The Atheist Double Standard

Father Catoir, a columnist for Catholic News Service, had a friendship of
sorts with the famous atheistic astronomer, Carl Sagan. In 1988, Sagan made the claim on his television series, Cosmos, that no evidence existed in the entire universe to prove that God exists. Father Catoir wrote an article in response to Mr. Sagan and explained that, while there is no scientific evidence, we can use deductive reasoning to deduce that God exists. Mr. Sagan wrote Father Catoir back, and a correspondence ensued and endured.

Carl Sagan's response to Father Catoir's article was that a first cause was not necessary because the modern cosmology shows that the universe could possibility be infinitely old. Father Catoir responded with a series of questions. How did the universe get to be infinitely old? Was it young once? Ultimately, wouldn't a universe that was young once, and is now old, have to have a birthday? Carl Sagan evaded these questions. Father Catoir asked Mr. Sagan if he could prove that God did not exist, and Mr. Sagan admitted that he could not.

Even though Carl Sagan discounted any rational proof for the existence of God, he applied just such a process to bolster his belief about extraterrestrial life. Carl Sagan needed incontrovertible scientific (or at least objective) proof that God exists, but he did not feel such a need to believe in alien life. Of course, he spent much time looking for that proof based on his belief in their existence. If the book and movie Contact, both written by Carl Sagan, are any indication, he even attributed a religious-like significance to the existence of alien life - "we are not alone." If we are not alone, then our life must have some sort of transcendent meaning.

I am fascinated by the double standard that Sagan employed. Father Catoir offered him some of the most basic arguments for God's existence. The universe had to have a beginning, otherwise it could never have come to be. There is a need for an uncaused primary cause of existence, and the universe itself cannot be it for it is constantly in flux, due to causes acting upon it. Carl Sagan could not even answer such basic rational arguments, except to say that he simply put no stock in them. Then he turns around and employs the exact kind of arguments to illustrate the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Sagan's belief in extraterrestrial life is also something that he accepted on faith. How exactly would the existence of extraterrestrial life add any meaning to our lives than having neighbors on the next continent? My guess is that, once we get back the language and cultural barriers, we would have relations with extraterrestrial life in much the same way we relate to extra-continental life. With some of them we would be friendly, with others we would conflict. "We are not alone" would not mean much.

Why did Carl Sagan put so much significance into the existence of extraterrestrial life, but not in the existence of God? The meaning that he sought in alien life can only really be found in God. God gives our lives transcendent meaning. If Carl Sagan would have been honest with his thought process, he would have encountered the truth that would have filled the void within him.

Atheistic Folly

Richard Dawkins is among the most pre-eminent atheists in the world today, akin to the famous atheist astronomer Carl Sagan. The quotation below is from an article written by Rod Liddle, originally appearing in The Spectator, and referenced below from the Catholic Educators Resource Center (CERC).



A man who believes in Darwin as fervently as he hates God

Which brings me to the difficult stuff — and Darwinism. It is a creed to which Dawkins cleaves with the fervour of the fundamentalist, the true believer. And it is the real chink in his armour. For example, because Darwin showed us that life forms progress from the simple to the complex over hundreds of thousands of years of gradual modification, it therefore follows (according to Dawkins) that there cannot have been a divine being present before the amoebae swam in those soupy oceans at Earth’s toddler stage — because he would have had to be more complex than those organisms which followed him. And that doesn’t fit with the theory. But what if the theory, in its entirety, doesn’t hold — as Dawkins concedes might be possible? Even now, a century and a half after Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, the notion of gradual, cumulative change in every case is being challenged (most recently by the evo-devo school, which believes that sudden change can occur within species within a single generation). Like all scientific theories, Darwinism will be amended — perhaps beyond recognition. Perhaps it will be discarded entirely. Either way, disavowing a divine being because it doesn’t quite fit in with another here-today-gone-tomorrow theory seems a tad peremptory. The question Dawkins can never satisfactorily answer is: what if Darwin was wrong? And yet, as a scientist, he must be aware that the likelihood is that Darwin was wrong here or there. In which case, where does that leave his philosophical argument?

