Thanks for your thought-provocative article. I am also quite attracted by
your arguments, though I could not accept many of those arguments for some
reason which I wish to explain one after another. You argued that you believe
in one almighty, supreme God who created our universe and the creation, you
tried to prove by mathematics that creation is not Random. You also tried to
bring complex dimensional mathematics (space-time relationship) to prove that
human mind is limited to understand the existence of God. I will like to
answer one by one.
Definition of God
Mr. Mukul, with due respect I wish to mention that it’s ok that you
believe in one almighty (all-powerful?) god, but unfortunately you like other
believer did not provide any proper definition of god. It is not surprising at
all, cause, if you could define god, then we could set up a test to test for
the existence of this deity. Since you cannot define it, and since we cannot
test for it, it puts their god along with most of the other gods and
goddesses, beyond the pale of meaning. They are meaningless constructs for me.
Religion and God
As you did not defined any definition of God, I would like to take the
definition expressed in different religion. Though you confessed that you do
not know if the religious scriptures is divine or not I am asking you to focus
on this matter because, you know that every religion defines god in its own
way. I will come back to your mathematical portion later of my argument. In
Greek mythology, the god of thunder is Zeus. To the Norse, he is Thor. We
invent these etiological myths to appease our fear of the unknown. " Yet
ignorance by any other name is ignorance nonetheless, even if we call it a
"god." In Judeo-Christian mythology, there is a God who can say
whatever He wants and *poof* - just like magic - it happens. He does not
require any mechanism, for nothing is impossible for Him. Nothing makes Him do
one thing instead of the other, because He can easily do anything, He is
unlimited and infinite. Muslims believe in only one God but Hindus believe in
thousands of god, goddess etc. You see there is no proper definition about
what actually this "god" means. You also could not give any proper
definition, just imposed some characteristics. Even the characteristics you
imposed for god is totally fallacious. Here is some of the glimpses of my
rebuttal of the characteristic of god regardless the religion you follow:
Is God all-Powerful ?
"God is most powerful"--consider this statement. If I
ask--"Can he (god) create such a heavy rock that he himself cannot lift
?" What will be your answer?
* If your answer is "no" it means he is NOT
powerful creating such rock.
* If your answer is "yes" then it refers that he can create
such rock but simultaneously he is incapable of lifting such kind of heavy
rock--means NOT powerful.
I phrased the question in somewhat more general terms, and deliberately so.
My question was whether God can set Himself a task He can't perform. This is a
clear contradiction, which is only indicates that the "all-powerful"
is such a characteristic which is impossible to attain.
Is God All loving?
Again "God is All-loving"---is it really true? Then why there are so
many crimes, misdeeds, trespass, murder, and outrage in our world (God's
Perfect world !!!!)? God is so powerful, but why cant he remove these
irregularities? Some of you have argued that in this way God it testing our
morality and integrity!!! I gave an example from the recent newspaper in my
previous posting. " A four year girl is gang-raped and brutally killed by
5 archfiend man." What's the little girl's sin, Can any one tell? Why she
had to pass under such a severe ruthless test of God ? Testing our morality !!
Just think!!! What a Nobel man this "God" is, running such kind of
pervert test !!!!!!
I have raised three possibilities, which I am going to provide you again
for your concern.
Actually god cannot remove such kind of irregularities because of having one
of the three possibilities of the following:
1. God does not exist, that's why he cannot remove the irregularities.
2. God exists, and he wants to remove the irregularities, but he can't--means
He is NOT powerful
3. God exists, but he do not want to remove these irregularities---which
means, He is NOT all-loving.
Is God Omniscient ?
If your god knows everything, ideals of life and codes of conduct have no
significance.
* If a god knows who will win the next presidential election, then it
isn't possible for anyone else to win.
* If it is predestined that the student will fail in the next
examination, it wont be possible for him/her to pass irrespective of how much
effort he/she gives.
* Does God know what His own Godel sentences are? If He does, then
they're not His Godel sentences and if he does not, then he is not
Omniscient at all.
For a god to be free in action, then its future must not be fully known in
advance - there must be the possibility for a change of mind. If a god cannot
freely alter its actions, then it cannot be said to be free. But this means
that the god itself cannot perfectly know its own future. There must be true
propositions about the future which it does not know. The form of prayer, "Oh
God, thy will be done," illustrates the attitude of total surrender
of the individual to the god of his faith. But individual freedom is a
reality. Freedom means the capacity to choose between alternatives. This
choice we make in every act of our life. We plan, educate and grow moral only
because we can choose. If the future is determined, our planning is
meaningless. If the success or failure of a student is predetermined,
efforts at education lose meaning. If the judgment is foregone, arguments of
advocates on points of law are vain. If the pattern of behavior of an
individual is determined by god's will, fate's decree or by the force of
circumstances, ideals of life and codes of conduct have no significance.
But real life contradicts the assumptions of determinism. We hope, we plan,
we act and we achieve. Our achievements may be influenced by factors good, bad
and indifferent around us. Yet our freedom to will and to do is
unquestionable. The greater the freedom an individual exercises, the nearer
the achievement to his desire. To call it a myth is to deceive ourselves in
order to justify an untenable faith in determinism. The experience of free
will and the aspirations for moral conduct, disprove the existence of an
almighty god or of a basic being which determine our life. We are free; god
and basic being, spiritual or material are fictions.
Common cosmological argument and God
Believers always provide the most common type of the cosmological argument,
postulating a god as a "First Cause" (which you think most logical)
can be summarized thusly:
- Everything that exists or
begins to exist has a cause. The universe exists and began to exist.
- The universe must have a
cause.
- The cause of the universe
is God.
Theists always dogmatically believe that every creation should have a creator
and every event should have a cause. But practically it is not true always.
there are many events in this universe happening without the need of prior
cause or the involvement of the creator. There are many spontaneous reaction
occurring without having the anterior cause. Many radio-active particles are
radiating freely and spontaneously without involving the anticipation of any
creator. If you are familiar with quantum mechanics
you may know that quantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron,
and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously in a perfect vacuum. When this
happens, the three particles exist for a brief time, and then annihilate each
other, leaving no trace behind. (Energy conservation is violated, but only for
a particle lifetime DelT permitted by the uncertainty delT * delE~h where delE
is the net energy of the particles and h is Planck's constant.) The
spontaneous, temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum is called a vacuum
fluctuation, and is utterly commonplace in quantum field theory.A particle
produced by a vacuum fluctuation has no cause. Since vacuum fluctuations are
commonplace, god cannot be the only thing that is uncaused. So
you see, your "God" is not the only thing uncaused in this universe.
So all the Theist's argument (like Hugh Ross) "If the universe arose out
of a big bang, it must have had a beginning. If it had a beginning, it must
have a beginner." also comes from the limitation of thinking.
An Uncaused Universe
The more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the
theist's causal assumption, there's evidence against it. The claim that the
"beginning of our universe has a cause" conflicts with current
scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the Wave Function of the
Universe. It has been developed in the past 15 years or so by Stephen Hawking,
Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a
scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies
that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come
into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers
to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe
with features that our universe possesses, such as containing intelligent
organisms. This remaining universe has a very high
probability - near 100% - of coming into existence uncaused.
By the by, the fact is, if there is a god, then god exists. And
then god exists without the need for a creator. So, those who always invoke
the need for a creator to account for the creation of universe claim, in the
same breath, that the "problem" of the creation of the universe is
solved by invoking something infinitely more complex than the universe -- that
wasn't created.
Simply my objection of your arguments is that
your arguments conclude that a "god" exists, but if so, then this
god must have a cause (according to the same argument). This would result in
an infinite regress of causes (gods) unacceptable to the theist, so most
believers make an exception for their god, asserting that it doesn't need a
cause. Unfortunately, there is no obvious reason why this exception cannot be
applied to the universe, too. If a god "just is," why
can't the universe "just be?". For this reason, many using the
argument say "everything that begins to exist has a cause" -
asserting that their god never "began" and, hence, needs no cause.
The problem here is that you did not provide any support offered on behalf of
your except the so-called "popular belief" that your god must be
"eternal." From the law of Physics we know that order cannot come
from disorder, then this god must be highly ordered rather than chaotic.
Therefore, this god requires another god as an explanation. Of course, this
once again drops us into an infinite regress of gods. If the believer wishes
to exempt an ordered god from requiring explanation, then they will have to
demonstrate that the universe cannot also get such an exemption and
scientifically irrational.
