The “Intelligent Design” argument was designed quite stupidly
- by Pixel
So it turns out that the ‘function argument’ dates back to Aristotle.
Let’s give a quick overview of the function argument for those of you not lucky enough to be philosophy, history, or religious studies students:
A chair has a function: to sit.
A bad chair is that in which sitting is done poorly or not at all.
A cow has the function of being eaten.
A slave has the function of doing white people’s bidding.
Humans have the function of being rational..
A chair was created.
Humans must also have been created.
I purposefully ignored the rhetoric and the sense that the argument makes, so the true argument should be more intelligible.
Should be.
It isn’t.
It’s stupid. Aristotle thought that since humans are the only ones that are rational and that rationality controls everything else we do, then it was the be all and end all of our soul. Don’t ask me how that follows, Aristotle thought that the human body was the soul itself (not a house for the soul as most Cartesians would have it).
St. Thomas Aquinas butchered that argument (adding the creator sections) as a proof for God’s existence.
Hume debunked Aquinas’ argument by saying that the only thing his argument proves (if anything) is that there is a separate God of Chairs and God of Trees and God of Whistles and what-not. Making the jump to the Judeo-Christian OOO (Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent) is ludicrous.
The argument was used to justify slavery, the oppression of women, and all sorts of other things throughout history. Now it’s being used to force courts to allow ‘Intelligent Design’ to be taught in public schools.
It’s a stupid line of reasoning (or lack thereof) and should not be tolerated in any civilized conversation.
First of all, it’s not an argument, it’s an analogy. And secondly, it’s a bad analogy.
In other words, in doing the function of an analogy, the Function Argument functions poorly.
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So it turns out that the ‘function argument’ dates back to Aristotle. Let’s give a quick overview of the function argument for those of you not lucky enough to be philosophy, history, or religious studies students: A chair has a function: to sit. A bad chair is that in which sitting is done poorly or…
I was telling Kele at his blog that they should call it MCD (Mentally challenged Design). Because if ID is true, then god is an idiot that couldn’t pass an eighth grade biology course based on how the human body is “designed”.
I haven’t gotten a reply from a personal e-mail that I sent you at http://www.atheismonline.com. I wanted to make sure you were aware of it because I need your input.
Nicely done.
Aristotle was an overrated egotist that should have stuck to writing plays. He singlehandedly halted the progress of modern medicine for centuries by becoming the father of it. (Phlegmatic indeed!) Not really his fault. There were Roman surgeons that were more befitting of the title, but it was the Dark Ages after all (when he was given the title)… and he seemed to know what he was talking about… well anyway, he seemed so sure of himself… Ok, he was a bullshit artist!
As far as Intellegent Design goes, the god they insist on fabricating can be no more intellegent than a Civil Engineer, because no one else would put a sewage system through a recreational area.
boywonder,
Aye, sorry about that, I replied on the website.
breakerslion,
You’re telling me. I’ve always hated Aristotle for what he did to society forevermore afterwards. For instance, in his Nicomachean Ethics, he talks about people that are poor or exceptionally ugly can never be truly happy. And how people from common birth would not benefit from Ethics and are doomed to live their lives from desire to desire.
It’s instruction like that that turned Alexander the Great into such a douchebag.