Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the ordered nature of the cosmos convinces him of the existence of God...
"For me, it's ultimately the order of the cosmos or what I describe as the creation.
"You can't simply have, in my own judgment, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time.
"If you were simply reducing that to mathematical probabilities I've got to say it probably wouldn't have happened.
"So I think there is an intelligent mind at work."
This of course does not explain why Rudd believes in his particular religion, since the existence of an intelligent supernatural creator would not in any way mean that, say, the Christian Bible is either partly or entirely true. Since Kevin does let his understanding of that document inform his worldview - and it's certain specifics from that part of Christianity that bother the rest of us, not whether there's a giant friend in the sky or not - I'd be interested to know how he explains reaching that conclusion. You could hardly say that the "mathematical probabilities" make the stories in that document likely.
As someone who has previously tried, hard, to convince himself that Christians are right and Jesus really did exist, precisely as described, and wants to have a magical internal relationship with us now, and that if we ask for forgiveness we won't in fact die but will live happily ever after - an attempt which ultimately failed on the grounds that I simply could not overcome the strong suspicion that I was just fooling myself - I am always genuinely interested in hearing how committed believers overcame that hurdle. Perhaps they will occasion an epiphany for me and save my soul (if it turns out they are in fact right)...
The committed believers who bother me most are the ones who've simply refused to face the issue at all, believing that Faith in what you're being told is in and of itself a virtue and skepticism a sin; that God gave us the ability to reason but in this one respect DOES NOT WANT US TO USE IT. That's a truly scary approach, because the only thing required to make you believe something is that particular organisation getting to you first, and not whether the contents of that belief are compassionate, humane, or true...
As to the "ordered universe" line of argument for some form of God; the problem with that is that there are perfectly good reasons why, intelligent creator or not, you'd expect the "natural environment" to be "ordered" so it could "properly coexist over time". For one thing, it's been there for a very long time and you could reasonably expect, almost by definition, that most bits that didn't "properly coexist" would have ceased existing by now. And for another, the Universe is changing - astronomers regularly view supernova, massive explosions, black holes gobbling up galaxies. The Earth is changing - not just on a geological scale (where the evidence is conclusive), but even in our lifetimes.
I guess what bothers me about the Prime Minister's statement is that, taken at face value, it sounds like he's made a major life decision based on fairly flimsy reasoning. I'm not sure that speaks well of his character and judgment.
Still, it's better than the current US President being convinced he hears the voice of God in his head telling him to go to war, I suppose.
