GOD – ANYTHING BUT THE EVIDENCE!
A God who has poor evidence for his existence is not the god of
evidence. He is not God of all. He is not the God of
those who love him but who still believe in looking for evidence.
God is described as all-good and all-loving creator. You can paraphrase that by saying he is meant to be loved by us as the centre of our lives and hearts. So arguments for God have their place but only as supports to help us reach a confident love of God and trust in his love for us. So it is ultimately about love and gratitude to God.
The best-selling book God the Evidence which boasts that it has reconciled faith
and reason in a post-secular world was written by Patrick Glynn. It is a pity he
wasn’t a lecturer in logic at the George Washington Institute for Communitarian
Policy Studies or he might have done better. He was an atheist and then an
agnostic for years. He should have stayed an atheist because the evidence that
shook his atheism and extinguished it is not evidence at all. He displays many
of the current scurrilous religious prejudices against atheists. Page 5 admits
that as an agnostic he always hoped that he would be proved wrong. What he
should have been hoping for was that some evidence for a life after death would
come up. Who cares if God exists or not? He has practically admitted to being
biased in making God seem to be a likely story.
The only argument that has any substance to it in the entire book is what
amounts to the design argument for the existence of God. This time we are told
that the chances of the universe produce life and having the right conditions to
make life are so minute that it would be as good as impossible for life to have
emerged without some intelligent God making, or planning for, the universe to
produce it (page 8). It is complained that the theory of parallel universes had
been set up by scientists to explain that there are so many universes and have
been so many that chances are that one of them would have the capacity to make
life while there is no evidence for these universes. But the parallel universe
is not just about solving that problem. It is the fact that on the subatomic
level things seem to be both something and the opposite at the one time that has
principally led to the theory which seeks to solve the seeming contradiction.
There are other reasons as well. The book admits later that the argument for
parallel universes from the subatomic level is the reason why these universes
are believed in (page 50). Then it moves away from this admission and decides
that God is the explanation for our universe. What we are not told is why God
would make something that is X and not X at the same time so the parallel
universes is a better explanation. He never tried to show that God would be a
simpler explanation so he was wasting paper.
The book The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck a notoriously gullible
researcher is held up for our approval for being an attack on the psychiatric
profession for being hostile to religious belief and trying to make mental
health a separate entity from spirituality and morality and religious faith
(page 11). I agree that you cannot have mental health without living the best
and most helpful life you can but to let religion tag along as well is not on.
The introduction in God the Evidence states that faith is a gift of God and that
you cannot reason your way to faith in God. He thinks that when you open your
mind to God you see the evidence God offers and then you encounter God in a
relationship and the result is faith and is a gift that God gave you. Witches
say the same thing about faith in magic. Magic is the denial of God for it is us
controlling fate. So the evidences contradict one another. Besides let us
pretend that the argument does work for God. Then what God? Whose interpretation
of God? Arguments like his are futile. What Glynn is really doing is assuming
the evidence backs his interpretation and it is assuming because the
interpretation is just assuming. He quotes the Bible as backup which shows that
the Bible is a load of drivel. His belief is that reason cannot show there is a
God but shows that there no objection to belief in God and makes way for it
(page 19). You could believe in an impersonal intelligence instead of a God and
since reason asks you to take whatever is simplest to be what is true, reason
cannot therefore be said to leave the way open for God. It shuts the door and
puts the bars in.
He says as an unbeliever in God he regarded conscience and living honourably as
the components of a stable identity (page 15). So he found a reason to live a
good life and yet he maintains that only God can be used as the ground of
morality.
Chapter 2 explores his belief that the universe is far from being random for
there are not many nearly impossible coincidences in it and that shows that it
was made by an intelligent being. He stated that there was nothing at all random
in the universe for it was all directed to produce human life (page 25). That
statement is obvious nonsense for life could have been produced in a smaller
universe and what do all those other galaxies in the universe have to do with
life on earth? Their unnecessary existence is a sign of randomness. The universe
could exist without them. Page 28 speaks of the evolution of the universe. But
it does not tell us that the fact that the universe had to evolve is a far
better proof that there was no intelligent creator than it is that there was
such a creator. And this remains so no matter what unbelievable coincidences can
be found in the universe. Here is an example. It is how even the most
unimaginable minuscule difference in the substances that resulted from the big
bang would have made the universe unfit for life. Even the spot on Jupiter could
be thought of as an amazing coincidence though it is just the product of chance.
One could say the chances of it being where it is when the universe is so big
are almost nil. But such logic is obviously flawed no matter where the spot was
and Jupiter was you could say the same thing. If you pretend that nothing at all
exists you could say that the chances of that happening are almost nil because
there is something rather than nothing therefore it was easier for there to be
something rather than nothing.
Despite this, Glynn is to be commended for attacking the creation scientists’
claim that the earth is very young as preposterous (page 34). Such science is
more worried about making the Bible seem to be without error than about the
truth.
He tells us that the physicists who seek the theory of everything – the theory
that explains it all without God of course – are able to give a theory to
explain three out of the four fundamental forces that make the universe the way
it is but are bogged down with the fourth force which is gravity (page 39).
Since gravity is the outsider he feels entitled to drop the theory search and
turn to God as an explanation. What this is really saying is God is needed to
explain gravity! Very confused for Glynn would like to go further than that! The
assertion that scientists are presently struggling with the God theory (page 40)
is preposterous for many call God what cannot be God and an intelligent designer
spirit need not be a God or person. That lie is just put in for making a false
good impression. The book itself never uses the standard proofs for God that
Aquinas used and only makes use of the design argument.
