Is God Necessary?

Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that God's existence is unnecessary. That is still not the same as saying that he does not exist. After all, why must the existence of anything be necessary? Why do we have five toes, nine planets, the vastness of space, more brain than man knows what to do with, why is life so fecundant in nature, etc.? I once drew up a story about a group of future scientists who tried reducing man to his bare essentials. These scientists lived, naturally, by eating their own vestigial organs, like their pinkies, the frenulum beneath their tongues, the nictating membranes in the corners of their eyes, their appendixes, the muscles behind their ears, and in fact, eventually ate half of their entire bodies (to have a body with matching halves was merely redundant). Thus, these scientists wound up looking like bowling pins with one arm and one leg hoping about the laboratory. Then they ate portions of each other's tongues so each member of their group could only produce a single letter of the alphabet. Then they hooked their half brains up together and spoke as one being, each member adding his particular sound to their group speech. Lastly, they found a way to live off no each singular atom remaining in their bodies, gathering the maximum energy from each atom, which would enable each of them to exist for approximately 50 quadrillion years. Well, as you can see (with both of your eyes) they reduced their lives to their necessary basis. Everything unnecessary was discarded. All I have to add is that if belief in God is unnecessary, would not most people still prefer living with it, and with the unnecessary vastness and mystery of life, than with bare bones rationality?

Natural Selection (if that was the only thing responsible for the process) has obviously provided man with a brain whose capacity for thought goes far beyond any such necessity to do so. Primitive men surviving in Australia have brains no less inferior than graduates at MIT, anatomically speaking. Why then does such unnecessary vastness, and/or an immense capacity to expand, exist both in space and time, and in our heads?

Also, what is the necessity of laughter and play? These things occur when nothing more needs to be done. They reflect life's over-abundant quality. And yet we somehow sense that their foolish energy is the magnet that draws us toward life, and not the bland, analytical need to survive that the Darwinists proclaim. For really, when you think about it, nothing needs to survive, extinction is the rule! But at least we get to strut our stuff on this planet for a while, and perhaps for fun and laughter and life, and not for survival. (Species replace each other in time and space comparatively quickly, and not unlike the guests on a variety program like Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.) Isn't that the real secret of life?

Perhaps that's why even Koko, a 14-year-old lowland gorilla (who has a vocabulary of over 500 hand-language signs) makes jokes:

THE FOLLOWING INCIDENTS ARE FROM "CONVERSATIONS WITH A GORILLA" BY FRANCINE PATTERSON, WHICH APPEARED IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, OCTOBER, 1978:

Cathy Ransom, one of my assistants, told me that Koko and her had been arguing... Koko was shown a poster of herself... Manipulating hands and fingers, Cathy asked Koko, 'What's this?' 'Gorilla,' signed Koko. 'Who gorilla?' asked Cathy. 'Bird,' responded a bratty Koko. 'You bird?' asked Cathy. 'You,' countered Koko. 'Not me, you are bird,' rejoined Cathy, mindful that 'bird' can be an insult in Koko's lexicon. 'Me gorilla,' asserted Koko. 'Who bird?' asked Cathy. 'You nut,' replied Koko, resorting to another of her insults. (For Koko, 'bird' and 'nut' switch from descriptive to pejorative by changing the position in which the sign is made.) 'Why me nut?' asked Cathy. 'Nut, nut,' signed Koko. 'You nut. not me,' Cathy replied. Finally, Koko gave up. Plaintively she signed, 'Damn, me good,' and walked away signing, 'Bad.'"

Want to skateboard?, Penny asked Koko with a sign representing two legs on a platform. Koko's tight-lipped grimace indicates slight annoyance after seeing Penny fall several times. Koko does not like to stand on the skateboard, but will scoot around on it.

"My associate, Barbara Hiller saw Koko signing, 'That red,' as she built a nest out of a white towel. Barbara said, 'You know better, Koko. What color is it?' Koko insisted that it was red--'red, Red, RED'--and finally held up a minute speck of red lint that had been clinging to the towel. Koko was grinning. Another time, after persistent efforts on Barbara's part to get Koko to sign, 'Drink,' Koko just leaned back on the counter and executed a perfect drink sign--in her ear. Again she was grinning."

"I asked Koko, 'Tell me something you think is funny.' She signed, 'Nose there,' pointing to a bird puppet's tongue. 'That red,' showing me a green plastic frog. When I put a stethoscope to my ears, Koko smirked and put fingers over her eyes."

"I asked Koko, 'Are you an animal or a person?' Koko's instant response, 'Fine animal gorilla.'"

Cro-Magnon man's self portraits show his sense of humor.

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