Dear Athiests.... just want your respectful opinion/views...?

Question

I am being respectful in my question, so I assume and expect the answerers to be respectful in their answers too.

Here is my question:

Before you type any further, move your eyes from the monitor and look around you. A number of things, objects, equipments may be placed around the room where you are currently at, from the truly amazing electronic machines like the computer itself, a refrigerator, a T.V etc. to the minor everyday objects like, say, a pencil, a paperclip, a tableclock etc.

It is definitely true that each and every objects that you see has a creator or an inventor behind it, wouldn't you agree?

So why wouldn't a human body, something so complex and so amazing, have a Creator?

Or why wouldn't this beautiful planet with all the trees, mountains, oceans, animals etc. have a Creator?

(This is a piece of intellectual question obtained from a speech of the late Ahmed Deedat.)

Answer 1

This is an old argument. my friend.... and one that is invalid. I'll explain why. It's a logical fallacy, I'll give you the link to the website, too.

This argument is a false analogy or syllogism. It's like saying all dogs have toenails, and all people have toenails, therefore all people are dogs.

See how silly it looks when we just substitute another example in the same format?

I mean this with all respect... please read the logical fallacy site, and be sure to look for them in your examples when you are discussing religion.

Edit: It's easy to imagine disrespect when reading typed words... this is meant in a kind and respectful way.

Answer 2

There are really two points to this question. You acknowledge a creator and view the world as a created object. As to the existance of a creator--a God-the existance or non-existance of a God is a premise which can never be proved. The basic assumption for or against--is one which must be taken on faith as no proof is possible. The bigger arguement has to do with creation. Either the world was created by a snap of the creators fingers--or the world was created via the big bang, stellar evolution, evolution of life according to observable fundamental physical processes governed by basic phsyical laws. While this second position is often ascribed to as an atheist position--many people who believe in a supreme being believe a creator may have utilized those physical laws and process to ultimately create the world. If the creator knew at the beginning that this would all turn out as it is today by utilizing natural processes--that act of creation is almost more elegant than "snapping his fingers". The true arguement has to do not so much with the existance or non-existance of a creator--but with actual fundamental process of creation.

Answer 3

Then who created the creator? If this creator is above that, why not the universe? You seem to say that complex "functioning" structures don't come out of nowhere... But you don't. Also-
Our technology, for now at least, produces rather static objects, while life-forms can breed and change. They survive, because if their forms didn't allow them to survive, we wouldn't be seeing them today wondering about it.
As to non-living natural structures, we can see patterns that suggest a natural origin, a growth from something simple. Which is, even by itself, a more logical concept than a whole god always existing.

Technology is the product of intelligence. Intelligence is the product of the more stable things that emerged out of chaos.

Answer 4

This is a common argument, and I can see how it tends to make sense to some people.

The biggest problem with created complexity, is that it doesn't end.

For instance. The computer you and I are using is complex therefore it must have been created right? So humans created computers and we know they required creation because they are complex. Looking at humans, we can state that they are complex beings, and using Deedat's logic, we must assume that they were created by a more complex being. Allah or God if you like.

Now we run into the problem. Obviously, Allah or God, must be very complex, especially to have been responsible for the creation of our complex universe. If they are complex they must have been created, using Deedat's logic.

Most religious people try to get around this pitfall by stating that Allah or God are outside of time or their own creation. This is a logical u-turn that makes the original contention, that complexity requires creation, not true.

Looking around me, I see many man made items, but I can also see many things that were a result of mistakes. Glasses are the result of an experimental mistake. etc.... Most of the items you see when you look around you are actually the result of thousands of experiments and refinements that occurred as a result of mistakes and error. The computer you are using, exists after many years of advances caused by problems. The original computer is no longer used, because it was too big and too hot and too expensive. Therefor it has been discarded by us as practical. We are actually behaving just like nature does. Animals born with genes that create mutations that are not helpful for survival die off and are unsuccessful at procreation, so their genes are thinned in the gene pool. The Laws of Natural Selection provide the vehicle for things to become more complex, just like human need and invention continually creates more complex items, that we are using today.

The first human didn't create lighter to start fires with. That took many years of invention and need to happen. So did life. and everything you see around you.

Answer 5

Then who created God ?

And if you are going to tell me that God has just always existed, then why can't the Universe have always existed ?

