The Banana

Today's topic is a little unusual. So much so, that I find it difficult to summarize in a single paragraph. Today’s topic will have to introduce itself.

OK. I know what you’re thinking. We’ve covered this issue in a previous post when talking about design. Well, yes. You’re right. But in this case the argument is so specific that I felt the need to address it on it’s own.

My first step in addressing this argument would have to be to agree with its claim. The banana does seem perfectly fitted for human consumption. It looks designed. I would even concede a further step. Not only does the banana look designed. It is designed. The question is: By whom?

The modern banana, sadly, did not occur naturally. In fact, neither did most of the things we eat. It was cultivated by man over thousands of years of selective breeding. And we’re still doing it. Every year new and exciting vegetables appear on the market ranging from baby carrots to yellow cherry tomatoes. The modern banana in fact looks almost nothing like a wild banana. Wild bananas are small, bitter and full of seeds. The modern banana was bred so well, that if left to its own devices, would go extinct almost instantly.

There is an argument to be made that the world looks designed. However, the more one studies the biological world (and few study this world more extensively than biologists and geneticists) the more it seems evolved, rather than designed. The human eye, another commonly used example, is not perfectly designed but demonstrably evolved. As are wild bananas.

The chair I am sitting on is well designed to fit my buttocks (though I bet a better fit could be devised). It does not only seem that way. It is that way. It was undoubtedly designed by someone in Sweden. A human being. It has that in common with cabbages, corn, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, watermelons, wheat, chickens, cows, sheep, goats, and many many more.

And even if we allow ourselves to imagine a grand designer. A powerful being who put us all together. Hoping worriedly that his intentions for us are kinder than our intentions are toward bananas. We would have to pick our healthy curiosity up off the floor at take it one more step forward - to ask: Who designed the designer? And how did he design seedless watermelons to reproduce?

The Big Bang

In the bible it is said that the universe had a beginning and that beginning was God (let’s forget the specifics of the order of creation for a moment). And then, thousands of years after the bible was written, scientists come along and say the same thing. The universe began with a big bang. This bang was what created space and time. Just like the bible says. Proof of God, right?

This argument is an over simplification of an extremely complex issue. I, for one, have very little knowledge about the big bang. Cosmological evidence is notoriously hard to grasp and tends to pass too far over peoples heads for them to make any informed decision. This argument from evidence will have to be passed on to Stephen Hawking and his astrophysicist friends. Though he seems to think its silly.

And so we move from an argument from evidence to an argument from lack of evidence. Just about every religion in the world speaks of creation. They differ over the question of which God was doing the creating and how this creation came about. Some believe the universe was created from an egg, others from a dream and yet others from a handkerchief. And they’re right. But people who claim their God created the world are only taking the first step. They still have most of their work ahead of them. The next step is explaining how this was done.

Luckily enough religious people are in no way shy about making physical claims. The Abrahamic religions doubly so. God created the world in six days. First he created the Earth, then the sea and the sky. He created land and plants, and only then made the sun, moon and stars.

Just about everything in this order of creation has long been shown to be false. Plants could not have been formed before the sun or stars. The sky has nothing to do with the sea. The only resemblance between the biblical account of our beginnings and the scientific one is that there actually were beginnings. Everything coming after that is wrong. The religious score one point. Only one point.

But of course there was a beginning. As I’ve said in earlier posts, there is no such thing as infinity in the real world. We may not know how the universe began. It was a very long time ago after all. But we know it did. And it will one day end. At least in its present form.

Despite this, as we have done before, we will take a moment to assume we are wrong. Let’s imagine God did create the universe as we know it. We then have to again ask the question: Who created God?

This puts us in a bit of a pickle. We’ve gone all the way toward assuming the world was created by a higher being and now we’re stuck where we started. And even accepting everything written in the bible as true, we have no solution to this important question.

After all is said and done, I must conclude that a creature so complex as to create the universe must have himself have evolved. Probably as a product of natural selection.

