Currently Questioning Religious Beliefs

[Joko2599]

Throughout my life, I have been a faithful and devout Catholic. However, for the past few months, I have been questioning my beliefs. I am more leaning towards Agnosticism now. By nature, I like the scientific process, and have found many theories that explain the universe in a way that does not require religion. I feel like I am losing my belief in a higher power. Not necessarily going against it, but rather remaining neutral on the existence of God(s).

At times, I feel like my religious beliefs may inhibit certain scientific theories and social progress (although this by no means affects my beliefs in general).

So why am I here? I’ve heard a lot of irreligious commentary on the subject. But before I make up my mind, I want some members of the Catholic community to offer me some insight. Are there any thoughts? Thank you.

 

[grasscutter]

Recently I enrolled in a Math course to upgrade my skills. It struck me after starting to realize the beauty and perfection of mathematics, that it’s unthinkable (to me) that any mathematician could be agnostic/atheist.

In any case, concerning social progress, when you consider it deeply there exists objective morality. How do we explain the existence of it without a loving and all-knowing God?

 

[adawgj]

Maybe Vatican astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno can help.

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=u8wLH4z7tn4#t=0

 

[Sochi]

Recently I enrolled in a Math course to upgrade my skills. It struck me after starting to realize the beauty and perfection of mathematics, that it’s unthinkable (to me) that any mathematician could be agnostic/atheist.

In any case, concerning social progress, when you consider it deeply there exists objective morality. How do we explain the existence of it without a loving and all-knowing God?

Despite beliefs, which are not knowledge, there are several alternatives to the christianist concepts of god of various degrees and kinds of feasibility. I submit that the ordinary emotional response emotionally accounted for as “religious” is the weakest possible and most intellectually abdicating reaction of the alternatives.

That is why it is by far the most common. So is atheism, but at least that has some hope, as it is less a belief than a good step forward to a practical “spirituality.” As we know, no one is born pre-programmed with any religious denomination. That is always and only learned, voluntarily, but far more commonly as inculcation tied to survival in a family and peer group.

The only explanation of the Human, as such, that has been consistent regardless of time, location, culture, status, or disposition–including religious, educational, or psychological, does not come up with a personal god. But it accounts for belief in one. But that conclusion, with us since time immemorial, is arrived at by a degree of “work” that transcends ordinary faith or belief and goes to the very nature of the one inquiring. It bypasses the serving suggestions of any religion, even if one belongs to a church.

Also, I most certainly agree, and strongly, about the beauty and and perfection maths point to and symbolize for us. It is rather astounding. Overwhelmingly so at times…

 

[Sochi]

Throughout my life, I have been a faithful and devout Catholic. However, for the past few months, I have been questioning my beliefs. I am more leaning towards Agnosticism now. By nature, I like the scientific process, and have found many theories that explain the universe in a way that does not require religion. I feel like I am losing my belief in a higher power. Not necessarily going against it, but rather remaining neutral on the existence of God(s).

At times, I feel like my religious beliefs may inhibit certain scientific theories and social progress (although this by no means affects my beliefs in general).

So why am I here? I’ve heard a lot of irreligious commentary on the subject. But before I make up my mind, I want some members of the Catholic community to offer me some insight. Are there any thoughts? Thank you.

I am Catholic in a more original sense of the word, so offer you the following synopsis of critical ideas congruent with a world view taken by those who live a more Universally oriented “spiritual” life. That term is in quotes, because despite a deep reverence for mystery, it and “God” have been used into a nearly useless state. Anyway, here are some points for consideration. (Perhaps you know the derivation of that word? )

Over the years I’ve learned dozens of little tricks and insights for making life more fulfilling. They’ve added up to a significant improvement in the ease and quality of my day-to-day life. But the major breakthroughs have come from a handful of insights that completely rocked my world and redefined reality forever.

The world now seems to be a completely different one than the one I lived in about ten years ago, when I started looking into the mechanics of quality of life. It wasn’t the world (and its people) that changed really, it was how I thought of it.

Maybe you’ve had some of the same insights. Or maybe you’re about to.

1. YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND.

The first time I heard somebody say that, I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. What else could I be? I had taken for granted that the mental chatter in my head was the central “me” that all the experiences in my life were happening to. I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. Thoughts are no more fundamental than smells, sights and sounds. Like any experience, they arise in my awareness, they have a certain texture, and then they give way to something else. If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? Don’t answer too quickly. This question, and its unspeakable answer, are at the center of all the great religions and spiritual traditions.

