In reference to the Babel fish which, when placed in one's ear, is able to release the right brainwaves for the right language pattern your brain has, and enables the listener to understand every language in the universe.
Adam's writes:
Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
What fascinates me more than the question is the solution to the problem. Douglas proposes a simple solution to an insoluble philosophical problem - that God requires faith, in other words that faith is contingent upon God's existence; however in order to have contingency, you have to believe that God exists, and yet, that belief is a necessary requirement of faith, and QED you have a beautiful circular argument.
Its even better.
Adams, in a beautiful mix of parody, enters into the world of evolutionary debate (whatever that is - Marxist Darwinism, Neo Darwinism, Gould-Darwinism, macro evolution, micro evolution the list goes on.). What would an evolutionist say to something so bizarre, unique and inexplicable, that he would be forced to conclude that it is impossible for it to exist without God's divine hand?
Would he put it down to faulty logic, a mistake in identity, or existentialist sophistry, or a bad hair day. Would he have to sit down with a cup of coffee and a decent sized piece of cake or would it be sufficient that he was given hundreds of thousands of dollars to research the darn thing and make sure it wasn't the US government's greatest mistake.
I think the parody speaks volumes. We don't think about it, and live our lives accordingly. When we decide, God exists and when we don't, he doesn't. This is not a reality worth living.
I think that is something to think about!
