Little Paolo and Miriam are neighbors. Today was a half day at school, so they've gone down to the river behind their houses to skip rocks and catch tadpoles. Both have confused ideas running through their heads from Mrs. Appleton's discussion of natural selection in their 6th grade class this week. You see, Mrs. Appleton doesn't really understand it completely herself, so her presentation of the material tends to be a bit off. No matter, it gets the kids thinking about things they would never learn at home - both are having a religious upbringing(although not in the same religion). When Miriam catches her first tadpole, she holds it in her hand with a perplexed look on her face - you can tell she is really thinking hard. She brings it over to Paolo.

Miriam: Paolo, do you think this tadpole came to be how it is because of natural selection over a long period of time?
Paolo: Well, Mrs. Appleton says that everything came to be that way. But, at Sunday school we learned that the tadpole was just designed the way it is and put here.
Miriam: We learned that too. Could Mrs. Appleton be wrong? She is the teacher. She knows everything. How could she be wrong? How do we tell which is correct?

Remembering his lessons at Sunday school, Paolo devises a plan to convince Miriam. He suggests she should put the tadpole back in the water so that it doesn't die and while she is doing that takes off his watch and places it in the rocks. As she comes back, he points,

Paolo: Look at that!
Miriam: What is it? Looks like a watch.
Paolo: Lets forget that it is a watch for a second and just imagine we found it here and picked it up just like the tadpole.
Miriam: Ok...
Paolo: Lets open it up. Look at all these gears and other gadgets in here. Isn't it complicated?
Miriam: I don't know how it works, whoever made it must have been smart.
Paolo: Why do you think someone made it? It came about by natural selection over a long period of time.
Miriam: What? No way. That is way to complicated to have come about like that. Someone definately made it.
Paolo: And the tadpole? What if we could look inside it? How does it get energy to swim around, what mechanisms drive it?
Miriam: I don't know. It seems less complicated that the watch, but still pretty complicated.
Paolo: Well then, how about your eyes. Do you know how those work?
Miriam: Yeah! We learned about that in class, there are some sort of cones or something. It was very complicated I remember.
Paolo: Right, do you think your eyes came about by natural selection?
Miriam: Oh I see. Just like the watch. No they didn't, they are way too complicated, so someone must have made them.
Paolo: Exactly, so I don't buy into this natural selection business.
Miriam: Me either, lets skip some rocks.

They skip rocks for awhile, Miriam is much better at it(its all in those supple wrists). She is thinking about the implications of their conversation and concludes that the God she learns about in Sunday school must be the one who made everything - just as she had been taught, Mrs. Appleton is wrong.

Miriam: Paolo, so God made everything then, right?
Paolo: Well, I'd say that something made everything. What is God? I know we go to different churches, so your God is different than mine.
Miriam: Mine is the real one.
Paolo: How do you know that?
Miriam: It must be, what Mrs. Appleton was saying in opposition to my beliefs was wrong. Therefore my beliefs were right.
Paolo: But I can use the same argument. What Mrs. Appleton was saying in opposition to my beliefs was wrong. Therefore my beliefs were right. So, both our beliefs are right?
Miriam: Oh, hmm... I guess that just because her's were wrong doesn't mean mine were right. Nevermind.
Paolo: Right. We have to give some sort of positive argument for why our beliefs are correct, not just knock down others beliefs.

Now Paolo is concocting another plan to convince Miriam. He will do it just as his father convinced him.

Paolo: Miriam, do you think a being can be outside of time?
Miriam: What do you mean?
Paolo: Like, can there be someone who is sitting over there on those rocks thinking, but time is not passing for him?
Miriam: How could he be thinking if time was not passing for him? The question doesn't make any sense.
Paolo: Exactly, so you'd agree then that you can't have a being outside of time?
Miriam: Sure, I would have never thought otherwise.
Paolo: Ok, so we agree that someone made everything in the world, right?
Miriam: Yes, it is too complicated to not have been made.
Paolo: Good. So as He was making the world, time was passing, right?
Miriam: Why is it a He?
Paolo: Well, we don't know it is or isn't. Might not have any sex at all. But we just need some way to refer to it, so is 'He' ok?
Miriam: Ok, yeah. And yeah, time was passing of course.