1. LIFE UNFOLDS ONLY IN MOMENTS.

Of course! I once called this the most important thing I ever learned. Nobody has ever experienced anything that wasn’t part of a single moment unfolding. That means life’s only challenge is dealing with the single moment you are having right now. Before I recognized this, I was constantly trying to solve my entire life — battling problems that weren’t actually happening. Anyone can summon the resolve to deal with a single, present moment, as long as they are truly aware that it’s their only point of contact with life, and therefore there is nothing else one can do that can possibly be useful. Nobody can deal with the past or future, because, both only exist as thoughts, in the present. But we can kill ourselves trying.

1. QUALITY OF LIFE IS DETERMINED BY HOW YOU DEAL WITH YOUR MOMENTS, NOT WHICH MOMENTS HAPPEN AND WHICH DON’T.

I now consider this truth to be Happiness 101, but it’s amazing how tempting it still is to grasp at control of every circumstance to try to make sure I get exactly what I want. To encounter an undesirable situation and work with it willingly is the mark of a wise and happy person. Imagine getting a flat tire, falling ill at a bad time, or knocking something over and breaking it — and suffering nothing from it. There is nothing to fear if you agree with yourself to deal willingly with adversity whenever it does show up. That is how to make life better. The typical, low-leverage method is to hope that you eventually accumulate power over your circumstances so that you can get what you want more often. There’s an excellent line in a Modest Mouse song, celebrating this side-effect of wisdom: As life gets longer, awful feels softer.

1. MOST OF LIFE IS IMAGINARY.

Human beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life is imaginary things. As Mark Twain said: “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” The best treatment I’ve found? Cultivating mindfulness.

(continued)

 

[Sochi]

(part 2)

1. HUMAN BEINGS HAVE EVOLVED TO SUFFER, AND WE ARE BETTER AT SUFFERING THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

Yikes. It doesn’t sound like a very liberating discovery. I used to believe that if I was suffering it meant that there was something wrong with me — that I was doing life “wrong.” Suffering is completely human and completely normal, and there is a very good reason for its existence. Life’s persistent background hum of “this isn’t quite okay, I need to improve this,” coupled with occasional intense flashes of horror and adrenaline are what kept human beings alive for millions of years. This urge to change or escape the present moment drives nearly all of our behavior. It’s a simple and ruthless survival mechanism which works exceedingly well for keeping us alive, but it has a horrific side effect: human beings suffer greatly by their very nature. This, for me, redefined every one of life’s problems as some tendril of the human condition. As grim as it sounds, this insight is liberating because it means: 1) that suffering does not necessarily mean my life is going wrong, 2) that the ball is always in my court, so the degree to which I suffer is ultimately up to me, and 3) that all problems have the same cause and the same solution.

1. EMOTIONS EXIST TO MAKE US BIASED.

This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. I used to think my emotions were reliable indicators of the state of my life — of whether I’m on the right track or not. Your passing emotional states can’t be trusted for measuring your self-worth or your position in life, but they are great at teaching you what it is you can’t let go of. The trouble is that emotions make us both more biased and more forceful at the same time. Another survival mechanism with nasty side-effects.

1. ALL PEOPLE OPERATE FROM THE SAME TWO MOTIVATIONS: TO FULFILL THEIR DESIRES AND TO ESCAPE THEIR SUFFERING.

Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behavior other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skillful and helpful to others, others are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.

1. BELIEFS ARE NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF.

Believing something is not an accomplishment. I grew up thinking that beliefs are something to be proud of, but they’re really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because “strength of belief” is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you’ve made it a part of your ego. Listen to any “die-hard” conservative or liberal talk about their deepest beliefs and you are listening to somebody who will never hear what you say on any matter that matters to them — unless you believe the same. It is gratifying to speak forcefully, it is gratifying to be agreed with, and this high is what the die-hards are chasing. Wherever there is a belief, there is a closed door. Take on the beliefs that stand up to your most honest, humble scrutiny, and never be afraid to lose them.

