SISTER EVA DEALS WITH THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN
by Hamlet



Mother Athena addressed the Court and spoke to the Defence Counsel.

'Right Sam Harris. I will allow you to counter Sister Eva's case by presenting
arguments for the defence. You will ensure your remarks are relevant and you
will not use this Catechision Court as a platform for your atheism or for
insults against Our Religion.'

Sam Harris stood up. He realised he has to be very careful in what he said and
he had to ensure that Mother Athena did not sentence him to the crime of
Defending a Criminal.,

'Well first of all err Mother Athena II would like to state that "atheism" is
a term that should not even exist and does not apply to me or my client
Richard Dawkins whom I am here to defend. No one ever needs to identify
himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for
people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the
galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than
the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious
beliefs."

'I am sorry Mr Harris bit you are advised not to make a mockery of Our Faith
which I find grossly offensive and if you continue like this I will find you
in contempt of court You may proceed but be very careful what you say. You are
in a Convent at a Catechision Court and you will speak with respect!!

'I'm sorry but I just want to say I would like to return to what my opponent
stated in Her cross examination.'

You will address the Prosecutor as the Honourable Sister Eva!

'Sorry I just wanted to reply to my Honourable Opponent's remarks about
morality "If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten
Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read
some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Janis:
Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a
single sentence: "Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment,
torture, or kill any creature or living being." Imagine how different our
world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept! Christians
have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed
people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically
defensible reading of the Bible.'

'I am sorry Mr Harris but I find these attacks on Our Faith as grossly
offensive. They are also irrelevant to the case presented by Sister Eva in Her
cross examination

'Sister Eva will you proceed with your cross examination.'

'Thank you very much Mother Athena I totally agree with you that my opponent's
speech was offensive to Our Faith and did not deal with the arguments I put
forward when I was dealing with the Cosmological Argument. I would like to
further develop the Cosmological Argument before moving on to the Argument
from Design. The further development is called the Kalam Cosmological argument
this is

Was developed by a Persian philosopher called Al-Ghazali.

He was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic of Persian
descent.

Al-Ghazali has sometimes been referred to by historians as the single most
influential Muslim after the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

He developed the Kalam Cosmological Argument that states

1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause

2. The universe began to exist

3. Therfore the universe has a cause and the cause must be an uncaused
timeless personal creator.

'Thank you Sister Eva the prisoner has already been cross examined about the
Cosmological Argument .Please could you move on to the Argument from Design.

'Thank you Mother Athena I would like to cross examine the prisoner on why I
the universe ordered perfectly for life would like to present the argument
that that this order cannot be due either to physical necessity or chance'

. Sister Eva walked over to Dawkins the prisoner who was now shivering with
cold and pain as Sister Marissa continued to hold him by the neck.

'Would you like to present your argument that natural selection occurs by
chance?

Dawkins stood up to address the Court.

'When cascades of small chance steps accumulate, you can reach prodigious
heights of adaptive complexity. That cumulative build-up is evolution.

'Natural selection is quintessentially non-random, yet it is lamentably often
miscalled random. This one mistake underlies much of the sceptical backlash
against evolution. Chance cannot explain life. Design is as bad an explanation
as chance because it raises bigger questions than it answers. Evolution by
natural selection is the only workable theory ever proposed that is capable of
explaining life, and it does so brilliantly.'

'I would like again to deal with your argument in the God Delusion You state
that one of the greatest challenges to the human intellect is to explain how
the complex improbable design of the universe arises'.

'So you agree that you put forward this argument/?'

Yes err Sister Eva I do accept that the universe appears to be designed but
this is only an appearance.'

'You also state that the natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of
design to actual design.'

'Yes I do accept that is contained in my argument Sister Eva.'

'You then go on to state that the designer hypothesis raises the problem of
who designed the designer?'

Yes I do Sister Eva the problem is that raising God leads to positing
something that is already complex. The best explanation we have is Darwinian
evolution by natural selection so God clearly does not exist.'

'The problem is that the conclusion that God almost certainly does not exist
does not follow from the premises of your argument. Your argument is clearly
invalid.'

'I don't see why er Sister Eva.'

'The most that would follow from your arguments is that we should not infer
that God exists on the basis of design in the universe. Yet it would still be
possible for God to exist-we could believe because of the Cosmological
argument or the Moral Argument or because of religious experience.

'Yet I would argue that your arguments do not undermine the Argument from
Design. For instance look at your step 3 you ask who designed the designer?
Yet this claim is flawed on at least three counts. First for there to be an
explanation there does not have to be an explanation of the explanation.'

'I don't understand er Sister Eva.'

'Supposing you were an archaeologist digging up the earth and you found bits
of pottery would you be justified in inferring these are not the result of
sedimentation for instance?'

'Well er yes Sister Eva'

'Would you not infer they were the products of an unknown group of people who
produced this pottery?

'Yes er Sister Eva.'

'Yet you would have no knowledge of who these people are or where they came
from'

'Yes Sister Eva.'

'So to recognise an explanation you do not need an explanation of the
explanation otherwise nothing would ever be explained!'

'Right Dawkins.' She said as She towered right over him almost shouting in his
face

'You also assume that a Divine Designer must be as complex as the universe He
creates. Yet this is to assume that the Creator of something must be as
complex as the thing it creates. As a pure Mind God is remarkably simple .he
is not a physical object composed of parts. In contrast to the universe a
Divine mind is very simple That does not mean it cannot have complex ideas You
are confusing a mind's ideas that mat be very complex with the mind itself .'

'Finally the designer of the universe cannot by definition be designed as that
designer would have to be greater than the designer which is it logically
impossible!'

Dawkins was left floundering not knowing how reply as Sister Marissa's nails
dug into his neck. He groaned in agony.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!