Posts Tagged ‘myths’
The Order Argument
One of my father’s favourite phrases, when observing a beautiful natural phenomenon, such as a sunset or a magnificently carved landscape, is
Absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? (switches to sarcastic tone) There’s no God though.
The argument he tries to make is that conditions are so beautiful, perfect and orderly for humans that it must have been intelligently designed.
This is something of a naïve point of view. Firstly, randomness and disorder can be beautiful. Take lightning (in slow motion, as demonstrated by this YouTube video). The paths of the current at the beginning are totally random, yet magnificently beautiful.
But then we come to the ’sustainment’ argument. The universe is massive, and mostly uncharted. We know nothing of planetary oyotems beyond our own – there may be millions of systems incapable of hosting life for each one which does. Yet we only understand our own system, and therefore subconciously assume that we are the only solar system, and erroneously assume we are the only life forms in te universe.
Even then, even if we are alone in the universe, surely it it would be more precious if we are very lucky in our existence, rather than being created on a whim by a bearded man living on a cloud?
