I don't actually expect anyone to read this, but I like putting these things up. I have an unfortunate tendency to accidentally delete files during manic cleaning phases. Plus, voluntary peer reviews are cool, 'cause my own typos are invisible to me.
Imaginary Gods
For philosophy class. Informal paper--very informal.
Is there a God? My answer to this question, in its simplest form, is that I highly doubt it. I have yet to encounter a convincing argument for the existence of any god or gods, and evidence seems to deny rather than support the existence of a divine creator and designer. To be fair, I also have not located an argument that convinced me that there is, without a doubt, no great and mysterious force in the universe that defies modern scientific explanation, but that is no reason to entertain the notion that God exists. Humankind has much more to learn about the universe; gaps in our current knowledge do not need to be filled by religion. I’m convinced that religion and its gods are human inventions, its arguments are easily dismissed, and, if there is a divine power in the universe-unlikely-it does not exist in the form of an all-powerful, omniscient creator.
I was raised in a Lutheran family, dutifully attended a Lutheran church, and enjoyed a Lutheran confirmation ceremony in the eighth grade. As such, the God that I will refer to is the Judeo-Christian God. While I have no more belief in that particular God than in any others, I feel most comfortable discussing the divine power that fourteen years in a Lutheran church has introduced me to. Know that my objections to this familiar God apply to the countless gods present in religion, particularly those that traditionally create worlds, serve as humanity’s self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner, and motivate people of varying beliefs to kill each other.
The arguments that supposedly prove God’s existence are universally weak and easily dismissed, even those that have given philosophers reason to hesitate in the past. Because I find all arguments in God’s favor unconvincing, I will take up what I consider the most notorious: Thomas Aquinas’ five proofs and Intelligent Design, the modern ancestor of Aquinas’ troublesome fifth proof. The first three of Aquinas’ proofs-the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, and the initial creator-all run into the problem of infinite regression, successfully bringing up more questions than they answer. Who moved the mover, caused the cause, and created the creator? It seems arbitrary-lazy, even-to point to an initial mover, causer, and creator and call it God. There is no natural point of termination in this endless chain, and no evident and necessary beginning. Aquinas’ fourth argument, the argument from degree, is elegantly dismissed by Dawkins in The God Delusion:
“You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God” (79).
Humans need no perfect example of a quality to create a standard against which to compare all other examples, just as we do not need to assume that there was a prime cause or creator. The God that might be proven by Aquinas’ first four proofs is entirely unnecessary. Because He is unnecessary, there is little reason to believe that there must be an otherwise unprovable God.
The final argument from design is more difficult to wave off than its predecessors for reasons that continue to mystify me. Perhaps it was a formidable defense in Aquinas’ day, but, in light of modern knowledge of evolution, the idea that the universe and everything in it is designed by an intelligent, goal-oriented being should be laughable. The fact that something appears to be designed is no indication that there was, by necessity, a designer. There are, of course, objects such as chairs, books, and eating utensils that appear to be designed and, in fact, were, but a spoon and a living being, such as a household cat, are not comparable. Spoons are designed and manufactured by humans; cats are a product of the same slow process of natural selection that is responsible for other living things, and the gradual evolution of the cat is documented in the fossil record. The processes by which both the spoon and the cat came to be the way they are can be seen, and they are very different. The spoon was designed by humans to aid us in the eating of semi-solid foods. The cat was not designed, and came about by chance. I feel that I’ve said too much on a topic that does not deserve such extensive exploration, but the persistent belief in the argument by design, now masquerading under the misnomer of Intelligent Design, leads me to suspect that the argument has merits that I have managed to miss. Intelligent Design is unnecessary and, even worse, blatantly false. The theory of evolution has more than defeated this antiquated argument, in spite of gaps that still remain in the fossil record. Simply look at fossils and the distribution of both fossilized remains and species across the globe for proof of evolution. Proponents of Intelligent Design might say that God simply planted fossils to either test human faith or to throw us off track, but this is patently ridiculous. An omniscient God shouldn’t require a test to know whether or not a human is truly faithful, and a perfect God surely wouldn’t stoop to trickery. Being all-powerful, God could plant confusion in our minds without bothering with elaborate hoaxes. By the same token, it seems rather impolite for an all-good God to mislead humanity.