1. OBJECTIVITY IS SUBJECTIVE.

Life is a subjective experience and that cannot be escaped. Every experience I have comes through my own, personal, unsharable viewpoint. There can be no peer reviews of my direct experience, no real corroboration. This has some major implications for how I live my life. The most immediate one is that I realize I must trust my own personal experience, because nobody else has this angle, and I only have this angle. Another is that I feel more wonder for the world around me, knowing that any “objective” understanding I claim to have of the world is built entirely from scratch, by me. What I do build depends on the books I’ve read, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had. It means I will never see the world quite like anyone else, which means I will never live in quite the same world as anyone else — and therefore I mustn’t let outside observers be the authority on who I am or what life is really like for me. Subjectivity is primary experience — it is real life, and objectivity is something each of us builds on top of it in our minds, privately, in order to explain it all. This truth has world-shattering implications for the roles of religion and science in the lives of those who grasp it.

 

[grasscutter]

Sochi - (I didn’t want to take up too much space using the quote button)

I understand a lot of what you’re saying.

However, it has been adequately proven that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Although I have no direct knowledge of Him, based on established evidence, I do believe that He said and did the things He did. Therefore, (borrowing from C.S. Lewis) I would have to conclude that He is either a liar, a lunatic, or truly the Son of God who came down to inform us of some pertinent facts. I choose (with my God-given intellect ) to believe the last point.

 

[ClearWater]

Recently I enrolled in a Math course to upgrade my skills. It struck me after starting to realize the beauty and perfection of mathematics, that it’s unthinkable (to me) that any mathematician could be agnostic/atheist.

In any case, concerning social progress, when you consider it deeply there exists objective morality. How do we explain the existence of it without a loving and all-knowing God?

My high school biology teacher was an atheist, but he said the thing that came closest to convincing him of the existence of God was the human body.

I know that atheists and agnostics question the existence of God. However, if this were just all due to a bunch of random mutations and fortuitous accidents, I believe the universe would be chaotic, but it’s not. It’s the epitome of organization down to the microsecond.

Well, consider the trillions of reactions and variables needed just to put the universe together. Are we to believe this all came together by accident, serendipity? Realize that had only ONE factor not cooperated…temperature, pH, gravity, magnetism, electricity, chemistry, etc., there would have been no life.

Everything came together by magic, chance? I don’t think so. The probability of all those
coming together so that not only the human body but the ecosystems and all the rest act together as one single unit.

The Earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life, and despite rotating and revolving at an alarming rate, we are protected by an atmosphere which shields us from the harmful sun’s rays, keeps oxygen at exactly the right proportions, all at the right temperature. We are protected from the cold of deep space and its lack of oxygen, lack of gravity.

Despite all this, we don’t fly off into space. We are kept in place, have plants which produce oxygen for us. We produce carbon dioxide, just happens to be what the plants need. We get sunlight, which we both need, coinidentally.

What would you say were I to claim that my computer evolved all by itself without any outside intervention whatsoever, no creator, no nothing? It just simply came into existence. You can look at my computer and find that very improbable. The probability of all those systems coming into existence, by themselves, without any outside intervention, just so perfectly is so improbable, it’s basically impossible.

Well, you have countless variables. The odds are against it randomly coming into existence all by itself.

My computer was created. How would you prove, either way, that it was created or wasn’t? It would probably be difficult to prove. However, you can look at it and decide for yourselves that it is highly doubtful it just appeared.

In a similar way, look at the body and the universe, the absolute perfection of it, and you will see that it didn’t just…happen.

 

[ClearWater]

There is a documentary which uses the example of monkeys typing on typewriters. It’s been said that if monkeys type on typewriters long enough, they would be able to randomly reproduce all of William Shakepeare’s works.

However, what’s the probability of that actually happening by chance like that? Trillions or more to one? That would be like the probability of the universe coming into existence on its own, trillions and possibly trillions and trillions to one!

 

[Sochi]

Sochi - (I didn’t want to take up too much space using the quote button)

I understand a lot of what you’re saying.

However, it has been adequately proven that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Although I have no direct knowledge of Him, based on established evidence, I do believe that He said and did the things He did. Therefore, (borrowing from C.S. Lewis) I would have to conclude that He is either a liar, a lunatic, or truly the Son of God who came down to inform us of some pertinent facts. I choose (with my God-given intellect ) to believe the last point.

I like your signature, except I’d just say “They will know Love is present as we love.” I’ve seen Muslims, Jews, Taoists, etc, all demonstrate love. Look at some of the astounding things animals do and maybe it can be concluded that they love as well, though, very unfortunately, most christianist theologies don’t allow for a continuum that includes our animal friends as souled creatures.

