"PROOF?"

Second has unearthed some nutter named Marilyn Adamson who he seems to think offers proof of the existence of god.

I searched Adamson and discovered the following Harold Schuckart who challenges Adamson's ravings. I tried to post this as a comment on Second Fiddle's blog but it was rejected because there were too many words.

Harold Schuckart contests Marilyn Adamson's "six reasons to believe in God"

August 18th, 2009

"Ms. Adamson is described as a former atheist who is now a Christian. She has written a list of six reasons why people should believe in God. www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html She starts out very badly by comparing an atheist with a person who doesn’t believe that people have walked on the moon. She suggests that those ‘moon-walk unbelievers’ will reject all evidence, such as photographs and moon rocks and that ‘God unbelievers’ may reject evidence for God in much the same way.

"As a former science teacher, I understand the use of physical evidence and I understand her argument. For example, many of my students had difficulty accepting the idea of the Big Bang and asked for evidence. Fortunately, there is ample evidence for the Big Bang - enough for a separate article. I must wonder what physical evidence Ms. Adamson is going to present as proof of God.

"Before I discuss the reasons she offers as ‘evidence’, I should point out the effect of real evidence on the value of faith. Many religions demand faith in God, in a creator, perhaps in God’s son, Jesus, and His miracles. The existence of real proof negates that unconditional faith and makes it mere acceptance, which might not be sufficient for admission into heaven.

"The first four reasons that Ms. Adamson gives are statements like the Earth is the perfect distance from the sun, physical laws are consistent in the universe, the human brain and eye are complex, and DNA is long. This is the anthropic principle, the idea that since the universe is perfectly fitted for humans, it must have been designed for humans, rather than the reverse. If we were incompatible with the universe, we would not exist, and some compatible being would be writing this article. Ms. Adamson plays the Intelligent Design game by quoting eminent scientists out of context, making them appear to support her case.

"These four reasons of Ms. Adamson are basically ‘beautiful sunset’ arguments. I have a good friend who is very religious. The best argument he can make for the existence of God is that sunsets are beautiful. “When I see a beautiful sunset,” he says, “I know that God exists.” If sunsets were ugly would it be proof of God’s non-existence? He was dumbfounded when I proposed that beings living on a different planet might find purple sunsets beautiful and thus prove the existence of ‘their’ gods. We may find sunrises beautiful because they signal the end of night, and sunsets beautiful because they signal a time to return to the companionship, food and warmth of the cave where we are safe. Our eyes have evolved to see the light from our sun and the changing sky colors as night falls or day dawns are pleasing because we evolved here. Humans living on Mars with a pink sky and purple sunsets may not find them beautiful, but I am sure the Martians enjoy them.

"Her fifth reason for God’s existence is that “He actively pursues us.” Talk about chutzpah! God created the universe for us; He controls the forces between every particle of the universe, even those so far away that we will never know they exist, and yet He actively pursues us like we are a reluctant lover. This is a step beyond the idea of the ‘God shaped hole’ in the human soul – the idea that humans long for a God because they perceive emptiness in themselves. Ms. Adamson says God is so needy that He tries to seduce us into loving Him. Not only does she anthropomorphize God, she makes Him into a weak and drooling suitor. And what a suitor. If we have something He wants, why is He so cruel to us, causing or allowing so much suffering in the world, not only to humans, but to all living things. The lives of most living things are filled with terror and inevitably end in being killed and eaten, or eaten alive, by some other creature. And consider this. Ms. Adamson admits to the Big Bang happening and scientists have determined it happened 13 billion years ago, which is 12 billion, 999 million, 996 thousand years before humans began worshipping God in the middle eastern desert. Who was God spending His time with before we came on the scene? Who was He wooing before us? Are we getting Him on the rebound?

"Her sixth argument is that Jesus, unlike other founders of major religions, claimed to be God. God exists because of the delusions of a first century apocalyptic prophet. And what proof is there that Jesus was Devine? Jesus is said, by the Bible, to have performed miracles. What Ms. Adamson misses is that every prophet of that time claimed the same miracles – healing the sick, raising the dead, and so on. What do we have for the proof of these miracles? We have rock solid testimony from the people who talked to the people who knew people who had been in the area when the story of these marvelous occurrences was going around. And the people who wrote down the miracles didn’t really have any ulterior motives for claiming Jesus’s divinity, now, did they?

"Ms. Adamson has presented the reasons why she believes in God, but she has not presented anything like a photo of a man walking on the moon or a rock from the moon. She presents ‘pie in the sky’ evidence. The first four reasons can be explained in other ways. The sixth reason is questionable. Jesus may have existed, and he probably preached some sort of ‘end of the world – now’ stories. Jesus may be more like the guy with the ‘The End is Nigh’ sandwich board than like a God. His followers saw a good thing and promoted it by exaggerating and perhaps creating stories from whole cloth.

"This leaves us with number five – God pursuing us. I guess I would attribute this to a mild case of paranoia. God is after Ms. Adamson just as aliens and black helicopters are after other nuts."