The Court of the Gospel

“The court is in session!” Yells the judge as he pounds his gavel, “Christianity may call their first witness”. A chill of anticipation fills the room.

“Christianity calls to the stand the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

Objection! Hearsay!

The unequivocal foundations of Christianity are the gospels, telling of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. As a foundation, however, they do extremely poorly. First and foremost, not one of the gospels was written during the days of the son of God. Moreover, the writers never knew their lord savior. Not one. Even Josephus, a Roman historian of the time, had written of the events long after they occurred. We would never accept such evidence in court, how could we accept it as the basis for our lives?

Just for fun though, let us put them on the stand anyway. The gospels are the basis for Christianity and we want to hear their story. “I’m sorry” we hear from the prosecution “We cannot provide the original testimony of those who wrote about Jesus decades after his death. But we do have copies.

Not only are the gospels inadmissible for being hearsay, there is no guarantee they are the original testimony of those who wrote them. In fact much of the text was edited over and over for hundreds of years. Parts were added, parts were removed. The story of the Resurrection, for example, was added to the gospel of Mark hundreds of years after it was written.

But let’s be fair. We want to hear what these people have to say, despite having long lost any credibility. And as they tell their stories we notice a contradiction. Not one, but thousands of contradictions. And these are not slight discrepancies either. From the heredity of Jesus, through miracles performed to the virgin birth itself - contradictions are bountiful. Even if one were inclined to believe in a heavenly watchful eye, making sure the gospels remained true, we still must face these contradictions. If it contradicts itself, it cannot be absolutely true. can it?

I’m sure we can find other supernatural claims with much better evidence than this. Throw a stone in the crazy pond and you will hit a man claiming he was abducted by aliens. We dismiss the man off hand, but this is first hand testimony. Far better than that of the gospel. And he is not alone. The abducted are many, with often corroborating testimonies. But still crazy.

The religion of Christianity is predicated on the gospels. Stories written long after what they are depicting. Surprisingly contradictory considering the amount of editing each had to go through for hundreds of years after they were written. And so:

“The gospels are inadmissible.” says the judge reluctantly. Turning to Christianity he asks “Do you have anything else that is not based on these testimonies?” silence. “Anything?”

Card Tricks and Miracles

How would one be able to distinguish between a messenger from God and a false prophet? Both would obviously say they were sent by the divine. Both would probably make predictions. If one is vague enough or lucky enough some may even come true. The only way the meek could possibly tell the difference were if one could perform miracles.

This is mentioned in the bible quite often. False and real prophets would have public miracle castings all the time. Even Jesus would come to use them for vindication. During the ages depicted in the bible, miracles seemed almost commonplace. every generation had its prophet. Each prophet made sure to keep his believers on the edge of their seats with amazement.

Oddly enough, all of these magical events ended with the bible. It seems every religious text talks of miracles performed in a distant time, but none can be replicated today. Ever since biblical times people have been calling themselves messengers from God. Most with contradicting prophecies. But since the beginning of the age of properly recorded history, none could rise to carry the burden of proof required in the bible. How are the meek supposed to tell the difference?

When we search our times for miracle like events, however, something does come up. Magic is being performed all the time. From Penn & Teller to Siegfried & Roy amazement is delivered on mass. We are enthrolled as they turn water into wine and make animals disappear. What is their message? we ask, Who do they worship?

And so we reach a moment of inner reflection. Let’s imagine a person were to appear before us claiming a moral truth. To support his claim, he turns water into wine and parts a sea. Proving absolutely that he had magnificent abilities. Would these feats make his moral truth correct? Would we forgo reason and proper judgment of his moral claims simply because he has these powers? Any individual today, if taken back in time, could easily wow a biblical audience. No God needed. Would that make him morally absolute?