Paolo: Why do you think He made the world?
Miriam: Hmm... I guess it's like a dollhouse. For entertainment?
Paolo: That's the only thing I can come up with too. Except, I'm not entertained by a dollhouse. The dolls don't have a mind of their own.
Miriam: I'm kinda getting bored of my dollhouse. The dolls never surprise me, since I invent all their situations. It would be fun if they had a mind of their own.
Paolo: Do you think we have a mind of our own?
Miriam: Of course.
Paolo: Why of course? Could we not just be dolls and He is moving us around?
Miriam: I find that hard to believe. Anyway, as you were saying before, He would get bored pretty quick if we didn't have minds of our own.
Paolo: He sure would. So we must have minds of our own.
Miriam: Yeah, so what? I already thought that.
Paolo: I'm just trying to get us a common base of assumptions to work from. Do you think everything that happens in the world was determined when He made it?
Miriam: Of course, He is God, He knows everything.
Paolo: But wait, just a minute ago you told me that of course we have minds of our own. If everything is already determined, then how do we have minds of our own? If at the beginning, He already knew the choices we would make at any given time in the future, and he set it all up to happen that way, then how do we have minds of our own?
Miriam: Uh, well. Ok. Those both can't be true. I feel sure that I have a mind of my own, so things can't be pre-determined.
Paolo: And since He set up the world, the outcome of the original setup must have been uncertain. He couldn't have known exactly what would happen in the future. Also, as time gets further and further away from the beginning, He would be less and less able to predict what would happen.
Miriam: Ok, I can agree with all that.

Paolo: So, since time was passing when He made the world, uncertainty was creeping in while he was in the process of making it.
Miriam: Ok, so if he had made it really really slowly, then he would have a hard time setting it up like he wanted.
Paolo: Exactly, you are all over this. And just like the watchmaker, He would strive to make His creation as close to his vision of it as possible.
Miriam: So He had to make it fast. Really fast. As fast as possible.
Paolo: How could He do it fast? The world is big and He can only move so fast since He is not outside of time.
Miriam: He wouldn't need to move fast if He was everywhere at once.
Paolo: That's true, but He wouldn't be able to place His creations if He was taking up all the space.
Miriam: Well, He doesn't have to be a big blob taking up all the space, He could just have parts that stretched out to everywhere.
Paolo: Ok, like a bunch of arms or something?
Miriam: Yah. So we need Him to have tons of arms.
Paolo: How many arms?
Miriam: As many as possible?
Paolo: Is there a limit? What if they just kept getting thinner and thinner. Then He could have some thick arms and then arms that get thinner and thinner forever.
Miriam: Can they really get thinner and thinner forever? That seems like magic. Isn't there like a smallest distance?
Paolo: Well, if there wasn't a smallest distance then I could keep moving forward forever but never move an inch. That doesn't fit my intuition of the world at all. My dad told me that in mathematics they invent these things called the 'real numbers' as a useful abstraction to model the world. He says this whole no smallest distance idea comes from people taking this model as literal truth - they forget that it was a mere model.
Miriam: I agree, there must be a smallest distance.
Paolo: Right then, so there is a minimal thickness to His arms. If we wanted Him to have as many as possible, the we should have them all be this minimal thickness.
Miriam: So He has loads of thin arms. They would need to be long too, so that He could work on distant places in the world.
Paolo: How many arms does your God have?
Miriam: Well, Jesus is God. So two I guess. That can't be right. But Mrs. Appleton isn't right either...
Paolo: My God has tons of thin arms. Our church is right across the street from yours.
Miriam: Really? Why do people believe in my God?
Paolo: History I guess, people have been believing in your God for a very long time. It is entrenched.
Miriam: But, He only has two arms! It's obviously not correct. What is your God called?
Paolo: The Flying Spaghetti Monster.