The book argues that David Hume and the Epicureans argument that there is
infinite time which gives plenty of scope for the universe to take the developed
form it has today is ridiculous. The argument says that if time is long enough
extremely unlikely things will happen on their own eventually and by chance. The
book deplores this observation saying that infinite time would be more likely to
result in one disorder and disarray after another.
The book says that it is silly to think that if a monkey was writing without
beginning and without end eventually it would produce all the works of
Shakespeare by pure coincidence (page 46). This misrepresents what Hume and the
Epicureans were thinking. The monkey of course could develop the power to
improve itself given long enough and get smart enough to write exactly what
Shakespeare wrote. The result is a coincidence that is possible not nearly
impossible. We must remember we may be assuming that no Shakespeare existed so
we are not talking about the monkey managing to match his work for there is no
work for it to match. But even then the monkey could reproduce the works of
Shakespeare given long enough without knowing of him.
The next claim made by this silly book is that non-Church goes are four times
more likely to commit suicide than regular worshipers, and the more spiritual
people were significantly more happy in general and in their sex-lives and were
less likely to divorce page 62-65). This is just a scam to smear atheism and
turn society against it and similar philosophies. The unscientific nature of the
book comes in these scandalous declarations because it wants to link
spirituality and divine assistance with mental health without checking what
other factors might explain the figures. For example, maybe the reason religious
people divorce less than non-religious is because they are more influenced by
people in Church who frown on that type of thing and don't want the shame. It is
just worrying about what the neighbours and the congregation will say. People
who live in more self-righteous communities or who know mostly people like that
are generally prone to engaging in such worry. And if people are so happy
because of going to Church then why are they generally so bored during the
service and so reluctant to go? More often they are of a happy disposition
anyway and the more religious ones will put it down to God without thinking.
Most of the people in Church are hypocrites and bigots so the book is really
telling us is that these qualities are healthy and good for you. Even Jesus
himself said that most people would be unspiritual and damned so this research
calls him a liar.
Later in the book, Glynn returns to the nonsense to which we have become
accustomed. An unnamed 1972 study is outlined as a case for the healthiness of
religion. Why can’t he name this study? Why can't he name who undertook it and
how many people were involved? And yet it is cited as showing that people who
attended church have a 61% less chance of taking heart disease (page 80).
Irresponsibly, we are then informed that smokers who regularly go to Church are
a great deal healthier than those who do not have less chance of killing
themselves with the weed (page 81). This might show that religious practice is
healthy but it certainly cannot be used to prove there is a God or stand as
evidence that there might be God. It evidence for mind over body and that is
all. This is like a Christian Scientist who would point to the fact that
Christian Scientists are happier than Christians and then take this as a clue
that there is a God and that the Christian Science version of him is true. Such
logic is no good for Christian Scientists are happier because they believe that
evil does not exist and is an illusion and they help themselves to "see" that
evil is harmless for it is not real. The help is not because of God at all but
down to delusion.
The book later admits that meditation puts your brain into the state of alpha
which gives of well-being and that many people mediation using non-religious and
religious mantras can have an increased spiritual feeling (page 85). Church
services can be very relaxing and hypnotic as can prayer especially the rosary.
We cannot assume that prayer is what is to be thanked for these benefits for
they could be replicated and improved by other techniques. The mantra functions
at its best when it is accompanied by a religious faith we are told (page 87).
But faith is no good without optimism so one may as well be optimistic in the
first place without appeal to religious faith or any specific faith.
The next hilarious claim of the book is that some illusions are beneficial for
mental health and cites optimism as one. Yet it agrees with Freud that a
mentally healthy mind is a mind that is free from illusions (page 72-73).
Optimism is not an illusion for life is more good than bad and it is even better
if you find a cure for at least most of your negative feelings. Books like Tony
deMello’s Awareness and The Gospel According to Atheism show how this can be
done without illusions. God the Evidence is trying to get the God belief
encouraged even if it is an illusion. It is trying to make a case for legitimate
insanity. But legitimate insanity is a contradiction in terms.
The books tries to claim that praying for people even when they don’t know that
they are being prayed for helps them and is a clue that there is a God. It
admits that the studies that demonstrate this are requiring mechanical prayer
(page 92). To pray for some people and not others and some part of an experiment
seems plain evil. Prayers like that would be black magic if they worked. And
nobody really knows if the ones who are not being prayed for are being prayed
for by someone who is not in on the experiment or involved. If they are, the
experiment fails.
Next on Glynn’s agenda is to show that near death experiences prove there is a
God. These experiences all contradict each other and there must be a huge number
who come around after nearly dying and imagine AFTERWARDS that something
happened. Some people just make it all up. The contradictions show
there is something wrong. The vision of a being of light who does
not care what evil you have done in life shows that the experience is
spiritually unreliable. The cases were Jesus is sending somebody to Hell
and then sends them back to their body for a second chance ignores the fact that
they were not actually dead! And Christian doctrine is firm - you damn
yourself forever if you die in serious sin and even God cannot give you a second
chance. The Bible says you die once and are judged then. The
problems with these visions are absolute proof that visions are not reliable.
Glynn then says that reason is not the source of moral value and is not a
reliable guide to what is right (page 166). He then says it does not free the
mind from the desire to be cruel. We get bad desires because we don’t or can’t
think carefully enough before we form judgements and how we are going to live in
the world. The Gospel According to Atheism plainly shows that reason does verify
the truth about right and wrong and does it without God so reason gives us
sensible perception about what is right and what is wrong. Although reason will
not make you good it should for evil is nothing more than a misperceived good
anyway. And is the point of thinking you are unless you have reason to be sure
what good is? Reason is a reliable guide. It is the way it is twisted that is
bad and that is anti-reason.
God the Evidence, Patrick Glynn, Forum, California, 1999
GOD A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Keith Ward, OneWorld, Oxford, 2003