The "God is a Duck" proof of His existence

Here's today's scientific proof of God. Why is it wrong? First because it has a shameless little shimmy in the middle: it talks about "the chances of a Being Like God evolving". What does this mean? What is a being like God? Unfortunately this Proof doesn't tell us, beyond speculating that God is some kind of Cosmic Duck (I kid you not!) And second, it fails because this "proof" by the strong/weak/puny anthropic principle is not a proof of anything - it's a wild speculation.

As always, the email is on its way to ask for this proof to be deleted in the interests of reason and basic honesty. As always, we're not holding our breath. It's quackers out there.

Now that we know prayer doesn't work, then what?

In this study of 1,800 heart patients, those who were prayed for, and knew about it, had more problems/complications than those who were not being prayed for. This is in direct contradiction to what it says in the Bible: "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:12-14 (New International Version))

Surprisingly this doesn't seem to create any doubt in Christian minds of the veracity of the Bible and the existence of God. It should.

Making our kids dumber

This is a perfect example of why this stuff matters. It's not new news, but in February for the first time evolution could be taught in Florida's schools. Now this isn't just in Florida's religious schools, mind you, this is in all schools. So until now, no matter where you went to school in Florida, your science teacher couldn't teach you evolution, irrespective of your religious beliefs, how smart you were, whether you wanted to be a scientist, whatever.

Do we think the Indians and the Chinese are keeping science out of the classrooms of their smartest kids? I don't think so. America's competitors must be rubbing their hands with glee as we insist on keeping our kids dumb so the rest of the world can pull ahead.

Gay Bishop in Anglican Church

There's a big piece by Garret Keizer in Harper's Magazine in June called "Turning away from Jesus: Gay rights and the War for the Episcopal Church" discussing the continuing rift from the appointment of an openly gay bishop in 2003.

This is a complicated issue for the Episcopalians, but a simple one for the rest of us. How is it possible that we don't know the answer? If we believe that God has given us clear guidance in the Bible how can it be that two thousand years after Jesus we still haven't worked out if God hates gays or not?

The problem, as always with religion, is one of evidence. In the evidence vacuum of religion unsupported opinion not only thrives, it is obligatory and celebrated. So the voices get louder, the opinions more strident, the battle bloodier. And as the war rages there is no small still voice in these people's hearts to tell them "we don't know the answer, because it's all made up." It's a shame that so much time and effort is wasted arguing over whose made up version is the right one. There must be a better way to direct all these resources - like maybe helping poor people and curing the sick. You know, that Christian stuff...

The fiction of abusive atheism

I have included at the end of this post the entire text of our closing e-mail to DoesGodExist.com after a range of emails discussing the unconvincing "proof" on their site.

The response from DoesGodExist.com was "I am sorry you decided it was necessary to become abusive..."

We were shocked. I don't think we could have worded this email in a more considerate and respectful way, given our disagreement on the issues.

This is a clear cut example of people who feel that their claims about God don't need to stand up to even the most basic scrutiny. When arguments can be classified as abusive just because they dare to disagree it is clear that any disagreement will be seen as an abusive attack. This is another reason why dependence on faith and dogma is so dangerous - any rational discussion can be characterised as abusive simply by virtue of its being rational.

Here's the full, unedited text of our "abusive" email:

"Thanks for this John. I won't take up any more of your time with my questions, but I really do appreciate the time you've put into answering them. For now, we'll have to agree to differ on some of these points (although if you have the time, I'd be happy to continue this conversation - I just don't want to abuse your good will).

Your site claims to present a layman's practical overview of a scientific proof of God's existence. What has become clear to me from your answers is that that "proof" is logically unsound; dependent on unstated ontological, not scientific, arguments; dependent on circular reasoning; and dependent on apologetics, not science. I think taken together this shows that your claim to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific perspective is, at best, misleading.

I don't think God needs us to mislead people into believing in Him. If you have a sophisticated proof based on ontological arguments, the properties of superstrings and branes, apologetics and unstated other steps e, f, g, h ... n, o, p ... by all means publish (or refer people to) that. But you simply have not provided what you claim to provide.

I'm sorry really. I'd like to have believed that it was so easy. But thank you again for your very prompt and courteous replies - I will certainly now go and investigate the works of Mr. Zacharias and Mr. Ross as you suggest."

