ability to make a complex thing (ie. a watch). If the watch exists then the watchmaker must also exist. Proving the watch could not be made naturally would be considerably harder than actually finding the watchmaker who would admit to making the watch.

I believe you are refering to William Paley's analogy. The one problem here is that your observation is irrelevant to the conclusion. I look at a mechanical pen and state that it is complex. So what? It sounds like your using Okham's Razor to get an easier answer to the problem of complexity. Then again, anyone can use Okham's Razor as they wish if you think about it.

The very first step of the proof is an assumption that has no evidence or real logic behind it. Why is it too complex? Since this question cannot be answered the rest fails. And even if it did, step four makes another disastrous assumption that God is this intelligence. Why not other intelligent life forms? Aliens could be smarter than us but you would never hear an ID advocate admit that this could be the designer.