But why not posit an absence of apparent "sand makers?" There's sand on the beach also. is there not? What makes it so much less alluring to cite in the analogy than the watch? Do you understand where I am going with that question? It is to point out that you are singling out the watch
SPECIFICALLY because as humans we have experience with it having been created. And so, with that experience in mind,
of course we guess that there is a watch-maker somewhere. But what experience do we have with
CREATED UNIVERSES? I argue that we have none at all. So we can't make the distinction between a universe that had to have a creator, and one that didn't. We don't even have experience with the
TRUE CONDITIONS of our
own universe, for goodness sake.
It's a form of straw-man. It's easy to show that a watch had to have a creator... so you "knock down" the idea of an un-created watch, then posit that the universe is even more complex than the watch and say that you have also "knocked down" the un-created universe!
If a land were completely foreign to you - let's say an alien planet, with alien flora and fauna - would you be so quick to judge what was "made" versus "natural?" You couldn't be, because you have no experience. And the "realm of god" is just such an alien sphere - I would hazard to say it is entirely unknowable.
As an example of something tricky to classify that is found here on Earth, bismuth crystals:
Doesn't this look "man-made?" And yet it is completely naturally occurring - in fact, unlike a seashell or feather, there isn't even life or sentience behind its formation or symmetries at all! Here we have an example in which we maintain a complete absence of "bismuth-crystal makers", and without any other knowledge, one could very easily (and very wrongly) assume that there had to be some sort of maker at work here as well.
Now you know this isn't accurate. Lesser presence of energy is most certainly required in order to discern higher presence of energy. Not necessarily complete absence... but difference. In fact, to measure nearly anything at all takes there being difference to contrast against. If every object in existence were the very same watch, for example - what difference would it make coming across a watch amidst a sea of watches? Which is why the lack of design of the beach, and its desertedness, are
INCREDIBLY important to the analogy. You're asking the reader/hearer of the analogy to think about what it is like to stumble upon an object and be forced to admit that it is obviously created - but they can only make that distinction because they have knowledge that some things are created and are therefore somehow
different from other things which aren't. They are more complex, or have a certain symmetry to them not found in nature, or they are smoothed to an unnatural shine, etc. We're back to the criteria here. You
have to have the criteria by which to judge - otherwise you simply can't say one way or the other without just guessing. And who are we to say we have the criteria available to us to make such judgments about
the universe? That is exactly what you are saying you possess when using this analogy.
.png)