Or, “Fundamentalist Christian Bloggers Read Too Much Dan Simmons.”
According to Jason of “The Real Jesusland,” a protein in the human body, bearing a shape reminiscent of the cruciform, proves that the Christian God is the one true God, and that He “intelligently designed” the human body to bear witness to Him with its… molecules.
Wow. This is the face of fundamentalist science: coincidence become canon, poetry become proof. While I can’t deny the saccharine quality of the symbolism Jason puts forth, neither can I defend his logic. Jason assumes causation from coincidence, reasoning that will just as soon have you believe the clouds are conspiring against you. Is that dagger-shaped cloud a strategically placed water vapor formation, or a message from God?
Interestingly, Jason can’t defend his reasoning either: his best defensive argument in the comments appears to be an inappropriate burden shifter – “prove that it’s not a sign from God!” – and he screens and discourages commentary on his “spiritual journey.” Ignorance plus vehemence plus denial of debate: the trademark signs of religious fundamentalism, be it Christian or Muslim
It’s silly reasoning in itself, as you point out, but the strangest thing about this sort of thing is that it has clear and unfortunate implications. It’s one thing to say that God demands to be taken on faith, and that that’s why he hasn’t left signs; it’s odd, but it’s not self-evidently silly. However, it’s quite another to say that God left a somewhat ambiguous symbol in order to reveal Himself to us.
The problem with that is that it’s an objectively silly way to go about revealing His existence. If we’re assuming that God put up “here I am” signs, don’t we also have to assume that He’s not completely incompetent? If this is meant as a sign, why not simply arrange it so that the stars of a distant galaxy spell out the exact text of the first few verses of Genesis in the King James Bible in very clear Times New Roman?
If this isn’t a poor attempt by God to announce Himself, it’s at most meant as confirming evidence for devout believers. But, if we’ve acknowledged that God did not intend to give us enough information to accept His existence on the evidence alone (which follows from the fact that He would not have done a less than perfect job if that was what He intended), all existing evidence must be indistinguishable from unimportant coincidences. To suppose that God left ‘little clues’ to confirm people in their faith is therefore to suppose that God intended devout believers to be taken in by misleading evidence.
Posted by Gotchaye | July 28, 2008, 11:18 pmThe protein I’m getting to fight with at work right now looks a bit like a crescent (a very bent one, but I’m sure that one could find a cleaner example) which proves the accuracy of Islam. And since most proteins look like an incoherent mess (as least on the first few glances)–rather like some noodle–it’s overwhelming proof towards the FSM.
My dad got into a (very good natured) argument with one of parents of a friend who was going on with the Torah codes, as evidence for the Jewish faith. My dad’s response was (before politely ending the conversation) within the field of information theory, if you’ve got something long or large enough (the Torah, the collection of human proteins) the probability that there is not something that looks like a pattern somewhere goes to zero. Moral? Life is better with a bit of judicious application of Ramsey Theory.
Meanwhile, there’s the truly, hilariously desperate: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/07/numeric_pareidolia_and_god_in.php
Posted by Anzezzle | July 28, 2008, 11:47 pmRight on, Paul & Gotchaye. God the Deceiver, or God the Hider of Important and Misleading Clues, is a popular way of explaining away reality… fun to write conspiracy theory books about, and fun to inspire quality science fiction (<3 Hyperion) but that’s about it…
Posted by Ames | July 28, 2008, 11:53 pmAs PZ noted, far more acerbically than I ever would, laminin is cruciform in diagrams, but its actual configuration is quite variable.
Posted by James F | July 29, 2008, 6:13 am“Coincidence? I don’t think so!”
The theist motto?
Posted by Sir Jebbington | July 29, 2008, 12:25 pmHello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
Posted by RaiulBaztepo | March 28, 2009, 4:30 pmWow – really great theme. I will write about it as well!
Posted by FasuardaryisE | January 1, 2010, 9:58 pm