In his famous book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins holds a comparison between the two hypotheses for our existence in this universe:
- Either there is a complex intelligent entity, a God, who created this universe and fine-tuned it to be suitable for life.
- Or, we can trace, through some natural-selection-infused evolution, some path of infinite regress, leading up to utter simplicity that explains the origin of life, something modern science has not offered an explanation for as of yet.
Dawkins’ Razor would be that the simpler hypothesis is always better, since the more complicated one (God in his opinion) introduces more questions than it answers — a major argument, discussed by many atheists.
However, what I fail to understand is their complete denial of the idea of God, even one that is in itself representing some step of the infinite regress. I am not myself a follower of such logic, but I wonder at why the idea of God is so instantly tabooed (I wouldn’t say refuted, I strongly think it couldn’t, won’t be) by atheists. In their convoluted logic, why wouldn’t they consider the idea that our life can be traced back (regresses) to ever-simpler forms, until at some point it gives away to the creator. Who said this has to be the end of the story? As much as they don’t know how exactly life started, they wouldn’t also know how God came to be. Why the persistence on keeping God out of the table.
Now I know that Darwin’s, and later Dawkins’, idea of infinite regress claims that each step is more complicated than the one outdating it. And I’m asking, why can’t a complicated entity create something simpler, in the same sense that an artist creates his art, or an engineer creates a marvel of construction?
Yasser Ebrahim 