Statistical Randomness and God
Mr. Mukul, You said, "Now if I add a process control in tossing the
coin which will result in bringing a head every time - then, the head will
appear 2 million times out of 2 million events (tossing). Therefore, we can
conclude, if we see any kind of pattern (not random) in a process, that will
imply the existence of a "control" or "bias"
mechanism." My question is how do you conclude that our universe is that
event that occurs 2 million times out of 2 million. Who told you ? Isn't it a
biased assumption ? The first, most common, and most obvious objection to the
whole family of design arguments is the fact that any god which would have
been able to create the universe would itself have to be rather complex and
certainly couldn't be "accidental." So, if the universe and the
human body is too complex to be accidental, what about this god? Who or what
created this god? Is he accidental also ? The theist will normally respond
by claiming this god is a "necessary being" and doesn't need a
"creator." Unfortunately, this is totally unsupported and totally
unsupportable. There is no basis for such an arbitrary assertion, except to
try to excuse their god from the same standards they wish to apply to the
universe. However, any excuse made for this god can be equally work for the
universe. Why can't the universe be "necessary" or not need a
"creator?" No one can say - after all, we really don't know enough
about our universe or universes in general to make such a judgment.
In general, order and complexity are dependent upon subjective judgments.
Where one person may see order, another may see chaos. Where one person may
see indecipherable complexity, another may see elegant simplicity. It would
seem reasonable, then, to start out with a method of objectively measuring
order, complexity, and chaos so that we can tell how much there is and whether
or not that amount requires a Grand Designer. I have yet to meet a theist
willing to attempt such a task. We human being think that for development of
life on earth oxygen, nitrogen optimum temperature is needed and that is the
order that god has imposed. Without such optimum environment we think
development of life was not possible on earth. But it also a biased
assumption. As those condition is quite favorable for development of human being,
so we think this is the ONLY optimum condition. But it is NOT always true.
There are many species in this world which survives without the need of that
(human-defined) favorable condition. Some bacteria survives in underground, some numerous
eukaryotic organisms are found in deep sea where is very little oxygen. Even
in kerosene and petroleum oil some organic species can live and that is the
favorable condition for them which is completely adverse for other organisms
such as human. So it is not true that our earthly environment is the only and
only one favorable condition that god imposed and without it our evolution
would never be possible. What would a universe without order look like? May be
different. And our development may also then completely different. We may then
thought that environment is the only the environment required for evolution ! who knows
! How can you assume that their god is needed to impose the order? The simple
response is you cannot just guess.
Human knowledge and God
"You cannot judge the activities of God by your limited
knowledge" - this argument is given by the believers when they fail to
provide any logical expression on behalf of god. They just say human mind is
not capable to comprehend God (like two dimension species can never comprehend
three dimension). This kind of statement comes from ignorance. Yet ignorance
is never an argument and cannot be considered evidence in any meaningful
sense. How can they judge that human mind is limited when we have already
solved so many problems? As an intelligent being why cant we question about
the existence of God? Why do they always want to limit our boundaries? Some
people argues that human knowledge is limited so that it is not possible to
conceptualize "God". How could they so sure? Have god come to them
and told? Nope. This is just their belief. If I
have to accept their "limited mind" logic then I have to believe not
only in God but also in Ghorar Deem, Kumro-potash, Hashjaru, Bokkchhop,
Raam-gorurer chana, Shakchunni, Ponkhiraaj Ghora, Santa Claus, fairies, ogre,
Zeus, unicorn, jin, bhut, fereshta .....everything. Cause, human knowledge is
so limited that we could not conceptualize such things yet-----because may be
they are all 4 dimensional species. As we are the inferior inhabitants of 3
dimension, we can never conceptualize their existence by any means !!!!
Mr. Mukul, whatever mathematics you provide or whatever dimensional
analysis you do to make us believe that your God is not comprehendible by our
limited knowledge, It is clear that if God had created his universe by his
mighty power (which for very sure you tend to belief), He should be quite
capable to interact with his creation (i.e. universe). If God interacts with
our universe in any way, the effects of his interaction must have some
physical manifestation. Hence his interaction with our universe must be in
principle detectable. Where is such indication ?
If God is essentially non-detectable, it must therefore be the case that he
does not interact with our universe in any way. Many atheists would argue that
if God does not interact with our universe at all, it is of no importance
whether he exists or not. God can only watch when 4 year old girl is being
brutally raped !
If the Bible is to be believed, God was easily detectable by the
Israelites. Muhammed also traveled in space to see his God. So as Judhisthir
and Ram. Surely he should still be detectable today? Why has the situation
suddenly changed?
Note that I am not demanding that God interact in a scientifically
verifiable, physical way. I might potentially receive some revelation, some
direct experience of God. An experience like that would be incommunicable, and
not subject to scientific verification -- but it would nevertheless be as
compelling as any evidence can be.
But whether by direct revelation or by observation, it must surely be
possible to perceive some effect caused by God's presence; otherwise, how can
I distinguish him from all the other things that don't exist? You did not
mention either.
Regards.