Falling Apart

OK so it has been a while since my last post. Apparently getting married and moving into a new place takes a lot of your time. Who knew?

The other day my mom and I were talking and untangling some ropes. These ropes had not moved since we put them there, but they still managed to get themselves tangled. My mom made a comment that was funny, but had a lot of truth to it. She said, "I don't see how anyone can believe in evolution when stuff like this happens all the time." One of the foundational ideas behind evolution is that life is going from a state of disorder (primordial soup) into an ever increasingly better and more organized state (humans and beyond). But, as we experience all the time in life, things are not getting more organized. Ropes get tangled, rooms get messy, cars (even the expensive ones) break down, animals go extinct, people get sick, and the list could go on and get far worse.

So, for evolution to work, it must contradict our experiences all through life. Not just for a short time either, but for the entire history of the planet. Granted, there is growth. All forms of life are weak or small in the beginning, but with time each individual grows and becomes stronger. But the design for this growth is already inside the being at the start. For instance, the entire set of DNA is in the small seed of a great redwood tree, or the characteristics of a human are all prepared to be developed inside an embryo. So, even though their is growth, the organization is already there in the beginning of the being's life. But despite these periods of growth, the story of life is still the same all over the world. It eventually falls apart and dies.

For evolution to work, there must be a multi-billion year history of life becoming somehow more organized. Evolution claims that this organization was done through genetic mutation, and every once and a while that mutation would make the being stronger or "more fit". But how likely are these mutations to happen? As we have all seen in life, things rarely get more organized on their own, and if they do it is for a short time. Even if a positive genetic mutation were to occur, there would be no guarantee that it would be a dominant gene and appear again in the next generation. Billions of years just does not seem long enough to me for so many mutations to happen that will carry on to the next generation. There are countless species in the world. That calls for an insurmountable number of instances where something miraculously became more organized.

To me, it just seems easier and more plausible to say God created it all. When things are left to themselves, they fall apart. Everything we experience in life that has organization has had someone put it together. So why wouldn't life be the same way? It just seems more logical to say that there is a God behind it all.

The Teleological Argument

The teleological argument, which has also been called the argument from design, is one of my favorites. It was originally set forth by William Paley, a professor at Cambridge in the late eighteenth century. Rather than give the premises and conclusion of the argument, I will tell a short story that demonstrates this argument best.

If you are walking along the beach and find a beautiful golden watch that accurately tells time with an hour, minute, and second hand, where will you think the watch came from? Most likely, you will think that the watch had a maker or designer who put the watch together. Somehow, after making and potentially selling the watch, the watch was lost. Perhaps it fell out of a beach bag, or perhaps it was lost to sea in a ship wreck. Regardless of how the watch got there, it is very likely that the watch had a designer. As big as the ocean is, I doubt anyone would look out to the sea and think to themselves, "this watch must have been tossed around in the sea for years and molded into the perfectly working mechanism it is today." This watch we will call a teleological system. A teleological system is any mechanism that exhibits design.

We can apply the same story to the universe. It has many pieces that work together in incredible fashion. This can be seen on a large scale: The sun rising consistently, the stars rotating according to season, and the tides rising and falling. It can also be seen on a much more minute scale: DNA copying itself, cells joining together to create new life, and the brain sending signals to your foot to get it to move. The world is full of teleological systems, and many systems contain many smaller systems working together seamlessly. If one would assume a simple watch is made by a designer, why would one not think that all of the intricate "machines" in our universe do not also have a designer? Why would one think that a much more difficult system should have come about by random chance? It would seem, then, that there is some good reason to believe in God.

The Ontological Argument

The Ontological Argument was first put forth by St. Anselm in the 11th century. At first glance this argument may seem like it goes in a circle or is self-defining. But after thinking about it in depth, it becomes harder and harder to figure out what is actually wrong with it. The argument has been around for almost 1,000 years and has appeared in various forms. It is still discussed by many modern philosophers, and for some people it just makes sense. Because of this, I think it is worth noting. Sometimes I read it and something clicks and it makes perfect sense, other times I read it and I don’t really get it. Hopefully it will make sense for you.

There are various versions of the argument, but here is the way I best understand it:
Any thing that exists in reality is greater than things that exist only in the mind. For instance, we can imagine a unicorn. Unicorns are pretty cool, but they only exist in the mind or on paper. They do not exist in reality. But if they did, we would say that the real unicorn is a greater being than the unicorn in my coloring book.

We can apply similar logic to God’s existence. If God exists in our minds, he is pretty cool. He is powerful, created the world, and has lived forever. But, a God existing only in our minds is not nearly as great as a God that exists in reality. The following is where the major difference between the unicorn and God examples arises. God is said to be the greatest being we can conceive. He is a being “than which none greater can be conceived.” A unicorn is just a cool combination of animals, but nothing can be greater than God. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and the list goes on.

Since God is a being whom we cannot conceive of anyone greater, we must say he exists. Why? Because if he only exists only in the mind, than he is not the greatest being we can conceive of. All we would have to do is conceive of a God that exists, and He would be greater than the God that exists only in the mind.

We cannot apply the same logic to the unicorn here, because we could easily conceive of something greater than a unicorn. But we cannot conceive of something greater than God, because He is the greatest of all things. Part of our conception of God is that He created the universe. Since He is above all things and the originator of all things, we can safely say that He is the greatest being we can conceive of. And since the greatest being we can conceive of must exist, then God (the greatest being we can conceive) must exist.

The Beginning

As I have surfed the internet, I have encountered many websites that discuss how irrational it is to believe in God. I tend to think of myself as a pretty rational person, and happen to believe in God as well. So I decided to write a little blog about how one can believe in God and have good reason for doing so. While I do not think the arguments and evidence on this site will convince everyone that God is real, it is my hope that at a minimum it will get people to think that us theists are not total crazies who ignore logic. I also hope that it will open the hearts and minds of all types of people and that some pretty good discussion will happen here. So please, make comments of your thoughts. I welcome criticisms, encouragements, improvements, and personal stories. If you would like to e-mail me something you can do so at notyetbroken@gmail.com.
I hope you enjoy the site!