Thank you for joining me for Part 2 of the To Heck with Peter Heck series. While most of Peter Heck’s “Is God Even Real” series made their way onto my newsfeed at one point or another (I am really digging this Facebook “save” feature) I had to go and hunt this video down, and to be honest I can see why. I am pretty disappointed with this video, even strongly considered skipping it, his “Heckaverse” example is that painful to sit through, but I didn’t think that would be fair to you. (In hindsight I am glad that I didn’t, this video sparked some fun and interesting research, and hopefully an interesting blog post for you). Check out the video below and you can find part one here.
In this video, Peter Heck encourages his audience, after finding a “skeptic” worth engaging in, to provide those skeptics with the ample evidence for the existence of God that he claims “abounds” in the first installment of his video series.
Haha, just kidding. Actually Heck wants his audience to completely flip the script on this evidence-seeking-skeptic, and change the conversation from a scientific discussion to a philosophical discussion. Heck claims this is necessary because if an entity created all of our natural laws, such an entity would necessarily live beyond those laws, and therefore our scientific method and our natural laws could not possibly prove God. I agree with the first notion, if such an entity did exist that could create the natural laws we are familiar with, that entity would not be bound by those laws. I however disagree with the second notion. I am not a scientist, but in my opinion there is no reason to dismiss, out of hand, the ability of science to detect such an abnormality that existed beyond our known laws. Heck says no intellectual sophisticated atheist would ever make that kind of “ignorant argument” which I guess means Heck considers Stephen Hawking who has repeatedly come out to say that “there is no God,” “science doesn’t need God,” and “science disproves God” is either unsophisticated and/or unintellectual. I’m not saying that Steven Hawking isn’t/can’t be wrong, but I am saying that Hawking probably has a pretty good grasp on physics and what science can or cannot prove. Of course there are other scientists that hold the exact opposite view, that not only can science prove the existence of God, but that it does. What I want to stress here is that Peter Heck, a political science/government teacher from central Indiana, who is neither a philosopher nor a scientist believes that science is totally irrelevant to the question “is God even real” and that scientists who think that science either proves or disproves God are both wrong. Just tuck that away for now, and we will see if it comes in handy again later in the series.
Well, since (according to Heck) science can’t prove the existence of God, how can any of us be sure there even is a God? Well, Heck hypothesizes such a God, or cartoonist as the case may be, to make himself known, could create beings with supernatural powers. When describing what these supernatural powers might be Heck speaks exclusively in terms of his “Heckaverse” and leaves it to our imaginations how these miracles would take form in our three dimensional world. Since Heck doesn’t offer any suggestions, allow me to supply a few of my own. Such a being may exhibit such abilities as prophecy, healing the sick or the blind, or miraculously producing food and water all of which the prophet Muhammad is credited with doing. Muhammad also split the moon, so that’s cool. Perhaps you prefer Apollonius of Tyana who was a pagan contemporary of Jesus who did just about everything Jesus did, including appearing to his followers after his death. They are so similar in fact that accusation of plagiarism abound on both sides (to be fair the Gospels were written significantly before Apollonius life was written down, but the Gospels were written decades after Jesus, and certainly not by Mathew, Mark, Luke, or John). If you want to check out some really cool miracles Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) could be in two places at once, teleport, levitate, have part of his body engulfed in flame while another part spewed water, and radiate light out of his pores. Sign me up please. So such God could create beings capable of supernatural feats, the only problem is, it appears lots of Gods have had the same idea. The intersections of history, mythology, and sacred texts are replete with examples of beings capable of supernatural actions. The trick is whatever level of scrutiny we apply to one, we need to also apply to the others least we be fooled into worshiping Glycon . In light of this I remain skeptical this line of “evidence” will be convincing be we shall have to wait for future videos in the series to know for sure.
Heck also hypothesizes, carrying his analogy, such a cartoonist may leave his fingerprints all over the cartoon world. Fingerprints that when discovered and examined would inexplicably point back to the cartoonist. At this point Heck flashes an image of a DNA strand on the screen, inferring that science will inexplicably point the three dimensional world to God. Well snap, we didn’t even have to wait for the next video in the series before we need to pull out “Science can never prove God” out of our back pockets. Now proving God and pointing to God may not be in direct conflict with one another, but I am sensing some shadiness in play here.
Unfortunately we will have to wait for the next video installment to see exactly where Heck goes with these “Fingerprints.” But Heck promises “Amazingly simple answers” are ahead.
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