Well, we tried...

In all good conscience we want to give those who come under the Sensil Spotlight the opportunity to fill in any gaps we find in their reasoning. So we contacted our friends at DoesGodexist.org to give them the opportunity to explain why our critical review of their proof was misguided.

First a recap: this "proof" is subtitled a "logical, pragmatic proof of God from a purely scientific perspective." In our correspondence, the site's representative has clarified the following:

• despite describing their proof as "logical", they consider our questions about logical errors in their argument to be "philosophical" in nature, so not relevant. Instead they refer us to http://www.rzim.org/, which turns out to be about Christian Apologetics, not basic logic. (By basic I mean If A is a dog and all Bs are As then B is a dog). I recommend Wikipedia as being shorter and more informative.
• they left a number of (unspecified) steps out of the "proof"
• they left some ontological (ie not scientific) evidence out of the "proof"
• the evidence for their assertions re: time and space and energy, is circular
• they included the evidence for design in their proof, which they accept is not scientific

So what are we left with? A logically incoherent proof, that depends on ontological and apologetic arguments rather than science, and for which some of the key evidence is circular. It's not very impressive. In fact it's so unimpressive it's hard to accept that the original assertion of a "logical, pragmatic proof of God from a purely scientific perspective" can really be sincerely held. Once again, why does God need these people to lie for Him?

The immorality of Christianity

I came across a series of questions on Yahoo! Answers that demonstrate just how hard it is to keep this religion thing straight in a world that just doesn't fit nicely into right and wrong. The question went roughly along these lines:

• if an American soldier kills an Iraqi, where does he go when he dies?

The answers to this ranged from the flippant ("You tell me!"), to the insulting ("Iraqi hell!"), to the thoughtful. Two that are worth a mention are:

"If he followed the laws and commands of his government he has done as God commanded. God alone will judge the intent of his heart."

and

"If he has accepted Christ as his Savior, Heaven. If he has rejected Christ, Hell."

The first point to make is that obviously no-one knows. Because no-one knows, anyone seems to be allowed to make stuff up - and people have no problem in doing so. The consequences of letting people make it up are the two statements above, both of which are problematical.

The first one would have given a blank check to every German that ever did anything for the Nazi party, no matter how abominable. It even implies that God insisted that Germans should have done what the Nazis told them to do because that is "as God commanded."

The second one gives a blank check to everyone who does anything bad ever. This has profoundly bad moral implications. We can kill and accept Christ and go to heaven. Presumably this get-out-of-eternal-jail clause applies to all crimes, no matter how heinous, as long as the criminal is a believer. This means atheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islamism and Zoroastrianism are all worse crimes than pederasty, parricide and prostitution. For example.

That's one mixed up moral code - certainly not much of a moral guide for the rest of us.

Finally, proof God exists

And that he has a sense of humor!

Scientific proof of God

Here's a fun one! Headed up "Scientific Proof of God" it has one of the most shameless wriggles I've yet come across.

Here we go, and I quote: "Using the current narrow scope definition there is no scientific proof of God." That seems pretty unambiguous. One would expect the argument to end there. But no! There is no end to the shameless manipulation of these people. Instead of accepting the truth that they have stated so clearly, they go ahead and change the definition of science! Here is possibly the prize line I've come across so far:

"To know what evidence really supports the existence of God, we need to base our statements on the old classic definition of science to eliminate the disqualification of the evidence."

Can these people really not see how ridiculous this makes them look? Notwithstanding the fact that they then don't give an "old classic definition of science" to base their "proof" on, they just quote some stuff about the difference between a criminal and a civil trial, this is essentially saying "We know our evidence is bogus, so we're going to create our own rules so we can then say our bogus evidence is admissible." It's farcical. But someone's writing it, someone's funding it, and someone's reading it - and it's making us all look more stupid as a result.

Their "scientific evidence" boils down to this hodge-podge:

1. It's impossible to prove God doesn't exist


2. Intelligent design (as they admit, not scientifically meaningful)


3. Scripture - in particular Jesus' fulfilment of OT messianic prophecies; Jesus' quotations from the OT; historical confirmation of the OT.

Not a great deal of science there, under any definition, "new" or "old, classic" (whatever that may be).

