Scientists, philosophers and theologians have been debating the existence of God for eons and their debates long ago became incomprehensible to normal people, but here for the first time anywhere is proof that all they ever really needed was MOM and a box of Cap’n Crunch.
Let’s say you come down for breakfast tomorrow morning and there on your kitchen table is a box of this delightful sweetened corn and oat cereal and beside it the word “MOM” is spelled out using pieces of the food. If you’re having difficulty envisioning this scenario, just check out the photo that helpfully accompanies this post.
What’s the first question that pops into your slowly awakening brain? Probably “what the …” followed instantly by “how did that get there?” You only need to ponder this morning mystery for approximately three nanoseconds before that incredibly complex soft-tissue computer between your ears displays the logical answer across your consciousness — “This didn’t just happen, somebody used my Cap’n Crunch to spell MOM!”
You are one smart dude. Or dudette. Because the fact is you have just posited one of the most unassailably logical demonstrations for the proposition that the universe exists because God exists. How can that be, you ask?
Cross-Examined.org’s Dr. Frank Turek reminds that Jodie Foster provided the answer in the 1997 movie “Contact.” Foster and two buddies are sitting around the Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence (SETI) radio lab listening to deep space when suddenly they get a signal they’ve never before heard.
After lots of yelling, snarking and dramatic music, the signal appears on one of their screens as a sequence of numbers. But not just any numbers. Being the smartest person in the scene, Foster realizes the figures being transmitted are prime numbers and thus cannot be random, somebody is choosing them for a reason, math being the one universal language.
Clearly, the screen writers intended to make a simple point — If we get a message from outer space, it means there is life elsewhere because messages are sent by messengers. Messengers require intelligence and the act of messaging requires a will making choices.
As Turek also points out, messaging is one of two types of causes. There are intelligent causes and natural causes. It’s like the difference between Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. Nobody disputes that natural causes like wind, water and erosion carved the Grand Canyon into Northern Arizona.
But wind, water and erosion don’t sculpt the detailed faces of four American presidents in the side of a mountain. Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln began working on the monument in 1924 and completed their work in 1941.
They chose to sculpt George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln, not Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, Chester A. Arthur and Andrew Johnson, or any other combination of four former chief executives.
Just as yours truly chose to spell out “MOM” instead of “DAD” or any other word. And the odds that any random spillage of Cap’n Crunch on my desk would spell out “MOM” or any other word are so remote as to be incalculable.
So how does this analysis constitute an argument that atheists have a tough time overcoming? Consider this: There are four natural forces, including gravity, electro-magnetic, the “strong force” at the sub-molecular level and the “weak force” there.
Quantum analysis may ultimately explain beyond all reasonable doubt how the forces that sparked the Big Bang did so, but don’t bet on it ever explaining the origin of those forces. Gravity, like whales, the ancient city of Carthage and the Gross Domestic Product of Nepal, can’t create itself. There has to be a creator.
Richard Dawkins is among the most famous atheists anywhere. He’s also one of the smartest and there is no doubt in this author’s mind that Dawkins would absolutely reject the preceding analysis. But don’t take my word for it, take his, which is helpfully provided by Ben Stein in his 2008 movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”
Stein presses Dawkins for his explanation of how life originated on Earth. After much pushing and probing by Stein, Dawkins finally offers this:
“Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet.”
Bet you didn’t know Dawkins leans toward intelligent design by extra-terrestrials!
Views expressed in op-eds are not the views of The Daily Caller.