A nice simple, easily dismissed argument, right? No problem here, it's simply a matter of pointing out that a lot of people can be wrong just as easily as one or two, right?

Wrong.

No, wait, it is easily dismissed. The argument from popularity holds about as much water as a broken buckyball: none.

That's all, see you later!

... Okay, okay. I'll write some more.

First, what is the argument from popularity? Basically, whoever uses this argument says that there must be a god, because there are/were/will be so many people who do/did/will believe in at least one god, if not more! Various customizations of this argument include over tallying ("literally hundreds of billions of people believe in SOME god" is a direct quote from some random pastor with whom I have debated), narrowing the focus (i.e. specifying geographical constraints, time constraints, deity constraints - only this country, or that era, or these gods) and mixing in an appeal to authority for good measure ("Just think of all the preachers and clergy throughout history, could all of them been wrong?!" Well, yes!).

I was recently confronted in my own home... wait, is "confront" the word I want to use? The guy did ask before he came over, and we stayed civil the entire conversation. Perhaps "assaulted" is a better word. No, that implies some level of success on his part as opposed to the flailing, staggering defeat he suffered from a me-originated barrage of pure, unadulterated
reason. Picture a Don-Quixote-versus-Ayers-Rock level fail, and that would be in the general neighborhood.

At any rate, I was confronted at home by a pastor of the denomination to which I belonged. I've debated him before, but this time he decided to come alone. We talked about a number of things, but one argument in particular struck my fancy. His argument was that we can see the differences between superior and inferior cultures because we have a perfect example of god's kingdom in heaven. He said that the only way we could view our society and culture here in America as superior to (and this is his example, mind you) Islamic cultures where women can be murdered for going out without an escort is because we have an ideal example. "It's hard to say what's advanced, it's hard to say that one is higher than another unless you have a standard that your talking about. That's what evolution, I think, lacks" he said smugly.

Complexity is an issue with which we humans have a bit of trouble. Well, okay, it's just ANOTHER issue with which we struggle - along with (for example) that whole Being or Not To Being thing - but it's enough to go on with for the moment. Anyone who has seriously looked into atomic theory and chemistry should be able to appreciate how complex things are at a basic scale, and anyone who has studied a bit of biology is likely to be amazed - and confused - at the complex interactions in even the simplest systems.

I've offered some simple experiments in previous articles, but I'm afraid that might not do the trick this time. Analogies are useful in their comparative powers, and the simplicity they can bring to complex issues, but this time we're going to explore the issue at hand directly.

I was asked recently by someone whose name I don't even remember (thanks, internet anonymity!) for a response to something his father had said. "How can you look at all of existence and not see the hand of God? How could any of this exist without Him? I can't imagine how it could all come about!"

How could it come about? Oh crap, what have I been doing?!... wait, does that make any sense? The answer, of course, is an emphatic "No!".

Okay, let us think about this for a second. This is what we know as the Argument from Improbability, very similar to the Argument from Ignorance ("I don't know about it, so it can't be true&quot. Lets do another little experiment.  I want you to imagine a ball. I guess you could pick up a real ball if you really want, but it isn't going to help you that much. Now that you've thought of the aforementioned ball, nice and round and bouncy, even, imagine that there are two squares of tape on the floor right next to each other over there (no, other way... yeah, there). Now if you were to throw the ball at the two squares you could reasonably expect it to hit, say, the middle if you're a good shot, or that rather expensive lamp if you aren't (see why I'm only having you imagine this?). But leaving aside your pinpoint precision, or my wild side-arm tosses, the ball could be thought of as bouncing inside one square or the other. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

I'd like to write a bit about something that bothers me quite a lot: the argument from improbability. Given that this is my account, and not yours, I really am going to write it.

The argument from improbability basically states that the world in which we live, the circumstances which we see, life itself, are all too complex to have happened by chance. I believe Christian apologists (I love that term - they have to call themselves apologists because there's just so much for which to apologize!!) have "calculated" that the probability of everything happening exactly the way it has happened by chance is 1:[more atoms than exist in the universe] against, so there must be something guiding everything. Sounds pretty daunting, doesn't it? Even leaving aside the fact - yes, I said fact, for fact it is - that evolution is not random because many, many people have written on the subject, the argument from improbability is conceptually flawed.