Persuasive Speech on the Existence of God

Existence of God Speech

Oh my God - Speech

Entry: be sure to have a quiet, sober audience before you begin.

Oh. My. God." By popular vote, the favorite exclamation of a dozens of different languages. One web site lists exactly one hundred and twelve translations, ranging from Old Irish ("Eala, min Hlaforde!") to Star Trek Klingon ("toH, HIvqa' Qun'a'wIj!")

(www.yamara.com).Ironically, religious proponents often view the phrase as sacrilegious -- "taking the Lord's name in vain," a Christian would say -- and as many atheists use the expression as theists.

The reason for this ubiquity is that religion is very much a part of culture. Man's experience is that the world, for all its diversity, often offers variations on a common theme, or permutations of common properties. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Holy Bible). There is a natural impulse, therefore, to look for some greater meaning beyond mere biological cycles. For the next several minutes, the definition of God shall be: "an entity which confers meaning upon human existence."

Aside from a divine, world-wide press release, the only reason a human would presume to have the interest of a god is if that human had been created. From that point, it seems a reasonable assumption that a god capable of producing sentient life would also be able to create a universe to house that life form.

Lacking any functional time machines, the origin of the universe must be traced back. Most scientists agree that the universe is expanding from a common location, and therefore must have originated at a common point. Scientists call this once-upon-a-time common point a "singularity," a space object with infinite density, infinite gravity, and absolutely no volume.

Supposedly, a singularity once contained all the mass and energy that now fills the known universe.

(www.doesgodexist.com)

This leaves a scientist with two options: either the universe as we know it has been around for a finite period of time, and must have therefore come from somewhere; or the universe has been expanding and shrinking, due to gravity, in cycles for an infinite amount of time.

The "open universe" theory -- the theory that the universe will continue expanding forever -- has a theistic connotation. If this is an open universe, then the universe has existed for a finite time, and that implies creation. The "closed universe" theory, on the other hand -- the theory that the universe will expand more and more slowly until gravity causes it to collapse in on itself and form another singularity -- lends itself to an atheistic perspective, because it provides a universe model that could reasonable extend back into infinity. (Polymath)

As it happens, the "closed universe" theory hasn't done that well. The problem is that gravity is a terribly weak force compared to other forces in the universe. For example, consider that a small magnet has sufficient force to resist the gravity of an entire planet. This means that, in order for the universe to collapse, there must be an enormous amount of mass in the universe. But even the most liberal estimates of the total universal mass fall far short of the required amount.

But. It's all theoretical, and a new discovery about one of a dozen factors could render every model completely irrelevant. So instead of trying to prove a weak theory, I'll take a look at a much more commonly believed theory: evolution.

If God is interested in the Earth, and particularly humans, it is simple to understand why He (if a gender-specific pronoun is appropriate) would want those humans to be intelligent. After all, without a forebrain we would only be a lot of pets, which would make God akin to the strange old lady with thirteen cats in her apartment. But why would evolution evolve intelligence? And, to take it a step farther: why would evolution evolve a tendency to believe in God?

Intelligence has led to all sorts of selectively-improbable traits. Humans care for their old, devoting a huge amount of resources to those that no longer contribute to the propagation of the species. They have built for themselves a sophisticated society wherein people are simply too busy to have kids. That doesn't sound like the work of evolution to me.

And religion is even more absurd! Religion makes people do foolish things like swear celibacy and insist on monogamy. It makes lots of people kill each other even when there's no shortage in resources. So why hasn't evolution cultured cunning instead of sentient intelligence? And why didn't religious tendencies get selected out? Certainly the question can't be answered categorically, but one could provisionally suppose that there might be a God pulling the strings.