Most of the magicians of today have enough integrity to reveal that it’s all an illusion. No one is turning water into wine but making you think they are. Maybe they know they could never get away with it. Maybe they have no religious ambition. Whatever the case, these magicians have raised the bar for miracle work. In order for a prophet to convince a modern audience of his Gods power he must accomplish an even greater feat. Something spectacular. Perhaps the parting of a sea.

When boiled down, biblical miracles are as credible a source of evidence as the bible itself. All of them, of course, unverifiable. And from an age filled with miracles to one entirely devoid, we must ask: why? The cut off point seemed to coincide with the last chapter of the book. Today there are large cash prizes offered to anyone who can have their supernatural powers survive scientific scrutiny. Yet no one has claimed them.

Personal Revelations

Let us begin this argument by stating the obvious. Many people claim to literally hear the voice of God. He often tells them to do things. Usually crazy things. Every one of those who assert this is either psychotic or dishonest. That should be clear. Many other people, on the other hand, feel God speaks to them through events in their lives. Others just feel in their heart that God is there. How could anyone argue with that?

Sadly we can’t. When all of the facts involved are feelings within someones head, It makes it hard to present counter evidence. What should we say? No, you don’t feel that way? No, that feeling is probably just chemicals pouring around in your brain? Such feelings are an unfortunate argument stopper, plain and simple.

But personal feelings are notoriously difficult to rely on. We misinterpret signs all the time. We may be sure our spouse is mad at us, while they are just having a bad day. We sometimes get unjustly angry, sad or lonely. We hold an irrational fear of clowns. We believe that if we wear a lucky shirt our team will win. Completely ignoring the fact that our opponents fans have their lucky shirt on as well. We’re going to win this time, we say to ourselves at the blackjack table, we can feel it.

And on that third date, after the moonlit walk and fancy dinner, we run to our best friend to try and understand ourselves. Is it love we are feeling?

We humans tend to be unsure about our emotions. Constantly checking ourselves against our friends. Are we really angry or just disappointed? Are we in love or just lonely? Why is it that the personal feeling of God is spoken of with such certainty?

Let’s imagine a different sort of society. One where parents tell their children that anger is the feeling of God. Every time someone does something evil, God enters their bodies to give them power. Could such people tell the difference? Anger is an extremely powerful emotion. Asking people from this society about God, we would get a definitive answer. Of course God exists, they would say, I feel him all the time. Especially in the line at the DMV.

As children we are told God exists and that certain feeling embody him. And as children we accept that claim without question. When we grow up, we begin to see the inconsistencies of what we were told. Some of us stop believing. Others try and rationalize them away, still attributing certain feelings to God. Maybe the feeling of awe. Maybe reverence.

Whatever these feelings are, they are not unique to one faith. In fact, they are not unique to any faith. One can feel inspired without believing in the supernatural. One can feel awe without it being directed at a supreme being. These are experiences that every human being gets to feel. Even atheists.

The Stories of the Bible

The many books of the bible are full of stories. Some of these claim to depict the history of the creation of the world. Others the history of the Hebrew people. Parts of these stories are supported by evidence. Others are not. Are any of them true?

There is no doubt that the bible has some history to it. But it is not a historical text. The old Testament tells the story of the Hebrew people as they travel the ancient world. On occasion, places are depicted and people are named. Some of these names and places did really exist. Jerusalem is a real place. So is Egypt. The land of Israel was indeed occupied by Babylon, Greece, Rome and many more. But does this make the rest of it true?

To answer that question we must look at the way the book was written. The old testament was edited during the Roman occupation. At that time many Hebrews would have known the history of their people. They would have certainly known to call each place by location and each leader by name. Even today, in fine bookshops everywhere, we find books depicting fictional stories written into real historical events.

But let’s be honest. The majority of people do not accept these stories because they have studied the evidence. Most accept the bible as true because that is what they were told. We grew up with it. The faith comes later. If some archaeological evidence pops up to support the bible, great. If it refutes it, who cares? None of us are born with an innate knowledge that the bible is true. That is something we must be taught.

