We know that the Fatima
‘miracle’ was restricted only to the subjective experience of those who claimed
to have seen it; that no one else in Europe
saw the sun spin. Now, if such a documented miracle by the Catholic Church,
from an apparition it has endorsed, a miracle claimed to have been seen by
several thousands cannot meet the standards of objective truth, how can we take
seriously the subjective claims of anybody else to be really true. It can only
be true to them and that is only natural.
The problem humankind have
had for many millennia and that we Nigerians still can’t get over, is that of
facing a phenomenon we cannot understand or explain. At such a point, the
natural inquisitiveness of the human mind is pushed aside by the ignorant
majority and all credit for that phenomenon is given to a ‘God’. It is so much
easier for us to attribute something beyond our understanding at a particular
time to a higher being even if we have no evidence for that being.
So, we hear people say things
like; ‘How do we explain the beginning of the Universe and the world and life
on earth? How do we explain the complexity of living things? How do we explain
the harmony in nature and the universe?
There were other things
people couldn’t understand in the past; they attributed lightning to being the
work of the Devil; lots of diseases were reckoned to be inflicted by the gods;
twins were seen as evil and as recent as the nineteenth century, stars in their
composition were deemed totally unreachable to our knowledge – why?
We have seen huge advances
in science since then and are still being amazed by new discoveries and
inventions and still you hold out for God where a gap in knowledge exists. You
refuse to see that natural explanations exist for things we would otherwise
have called supernatural actions. You wait for the scientists to admit that
they (as yet) have no clues to solving a problem and, right away, you bring out
the harps and tambourines – ‘To God be the glory,’ is your song.
All of this in no way proves
the case for a God; if all you do is claim that God must exist only because a
problem exists or a seemingly miraculous event happens is a backward,
non-direct and totally non-valid path to a proof. To put it simply, if God
exists, let someone show him to us and to the world in an open, objective and
totally obvious way. Until then, let all preachers be quiet.
You claim that the world and
the Universe in all its design and glory should have a designer. Well, look at
it this way, if for something as complex as life on earth and the Universe,
there should be a designer, then that designer should be even more complex,
intelligent enough to bring about such detailed design in nature.
Your next big question then
should be about the origin of the designer. If you claim that the complexity in
nature requires a designer, then the (necessary) complexity of God also
requires a designer and so on it has to go.
If you believe that nothing
complex or designed can come from nothing, where does God come from? Once you
admit or accept that a being like God can have no beginning or that God came
from nothing even though you have no proof for that, you are either accepting
the illogical for no reason or going with an argument that can also be used for
the origin of the Universe – that it came from nothing. Why does it make no
sense to accept the Universe came from nothing when we are ready to accept that
a hypothetical designer came from nothing or, worse, had no beginning? Why do
we have to postulate an unthinkable and baffling premise as a being that had no
beginning just to explain and defend a ‘God’ we have created for our
convenience?
Some other non-direct
argument used for God is that all the beauty in nature could not have come from
pure chance. Perhaps not, but who said that it did? There is a very popular
theory that if God didn’t do it, it happened by chance. Certainly not, all the
design and order in the world could not have come from pure chance; there has
to be an alternative, one separate from God and from chance. But we’ll get to
that another time.
