An explanation of why the "watchmaker" argument doesn't work

Many Christian apologists and creationists love to use the so-called "watchmaker argument" to defend the idea that a creator god must exist and is the only logical explanation for why life, including us, exists.

In its simplest form it goes something like this: Suppose you are walking down a beach and encounter a watch. You examine and find out that it works, and about its complex internal details and mechanisms. It would be absolutely ludicrous to think that it came to be on its own, due to random natural phenomena only. Quite clearly someone created it. A watch requires by necessity a watchmaker. The same is true for life: Living organisms are way too complex for it to have happened by random chance, and thus there must have been an intelligent creator.

There are countless explanations and refutations to this that point out how biological organisms are quite different from artificial mechanisms like a watch, and how natural processes can perfectly well explain the formation and diversification of biological organisms.

Here, however, I'm going to approach that argument from the opposite side, the side that's very rarely if ever discussed. In other words, I'm going to tackle the claim that if we find a complex mechanical construct, it must have been created by an intelligent being.

Suppose that one day in the future we are able to traverse huge distances and visit other planets, and one day we find a planet that's populated by billions of robots of all sorts. These robots might look like spiders, crustaceans, perhaps even some kind of theropods. And they are fully mechanical, made of metals, tubes, intricate clockwork mechanisms etc, as well as some kind of strange electro-mechanical contraption that serves as the "brain" of the robot. Crucially, this is the only kind of "life" that exists on the planet; there is no biological life of any sort.

Quite naturally the first logical conclusion is that some kind of intelligent alien race created these robots and put them on that planet, maybe as some kind of experiment, or some kind of "robot zoo", or the like. This is the most logical conclusion because it conforms to our own experience about such mechanical constructs.

However, suppose that we keep observing this planet and its billions of robots, and notice that they actually have a limited lifetime, and they reproduce, and their offspring is always slightly different from its parents, rather than being identical copies.

This would be really interesting, and would already hint at something more complex going on, although the hypothesis that they were created and put there by some intelligent alien species would still be by far the most logical conclusion. Maybe the alien species made the robots like that.

However, suppose we start digging the ground, and we start finding dead robots. Fossils of sorts. And we keep digging more and more, and dating the different layers of sediment, and we observe that the deeper we go, and thus the older the robots we find are, the more different they are from the current alive ones. We go so deep that this geologic column goes back millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of years. It turns out that these robots have existed for that long on this planet.

Moreover, as we dig deeper and deeper, going back in time hundreds of millions of years, the design of these robots become simpler and simpler, but we see a logical progression over the millions of years of how the current alive robots came to be from those simpler robots from hundreds of millions of year ago.

It might even be that when we go back enough in time in the geologic column, we find evidence of more organic compounds having been part of these ancient robots. Organic parts that have since disappeared in more recent robot "fossils".

Now this changes things quite a lot. This is strong indication that the current robots roaming the surface of the planet most likely were not directly created nor put there by some intelligent species. Instead, this is quite clear indication that the current robots literally evolved and diversified over hundreds of millions of years from more primitive forms to their current ones.

This is, in fact, what we observe in actual reality in our planet: We have strong evidence that current lifeforms were not somehow popped into existence as they are currently, but evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their current forms from more primitive life.

Of course this still leaves open the question of how the first ever robots on that hypothetical planet, or the first ever life in our real planet, came to be. However, the above alone is an argument against the "watchmaker" argument, as it's not completely impossible for complex mechanical devices to form without the intervention of an intelligent "creator".

Comprehensive refutation of the "Cosmological Argument"

Many Christian apologists love to present the so-called "Cosmological Argument" for the existence of God, as if it were some kind extremely strong and irrefutable slamdunk argument that's completely logically solid and sound, and which can't be counter-argued. The most common form goes like this:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

Some apologists will add a fourth clause adding a boatload of (obviously completely unfounded) characteristics to that "cause".

However, the entire argument is unsound and invalid, through and through. Here is a full refutation:

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"

This has several problems, not the least of which is that this is an ambiguous sentence. The main ambiguity lies in that "begins to exist", as it doesn't specify what kind of "beginning to exist" we are talking about.

Many apologists actually deceitfully play with and abuse this ambiguity, including big-name apologists who demonstrably know better (and thus have no excuse for their deceitful arguments), such as William Lane Craig.

In an interview discussing this argument he said (slightly paraphrasing): "Atheists often try to present a counter-argument that we don't have any example of something beginning to exist. Didn't dinosaurs begin to exist? Didn't I begin to exist?"

This kind of "beginning to exist" is so-called ex materia, in other words, matter and energy transforming to make something different that wasn't there before, fully within this existing universe. Craig is being deliberately deceitful here because in other contexts he has very clearly expressed that he perfectly well understands the difference between creation ex materia and creation ex nihilo, ie "out of nothing".

