Pathological skeptics often ridicule advocates of creationism and intelligent design[1] as science-illiterate uncritical thinkers. In fact though, we can show these “skeptics” have a lot in common with the subjects of their ridicule.

Note that at one time at least Charles Darwin seemed to have a leaning towards creationism and even design by intelligence:

I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.[2]

As did Albert Einstein:

I want to know how God created this world. I’m not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.[3]

Most gods, like the Christian god, are faith-based myths with no credible evidence or valid arguments to support their existence. Religious adherents though, generally understand their beliefs are purely faith-based. The pantheistic God of Einstein and Spinoza is a fact though. In pantheism (or its synonym panpsychism)[4] the sentient Universe is God. Pantheism is one of many holistic views which hold that the Universe has a mind. In another article (“The No God Delusion: Deconstructing The Atheist Myth”) I make the logical case for the existence of the pantheistic God. To summarize, the proof of pantheism is that you think and are conscious. Mental states can’t magically arise out of nowhere. So the building blocks of “matter” you are composed of must have some kind of primitive mental states too. We see on Earth that the more advanced the organism, the more intelligent it is. The Universe is the most advanced thing there is. That’s God. The sentient Universe.

This pantheistic God creates everything by rearranging forms like a baker creates a cake by transforming ingredients. We re-create ourselves by learning new things. Therefore pantheism is a form of creationism and intelligent design which is entirely compatible with the theory of evolution. In fact, evolution would be a fundamental property of God. We see it start after the Big Bang when hydrogen atoms were replicated in massive amounts from plasma. From there some of these atoms evolved into the other elements in stars and after the stars’ deaths.

So there we have it. There is in fact not only a sentient God but a God continually enacting a form of intelligent design and creationism that is not just plausible but a logically proven fact.

Notes

1. Here intelligent design is not referring to the form of creationism advanced by the Discovery Institute but simply the notion that the Universe was created by a sentient being. Admittedly by this definition creationism and intelligent design are synonyms.

2. “Darwin Correspondence Project” – Letter 2814 — Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa, 22 May (1860).

3. “Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology” (1999) by Max Jammer ISBN 069110297X p. 123

4. Despite any pedantic protestations to the contrary, there really is no discernible distinction between pantheism and panpsychism. Panpsychism is the idea that the Universe is sentient. Pantheism is the idea that the Universe is God. However, it is not possible for God to not be sentient. All concepts of god involve some kind of supreme being. All beings are sentient. Therefore pantheism is the idea of a sentient Universe.