01.17.06
When it comes to the rampant propoganda of the religious right, the majority of my time is spent dismantling the many theories proffered by Christian apologetics. Most of these theories are baseless and severely flawed; the best of them are forced to ignore the more fantastical attributes often assigned to the idea of a "god" and deal solely with an abstract force that is indistinguishable as a "god" as we understand the term in its social context.
Here, then, I intend to deal with a few of the more common theorems that I've encountered and demonstrate their inherent uselessness.
the WATCHMAKER AXIOM
Many theists claim as evidence of "intelligent design" the fact that the set of conditions necessary for human life is so specific that the chances of them coming about by chance are so astronomically low as to require a Creator. What they fail to acknowledge is that the Earth existed for billions of years before humans evolved on it; the current form of the human being, then, is a result of the conditions of the Earth that already existed. The fallacy of the argument is the presupposition that humans could take only one possible form, and that that form pre-existed the planet on which they would exist; in reality, however, the conditions existed first, after which, through evolution, humans became suited to them.
The most common argument leveled by theists in this regard is the Watchmaker Axiom. The Axiom equates the astronomically low chances of the universe randomly coming together in the exact formation that we now perceive as "the universe" to the following scenario:
1) disassemble a Patek Philipe pocketwatch
2) put all of the components into a drier
3) run the drier for 13-billion years
4) come out with a completely-formed, fully-functioning Patek Philipe pocketwatch
The chances of the pocketwatch scenario are so astronomically low as to verge on impossible, and they should be, because the argument is flawed.
The fallacy inherent to this argument appears in the first premise; disassemble a complex existing object. The pocketwatch scenario and the universe scenario differ in one crucial aspect; we are not first disassembling the universe into its fundamental components, then expecting the parts to randomly reform the exact same universe in form and function. If, however, we take a handful of random items, put them into a drier, run the drier for 13-billion years, and then call the resulting item a "Patek Philipe pocketwatch," then the fallacy of the universe scenario becomes obvious.
A simpler version of the Axiom states simply that if one were wandering a beach and found a fully-functioning pocketwatch on the sand, one would not logically assume that the watch had formed randomly. This version is equally flawed, however, because the example of a pocketwatch is not analogous to the universe; a pocketwatch would certainly not form randomly, because it serves no purpose in reality other than to measure an arbitrarily defined unit called "time" that exists nowhere in nature outside of the mind of the watchmaker.
The reason that the watch requires a watchmaker is because it is designed to perform a specific function unique to its creator. The notion of "time" is, at best, a contrived concept based loosely on natural events (e.g. the revolution of the Moon around the Earth, the rotation of the Earth, the revolution of the Earth around the Sun); the notion of a "second," an "hour" or a "week" exists nowhere in nature outside of human consciousness. The pocketwatch is designed specifically to measure an unnatural contrivance; thus it would not form randomly because it is otherwise useless.
The same restriction does not apply to the universe, or even to the Earth; what we call "the universe" and "the Earth" are merely one possible outcome of the random formation process that spanned 13-billion years. If any of the other infinite number of possible outcomes had resulted, then we would be calling that "the universe" instead -- assuming that human beings evolved in that universe at all -- and theists would undoubtedly be claiming that the chances of that universe coming together exactly as it did are so astronomically low as to require a Creator. Of course, if humans evolved in that other universe, they would necessarily be different than we are because they would have evolved to exist in a different set of specific conditions, and theists would undoubtedly be claiming that the fact that the planet we lived on had the exact conditions necessary to sustain human life was undeniable "proof" of the hand of Creator.
The average person simply doesn't possess a sufficient understanding of statistical probability to appreciate the meaning of improbability. In a game of poker, the probability of drawing any single card from a full deck is 1-in-52, or .01923; if someone drew a Three-of-Clubs, however, he would not marvel at the mathematical improbability of somehow drawing the Three-of-Clubs against a .01923 probility. He would rightly see the drawing as random. If we follow this example to its logical and mathematical conclusion, then, we realize that we draw a second random card from the deck at a probability of .01960, a third card at a probability of .02000, a fourth card at a probability of .02041, and a fifth card at a probability of .02083; thus, the probability of drawing any five-card hand on a poker deal is actually only .000000003204775603848.
Yet drawing a Three-of-Clubs, Jack-of-Hearts, Five-of-Spades, Nine-of-Diamonds and Ace-of-Clubs would appear no more orchestrated than any other random hand, despite the fact that the probability of drawing exactly that hand is only .000000003204775603848. If, however, one were to expect that hand in advance, the chances of drawing it on the deal are 1-in-311,875,200; if one simply accepts the cards that are drawn, one has the potential to end up with any one of 311,875,200 possible hands. And this is exactly how the universe came about; the "deck" is the initial set of components, the "deal" is the 13-billion years of history, and the "hand" is the universe as we know it to exist. Thus we reveal that the universe is nothing more than one random outcome out of an infinite array of equally possible random outcomes.
the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Saint Anselm, Rene Descartes, Alvin Plantinga and various others have postulated similar ontological arguments that attempt to "prove" that a God exists on purely a definitional basis. The basis of the argument is as follows:
1) God is the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived.
