This article was written by a friend of mine. He will be very happy to read your comments.
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Before I talk about the reasons why God exists, I want to share a very
interesting little story with you. It is about Leonardo Fiorentino, the
famous Italian author. He is well- known for his innovative book:
Dieci Sensi Interessanti Alimentare Le Scimmie. You probably have
not heard of him, and that is because his writes solely in Italian;
actually, to be more accurate, because his Monkeys write only in
Italian, and for some odd reason humans hate to translate for Monkeys.
This guy – it is said – has a very interesting way of producing the
books. He has thousands of Monkeys, all trained to typewrite at quite
fast speeds. They just sit down in front of their typewriters and type
stuff for him, and then he revises this stuff. Of course they produce a
lot of junk per day (They work for 8 hours!), in fact most of what they
produce is junk; however, he has a look at what the produce and – well –
one of his Monkeys was lucky enough to hit the jackpot; he wrote a book
in two weeks! That, he admits, was after trying with these Monkeys for
years.
You do not believe this story; neither would I if you told me about it,
and that – I am sure you agree – is because such a story is
illogical and defies our
human sense. Monkeys have no
sense of language, so what they type is completely random. Even though
it is theoretically
possible that a Monkey writes a book, and a
meaningful one at that, it is totally not
plausible. A
coincidence as rare is this is not something one is going to basically
believe without a very solid proof, and even when a proof is provided,
we would question it over and over.
Our human sense basically doesn't accept very low probabilities. A
Monkey writing a book is by all means a supernatural thing. If, somehow,
this guy proved to us that the Monkey wrote the book, most people would
find it more sensible to believe this is the result of magic than those
who would attribute it to the almost zero probability.
Yet, many people disregard the existence of God as
nonsense, and
look disdainfully at those who believe in the existence of God; the
existence of God, they say, is
illogical and unscientific. The
worst thing about some of these people is that their believe makes them
feel more modern and worldly; just like we have the religious extremists
who think they speak the word of God – or sign for him, we have those
atheists who believe they speak the word of reason; that is right, they
speak for the
sense and
logic that is built into us.
But again, what is logical? We agreed that a Monkey writing a book – not
to mention a best-seller – is possible, but very illogical. This makes
me wonder, why would these people then find it logical that the universe
was created with the correct values that made it survive and become what
it is now, given that any slight change in these values would have
created a broken – or totally different – type of universe? Why do they
find it logical to have introduce the concept of parallel universes, and
assume an almost infinite number of them, so as to make it possible for
the universe we live in to exist and be the result of this
coincidence?
I do not know about you, but I personally find this just as supernatural
as saying that a supreme being created this universe. After all, I am
talking about the creation of the universe, so the cause has to be
something outside this universe. Maybe we need to start asking the right
questions, like – for instance – why could a supreme being not exist? I
see no reason.
I am not asking you to marvel at the beauty of the universe and realize
through this beauty that God exists; this works with some people, but
apparently it makes us – believers in a supreme being – sound
unscientific; so I am trying to talk science. You know what science has
to offer about this bit?
There are two theories that are supposed to attempt explaining the
creation of the universe: The weak anthropic theory and the strong
anthropic theory. In fact, the only one that is worth looking at is the
weak theory; the strong anthropic theory, when attempted, gets reduced
to the weak anthropic theory. So, do you know what this weak anthropic
theory says? I will tell you. Or even better, how about we ask Stephen
Hawking to tell us? Here is what he says:
According to [the weak anthropic theory], there are
either many different universes or many different regions of a single
universe, each with its own initial configuration and, perhaps, with its
own set of laws of science. In most of these universes the conditions
would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in
the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop
and ask the question, “Why is the universe the way we see it?” The
answer is then simple: if it had been different, we would not be
here!
So in simple English: The universe exists because we are here; that is
all what science could offer so far. But wait, you say, our
understanding of the universe is not developed fully yet, and we will
probably find the answer in the future. That is right, but don't you
think that sounds a bit like Aristotle, when he believed that the Earth
was the center of the universe, and that the movement of celestial
objects was managed by an
engine - something he could not prove –
and any other theories about the universe were basically killed for many
years?
Science is all about having hypothesis and predictions; as long as those
predictions hold, and there is no proven replacement, there is no sense
in disregarding the hypothesis as wrong simply because it involves
something you cannot touch. Take the existence of a supreme being as
just that, a scientific hypothesis. In fact, one that is far more
reasonable than any other. The weak anthropic theory is just what the
name suggests,
weak; imagine me telling you that my house exists
because I am here to realize its existence. You would think I am being
ridiculous. The fact that I did not exist before the house does not
permit me to assume that it is there because I exist. You know that
someone has built it. Why, again, did you say that no being outside the
universe could have built that?
Now that put aside; I need to mention another important point. Some
people believe they have a good answer to the question I posed (Why
could a supreme being not exist?). If such a being existed, they say,
then why are there poor people? Why is everybody not happie?
I will give you one good reason, would that be enough? See, in the last
statement in the previous paragraph, I made a silly spelling mistake. I
spelled happy as happie, even though I totally know how to spell happy,
and I kept it even after my text editor complained about the wrong
spelling. I am a mere human being, and I still did something you find
meaningless – I made a mistake I am aware of and kept it. Believe me
though, I made it for a reason; specifically: I made it to prove a
point, the point I am making right now.
For one thing, even though I could have done this the perfect form, I
did not; why do you believe that I can do that, being the weakling I am,
and the supreme being who created this universe cannot? He can create
imperfection as he wishes; in fact, this imperfection might be more
reasonable than perfection itself. You see, by introducing a mistake, I
could make this point. If I had spelled happy correctly, I could not
have argued that with you properly.
So, now that the existence of God is both scientifically and emotionally
acceptable; why do you think God does not exist?