A few weeks ago I watched a debate between The Rational Response Team, Kirk Cameron and a guy in a mustache regarding whether or not one can scientifically prove the existence of God. I watched as the theists were handily defeated, without much effort on the part of the RRT. It was a frustrating thing to witness.
I have no idea why Christians waste so much time trying to prove themselves via scientific method. It won’t happen – I would submit that it can’t be done. The tragedy isn’t that God can’t be proven scientifically – the entire premise is flawed from the beginning. Science is a process of observation, repeated testing in controlled environments, etc. How does one put a God outside of the confines of human existence into a beaker?
The tragedy is that believers feel they must appeal to science as the ultimate authority. It’s understandable, as science has replaced God in the modern age as our source for answers. We long ago decided that a God and, say, evolution are entirely incompatible, declared the concept of a God as completely unreasonable and moved on, determined God as unsound since we can’t prove it.
Thing is, science doesn’t tell us a lot of things we continue to believe.
It doesn’t expalin why we consider a God absurd but think a universe that just has always existed (for no reason we can explain) to be perfectly reasonable.
Why, if adaptations and mutations take generations to take place, we think it perfectly acceptable that the first organism somehow knew to reproduce itself.
It doesn’t tell us why we, apparently unlike any other creature in existence, are conscious. Why we know we’re going to die, why we beat ourselves up about the stupid thing we said to our friend or loved one, why we wonder if we look fat in the yellow shirt with the green horizontal stripes.
It doesn’t tell us why we wear clothes, why we go out of our way to communicate our uniqueness through noserings and purple hair and three piece suits and REO Speedwagon t-shirts.
Why we spend an average of four hours a day watching television.
It doesn’t tell us why we love, why we fly in the face of evolution by continuing to be largely monogamous. Doesn’t say why we enter into destructive relationships, why we miss our high school sweetheart, why we’re afraid to approach the beautiful girl across the room even though our advanced, rational minds know that there exists no true downside and that they biologically represent the best “seed” for our offspring.
It doesn’t explain why we spend 80 hours a week working in a job we hate, why we kiss our bosses ass, why we try to sabotage the advancement prospects of the new guy, why we really care whether Fridays are business casual. Why we’re willing to spend every waking hour struggling to start a business so we can give the world a five-speed nose-hair trimmer or decorative mailbox shaped like a giant shoe.
It doesn’t explain why we sit in college classrooms debating the reasons for our existence. Why we’re so uncomfortable with someone else having a different set of beliefs than we do. Why we hate the guy across the room because they are republican or democrat or a Raiders fan.
It doesn’t explain why we simultaneously want to reject a creator or any moral absolute but doggedly continue to believe in evil. Why we feel wronged if someone kills our wife or lies about our character. Why, if we are simply carbon and water and our lives have no purpose outside of what we decide them to be, it continues to be important to adhere to rules and laws and beliefs that are all social constructs to preserve order but don’t serve any true purpose.
Why, if our only reason for existing is to continue our species, we so often go out of our way to destroy it. Why we’re the only creature in the world that consistently ignores it’s biological needs. Why we pump ourselves with artificially produced food, smoke cigarettes, basejump, have unprotected sex, start wars, emit greenhouse gases and commit suicide.
Why, if there is no evil, we immediately go back on it when we’ve been wronged. Why, if there is evil, we’re somehow exempt ourselves, and that time we cheated on our spouse was different.
Why we feel anger, envy, pride, depression, loneliness, despair.
The crazy thing is that while Christianity (Judaism, Islam, whatever) are woefully inept when it comes to scientifically proving the existence of their God, science is ridiculously unqualified to tell me why (not how) I exist, and why I do the occasionally magnanimous, usually insane, frequently stupid things that I do, why I feel compelled to sit in front of a bright screen to write a blog post at 1 in the morning.
Which is why I don’t particularly care that RRT finds my belief in a God silly. Because if they truly believed what they thought, they shouldn’t care what Kirk Cameron thinks.