While Liddle presents a valid and important counterpoint to Dawkins' idea, there is a more obvious response that is not mentioned. Dawkins proclaims that the existence of God is impossible because biological life began from simple organisms and developed into complex organisms. God would have to be more complex than the ameoba, so He could not exist before the ameoba. He doesn't fit the progression. What Dawkins overlooks is the fact that God, by definition, transcends Creation. First of all, God is not biological. Secondly, in the Judeo/Christian conceptualization, God did not use Himself as the raw material of Creation - He created ex nihilo - out of nothing. These points seem fairly obvious.

Dawkins' claim would be tantamount to a claim that a human being cannot bake a cake because the progression of baking a cake is from simple ingredients, to combined ingredients, to cake. Since a person is not a simple ingredient, he does not fit the progression. A person can therefore not be the creator of cakes. I acknowledge this is not a perfect analogy - the changes involved in baking a cake are not as fundamental as the supposed changes due to evolution. However, the logic is the same. The baker transcends his creation. The cake does not flow from the essence of the baker. He exists outside of the cake, yet he is the cause of the cake's creation.

I hesitate to match wits against a supposed intellecual genious such as Dawkins, but I have to betray surprise that such a genious would concoct such a ridiculous argument in the first place.

powered by performancing firefox

Hitchhiker's Guide to God

I just watched the movie Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I enjoyed it very much, as I enjoyed the books. Since the screenplay is written by Douglas Adams, it contains the same wit and satire as the books. However, Douglas Adams has tipped his hand in the movie even more than he did in the books.

You see, Douglas Adams is an agnostic (or an atheist, I don’t remember which) who really does believe that the universe is as absurd as his fictional world. The movie and the books are all filled with the same refrain, repeated in multiple phrases. Marvin the Paranoid Android (not done so well in the movie, but the way – a great disappointment since he was my favorite character in the books) seems the only sane character in the movie. The world is made, not by God who designed it with a loving and eternal purpose, but by mice who are seeking fame and fortune by discovering the Great Question to Life, the Universe and Everything (for which the answer is “42”). Adams’ universe is purposeless and even ridiculous.

Of course, without God to give “Life, the Universe and Everything” true meaning, things would be pretty ridiculous. If we really are nothing more than accidentally evolved primates wandering around the universe with no purpose but pretense, then the comedy in Douglas Adams’ brilliant writing suddenly seems more like tragedy. It is sad to me that a man of such great wit and humor actually sees himself as nothing more than an above-average monkey.

Or does he? As I said, I think Douglas Adams tipped his hand a little bit in his movie. Or maybe he just sold out to the ridiculous Hollywood formula. In the movie, as the mice (the true masters of Earth) are threatening to cut out Arthur Dent’s brain, Arthur babbles frantically about the questions he has about life. In an uncharacteristic (for Douglas Adams) moment of profundity, Arthur declares that the most pressing question on his mind has been whether Tricia (the second most sane character, next to Marvin) was really “the one” for him. Earlier in the movie, Tricia had had an epiphany of her own, realizing that she had spend the last number of years with a man who, like most men, never “got” her and almost threw away the one man who did (Arthur). Hmmmm. “The one” comes perilously close to an idea of fate. Human love and intimacy comes perilously close to giving life some sort of meaning. I don’t think Adams realizes how closely tied human love and the love of God really are. But for Arthur Dent and Tricia/Trillian, life took on the rosy color of existential victory at the end of the movie. Even though they decide nothing more profound than to go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe for a bite to eat, Arthur realizes that the meaning of his life is not tied to his demolished home, but rather to relationship. Of course, I may be reading too much into what could just be a Hollywood sell-out (the whole relationship is rather undeveloped and typically sappy, after all – with “meaningful” close-ups of Tricia’s cute freckled face as Arthur realizes his love for her). After all, the Hitchhiker’s Guide’s advice about love is “Avoid it if at all possible.” Or maybe the movie was actually written by a group of dolphins who are trying to tell us what life is really all about.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas