David Hume is the main opponent of the design argument. Provide a summary of his main criticisms using the 6 headings:

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18-01-2001.                  R.S. Mr Mort.                Viki Nixon DFW13

David Hume is the main opponent of the design argument. Provide a summary of his main criticisms using the 6 headings:

An unsound analogy

Analogy is the ‘logic leap’ that William Paley argued was the reason for the existence of the Universe. From his watch theory, he discovered it must need a designer, and therefore something as complicated as the universe must need a designer, therefore it is God. However, Hume did not believe in God, and said Paley’s analogy was weak. Hume says it could have all happened by chance. Hume said our world is not like the watch, since it holds so many different things, such as plants and animals. It is more organic than mechanical. If we see a watch we straight away know that it has taken one or more people to design it and mechanically put it together, but the universe is so much more complex, it will have needed more designers than the watch, and therefore destroying the idea of one God being the designer of the universe.

Similar effects do not necessarily imply similar causes *

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Following on from the thoughts of similarities between a watch and the world, Hume questions whether it is a sound notion that similar effects result necessarily from similar causes. Suggesting we have now decided the universe must have come from intelligent thought and more than one designer, we would have to have experienced the origin of the world. Then similar effects may be the result of different causes.         (???)

Other possible analogies *

Analogy makes God more human than divine *

Analogy leads to a non-moral God

Hume came up with some features ...

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