Here’s a good take down of Bill O’Reilly’s “tide goes in, tide goes out” proof of the deity’s existence. According to Bill, the fact that the tides never miss a beat is proof that there must be a God, for after all, who can explain such wonderful regularity. As it turns out, lots of people.
But I can’t resist piling on, and I think my observation is at least somewhat different than all the telling points made by others.
Isn’t O’Reilly attempting to use the basic argument for science against it? It is the very fact of nature’s regularity -it’s obedience to laws- that makes science possible. If the tides came in and out at unpredictable or random intervals, that would make it well nigh impossible to come up with a scientific explanation for the phenomenom. That type of irregularity, like a “miracle” would argue for the existence of some capricious “intelligence” controlling nature. Regularity in nature doesn’t prove the existence of God, even if we can’t understand the reason for the regularity. It argues for a natural cause. Indeed, I’d venture to say that throughout history it was the perceived irregularities-thunder, lightening, eclipses, comets-which, because they could not be understood, drove people to posit the existence of fickle gods and goddesses. Predictable things-sun goes up, sun goes down-because they were reliable were far less likely to inspire the fear that created the gods.
I must now apologize for the above post. I am deeply troubled by the fact that the casual reader might think I take O’Reilly seriously. What I’ve said so far could certainly leave that impression, and for that I apologize.
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