The Probability of God

The Probability of God - a new way to answer the age-old question.

Does God exist? This question has intrigued and confounded mankind throughout the ages, yet still with no definite answer. Philosophers have used many methods to get to the bottom of this conundrum, without true success. The established religions of this world claim to know the answer, and will happily explain their Truths to anyone willing to listen.

I'm sorry - 'Truths'? Did I just say 'Truths'? (def.: 'A fact that has been verified'). Yes, and there's the problem. The major world Religions, and a boxful of minor ones as well, all operate on the premise that they can explain God. They will bring out their Holy books and scriptures, passed down through the ages and thus, by virtue of their antiquity, and by virtue of a following of so many, constituting proof in their eyes that not only does God exist, but that they can explain just what He/She is saying, thinking, and doing. Even His future intentions are laid out for the believer once he adheres to the 'party line'.

Let's put an end to this disingenuousness straight away, and face up to the real truth. Religion (def.: 'Institution to express belief in a divine power') is man-made. The leaders of religion, no matter how splendid their cloaks and hats, know nothing more about God than a babe in arms. No amount of book reading, bell ringing, or candle lighting can bring anyone any closer to God. No man-made rituals of any sort will help, despite their apparent attractiveness. Why? because they are all man-made. Religious leaders all pretend to know what convoluted procedures and ritual will influence God. With enough hope and will-power you might actually believe them, except for one, rather big, fly in the ointment: not one religion, in the whole world, in the whole history of time, has proved that God exists. Organised religion may have many uses: as a focus for faith, as a central point of organisation for helping others, even as a font of morality, but as an institution that can explain God they are sorely lacking. Rather ironic this, don't you think?

So does God exist? If it is not possible to ask even those people who claim Him as their business, how can we proceed? How can we discover, once and for all, whether there is or whether there is not an all-seeing omnipotent life force in the universe? I'd like to try a different approach to answering the question, by assessing the probability of God. First of all, we need to do a bit of spring-cleaning on our beliefs and thought processes. I'd like you all to write a list of the 10 things you definitely KNOW about God. All finished? Well I have. Actually I didn't get past item #1, because despite what others have said, despite what we've been taught over the years, despite those messages drummed into us from a very early age, we don't actually KNOW anything about God at all. Does this matter, though? Is this a barrier to a belief or faith in God? I don't see why. Millions of us turn on the TV every day and enjoy watching it's output, but can you actually explain how the picture get to our screens? Probably not, yet you still carry on watching the programmes. You don't say to yourself 'Oh no, it's not right to watch until I can take of the back and work out what every chip and wire and thingy does'. You just watch, and don't loose any sleep about the mechanics of the process. You have faith that when you press the on-button, pictures will appear. So why not apply the same reasoning to God?

I'm going to make an assumption, then use that assumption as a framework for a logical exploration into it's validity. Scientists use this method of problem-solving all the time, so I don't see why it can't work with God as well. My assumption is this: that there is a life force in the universe, a universal creator, an all-seeing, all doing force that can be everywhere at once and can be involved in every aspect of every life not just on this planet but on every world inhabited by every type of existence anywhere, and for all time. For the sake of brevity, I'll call this force 'God'. Now the first thing to say is that such a force (if it exists!) is completely outside the possibility of human understanding. We need to get that straight right from the start. Such a force, simply by it's omnipotence is completely outside any form of human explanation, no matter what people might have you believe. This makes anyone who does claim to be able to explain things immediately suspect. Best to dismiss them all, and rely on our own intuition.

But if you can't explain this 'God', how can we even know He's here? The answer can be obtained using Richard C Patterson's 'Duck Test'. His reasoning is as follows:

"Suppose you see a bird walking around in a farm yard. This bird has no label that says 'duck'. But the bird certainly looks like a duck. Also, he goes to the pond and you notice that he swims like a duck. Then he opens his beak and quacks like a duck. Well, by this time you have probably reached the conclusion that the bird is a duck, whether he's wearing a label or not."

Can the same be used to establish conclusively the existence of God? I think it can. To do this, I'll use a number of simple examples. The more examples that I, or you, can come up with, the more likely it is that God exists. With enough examples, the likelihood of him NOT existing becomes so small that it can effectively be discounted. Quack quack.

A small child lives in a house with his parents. To the best of their abilities, the parents make sure that all the child's needs are met. His wants and desires - well that's something entirely different, but his needs, all that he requires for his day-to-day needs are there for him. There's food on the table when he is hungry. There are clothes and blankets provided for when he gets cold. Clean water to drink, and a way of dealing with bodily waste. If he gets ill, there are medicines available to cure him. When hungry, sick, or cold he goes to his parents, confident in the knowledge that they will help him. Sometimes he might say thank you, but even if he doesn't, his parents keep on providing and supporting him, because they love him. He doesn't question how any of this happens, he just accepts it. He doesn't stop to wonder how each item got into the house, or the means that led to it's initial creation, he just uses it as needed. Also, he trusts that his Mum has bought the right kind of toothpaste. He trusts that the tube which contains toothpaste one week won't contain poison the next. If asked how the toothpaste got to the bathroom shelf, he would answer that Mum or Dad put it there. He didn't see then do it, but he's confident that's how it happened. The actual presence of the toothpaste on the shelf at all can be used as proof, if he needed it, that his parents do exist.

