A Critical examination of the Religious Claim that "Natural Order" is proof of a Divine Creator/Creation:

While I was lecturing at a New Jersey College this last semester, a student posed a question to me about what I had just presented as a case for Rational Atheism.

The student posed an interesting question that I thought i would post here, as I truly believe it to be a sentiment carried forth by many a religionist.

The point / question raised to me was as follows,

"how can you/one say that "god" doesn't exist or that there isnt anything "greater" or some kind of all knowing intelligent force?..... doesnt the concept of geometry in and of itself mean that there has to be a god?" (I knew what he was getting at but I asked him to explain because I wanted the student to articulate it for the class)

His point was, even if we assume that the big bang and other evolutionary/developmental mechanisms did occurr... and that biodiversity is indeed real etc etc,, there still has to be some "force" that governs or is in control of the natural laws of our universe.

The student went on to argue: For example, how can man explain a triangle?A triangle has intrinsic properties of logic tied into it! (those being in particular the pythagorean theorum) c squared = a squared + b squared... also other gemetric properties of the triangle have no explanation.. how does man explain that a right angle is 90 degrees and that no matter what every triangle will always be 180 degress etc etc...

Although this argument appears to be somewhat sound and rational, this argument is indeed flawed, irrational and fallible.

The religious argument/claim/assertion that the world contains natural order and this natural order has intrinsic mathematical/geometrical properties that must have been instilled in all of creation by a god or higher power at its inception is nothing but theological nonsense and a blatant attempt at intellectual dishonesty!

It must be stressed to the believer of a god (and those who subscribe to this assertion) that the natural laws that we have/perceive within our universe are laws of a fixed logic (by fixed logic, I mean that as humans our worldview is always going to be based upon us assigning values to things) that fixed logic being one that was "created" or "deduced from nature" by sentient beings.. those sentient beings of course being us.

Triangles and all of the principles of "triangular-ness" only exist because we are here to think them up and assign a value to them. (this goes for most of logic in addition). Our rules of logic (which of course is always tied into mathematics on a fundamental level) only exists because we exist.

Mathematics is a human construct, therefore, to use his example, a right angle is DEFINED by homo sapiens as "90 degrees". Mathematics is a language with which we can describe the Universe we live in. The triangle describes a set of similar objects, which we almost arbitrarily define to obey a certain set of rules. Thus, a right-angled triangle is defined to be an object which has three sides, obeys Pythagoras's Theorem and whose angles add up to 180 degrees. Thus, the argument fails.