Proof of God’s Existence

I recently read a series of lectures given by Carl Sagan, and one of the points he made was that it would have been absurdly simple for Abraham’s God to leave absolute, definitive proof of His existence.  Proof that would convince the healthiest of skeptics (such as Sagan).

For instance, a passage in the Bible as simple as “The sun is a star,” or “An object in motion stays in motion,” or perhaps even Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism.  The scribes wouldn’t know what these things meant, couldn’t apply them, but this was God they were listening to.  God could have made certain they recorded these things, reminded them repeatedly to write them precisely and keep copying it down through the ages.  Fast forward several centuries, and you have pretty powerful evidence that a higher power was imparting wisdom to those ancient prophets, because those are things they simply could not have had knowledge of.

(In Sagan’s novel Contact, his idea was that a non-random pattern could be located several billion digits down in the constant pi.  Calculate out 3.14159265…far enough, and you prove definitely that there is a higher power in the universe.)

The main argument Christians have against this point is that God is not obligated to leave us proof.  Why should He?  Perhaps He thinks faith is truly a virtue, or He wants us to discover the truth on our own, or He thinks that empirical evidence takes away from spiritual faith.  This is the same objection Sagan heard from members of the audience during his lecture.

But it seems to me that God made quite a bit of effort to prove His existence, if the Bible is to be believed.  In biblical times, He was everywhere from burning bushes to voices from the sky.  He parted seas, turned women into salt, rained brimstone, flooded the earth, and even got in a one-upping game with the magicians of Egypt.  Miracles were ubiquitous back then.  And God didn’t just give them hints and arcane prophecies and clues – He was in their face.  Sometimes He appeared to do this to scare nonbelievers and heathens into accepting His power, or to prove to people that He was their God and he could do anything (such as when He used a great deal of verse to convince Job).

In Exodus 4.1, when God instructed Moses to go to Egypt and free the children of Israel, Moses said, “…they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared to thee.”  God agreed, and showed Moses that he could change a rod into a snake, his had leprous, and water into blood to convince the people.  Skeptics today would love to see evidence like that.  To prelude the miracles in Egypt, God said in Exodus 7.1, “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.”  Later, before parting the Red Sea and destroying the Egyptians, God said again, “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honored upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.”

Not only did God exhibit definitive proofs, by His own admission He provides such evidence for the explicit purpose of convincing skeptics and heathens.  I’m not saying God is obligated to do anything.  But plenty of religions, sacred texts, and mythologies claim the kinds of definitive miracles the god of the Bible exhibited.  Even the heathen magicians of Egypt could manage turning rods into snakes.  How are we supposed to know the difference?  What sets the miraculous claims of the Bible apart from the miraculous claims of Hinduism, or the Aztec’s mythology, for example?

How Sean Hannity Convinces Himself that God Exists

On Hannity & Colmes, I’ve heard Sean Hannity mention a particular argument more than once.  This is the belief that all of existence is “perfect” and was therefore designed for human beings by a benevolent, omnipotent deity.  It is usually accompanied with some mention of how the laws of physics are all fine-tuned to make life possible for humans.

The only point this argument makes is that humans exist in a place where it’s possible for humans to exist.  Are we supposed to be shocked by this fact?  I’m not sure if Mr. Hannity could discuss the difference between the strong and weak versions of the anthropic principle, but perhaps he can at least admit that the universe must be capable of supporting us whether there is a designer or not.

I wonder if Hannity ever contemplates how the “perfection” of our solar system accounts for the deterioration of the moon’s orbit, the slowing of the Earth’s rotation due to tidal friction, the fact that the sun will eventually broil our planet to a cinder, or the mathematical certainty of a life-threatening asteroid eventually striking the Earth.  Has he considered the blatant waste in nature?  Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth are extinct, our DNA contains vast amounts of junk, species have vestigial limbs and organs, and so on.  Those like Hannity evoke the teleological argument as Paley’s analogy of the obvious design of a watch.  But what watchmaker creates a watch with parts that are nonfunctional, parts that have prominent imperfections, and parts that seem to have once been used in simpler watches but are no longer needed?  What is “fine-tuned” about the appendix and wisdom teeth?

