# Examples of natural phenomena being used as proof of religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 6, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108 "2017-10-06T14:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/41 "2017-10-06T21:51:18Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Why is the idea of a creator so hard to believe? Where did the matter and energy of the universe come from? It’s been a long time since science classes, but I do recall hearing _“energy can neither be created nor destroyed”_. Just converted between different forms of energy or matter. So it didn’t “come from” anywhere – it was always there. Or to quote a prayer: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/42 "2017-10-06T21:52:09Z")
You could argue that every single question that is as yet unanswered by science could be considered a gap. This includes whether my brain functions the same as all the ones studied by science - all those people are meat machines, but since my brain hasn’t yet been studied by science I could have a little angel sitting inside my head manipulating me via levers a la _Men in Black_! Presuming that people believe that they and the events they’re claiming miracles about might be special cases to the normal order of things, there is no possible global counter to this; all you can do is hunt down each specific ‘miracle’ and subject it to study and disproof one at a time. Which nobody really has time to do, though some people make an effort. (You see this play out with ghost claims from time to time.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/43 "2017-10-06T23:16:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > well this went off topic. > > My intent was the[god of the gaps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps) argument, before science people didn’t really understand much, so natural phenomena was attributed to religious and supernatural forces. Chemicals from a mine, chemicals in a plant, eclipses, comets, mental illnesses, etc. were all attributed to a deity. Something would happen, people couldn’t explain it so they attributed it to a deity. In **The Age of Reason** Tom Paine stated clearly that he was not an atheist since he had no idea of how the solar system could have evolved without the hand of a deity. He was a deist, and not a Christian because the Bible was full of contradictions, incorrect statements and pure nonsense. That is a great example, because we know how the solar system forms now, and I would hope that Paine would be an atheist if he was living today. But there still people like Martin Gardner who don’t feel comfortable with the Bib Bang being random, so maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/44 "2017-10-06T23:26:46Z")
I shit you not, several years ago I was listening to a national call-in show on my car radio, because it was the only station I could get while driving to my parents’ house in Bumphuk on Christmas Eve. I don’t remember the exact topic, but somebody called in to say that where he lived in New Jersey, it was snowing on Christmas Eve, and how do the atheists explain _ **that** _? ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/45 "2017-10-06T23:33:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Back in my Usenet days I wrote a version of Genesis that got it right but at the same level that Genesis was written at. You don’t need equations to say that the universe was created a very long time ago - Eastern religions somehow managed to say that. And you can also get the order of things right. Exactly. I’m OK with Genesis not being a graduate-level text on celestial mechanics, but I’m not OK with it saying fruit trees were growing before the sun was created. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/46 "2017-10-06T23:47:19Z")
Look around. Every day you see proof of god - and **he is bloody pissed!** ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/47 "2017-10-07T17:55:35Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Look around. Every day you see proof of god - and **he is bloody pissed!** Or she. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/48 "2017-10-07T18:39:59Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Pretty much all of them. Right? I mean it starts with “stuff exists, therefore (a) god made it”. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/49 "2017-10-07T19:10:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Implicit in my point is that the god would explain metallurgy and optics to the people 3,000 years ago. Take aside a group of students, teach them principles of science, engineering, medicine, etc for a decade or two out of the god’s all-knowing and eternal existence. My point is that there is nothing about people that live in primitive conditions that makes it impossible for a motivated omniscient being to bring them up to a modern level of knowledge, and that your assertion that a god would “have” to use only concepts already known 3,000 years ago is poop Total Agreement. SF writer (and real scientist) David Brin joked that space aliens didn’t need to build pyramids, or draw figures in the desert, to guide their spacecraft. They only needed to give us a Junior College, and we’d have RADAR inside fifty years. And the germ theory of disease is a really good example, because it doesn’t actually require understanding to work. “Wash your hands, because little bad things you can’t see are all over them.” Just take it at a level of faith: washing hands actually prevents disease, and the results could be seen even if the idea was laid down as a holy commandment. (Several holy commandments did deal with cleanliness; they just didn’t go far enough. God clearly fumbled that one.) ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/50 "2017-10-07T19:19:16Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Look around. Every day you see proof of god - and **he is bloody pissed!** > [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Or she. They/Them or maybe even It. