Does the Perot Museum of Nature & Science Argue Against the Existence of God?

Brad’s been at home sick the last couple days, which is why you’ve heard relatively little from him on FrontBurner. He did manage to crawl out of bed long enough yesterday to post about a fellow who’s been calling the Perot Museum’s exhibits “fairy tale propaganda.”

Brad sent this fellow, a “street preacher” named Jesse Morrell, several follow-up questions. Morrell has taken it upon himself to post his responses on his own website, so I’d like to address a couple of the highlights. He writes:

And for the Big Bang to be promoted as an argument against God, as the Perot Museum present it is itself a fallacious argument. Even if all of the universe existed in a single molecule that exploded, this does not necessarily exclude the existence of a Creator and Designer at all. They are trying to explain the “how” but the “how” does not necessarily exclude the “who” that was behind the “how.”

I don’t believe the museum is arguing against God’s existence by explaining the Big Bang theory, but other than that, I agree with this point. And I say that as someone who knows that evolution is as much a fact (not a theory) as anything in the realm of scientific knowledge is fact, and someone who doesn’t doubt that something along the lines of the Big Bang correctly explains the development of our universe.

But the “how” doesn’t necessarily exclude the “who.” I’d bet many of the people responsible for the creation of the Perot’s exhibits would agree with that sentiment as well.  If Morrell would only listen to his own point, he might not consider his religious faith so terribly under attack by the museum’s presentation of scientific knowledge and wouldn’t wrongly accuse them of pushing a purely atheistic agenda.

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