The belief that the bible depicts events that actually happened is instilled in us as children. We grow up viewing King David and Jesus Christ as historical figures. We are told the stories of the bible are true while other stories are fairy tales. But what if that were not the case?

Let us imagine for a moment that we grew up differently. Our parents told us of the fairy tale of Jonah and the whale, and then took us to learn the true story of Pinokio and his father who survived in a whale until rescued. Could we tell the difference? If the miracles of Jesus walking on water were just a story and snow whites evil step mothers and her magic mirror were true., would we just laugh away the bible as fiction? I think we might.

The bible seems to be a piece of historical fiction. Some fantastical events written into a real place and time. To fully appreciate this fact we must adorn a veil of ignorance. We must look at this book through the eyes of someone who has never heard of religious worship. A new comer to our literary world. Through those eyes we would not hesitate when asked about the truth of the book. Under such a veil of ignorance, everyone is a sceptic.

The Non-Literalists Bible

The overwhelming majority of those who believe in the truth of the bible split into two groups: Those who believe it is literally true - which I have remarked upon in my previous post; and those who see it as metaphorically true. The later believe it is a good guide to an absolute moral truth. The events mentioned in the bible are designed to pass along that moral truth, rather than a historical one.

There are many arguments to be made about the morality of the bible, but those will not be presented in this case. At the moment I wish to keep the discussion within the realm of the truth of the bible. And so the first point to be made is that of the last chapter: The bible tends not only to be factually inacurate, but also contradicts itself within its own rules.

Now back to the metaphors. The story of the flood was evidently designed to demonstrate Gods fury, while the parting of the sea was designed to demonstrate his mercy. Sound logical enough. But then what of the order of creation? What moral truth can be found in the fact the the sun was created after the plants? How does the direct blood line between Jesus and king David teach us anything (A blood line that is different in each of the gospels. Another example of biblical contradictions).

Another possible view is that the bible was written by man. It may contain moral truth and a message from God, but was written within the context of the people it was given to. A bronze age people.

This sort of reasoning raises even more questions. How can someone discern the moral truth from the tribal barbarism? In many places in the bible, God explicitly expects his people to commit genocide, or oppress women. Under which category should we place such commands? Are they a metaphor? or were they intended to be taken in context?

If the answer is context then the conclusion is unavoidable: The book was not intended for us to begin with. It is a bronze age book with a bronze age mentality depicting a bronze age God. This God acts and reacts consistently with the morality of that time. If we are to read it within that context and then intemperate our findings through the filter of our own morality, then it is not the book that’s in charge of the moral truth, but the filter. Us.

When we hear of those who believe in a literal acceptance of the bible, we may laugh. But there seems to be a rational element at play. If one has made the decision to believe in the God of the bible, it makes perfect sense to believe that his Gods text is literally true. It is the basis for his faith. On it’s face, it makes more sense to view the bible as non-literal. A non-literal interpretation fits perfectly with a non-belief in God. But it does not fit as well with religion. It feels strange to base ones life on the belief of a biblical God while viewing the bible as open to interpretation and human error.

But when it comes to the bible, everything is strange.

The Literalist’s Bible

This argument claims one simple thing: The bible is the perfect word of God (not necessarily relevant in this case is which bible or which God). Therefor everything written in it is literally true, floods, miracles, resurrections and all. Simple.

Most non-believers would shrug this all off with a laugh. As it happens, the book does contain a fair amount of claims about the natural world, many of which are, to a rational person, physically impossible.

The bible, however, cares nothing of this. It took the time to establish its own set of rules. Rules by which seas can part, suns can stop in their place, and people can be resurrected after death. For us to argue with these biblical stories would be a waste of time. Telling someone the parting of the sea is ridiculous and therefor they should stop believing in a literal bible will simply not work.

