Rabbi Alan Lurie writes a daft article in the Huf Post today entitled “Why the Universe Obviously Has a Creator (and Why Some Atheists Refuse to Even Consider It) ” It is the usual stuff, lots of claims but zero evidence. It may indeed give believers a nice warm fuzzy feeling that they are right, but it also lacks any real substance at all.

He starts off by claiming that …

Throughout recorded history the majority of humanity has seen the existence of a Creator

“Seen” … really!!, I think he really means “Believed”. What he also fails to tell the reader (and does not face himself) is that it has not been the same creator, nor was it restricted to just one god. We have had a vast and extremely diverse array of such beliefs, so which specific one does he have in mind … why his of course, and no doubt he would consider all the others to be wrong. He also fails to appreciate that “belief” in something does not equate to it being true, reality is not something we get to vote on, it is what it is, even if nobody believes it.

As you proceed through his article, I’m afraid to report that it is stuffed full of even weirder claims that have … gasp! … no evidence …

“This truth does not stem from any doctrine or belief system” – Yea right.

“Scientific discoveries have only reinforced this realization” – Really! .. that is indeed news to most scientists.

“…it becomes even clearer that the Universe was carefully designed” – To him perhaps, but not to anybody who actually understands it.

He then proceeds to appeal to authority … a quote from Roger Penrose … wait, hold on a tick, he quotes Penrose in order to convince us of his God, but Penrose himself is an atheist, so clearly what he is quoting has not been understood, because it did not convince Penrose who is still an Atheist. Then he wheels out Anthony Flew who felt that some intelligence must have been involved … and yet again. Flew an Atheist who famously became a Deist (not a theist), so that is also a blatant misrepresentation. Is the Rabbi really so desperate to retain his God belief that he needs to lie about it? Apparently so.

The good Rabbi also has the truly bold courage to suggest that those who propose things such as multiple universes or aliens, or the rise of life by random chance to be indulging in “a total fantasy” … this from a guy who thinks “God did it” on the basis of exactly zero evidence … now which do you actually think is the true fantasy here?

He then suggests we don’t consider “God did it” for the following reasons …

“people have a personal encounter with god” – they sure do, we have a word for that, and that word is “Delusion”, it is only brain chemistry. To be more specific, humans conform to their local cultural belief system and have very different “God” experiences from a vast array of rather different Gods. It says a lot about humans, but nothing at all about the reality of anything supernatural at all. Such God experiences can and have been easily replicated in the laboratory by stimulating the human brain. Until he provides evidence of anything at all beyond simple brain chemistry, then you can strike this one out.

“the guidance of Spirit” – Seriously? … it’s a weird paragraph and rambles on about “art, music, compassion, love, sex” being things we cannot truly know (he must have a truly appalling personal relationship). It is basically meaningless drivel that tries to argue that there is stuff we cannot measure and so the folks who dismiss god do so because they don’t understand. So let me ask you a question … What is the difference between something that cannot be seen or measured and has no evidence in our reality … and nothing at all? Yea, well apparently he has a different answer for that because “an ultimate intelligence that dwarfs its own — is completely intolerable“. Yep, he has indeed departed reality and set sail across an ocean of fantasy for this one.

His third and final reason is even sillier … we don’t believe because of a… “refusal to surrender to anything or anyone“. Er … surrender to what exactly, this entity for which there is exactly zero evidence?

He finishes by getting something right when he says … “Clearly one does not need to believe in God or follow a religion in order to be a wonderful, happy, caring, human being.” … “But …” Oh come on, you just knew he had a “But”. Lurking there at the end of that sugar pill is this gem … “the refusal to even consider that a Creator may exist … especially in the face of much blatant evidence…”

“Evidence” ??? what fracking “evidence”? … he has presented exactly none.The fact that he asserts that there is when there is quite clearly none is indeed, to use his very own final words, “an indication that a psychological mechanism is at work. Perhaps what is needed for such an irrational position may not be more intellectual investigation, but psychoanalysis.“.

Or as one chap puts it within the comment section …

“for all of it’s ‘substance’, this article may as well present it’s arguments on behalf of unicorn husbandry or aura maintainence.”

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