Rabbi Akiva’s Proof For the Existence of Hashem[G-d]

A heretic once came and asked Rabbi Akiva, This world....who created it? He answered, The Holy One Blessed be He. Said the heretic: Show me clear proof! Said Rabbi Akiva, come back tomorrow.

The next day the sage asked, what are you wearing? A garment was the answer. Who made it? asked Rabbi Akiva. The tailor, was the reply. I do not believe you; show me clear proof.

The man protested, But what shall I show you? Do you not know that the tailor made it? Answered the sage, And what of you? Do you not know that the Holy One Blessed be He created this world?

The heretic left without reply.

But what is the proof? asked his disciples. Said the rabbi...Just as a house indicates a builder, a garment a tailor, and a door a carpenter, so too does this world tell, the Holy One Blessed be He created it.

Dovid: With this in mind, imagine for a moment that you saw a 35mm. camera lying on this table. Then someone came over to you and made the claim that the camera came into being by chance collision of atoms over billions of years. Would you take the claim seriously?

Pavlov: Certainly not.

Dovid: Well what’s more complicated, the human eye or a 35mm. camera? Before you answer, let’s examine the facts.

Just as a camera has a strong, box-like frame protecting its delicate interior, so too does the eye. Namely, the tough outer layer, known more technically as the sclerotic coat.

The sclerotic coat is an opaque, curved sheet of connective tissue which maintains the rigidity of the eyeball and protects its inner structure. It is white in color, except in the front of the eye, where this sheet becomes the thinner, transparent cornea.

The cornea admits incoming light and is kept moist and dust-free by the secretion of the tear glands. The curved surface of the cornea, along with the refractive properties of the liquids within the eyeball, begin the process of bringing the light into focus.

The lens, however, is the main element of the eye responsible for focusing the incoming light rays. It is located just behind the iris and is held in place by suspensory ciliary ligaments. Tension on the ligaments flattens the lens, and focuses the eye for far vision, the condition of the eye at rest. However, contraction of muscles attached to the ciliary ligaments relaxes the tension of the ligaments and permits the lens to take the near spherical shape needed for viewing objects at a close distance. In summary, these changes in lens shape enable the eye to shift its focus (accommodate) from far objects to near objects and vice versa.

Once the focused light enters the eye, the process is far from finished. The light must reach the rear of the eye to the light-sensitive retina. The retina is made up of an abundance of receptor cells called, according to their shape, rods and cones. The last time I checked into the statistics I learned there were about 125,000,000 rods and 6,500.000 cones.

The ability to see an external faint light depends on the amount of what is called “visual purple” in the retinal rods. An eye continually exposed to darkness is compensated for its environment by additional production of visual purple, which enable the rods to react to faint light. Bright light greatly reduces the amount of visual purple, but simultaneously, it activates the retina’s color-sensitive cones. As a result the eye is for the most part able to cope with major changes of light intensity.

Another aid for adjusting to problems of light is the choroid coat. It is a sheet of cells filled with black pigment which absorbs extra light and prevents internally reflected light from blurring the image.

The pupil also protects the eye from excessive illumination. This opening in the eye’s center enlarges or decreases in size, depending on whether the incoming light is dim or bright. With the aid of the surrounding iris, the pupil is regulated automatically to the width suitable, for both intense and weak light.

To sum up my point Pavlov, if you believe the camera box, lens, shutter, black lining, film and focusing devices of a camera, were made by a designer, you should hold the same belief for the sclerotic coat, the lens, the lids, the choroid coat, the retina and the muscles and ligaments, which change lens shape.

If you accept that there was a designer for the camera, logic dictates that you accept that there was a designer for the human eye.”

Pavlov: Who says Hashem is the designer? Perhaps a god not interested in human affairs is the designer.

Dovid: If he wasn't interested in human affairs, why then bother to create us at all?

Pavlov: Perhaps our creation was only of interest to our Creator at the very beginning. Sort of like a roll of toilet paper.

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