on religion. Armstrong's argument from design.

A conversation with a very kind person on Herbert Armstrong's essay. The excerpt we discussed can be found here under the heading "The Watchmaker."

Well, I know you didn't explicitly ask for my opinion, but here it is anyway. It's one big false analogy. He is equating the natural formation of stars--and the planets that orbit those stars with astonishing regularity according to the laws of physics--to watchmaking. Of course, no one in their right mind would say that something like a watch has not had a designer because the watch has obviously been MACHINED. 

That is the key word when talking about design. There MUST be evidence of machining. 

Quite to the contrary, we observe stars condensing out of nebulae and creating new solar systems naturally--no intelligence required. Gravitational forces and inertia naturally create orbiting systems that have a period which is defined by their properties. But alas, even this naturally occurring clock, which is "perfect" as Mr. Armstrong would have you believe, is not. The Earth's rotation slows by a little bit every day due to tidal forces from the Moon. Although none of us will notice it in our lifetimes even to a fraction of a second, over the course of billions of years the Earth has slowed considerably. This affects the length of a day. Also, the Earth slows its speed around the Sun by an even smaller amount each year due to tiny little collisions with photons. This affects the length of a year. So you see, the universe isn't quite so "perfect" after all.

The only reasons that we say that the "celestial clock" never makes a mistake is because we DEFINE it as such. The rotation of the Earth defines what a day is. The time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun DEFINES what a year is. So even though the day gets longer as the Earth slows down, it will always be perfect by definition because it will always define the day.

Most of the arguments from design suffer similar weaknesses. I suggest you look into the incredibly strong evidence for evolution.

She replied with more questions:

But I have to ask you where did "gravity and inertia" come from? Do you think they have always existed? Don't they work perfectly? How could that perfection be there without a designer to make it perfect? You said they "naturally create orbiting systems, etc." How do they do that "naturally?" Where did this "nature" come from? Was it always there or did someone make it so? I know you are well aware that if the gravity of the earth were just a very, small, minute amount greater or lesser than it is right now on the earth, we all as humans would have lots of problem existing on this earth. Why is the pull of gravity on the earth so perfect? I believe there's a hole in your argument.

Yes, where did gravity and inertia come from? Good question. Where did anything come from at all? I could say the Big Bang, but then we ask where the Big Bang came from. The answer there is simply that we don't know. We may never know. There isn't much physical evidence for things before then.

You would say, "Well, I know. God created it!" To which I would reply, "Well, God is something too. Where did he come from?" To which you will reply, "God always existed," or "I don't know."

So now I will tell you about something called Occam's razor. Basically, it says that the best explanations are the simplest ones that still are able to account for all the evidence. So basically, it makes sense and it's simple. So which is more simple and still makes sense: To say that something innate always existed (whatever started the Big Bang perhaps), or to say that an incredibly complex, intelligent, and emotional being with phenomenal magical powers just always happened to exist? So you see, the "hole" that you've pointed out only pushes those unanswerable questions back a step and is also a much bigger "hole" in your argument. It also uses the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Basically you said that, you don't know where things come from so that means God exists. Not true.

Now, who decides that it's "simpler" to say that the universe began with the Big Bang rather than saying that an almighty God has always existed?  Just because our puny human minds can "grasp" a Big Bang happening by itself more easily than a God existing for all Eternity?  Our human minds "crave" a beginning and an end to things.  It is VERY hard for us to wrap our minds around the idea that anything has existed for eternity or has always existed.  That doesn't make it "simpler" or a more correct answer to our query.  It only makes it "small" enough for our minds to accept it.  But God says that he has things in store for us that "eye has not seen nor ear heard."  There are things that the human mind cannot understand as yet.  Just as a baby cannot understand the things of an adult.  Does a baby suffer from the fallacy of "appeal to ignorance?"  I think you know the answer.

I did not say I don't know where things come from and so that means God exists.  I said that the things on the earth and in the universe have been made with such precision, that they demand a designer or creator.  I said those things could not just "happen" and turn out to be so perfectly and (not to mention) beautifully made without a supreme builder.

OK, so just suppose for a second that the Big Bang does have to be started by something. There's nothing that says it has to be God. Maybe it was a supernatural universe creating machine that is emotionless and only creates universes. Maybe it existed back then but no longer exists now. Maybe it wasn't one all-powerful god, but a team of gods working together. Who's to say? The point is that these explanations are no better than the others. The best answer is that we don't know. We don't know anything about the laws of physics outside of a universe or what kinds of laws govern the creation of new universes. The most plausible explanation is the most simple one given what we know about the universe currently, and that tells us that we don't really need to posit a god or gods to start everything off.

Secondly, yes, you (and Mr. Armstrong) tried to make the claim that things are so absolutely perfect for us on Earth so they must be designed. The simple fact is that things are NOT perfectly designed as I tried to demonstrate. In fact, the majority of the Earth's surface is not very hospitable to human life. Our eyes are not perfectly designed. DNA replication is not perfectly designed. So many other facets of life and where we are located are far from perfect.

Now, the probability that a planet has the water content and temperature range that we have to allow for life as we know it to evolve is small, yes. Let's just say that the probability is 1 in a billion billion. That's one in 10 to the 18th power (10^18). Extremely small. Well, the number of planets in the universe is probably somewhere around 10^23, possibly more. Very large. That means that there would be about 10^5 (10,000) planets in the universe on which life could evolve. A very large number of life-friendly planets.

