The author, who began questioning the existence of God, explores the existence of God through the confrontation between creationism and evolution. I point out the logical blind spots in creationism and conclude that God’s existence can only exist on faith, not scientific proof.
My own questioning of the existence of God began with a long conversation with a missionary on a playground bench in the fifth grade. I didn’t know much about the world yet, and I was at an age where I was easily influenced by the stories I heard around me. The missionary proceeded on the premise that there is a God in every story. His explanations began with the story of Adam and Eve, and he emphasized the greatness of God by referring to biblical events like Noah’s Ark. But his stories increasingly felt like something out of a cartoon or fairy tale, and I realized that even at my young age, I couldn’t unconditionally trust them.
Above all, I started the conversation with the intention of answering my questions about God’s existence, but listening to his stories only raised more questions about God’s existence. According to him, everything in the world was according to God’s plan, and that claim did not bring me any comfort. Instead, the missionary’s words made me ask more questions, and his stories ended up giving me a negative perception of God’s existence.
Creationism, as the missionary explained it to me, is a theory that claims that humans, life, the earth, and the universe were all created by divine intervention. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, suggests that life on Earth has evolved naturally over time as it has adapted to its environment and developed. The two theories are sharply divided on the existence of God. Creationists attribute the source of all existence to God, and their beliefs are absolute. Evolutionists, on the other hand, use scientific evidence and experimentation to explain the origin of life and doubt the existence of God.
One of the arguments often cited by creationists is the “Boeing 747 and the junkyard” analogy. This analogy emphasizes that the chance of life arising by chance is as unlikely as a tornado sweeping through a junk yard and assembling a Boeing 747. David Attenborough’s argument is that it’s hard to believe that the complex structures of the natural world were created by chance. He cites the elaborate skeletons of sponges, such as Venus’s basket, as examples, and argues that these structures cannot have been created by mere chance. These arguments make the existence of God seem convincing, but they also create skepticism about the existence of a designer.
However, these arguments have their own blind spots. First of all, the hypothesis of an intelligent designer raises the question of whether the designer was also designed by someone, which leads to an endless regressive problem. Richard Dawkins points this out, criticizing the logic of creationism as inherently self-contradictory. He argues that a designer would only create more problems rather than solve them, and points out that the logic presented by creationists shows a poor understanding of the scientific method.
Another argument often used by creationists is that the theory of evolution is incomplete due to a lack of intermediate fossils. The fact that there are not enough intermediate fossils can be used as a factor to undermine confidence in the theory of evolution. However, this lack does not prove the existence of God. Dawkins criticizes the illogicality of creationists’ attempts to find gaps in science and fill them with intelligent design. It is a fallacy of hasty generalization to conclude that the theory of evolution is wrong because no intermediate fossils have been found.
Furthermore, creationists don’t understand the burden of proof. In scientific methodology, the burden of proof is on the assertor, and something is considered non-existent if it is not asserted. Creationists who claim the existence of God have the burden of proof for its existence, yet they demand the opposite: that God’s non-existence be proven. This is an argument that ignores the basic principles of debate and has no place in a scientific forum.
One evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould, has argued that science and religion cover different territories: science studies the building blocks of the universe and how it works, while religion explores questions of ultimate meaning and moral values. Gould’s argument suggests that religion and science exist on different levels, and that it is inappropriate to attempt to prove the existence of God as a scientific fact. In the end, the existence of God remains a humanistic concept that cannot be explained by scientific facts, but only serves to provide people with comfort and meaning in life.
Since I began to question the existence of God through my conversation with the missionary, I have not been able to completely resolve my doubts about God. The existence of God is still important to many people, and it may be impossible to scientifically prove its existence, but what I can be sure of is that God does not exist in reality, but in the minds of those who believe in it. Through their beliefs, God will remain a presence that gives meaning to their lives and provides them with rest and comfort.
