For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point
The article was quite difficult to read, the point was often lost in historical recaps and relationships between historical figures.<p>The central premise is wrong, natural theology was dicussed by hume and paley, but neither of their arguments disprove it.<p>Arguments about &#x27;proving&#x27; god using end up being arguments about what &#x27;kind&#x27; of evidence qualifies as proof, which is not explored here.<p>Paley&#x27;s infinite regression of watches doesn&#x27;t sidestep God, it moves God into the watch. Paley&#x27;s argument about a stone being ultimately purposeless depends on knowledge he doesn&#x27;t have.<p>The position you can&#x27;t logically argue to God is JE Schellenberg&#x27;s non-resistant, non-believer. As soon as you start arguing logical propositions, they have to end somewhere and it&#x27;s always God if pushed far enough.<p>Douglas Adams&#x27; parody argument is fun, but is just wrong as a serious theological argument.<p>The 2005 version of intelligent design the article discusses was rejected from schools because it was an undeveloped young-earth creationist style religious proposition. Stephen meyer spent the rest of the 2000s debating phd scientists (buried in youtube) and found they couldnt challenge his claims and he also developed the idea into a scientific philosophy. That&#x27;s the face of intelligent design the author should be addressing.<p>It would be better for the internet community to have a wiki-like or myspace-like battleground for theological interpretation so that we can all skip to the most recent developments and see the history of it like a git changelog, without having to endlessly quiz a Dominican monk about the arguments Aquanis conquered.