Serpentes Issue 5

Conversations Between an Atheist and a Theist - Thomas Uglow First and foremost, it is worth determining who or what “God” really is. This is to forestall an inevitable retort to any Atheist theories proposed – that “the God that this article concerns is not one I believe in either”. This article does not concern an old man with a long white beard in the sky. That old man is as irrelevant as his beard is long in this Article. I’m talking of a God ideology, a God’s ideology, a supernatural being, an invisible force or energy, and all other things the word “God” may encompass.

Picture yourself as a human 5200 years ago, on the earth, in a very early form of a civilisation. Now, imagine the unexplained natural phenomena you would have witnessed back then. Lightning storms, Monsoons, perhaps even a solar eclipse or two. How would you go about trying to explain these happenings? You may have one or two ideas, but overall, they would most likely have been false and scientifically incorrect. This is when a God ideology comes in handy. A God, and particularly a God’s emotions can explain why certain rarities occur to us. For example, when somebody becomes sick due to an illness, it can be explained by the fact that he has done something to anger his God in some way, and his God has caused him to fall sick as a punishment. However, we can now say, due to our vast scientific advancements over those 5200 years, that God is not the reason behind many happenings we once thought he/she was.

The main argument against a God is that he is becoming less and less relevant in explaining the inner workings of the Earth, and the Universe, and so it seems like he is becoming less likely as we progress scientifically. We have science that answers the difficult questions nobody ever thought we would know the answers to. There may be questions now that we don’t ever expect to know the answers to, but it’s better to attempt those questions that to try fit a God ideology into the answer box. The idea of a God is convenient for people, as he/she is the universal answer to any tough question, but although it may be easier, it certainly isn’t always the right answer. For many years, people were content believing that all the planets revolved around the earth, as that was how God had designed the solar system. Until Copernicus suggested Heliocentrism, which we now know to be the truth. Science explains the world far better than a God ever could, and so now, it is God that needs explaining.

On the other hand, let’s consider how unlikely it is that human beings should have come into existence in the first place. Take the Earth for example. Its size is perfect. The Earth’s size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. Earth is one of the only planets equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life. But now we must ponder the unlikeliness of evolution leading to intelligent life (humans) on that planet. We must consider the phenomenally delicate combination of meiotic variations and genetic mutations that would lead over billions of years to a human being born. The combined chances of this happening are frighteningly small. Millions, if not Quadrillions to one. The chances that you personally should exist on Earth are 6 10−2.7×10 . Surely, the only explanation for the occurrence of the human species is that a God put us here.

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