Why 'Life Had To Have Been Designed' Is a Terrible Justification for God's Existence

Design
“Just look around you. Look at life, and the universe, and everything. Doesn’t it seem like it had to have been designed?”

A lot of arguments for religion are very bad indeed. A lot of arguments for religion aren’t even arguments: they’re deflections, excuses for why the believer isn’t making an argument, bigoted insults, expressions of wishful thinking, complaints that atheists are mean bad people to even ask for an argument, heartfelt wishes that atheists would just shut up.

But some believers do take the question “Why do you believe in God?” seriously. Some believers don’t want to believe just out of blind faith or wishful thinking; they care about whether the things they believe are true, and they think that the question “What evidence do you have to support this belief?” is a valid one. And they think they have good answers for it. They think they have positive evidence for their spiritual beliefs, and they’re happy to explain that evidence and defend it.

The argument from design — the argument that life had to have been designed, because it just looks so much like it was designed — leads the list of these answers. According to Michael Shermer’s How We Believe, the argument from design is the single most common reason that religious believers give for why they believe.

So since these people are taking atheists’ questions about their religion seriously, I want to return the favor, and take their religious answer seriously.

And I want to talk about why this is really, really not a good answer. At all. Even a little bit.

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Thus begins my latest piece on AlterNet: Why ‘Life Had To Have Been Designed’ Is a Terrible Justification for God’s Existence. To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

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Why 'Life Had To Have Been Designed' Is a Terrible Justification for God's Existence
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6 thoughts on “Why 'Life Had To Have Been Designed' Is a Terrible Justification for God's Existence

  1. 1

    Pff, obviously if life was the product of a designer, it would most likely be Bastet having designed humans to serve catkind.
    Otherwise, why should I tolerate a moggy sitting on my lap purring when it makes it so difficult typing on the laptop’s keyboard?

  2. 3

    Great article, as always. I hope that you are paid A LOT of money from alternet. The commenters there make me want to reconsider my position on forced sterilization for idiots.

  3. 4

    Sometimes, when reading your articles about “Shut up, that’s why” arguments I wonder who you are arguing against. I then read the alter-net comments and realise.
    I’ve half a mind to do a tally. The two most common seem to be “You can’t prove it with 100% certainty” and “It’s rude to even try to convince anyone of anything”.

  4. D A
    6

    David Ashton, your name is only two letters different than mine, and in fact my mom once suggested I change my name to David Ashton to avoid annoying mispronunciations.
    On topic, it could be worse, commenter wise. I mean, yeah, they’re awful but not as obnoxious as say, Jezebel or Slate (just to pick two recent reads).

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