I believe that matter can not be created or destroyed, that all the matter that exists has always existed and just change forms.

I believe that there is an innate intelligence exists in and through it all, that belief is basically called pantheism. So technically, I guess I"m not entitled to answer your question, but since some people consider pantheism to be a form of atheism, I answered.

You say "God", I say "the Universe".

Hope you don't think this is a "snarky" answer, because it isn't intended to be.

edited to add: I did a superficial search on the net for "bumblees can't fly" It appears that "science" never stated dogmatically that "bumblebees can't fly" but they wondered how it was possible due to the proportional smallness of their wings. They investigated further to find out HOW and WHY they could fly. Since one can observe bumblebees flying, it would be silly to say they can't. But the answer was studied SCIENTIFICALLY until they came up with an answer, instead of saying "God makes the bumblebees fly"

Answer 6

This was also a famous argument known as the "watchmaker argument" put forth by Pealey. It shows a limited understanding of the "design" shown in living systems and evolution. One could expect that a perfect designer would have done a better job in designing the human body which actually shows a number of areas where things which actually evolved haphazardly in piecemeal fashion have their drawbacks. Humans are prone to cataracts, diabetes, epilepsy, etc... all in part due to what would be considered very inefficient design if there were a designer behind it. The earth and the universe in general could have been designed in much more stable ways more beneficial to life and its continuence. As it is radical changes in the environment have led to mass extinctions. Our own planet will die someday as the source of life our sun dies.

Richard Dawkins also addressed the argument in his book "The Blind Watchmaker":

"Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of the day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind force of physics, albeit deplored in a special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future porpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

Answer 7

The things that I have around me were "created" by people who are actually existing. Those people have fathers and mothers and family. The things around me were made from pre-existing materials. (The makers did not just "poof" them into existence.)
When we're talking about the universe and nature, that's a completely different thing than man-made objects. Nature is something that just happens, on it's own. All the materials in the universe have always existed. Over eons, those things came together in such a way as to make life possible.

Answer 8

I looked around my desk at work. All the items on my desk have a creator.

I look at the images from the cameras I watch and see rivers, trees, etc. I see no reason to think that these have a creator. I know man did not dig that river, it was carved out over time by the strength of the water. Man did not make those hills, they were made by shifts in the winds and general movement of the land over time. Looking at the natural world gives me no reason to think there is a creator, only that there are general laws of nature. Everything here pales in comparison to what was not created by man. To me it seems illogical and revoltingly arrogant to assume that because we've created this crap that a higher being similar to us must have created us or any of the beautiful things Im seeing on these screens. I have no trouble dealing with humanity's lack of importance in the grand scheme of things. We werent put here by some God to do his work, we're here by chance and luck. Ive see no evidence to the contrary and everything I think, feel, and experience cements my belief that this is it.

Answer 9

If Ahmed Deedat was soooooooooo wise, why did God let him die so young?

EDIT

Two men are walking through the forest when they spot a vine - tied into a perfect knot - sitting on the ground. They look around and don't see any sign of anyone having been there: no foot prints, no broken branches, no litter, nothing. The skeptic concludes that the vine was hanging from a tree, a high wind tied it into a knot (it's possible, you know) and it broke off - falling to the ground. The Believer concludes that an invisible, powerful diety had done it. After all, he concludes, a "tied vine" implies the existence of a "tier" - the tier being God.
The Skeptic asks the Believer one question "Why was the vine tied into a knot?" and the Skeptic says "Only God knows..." The Believer then asks the Skeptic the same question and the Skeptic replies "A knot does not need a reason for being, it just is."

Answer 10

No, I know lots of Catholics who are nice people. My grandfather was a great person and a devout Catholic. My husband although he is an atheist now went to a Catholic school. I live in a Catholic country. I know quite a bit about it and Christianity in general. There is just nothing about the belief system that I find very plausible personally and I've never heard nor seen any good supporting evidence for the supernatural claims.

Answer 11

This question has been asked hundreds of times. You and I both know who we are talking about when we discuss "God": something with a mind like our own, something that listens when people pray, something that can suspend the laws of nature to effect "miracles".

I don't believe in this entity, and I never will, even if I did consider the possibility of a creative "intelligence".

If there had to be a deity, why not a goddess? Why not multiple gods? Or maybe it's not a god at all.