So this whole page is just bogus, and worse, it's dishonest. It's designed to manipulate people's ideas by being misleading. Again, why does God need these people to lie for Him? Surely he can do better than that?

Open letter to the folks at AllAboutGod.com

Here's a copy of the email I sent to the AllAboutGod.com folks. Still waiting on a response. I'm not holding my breath. While we wait I should remind you (and myself) that I don't care that these people believe in God - I just care that they pretend that bogus arguments count as real logic or real science. This undermines our society and it's a threat. If we teach our kids that you don't have to back up your arguments with anything sensible, we're going to be in real trouble...

"Hi. Thank you for your website. I share many of your values. In particular I believe that the pursuit of truth is the highest calling of humanity. It is because of this that I am so disappointed when your website has content designed to obfuscate rather than clarify the truth. I refer to the page headed "Scientific proof of God." You state honestly and admirably that there is no scientific proof for God’s existence, but that is where the clarity of your search for truth ends. You then follow a tortured path to claim that by your definition of science there is proof of God. You talk about criminal and civil law burdens of evidence, but you don’t ever give a definition of what you call the “old classic definition of science” probably because you know, as do I, that that “old classic” definition never really existed.
Then under the bold heading “Scientific Proof of God – the Evidence” you list a range of points, none of which is remotely scientific. (I’m assuming you agree that Intelligent Design is not scientific, but even if you don’t the other points you make in this section aren’t remotely scientific in nature).
So as an intelligent reader I’m left feeling that this page is not about a search for truth, but more about a search for a way to discredit and undermine the fact that you open with - that there is not any scientific evidence for God.
So good luck on your quest for truth. I hope that you will see that obfuscation and distortion do not strengthen your case, but weaken it. I hope that in time your eyes will be opened to a more honest, unbiased assessment of the truth that is really out there. Just keep looking."

Unending dishonesty

Now that I've opened up this particular can of worms (proofs of God's existence) I am astonished by the unending dishonesty behind the websites that claim to have a proof. Based on the (admittedly small, but growing) sample of sites I've looked at they leave open only a few options for the people who write them. These people are either not smart enough to know that their proofs aren't proofs at all, or they're trying to deceive people on purpose. Which begs the question - why does God need these people to lie for him?

To help in these questions we at the Sentinel have put together a handy decision tree. This is designed for people who are proving God's existence to assess if their proof makes the cut or not. As we've said in previous posts, this is important, because if we teach people that poor quality thinking is ok, that can be damaging in all walks of life. No-one should get a free pass on this stuff.

Essentially anyone who is trying to prove God's existence should ask themselves if his/her argument for the proof of God suffers from one (ore more) of the following problems:

- you didn’t use logic
- you used bad logic*
- you didn’t use evidence
- you used only the evidence of Scripture, or
- you ignored other possible explanations for your evidence

If it does, then you have found yourself in the THE ZONE OF DUPLICITY! Oops.

Now that you know that your “proof” is not a proof, you should remove it from circulation. Otherwise you should ask yourself: "Why Does God Need Me To Lie For Him?" Not an easy one to answer...

If your proof passes all of those tests, then it has a fighting chance of being interesting, and we would love to hear about it. Let us know. We're waiting.

* Oh, and in case you don't know what "bad" logic is, there's a handy list of logical fallacies here, which you can use as reference.

Proof that God exists

There is no shortage of people out there who claim to prove that God exists. Every now and again I'll pick out one of these and examine it to try to persuade myself that the logic works.

There are two reasons why this is useful: first, if someone's proved that God exists, I'd like to know about it, and so should everybody else! Second, if the "proof" is bogus, we should expose it - not because we doubt the prover's devout belief in God, but because religion shouldn't get a free ride. If the logic sucks, people shouldn't be browbeaten into believing that they shouldn't question it just because it's about God. If anyone doesn't deserve a free pass, it's God. He is, after all the supreme being. If anyone should get a boost, it's the rest of us...

So here goes. Today's logical, pragmatic proof of God from a purely scientific perspective.