And so we must forgo virgin births and Egyptian plagues and find another argument. Such an argument would need to demonstrate that the bible cannot be literally true, within the confines of its own rules. It would need to identify a contradiction within the books own internal logic.

Turns out that’s not so hard to do. The bible, it seems, contradicts itself quite often. One example of this could be found in the book of Genesis. The bible returns to the story of creation several times. Each of those recounts a different order of events. The first story (Genesis 1:11 - 13, 27 - 31) tells us that plants were created before Adam and Eve. The second story (Genesis 2:4 - 7) tells the opposite. It could not have happened both ways. Which came first?

As we can see, and this is only a single example out of many, the bible is known to contradict itself. These contradictions are not reflections of the bibles own rules. This is a completely different kind of mistake. Here we are not complaining that the story does not fit with everything we know about the natural world. Here we argue that it does not fit with itself.

It is at this point that I must ask the obvious question: How can a book which contradicts itself be literally true? And if it still is, is there any evidence that could possibly be brought forward that would change that way of thinking? The bible is the source of the three Abrahamic faiths. If it is not literally true, where do they get their absolutes from?

Truth be told, it is easy to find contradictions in the bible. It was, after all, written and edited very often by many people. That’s the problem with ancient bibles. The Harry Potter novels would never make such mistakes.

What are the Odds?

A common argument toward the existence of a creator is one of probability. The development of life on our specific planet, it is argued, is so improbable that believing it just happened is ridiculous. To say nothing of life that is intelligent enough to calculate this probability in the first place. It cannot all just be a coincidence. There must be a divine hand involved.

The premise of this argument is a correct one. Life on earth is pretty unlikely. It would require a large list of conditions, only part of whom are: A relatively radiation free part of the galaxy; A medium sized sun; At least one planet which is at exactly the right distance from the sun to be at the right temperature; It should probably rotate, both around itself and its sun; And most of all, it would need to be there for long enough to develop life. And intelligent life at that. The odds are admittedly quite steep.

But when we come to think about it, we do inhabit a galaxy with around 400 billion suns. To say nothing of the many billions of other galaxies out there. And our sun has 8 planets orbiting it. If life existing on our planet (at long odds) is evidence for the existence of God, isn’t the lack of life on millions of other planets evidence against God?

What of the lottery? The odds of winning are exceedingly small, and yet, if enough people sign up a few will win. If the winner is a believer, he will likely consider that occasion as evidence for the existence of his God. Though he won by statistical probability alone. If we continue this line of reasoning, we should apply it to dice as well. Roll a six and God exists. Roll it enough times and you will get your evidence.

What would happen if the case were otherwise. Let us imagine a reality where our planet is much farther away from the sun. A frozen earth. A scenario where our world could never have supported life to begin with. If this were the case there would be no one alive to ask the question of God. Just like on Mars. No God supposed. No God needed.

The fact that we are here asking the question cannot be used as evidence for a divine creator, just as the fact that millions of other worlds hold no life on them at all is evidence against one. Imagine a pair of billion sided dice. And then throw them hundreds of billions of times. Would it be a miracle that you occasionally get a six? Would it be proof of God?

Of course not. In fact it would be probably be evidence if you didn’t.

Whenever we win against the odds it makes us feel special. We didn’t think we had a chance, but we did. A small chance. We should consider ourselves lucky. Not blessed.

The Watchmaker

Imagine you are walking on a beach, a religious man would tell us. All of a sudden you spot a watch laying on the sand. You don’t know who made the watch or who it belongs to, but there is no question that someone made it. The world, too, is so perfect in its form that it must be designed. That designer, our theist tells us, is God.

This beautiful analogy sounds, at first, perfectly logical. Upon a second glance, however, it reveals a fatal flaw. No matter how complex the object designed, the designer must be more complex. In the watch analogy, this designer is a human watchmaker. If there is a God who created the world, he must, himself, be incredibly complex. And so our question would simply be delayed by one step, and now we must ask: who designed the designer?

