wheresrhys

“You’re drinking Gaymers?”
“Yes. Do you – ahem – drink it?”
“Meet me in the gents”

I’ve written on my old blog about the Google adsense dilemma, but I think it doesn’t apply during the first days of putting Adsense on a site as you need to click an ad once or twice just to convince yourself it’s working properly (not that Google actually pay you any money (if you’re me) for something ridiculous like an ad being clicked on). My choice of ad I did find genuinely intriguing, one linking to the magnificent sounding Cosmic Fingerprints website, and claiming it could prove to me that God exists using :

Тhe Atheist’s Riddle: So simple, any child can understand; so complex, no atheist can solve it.

Which sounds like fighting talk to me. I don’t generally get involved in debates like these – I know where I stand and if people believe in God I don’t really think they really should be swayed by things such as reason and proof as that really misses the point of religion. But this site, published by a guy called Perry Marshall (who knows a thing or two about search engine optimisation) annoyed me as it gives contact details (a forum) and invites you to let him know if you think you can prove him wrong… but these contact details are no longer valid. So essentially he’s presenting something as an ongoing debate he is still winning, when it is anything but. I wouldn’t mind so much, but he’s actively advertising his site!

I must’ve been in a very militant mood at the time as I decided to subscribe to his 5 part emailed proof of God’s existence (Essentially running as follows: Only minds can create codes. DNA is a code. Therefore a mind cretaed DNA, and that mind is God’s) simply in order to get an email address to respond to, and then replied with my counter argument. Which he hasn’t replied to, so I will post it here:

1. A code can be produced by a human mind
2. The human mind exists in the universe, and is made of the same stuff as anything else in the universe (albeit arranged in a very complicated manner)
3. So there exist systems in the universe capable of creating a code
4. DNA is a code
5. So there could exist a system in the universe capable of making DNA
6. The existence of DNA does not prove God exists

So there!

Here are a few other counter arguments I like, particularly the first one:

• http://www.atheistpropaganda.com/2008/08/atheists-riddle-oh-no-im-so-scared.html
• http://escapingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/10/atheists-riddle.html
• http://www.asktheatheist.com/question/the_atheists_riddle

ps -  Week’s holiday in Riga, if you wondered why the extended silence.