Reasons to Believe

Simpler Analogy on urgent matters.

I am sitting in a castle hall at an exquisitely laid long table with 12 place settings, 12 chairs, five on each side and 1 chair on each short side. I am invited as a guest and sit alone on one short side. No one else seems to be invited. The host will arrive later, at least that is what I think. I have arrived with butterflies in my stomach to what I assumed was a job interview with light meals. A very elegantly dressed and strict butler politely asks me to sit down and await further instructions. I am an observer. I am the observer in this story, that is what I think, or I am the observed, that is not yet clear. I observe detail by detail in the castle hall, how everything is placed with purpose and intention, everything from the precise table setting, the large rugs on the shiny walnut floor, the distance between the candelabras, the placement of the paintings in relation to the large glass window's light admission behind my back, the crystal chandeliers' visibly precise distance and height between each other, the arrangement of the bookshelves and the structured categorical subject order of the book titles, the precise overhang of the tablecloth around the table, the visually precise distance of the cutlery, plates and glasses from each other and between each place setting, the perfectly folded table napkin with the noble family's coat of arms printed on it. 

The head waiter takes his time. I think about this precise order and the almost narcissistic need for mathematical accuracy. I think I'll do a little experiment, no, I'll use the fork to measure some mutual measurements of the table setting, because surely someone has missed a measurement somewhere. There is no perfect world, no exact mathematical parameters already prepared somewhere - or? I choose 5 measurements. The centering of the tablecloth and any deviation from the length of the table on all sides of the table, the distance between the plates, the distance between the seltzer glass, wine glass and cutlery. I measure with my own fork and it takes 5 minutes before I sit down again and note that the distance relationships are exact, no item deviates from this. Fascinating accuracy. The head waiter comes in shortly afterwards and tells me that the host will have to come significantly later but that he hopes that the dinner procedure can proceed anyway because the chef has his time frames. I regret the delay but accept. The head waiter tells me about the entrees and the small appetizer that will be served, where the ingredients have been harvested, caught and hunted. He tells us about the ingredients of the sauce and its precise time frames for cooking to achieve the optimal taste experience. This procedure is repeated between each course and would be worthy of a separate chapter for all the historical stories and culinary technical tricks attached to all the ingredients, dishes and drinks.

Every dish, its individual ingredients, its arrangement on the plate was meticulously selected, prepared, and presented. Every vegetable, root vegetable, seafood, game, and sauce was cooked with just the right temperature, time, and seasoning to achieve flavor, texture, and chewiness. I found myself concluding that the chef was an artist.

3 hours later, what I can still define as the best meal of my life is over. I note that the master of it all, the chef himself, never showed up, he stood in his kitchen for far more than 3 hours to prepare this fantastic dishes, just for me, the observer. I never saw the one who created the dishes, I just assumed that there was a creator somewhere behind the high walls.

Then it hit me hard. The analogy here. That everything is just junk products of the universe's natural processes of creation and that nihilistic chance, the miraculous mutations and eons of time were responsible for the extremely precise cooking and the incalculable probabilities that something like that could happen once by chance, let alone be repeated. It struck me that the host and I had discussed this philosophical dilemma for a long time and that as an atheist I had refused to acknowledge the existence of information, design and intention outside of philosophical materialism. It struck me that the host's reasoning and perspective was based on the assumption that nature, the creation of the universe, was completely dependent on an infinite plethora of extreme fine tuning parameters in order to even start a universe with the content, the processes, the arrangements and physical, chemical processes that were necessary to maintain direction and progress, not disintegration, let alone accumulate complexity and life.

He had made his point right in my face.  

I could never claim that the chef created anything at all because I never saw him / her. I only experienced the consequences of a possible entity's creation. I note, however, that the result of all the dishes on the plate was not the result of blind chance without purpose or direction, on the contrary it was created from information, knowledge, purpose, direction and perhaps even with love.

-R-

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