This is called the principle of truly large numbers. It means that even things with very small probability of occurring will occur (perhaps many many times) if given enough opportunities to occur. Just because we happen to find ourselves on one of the unlikely (and yet likely) planets doesn't mean that we were put here on purpose.

Suppose that this morning on the way to work, I saw the license plate ETF 354. There's a very very small probably that I would see that particular license plate. But suppose I come up to you and say, "How incredibly unlikely that I saw that particular license plate! Surely, that couldn't have been an accident. God must have planned for me to see it. It's soooo unlikely!"

Of course, that would be ridiculous. Equally, it is ridiculous to assume that the Earth is placed perfectly just because we happen to find ourselves here. i.e. We must not use the same data that suggested an idea to prove that idea.

on religion. Becoming an atheist.

The following was an article that was published in the April 1st, 2009, edition of the Vermilion--my campus newspaper at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

After reading Elise’s recent articles on the Universalist movement (which I’m calling Pan-Universalist since Universalist implies a theology whereas Pan-Universalist could include secular and religious folk), I started noticing comparisons to the way I felt about the world when I first really realized that I was an atheist.

First, allow me to tell my story. I always considered myself a Christian growing up, at one point vehemently so—church-going, speaking in tongues, reading the entire Bible, etc. I was raised evangelical and as a result was very critical of other faiths (Christian or not), mostly echoing the views of my parents. As I grew older and experienced the world, I met many people who had different viewpoints, and I started asking some of the tougher questions that Christianity didn’t seem to have answers for. Starting my education at ULL was a big shift since I’d been homeschooled or in Christian private schools for all my life.

Contrary to popular belief, no professor ever directly influenced my religious belief; I was mostly in science or music classes. What affected me was simply meeting such a diverse group of people, but realizing that we are all very similar even across religious boundaries. I began to consider myself more of an agnostic though still called myself Christian, since I considered that I lived by Biblical moral principles (Christ’s teachings). I was very accepting across the board of different faiths as long as they had a good moral code to live by.

A second big shift came for me when I started studying biomathematics and population dynamics, which interestingly enough marked a change in thinking for Charles Darwin as well. Typically, animal populations grow until they reach equilibrium, where the death rate equals the birth rate. But what causes equilibrium? Why don’t we just grow exponentially like bacteria? In a word—resources. As the population grows, resources become scarcer, and competition becomes fiercer, which means a higher death rate. All animals are subject to this, even humans.

Humans, however, have the advantage of agriculture that allows us to grow our population beyond its natural limits. Keeping our population checked are generally war, disease, and birth control. The lyrics “one of these things is not like the other” comes to mind. Condoms and preemptive or morning-after birth control pills are painless, no-risk ways of maintaining a population at equilibrium, yet church groups seem to fight these tooth and nail.

The thought came to mind, “The Bible wasn’t really written for the 21^st century.”

How could it have been? I guess I’d always thought that God knew the future so he would have put stuff in his book for the people of the future, but it didn’t seem to fit. Our perceptions of God and morality have changed by leaps and bounds since the Bible was written. But then I couldn’t help but think, “If the Bible was just written by people trying to do the right thing, then they probably didn’t have it completely right,” and that means that it’s up to us to figure out the next step—the right thing to do.

I read Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, on the recommendation of a friend, and the book applied everything I was thinking to our modern society. I was blown away. (The sequel My Ishmael is equally amazing.)

At this point, I knew I really didn’t believe in God at all anymore, but I wasn’t comfortable saying it. A friend gave me Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, to read, and I even felt naughty accepting it and then reading the first few pages (no doubt a triggered emotional response left-over from childhood indoctrination). As I read, I not only realized some of the major problems with religions and some of the philosophical problems with the conceptions of God but also the unnecessary evils that religion can do. As the great Nobel laureate in physics Steven Weinberg said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

The end result of reading Dawkins’ book was that I no longer felt like I needed to stay in the closet about what I’d discovered. But what I’d discovered wasn’t just atheism—it was a connection. I discovered that I felt really and truly connected to the Earth and to every other creature. I’m made up of the same stuff that makes up a gorilla or a tarantula. I felt so incredibly lucky to be in the human species, in the country I was born, at a time when I can actually really know and appreciate all the complexity of life and the immenseness of the universe. I get to live and breathe, talk to my friends, and to understand that none of us is particularly special but that all of us working together is an incredible thing.

Perhaps it is us that made God in our image and not the other way around. All of the characteristics we put in God can in some way be found in our society. The massive amount of scientific and medical knowledge is so large and well-documented that it borders on omniscience. The power that we have as a society to heal the sick, comfort people, feed people, and just do good is amazing. Putting all one’s faith in a god makes you focus on the supernatural instead of what’s really there. But when we put our faith in our fellow man, the world suddenly becomes an amazing place, not stricken by a curse, but flourishing with possibility. Goodness doesn’t come from a god; goodness is realized by us, and it’s our responsibility if it isn’t.

Humanism, ethics, and moral philosophy help us to discover the moral laws. Biblical authors took a stab at it, but we can and are doing better. It’s time that we break from the human tradition of the past 10,000+ years and stop looking to the sky, supposed sacred texts, or pieces of toast for guidance and meaning. It’s time we started really seeing each other, hearing the countless untold stories and understanding the mutual respect it brings. We should live to awaken possibility in others, and be less quick to judge others for race, religion, or orientation because we realize that we’re all in this together. So for one man, the movement begins.