Why is a \"designer\" so compelling? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by John Clinch , Friday, August 07, 2009, 12:29 (5374 days ago) @ xeno6696

For what it's worth, I completely agree with the thrust behind your question. The argument "life is too complex therefore there must have been a designer" is a breathtaking non-sequitur. dhw woud doubtless retort that he is not saying that it must have had a designer, merely that it may have, but this doesn't get him off the hook. - As Dawkins and others have pointed out, this means that a designer must be at least as complex as what he designed and then you get into infinite regress: "who designed the designer?" and so on. It's turtles all the way down! - In the early days of this site, I was fond of making the "god-of-the-gaps" argument which was, in my 'umble opinion, never rebutted adeqautely. The gist of the response was that this gap is really, really special. This time, it's different. Oh-oh! Those seeking to shoe-horn a designer (ok, dwh, the possibility of one) into the ever-shrinking gaps in biology will come unstuck, of that we can be reasonably confident. They may be happy making their religion such a hostage to fortune but, if I were a theist, I'd want something a lot less vulnerable to explanation, something far grander and more ineffable - if only from an aesthetic point of view.