Debater

We were equal. He had a devilish grin. 

"What's your view on religion." He smirked. 

Mister H looked up at us with a slight concerned look and spoke, "If you both wish to continue this, take it in the back." 

I glanced at him as we walked to the back he was trying to figure me out. He looked me up and down analyzing me. He watched how I walked how tense I was mentally and physically, then he smirked as we reached the back of the class. 

I spoke up and answered him, "Well I'm not very religious but if it's a debate you want, pro Judeo-Christian and Muslim vs Atheism I'll play devil's advocate and argue for Christianity. You understand the theory of intelligent design, yes?" 

"Of course, it's basically saying that the universe is too complex and defined to be random, it had to be created by an intelligent creator or creature. But the universe is random, I'll get to that later, continue." 

"Great, God or at the very least a creator similar to the god described is real. Here's why, the universe is extremely complex, when you look at the properties of our universe as recorded and documented by theistic and atheistic cosmologist they refer to a fine-tuning if the universe-" 

"Like in Stephen Hawking's a brief history of time." Woah, he caught that quick. He caught my obscure reference almost automatically as if on instinct. 

"Exactly, also in the book 'just six numbers' the author, Martin Rees, explains and extrapolates in much greater detail that six number describe the reality of our universe, had one of these massive numbers been different the human race wouldn't have ever been allowed life, as the universe couldn't facilitate it." He seemed to want to interject while also wanting to be respectful, so he didn't but I paused for him. 

He gave a half smile. "That's fine but what I assume your understanding to be and where you're bringing our argument is, that the universe needs to facilitate us. If we or life in general were the intended purpose, then why is there such a vast lifeless space in the universe. The majority of the universe is lifeless; we, the living creatures on earth, are insignificant. Sure, it's extremely complex but that's all random. Just because someone gets a royal flush, doesn't mean they cheated. Had one of the numbers changed and we never existed the universe would still be here." Though he seemed happy with my curtsies, the way I spoke, as well as how I presented both myself and argument, he still spoke as if we were enemies or at least as if he wasn't going to just take my argument lying down. 

"Would it? As I understand it and you may disagree but, without any sort of life human or otherwise, to perceive the known or unknown world, does it really exist. If a tree falls down and nothings there to hear does it make a sound?" 

"Yes." 

"Anything that's not supported with proof, can be dismissed with proof. You can't prove it does. Therefore, it does not make any noise. Like my mom used to say, if you ask a question and you don't hear an answer regardless of if anything was said, there was no answer. John Wheeler's hunch is that the universe is built like an enormous feedback loop, a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing creation of not just the present and the future but the past as well. Where the classic experiment demonstrates that physicists' observations determine the behavior of a photon in the present, Wheeler's version shows that our observations in the present can affect how a photon behaved in the past. 

To demonstrate, he sketches a diagram on a scrap of paper. Imagine, he says, a quasar — a very luminous and very remote young galaxy. Now imagine that there are two other large galaxies between Earth and the quasar. The gravity from massive objects like galaxies can bend light, just as conventional glass lenses do. In Wheeler's experiment the two huge galaxies substitute for the pair of slits; the quasar is the light source." 

"A large-scale classic two slit experiment, I understand what you're saying but your trailing, get back to the point." He was getting anxious. 

"The world exists because we perceive it. The universe in a sense was created for and because of us, there must be some creator that created such a world to support life in which could perceive it. And we are significant as humans we currently have the ability to endanger and eventually destroy our own planet, soon we'll be able to destroy entire solar systems and more. Some of us have abilities that can shape our world." He was fired up and so was I. 

"I do agree we are getting more dangerous with our weapons and the byproduct of our machines and technology. Just because we are a currently insignificant species on a speck floating out in the vast emptiness of space, doesn't mean that we won't one day, maybe have, if we don't destroy ourselves, the power to shape the universe. I understand that, but that doesn't mean we were the intended purpose of the universe." He was amazing. I had never known someone who could keep up with me in something like this. 

"But we already have that ability by not perceiving or interacting with something it no longer exists." I shot at him.

"Well then you're saying that as a whole we and every living thing are collectively god?" he shot back. 

"God is everyone and everything." I stated. 

"Then what about heaven." He questioned me, he brought up a point I had barely thought about ever. 

"Yeah of course, heaven has been mentioned in almost every religion that believes in a god." I had struggled to think of an argument and this was the best I could think of. 

"I'd chalk that up to the fear of the nothingness we'll all eventually face when we die. That is why certain religions differ." He started to speak in a slightly more condescending tone, he knew he cornered me. 

I need to stall him, so I can think of a good argument. "Well then what about the firsthand accounts of people who've died and come back?"  

"Trauma induced hallucinations and dreams." He shot back too fast, faster than I had anticipated.  

"But even science debates on the existence of a soul, and when something is broken it is just transferred and transformed but never destroyed, just as a soul leaves the body and goes to heaven." Again, I was reaching but this was the best I could do. 

"Yes, but I can't deny the existence of Smurfs or Santa, doesn't mean they exist. Also, even if souls exist it doesn't grantee a heaven or hell." He was messing with me now, Smurfs and Santa. 

I grinned but not like I was about to pull out some random fact, it was my surrender. He smirked, "Don't worry you definitely beat me on the point about there being a god but that heaven argument was decent at best. For now, it's a tie Mister Everight."