An argument that Christians like to
throw around these days traces its roots back to Thomas Aquinas. It’s called
The Argument from Design. Basically, this argument suggests that, because
everything looks designed, it must
therefore be designed, which in turn
means there must be what Father Daniel O’Reilly of Columbia Catholic Ministry
referred to as, a “benevolent designer."
One potential confirmation bias
present in this argument comes from the problem we have of making order among
ideas. As Jacques Barzun explained in The House of Intellect, we may then come
to believe, quite mistakenly, that the order has been discovered ready made in
the facts.[i] Assuming we have not succumbed to
the mistake Barzun warns of, like the other arguments, the problems with this
reasoning should be readily apparent.
First, if we look at a random generated pattern
long enough, it may well begin to look as if it were designed, because our
brains naturally try to discern patterns and define meaning. That’s just how
our brains work. In fact, it’s probably how all brains work, no matter the life
form. This is not because God wants to save us all from the hell he threatens to throw us into, but
because it’s a necessary means of survival.
Second, as Father O’Reilly argues, the design
being talked about in this argument is one where “it appears the universe was
created specifically for human life.” This is called the “anthropic principle.”
This reasoning, of course, is simply a confirmation bias that presumes the
universe was created “specifically” for whatever kind of "life" it just happens to produce. That's like saying my basement was intelligently designed to be damp specifically for the purpose of creating mold. This idea rest on the religious belief that the universe was made mostly for humans, and not for, say, cats, dogs,
aardvarks, plankton, worms, rats, cockroaches, jelly fish, sparrows,
space aliens, and all the rest, who have all been created as extra's in a television show created by God about us. Of course, any one of these life forms could just as easily conclude the universe had been made specifically for their benefit, to the detriment of all other forms of life. In fact, if the universe was made to produce a particular form of life, it was most likely made for the tardigrades or bacteria.
Tardigrades, which are also known
as waterbears or moss piglets, are water-dwelling, segmented micro-animals with
eight legs. They are classified as “extremophiles” because they can “thrive in
a physically or geochemically extreme condition that would be detrimental to
most life on Earth.”[ii] They
can withstand temperatures from just above absolute zero (which equates to
−459.67° on the Fahrenheit scale) to well above the boiling point of water,
pressures about six times stronger than pressures found in the deepest ocean
trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal
dose for a person, and the vacuum of outer space. They can go without food or
water for more than 10 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or
less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.[iii]
Tardigrades have been around for over
530 million years while our own species, Homo sapiens, arrived only 200,000
years ago. In other words, humans have been around for a mere 0.004% of the
Earth’s history.[iv] Considering this, and comparing the
tardigrade to the fact that Alexander the Great may have died of alcoholic
liver disease, seems to suggest that it’s likely the universe was
created more for them than for us.
Putting aside the tardigrades,
consider the case for bacteria. Bacteria colonized Earth 2 billion years before
humanity ever showed up, so perhaps our planet was intended to be nothing more than God's little Petri
dish.
Third, even if the universe was
designed, why must we assume it was designed by a
designer and not a host of designers?Fourth, this argument assumes the designer “designed” the universe “specifically for human life,” but maybe it was not designed with any life in mind at all, or maybe the whole thing was just an accident.
Fifth, Father O’Reilly claims the designer must be “benevolent,” but why? There is just as much death and decay in the universe as there is life and rebirth, “for all that lives must die.” If the birthright of every living thing is a death sentence, and to stay alive requires killing and feeding on something else, why does Father O’Reilly conclude the designer of this murderous cycle of death must therefore be more “benevolent” than malevolent?
This argument is interesting also because it reveals a major paradox of Christianity and religion. That paradox comes from how this argument instills the believer with humility toward God but an extreme hubris toward everything else, and especially toward unbelievers. The humility comes from believing that we are created by, and entirely subject to, the most powerful being imaginable. We should therefore be "humbled" by the prospect of being alive at all. The hubris, on the other hand, comes from believing that everything was created specifically for us, as it says in the book of Genesis, and that we can therefore do with it all as we please. Such hubris not only contributes to why many Christians deny things like climate change, for example, it also forms the underlying reason for “speciesism,” which is the belief that the human species is the only really important species on the planet, or even in the universe.
Ultimately, by looking at this
argument from outside the assumptions it relies on, it becomes clear that the
real designer shaping Father O’Reilly’s beliefs is not God or this argument,
but his own confirmation bias that interprets everything in the universe as
proof of Father O’Reilly’s beliefs. To
assume that everything was created “specifically for humans, however, is
to elevate humans to the level of the gods over the rest of all creation. Such
a belief only preaches humility in an attempt to mitigate the God complex it
inevitably creates. Of the two, the latter has always proven itself to be far stronger than the former.
[i] Barzun,
Jacques, 1959. House of Intellect, Harper
& Brothers, New York and Evanston p. 155
[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade#cite_note-8
[iii] Guidetti, R. & Jönsson, K.I. (2002). "Long-term
anhydrobiotic survival in semi-terrestrial micrometazoans". Journal of
Zoology 257 (2): 181–187.
[iv] http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/history_of_the_earth
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