FACEBOOK: NOT GOD

Brian Blum (“What I learned from Facebook about God,” Observations, June 7) asserts that just as people mistakenly accept the “simple” allegation that Facebook monitors private conversations via cellphone microphones, people mistakenly accept the “simplest answer for our limited brains” by believing in God.

Of course, not all simple answers are wrong. According to the philosophical principal of Occam’s Razor (also known as the law of simplicity), when presented with competing hypotheses that make the same predictions, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions. For believers, God’s existence is the single assumption from which everything in the world flows. Blum and fellow deniers, however, must assume innumerable coincidences – the harmony of all physical laws, the presence of the Earth in its precise location, the development of life itself followed by accidental evolution resulting in millions of different life forms – leading to our present state.

Blum confuses process with cause. In one case he takes as a given the existence of a controlling force – Facebook. He argues not against the ultimate outcome of Facebook’s activities, but rather how Facebook achieved its goals. When it comes to the world, however, his reasoning is reversed. He looks at processes such as the Big Bang, evolution and the “incredibly complicated human body” as proof that God does not exist. He conveniently avoids confronting the most basic of questions: What came before the Big Bang? What purpose does evolution serve? Who or what set these processes in motion?

Many great thinkers, including a number of scientists, have stood in opposition to reliance on manifold coincidence. The “argument from design” states that a design implies a designer, and that the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe is evidence of a supreme designer.

By definition, a Supreme Being’s qualities – e.g., omniscience and omnipotence – are beyond the comprehension of mere humans. Our inability to prove His existence may be evidence only of our own limitations. Indeed, the Creation story, including echoes of the Big Bang and evolution, can be read as an allegorical description of God’s plan, written not by but for humans who had neither the faculty nor the experience necessary to comprehend complex universal concepts thousands of years ago.

Those who accept God’s existence do so without needing any scientific proof. They are willing to take what has been called a “leap of faith,” rather than being constrained by ephemeral “reason.” EFRAIM A. COHEN

Zichron Ya’acov