"Intelligent" Design, An Analogy.

A man went to a tailor to be fitted for a new suit of clothes. After the tailor altered the suit, the man stood in front of the mirror to check the fit. At first glance he noticed that the suit jacket’s right arm sleeve was rather short, and too much of his wrist was showing.

“This sleeve looks a little short. Would you please lengthen it?”

“The sleeve is not too short,” replied the tailor. “Your arm is too long ... Just pull your arm back a few inches and you will see that the sleeve fits perfectly.”

The man withdrew his arm a bit, and the sleeve was matched with his wrist.

But this movement rumpled the upper portion of the jacket.

“Now the nape of the collar is several inches above my neck,” he protested.

“There’s nothing wrong with the collar,” the tailor insisted. “Your neck is too low. Lift the back of your neck and the jacket will fit well.”

The customer raised his neck a few inches, and sure enough the collar rounded it where it was supposed to.

But now there was another problem: the bottom of the jackeet rested high above his seat.

“Now my whole rear end is sticking out!” the man complained.

“No problem,” the tailor replied. “Just lift up your rear end so it fits under the jacket.”

Again the customer complied, which left his body in a very contorted posture.

But the tailor had convinced him that the problem was not with the suit, but him.

So he paid the tailor for the suit and walked out of the shop in a most awkward position, struggling to keep all parts of the suit in their right places.

On the street he encountered two women walking in the opposite direction.

After they passed, one woman turned to the other and commented, “That poor man is really crippled!”

“He sure is,” the other replied. “But his tailor is fantastic!"

ID - a new suit for creationism.

-- by Unknown

--provided by ZenCycle of AvC with the following explanation:

I was trying to find out who the author was, but came up empty.

I first read it in a book called Plato and A Platypus Walk Into A Bar" which is a discussion of philosophy through jokes but it wasn't attributed there either. It may have been written by the authors Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. It's very light reading as you can imagine, and the 'discussions' of the various philosophies aren't exactly deep since the book isn't much bigger than a harlequin romance novel, but it's still pretty fun, and useful to someone with no knowledge of other religions or philosophies.

A web search wasn't much help either, and I only found it on a few blogs, with no credits, but there is a variation attributed to Ram Dass that gives the tailor the name of Zumbach and ends like this:

Later that day, he was waiting at the bus stop with his shoulders lopsided and his head straining forward, when another fellow took hold of his lapel and said,

"What a beautiful suit! I'll bet Zumbach the tailor made that suit for you."

"Why, yes," the man said, "but how did you know?"

"Because only a tailor as brilliant as Zumbach could outfit a body as crippled as yours."