I got into quite the bruhaha on Twitter … er, X … a few weeks ago. Some guy posted that there was no evidence for God. I told him to take a deep breath, go outside and stand in the sun, think a complex thought, and then watch some birds. There you go.
It was like throwing garlic at a vampire.
Not only this guy but several others piled on with vitriol and sneering and insults, all of which I found hilarious. I kept asking what evidence would convince them – burning bush in the backyard, engraved invitation to Heaven’s golf course, Jesus’ face in their pancakes? – but all that did was make them madder. Hee Hee. Questioned my parentage, my humanity, my education, my morality, all of which I acknowledged were substandard, all the while asking what would convince them. One guy finally said a recording and a photograph.
Dude, have you not heard Beethoven? Have you not seen the stars?
I subscribe to the teleological school of God’s existence, that the apparent design in the universe demands a designer. You don’t get habitable zones, gravity, particle physics, atoms and molecules oh my of this elegant and complex interaction and exactitude without somebody whipping up the recipe in the kitchen somewhere. Ah ha, one of my haters decried, that what you call ‘design’ is merely our brains creating a pattern out of observed data. Well, yeah, because apparent design is observable. It makes me laugh when people decide to redefine a word like ‘design’ to support an anti-design stance. It’s like saying the word ‘woman’ has no definition.
All of this combat is due to one reason: don’t want anything to interfere with the party. If there is a God, then there’s a possibility we might actually be responsible for our behavior. Can’t have that. It also means we are not the center of the universe, that our sneering and cruel behavior towards others might engender consequence so we might actually have to control ourselves. Oh no.
But it also means, in a realm we cannot see but from which we feel its effects, there stands our Creator.
And anything is possible.