the hammer
Atheists take note
For all my atheist/agnostic friends: No, this is NOT a prrof of the existence of the creator, just a thought experiment. Participate if you want.
Take the hammer.
The hammer is the basic “complex” tool. Before the hammer, there was the rock. The hammer is basically a rock attached to a stick.
If someone comes to you and places a hammer on the table, and says “this hammer appeared out of the sky, out of thin air” you’d assume that person was from California. Someone found the rock, you’d say. Someone dug around a field full of rocks, and selected one that was better suited to it’s purpose than all the others, someone got that rock. Then, someone took the rock, carefully selected the stick, maybe even used some other tool to properly shape or configure the stick, and somehow attached the stick to the rock. Maybe they used twine made from fibrous plants, maybe plaited hair, maybe a glue made from blood and milk, but there was effort involved in making the hammer.
This is only natural, of course, because that is exactly how hammers are made. From the very first one to every one made today, the process of hammer manufacture has stayed stable for time immemorial. You select a weight/rock/head, you select a handle, you marry the two together.
Simple, straightforward, easy to understand. Everyone knows that hammers do not appear from nowhere, someone makes them. hell, even if the root of a tree grew itself around a rock that was suitable, and in so attached the handle to the rock, someone had to dig it up, separate the “hammer” like parts from the “non hammer” like parts.
So if it is impractical to even suggest that a hammer can come into existence by itself, and must be manufactured- or even mined- by someone, how can it make any sense that the rock that the hammer is made from, the living tree that gave it’s fibrous stem for the handle, in fact all of creation in it’s complexity which is many thousands of more orders of magnitude complex than the simple hammer- how is it possible to think that all of creation with all of it’s complexity simply “occurred”?
I’d be interested in hearing what people have to say about this.
15 comments Og | Uncategorized
Always seemed to me that it takes more faith to ‘believe’ in evolution than God.
I don’t personally believe that our complex universe was the result of some sort of cosmic accident. However, I do take issue with the contention that the explanation is supernatural. I do not believe in the supernatural; there is nothing outside of nature, no “otherness.”
I believe in what I call Natural Intent. I believe it is responsible for the creation and maintenance of all natural processes. I also believe that the essence of natural intent cannot be known. Of course, I can’t prove any of this.
What would make you think Creation is supernatural? And why is a Creator outside of nature, in your estimation?
As for Nature, nature herself is pretty- occasionally- supernatural.
If you can take the PUNishment, Gagdad Bob has most of the answers at One Cosmos.
Warning! Very esoteric!
I find it a remarkable coincidence that you post this now, considering I was planning on going home after work, pour myself a few fingers of Jose’s finest and become ever so slightly “hammered”.
As far as the theological conversation is concerned, I believe I’ll simply stand back a few feet and listen to the forthcoming questions and answers.
Cheers.
I often wonder about that myself OG… My view is that there is a huge plan and we just see the one corner of the blueprint at present… I am actually looking foreward to see the rest on the other side, it will probably take eternity to explainn it all to me. :-)
On my bookshelf is a book called Darwin’s Black Box. In the book, Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry and former evolutionist describes several mechanisms that refute evolution. As a visual aid, he uses the mousetrap. Could a mousetrap evolve? Remove any one element of a mousetrap: spring, catch, base, etc. and you have no mousetrap nor could it grow into one because all the pieces have to assemble simultaneously to even resemble a moustrap. He then goes on to describe how a cell is organized, showing deciseively that if any one element of a cell is not present, you have no cell, nor ant way of growing one. All the elements of a cell have to be assembled simultaneously to have a functiong cell, and that can not occur in steps.
This is the design argument, as I’m sure you know. It speaks of a requisite designer. Since this designer is outside of or above what we percieve as natural, that makes the designer super-natural.
I read of one assesment that the odds of life evolving(violating the law of entropy) as greater than the odds of a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard and creating a 747.
The God I worship is so powerful he made it possible for his creations to adapt to their environment, to evolve over time into better, stronger beings.
Why do the two ‘theories’ have to be exclusive?
Seems to me that — (agreeing with hoosierboy in asking why there MUST be a dichotomy, but accepting one for the sake of argument) — if you have to choose one or the other, either is pretty much a matter of faith, given the evidence one way or t’other.
Following onto which, I gotta ask, if your faith is so weak that you have to attack that of those who might disagree with you (stress that “might”) … what does that say about you? (The general and rhetorical “you”.)
M
LOL!~ Mark, I can’t but agree.
Hey, it’s just a thought experiment. I think there is zero difference in believing the cosmos was created or it sprang into existence itself. Other than this: If you think the cosmos sprang into existence itself, you would probably be willing to accept a hammer sprang into existence itself, right?
+1 to DNR’s thought. I’ve always thought that, too.
One of the things that helps me believe in a Creator: water. So simple, but so useful. It grows food, washes you, makes steam, makes liquor, makes the Grand Canyon. It is the only element that floats when it goes to a solid, thus not killing everything in ponds. Too useful & too simple to be an accident, I sez.
My daughter puts forth the endocrine system as evidence of a Creator. “How could something so complex just happen?”
[…] I have not gone out to engage members of this other faith, and struggle with this fact altogether. I am a guy who worries about nothing. I am not apathetic; but I find because of my faith worry is a waste of time and emotional energy. If I do find myself worrying, I quickly console myself and move on. Today while trolling a blog I found this comment, in rely to THIS post. Following onto which, I gotta ask, if your faith is so weak that you have to attack that of those who might disagree with you (stress that “mightâ€) … what does that say about you? (The general and rhetorical “youâ€.) […]
The word supernatural means simply, above nature. I do not believe that there is any thing or intelligent agency outside or above nature.
Growing up I had a traditional Catholic upbringing. My mother was, and my sister is, devoutly religious (in fact, my sister became a nun). My interpretation of their idea of God is that of a divine creator existing in a domain that is apart from ours, all knowing , all seeing. That idea I reject.
Natural intent – what I believe to be the universal creative energy, is self contained. Being a part of nature, we are the stuff of natural intent as is everything else that exists. I prefer this idea to those that attribute creation to an amorphous God that resides in a domain removed from our own. A self contained natural cause for creation seems to agree with what is observable better than the traditional Judeo/Christian theism. Science is actually beginning to see how some of these natural processes work; to see natural intent in action.
Another benefit of this idea is that, for me at least, it clears up the issue of intelligent design vs evolution: If evolution is a natural process, then natural intent is responsible for it; evolution is intelligent design.
so- principalled- your ‘natural intent’ is different from the creator how?
I believe in what I call Natural Intent. I believe it is responsible for the creation and maintenance of all natural processes. I also believe that the essence of natural intent cannot be known. Of course, I can’t prove any of this.
Sounds like faith to me.