Could we possibly solve this question in another way? I believe we can. The key to overcoming this sort of reasoning is to understand that complex things can come about without necessarily being designed. In cosmology this would happen through gravity and chance. In biology through evolution by natural selection. Some thing are still designed. No one is claiming that the watch our religious friend found on the beach was not designed. It was designed by a watchmaker, who, himself, was a product of evolution by natural selection.

But of course, even if we establish that complex things can come into being without being designed, that does not mean the world and everything in it is one of them. Could the earth and the life on it still have been designed by a higher being?

To answer that we would have to take a look at our world. If it were designed (especially by a perfect being), we would expect it to look a certain way. We would expect harmony and a perfect working order. We would expect it to be flawless in its design. If the human body were designed by a perfect being, it should have no redundant parts. it should be perfectly efficient. And yet, it is not.

In fact, when we study the many forms of life on our planet, we find they behave exactly as we would expect them to under the rules of natural selection. Rather than a perfect harmony we find a vicious fight for survival. Almost every living thing that ever lived has died before its time. Most likely in a horribly painful way. Such brutal competitions between living things are the driving force of evolution, but make no sense with design.

Our body, too, looks exactly as we would expect through evolution. Everything within us, from our body parts to our DNA, is reminiscent of millions of years of patchwork. Every generation leaving just a little on top of its predecessors. Our body is not perfect. It is full of flaws. Each flaw pointing us to its origin in our species past. None pointing toward design.

Our world, full of beauty and wonder, is also full of ‘design flaws’. But as we continue to discover, these are not flaws at all , they are just life as it evolves. No designer needed.

Millions of People Can’t be Wrong

When confronted with the issue of the existence of God, many people call upon the masses for support. “So many people can’t be so wrong about so much”, they say. becoming a non-believer would be like calling ones ancestors and millions of his fellow believers stupid. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

In some cases it could be considered a great rule of thumb to check ones self against a crowd. We do so every day, as we weigh our actions against what our friends find acceptable. Whenever we contemplate our individual morality, the social circle can be a great measure. It is not illegal to be impolite to a co-worker, but we try not to be. We do so because it is not socially acceptable. And that’s fine.

In other cases, however, the majorities opinion is less valuable. Whenever an issue involves expert knowledge, the opinion of those without such knowledge would be a waste of time. We should definitely not hold a vote on whether or not ethylene glycol should be added to our food. The vast majority of people have no idea what ethylene glycol is and so would be useless in the decision (it’s antifreeze by the way).

This line of reasoning is true in the religious debate as well. when it comes to the moral issues, advanced societies tend to pick and choose the parts of their religion which is agreeable within that society. And so, to a large degree, most cultures morality is exceedingly similar. Customs may differ, but the basic morality of different cultures is often the same.

When it comes to the origin of the universe and the evolution of life, however, common wisdom suddenly diverges. Suddenly the numbers are against the religious. No matter what religion one subscribes to, most of the people of the world think he is fundamentally wrong. When the questions are not ones of morality and human action but cosmology, biology and geology, the religions become heavily divided. Can we really invoke common wisdom to defend issues that are beyond common knowledge?

What about our ancestors? Were they all wrong?

We know they were wrong about some things. Today we know the world is not flat. That it rotates around the sun. That germs exist. We can also point to moral divergences over the years. Today we consider our ancestors wrong on moral issues such as slave owning, or the rights of woman in society. Most of us think they were morally wrong in their treatment of Africans or homosexuals.

Is it really so hard to believe they were wrong about God as well?

Gods Thin Layer of Infinite Protection

The undoubted source of Gods all mightiness is, of course, the word 'all'. A simply 'mighty' being could be nice, but it would not be God. The word mighty does well to describe big animals or conquering kings, but in order to impress the meek one needs just a little extra. Infinite power, however, may be more Impressive but is also more complicated.