It is great the you believe your last point. It will serve you very well until you overcome it and include it in a larger picture, if you get there. I’m not annihilating anything by what I say, though it’s tempting to think you mean that. Actually, if you go to the poll thread on that very statement about which He is, I’ve posted there as well. Again, that narrow view may not be the whole picture by any means, though it serves so many in the mean time. Ripeness is all. You will see differently or not. It just matters if you see that you are seeing, and question what it is that is doing that. If you want to. Maybe, just maybe, it really is more about Love as such than about the labeling of, or rooting for, a team that does it?

I admire your discretion with the quote feature. I really do wish many more would follow your example, or at least edit.

 

[Sochi]

…In a similar way, look at the body and the universe, the absolute perfection of it, and you will see that it didn’t just…happen.

Or it will be seen that it did. There are other alternatives, yes?

 

[Butaperson]

My high school biology teacher was an atheist, but he said the thing that came closest to convincing him of the existence of God was the human body.

I know that atheists and agnostics question the existence of God. However, if this were just all due to a bunch of random mutations and fortuitous accidents, I believe the universe would be chaotic, but it’s not. It’s the epitome of organization down to the microsecond.

Well, consider the trillions of reactions and variables needed just to put the universe together. Are we to believe this all came together by accident, serendipity? Realize that had only ONE factor not cooperated…temperature, pH, gravity, magnetism, electricity, chemistry, etc., there would have been no life.

Everything came together by magic, chance? I don’t think so. The probability of all those
coming together so that not only the human body but the ecosystems and all the rest act together as one single unit.

The Earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life, and despite rotating and revolving at an alarming rate, we are protected by an atmosphere which shields us from the harmful sun’s rays, keeps oxygen at exactly the right proportions, all at the right temperature. We are protected from the cold of deep space and its lack of oxygen, lack of gravity.

Despite all this, we don’t fly off into space. We are kept in place, have plants which produce oxygen for us. We produce carbon dioxide, just happens to be what the plants need. We get sunlight, which we both need, coinidentally.

What would you say were I to claim that my computer evolved all by itself without any outside intervention whatsoever, no creator, no nothing? It just simply came into existence. You can look at my computer and find that very improbable. The probability of all those systems coming into existence, by themselves, without any outside intervention, just so perfectly is so improbable, it’s basically impossible.

Well, you have countless variables. The odds are against it randomly coming into existence all by itself.

My computer was created. How would you prove, either way, that it was created or wasn’t? It would probably be difficult to prove. However, you can look at it and decide for yourselves that it is highly doubtful it just appeared.

In a similar way, look at the body and the universe, the absolute perfection of it, and you will see that it didn’t just…happen.

THIS^^^

I was an atheist for some time and a non-practicing Christian for even longer. I believed all the science about the Big Bang and how everything came to be.
I think it’s interesting to theorize how the universe could come into existence without God, but terribly unlikely. I think if people would really think things thoroughly, they would realize that the theory that everything kind of popped into existence is so much more laughable than the idea of intelligent design. The only reason these alternative creation theories came up is because intelligent design comes with rules, and people wanted to try and convince themselves that they didn’t need to follow those rules. The problem is that when they took away that responsibility, they took away the purpose of life (along with some logic) along with it.

Another thing that I like to think about is the spread of religion across the world. I can’t think of a single culture that does not have some religion attached to it. As far back as I can see, humans have always had ideas about God. In groups of people separated by oceans and mountains and deserts, ideas about God have always developed, completely independent of one another. From the Jews to the Navajos to the Japanese to the Australians…there has ALWAYS been God in SOME manifestation. I think that this is proof of a higher power, even if alone it won’t say anything more specific.

But now think about all these religions. All these varying systems of beliefs that people have put their faith in. And think about it…once Christianity was introduced to the world, it was the single religion that prevailed. Christianity is the most widely adhered to religion in the world, and undoubtedly the religion with the most wide spread. There are churches in every continent of the world including Antarctica. And the second largest religion in the world, the only one that could realistically come close to the achievements of Christianity, is Islam…another Abrahamic faith, the closest religion to Christianity (next to Judaism, which is a whole different story) you can get.

I guess when you think about the world and humanity in those two ways, I just don’t get how you could not be religious.

