QuoteProject
A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right.
Richard Dawkins
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The complexity of a designer God raises questions about the designer's own complexity and existence.

Richard Dawkins argues that if we consider the existence of a designer God to explain the complexity of the universe, we must also account for the complexity of the God itself. This presents a paradox, as it suggests that the explanation of complexity requires a deeper understanding of the origins of that very complexity, leading to questions about the nature of the creator.

Themes

ComplexityGodDesignPhilosophyExistence

In practice

Example use cases

During a philosophical debate about the existence of God.

More from Richard Dawkins

No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
Richard DawkinsRead
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
Richard DawkinsRead
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
Richard DawkinsRead
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Richard DawkinsRead
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
Richard DawkinsRead
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Richard DawkinsRead

Similar quotes

Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him.
Norman CousinsRead
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down; And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton tolling the bell at noon, Dreams not that great Napoleon Sto
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.
Charles BaxterRead
There ain't no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.... Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them... Decent people lost their jobs.... Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong. It's the system.
Raymond ChandlerRead
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.
Ayn RandRead
Only in the books written in earlier times did she sometimes think she found some faint idea of what it might be like to be alive.
W. G. SebaldRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Richard Dawkins | QuoteProject