Reasons God is not a good explanation
From Issuepedia
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Whether or not God actually exists or even perhaps did create the Earth in a week less than ten thousand years ago, there are some good reasons why using God as an explanation for anything is a bad idea.[edit] The List
[edit] Giving Up
Invoking God to explain anything is essentially giving up the search for a rational, useful explanation – because God can be used to explain anything, with no intellectual work required. "Why is the sky blue? Because God made it that way! Why did my computer crash? God made it happen! Why won't my car start? Because God willed it not to start! Where did the Earth come from? God made it!" Each of these questions has a much more involved rational and useful answer, for those who take the time to study the evidence.
[edit] Occam's Razor
If you invoke God to explain where the universe (or the earth, or life, or people) came from, then where did God come from? Surely God is at least as complicated and amazing a creation as the earth, or life, or people. If "a creation implies a creator", then who created the creator?
[edit] Last Thursdayism
If we presume that the world was actually created by God in the space of a week some 6,000 years ago, including all the fossil beds and geological layers and galaxies of various apparent ages (and countless other bits of evidence that the universe is well over a million times older than this), then why is it not just as reasonable to presume that everything was created in 1957? Or last Thursday?
