Why I Am Not a Christian

rabbits would view that application. It is an easy argument to parody. You all know Voltaire’s Voltaire (1694–1778), French Enlightenment writer known for his wit and satire. remark that, obviously, the nose was designed to fit spectacles. That sort of parody has turned out to be far more accurate than it might have seemed in the eighteenth century, because since the time of Darwin, we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable for them, but that they evolved to be suitable for it; that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design in that process.

When you examine this argument from design, it is astonishing that people can believe this world—with all its contents and all its defects—is the best that omnipotence and omniscience could produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that if you were granted omnipotence, omniscience, and millions of years to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan, the Fascisti The Italian Fascist movement under Mussolini., and Mr. Winston Churchill? Really, I am not impressed by people who say, "Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must have been design in the universe." I am not very impressed by the splendor of those people. Therefore, I think this argument from design is a very poor one indeed. Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you must suppose that human life, and life in general, on