1. The Beginning

This site begins with the most trivial of false proofs: "If A is not true, then B must be true." A false dichotomy. This part of the site says "The atheist's assertion that matter/energy is eternal is scientifically wrong. The biblical assertion that there was a beginning is scientifically correct." Now, there's a lot of bogus science in this section to try and support the first half of this false dichotomy, but that's not my main problem with this section. There is not an iota of evidence to support the second half "The Biblical assertion that there was a beginning is scientifically correct." To make these false dichotomies is intellectually dishonest. It's just plain wrong, and it's designed to mislead people.

2. The Cause

Oh dear - this is going to get boring - same old false dichotomy approach. "The atheist's assertion that the universe is uncaused and selfexisting is ... incorrect. The Bible's assertion that there was a beginning which was caused is supported strongly by the available scientific evidence." Again, there's a lot of bogus science in this section, but again, that's not my main problem. There is not an iota of evidence to support the second half. Again - to make these false dichotomies is intellectually dishonest. It's just plain wrong, and it's designed to mislead people.

3. The Design

"For most of us, simply looking at our newborn child is enough to rule out chance." This is the quality of "proof" that is provided. It's the proof from ignorance. "I don't understand how this could have happened, so God must have done it." It's followed by the third false dichotomy in a row: "If chance is not valid, we are constrained to ... realize that we are the product of an intelligent God." Why on Earth are we constrained to do that? This is just plain dishonesty, tarted up in religious terms to pretend it's science.

If this kind of dishonesty was being perpetrated in any other field, we'd pursue these people as fraudsters and hucksters. But because it's shrouded in religion (which let's face it is more important than most of the frauds perpetrated today) we're expected to let this kind of nonsense pass for logic?

This is dangerous and should be stopped. Let's have some honesty in this debate.

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 6

Rachel scrolls down the page to the final entry - Reason Number 6 to believe that God exists. It's been quite a journey to get here and Rachel, a true believer with an open mind, has found it a troubling, disturbing experience. She expected to find her faith underpinned, but instead she has found herself wondering whether she might just have been wrong all along. If these are the best reasons that anyone can come up with to believe in God, it's not making her feel any better.

She turns to Reason 6.

6. Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God pursuing us.

The argument here, Rachel discovers, is that as well as doing what lots of other people or Gods have claimed to do through the millennia - healing, feeding, changing the weather, walking on water, etc. etc. - Jesus is the only major religious figure who also claimed to be equal to God, and pointed believers to his own person rather than to his words.

First Rachel sets aside the problem that Jesus is not the only religious figure who has claimed that he was equal to God. She also leaves aside the problem that Jesus is not the only religious figure who claims to have healed people or fed multitudes or changed the weather. She focuses on the question of whether that matters. We have to treat the miracle stories of the historical bible with the same reverence as we treat other mythical historical documents - ie we don't believe them. We don't believe the story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by wolves. We don't believe the story of Achilles being magically protected over his whole body except for his heel. And there are countless other myths and legends involving magical powers that we choose not to believe. Why, Rachel thinks, would I, as a rational, open minded believer, give this evidence more credence than any of the other myths and legends that I have read?

And this is where Rachel's doubts begin. To believe the stories about Jesus are more than myths, she has to believe in Jesus' divine connection. So the stories can't be used as any kind of proof of Jesus' divine nature, because you need to believe in his divine nature before you can believe the story. It's a non-argument.

So Rachel has made it all the way to Number 6 and she is wracked with torment. How is it that the best arguments that can be assembled for belief in God are so bad? A mixture of tautologies, bad logic, misleading comments and nonsense. And this is the best that God can do?

She simply can't believe that an all powerful personal God can have left so little real evidence to help us work out whether or not he exists. Every argument is reduced, ultimately to faith. If God does exist he has forced her to make a terrible, guilt-laden guess, because he has given her nothing, nothing to actually show her that he exists. Why would God do that? Why would he leave every individual turning in the torturing glare of uncertainty, when it would be so easy for him to give each person a sign. Why would he make it so hard? Maybe it's because he doesn't exist at all, which is why there is no single piece of evidence to show that he does.

Well, we'll have to leave Rachel to her awful realization that her belief is built on faith or nothing. What's clear is that the 6 reasons to believe in God are nothing of the sort. Why does it matter? It matters because this kind of garbled, inconsistent, bad logic is being presented to people as if it's meaningful. It's intellectually dishonest, and it leads people to a sense of certainty that is not supported by any evidence, any facts or any coherent reasoning. The people who write this stuff should be ashamed of themselves - either for believing that these arguments make sense, which means they should think harder; or for knowingly misleading people into thinking these are reasonable arguments. Faith, presented in this way, is an assault on reason, and people deserve better.

