My null hypothesis, like most atheists', is that no gods exist. If something exists, then a naturalist
believes she can find evidence of it. If no evidence is found, we have to conclude that it either doesn't
exist-i.e., the possibility of its existence is nullified-or we haven't figured out a way to discover it yet. But
it is foolish to assume that just because we haven't figured out a way to discover something, it will remain
forever beyond the scope of naturalism.
I interviewed the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins about this very topic and he put it
this way: Things "out there" that haven't been discovered yet are "waiting to be drawn into the embrace of
naturalism" Now, some religious people say, "God is waiting to be discovered and I have faith that he is
out there." I am willing to allow for such blind faith, but I offer this: Whatever god is waiting out there,
it's nothing like the traditional gods of our religions and it seems to be continually eluding us and shows
every manifestation of not caring about us or our plant and animal relatives. If one wants to call God
nature, I have no problem with that either. (I prefer to call it nature, not God, but I try to avoid the term
usually.) But, again, that is nothing like the theistic God Americans seem to hold so dear. So you see,
metaphysics is not only an interesting topic to most scientists, it is essential to naturalism.
PJ: I suppose the naturalist might say something like, "See, religion has only to do with neurochemical and
psychological processes. It's materialistic from beginning to end."
GG: This is exactly what a naturalist would say. And the fact that religion is created in the minds of
human beings suggests that God is created in the minds of human beings, and God itself (or whatever)
does not exist. There is no metaphysical reality to God. God is an epiphenomenon of the human brain.
Why do so many humans have the tendency to believe in God? Well, again, the interviews I did as part
of my doctoral work shed light on this. There might be a genetic predisposition in the developing child's
brain to believe what parents say. This is very reasonable since the earliest social interactions we have
are with our parents or immediate familial social group. The stories and "truths" we are told in the first
six or seven years of life are what form our worldview. Pervasive stories in our society perpetuate and
change very, very slowly. (Remember it took about 300 years for the general population to believe the
stories elucidated by Copernicus that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the solar system!) Evolution
still hasn't caught on universally, particularly in the USA where children are taught ancient creation stories
instead of modern evolution stories. I predict it will be another 100 years, if education isn't totally
corrupted, before Americans understand and accept Darwinism.
In any event, children grow up and become university professors and join psychology departments.
Then they write books with theses like "god exists in our neurons" or some other non sense, completely
muddling the issue of metaphysics.
In short, if God is no more than neurons in action, God doesn't exist! It is the burden of the theist to
demonstrate that God exists outside the neurons.
Attempting to show that the universe is elaborately designed doesn't discount evolution to any degree
and it certainly doesn't suggest to me that there is a God. It just means some very elaborate things can
materialize given enough time. (This is something most theists fail to appreciate: try counting up to one
million. If you did this as a full-time job, it would take you a year and a half of work. Multicellular life
has existed for over 500 million years! The time scale is mindboggling, but calculable.)
PJ: Then you pose the question to the naturalist: "Why do people sense that life has meaning beyond