Faith is not for the Moronic

This article is basically aimed at attempting to address this “moronic” tag or should I say “simplistic” tag placed on “theists” by a great number of skeptics and anti-theist people, especially on the internet. Like I said it’s an attempt, so, wish me luck or pray for me.

I’m a “Christian”. I’m not going to address this article from a Christian or “Abraham-ic” approach. Because that will be almost nonsensical. God by the “Christian” definition is a spirit, hence immaterial, trying to prove an immaterial God with material things is a job I’m not adequately equipped for. So let’s just leave it at nonsensical. I’m not going to approach this article from one specific religion either. I’m just going to talk about the basic idea of belief in a God or better still belief in a “Super-natural presence”. Please note that I’m also not trying to proof the existence of God in this short ass article.

Much of the conclusion of the moronic stance labelled to theism is claimed to be based off the supposition that there is no evidence to support the theists’ claims and that this lack of evidence presents the theist viewpoint as irrational.

I suppose when it comes to “evidence” there’s are various categories of how true or substantial certain evidence is. I’m 99% sure that you are looking at some form of a computer right now. I can also be sure that you love certain members of your family. You can prove beyond doubt that you do have a computer but you cannot prove that you love members of your family, I simply have to take your word for it. Furthermore one of the best proofs I have that you love your family is the love that I feel for my family. Thus, there are different levels of evidence. Certainly God, if he exists does not fall into the first category I mentioned.

Let’s take a scientific approach. The universe could have been created/fine-tuned/designed, there could be a multiverse, there could be a created/fine-tuned/designed multiverse, the universe could be a result of mathematical chance or guided Mathematical chance.

The original expansion of the big bang, the energy it takes for neutrons to keep protons connected, as opposed to the gravitational pull, the rate of entropy at the beginning of the universe and change shortly after the original expansion are just a couple of examples of fine tuning. If we take those first three, I believe they were 10 to the 50 power, 10 to the 75 power and 10 to the 125 power to the 125 power (no i didn’t double type). So if you’re looking at the odds of any particular universe being fine tuned enough to support stars and planets you would take those numbers and multiply them. Thus 10 to the 50 power x 10 to the 75 power x 10 to the 125 power to the 125 power. (these numbers came straight from the physicists who calculated them, whom are mostly atheists, not from theist physicists). thus your product would be something like 10 to the trillionth power; that’s a trillion zeros behind ten. Please, ponder that for a moment… that is the astronomical chance our universe would be able to just support simply stars and planets, and has nothing to say yet of our own planet. By the way, I’m not a physicist, so feel free to correct me on these numbers but, I’m sure they are still going to be unfathomably large that it wouldn’t even matter which numbers are correct.

If I Damilola, said to Sade, “Sade, I just got a job at the lottery, why don’t you go play” and she did and let’s say she won, a million dollars. She might think, “well, it’s possible that Damilola had something to do with me winning, but it’s also possible that I simply just got lucky, but I can’t be sure without definitive proof.” Duh! Now let’s say Sade continued to play the lottery every day, and for an entire year she won the lottery for a million dollars every single day. There would certainly be a chance that Sade just happened to get that lucky, but wouldn’t it be more likely that I had something to do with it? I think the evidence for God can certainly fall into that category. Sade may have no physical proof that I cheated for her but the sheer odds of her winning every single time would almost guarantee that I did cheat for her. That perhaps is an accurate analogy to draw up an evidence of a fine tuner. Specific evidence, we can put our hands on? No, but the odds of everything being so perfect almost guarantees the cosmic lottery was fixed.

Even if there were a billion of other universes, the astronomical chances of the fine tuning is still much greater than trillions? (I can’t be sure of that just an estimate) Furthermore, when you look at the origin of the natural law and I see the theories proposed, wouldn’t it at the very least seem to make sense that some of those theories are created with little evidence to support them?But we assume them to be true as if we are indeed making a leap of faith. If we find ourselves always coming up with an explanation for what might appear to be obvious isn’t it natural to think that our explanations are a bit of a leap of faith in believing there is no Creator? Certainly something worth considering?

Also to the “moronic because it’s archaic” argument - The more evidence science has put forth the more evidence that there is a designer, at least for a theist like myself. Years ago when people had a basic knowledge of our solar system and our universe people didn’t know how “perfect” everything had to be to support life? as we have learned more it’s amazing to see how perfect everything is. Think about it, if you simply change one variable by the tiniest fraction in our universe and more specifically in our solar system, the result would be there is no life on the planet. The response to this is to simply postulate there are 10 to the trillionth power of other universes, but again doesn’t that seem like science fiction? the more we learn I believe the more it points to a designer, but in order to offset that, hypothesis are created that have no grounding in scientific observation? is that not a faith issue?

There are really only three possibilities of how things came about. 1. pure mathematical chance, 2. guided mathematical chance, 3. design in nature. Number 2 and 3 indicate a fine tuner. This of course is not enough proof, but you really start to wonder how one may hold the notion of being so unbelievably lucky in such high esteem. Isn’t this almost irrational? As irrational as faith might seem? To do this is to almost present chance as a “god”

There is plenty of evidence but it’s of a second nature. Kind of like love, you can tell someone you love them, but you cannot prove it in an empirical way. Yet you know it exists because you’ve experienced it yourself. It’s certainly worth reflecting on. We make decisions all the time that aren’t based on 100% empirical data. So why insist that I need 100% empirical data when it comes to God?

So, all this kind of grammar I’ve been talking since as proof is not going to mean anything to Iya Bose sitting in the front row at church, she’s going to think you are crazy for not believing in God to begin with. If let’s just say after reading all these, you started to believe. If you tried to explain it to Iya Bose, she wouldn’t know the language to understand, but you would. A language that you understood led you to seek the creator, just as something more simple, like the sun rising over the ocean when she was young compelled her to seek out the creator that gave her internal knowledge of God’s existence. Or perhaps maybe it was the love in her mother’s eyes.

I don’t want a long ass article, so I’ll stop here. Equating belief in God to the belief in the tooth fairy or big foot or Santa clearly misses the point. Faith is not for the moronic, as faith (even not in God) is elemental to human experience, even science. At the moment, there isn’t enough empirical data to support the “no God” case. So let’s face it, humanity must be a dancing wallow of the moronic.