Here is why a french fry proves God doesn’t exist:

French fries and determinism: Lots of questions are brought up by french fries. Does God want you to eat french fries? Does God want you to eat french fries, but only in moderation? Does God want you to eat French fries until you die from a heart attack and join him in [heaven]? Is there a set number of french fries you were destined to eat in life? Or do you have the willpower to choose how many french fries you eat?

The question ultimately brings up whether or not willpower exists. Do we make important moral choices, or are we wound up like clocks, a set number of french fries inevitably crossing our paths/mouths as the universe goes on as it was destined to?

Morality presumes that we are accountable for how many fries we decide to eat, but where does this motivation come from?

It depends where the thought, “I should eat french fries” comes from. As Nietzsche pointed out, “a thought comes when “it” wishes, not when “I” wish.” We like to think that there is a uniform “I” deciding what we order at McDonald’s, but the truth is we don’t know how our thoughts are made. They sort of just appear in our head, as if dumped into our consciousness off of some kind of conveyor belt. Everyone’s conveyor belt contains different machinery, depending on the balance of our hormones, the workings of our limbic system, the way that our brain learns to arrange words and ideas before they reach the surface. We’re all given our own equipment – we don’t get to choose what we’re choosing with. If we didn’t design our own brains, how can we be accountable for our own choices?

If we can’t be held accountable, we can’t be punished, making a “morally correct” amount of french fries impossible. God could still exist, but not necessarily the kind that is tallying up our right and wrong choices.

French fries and reality: Just what is a french fry? Is it an object apart from “you?” Is it part of your own reality?

Where does a french fry end and where do you begin? This involves a factor of change, at the most basic level. You are a complex organism made of cells, bacteria, oxygen, hair, eyeballs, whatever. A french fry is fried potato, with salt and maybe ketchup. As you eat the fry, it becomes a part of you, meaning it floats in your stomach with a bunch of other things, some of which will contribute to your biological functions and some of which you’ll get rid of in the potty. Over time, all of your cells will die and regenerate, and the fry could no longer be a part of you. But how much of the you that existed at the moment of fry eating remains? There is no concrete, biological “you” that remains static over time. If you think about it, even the line between where you begin and where external objects begin is fuzzy. You can split hairs to get to smaller and smaller particles until you and the french fry are both the same – protons and electrons.

Zooming out now. Are you and the french fry in the same reality? Quantum physics theorizes that physical systems are in a superpositions, meaning that the french fry and yourself also exist in infinite parallel universes wherein slightly different courses of action occur. In this one your fries are dipped in ranch. In another, in ketchup. In another, in both at once.

I could go on for awhile, but here are reasons these ideas should make you doubt the existence of God:

-If you can’t be held responsible for your choices – if “choice” is an illusion – how can God judge people? If there is no judgment, how can there be a heaven or hell? Is a killer driven by schizophrenia actually guilty? He certainly didn’t choose to have schizophrenia.

-The concept of “you” doesn’t hold up to close analysis. If there is no concrete “you,” how can you have a soul? If a soul is immaterial, what defines it? Your personality is a product of biological processes that you did not choose and that change over time. Is it totally removed from your personality? What is the point of believing in a soul that is totally detached from the traits marked by your biological self? How can that soul be judged? If it took on another form, how would it be connected to “you” if the concept of “you” can’t be defined?

-If we are a product of changing biological processes, and God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, why do we see parallels between God and destructible humans? If not a prototype of man, what is God then? What marks our definition other than being omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent?

-If multiple worlds exist, could we be dead in some? Where is an afterlife if we exist in multiple universes in multiple states of life and death?

Next week – why Victoria’s Secret proves God does not exist.

–Becky Lang

Photo by cafemama