And that is the main problem with this clause: We indeed do not have a single example of something beginning to exist from nothing, we only have examples of things beginning to exist from existing matter, ie. existing matter and energy, fully within this universe, transforming from one form to another. But the premise isn't talking about the universe appearing ex materia, it's talking about it appearing ex nihilo, out of nothing.

We do not know if something can appear from nothing, and even if it can, we don't know if some kind of "cause" is needed for that to happen. Heck, we don't even know if absolute "nothingness" is even possible in this reality where we exist. Apologists (and many other people) merely assume that absolute nothingness, the complete non-existence of anything, is possible. But we don't know even that! This reality where we exist might as well be of a nature where absolute nothingness is impossible, and there must always exist something. We don't know!

The premise, thus, is completely unjustified. We cannot take it for granted, even though the argument in question does exactly that. We have no examples of things coming into existence from nothing, and we don't know if that's even possible, and we don't even know if "nothingness" itself is possible in this reality where we exist. We just don't know. We cannot assume it to be so.

That, in itself, completely nullifies the entire argument. However, for the sake of the argument, let's assume for a moment that it might be valid and continue to the next premise:

"The universe began to exist"

We don't know this either!

The apologists will hurry to argue from the Big Bang model, and "infinite regress" being impossible. However, the Big Bang theory only tells us that a long time ago the entire universe, including space and time itself, was compressed into an infinitesimally small point, which rapidly expanded, forming this universe. It does not tell us where that point, with all of its energy, came from.

Most particularly, it does not tell us that the initial point came into existence from nothing (which is the entire premise of this argument). The fact is that we don't know anything at all about that initial point. We don't know why it existed, we don't know how long it existed, we don't even know if it makes any sense to talk about a time "before" it existed (because time itself was created by the expansion of that point). It might or might not be completely nonsensical to talk about a time "before" the Big Bang. And even if there indeed was a time "before" it, we have absolutely no idea what it was like, and what was there, if anything.

We also don't know if there's some kind of "outside" to this universe of ours, or even if such a concept even makes sense. There might be, or there might not be. It might be that this universe is everything that exists, or it might be that there are other universes, and/or it might be that this universe of ours is inside some kind of "metaverse" of sorts, for the lack of a better term. We just don't know. Nor do we know anything about the nature of those other things, if they indeed exist at all.

There are hypotheses that this universe might not be the only one, and there may well be countless (perhaps even infinite) "parallel universes", or perhaps there's an "anti-universe" that's a kind of "negative" version of this universe of ours which formed at the same time (to balance things out). There are also hypotheses that this universe might have resulted from the collapse of another universe. But all these are just hypotheses, and the fact is that we just don't know.

In summary, stating as a fact that "the universe began to exist" is just false. It's not a fact. We don't know if this universe began to exist!

"Therefore, the universe had a cause"

The conclusion is unjustified because both premises are unjustified. For this kind of formal argument to be valid, the premises need to be valid. In this case, they are not.

The argument could be made logically valid if we reword it slightly: "If beginning to exist (ex nihilo) is possible, and if everything that begins to exist (ex nihilo) has a cause, and if this universe began to exist (ex nihilo), then this universe had a cause."

But that's a lot of assumptions to make, and it's kind of a trivial argument to make. It's like saying "if I had a lot of money I would be rich." Well, duh. Of course. It's a completely trivial and self-evident argument to make.

But even if we granted all the assumptions made in the premises, for the sake of argument, the argument would still not work.

Why? Because it's trying to argue for the existence of the Biblical God. In fact, it wouldn't work even if it were arguing for the existence of some unspecified "god".

This is because even if there was a cause for the existence of this universe, we don't know anything about it. Nothing. Nada. Nil. Christian apologists love to attribute characteristics to this "cause", but they are all just unfounded unjustified speculation and guessing, based on even more assumptions. (For example, they assume that this universe is the only one that exists, and that there are no other universes, or any kind of "metaverse" inside which this universe exists. This is not an assumption we can make because we just don't know.)

Some apologists love to say "we call this cause God." Why call it that? Even if there was a cause, it's a complete unknown. You should be calling it "an unknown", not "God". This is because that name, "God", carries with it a huge amount of assumptions, presumptions and extra claims, none of which can be factually attributed to that unknown "cause".

Why Kent Hovind's evolution challenge is nonsensical

The infamous young-earth creationist Kent Hovind has issued many times during the past decades a challenge to "evolutionists": He will pay 10 thousand dollars (or whatever sum) to anybody who can give him a proof of the theory of evolution.

Why is this challenge completely nonsensical?

