Thanks for the quote from Dawkins, which matches what I have previously said more or less - that he states God is "unparsimonious".
It is not true because no one can establish whether physical causes alone present enough "purpose".
Indeed, but why would anyone need to establish that?
Don't forget, the claim is that everything we see, in all i's obvious brilliance, is just a chance consequent of a physical self-acting cause. This is a big claim.
And I think that ascribing it to being the craftwork of a superpowered father figure who is himself a chance consequent of reality is a bigger claim.
God CAN be parsimonious because you have to assume that everything in existence has no motive behind it which contradicts the truism of design.
You don't have to make that assumption. Dawkins argues that the tremendous explanatory power of science has shown us time and again that it can explain so many of the fundamentals of our universe it seems that it will continue to do so. Our confidence is boosted in science by virtue of its successes. Why postulate that God explains what parts science hasn't yet been able to explain? One can reasonably believe that science will provide further answers and this belief requires no God. We have a fairly decent start of explanation for the universe. We've got almost its entire history mapped out in broad details and we're getting to the nitty gritty on others.
Adding gods in there is just adding entities that we don't need and which themselves require explanations that we cannot even fathom.
God is only parsimonious if God is
required to explain something that we know exists. God is not required to explain 'purpose' since we do not know if 'purpose' exists. If there is motivation, purpose etc. Then God would be one explanation. It might not be parsimonious depending on what the purpose is really.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.