We are surrounded by a hundred billion galaxies, each with a couple hundred billion stars.  Much of the universe is empty space, and much of what is not is still inimical to human life.  Further, for most of the universe’s fourteen-billion-year history, humans have not been around.  Mr. Hannity would better serve the truth by saying: “Here on this obscure arm of an ordinary spiral galaxy among billions, revolving around one of billions of planets, in a tiny zone between freezing space and melting core – human being have managed to be part of a fragile balancing act with other carbon-based life for the last 0.00001 percent of the universe’s existence.”

Perhaps if cyanobacteria could think, they would beleive that their deity created humans and other animals for the purpose of breathing in the deadly gas oxygen that they emit as a waste product. 

The universe seems perfectly designed for human beings only when one assumes beforehand that we are special, that a place and a purpose were reserved for us.  This is a comforting and even understandable thought, but that does not make it true.

God Saves One and Kills a Hundred

I remember watching the news once and seeing the reporter interview a man whose family had survived a tornado that had wrecked their home and neighborhood.  Apparently an old woman who lived across the street from them was also spared.  She’d been pulled out of the wreckage of her home, and miraculously had been without serious injury.

The man speaking to the reporter gushed how he and his family had prayed for the woman, had asked God to save her, and so they were exultant that He apparently had answered their prayers.  The reporter even agreed with him, stating that God had indeed listened. 

My question is, if prayer works so well and can convince God to save one person from certain death, why was this man so selfish?  Why didn’t he and his family pray for everyone that would be in harm’s way of the tornado?  The old lady was okay, but several other people died.  Surely it’s because no one prayed for them, right?

In fact, why didn’t they just pray that God not send the tornado in the first place?

Maybe I have it all wrong.  Maybe this man and his family did indeed pray for everyone threatened by the tornado.  Maybe even Christian church congregations across the nation prayed for them.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this; it’s a kind sentiment.  It makes me feel good when people tell me that they’re praying for me, however much I might want to argue about it.  But apparently prayer didn’t work in this case.  God decided to use only one miracle that day, and it was to save that old lady.  Any and all prayers for the people killed apparently fell on deaf ears.

In this case, I have to ask, “How do you know God really saved her, and it wasn’t just a chance occurrence?  After all, people prayed for others in the tornado’s path, and they died.  On the flip side, people who don’t receive any prayers miraculously survive a myriad of dangerous situations all the time.”

I’m still more interested in the question of why God saves some and not others.  Christians say, “It’s because He has a plan.”  Maybe, but what kind of plan is that?  Even if we accept that God knows best, and He’s allowing people to die so that others will live, or good things will happen, how does that justify human sacrifice?  Human beings sometimes have to make tough decisions that weigh the value of life, but why should an omnipotent God have to to any such thing?  He can snap His fingers and make the bad stuff go away, and He doesn’t have to slaughter innocent families in the process.

Besides, if God already has a plan, what’s the point of praying, anyway?

How Christians Insult Our Intelligence, Part I

The other day I got involved in a conversation with someone who is a staunch creationist.  He told me that “mankind is ugly” and “mankind does ugly things.”  Therefore, God is required to pull off some of the beauty and grandeur in the Universe.

I asked why.  Why immediately leap to the conclusion that a divine spark is necessary?  We mentioned the works of Shakespeare, the music of Mozart, the kindness of charitable, selfless human beings.  I asked him why he couldn’t just give credit where credit was due.  Why take away from the accomplishments of these people by saying that they required a magic spell from heaven to help them do it?

I’d say that mankind has accomplished quite a bit of greatness despite the ugly things.  Jesus didn’t reveal to us the smallpox vaccine, for example, that saved millions of lives.  No religious text gave us any insight into modern science, which allows the earth to support millions of more human beings than normal, and improve the quality of life of everyone.

