God's Debris Essay

Submitted By TonyaBryant
Words: 4473
Pages: 18

Gods Debris by Scott Adams
Introduction
The author of this book is also the author of the comic strip Dilbert. He writes this book as a thought experiment; to evoke a different view of God. It is based on facts that modern scientists generally believe to be true--and some imagination to make it interesting. He wraps the two parts up into an amusing story that will keep you thinking.
I. Chapter One: The Package
This story begins with a Fed-Ex employee who tries to deliver a package to an address on University Avenue. He does not know where this particular address is located, which seems to be unusual for him, because he knows the whole city like the back of his hand. Eventually, he does find the address. The problem is that when he finds the address and knocks on the door, nobody answers. He is impatient—as it is raining, and he has other stops to make. But, he waits for a couple of minutes and still nobody comes to the door. Company rules state that Fed-Ex drivers are NEVER to try to open the door on their own. However, he does not want to have to come back—so, he tries the knob anyway.
II. Chapter Two: The Old Man
The door is unlocked. He opens the door, planning to leave the package inside and just sign the customer’s name. However, after opening the door, he realizes someone is home. It’s an old man, and he claims he has been expecting the driver. The driver is anxious to be on his way, but the old man begins asking him strange questions. The driver thinks the old man senile, and really just wants a signature so he can leave the box and go. He asks the old man his name, so that he can sign it, and the old man replies, “Avatar”. He is then stopped short when the old man tells the driver that doesn’t matter because the package is for him, and that the package delivered him. The driver argues that he did the delivering, but the old man points out that if both things are necessary for the arrival of the package, one part is no more important than another. It is almost lunch time, and the driver is intrigued by the old man’s clever reasoning— so he accepts the invitation from the old man to sit and talk awhile.
III. Chapter Three: Your Free Will
The old man asks the driver if he believes in God. After the driver admits that there has to be a God, the old man asks if he believes that God possesses the 3 Omni’s and that people have free will. The driver thinks about this and replies, “Yes”. The old man argues that this is not possible--that free will must be an illusion. The driver is not buying this—he doesn’t believe that God would mislead us into believing we have free will. The driver then applies attributes to God that are similar to those of humans. When the old man questions the soundness of this, the driver insists that something had to create this universe—for it’s too well designed. There is no other explanation. However, the old man begins to point out that there just might be.
IV. Chapter Four: Gods Free Will
If God is omnipotent, then HE is able to see his future—and his choices are predetermined. If he cannot see his future, then he is not omnipotent. The old man asks us to consider these two possible scenarios.
V. Chapter Five: Science
Now he asks the driver to consider magnets. They are attracted to each other, yet nothing material is connecting them, except a magnetic field. But, what is a magnetic field? The old man says, “You cannot get a handful of this thing, and you can’t block its power by inserting an object between the magnets. The case is the same with gravity.” The driver recalls that Einstein explained gravity by, “the warping of space-time by massive objects—meaning that space is bent. So when objects seem to be attracted to each other, it’s just that they’re traveling in the shortest direction through bent space.” The old man then argues that scientists sometimes just “invent” words such as dimension, field, and infinity as placeholders (or