I also question the “intelligent” portion of Intelligent Design’s name. A quick glance at the world will reveal a variety of imperfections that a truly intelligent designer-particularly a perfect one-would have corrected. Some organs, such as the backwards and upside-down human eye, are clearly inefficient and show little intelligence in their design. Other body parts, such as the human appendix and tailbone, are unnecessary. Surely an intelligent designer would be clever enough to make efficient beings that possess only the necessary body parts, and that each organ would be as perfect as possible. Now, please consider two things-one designed by humans and one that came about naturally through evolution, as in the spoon and cat case-that display a lack of intelligence in whatever design might be evident: the spork and the platypus. Without bothering with elaboration, I propose that both of these are evidence for Unintelligent Design for reasons that should be clear. The human-made spork is a hybrid that performs the function of neither the spoon nor the fork; the platypus is a bizarre creature of the natural world that cannot properly be classified as a mammal or a bird. If either the spork or the platypus was designed, it was not designed intelligently. Imperfect design is understandable in the case of the spork, as humans are prone to failure. The platypus, however, is an unforgivable error if it, along with all other living creatures, was designed by a perfect God. The argument that I have been building towards is exceptionally weak, but I believe it is at least as convincing as most arguments made in God’s favor.
I propose that living beings and their functional parts show evidence of poor planning and a lack of foresight. If God designed and created these inefficient mechanisms, then He is neither perfect nor omniscient. Since organs like the human eye and creatures such as the platypus exist, a designer God cannot be perfect or omniscient or He would have ironed these kinks out in the planning phases. In short, there is no perfect creator God because there are imperfect creations. At this point, I still see no reason to believe in the argument from design or in Intelligent Design. Indeed, I believe Darwin destroyed both long before I was born with the Theory of Evolution, natural selection, and the physical evidence that supports both. To oppose evolution, one needs to oppose a massive body of evidence and scientific understanding. There is simply no place for such arguments at the current time. The argument from design may have been plausible in Aquinas’ time when humanity was still in its scientific childhood and God was the best explanation available, but it should have disappeared along with the belief that excessive bloodletting is an effective cure for disease and the certainty that the celestial bodies revolve around the earth.
This leads me to what I believe is the truly relevant question related to religious beliefs: Why? We are beyond asking whether or not the Judeo-Christian God-and, I should hope, other personal gods-exists, and now must ask why God is still so prominent and staunchly supported. Science has largely erased God’s function as an explanatory tool, and remaining gaps in human knowledge will undoubtedly be filled in the future without divine intervention. I would argue that the modern God is also an unappealing figure; He encourages fear of damnation rather than hopes for a decent life, urges fighting factions to war instead of fostering peace, and closes the minds of believers to science and reason. I can’t imagine why anyone would devote themselves to an apparently fictional being, let alone such an unsavory one.
I have asked those who claim to believe in God why they are convinced that He exists in an effort to understand. Their answers almost invariably include hope, faith, and family; in other words, they believe in God because doing so makes them feel good, and it’s how they were raised to think. This doesn’t seem like sufficient reason to create a God that is otherwise unsupported by evidence or even by necessity, but it does shed light on why some people believe.
I must amend my initial answer to the question posed at the beginning of this paper. Although I am strongly convinced that there is no God in existence, no evidence to indicate otherwise, and no compelling reason to grant God existence on the basis of necessity, I will admit that God exists. He exists, however, in the same sense that unicorns, fairies, and fictional characters exist. He never had and never will have an existence independent of the minds that believe in Him, has not and will not create a world or creatures in His image, and will continue to fail to convince a vast majority of reasonable and fact-oriented individuals that He exists in any meaningful way.
To summarize what I have said thus far, there is no evidence to prove that God exists as an independent and self-motivated entity. There is also no evidence to disprove this, as there cannot be tangible proof of a thing’s nonexistence. The Theory of Evolution, however, can prove that God did not create the world 6,000 years ago or design creatures and their assorted parts in a purposeful or intelligent manner. God is also not needed to fill in the dwindling gaps in modern understanding of the universe. He exists only as a thought in the minds of believers as a sort of divine imaginary friend. I believe that God has not created humanity; humanity has created God. Once upon a time, when humans lived in an intellectually shady world full of ignorance and superstition, God served as an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable and helped make sense of the world. Unfortunately, God has not gone the way of the flat earth theory or the notion that leeches promote health. Like the human appendix, He failed to disappear along with the need that created Him and, like the vestigial structure that occasionally becomes infected and causes death, has the potential to do far more harm than good.
Crappy formatting is crappy! :D