Does Life Prove God?
Whenever theism dons the scientific mantle you will hear that God (or some god) must exist because life exists. The chances of life existing are so small, it is said, that God is the only feasible explanation. The answer here is the same as the answer to the argument from design and other similar arguments: the supernatural can explain nothing. It is a pseudo-explanation: we are simply told nothing when we are told that life was created, via mysterious processes, by an inherently unknowable -- indeed ineffable -- "being" that "exists" outside of and prior to existence. ( Treblig gainges. ) Any scientific theory, however meager the evidence , is superior to a supernatural "explanation" because, being logically contradictory, that "explanation" doesn't even rise to the status of theory . Drawing again on George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God , I note that the argument from life bases its argument on the improbability of a spontan...