 

[Sochi]

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Søren Kierkegaard.

There is a third way: believe the misinterpretation of truth. In other words, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God” and have no clue other than what you were taught that means and think you know. Yes, it is a subset of the first way, but the subtlety needs to be stated as distinct from believing 2+2=4 or not, in a base 10 system. eg, in a base three system, 2+2=1. In a base 2 system 2+2=1, I think. But the pint is that in christianism it is assumed that the base system is clearly understood. I assure you it is not.

 

[Sochi]

…I guess when you think about the world and humanity in those two ways, I just don’t get how you could not be religious.

It is easy: There are other ways, with rules, to think of and perceive the world and not have a christianist/Abrahamic god as an answer or a source. In fact, as far as I can tell, religion works against clarity in this matter. So does atheism.

 

[ngill09]

Sochi - (I didn’t want to take up too much space using the quote button)

I understand a lot of what you’re saying.

However, it has been adequately proven that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Although I have no direct knowledge of Him, based on established evidence, I do believe that He said and did the things He did. Therefore, (borrowing from C.S. Lewis) I would have to conclude that He is either a liar, a lunatic, or truly the Son of God who came down to inform us of some pertinent facts. I choose (with my God-given intellect ) to believe the last point.

While there’s good evidence that Jesus existed, the evidence that he said what is claimed of him is a bit shoddy if not taken on faith.

My high school biology teacher was an atheist, but he said the thing that came closest to convincing him of the existence of God was the human body.

I know that atheists and agnostics question the existence of God. However, if this were just all due to a bunch of random mutations and fortuitous accidents, I believe the universe would be chaotic, but it’s not. It’s the epitome of organization down to the microsecond.

Well, consider the trillions of reactions and variables needed just to put the universe together. Are we to believe this all came together by accident, serendipity? Realize that had only ONE factor not cooperated…temperature, pH, gravity, magnetism, electricity, chemistry, etc., there would have been no life.

Everything came together by magic, chance? I don’t think so. The probability of all those
coming together so that not only the human body but the ecosystems and all the rest act together as one single unit.

The Earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life, and despite rotating and revolving at an alarming rate, we are protected by an atmosphere which shields us from the harmful sun’s rays, keeps oxygen at exactly the right proportions, all at the right temperature. We are protected from the cold of deep space and its lack of oxygen, lack of gravity.

Despite all this, we don’t fly off into space. We are kept in place, have plants which produce oxygen for us. We produce carbon dioxide, just happens to be what the plants need. We get sunlight, which we both need, coinidentally.

What would you say were I to claim that my computer evolved all by itself without any outside intervention whatsoever, no creator, no nothing? It just simply came into existence. You can look at my computer and find that very improbable. The probability of all those systems coming into existence, by themselves, without any outside intervention, just so perfectly is so improbable, it’s basically impossible.

Well, you have countless variables. The odds are against it randomly coming into existence all by itself.

My computer was created. How would you prove, either way, that it was created or wasn’t? It would probably be difficult to prove. However, you can look at it and decide for yourselves that it is highly doubtful it just appeared.

In a similar way, look at the body and the universe, the absolute perfection of it, and you will see that it didn’t just…happen.

That there is structure to the universe is not the question. The question is why that structure exists. The atheistic position concludes that the cause is most likely impersonal. The theistic position concludes that the cause is personal. That is the heart of the distinction between the two groups. To the atheist, it seems unlikely that the ultimate cause of reality is anything like a person. It seems too self-centered, contrived and intuitive, given that the more we learn about anything about the universe around us, the stranger the reasons behind them become. Saying that there’s no satisfying explanation for why the structure of the universe has the qualities it has is not a reason to suppose that a person with similarly unexplained qualities would have to make it.

And I have to take umbrage at the constant comparison of natural things to artificial things, an example of which I bolded in your post. You take something obviously artificial, but there are MUCH more complicated things around us that are obviously not artificial unless you presuppose everything to be hand-crafted by some being(s). A tree, an ecosystem, any number of complicated rock formations or crystals. Heck, look at weather. The number of variables and factors involved and the sensitivity it has to initial conditions are so intense that the mathematical field of chaos theory needs to be invoked to try to model it. And yet I never hear anyone say “look at the weather! It must be controlled by some dude!”

