The truth is, human knowledge has made God superfluous
Re: “Doubts about God spark doubts about writer”, Have Your Say, July 28.
Eric Bahrt writes that it is silly to cite an intelligent individual ant as evidence that God need not exist. I agree!
But the fact is that I did not endow an individual ant/neuron with intelligence, but pointed out that an anthill nevertheless shows intelligence in the organisation of its society. The point is that complicated, multi-layered constructions can show intelligence. Perhaps wisely, Mr Bahrt didn’t comment on the other example I cited: a man-made (not God-made) robot passing the Turing test for human intelligence.
No comment either on the exciting fact that humans can create living organisms, which answers the question on which Bahrt bases his agnostic belief: who created life?
In the field of bio-genetics a real and enormous revolution is taking place. In 2013 a fully functional chromosome was created, and a year later the Scripps Institute was able to add two new letters to our genetic alphabet. Do believers like Bahrt understand the significance of these breakthroughs?
It seems not.
Bahrt reckoned my argument that the world is too cruel to have been created by God is also silly. Again he didn’t see the context nor the logic: if there is a God it is not logical He would allow such cruelty. Just for fun? What kind of nasty, mean, sadistic bastard would that make Him? Not one that I can believe in!
Lastly Bahrt writes that my argument that intelligence can be created automatically suggests I am not a fan of science, which deals in cause and effect. He overlooks the theories of how “something can come from nothing” – see “A Universe from Nothing” by physicist Lawrence M Krauss or Stephen Hawking’s last statement that there was “nothing” before the singularity. Why assume a God when we have satisfying theories that explain our universe without bringing in a supernatural being? Ever heard of Ockham’s razor, the principle that the simplest solution tends to be the right one?
Egon
