I have heard many of today's vocal atheists say that with regard to the formation of the universe and the creation of life, the explanation, "God did it," is "nothing like an explanation, for it explains nothing." Dr. Peter Atkins in a video on youtube stated that asserting, "God created it" is identical to saying, "I am too stupid and lazy to figure out how it really came to be." He further says that postulating that "God created it" about anything is, in his words, "an abomination." He also states that we must do everything we possibly can to protect our children from believing this "abomination" of intelligent design when it comes to explaining the origin of life and of the universe. Watch this video of Dr. Atkins in his own words: CLICK HERE
I'd like to respond to this by taking a fictitious walk to Mount Rushmore with Dr. Atkins and see if he is consistent:
Me: "Hey, Dr. Atkins, isn't that a beautiful structure on the side of that mountain?"
Dr. Atkins: "Indeed, it is. Between October 4, 1927, and October 31, 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the colossal 60 foot (18 m) high carvings of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to represent the first 150 years of American history."
Me: "Wait a minute. Are you saying that an intellect did it?"
Dr. Atkins: "Of course. Everyone who knows the history is fully aware of how that came to be."
Me: "Are you saying then that something as complex as a human brain is responsible for designing what we now see on the side of this mountain?"
Dr. Atkins: "Yes. How could you think otherwise?"
Me: "Saying that a human being with a brain did it doesn't explain anything, Dr. Atkins. Are you just too lazy and stupid to do the hard and painstaking scientific spadework to find out how this really happened? Why should anyone accept this lazy, intellect-of-the-gaps, theory? Science is working on it and eventually with enough sweat and hard work, we will explain how this structure came to be without appealing to such childish and superstitious explanations. Stop lazily tobogganing down the mountain when you're supposed to be climbing it!"
Dr. Atkins: "How could anyone possibly believe that the faces of Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington were produced with such precision in the side of a mountain like that by anything other than an intellect?"
Me: "That is an abomination, Dr. Atkins. Science is hard work - and it is just pure laziness to postulate that 'a human intellect' did it. Our children need to be protected from such lazy explanations. If a human intellect conceived, planned, and then designed what we see on the side of that mountain, then we've also got to determine who conceived, planned, and then designed that human intellect. And all that gets us is an infinite regress. I can propose that science, in all her glory, can account for everything without an appeal to human intellects. Haven't you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Wind, rain, time, and errosion did this. A human intellect is an enormously complicated entity. You must go with the simpler explanation."
Dr. Atkins: "Look, we even have photographs of the guy that designed it and of the many workers who used dynamite to blow the rocks off and then chisle and polish them to perfection to resemble those American leaders' faces."
Me: "Well, yes, if you can believe those pictures are accurate."
Dr. Atkins: "Are you saying the photographs are fake?"
Me: "What I'm saying is that the proponents of the idea of 'human intellects' doing stuff like this are well-funded, aggressive, and they are out to convert you and me. They are not above photographic fakery to push their agenda. I'm saying there is no need for an explanation that says: 'a human intellect is responsible.' I can propose that science can account for everything - including this structure on the side of this mountain - without any abominable, lazy, stupid appeal to something as complex as a human intellect."
Dr. Atkins: "Look, there is no way that rain, wind, and errosion could have accidentally done this. Clearly, this was done by a mind."
Me: "But Dr. Atkins, you believe that life itself, which is exponentially more complex than the faces of Mt. Rushmore, came to be apart from a mind or any intervention of an intellect of any kind. And you further state that the suggestion that a mind is responsible for life is 'an abomination' as well as 'lazy,' and 'stupid.' "
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