 

[Butaperson]

It is easy: There are other ways, with rules, to think of and perceive the world and not have a christianist/Abrahamic god as an answer or a source. In fact, as far as I can tell, religion works against clarity in this matter. So does atheism.

What other ways?

Like I said, I spent time being non-religious. From what I can tell the state of being non-religious is just constantly telling yourself there is “another way” that doesn’t involve God, no matter how hard you have to weave around things to try and find it.

I love to theorize things. I’m willing to consider any “alternative ways” you have, I love creative solutions like that. But ever since I began to really learn about the Church, I have heard very little that can truly stand up against having a religious perspective on life.

 

[marylauravicuna]

Throughout my life, I have been a faithful and devout Catholic. However, for the past few months, I have been questioning my beliefs. I am more leaning towards Agnosticism now. By nature, I like the scientific process, and have found many theories that explain the universe in a way that does not require religion. I feel like I am losing my belief in a higher power. Not necessarily going against it, but rather remaining neutral on the existence of God(s).

At times, I feel like my religious beliefs may inhibit certain scientific theories and social progress (although this by no means affects my beliefs in general).

So why am I here? I’ve heard a lot of irreligious commentary on the subject. But before I make up my mind, I want some members of the Catholic community to offer me some insight. Are there any thoughts? Thank you.

Have you read the “Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel (a former atheist turned pastor)?

 

[ngill09]

There is a documentary which uses the example of monkeys typing on typewriters. It’s been said that if monkeys type on typewriters long enough, they would be able to randomly reproduce all of William Shakepeare’s works.

However, what’s the probability of that actually happening by chance like that? Trillions or more to one? That would be like the probability of the universe coming into existence on its own, trillions and possibly trillions and trillions to one!

This is a butchery of statistics, which is my professional field.

The probability of the universe coming into existence on its own is indeterminate until you have data of universes coming into existence or at the very least a theoretical framework from which a probability distribution can be inferred. No one I’ve heard of has either of those things. You can’t just pull probabilities out of a hat.

 

[Butaperson]

While there’s good evidence that Jesus existed, the evidence that he said what is claimed of him is a bit shoddy if not taken on faith.

That there is structure to the universe is not the question. The question is why that structure exists. The atheistic position concludes that the cause is most likely impersonal. The theistic position concludes that the cause is personal. That is the heart of the distinction between the two groups. To the atheist, it seems unlikely that the ultimate cause of reality is anything like a person. It seems too self-centered, contrived and intuitive, given that the more we learn about anything about the universe around us, the stranger the reasons behind them become. Saying that there’s no satisfying explanation for why the structure of the universe has the qualities it has is not a reason to suppose that a person with similarly unexplained qualities would have to make it.

And I have to take umbrage at the constant comparison of natural things to artificial things, an example of which I bolded in your post. You take something obviously artificial, but there are MUCH more complicated things around us that are obviously not artificial unless you presuppose everything to be hand-crafted by some being(s). A tree, an ecosystem, any number of complicated rock formations or crystals. Heck, look at weather. The number of variables and factors involved and the sensitivity it has to initial conditions are so intense that the mathematical field of chaos theory needs to be invoked to try to model it. And yet I never hear anyone say “look at the weather! It must be controlled by some dude!”

You don’t understand. Christians don’t believe that God created the whole universe exactly as it is and then just walked away. We believe that God created the universe and then continued to guide it from there. We don’t necessarily know what the universe looked like when God first created it. It is perfectly reasonable to think that God created a world that looked considerably different, and then guided the shaping of it; not necessarily hand-crafting the crystals and trees, but rather deciding how He wanted them to be and setting events in place so that it may happen.

For instance, in Genesis, the world is described as being created in stages. God created the light, then the darkness, then the sky, the land, the water, ect. It happens step by step. So why can’t we assume that the formation of the world that we can obverse is just a continuation of those many steps? God created the world because He loved it, so isn’t it completely logical to assume that he still takes an active part in creating and shaping it today?

 

[ngill09]

Have you read the “Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel (a former atheist turned pastor)?

The main message of “The Case for Christ” is that the case for Christ cannot be made without ignoring anyone who isn’t selling Christianity. Worst apologetic book I’ve ever read. It was one of the books that took me from being a fencesitter to being fairly convinced that the entire project of Christian apologetics is inherently dishonest. If you want something that will actually make you think you should skip the salesmen and go straight to Aquinas, Augustine, and other theologians, or someone who can communicate their ideas effectively.