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 5

Our confirmed, but open-minded, believer Rachel is feeling rattled. She's on to reason 5 why we should believe God exists, and she's a little anxious about how few good arguments there really are - even from Marilyn Adamson who promises to give her a candid offering of some of the reasons which suggest God exists. She's up to Reason 5. Let's take a look...

5. We know God exists because he pursues us. He is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him.

Rachel sits back in her chair and takes a deep breath. "Are you kidding me?!" she shouts to no-one in particular. A confirmed believer, who approaches questions of how to underpin her faith with reason with an open mind, she simply cannot believe what she is reading. In a nutshell - a reason to believe that God exists is because atheists expend so much effort trying to prove he doesn't. That proves that God is pressing them always to recognize his existence.

"Are you kidding me?! This is Reason Number 5! And this is all you got?!"

We have to agree with Rachel that it's hardly conclusive. Essentially this "reason" says that because someone argues against something that something must be true. I, for example, would argue against the existence of the tooth fairy with any rational friend of mine who claimed to believe in the tooth fairy beyond the age of, say, seven years old. The fact that I argue against him doesn't mean we should believe the tooth fairy exists. Quite the opposite.

Rachel is despondent, ragged. She began this journey hoping to be reassured, uplifted, underpinned in her faith. She is reaching Reason Number 6. She hopes its a good one...

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 4

OK. Rachel's on to Reason Number 4. She's still feeling pretty good - she's a believer already, remember - she doesn't need these reasons to know she's right. But she is a bit worried that reasons 1-3 just didn't make any sense. Surely there must be some good reason to believe in God, other than "because I do!"

4. To state with certainty that there is no God, a person has to ignore the passion of an enormously vast number of people who are convinced that there is a God.

This is a tough one to swallow.

An enormously vast number of people thought for most of human existence that the sun revolved around the earth and that the stars were fixed in position on a canopy above us. Even though vast numbers of people were utterly, passionately convinced about these things they simply weren't true. The sun does not rotate around the earth. The stars are not on some kind of fixed canopy.

In Norse times (based on what the Norsemen knew) an enormously vast number of people were convinced that there is a Thor. (The number of people who did believe that is documented and the total is referred to as the Thor Thumb.) It didn't make it true.

So just because vast numbers of people believe in a God, no matter how passionately, that is no reason to think that God exists. There is also an enormously vast number of people (many millions) who are passionately convinced there is no God. How do we resolve this? Does the truth about God become something we decide by vote? More people believe in God than don't so God must exist?

Rachel's palms are beginning to sweat. These are not reasons. These reasons are nonsense. Is this the best that God can give her to get out there and fight the good fight with? It doesn't make sense. Surely there must be better reasons than these? We're talking about God here! She hopes 5 & 6 will help her out...let's hope so.

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 3

So Rachel is now getting anxious. Our true believer is looking to Marilyn Adamson's "Six reasons to believe in God" to underpin her solid faith in God. She has been a little shaken by the first two reasons, which were essentially only one, circular argument. She is excited about discovering the other 4 reasons, which must be pretty impressive, because after all, this is God we're talking about here.

3. "Chance" or "natural causes" are insufficient explanations.

Rachel considers the elements of this argument carefully. She puts aside the obvious and immediate question of "Why are natural causes insufficient explanations" and immerses herself in Marilyn's argument.

She decides to analyze what Marilyn says, step by step:

"The alternative to God existing is that all that exists around us came about by natural cause and random chance."
It might be better to say “The alternative to a supernatural explanation is that all that exists around us came about by natural cause.” (Otherwise we’d have to consider goblins, the devil or the tooth fairy as possible (if unlikely) explanations.) But yes, this makes sense, although it gives poor Rachel no reason to believe that the supernatural explanation is better than the natural one.

"If someone is rolling dice, the odds of rolling a pair of sixes is one thing. But the odds of spots appearing on blank dice is something else."
Agreed. Similarly the odds of winning a coin toss is one thing. But the odds of winnng the New York State Lottery is something else. There is an endless series of these comparisons available. But Rachel isn't quite sure how these comparisons give her a reason to believe in God. (Winning the New York Lottery might help though. "If I only just pray hard enough...!")