2) The concept of God exists in human understanding.
3) The concept of God existing in reality exists in human understanding.
4) If an entity exists in reality and in human understanding, this entity is greater than it would have been if it existed only in human understanding.
5) from 1, 2, 3, and 4; God existing in reality is greater than God existing only in human understanding.
6) Therefore, God must exist in reality.
The most prominent fallacy that renders the ontological argument useless is the equivocation in its first premise. The word "God" as Anselm uses it is defined, he claims, as "the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived," but he provides no evidence to support that this is so any more than I can prove that a "gringleblatt" is "an invisible red unicorn that must exist." Yet if I substitute "gringleblatt" for "God" in the proof, then we are suddenly forced to accept that "gringleblatts" must exist. He also provides no context for the word "greater" to indicate whether he means simply large, or possibly just "a really great guy."
Because language is the product of intentional human thought, a word's definition cannot be used as the only evidence of its true nature in reality; I decided to define a "gringleblatt" as "an invisible red unicorn that must exist" specifically because such a thing cannot exist. Similarly, I cannot define Helium as "a chemical element with an atomic mass of 15.9994 g/mol and a boiling point of 1040° Kelvin" because scientific evidence proves my definition false. Since we have no more evidence than the human-defined word "God," we cannot verify Anselm's claim that God, in fact, is such an entity as Anselm claims. The ontological argument thus falls apart from the start because it cannot substantiate its first premise.
The notion that our ability to conceive of a perfect being proves that being's existence is similarly faulty. The late artist and sculptor Maurits Cornelis Escher conceived of many impossible structures, including the Necker Cube, the Penrose Triangle, a self-feeding waterfall, and a staircase that leads ever into itself; Escher's ability to conceive of, and even render visually, these impossible constructions does not, of course, prove their existence in reality. Similarly, the ability to conceive of unicorns, leprechauns, and dragons similarly does not prove the existence of those creatures in reality.
Additionally, adding the stipulation of existence to the definition of a being does not result in that being's existence. If I define a "pooferdoodle" as "a machine that produces perpetual motion, moves faster than the speed of light, and which must exist," my simple assertion that my impossible machine exists obviously does not result in my impossible machine's existence.
the FIVE PROOFS
Thomas Aquinas leveled a theoretical proof of God's existence in his 13th Century masterwork the Summa Theologiae which follows:
1) Everything has a cause
2) Nothing can cause itself
3) Everything is caused by another thing
4) A causal chain cannot be of infinite length
5) There must be a first cause
6) God was the first cause
But the "proof" is riddled with both unsubstantiated assumptions, internal contradictions, and illogical leaps. To begin with, the first premise is invalid; modern quantum physics has demonstrated that subatomic particles such as electrons, positrons and photons can come into existence and perish by virtue of spontaneous energy fluctuations in a vacuum, and the stochastic process of pressure in a gas in the natural world.
Further, the first, second and third premises only hold true according to observable data occuring within the universe; it is only within the universe, after all, that physics behaves as it does. Since we have no empirical evidence concerning the nature of the pre-universe, we can make no assertions regarding whether or not things require causes. Since causality is a function of time, and the notion of time only functions within the universe, it is impossible to claim that causality and time would function in any recognizable manner outside of that universe.
The fourth premise is both unsubstantiated and contradictory to the proof, since in the immediately preceding premise, Aquinas claims that "everything is caused by another thing;" the third premise, then, would require an infinite causal chain, and Aquinas never establishes why "a causal chain cannot be of infinite length." Because the fourth premise is so badly flawed, the fifth premise and final conclusion are invalid; Aquinas inexplicably drew the wrong conclusion from his own "proof," because the first three premises, although unprovable concerning the pre-universe, lead to the assumption that the universe does revert through an infinite chain of causal events. The logical outcome of Aquinas's "proof" is actually that the universe is infinitely old because "everything is caused by another thing."
Even if we ignore the fallacies of Aquinas's proof and simply accept his conclusion that their must be a first cause, the assignment of the word "God" as the name of that first cause is entirely arbitrary. The first cause could just as easily be the Big Bang, or an electrostatically-charged ion sent back in time through a wormhole, or a Stupendous Gringleblatt; the conclusion that "God" is the first cause also does not follow logically from the preceding premises because it is contextually unrelated to the argument.
We may substitute any word for "God" in the final statement and still assume it to be true if we so desired. And even if we accept his assertion of a "God" rather than any arbitrary substitute, Aquinas's own argument requires that something have caused "God," because "1) Everything has a cause," "2) Nothing can cause itself," and "3) Everything is caused by another thing." Thus, Aquinas claims much without logically substantiating any of it.
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