Infinity is a mathematical term. It is a rhetorical term to describe things that are unending. But despite its wide spread in conversation, Infinity does not exist in reality. There is simply no such thing as infinitely large or small. Nothing goes on forever. Think for a moment of the simple mathematical question: What is infinity minus infinity? How can one even begin to answer such a question. It is a paradox. And questions that pose paradoxes always point toward a flaw in the assumptions of the question - in this case: infinity.

But what does this do to the concept of God? Once stripped from infinity, the concept of God takes an immediate turn in our mind. Suddenly questions begin to surface. If God is not infinitely old, when did he start? Was he born? and if so, who begot him?

We find ourselves asking questions about where he came from, and the limits of his power. Without infinity God seems to be reduced to a powerful alien at best (and a figment of our imagination at worst).

What about the human soul? Even if there is an afterlife, what's the use if it is not infinite. This is great news for those going to Hell but the occupants of Heaven may feel short changed. Without infinity, the soul would not live forever. Which means we will all eventually die. Even if we accept the afterlife as a possibility - it would end eventually.

After removing this thin layer of protection from God, These questions immediately follow. Our imagination cannot grasp infinite power, but finite power we can get our head around. A God which is not infinitely moral may be just regularly moral. Maybe he isn't all around us. Maybe he can't hear all of our prayers. Maybe only some. Or maybe none.

Personal Miracles

In my experience, people often invoke miracles as evidence toward the existence of God. A miracle is an event within the physical world. It is for that reason that I am quite fond of them. Physical events can usually be tested.
In this chapter, however, we will deal only with the case of personal miracles. Those are the kind of miracles which most commonly remain within the realm of a single individual. Most often pertaining to miraculous healing or divine intervention in such cases as accidents or war. We will not, in this chapter, discuss other claimed miracles such as the parting of specific seas or the miracle of child birth. Those will be discussed in the future I hope.

As far as miraculous healing is concerned, the test is fairly simple. It is a well known medical fact that, sometimes, sick people heal. Cancers sometimes go into remission. Every once in a while infections subside. However such cases are rare enough for doctors not to consider them a viable treatment option. Later, we hear the stories of people who were told they have a month to live and then survived another twenty years. It’s a miracle.

But not every type of sick person heals. If it were God who is healing the sick, we would assume he does so by his own plan or morality. We would not expect him to do so based on an individual illness. God is almighty. He can heal anything. Right?
If this is the case, then why does God only heal people who suffer from ambiguous disease's? Disease’s which could have healed on their own anyway. And yet God never heals amputees. Surely there are amputees from all strata of the moral realm. Surely not all such people are evil and undeserving of a miracle. And yet this never happens. Never. Not rarely. NEVER!
Which leads me to the conclusion that God either hates amputees or people intemperate the good things that happen to them in the way their parents told them to. Religiously.

What about the other form of personal miracles? People survive accidents and war every day. Many of these are considered miracles. “I should have died in that car accident, but God intervened and saved me.”
These sorts of miracles are the same religious interpretations as the ones mentioned earlier. These, of course, harder to make fun of without the ready example of amputees.
But why don’t we just call this sort of interpretation by its real name: Narcissism.

“I was supposed to die in that car accident, but the almighty God, creator of the heavens and the earth, intervened in order to save me. I must be such an integral part of his grand cosmic plan that he suspended all of the laws of causality and physics for me to keep living. I am that important. Now I know I should run for president.”

Or maybe you just got lucky.

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

Pascal’s Wager

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal once posed the following line of reasoning: Even if the existence of God cannot be determined through reason and evidence, a rational person would wager as if God does exist because if there is no God, one loses nothing and if there is, one wins eternal life in his favor.

This argument does well to sniff out those who should stay out of the gambling den.
Pascal begins by making an assumption about the evidence for the existence of God. Though I do not entirely accept this assumption, I will accept it to argue the following point.