"What Pasteur attempted to prove centuries ago, science confirms, that life cannot arise from non-life."
Science doesn’t confirm this. Rachel begins to smell a rat. “Science” (whoever he may be) says no such thing. In fact, quite the opposite. And the reference to Pasteur sounds suspiciously like an attempt to give scientific credibility to a most unscientific argument.

"Where did human, animal, plant life come from?"
Good question. Isn’t that the one we’re trying to answer?

"Natural causes are an inadequate explanation for the amount of precise information contained in human DNA."
Why? Scientists happen to think they’re a very good explanation – why should Rachel prefer Marilyn’s unsupported assertion?

"A person who discounts God is left with the conclusion that all of this came about without cause, without design, and is merely good fortune."
Well, this is a strange way of putting it, but even so, what reason is Marilyn giving Rachel to support the “God” hypothesis over the natural one?

"It is intellectually wanting to observe intricate design and attribute it to luck."
Rachel is getting even more concerned now. After the undeniably limited intellectual merit of Marilyn's first three “reasons” she finds this finger-pointing at a straw man a little distasteful. Rachel, being a true believer, but also open minded, knows that scientific theories aren’t about luck. They’re about the accretive impact of many steps of natural selection over long periods of time. Luck is the last word to describe the deliberate painstaking process of natural selection for fitness in a given environment. And then Marilyn's random value judgement – intellectually wanting – without any support is not making her feel any better.

So our friend Rachel has heard the "Top 3" reasons for believing in God to underpin her unshakable faith. The problem is, her faith is becoming a little shaken because the top 3 reasons have not been reasons at all - they've been personal opinions wrapped up in tautologies, pretending to be something meaningful. She's getting nervous.

Rachel is also worried about why Marilyn is trying to undermine the achievements of science as a reason to believe in God. Surely God can stand on his own two(?) feet without having to take sideswipes at science at the same time.

Let's hope Reasons 4 through 6 work out a little better.

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 2

So our true believer is looking for some underpinnings for her belief, and she turns to Marilyn Adamson's "Six Reasons to Believe in God". She didn't think Reason 1 helped her because its argument assumed that she believed in God anyway, and because it had a fatal logical flaw. But she is undeterred because she's a true believer. So she has turned to reason number 2.

2. The human brain's complexity shows a higher intelligence behind it.

The true believer, Rachel (I'll give her a name, now that she is up and running and exploring her belief), stops and thinks. Reason Number 1 was that the complexity of the Earth shows the work of a designer. Reason Number 2 is that the complexity of the brain shows a higher intelligence behind it.

Rachel asks - how is this different from Number 1? In Reason Number 1, Marilyn says "Many examples showing God's design could be given, possibly with no end." She's right that endless examples of complexity could be given, but Rachel is already skeptical as to whether complexity "points to" God. She's a little more skeptical now she has realized that Reason Number 2 is exactly the same as Reason Number 1.

She didn't like Reason Number 1, because complexity doesn't "point to" anything, least of all God. So she's likewise struggling with Reason Number 2.

But her belief is not shaken, because she's a true believer. But she's a bit worried that Reasons 1 & 2 are the best reasons that Marilyn has been able to come up with so far. It's not exactly providing the underpinning she was hoping for. Surely there is some better reason to believe that God exists than this? She hopes so. She reads on...

Six reasons to believe in God: Reason 1

I recently discovered a very helpful site which "offers candid, straightforward reasons to believe in the existence of God." On a page titled "Is there a God?" the author, Marilyn Adamson, steps us through the reasons why we don't have to just "believe" any more, we can underpin that belief with "reasons that suggest" that God exists. What a splendid idea! Let's take a look...

I'm a little flummoxed by Marilyn's next comment: "If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away." If we can rationalize or explain away the evidence, it doesn't say much for the quality of the evidence. But notwithstanding the rather off-putting nature of this disclaimer let's move on and look at each piece of evidence in the spirit of a true believer looking for support for her belief.

"1. The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today."

Hmm. Can I just say "No it doesn't?" OK, no, that's not enough.

The true believer could just ask a simple question: why does it point to a deliberate Designer?

