DOES GOD EXIST?

1. DOES GOD EXIST? • THE DESIGN ARGUMENT. • The Watchmaker

2. THE ARGUMENT • The argument states that when we look around us we see observations in nature that attest to a intelligent designer. Whether in single cells or in the universe itself.

3. THE HISTORY • The Design argument for God is also called the Teleological argument. Telos is Greek for purpose. • Thus Teleological is the study of a things purpose. • The design argument predates Christianity, with Plato and Aristotle arguing for the existence of God with it.

4. WILLIAM PALEY • IN 1802 William Paley published what is probably the most famous articulation of the argument. • This is where the watch Maker story comes from.

5. 3 EXAMPLES • THE FINE TUNING OF THE UNIVERSE (Order as design) • DNA (Order as information) • IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY (Order as complexity)

6. THE FINE TUNING OF THE UNIVERSE (Order as design) • The universe has a great deal of precision. • The degree of precision is so great that to alter many of the parameters even slightly would destroy life as we know it.

7. SOME EXAMPLES • If the axial tilt of the earth was greater or less, the surface temperature would be to harsh to support life. • If the distance of the earth from the sun was greater or less the earth would be to hot or to cold to support life.

8. If the earths crust was thicker, to much oxygen would be transferred from the atmosphere to the crust. But if the crust was thinner, there would be to much volcanic activity. • If gravity was stronger, the atmosphere would retain too much ammonia and methane, which is poisonous. But if gravity was less, the atmosphere would lose to much water.

9. DNA (Order as information) • If we see a rock that has been shaped by erosion of say the wind we might see some kind of order to it, but the order would be a product of chance and random factors. • But if we saw a statue, we would not say the same thing. We would notice a specific complexity, that had to have been made by an intelligent designer.

10. IS THERE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE? • MY CAR IS IN THE SHOP GETTING REPARED. IT HAS NOT BEEN RUNNING VERY WELL. THE MECHANIC TELLS ME THAT I WILL NEED A NEW ENGINE AND THAT IT WILL COST TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS TO FIX. • IF YOU ANSWERED “NO” YOU ARE CORRECT.

11. WHAT IS INFORMATION? • Information is communication between minds. • But in order for minds to communicate there must be a common language . • The language must exist and be understood prior to any ability to communicate.

12. TOKENS • Every language is a set of tokens. • A token stands in for something intangible. • Example: the number “1” is not really an actual number. “1” is a token or symbol representing the number “1” which is a non-physical entity. • There are no actual letters on this page, simple tokens representing letters.

13. THE POINT. • The rules of language were established before we could use them to communicate even on the most primitive level. • A designer had to have created the language that we use tokens (symbols) to communicate with.

14. If you are eating your alphabet soup and the letters in your bowl spelled “I LOVE YOU” you would immediately understand that it is not a communication from another mind. Your soup is not declaring its passionate affection for you. • It would contain no information. (information is communication between minds).

15. VIRGIN TOAST • When you are on E-Bay, you should not bid on a grilled cheese sandwich that contains the face of the virgin Mary. There is no mind behind the alleged image. • Sold for $28,000

16. DNA • Understanding of DNA has given new force behind the argument for design based information. • That DNA contains information is not disputed. • It stores and retrieves information, corrects any errors when it copies itself, contains redundant information so that if a gene mutates it can be turned off and not cause any damage, is expressible in mathematical terms (its digital), and contains as much information as an average volume of an encyclopedia.

17. IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY (Order as complexity) • Some things are as simple as they could be and still function. • They are so simple, that if any part was missing they would not function. • They had to have been created just as they are, or they would not have survived, or they would not have had any purpose.

18. MOUSETRAP. • Which part of the mouse trap can be removed and still leave you with a functioning mouse trap? • Nothing can be removed without completely disabling the mechanism.

20. TACTICAL NOTE. • Understand that the design argument does not prove that Christianity alone is true (we will get to that later), but the God described in the Bible is consistent with the intelligent designer described in the argument. • Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all describe an intelligent designer. Eastern religions have no place for such a being, as we will show later.

21. CONCLUSION • The different approaches to the design argument all try to show the same thing: that naturalism can only account for so much; at a certain point its powers fail. • The precision of the universe, the nature of information, and the observation that random and undirected forces cannot account for the complexity of living things all lead to a transcendent, personal, intelligent designer.