True Idolatry Has Never Been Tried

Inspired by Zen’s wonderful fable of the Idols of Babylon

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Some atheists have argued that the apparent fine-tuning of our universe for life is explained by there being many, many universes, billions and billions, till one just happened to come along that had just the right variables.

In programming they have genetic algorithms–if you don’t know exactly how to achieve a result, try a bunch of variants, see which ones work, then try variants of the successful.

One approach to cracking a password is the brute force approach.  Just try a billion possibilities.

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Once there was a race of idol-worshippers.   A missionary-monk  came and mocked their idols.  Then he cast them down.  Nothing happened.  The people began to reflect how unresponsive the idols had been.  Yes, clearly the missionary was right.  These were false idols.

But how to find true idols?  No problem!

They set to work building every kind of idol they could.  Every shape, every substance.  They just had to try all the possibilities until they found one that worked.  It was a huge undertaking.  They had to mobilize their whole society.  But once they found that one true idol, it would be worth it.