St. Thomas Aquinas spent a lot of his time developing four proofs for the existence of God. Sure, people had little else to do but think deep thoughts in the 13th century. That, and build great Cathedrals. In our modern times, we have a lot of other things to think about like which television programs and singers we want to protect our children from.
Nonetheless, I have devoted at least a half an hour to developing my own proofs for the existence of God. Not that is really necessary, I just wanted to exercise my brain a bit. Normally I take it out and play racquetball with it, but it was starting to protest.
First of all, we must consider the planet we all, with the possible exception of the community of yogic flyers, live on. It exists despite the presence of the Coriolis force which causes moving objects to be deflected to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
Anybody that has a working flush toilet in the northern hemisphere witnesses the effects of the Coriolis force everytime they flush the toilet, which, in our case with three boys in the house, is several hundred times a day. If you bother to look, you will observe that the water drains out in a right hand circular motion. If you fly down to Australia like the Simpson’s did, you will observe the reverse circular motion.
Now, if you happen to be right on the equator, the water will flush straight down the drain. We must surmise that as one moves away from the equator, the Coriolis force begins to kick in slowly, gaining more strength the further one moves north or south, until, at the very poles of the planet, if a toilet were flushed, the circular force would have infinite strength creating a maelstrom of flushing water that would cause the Earth to collapse in on itself from the poles inward and “POP,” the Earth would blink out of existence, flushed down the cosmic drain. Surely the fact that nobody has erected toilets at the exact poles of the planet to test this theory proves that there is a Loving God.
Next, we must turn out attention to the respective enterprises of particle and astrophysicists. The particle physicists claim that everything is made up of infinitesimally small particles that they report in scales of 10-32 meters. They are so small; that the only evidence they can provide to us lay people is photographs that look like they were prepared by Jackson Pollock on one of his more subdued days. Yet they need gobs of federal grant money to build these giant particle accelerators under the ground in order to conduct their particle smashing experiments. So we have the particle people getting large sums of money to bury giant accelerators that nobody can see to create pictures of particles that nobody can see.
On the other hand, we have the astrophysicists claiming that the universe is made up of 99.9999% nothing and is infinite in size and still expanding. They report their findings on scales of 1032 meters. I think all that a particle person has to do to become a space person is change the sign of their exponent. Anyway, the astro folks also secure large wads of federal grant money to build enormous ‘humble’ telescopes that they fire into space so that they can spend their time looking at mostly nothing. So we have the astro people also getting large sums of money to send telescopes into space that we cannot see to create pictures of objects in space that nobody can see.
Yet, here we have our planet Earth hanging right between the infinitesimally small and the infinitesimally big, the scientists claiming that our planet exists in an infinitely large universe made up of infinitely small particles. This sounds like a paradox to me. We can only conclude that there is All Powerful God that manages to maintain our existence out of this conundrum.
Finally, we must look at the efforts of extraterrestrial crowd. These folks transformed a pristine valley in Arecibo, Puerto Rico into a giant 1,000-foot parabolic radio telescope to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. At least it’s something we can see. Unlike the space and particle people, however, they have nothing to show us for their efforts.
You would think that, before they wreck a picturesque valley, they would expend some effort searching for intelligence right here at home on planet Earth. In fact, they did. This was known as the SITI project, or the Search for Intraterrestrial Intelligence. Unfortunately, they picked up a debate emanating from the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. This is what they heard:
Opposition MP: Mister Speaker; I would like to assert that the honourable member of the governing party is a moron.
Governing MP [rising indignantly]: Am not! You are moroner than me!
Opposition MP [rising threateningly]: Are too! You’re the moronest of them all!!
Governing MP: Oh yeah? Well, you’re a moron times infinity!
Opposition MP: Yeah? Well, well, you’re a moron times infinity plus one!
Governing MP [taking his seat grumbling that he hadn’t thought of the “infinity plus one” argument first]: Mister Speaker, I concede the honorable member’s point.
Discouraged by their findings, the SITI people switched to SETI and are still looking for signs of intelligence out there. This proves that there is a God with a sense of Humor.
So there you have it, three indisputable proofs for the existence of God.
Now, if I can only prove the existence of soap to my children.
Nick Burn is a freelance writer, husband, father of three, engineer, teacher, and webmaster for the Canadian Catholic Information Network. In his spare time (hah!), he enjoys camping, skiing and reading.
