A Probability of God
...strength of those wishes…we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification.” (Freud, 39). Here, Freud suggests that the origin of religious ideas derive from the human desire for an all-powerful being that watches over us. He supports this argument with his “Oedipal Complex” theory – the theory that infants sexually desire their own mother. In this theory, the infant is in competition with the father for the mother. However, the infant fears of losing the protective fatherly figure and so a dilemma is created to win the attention of the mother. The argument for naturalism can be further supported by Keith Yandell with his “scientism” term. In his work, Philosophy of Religion Yandell explains that “no one can tell whether God exists or not, so there are just opinions and feelings about such matters. This reply typically is based on the idea that we can only know what science can tell us.” In other words, opinions and feelings cannot explain what science can. Having that said, Yandell points out that “scientism” holds two key factors: (1) all explanation is scientific explanation, and (2) all scientific explanation is explanation in physics. Since the belief in God is nothing more than a human desire that cannot be scientifically explained, then the odds of the existence of such a being is slim to none. Furthermore, a German philosopher by the name of Ludwig Feuerbach explains that God is simply a projection of our own essence in work entitled The Essence of Christianity. Since humans have a tendency to worship our own essence, we project ourselves 100 times more powerful than we are to create the image of an all-powerful God. So here, the arguments for naturalism are supported psychologically and scientifically. With such strong practices on the side of naturalism, what chance would a theologian explanation have to prove the existence of God? Since the image of God was manmade, than there would no probability that God is actually real and we can finally agree that the Big Bang theory and evolution are the only explanations (scientific explanations) to the existence of human beings and the universe we live in. For now, let us set aside these arguments and explore the arguments for theism. The first argument for theism is from Professor Alvin Plantinga in his lecture regarding the situation at hand. In his lecture, Plantinga simply states that [billions of years of evolution – by ways of natural selection and generic drift – are blind processes, and that it is such a random probability lead to human existence.] (Plantinga). In other words, how would the delicate process of evolution lead exactly to our existence? If the Big Bang theory is correct, then how was it possible for entities such as gravity, rock, and ice to come together exactly the way they did to create the earth and human beings? Would it be mere coincidence or was it planned? The point is, the probability for the existence of humans and the world is extremely low – considering the fact that the evolution process had to occur exactly the way it did – and if such a probability can occur, then perhaps the same can apply to the probability that God exists. A second argument comes from Yandell and his “falsification” concept. According to Yandell, “a standard case of falsification is mistaken prediction; it notes that theory T entails the result R will obtain if a certain experiment is performed, the experiment is run, and R does not occur – so T is falsified.” (Yandell, 3...