Of course, there's a certain amount of free will taking place as well. His parents even if they are close by, intentionally don't control his every waking moment. If he throws the toothpaste into the fire then he won't have any, despite the best efforts of his parents to provide him with some. If he empties some household chemicals into the cold water tank there will be no fresh water to drink. He also knows that there are some things in the house that are dangerous: some things that can cut or burn or hurt him, and most of the time at least, he leaves these things alone. As he gets older and more adventurous he finds out that by mixing sugar and weedkiller he can make a powerful explosive that will destroy his whole house. His parents realised that too; they provided those ingredients for their original, useful uses, and trusted that he would work out for himself that destroying the house was not a good idea. They tried to hide them when he was small, but we all know how kids are, don't we?!

Can the above ideas of boy, house and parents be applied to mankind, world, and God? I tend to think so, but I don't expect you to believe me: lets all find out for ourselves. It goes without saying that everything we need for our survival on the planet already exists, as otherwise we wouldn't be here. But why is it so varied? We don't just get 'bread and dripping' for our tea - there are actually a multitude of different things for us to eat. Our choice of food stuffs are many and varied, even without sentient beings. Lets look a little closer at what is available, and we start to see some amazing facts. Have you noticed that the vitamins and minerals we need are scattered throughout the different fruit and vegetables, requiring that we eat a varied and balanced diet. Look a little closer, and some food facts emerge that really astonish - for instance, did you know that Bioflavonoids always accompany Vitamin C in fruit and vegetables? Bioflavonoids - what are they? Well, Bioflavonoids assist us in the absorption of the Vitamin C. Take the orange for example: not only do we get a fruit that is nice to eat, and one packed full of useful medical properties, but in addition there is a chemical included whose main purpose is to assist mammals, like us, to absorb the useful bits. Why does the orange do this? Is it just luck, and evolution, or is there by design? For me, Bioflavonoids are almost a proof by themselves of the existence of God.

But there's more. Some plants have *so* many uses that it seems surprising that this is just coincidence. Look at the humble coconut, so common throughout the tropics. It's timber will build you a house, and it's leaves will provide the roof, and a broom for sweeping the floor. The husk can be used for coir mattresses and rope, brushes, mats, flower pots, soundproofing, mulch for plant growing. The shell is handy for utensils, containers, jewellery, and a high quality charcoal. The flesh provides coconut cream, cooking oil, soap, margarine, shampoo, candles, even synthetic rubber. It is a ready source of protein, too. The roots are used as a dye, a mouthwash, and a medicine for dysentery. Coconut water provides an isotonic electrolyte balance, and is a highly nutritious food source. Coconuts are even being used in Peru to help combat malaria. It is no surprise, therefore, that in the Philippines, the coconut is called the 'Tree of Life'.

Are you starting to hear quacking yet? We have plants that can produce the material for clothes. We have others that can dye them red, yellow, green, mauve, brown, and black. A visit to any herbalist's garden will show you plants that can cure all types of ills and aliments. There are probably many more to be discovered if we don't finish cutting the rain forests down before the scientists can get there. Is this just coincidence, just evolution, that all these plants with amazingly useful properties just happen to exist at all? That these producers of amazingly complex chemicals needed for our ailments are self-sustaining and self-regenerating, as long as we don't cut every last one down? And isn't it handy that they all have different colours and shapes, so we can differentiate one from another?

Then there's the topic of beauty. Why is the world, and most things in it, intrinsically beautiful? Is it just us who see it as beautiful, like a mother seeing beauty in her deformed child, or do we recognise the beauty already inherent in the world, recognised or not? And if the world is a beautiful place, is this just a coincidence, or was beauty built in, as a recognition that sometimes every being needs beauty for a balanced existence, just as vital as the need for food or water. Isn't it handy that, with a little time and effort, we can all create a story, a picture, a tune that will touch deep into the hearts of others?

I'm not a Creationist. I've travelled to many places in my time, and visited many museums. I've seen a lot of fossils: those mineralised relics of life that has gone before us. We are told that Evolution and Natural Selection have produced a gradual progression down the ages: arthropods, amphibians, mammals, and then birds. There are even a small quantity of transitional-fossils, that form the link from one genus to another. But in the 3.5 billion years of fossil records so far unearthed, the process of evolution doesn't seem to be very random, does it? Where are the 6 legged animals? The 4-eyed birds? The 2-headed reptiles? Surely the evolutionary process would have produced more anomalies over the years to be discovered by the fossil-hunting fraternity? None, or very few, have turned up so far. The arguments between Creationists and Evolutionists are always characterised as bipolar, but perhaps there is a third possibility, one of 'Guided Evolution'. The evidence certainly seems to point towards this.

Of course we will never know with any certainty whether there is or there isn't a Supreme Power, a Universal 'Gardener of All Life', but what about the Probability of His or Her existence? Spend a little time considering my examples. Spend a little more time considering some examples of your own. Is it all just coincidence, or might there be a strong likelihood that God is there? I hear quacking...

Tim Makins
November 2007