Friday, 10 May 2013

The Existence of God

(Dangerfield BSc, Registered Scientician, #5. 2008)


Has anyone ever tried to scientifically prove the existence of God? (Diane Thompson, St. Clair)

Well Diane, there have in fact been several attempts to do so. The first such attempt occurred in 1978, when a team of British scientists were inspired by a story they had heard about the image of Jesus appearing inside a nectarine. The team isolated hundreds of pieces of fruit in a contamination-free chamber and monitored them closely, hoping for any sign of produce-based manifestation. Disappointingly, after 40 days of observation there were no divine images to be seen – just the face of Richard Nixon on a guava. The study was abandoned and the fruit given to a flock of hungry gulls.

The next notable attempt did not concern divine manifestation but instead took a more direct approach. Michael Wilson, a New Zealand physicist, decided that to prove God’s existence he would speak to God one-to-one. On August 10th, 1992, he aimed a satellite dish heavenward and started scanning the radio band in hope of hearing some kind of divine voice. After hours of searching, he finally came across a voice that was so powerful and filled with self-importance that it could only be that of God Himself. Wilson proceeded to use his radio transmitter to ask this divine voice several questions, and was amazed to find that it had an apparent answer for everything: how to find peace in the Middle East, how to solve world hunger, how to govern the country effectively, and so on. It was only when Wilson was asked to clear the line for the next caller that he realised he had inadvertently tuned in to his local talkback radio show.

The latest attempt occurred in September 2003, when a team of American scientists went one step further and decided to actually capture God, thus proving His existence once and for all. Working with the few measurements they could find in holy texts, they estimated the size of God (roughly 64 million cubic metres) and found an aircraft hangar large enough to house Him. The hangar was fitted with reinforced-steel doors, programmed to close automatically if a theological disturbance was detected. Using a copy of the bible as bait, the team activated the divinity sensors and hid in the bushes opposite the hangar. After waiting for several hours, one of the junior members of the team pointed out that if God was truly omniscient, surely he would know their plan? The other scientists quickly dismissed this idea and told him to be quiet before God overheard. Needless to say, the test was a complete failure: God never showed up, and on the way back to the lab the team was attacked by a flock of hungry gulls.

To this day, no one has successfully proven the existence of God. However, it’s not all bad news: after years of extensive testing, a team of German scientists are finally on the brink of discovering the true meaning of Christmas. Stay tuned for more details.

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