Because he himself is the only and sole self-appointed judge of whether the proof given to him is valid or not. There are no predetermined terms or conditions or anything: He will judge the "validity" of the proof, as it is given to him. Whatever he determines, right there on the fly, will be the final judgment.

The blatant bias of this shouldn't even be necessary to be pointed out. After all, he can just reject any proof given to him, and that's it. He doesn't even need to give any counter-argument. He can just reject the validity of the proof, and he doesn't need to pay. Which, of course, makes this a very easy and safe "challenge" to offer, as there is no danger of ever losing it.

And, indeed, that's exactly what he does. In fact, he has a standard answer to any proof and evidence given to him, no matter what it is, which he almost always uses as a matter of course: "That's not evolution."

Yeah, that's it. "That's not evolution." Because not only is he the only and sole judge of whether the given proof is valid, but he himself is the one outright defining what "evolution" means. Never mind what the scientific definition is. He defines what it means, and thus whether any given proof fits that definition. Never mind that he has never given any definition, that doesn't matter. The definition is whatever he wants it to be, and always something (usually unstated) that rejects the given proof.

So, "that's not evolution." Nothing more needs to be said or argued. Proof invalid, challenge failed. He can then go boast about how nobody has ever been able to give him any proof of evolution.

Christian apologists love to distort Richard Dawkins's point

Many Christian apologists love to erode the credibility of Richard Dawkins by pointing to that one time when he (allegedly) said that even if something genuinely miraculous happened, like the stars in the sky suddenly moving and forming a readable message, he would still not believe in God (no matter what that message says.)

These apologists imply that Dawkins is just stubbornly denying and rejecting all evidence for the existence of God, based on principle rather than rationality, that no evidence could ever convince him because he just rejects all evidence as a matter of principle. They imply that Dawkins himself has openly declared that he will never believe in God and he will reject all evidence of his existence, as a matter of dogma. In other words, essentially putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "la la la, I can't hear you!" Thus, any rational discussion with him is useless and doomed to failure, because of his dogmatic refusal to accept anything.

This is not what Dawkins meant. It's not his point.

What Dawkins meant was that it's not possible to have definitive proof of God's existence. It's not that he will reject all evidence based on principle. It's that it's literally impossible to have such evidence.

And why is that?

Because even if something truly miraculous happened, there's no way to know its origin, its source, what caused it to happen. The only thing we would know is that something very unusual happened, that's it. Could be something natural from within this universe, could be something supernatural from somewhere else, but we have no way of telling which, and especially in the latter case what the actual source was.

Sure, the message in question could claim that it comes from the God of the Bible, but once again, there's no way to corroborate that's true. It could be something else just messing with us and sending us false messages for whatever reason. It could even be some kind of technologically extremely advanced alien race that's doing an experiment or just being evil (after all, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and "any sufficiently advanced alien is indistinguishable from God.") There's no way to know.

That was Dawkins's point. That is what he meant.

And he does make a good point. Even if something unusual happens that we don't know the reason for, or how it's even possible, there simply is no way for us to discern and corroborate where it's coming from, what is causing it to happen.

He is not saying that we should reject all evidence for the existence of God. What he is saying that there cannot exist such evidence because it cannot be corroborated. It's literally impossible. All such evidence would, at most, point to an unknown phenomenon, unknown source, and that's it. An unknown. We can't deduce anything from that.

Short-form list of arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus

I will try to list as many arguments for the historicity of Jesus, often presented by Christian apologists, and brief responses to those arguments. This should be taken more as a "cliffsnotes" type document rather than a comprehensive detailed critique.

"There is an overwhelming consensus among historians and scholars that Jesus of Nazareth was a real existing person. Nobody of any repute doubts this, and it's taken as an almost certainty."

This is a claim only made by (some) Christian apologists and perhaps a couple of atheist scholars, but there is no evidence that it's actually true. I have never seen a comprehensive study or large-scale questionnaire asking the opinion of historians and scholars on this subject. Pretty much all sources cited for this claim are Christian apologists. For all I know, this claim has been completely made up by Christian apologists based on absolutely nothing.

Regardless, even if it were 100% true, this is simply an argument from authority and an argument from popularity. A consensus among scholars does not in itself make something true and factual.

"There is an overwhelming amount of historical and archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus. There is more evidence for his existence than for most other historic figures."

This is just an outright untruth. In reality there is literally zero contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus. No contemporary documents that have survived, no artifacts, no statues, no inscriptions, no paintings, no coins, nothing. Not a single piece of contemporary evidence exists. This is very much unlike the evidence that exists for other famous historic figures, like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.