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/51 "2017-10-07T19:51:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > And the germ theory of disease is a really good example, because it doesn’t actually require understanding to work. “Wash your hands, because little bad things you can’t see are all over them.” Just take it at a level of faith: washing hands actually prevents disease, and the results could be seen even if the idea was laid down as a holy commandment. As I alluded to earlier (“giving instructions on exactly what the curtains in his temple should look like”) take a look at [this](http://www.usccb.org/bible/exodus/26) chapter from Exodus. 37 verses on how to construct and decorate the room to hold the Ark of the Covenant. Utterly useless information to almost everyone, forever (given that only the most pure and high priests would ever be allowed to see it) and yet, it managed to be transmitted across time. In the same amount of text, any god could have explained a number of basic health tips (boil river water before drinking it), or a few useful technologies, or something that would only make sense in the future, such as describing the shape and function of DNA, and telling the people “now, I know that you don’t understand this now, but it is vital that you record and pass this on exactly as I tell it to provide future proof that I’m telling the truth.” The _only_ reason that ancient scriptures _have_ to contain information known only to the ancients is because the ancients had no help or inspiration in writing them. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/52 "2017-10-08T12:28:50Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Religion and atheism are both beliefs. We humans have neither the knowledge nor the sensory ability to understand the true nature of the universe. Atheism is a belief kind of like not collecting stamps is a hobby. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/53 "2017-10-08T14:20:48Z")
My aunt thinks human pregnancy is proof of God. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/54 "2017-10-08T14:24:00Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > My aunt thinks human pregnancy is proof of God. Is elephant pregnancy proof of Ganesh? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/55 "2017-10-08T19:15:23Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > My aunt thinks human pregnancy is proof of God. Well, God is often mentioned when the pregnancy starts after all. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/56 "2017-10-08T19:35:40Z")
I am of the belief that if there is a being that acts in ways in which God is said to act, there is a suitable mechanism through which He could act: resolving of the probabilistic nature of quantum effects. All of the efforts of this being would be incredibly subtle, only able to do things that are physically possible but end up being entirely unlikely without divine guidance. It might be possible to induce hallucinations in suitably wired people by manipulating the constituent elements composing a person’s brain. The wiring can also be influenced during development by random effects if needed. Human parthenogenesis is probably a step too far, but it might be possible that someone could appear dead and only need to rest for a few days. Not to say that I think there is an intelligence behind how quantum effects resolve, but that’s the only possibility I can see for it given what we know about science now. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/57 "2017-10-08T20:53:21Z")
**glowacks** : Fun, but probably not workable. It still requires “miraculous” powers on the part of this guy, in order to resolve quantum uncertainty in ways he chooses. Also, that’d require processing a really astonishing amount of information: where does he store it? How does he access it? Where is this guy? How can he affect the material universe, but remain, himself, invisible and intangible and in all other ways undetectable? It’s just a large-scale echo of the problem of the soul: how is the soul supposed to interact with the brain? Descartes pointed to the Pineal gland…but people have had that removed surgically and didn’t lose their essential humanity. The model is, at very least, incomplete… ---
**Author:** ![DtypeJag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@DtypeJag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DtypeJag)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/58 "2017-10-11T19:16:25Z")
When Napoleon asked the mathematician Laplace (or maybe Lagrange) to explain to him the motions of the planets, he looked at the diagrams he had drawn and thought about it for a moment and then said, “I see now how it all works but where is God in all this?” Laplace replied, " Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis". Atheism and faith are not both “beliefs”. The way the World works must be proven not believed in. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/59 "2017-10-11T22:04:04Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Where did the matter and energy of your creator come from? > [@Pixel\_Dent](#): > > It’s turtles all the way down It’s creators all the way down. Yes, I put the two quotes out of sequence. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108/60 "2017-10-11T22:42:41Z")
> [@DtypeJag](#): > > Atheism and faith are not both “beliefs”. The way the World works must be proven not believed in. It is hard to prove how the world works. Our explanations have to be provisional in the sense that they may be incomplete. But they could be provisional with a very high degree of confidence. Newton’s Laws were about as proven as anything - but since they were still provisional, it was not hard to extend them when Einstein proposed relativity. If physics were religion, there would be camps of the Newtonians and Einsteinians, and no doubt a war. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-natural-phenomena-being-used-as-proof-of-religion/798108.md?page=4)