One can argue all day that the inspiration for these great accomplishments came from some sort of divine nudge, but why?  Is there any evidence for it?  Why is it even necessary?  That’s like saying, “My urge to go skinny-dipping was divine inspiration from the nudist god of Neptune.”  It’s utterly meaningless without evidence.

Creationists often speak of how an impersonal universe, the theory of evolution, etc., takes away from life’s meaning, that it reduces human beings to ugly, base things struggling along in selfishness.  But here is a prime example of the opposite.  Here is a creationist deliberately lowering human beings and claiming that they aren’t capable of greatness on their own.  Indeed, the entire message of many creationists (like the followers of Abraham’s God) is that mankind is inherently flawed and God is perfect.  All morality comes from God.  Only through Him shall you gain grace and forgiveness and paradise.

Personally I think it’s rather depressing.  Why put such limitations on our capabilities?  Why have such little confidence in your fellow human beings?  Shouldn’t we strive to find greatness within ourselves, rather than concede that we can’t achieve it unless a mythological father figure grants it to us?

I think it comes down to responsibility.  Maybe if we start holding ourselves completely responsible for everything we do – both good and bad – we’ll no longer have any need of this pointless and insulting notion that human beings are in need of guidance from something greater.  Let’s have faith in ourselves rather than faith in a comforting campfire story.  Ayn Rand said “Belief in the supernatural begins as belief in the superiority of others.”  Until someone can come up with evidence, why should we assume that there is anything superior to human beings at all?

Charges to Level at God

Christians get so upset when someone challenges their faith.  This is understandable, as they consider it an integral part of their life.  But how are we to have honest discussions about faith and religion and skepticism if so many Christians inevitably retreat to: “You’re being disrespectful to my religion.  It’s cruel to attack my faith.”?

There are cruel skeptics out there, people who ridicule faith and insult the faithful – just as there are cruel, intolerant Christians out there.  None of that is conducive to rational discourse.

However, I think that many of the so-called attacks on Christianity are not attacks at all, but honest and arguable points.  Of course the delivery is important.  If a skeptic has a sneer and speaks in a condescending manner, not only is that insulting, but it undermines his or her argument.  Such skeptics should calm down – it’s counterproductive, anti-intellectual, and completely unnecessary.

Here are a few points that I would argue in a calm manner, with a genuine desire for honest discourse.  I consider these arguments to be valid questions, though I’m sure many Christians will not.

God is a facist dictator.  He requires that everyone worships Him.  He requires rituals of praise, He disallows the worship of any other, He murders when people don’t follow His rules.

God is a murderer.  Say that the Great Flood was a parable.  This still leaves plenty of mass murder and ethnic cleansing in the Old Testament.

God is unjust.  God sentences people to death for small infractions (such as the case of Lot’s wife) while letting others go free despite horrible crimes (such as Lot for offering his daughters to a mob of rapists), and meting out disproportionate punishments (such as sparing King David for his acts but murdering his newborn son).

God is a misogynist.  All women must suffer in childbirth and be less than men because of Eve’s so-called crime.

God condones rape.  In Judges 21, God grants his conquering followers the right to take ownership of the virgin women of the slaughtered people.  Deuteronomy 22.28 requires a rapist to marry his victim.

Please bear in mind that all of these things are what God did Himself or ordered in His sacred book.  I have no need of bringing up the multitude of horrors people have done in His name.  These acts are unambiguous and clear for anyone to read.  Each of the above statements are therefore honest questions to be asked in a debate about God’s morality.  I’m certain that Christians have explanations and answers for these charges, and as a skeptic, I am always willing to listen to them.

There’s no need for a skeptic to get nasty when bringing up these points: the evidence speaks for itself.  But neither is there a need for Christians to be offended and shut off discourse on the topic.  If you can’t even make a rational argument for why you think God is real and benevolent, why are you worshipping Him in the first place?