Teleology vs. Peleology

        

          One chapter of the Believer’s Handbook seeks to prove God’s existence by examining design in the universe, the study known as “teleology.”  According to this argument, order implies the existence of God, but this old argument buckles, perhaps collapses, under the weight of modern science’s Uncertainty Principle (Werner Heisenberg, 1927), which has shown that order, symmetry, and design are more apparent than real.  Much as we all want an orderly universe, one which confirms God’s existence and reaffirms our desperate need to believe we are put on earth for a reason, the universe itself seems to be of another mind.  So to speak.

           Further arguing against a God-implied teleology is the God-denying study of peleology, which posits that no Creator in His right mind would design and build an organism (in his own image) that has to pee out between one and two liters every single day.  It’s a hopeless mess.  Bathrooms have to be everywhere.  Surely the Designer could have come up with a urinary tract system better than the one He settled on.  So why didn’t He?

Of course, the Almighty may have further changes in mind and may decide to implement them at any time.  But that brings up another problem.  Why would God go back every few eons to alter complicated operating systems (like turning fish fins into arms and legs or swim bladders into lungs)?  Why wouldn’t He have just gotten it right the first time? 

No, an under-attack teleology is not as persuasive as the common-sense study of peleology.  God's got some explaining to do.