For There to be a Dinner, Does There Need to Be a Cook?

This is so overly simplistic that I can't even see why I would respond to the assertion made by one Jessica, as well as many others like her, throughout history. The claim is no more than a, "The creation needs a creator" fallacy. And as such, is simply dismissed with the Epicurean vintage response of; who created your creator? But it is more than that at this point in time. It is time to stop this multi-millennia display of arrogance from ignorance - only I am not so arrogant as to think for a moment I will over come this wanton ignorance.  But, I will take this as a teaching opportunity, with the hopes that some will be awakened to the sheer absurdity of this simplistic creation analogy. All I ask, is that one stops asking their particular superstition's interpreter (priest) questions better left to a qualified scientist in the related field.

Now, as to the cooking analogy, it is so lame that it generates a chuckle every time I read or hear it asserted in polite company. For it shows an extreme lack of investigative skills as well as an ignorance of evidentiarily verified hypotheses. And it also shows an educational deficiency in history, science and philosophy by someone asserting a scientific claim that has previously been refuted philosophically. Which shows that arrogance is indeed a property of ignorance.

If this Jessica and I were to walk up to a table covered with prepared food we would both be correct in presuming that the meal had been prepared. But that is the end of the intellectual honesty within this analogy. For starters, just like our origins and subsequent evolution into the primate that we are today, there is evidence, clues as to our place in a continuum. We can trace our ancestry back to amino acids in the primal soup of the early Earth. Our DNA has constituent parts represented in many species related to those from which we evolved down through Homo, hominid, primates, mammals, tetrapods and Chordates etc. In a similar sense, I am sure I could find the constituent parts, even fossils, of a prepared meal in the vicinity of Jessica's illusive culinary creator. But even this, is too simplistic for Jessica's analogy of a 'Creator' of this "dinner" of which she alludes.

If we take a critical look at this analogy with creator myths of many cultures, all of which are vastly different, in an attempt to maintain intellectual integrity, we find that it is totally inaccurate. For Jessica's analogy to be representative of the Judaeo-Christian creation myth, she and I would have to had known of a table that had been covered with this prepared meal since before recorded history. And of course every Moses, Paul, and Mary would have put their two cents into an explanation of its origin. Some with the motive of interpreting its relationship to the species to which they belonged, thinking it was a meal intended for human consumption while making excuses for the parts that were poisonous to humans with anthropocentric apologetics that created more questions than were answered. Still others are invoked into defending long held beliefs about the origins of this creation because it's key to myths they profess to be the bed rock of their faith in this superstition's power. While still others notice particular regularities that are measurable even evidentiarily predictable based on what they have discovered and changes they have observed and continue to observe. In the mean time, I notice that only 3% of the meal is even suitable for human consumption (of the living space on Earth humans can only avail ourselves to about 3%) which means that the anthropocentric explanations of a cook having us in mind as the recipients are fallacious at best. This invigorates me to postulate, then investigate alternative origins of this meal. Thus begins an inquiry into the actual properties of this supposed creation with other people checking my work for accuracy through repeatability and falsifiability of our claims.

At the same time Jessica scrambles to overcome the one property her superstition has, which, until now, had served her and those who believed as she did quite well. The fact that they could descend into the supernatural realm at the first hint that evidence would conflict with, or contradict, their pseudo-scientific claims as to the origins, and method of creation of this "meal." Unfortunately this only worked with claims and methodologies that were as poorly postulated or contrived as their superstitions. Furthermore, it left Jessica and her ilk with no evidence to support their assertions, which left a bad taste in their mouth in regard to the scientific method. Which they only subscribe to when it supports some detail that they think leads to their "cook" being the "chef." So Jessica et al. fell back on the fuzzy logic of their theology, while at the same time making pseudo-scientific claims in an attempt to obfuscate valid theories that have insurmountable evidence currently compiled, verified and integral to the continuation of medical advancements as well as many other fields of human endeavor. The problem is, theology is a subject many scientists, such as myself, indulge in as a hobby and, as such, have become quite skilled in the deconstruction of theological absurdities with the very evidence that Jessica and friends strive to obtain. Only, they have been handicapped by the very beliefs they are failing to defend.

Science has not only shown insurmountable evidence supporting biological evolution through natural selection, but physics is also inclined to evolve with an attraction of dissimilar charges being high among the forces involved. We now understand that this "meal" came about in incremental steps as opposed to all at once, as postulated through the "cook did it" theory. In fact, the solar system, life on this planet, and as it turns out, the whole universe came about in much the same way; small incremental accumulations of simple building blocks adding up to ever more complex bodies and relationships. Much as if our analogy was grown through the accumulation of simpler foodstuffs, in fact we have noted primitive vestigial versions of similar "meals" on other planets and in other systems. Meanwhile, Jessica and those motivated to maintain their failed god hypothesis, diligently write and rewrite their myths in an attempt to find gaps where science has not, as of yet, shown the light of discovery. But in so doing, have relinquished much to science and belittled themselves and their "cook" to the point of embarrassment and hypocrisy. And all this in an effort to defend a religion that has produced the Dark Ages, Inquisitions, witch hunts, Nazism, justification for racism, slavery, bigotry, misogyny and genocide, stifled higher learning for more than a thousand years and an endless list of other evils that continues even to this day.

Isn't it time to realize that no "cook" would have prepared a "meal" so wasteful that in relation to the universe we don't even amount to a billion trillion trillionth of its mass, nor is anyone implying that the "meal" was the intelligent agent that built itself, but is the result of a natural propensity for systems to find an equilibrium, a natural balance, if you will. And besides, the first cause argument has been refuted since Occam's Razor postulated that the universe did start without a creator and Stephen Hawking's theory of quantum fluctuations as the beginning of the universe.

And as for the "cook" itself, if one is proposing that the god of the Bible is the cook, then where is the evidence that it, ever did anything? The accounts in the old testament have been totally refuted, it has been shown to be anything but a historical document, and laughable as in any way scientific. All the books related to the canonized collection have been redacted endlessly, as well as fallaciously. Even the Bible itself is its own contradictory evidence. But, why would those who are so sure of their god bother to actually read the books from which their superstition is derived. Is it because anyone can see from the evolution of this deity, while following the Bible itself, that it is a concoction of a primitive waring goat herder tribe of bronze age desert dwellers? Even this Jesus construct in the the New Testament is the amalgamation of many post hoc old testament prophecies and Near Eastern pagan beliefs, Platonic ideologies, political treatise, and rhetorical theatrics. Such as the Pauline idea that Jesus was a theological idea not historical. Or the author of Mark using the Roman "Triumphal March" as a visual rhetorical device in the passion narrative, that is, the description of the crucifixion. The fact that there is nothing in the Bible that would not be known to anyone living at the turn of the era. It seems your cook didn't relay any of the important information about making calendars, personal hygiene, where babies come from, Australia - oh, and kangaroos. Who could make kangaroos and not want to tell everyone about them.

I know people such as Jessica and those of a similar persuasion, will never do the work it takes to actually learn anything about the religion they adhere to. Or for that matter, show any consideration for the sciences that have made their lives so much better than those who wrote the tomes upon which their superstitions are based. I have been a theologian for more than 45 years, so can say with some confidence that fundamentalism is a form of ignorance, and as a military man, can back it up with my understanding of those "by the book" types in that career field.

As two of my heroes have said:


Albert Einstein ~ "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."


And Thomas Jefferson said, "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."


When you are ready to stop "availing" yourself to the "lowest grade of ignorance" and free yourself to think for yourself, you'll find a beautiful world of discovery out there.