{"id":137,"date":"2011-06-15T21:18:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T01:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=137"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:28","slug":"apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"Apologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening to the White Horse Inn<\/a> the other day and came across an interview<\/a> with professional skeptic Michael Shermer.\u00a0 While talking about whether God exists (at 2:55), he offered up this gem:<\/p>\n

“I’d be very surprised if it turns out there was a God.\u00a0 But in any case, what does that even mean?\u00a0 Just some sort of higher power that is capable of genetic engineering and creating planets and universes.\u00a0 That’s really just an engineering problem–just something like us scaled up considerably.\u00a0 Take Moore’s law and carry it out for 50,000 years and you get what is essentially a deity–you know, a supercomputer that would be omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.\u00a0 That is what God is defined as, and we’re on our way to becoming that anyhow.\u00a0 What would it mean to discover that there was a God?\u00a0 It wouldn’t really mean anything to me.”<\/p>\n

Such an approach to the question can throw Christians at first.\u00a0 Even setting aside the blind faith in raw computing power, most Christians do not think about God as a mere cosmic engineer.\u00a0 No science, no matter how advanced, could be an adequate substitute in our minds.\u00a0 Out first instinct is therefore usually to clarify–to explain more precisely what we mean by “God.”\u00a0 This, of course, is a rather daunting task–one which some of the greatest minds in history have grappled with with varying degrees of success.\u00a0 What is more, this sort of metaphysical argument is rather easy to get bogged down in. Before you know it, you’re having a heated discussion about some tangential speculation about God’s nature that’s only barely relevant to Christianity.\u00a0 Such debates can be philosophically edifying, but they usually don’t make for good apologetic conversations.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, it’s usually easier than all that.\u00a0 As it turns out, Shermer only takes another couple of seconds to reveal that he doesn’t really think of God that way either.\u00a0 He immediately goes on to say this:<\/p>\n

“In any case, I’m not particularly worried about it because why would a deity care one way or another about whether I believed or not?\u00a0 Isn’t it more important how you purported yourself in life, how you treated other people…?\u00a0 I think it matters more how you behave.”<\/p>\n

When he takes this opportunity to knock salvation by faith, Shermer reveals that he is, in fact, quite confident that the very same God that he, as an agnostic, claims is completely veiled from his perception is more concerned about whether he’s a good person than whether he believes in Him.\u00a0 Though he allegedly can’t even tell whether God exists, he is nevertheless quite willing to speak about His character and concerns.\u00a0 It seems that Shermer has a better idea about who God is than he is willing to admit, and “mere cosmic engineer” doesn’t even begin to describe it.\u00a0 Engineering, after all, doesn’t have much to do with morality.\u00a0 Reducing God to an engineer means reducing the universe to a machine.\u00a0 Mechanics, however, are insufficient to undergird a concept of people “being good” in any kind of moral sense.<\/p>\n

Shuemer’s latent beliefs should be no surprise.\u00a0 As Paul puts it in Romans 1:19-20, “what may be known about God is plain to [men] because God has made it plain to them.\u00a0 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”\u00a0 Just a few paragraphs later, Paul proceeds to point out that Shermer is, in a sense, right about God caring more about what we do than about what we believe.<\/p>\n

“To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.” (Rom 2:7-11)<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is that a moment’s honesty reveals that “being a good person” is pretty much academic at this point (as Paul goes on to point out).\u00a0 We’ve all spent our lives lying, cheating, and hurting those closest to us.\u00a0 Who hasn’t snapped at his wife when she didn’t deserve it without even apologizing?\u00a0 Who hasn’t been completely thoughtless towards friends when they were in need?\u00a0 Who hasn’t undeservedly antagonized their parents as a teenager?\u00a0 “Everybody does that” is less of an excuse than it is an indictment.\u00a0 Does the suffering of others suddenly not matter when everyone hurts people?\u00a0 Psychologically writing off the bad things everybody does is a coping mechanism that humans need in order to function in a broken world.\u00a0 Nevertheless, we can’t let that attitude overcome the very basic observation that we do not do as we ought–we are not good people.\u00a0 So since we’ve screwed up the things about which even skeptics can discern God cares, maybe we should be looking at another option<\/a>.\u00a0 And contrary to Shermer’s attitude later in that interview, maybe we should be willing to consider the evidence for its being true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to the White Horse Inn the other day and came across an interview with professional skeptic Michael Shermer.\u00a0 While talking about whether God exists (at 2:55), he offered up this gem: “I’d be very surprised if it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,29,41],"tags":[18,44,17,19],"yoast_head":"\nApologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was listening to the White Horse Inn the other day and came across an interview with professional skeptic Michael Shermer.\u00a0 While talking about whether God exists (at 2:55), he offered up this gem: “I’d be very surprised if it … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-16T01:18:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"Apologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-16T01:18:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\"},\"wordCount\":885,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"keywords\":[\"agnosticism\",\"Apologetics\",\"God\",\"skepticism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Apologetics\",\"Atheism\",\"Natural Law\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\",\"name\":\"Apologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer - The 96th Thesis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-16T01:18:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:28+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/apologetics-minute-god-as-cosmic-engineer\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Apologetics Minute: God as Cosmic Engineer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The 96th Thesis\",\"description\":\"The Devil Never Sleeps; 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