Literally the only evidence that exists of Jesus is textual documents that were written many decades after his alleged death, and that's it. These documents were written either by unknown authors, authors who did not meet him personally, Christian authors who were religiously motivated, and non-Christian authors who were born after Jesus's alleged death.

"The texts of the New Testament are a completely valid and credible form of historic documentation supporting the historicity of Jesus."

This would make them the only documents in existence that are accepted as historically accurate regardless of all the supernatural claims made in them. These texts were written by people who were clearly religiously motivated and thus had a strong bias, eroding the credibility of what they wrote. Describing supernatural events, especially ones done by the person they are writing about, does not exactly strengthen the credibility of the text.

"There is plenty of evidence from early non-Christian historians for the existence if Jesus, including that of the historians Josephus and Tacitus."

In reality the amount of non-Christian sources about Jesus is completely abysmal. As mentioned earlier, there is literally zero contemporary evidence (Christian or non-Christian), and the earliest possible non-Christian sources that exist were written well over 60 years after Jesus's alleged death, by people who were born after said death.

Indeed, both Josephus and Tacitus were born after Jesus's alleged death, so they hardly were contemporary to him, and the brief mentions of what Christians believed were written over 60 years after his alleged death. And, indeed, even these mentions are very brief, and were merely repeating what Christians of the time believed. (There is a lot of deception and lying-by-omission among many Christian apologists when they mention Josephus and Tacitus because they very rarely mention when they were born, when they wrote those mentions of Christian beliefs, or what exactly they wrote.)

"The texts of the New Testament were written so early that most people who read them were alive during the life of Jesus and would have objected to the texts if they were not true."

Even the earliest texts of the New Testament were written several decades after Jesus's alleged death, and were distributed among a very small group of people who were essentially cultists. Most of them likely didn't live anywhere near where the alleged events happened, and had no reason to doubt the claims. It's very likely that some people believed the claims while other people dismissed or outright objected to the claims, but this had very little effect on the believers. Even if the doubters were able to convince a few believers, they were not able to convince all of them. Thus, the religious beliefs and texts survived and proliferated, and as more and more time passed, the less possible it was to corroborate the accuracy of the claims.

This isn't anything strange or unusual, as this exact thing happens all the time, even to this day, and even though nowadays we have much more ways to corroborate unusual claims than two thousand years ago.

"Martyrs wouldn't have died for a lie."

Martyrs most definitely would die for a lie, especially since they believed the claims and didn't think of them as lies and falsehoods. There is no reliable evidence that anybody who allegedly met Jesus (most prominently his apostles) was martyred, and later Christians had no reason to think that it was all just a lie not worth dying for.

"The criterion of embarrassment: If the story of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was made up, they wouldn't have made him into a weak person who was ignominiously murdered by the oppressors."

On the contrary, if you were making up a story about the Jewish Messiah having existed decades prior, it would have been silly to claim that he was victorious and liberated his people from the oppressors (ie. the Romans), because the Romans were still oppressing the Jews, as anybody could see. It would have made a lot more sense to write a story about a suffering Messiah (something that was supported by the scriptures, and one of the accepted interpretations of the Messiah by Jewish scholars of the time) who was martyred by the hand of the Romans.

Unlike these Christian apologists love to imply, the concept of good people being oppressed and killed by bad people in ignominious ways was a common trope in storytelling of the time, and had been for hundreds of years. Many myths and fictitious stories, even much older ones, involved good people suffering at the hand of bad people, without those bad people getting any sort of punishment for it.

(It should also be noted that, as far as I know, this entire concept of "criterion of embarrassment", as some kind of method to determine historic accuracy, was invented by Christian apologists for the only and sole purpose of trying to argue for the historicity of Jesus, and this argument has never been used for any other purpose by any historian or anybody else.)

"There were tens of thousands of eyewitnesses to the events."

The texts of the New Testament claim that there were eyewitnesses. That doesn't make it any more true than any of the other claims made there, such as the supernatural miracles. Notably the New Testament is the only source that claims that such eyewitnesses existed. There is no other credible evidence that tens of thousands of people witnessed Jesus in person (which, in itself, is quite notable, and a somewhat strong argument against the historicity of the man.)

"The New Testament claimed that women were the witnesses of the empty tomb. If the story had been made up, the authors would have used men as witnesses rather than women, who were considered unreliable."

This is in the same league as the "criterion of embarrassment": Making claims about writing tropes of the time that are simply not true. There are even older pieces of myth and fiction were women play very important roles, and are believed and taken seriously. There is no reason to think that a made-up story about Jesus wouldn't have used women as eyewitnesses. The argument is especially weak given the fact that the same story later has Jesus appear to several groups of people that included many men, including the apostles themselves. The "Jesus has risen from the dead" aspect of the story is not solely reliant on the alleged word of some women.