Saturday, August 15, 2009

Proof of the Existence of God

My son's crib is next to my bookshelves. For the last few weeks, when we go into his room in the morning, we find one of my books in the crib with him, so obviously he is able to reach over to the bookshelves from the crib. It wasn't a problem, since the books showed no sign of damage (at least no signs of new damage).

But a couple of days ago, we went in and found a book in his crib and a page ripped out and ripped into several pieces. I wasn't too upset, but it was exasperating. I looked at the ripped up pieces to find out what page it was, and turned to the appropriate place in the book from where it was ripped.

The page was still there.

I looked at the text on the ripped out page. It was identical to the text that was still in the book. This confused me. My son had ripped out a page and then somehow made an identical copy of the page and placed it seamlessly back into its place in the book.

When I flipped to the back of the book (it's Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion by Peter Anthony Bertocci), I saw what happened. My copy of this book had a rather large erratum: halfway through the last chapter, it repeats 30 pages from the middle of the book. After seeing this, it rang a bell; I'm pretty sure I noticed this after I bought it. And my son had ripped out the last page of the repeated material.

This is the only book of a few hundred on my shelves that could have a page ripped out with impunity. Admittedly, my son could only reach a handful of books from one shelf; but I organized my books in that configuration before he was born. I did not arrange it so that certain books would be within reach of some future child I had not yet sired.

Ergo, there must be a God. And he's a bibliophile.

2 comments:

Brennan said...

Heaven would be a great place if it had a big library. =)

Bjørn Are said...

Is is. And it has.

...and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it