Norm Macdonald’s God Hypothesis – Discovery Institute

Photo: Norm Macdonald, by Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

The death of legendary Canadian comic Norm Macdonald last week caught North America by sad surprise. For years, the eccentricSNLstar had successfully hidden the leukemia diagnosis that took his life at 61. Its a young death for an entertainer who had an old soul. Many are mourning the loss of perhaps decades more laughs, while at the same time admiring the restraint it took to hide cancer for ten years.

Citing influences as varied as Bob Hope, Sam Kinison, and Leo Tolstoy, Macdonald had a style all his own that was nothing if not an acquired taste. He was best-known for his deliciously rambling shaggy dog bits, humor that didnt seem to have a point until it did (watchthe moth jokeif youre unfamiliarand wait for it). But in more recent years, some of his more memorable moments were completely serious, about serious topics such as, for instance, theGod hypothesis.

Norm jokingly dubbedhis 2012 interview with Guy MacPhersonthe least funny podcast with a comedian ever. But it may genuinely have been one of the most insightful. Norm was in a mood, and he had some venting to do, and being Norm he didnt care how big his targets were. (Listener discretion advised, Norms language is R-rated, as was his wont.)

In conversation with MacPherson, an atheist, Norm casually took on the entire scientific community for refusing to explore what he considered the fundamental question of Gods existence, a question of equally intense interest to religious people and atheists. Man, he drawls, they spend time trying to find new galaxies, as ifthatsimportant. Since Gods an unproven thing, just a hypothesis at this point, I think it would be good to study it. Even if they came back to announce theyd proven Godsnon-existence, Norm would accept that. At least it would besomething. I dont care what you prove. Like at least prove one of them. But try to work on the only important thing.

MacPherson pushes back that they cant, in the scientific process, because its not as if they found God floating around in space. What is there to test, or falsify? Scientifically, theyre bound to say its unknowable. But Norm is less than impressed with the word unknowable. I dont know when scientists started saying things were unknowable, but thats a new one on me, because thats not a scientific term as far as I know.

Good question. Whendidscientists start moonlighting as epistemologists? Where did Stephen Hawking get the idea that hes in any position to say God is a fairytale? Norm is just asking.

He further notes that the popular conception of the scientific method completely discounts the pivotal role of intuition. Einstein had an instinct and followed his nose. He wasnt following a rigid five-step program, any more thanKekuldreaming about the structure of benzene in front of his fire. Thats how important things are discovered, Norm says. And once we recognize the role of intuition, he proposes we cant deny the elephant in the room: Virtually every person that has ever lived intuits the God hypothesis, whether they admit it or not.

Norm defends his position by simply pointing out all the ways that atheists functionally construct their worldviews on suppositions that make no sense without God. For example, Norm finds it highly irrational to assert that man has purpose in life without God. Yet you wont find any popular atheists saying man has no purpose. Its not consistent, of course. If a dog or a bee cant make its own purpose, what gives us the idea were any different? Norm suggests it must be because at their core, atheists likewise dont really believe they have no more value than animals.

I personally think Norm may have been over-optimistic in this assessment. Perhaps if hed spent less time honing his comic genius and more time reading bioethics, he would have encountered more actually consistent atheists. But hes certainly right that this crazy idea persists subconsciously among those who havent succeeded in completely searing it over, this sense that man has some quality to him. You know, he opines, atheists have this idea that they cant quite resolve within themselves that man is divine, but they cant say divine, because that means God. But they believe it. No man, I dont care what they say, no man believes hes equal to an insect. No man. (This despite the fact that Norm himself thinks evolution certainly happened.)

I dont know if Norm had ever heard our favorite Richard Lewontin quote, about not allowing a divine foot in the door, but Im sure he would have said See? They cant say divine. Because that means God.

However, if Dawkins is going to insist, Norm wants to know what makes him so special. After all, if everything was created by accident, then everything includes Richard Dawkins. So why the f*** should I listen to him? Like why would an accident be able to convey to me how he became an accident through a series of accidents? That makes no sense to me.

Norm repeats several times that hes a fundamentally intuitive guy. Hes a comedian, not a philosopher. He wouldnt claim to have any evidence for his strong intuition that God exists. Hes just always had it, and hes going to stick with it, as he sticks with intuition in general, because the mind can play tricks on you. Its what guides science itself. Its what would make him immune to a rational case for murder.

Id say Norm sells himself short, because intuition is its own kind of evidence. Indeed, in the language of inference to the best explanation, its what we would expect if the God hypothesis was true. We would expect Norm to have a certain gut feeling, nudging him in a certain direction. We would expect him to look in Jerry Seinfelds eyes and see an eternal being, which made Seinfeld crack up in the moment.

Except this time, Norm wasnt joking.

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Norm Macdonald's God Hypothesis - Discovery Institute