Pascals wager, like every wager, is based on probability. And sadly, we must ask this unanswerable question in order to establish an answer: Given there is no evidence for or against God, what is the probability of his existence? An exact answer, of course, cannot be given.

We can, however, exclude a few common answers. The probability is surely not fifty fifty, for example. If someone makes a claim for which there is no evidence, the odds of it being correct do not suddenly become fifty fifty. If that were the case, we would have to accept every whim of the human imagination as credible. In fact, considering the prevalence of Jerusalem syndrome among schizophrenics, there should be thousands of Messiahs locked away in asylums everywhere.
The lack of evidence may make it impossible to calculate odds, but it does usually make them automatically small. The grander the unsubstantiated claim, the smaller the likelihood of its correctness. So the odds are not known but they are small. One might say: incalculably small.

However small the odds are for the existence of God, we must now make them even smaller. Pascal’s wager was designed to allow him into the afterlife. Which means that not only must he be right about the existence of God, he must also pick the right God to worship. Wouldn’t he feel sheepish if, after choosing the Christian God, Pascal would find himself in a bad suburb of Hades?

Despite the incalculably small odds of picking the right God to worship, and his existing in the first place, the wager would still be perfectly rational if it would bear no cost. This seems to be the central assumption Pascal makes. say, for example, entry into heaven would entail only a declaration that one believes in God an nothing else. But there is a cost to believing in God. Every God expects one to perform a set of real world actions in order to win eternal life. The Christian God doubly so. To say nothing of forgoing ones healthy scepticism.

Finally, I have to ask: Would an all powerful judging God not see through this simple ruse? At the point of judgment would he not notice that the man standing before him decided to bypass faith and morality simply to reap eternal reward? Wouldn’t that make him a little angry? I think it might.
Let’s just hope he is more forgiving than the casino’s.

The Basics of Religious Debate

Every time one is forced to defend his belief in a debate the arguments will be one of two simple types: The defender will either try and prove the correctness of his own claims or the fallacy in his opponents. In the case of religious arguments this is equally true and yet naturally more complicated. Following from this rule, just about all of the arguments theists bring forward in a debate fall into one of three major categories:

1. Arguments toward the existence of God or the truth of their religious beliefs. These usually include mention of the physical world, trying to show the world was deliberately created. Though I find this to be the most noble way to argue for ones religion, the advocate has his work cut out for him. He must both show the world was created by a supreme being, and then show that it was his specific supreme being that did so. God may have created the world. But which God?

2. Claims about the usefulness of religion. In these cases it is usually argued that religion makes people more moral or that prayer is shown to be good for your health. None of these arguments, of course, bare any relevance to the truth of the religious claims. Faith may be the best thing in the world for the human condition and religion would still not be true.

3. Attacking Atheists. Usually taking the form of trying to debunk evolution, cosmology and geology. Often it is claimed that a lack of belief in a higher power is damaging. How are people supposed to do the right thing, it is asked, when they know they won’t be punished if they don’t? You may have noticed this is also an argument toward the usefulness of religion, though it usually takes a very different tone. Once again, one may disprove evolution and prove Atheists are intrinsically immoral, and yet have taken no step toward arguing for the existence of God.

There are few arguments a religious advocate can make to convince a non-believer, that do not rely on evidence or reason. And yet there are countless arguments that might as well be wrapped in evidence and drenched in logic which would just as easily be dismissed by a theist. The root of belief is not based in the natural world but in personal feeling. And as any man who has ever been in a relationship with a woman can attest, feelings are difficult to dismiss. However, I find that all cases can be made. Be it an argument based in feeling or reason, logic or evidence, a perfectly good answer can be given. One that would make anyone pause and think.

There is one argument that does not fit into any of the three categories I mentioned above. It is Pascals Wager. A pragmatic argument that will be the first to be mentioned as I begin to discuss specific claims in the next installment.