God is smart; Religions are stupid

Thank you, Spock, for participating in this Debate. I will start by disagreeing that my initial argument contains a fatal flaw. It basically started with the claim, made by various Religions, that God is smart/knowledgeable. I will admit that I didn't do much to provide support for that claim; I simply accepted it. But then I went on to show how Religions describe stuff that only a not-so-smart-or-knowledgeable entity might do. Those descriptions are what prove Religions to be stupid, because those descriptions are not consistent with the primary claims about God. Now, perhaps the Title/Resolution of this Debate should have been "If God is as smart as Religions claim, then Religions are stupid". However, the Title/Resolution is actually "God is smart; Religions are stupid", so I shall stick with that. Nevertheless, I have not made the fatal flaw that Con claims I made; Con has merely misunderstood how my initial argument flowed toward at least the partial conclusion that Religions are stupidly inconsistent in their statements about God and God's actions. Obviously, what I most need to do in this Round is show that God is smart. Before I get to that, though, it must be pointed out that Con's primary argument appears to involve accepting as True various claims made by Religions about God's actions (such as the idea that humans are a result of Intelligent Design). Con actually helps my own earlier argument, because if Religions claim that God is the sort of Intelligent Designer Who made all the mistakes that Con pointed out, then how smart can Religions be, to have made such claims about God? Next, Con also ignored something I wrote in Round One: "Religions can be called 'quite smart' with respect to how their con-artist operation has been so successful for thousands of years. This Debate will not be about that variety of 'smarts'." Therefore voters are encouraged to completely ignore that part of Con's argument. Now, as for showing that God is indeed smart: Let me begin with the overall notion that God Created the Universe. In Round One I pointed out how God only needed to "set the Universe in motion" with the Big Bang, so to speak, and because God is supposed to be smart and knowledgeable, God would have known in advance about certain inevitable consequences, such as stars and planets and Life beginning to exist, without any extra effort required on God's part. Those consequences would have been inevitable simply because of certain "physical parameters" that are an intrinsic part of this Universe --and God specified those parameters as part of the "Let There Be Light!" Act (setting off the Big Bang, that is). For more information about those parameters, study something known as "the anthropic principle". htt.../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle In the purely secular view, it is possible that there have been many many Big Bangs scattered throughout Infinity and Eternity, each with randomly different key physical parameters, and our Universe just happens to possess a set of parameters that allowed humans to evolve. We can ignore that view in this Debate, since here we assume God exists and explicitly specified those parameters. The particular aspect of our Universe that I wish to describe, to show that God is smart, and which is different from what I described in Round One, involves certain discoveries made via Quantum Mechanics. htt.../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle htt.....ww.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html htt.../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments When Quantum Mechanics was first developed by human scientists, certain aspects of it assumed that total randomness was involved. Einstein didn't like that, and made a famous statement-of-belief to the effect that "God does not play dice with the Universe". However, the scientists also figured out ways to experimentally prove whether or not total randomness was actually there, at the foundations of Quantum Mechanics. All the experiments have refuted Einstein's belief. Now, why would that be? That is, why would God play dice with the Universe? My answer is, "Because God is smart!" In more detail, consider God before Creating the Universe. If it was a Planned and Deliberate Act, as is certainly implied by those critical physical parameters, then there must have existed some sort of Purpose, a rationale for doing it. I invite you to try to put yourself in God's shoes for just a moment. You know vast amounts of stuff, including: You are able to exist eternally. What are you going to do, to stave off Infinite Boredom? Now put yourself back into your own shoes, and recall the last time you watched logs burn in a fireplace or a camp-fire. To the best of my knowledge, everyone finds the flickering flames to be fascinating. I'm quite sure that if those flames were predictable in how they danced, the fascination would be short-lived. After all, how much time does anyone spend staring at the almost-unwavering gas flames of a stove burner? Now imagine yourself playing a computer game --almost any computer game. You do know, don't you, that almost every one of those games has, affecting things behind the scenes, a random-number generator? It is the randomness that is built into each game that helps it stay interesting. (It doesn't even matter that computerized random-number generators are imperfect; all that matters is that they are random enough, to keep you guessing.) Therefore it should now be obvious that God built total randomness into the Universe to make it unpredictable and non-boring. Sure, many things could be statistically probable and therefore strongly predictable, such as, for example, the evolution of humanity (and, just as likely, many other equivalent species throughout the Universe). But the exact details will be unpredictable. Therefore does humanity have the flaws that Con described, as a simple consequence of the randomness associated with evolution. Even so, our bodies are well-enough evolved for them to qualify as "suitable vehicles for souls". And souls have Free Will, which also is something associated with total randomness! So, with large numbers of souls added into the mix, this makes the "Universe Show" even more interesting/non-boring for God to watch. Very smart, God most certainly is! Meanwhile, Religions are still as stupid as I described in Round One, something that Con did not actually refute. "...this Debate will focus on various claims made by Religions about God, and how [Religions] are stupid because [the claims] are self-contradictory, factually flawed, and/or irrational." --Con wrote nothing to explode that part of my Round One post.