Why I Am Not a Christian

...if orthodox theologians argue—as they do—that in all the laws God issued, he had a reason for choosing those laws over others (the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, though you would never think so to look at it), then God himself was subject to law. Therefore, you gain no advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You effectively have a law that exists outside and prior to divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose because he is not the ultimate law-giver. In short, this entire argument regarding natural law no longer carries the weight it once did. I am tracing the evolution of these arguments over time. The arguments used to support the existence of God change their character as time progresses. At first, they were rigorous intellectual arguments embodying specific, definite fallacies. As we reach modern times, they become less intellectually respectable and are increasingly affected by a kind of moralizing vagueness.

THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN

The next step in this progression brings us to the argument from design. You are all familiar with it: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in it, and if the world were even slightly different, we could not survive. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails so they are easy to shoot. I do not know how

original: "The Argument from Design" refers to the teleological argument, which claims that the complexity and order of the universe imply a purposeful creator.