A true believer with an open mind could just as easily listen to an argument that the complexity of our planet "points" to a wonderful system of causal laws, far more exciting and beautiful, and much less improbable than the idea of a supernatural being possessing such overarching ability and complexity that he can create something as complex as the Earth. In fact a vast body of evidence accumulated over the last few hundred years supports exactly those kinds of causal laws. That's a lot of pointing.

Unfortunately for our poor true believer, there's no way to show why Marilyn's view of where this complexity "points" is any better than the alternative view. In fact, quite the opposite.

An open minded true believer might also work out a logical objection to this idea that something complex "points" to a designer. If the Earth is so complex that it can only have been created by God, presumably God is pretty complex too. If she accepts Marilyn's argument that something as complex as the Earth needs a designer, then presumably something as complex as God needs a designer too. And that designer would itself need its own designer. This argument kinda goes on for ever: God 1, God 2, ... God n, God n+1...a plethora of Gods. That's not to say that there are dozens of Gods out there; its just to say that this argument from complexity simply doesn't work, unless you believe in an infinite number of Gods. It just doesn't. [Of course there is the argument that, well, God is, er, different, so he doesn't need a designer. Well, in that case why can't we argue that the universe is, er, different too, and it doesn't need a designer? Like I said, this argument from complexity just doesn't work.]

So, we've considered Reason Number 1 from the view of an open-minded believer: it doesn't seem to have provided much of an underpinning, but fortunately, she's a true believer, so that doesn't matter. Hopefully Reason Number 2 will help our believer a little more...

Einstein and God

It seems that Einstein held God in pretty low esteem. In a letter sold recently at auction for $404,000 Einstein explains to his correspondent that "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." In speaking of religion (rather than just God) he said "the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions."

So what do we make of this? What is particularly interesting is that believers just won't give up on Einstein. Rather than accepting that he just didn't believe in God, a prominent scholar, John Brookes, interprets these comments as meaning that "Einstein was not a conventional theist." That's like saying that Newt Gingrich is not a conventional Democrat or that Oscar Wilde is not a conventional heterosexual.

Einstein had actually, it seems, read the Bible and come to his own damning conclusions. When one of the greatest thinkers of the last century concludes that something is "pretty childish" it should give pause to those who claim that all knowledge is in the Bible. But it probably won't. Similarly, no-one should choose to derive their moral guidance from incarnations of childish superstitions, but that won't stop it happening.

Not that it matters to me, but it does matter to people who want to co-opt Einstein to the "scientists can believe in God too" side of the argument. Even if he had believed in God, it wouldn't make God any more real. It's a funny thing about this "Argument from Authority" that it only really matters to the religionists - because it's just another one of the logic-less pretexts for why we should believe their mumbo-jumbo.

Einstein had understood that God and religion are two constructs that religionists propagate that some people come to rely on in their weakness. This puts me in mind of Barack Obama's comment of how people in small towns "get bitter and cling to ... religion ... as a way to explain their frustrations." When times are tough religion gets going, which does not bode well for the current recession. Caveat emptor.

God is Dead

This is an interesting piece by David Brooks in the New York Times suggesting that new neuroscience research won't lead us to atheism but to neural Buddhism. His conclusion is that the debate will force Orthodox believers to defend their religions in the face of the growing "Spiritual but not religious" movement. If he's right then this is a very good thing. It starts to move the debate beyond the existence/non-existence of God to a personally based view of spirituality. It's hard to see how such personal perspectives will be able to combine in the future to support the terrible moral, economic and militaristic burdens that the wars of religion are currently imposing on us. One possible first step to liberation from religion is that step to awareness of personal spirituality.

Brooks goes on to make a suggestion that following moments of transcendence God will best be concieved as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all that is. I don't know what that means, but it certainly doesn't sound like a personal God, a creator of heaven and earth, a God that can interfere in our lives, judge us, persecute and reward us. I'm not sure it deserves the name God at all - maybe we should call it Wonder instead, and replace "God" with "Wonder" when we talk about these kind of experiences, just to eliminate confusion. We certainly shouldn't talk about God when we don't actually mean a God. "I believe in Wonder". "When I think of all the beauty in the world, it strenghtens my belief in Wonder." "Wonder plays an important part in my life." There's probably a better word than Wonder, but God it ain't.