Croc-o-duck

I’m going to go out on a limb for a moment and say that there are two things that will never be scientifically proven, ever. Science will never prove the existence of God and science will never disprove the existence of God. Pretty bold statement many will say, but before you let your emotions go wild and judge me, take a moment to read on and hear what I am saying.

Inspiration for this entry came after watching the O’Reilly Factor when Bill O’Reilly interviewed actor Kirk Cameron who was appearing later that night on nightline to debate the existence of God with two atheists. After watching the factor I made a point to watch Nightline in order to see highlights of the debate.

According to Mr. Cameron and his friend, Ray Comfort, proving the existence of God is easy if you approach it with honesty and sincerity. So easy even a child can understand it. Ray and Kirk represent a group called The Way of The Master and during the debate they made the argument that the fact that creation itself was 100% proof that there was a creator. The example used was that when you look at a painting you have to assume that someone had painted it. Every creation must have a creator so, voila, scientifically, God exists. After that, Cameron went on to try to disprove the “number one alternative to God” which, in his opinion, is evolution. In order to do this he said that, according to Darwin, to prove evolution you have to be able to prove transitional forms (i.e. one animal transitioning into another). Cameron claims that all through the fossil record and life you will never find a “Croc-o-duck”. He had a real cool picture of a duck body with a crocodile head to further illustrate his point.

On the other side of the debate were two members of the Rational Response Squad, Brian “Sapient” and Kelly. Both of them withheld their last names for safety reasons. Kelly and Brian are atheists who encourage people to renounce God and commit blasphemy. They argued that if God exists then who was his creator? Someone must have created God and his “universe factory”. They had argued that God was an illogical concept and it didn’t make sense that how people with logical and rational minds could have a “God box” in their head that convinced them of a being you cannot see or hear. They then asked who the creator of cancer was, and if there is a God why is there so much suffering. Kelly also claimed that there was no historical evidence to prove that Christ was a man much less the son of God. Their view was that God and religion had been created to control the masses through fear and manipulation. Kelly then said that she “would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and worship a megalomaniacal tyrant”. This was followed by a healthy round of applause from the audience.

Well, as you may have guessed, neither side was the clear victor in this debate. Audience members made claims to victory based on their personal beliefs and bias, but what I saw was a ridiculous display of closed irrational mindlessness. Both side could be convinced, and neither side could look past their own versions of science to see that neither one had made any scientific conclusions at all. Every point made was based on their belief or faith.

This is why I say that science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. God exists in faith. There is no way for science to prove something that exists in faith. Science needs physical evidence to prove something exists and nothing physical can be tied to God. The argument that the earth is here proves nothing more than the existence of the earth. It had to come from somewhere, I agree, but the fact it exists does not prove God exists.

Scientists have shown that our expanding universe is the result of a big bang in which a tremendous amount of energy released and created worlds, solar systems, and life on earth. That life started in its simplest forms and yes it did evolve to what we see have today. The thing that science has yet to explain is what caused the big bang and this tremendous release of energy. Logically the fact that this happened could be the cause of a higher power. Therefore science cannot disprove God’s existence either.

It seems logical to me that if scientific concepts were incorporated into religion then a full picture begins to show itself. I like the idea that the fact that we were created shows that something was the creator. O’Reilly put it best when he said that it would take a leap of faith far beyond your chosen deity to think that everything is here by accident. Science can prove that the universe has a design and that energy itself is never ending. This energy is what I would classify as God. This is the closest science can ever come to proving God exists but it still requires faith that we all are in tune with the same energy that created our own existence.