The Watchmaker Argument

 This was posted on a Muslim forum

Suppose you find a watch in the middle of a desert. What would you conclude? Would you think that someone dropped the watch? Or would you suppose that the watch came by itself?

It depends. Have I ever seen a watch before? If not then I would think it is another piece of nature. If yes, I would know the machines and processes required to produce a watch and I have possibly even been in a watch factory and have watched many of these instruments being manufactured.

Of course no sane person would say that the watch just happened to emerge from the sand. All the intricate working parts could not simply develop from the metals the lay buried in the earth. The watch must have a manufacturer.

No, this is not correct. Why would anyone jump to conclusions just because something is lying in the sand? There are multiple assumptions and preconditions which must be met to make this true. Sorry. The label "intricate working" is a human label. Humans are not able to define terms such as "order" and "intricate working". They are subjective and based on previous experience. We have no previous experience of a "non-orderly" vs. an "orderly" Universe.

We know what a watch is and know it requires a watch-maker. We also know what a tree is and know it does not require a tree-maker. We know what planets are, and stars. We know galaxies and know they don't require a planet-maker or star-maker or galaxy-maker. So by what logic can we assign a Universe-maker to the Universe simply because we don't yet know what happened at the Big Bang?

If a watch tells accurate time we expect the manufacturer must be intelligent. Blind chance cannot produce a working watch.

The next jump. No, not true. Time measurement is a human invention and human development has enabled non-intelligent robots assembling watches. What is true is that a watch is unable to produce itself and neither is chance capable of producing a watch.

But what else tells accurate time? Consider the sunrise and sunset. Their timings are so strictly regulated that scientists can publish in advance the sunrise and sunset times in your daily newspapers. But who regulates the timings of sunrise and sunset? If a watch can not work without an intelligent maker, how can the sun appear to rise and set with such clockwork regularity? Could this occur by itself?

The rotation of planet earth and its tilt while orbiting the sun is highly inaccurate. It varies by huge amounts. Even a gravitational tightly coupled pairing such as Earth and Moon still varies by 10s of 1000s of kilometres.
That scientists can make predictions about natural occurrences is because they have learned to take mean figures using man-made scales and units.
Yes, indeed, the formation of galaxies and solar systems is purely an effect of gravity and the working of the energy and composition of what we don't yet know, dark matter and dark energy, which make up 96% of our Universe.

Consider also that we benefit from the sun only because it remains at a safe distance from the earth, a distance that averages 93 million miles. If it got much closer the earth would burn up. And if it got too far away the earth would turn into an icy planet making human life here impossible. Who decided in advance that this was the right distance? Could it just happen by chance?

This happens all the time and is pure chance, governed by several factors.

Without the sun plants would not grow. Then animals and humans would starve. Did the sun just decide to be there for us?

The rays of the sun would be dangerous for us had it not been for the protective ozone layer in our atmosphere. The atmosphere around earth keeps the harmful ultraviolet rays from reaching us. Who was it that placed this shield around us?

We need to experience sunrise. We need the sun's energy and it's light to see our way during the day. But we also need sunset. We need a break from the heat, we need the cook of night and we need the lights to out so we may sleep. Who regulated this process to provide what we need?

Moreover, if we had only the sun and the protection of the atmosphere we would want something more-beauty. Our clothes provide warmth and protection, yet we design them to also look beautiful. Knowing or need for beauty, the designer of sunrise and sunset also made the view of them to be simply breathtaking.

The creator who gave us light, energy, protection and beauty deserves our thanks. Yet some people insist that he does not exist. What would they think if they found a watch in the desert? An accurate, working watch? A beautifully designed watch? Would they not conclude that there does exist a watchmaker? An intelligent watchmaker? One who appreciates beauty? Such is God who made us. SubhanAllah!

In just a few million years, the sun will have burnt off the hydrogen supply and will kill Earth along with all life. That is reality. A few million years later our galaxy will collide with our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda. Then what?

So just appealing to emotion and hoping nothing will happen is not exactly the right way of looking at nature. Life is amazing. Just like a flower appearing in a crack in the pavement I sometimes wonder how lucky we are to exist at all.