WHERE OH WHERE, HAS THE WATCHMAKER GONE?

The title here is about the Intelligent Design concept of Paley’s Watchmaker analogy (little known factoid here: Paley actually borrowed the metaphor from Cicero, no less, and it had been used sporadically throughout the ages).

Information on Paley can be found here, the Watchmaker analogy can be found here.

I won’t go into detail about all the problems with this particular theory, such as infinite regression, or the poorer examples of design in nature. These have been dealt with sufficiently, by others far more eloquent and smarter than myself.

No, I’m going to attempt to hamstring the damn thing (it’s only a concept, so I can be as brutal as I like), by pointing out a huge deficiency in the theory.

Creators are bound by the same laws as their creations.

Bear with me here: I can keep this simple.

An architect needs design a building according to specifications. Read: laws of physics. More often than not, the building itself will go upwards. The shape of said building can vary widely, but it would be a foolish builder indeed, to hoist a skyscraper into the sky in the shape of a sail (especially in, say, Chicago, the windy city). It could be done, theoretically, but the cost would be enormous. There are of course other factors brought into consideration: cost, materials, foundation (location, location, location is apparently not restricted to retailers), earthquake safety regulations (in any area prone to such variables), etc.

But of course, the law of gravity comes first.

The point here is simple enough: every watch made by a human is restricted by the same laws the creator of said device is prone to. Heat, leverage, gravity (have I mentioned gravity yet? Sorry), pressure, in short, long laundry lists of physical law. Oh, and of course, time.

If you throw the watchmaker and the watch off the Empire State building, not only will they fall at approximately the same rate, the end result will be remarkably similar on impact: the insides will go everywhere. One will be more liquid, but both will come apart at the seams.

Likewise, the creator will eventually wear out. As will the watch (though the latter may last somewhat longer, contingent on its design, how often it needs to be wound, when the battery wears out, etc).

Having dealt with this sufficiently, let’s look now at how the world is built.

For most (not all) living organisms, the structure is fairly clear. Since we are allegedly ‘created’ in god’s image, let us for the nonce restrict ourselves to that particular comparison.

The child is born, and grows. The parent raises the child. The child becomes an adult, and eventually supersedes the parent, due to the effect of old age, gravity, erosion, call it what you will. The parent dies, replaced by the child. And so the cycle continues: The child becomes a parent, and again, infancy, childhood, maturation, reproduction, death, unless this is interrupted in a number of ways.

If I were to compare human civilization to the development and growth of a human child, it would seem we are still in the tumults of adolescence.

Where, then, is this mysterious stranger who is said to have given us life? Where is he, when his aid is badly needed? Oh, and please, please spare me the sophistry of belief, faith, or whatever nauseating neologism can be substituted here. I know who my daddy is. He was flesh and blood, thank you very much.

If this is indeed the case, I say we have a class action suit on behalf of not only the five billion people currently alive on this earth, but the many billions who have gone before, some of whom laid down their lives in the name of this mysterious stranger, he-of-the-multitudinous-names, whom, judging from his behavior in the Old Testament, was a teenage father himself, thoroughly lacking in maturity, manners, or good sportsmanship, who allegedly promptly vanished from human view (strangely enough, at the conclusion of the New Testament), who thus far has failed to provide support of any kind, emotional, physical, or financial, to the teeming multitudes that are supposedly his numerous offspring.

In short: we have a deadbeat deity dad.

Judging from the structure of this world, and the shape it’s in, I’d have to say, if this deity ever did truly exist, he/she/it’s either

1. Dead, or


2. In some celestial nursing home, desperately trying to recall something s/he/it had forgotten.

Anyone got the number of a good lawyer?