eveglass | Response to newspaper stupidity

I was all set to write a nice, long RNS response to a letter to the editor in today's Gazette: Paul Vaudry, "It all started with the big guy," The Gazette letter to the editor, 23 December 2005, A30. It's a creationist's view of the origin of the universe, in which he dismisses the ideas that the universe is an illusion, eternal, or self-caused, leaving only the possibility that it was created. He concludes, "If everything has a cause, what caused the initial existence of the first event in the universe? The answer -- a perfect, infinite, unchageable, all-knowing, personal god. The god of the Bible."

I'm sure you can see my problems with this article already. So I won't go on long, but will only point out briefly a few blantant problems (from the several dozen I could have chosen):

1. If the universe must have a cause, so to must god. What caused god?

2. The universe need not be created by anything perfect. In fact, looking at the universe, I'd say that if it was created, it was created by a being with its fair share of flaws.

3. The universe could not have been created by something unchangable. The very act of creation is an act of change. There is the "you" before created (who is not a creator) and the "you" after creation (who is a creator).

4. The universe certainly need not have been created by a personal being. The act of setting the universe in motion in no way requires that whatever being created it stick around and direct the mutations that evolved on a one of the planets.

5. The god of the Bible is neither perfect nor unchangeable. This is certainly true of Jesus, who goes from being a baby into a man, and changes every second (just like all people). And, since perfection requires a lack of change (because change would either be from or to something that is not perfect), Jesus cannot be perfect. The god of the Old Testament is also not perfect -- he is anthropomorphic, showing emotions like jealosy, anger, frustration, etc.

6. There is no reason that the creator of the universe manifested himself through a book revealed only to a certain section of the population (ie: the Bible).

SPECIAL BONUS NITPICK: In response to Mr. Vaudry's statement: "The origin of the universe, and mankind, must rest on one of four ideas: It's all an illusion, a notion Descartes countered with his formula 'Cogito ergo sum'..." [three furher ideas snipped]

a) Descartes wasn't thinking that the ORIGIN of the universe was an illuion, but its EXISTENCE. Now. Here.
b) Descartes' statement "cogito ergo sum" did not answer this problem, it merely showed that he himself (a thinking thing) existed.
c) In order to prove that the universe (here, now) existed, he needed to posit the idea of God. So, in Mr. Vaudry's schema, this would result in the statement "God exists. Therefore the universe isn't an illusion. Therefore God exists." I think we can all see the flaws in this.
d) If Mr. Vaudry feels comfortable using a now-refuted (fairly thoroughly, I might add) 17th century philosopher for his proofs about the existence of the universe (not to mention a 2000-3000 years-old-book), perhaps we should return to Newton's physics or William Harvey's medicine. No takers?

Okay, that's it for that. I now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ.