Question from Dylan:
As an Atheist, do you have that feeling/thought deep down that tells you there has to be a God? I was an Atheist for my whole life and fought with the idea of god, even though I felt it was right. I couldn’t bring myself to believe because I didn’t have cold hard evidence right in front of me and obviously didn’t want to waste my life on something that may be false. Long story short I found faith during some hard times, I accepted Jesus and have never felt the same.
I just wanted to say that if you do have that feeling deep down that God is real, give it a chance. From one human to another, faith has changed my life entirely and after stumbling upon your site I felt compelled to share this with you. Sorry if you’ve already completely made up your mind, I just thought I’d give it a shot. Just keep in mind that sometimes the heart knows best.
Enjoy your Sunday and take care mate.
Answer by SmartLX:
I didn’t have that feeling even when I was a Christian. I just accepted what I was told and assumed God was real right up until I realised that some people didn’t believe, and some of the theology (though I hadn’t learned the term) didn’t really make sense to me. This led to a minor crisis of faith at age 11 and I just stopped thinking about it all. A couple of times I reassured myself that certain coincidences were God at work, but they were just so trivial and the argument felt hollow, so I dropped it again. Finally I took stock as an adult and realised my belief had faded entirely, and the world made more sense without a god than with. My heart did not object, and I felt no disappointment. Rather, I felt freed.
Faith does change lives, I wouldn’t dispute that. It even changes some lives for the better overall, though of course it has its drawbacks from a secular perspective. But it’s not the only thing that can effect that sort of positive change, and the change does not depend on the god actually being real because it may simply be all you, with a new attitude. But it’s all good, do what you’re compelled to do.
16 thoughts on “More Than a Feeling? Not Even a Feeling”
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I have no feeling that there is a god. Where is the evidence. If there were a god the evidence would be overwhelming. As it is, all any religion seems to offer is false promises (lies) of a paradise and empty threats of a hell.
My feeling is that theists are either delusional fools, liars, or hypocrites, sometimes all three.
“My feeling is that theists are either delusional fools, liars, or hypocrites, sometimes all three.”
Do you base all you know or believe upon your feelings. Or is there room for some reason in there?
There are Christians who feel God or a god. But feelings are fickle. Ultimately you need to look at what is and decide if it is or isn’t. And there are a lot of Christians who know that God is. I can’t say the majority or not. Or that all of us do. I know that in my associations, there are individuals who know God is. We know this for one by the problems that the scientists have in explaining this universe, and life. And after all they have said and done, what they claimed is not can not be backed up or even looks like is easier to have faith in God then in what they say. We believe in God because of the things that they have been able to do with the work in DNA. All of what they have accomplished is due to their intelligence. They had to take a cell and add or remove information that has already been there, in order to get a desired result. So if it took intelligence to get the result that was being desired, then it took and intelligence to program the cell when it was first designed and created in the beginning.
Also, we know that God is due to how this world is not evolving. It is steadily getting worse. There’s a law that talks about this, which the evolutionists and the unbelieving and the not wanting to believe atheists, want to discard when it the law takes a bite out of what they believe, giving this reason or that, but once again they can not even demonstrate how or why their reason make any sense except for within the confines of their own not wanting to believe it minds. They deliberately ignore evidence brushing it off as not evidence, when it has to be evidence because it is and observable occurrence. Like their argument that irreducible complexity does not prove God. They give examples of how this or that can be explained but are not able to demonstrate that what they say is possible in any kind of experiments. They make claims as they always do, giving deductions about the quotient,that is already there as the end result, but their factors don’t add up to that quotient. Which is precisely what science is supposed to be about. It is supposed to take explanations and see if what those explanations actually can be used to explain the what is present. But it seems that when it comes to proving or disproving evolution, the rules are ignored all together, where it doesn’t seem how improbable their factors are, they are acceptable as being correct even though they have not yet been shown to actually equal the answer that is already present. So like in this article on “Irreducible complexity debunked and its later one, all of what is done is that they make claims that it “could have happened” this way or that “maybe this could have been” but they do not actually put any kind of working model showing what they are claiming is actually true. And this is what has happened down through time with the theory of evolution, and the theories that have to be made up to shore up the theory of evolution because of the wholes that are being discovered. And usually the building blocks used to shore up evolution are theories based upon unproven suppositions such as these in the articles “irreducible complexity debunked” There was no debunking. There were more, “we believe, that it could have happened this way, to get what looks like irreducible complexity”. And to date, that is all they offer, talk. Not even enough to be bunk, as the talk of the now sitting President. And what makes it even worse, this “less than bunk has been told over and over again for the last 200 years, and we still have yet to see what the claim to be, proven that it actually was what the claimed.
They, who claim to be scientist, even after all their attempts to prove or uncover their evidence to support what they have “faith” in, reject the one explanation that makes the most sense. That explains the end results without any kind or reservations. They will go so far as to say that maybe, life came from a different planet, (still leaving them to have to explain how life arrived at the planet before it came to this one), yea I know, they walked right into that one. Or they will entertain the idea that maybe this planet was seeded by a super intelligence that was not God. (yea, yea, I know, that is something I haven’t figured out yet either.) But it seems that to have one all powerful, supreme being looking down and watching over us is just too much for them to accept.
They will, because their backs against the wall, concede that maybe the universe is eternal, but it is impossible for a God to be eternal, even though they think it possible to one day increase the lifespan of man through science, through their intellect. But this universe has to be eternal to them so that their backwards theorizing can have some air under its wings. But inorder for them to have the eternal universe, or the “eternal what ever” that made the eternal universe, they have to once again ignore another law, long held acceptable by their own peers, and that is that matter can neither be created or destroyed. It appears that they think that it can be manipulated, but that it is manipulating itself. (go figure). Just like life manipulated itself, unintelligently, into becoming life. Just like the first organism manipulated itself, unintelligently into making its own DNA, and unintelligently manipulated itself to providing its own programming. And unintelligently manipulated itself into being able to survive millions and millions of years, little by little becoming this organism, and then a part of that previous organism leaves what it or they, (surely by now it had to have become they inorder to be able to split off, finding that they could become better) they inintelligently become the next organism and then the next and then the next until we have what we see today, where each and every organism present, came from only one unintelligently,very luck, “first life”, that came from nothing, (oh, I’m sorry) because now they are trying to get away from another fanciful but disproven theory, (spontaneous generation), but now it is the chemicals that have become unintelligently engineered to become life. Those chemicals that were not supposed to be, because there was nothing before, but the chemicals are not here, unintelligently, of course, and those chemicals were some how unintelligently able to form unintelligently, RNA, (which were only formed in a lab, after years of experimenting by, by what you ask? Ok, by an intelligence, now since man is able to take the credit, now the atheist is able to accept that an almost supreme intelligence made something. It is ok now to point out that this man made RNA looks designed, well of course, it was intelligently designed. But now they aren’t going to argue that it could have happened on its own. Maybe they never once thought about just dumping all the ingredients into a bucket and see if it turned into primal ooze, and gave it time to produce a frog or bacteria or something. I don’t know, but it does seem highly strange for them not to put together the fact that if it took one intelligence to make an almost RNA, that it took an intelligence to produce life on the scale we see now. No, the evolutionist, the atheist in them, won’t submit to even accept the possibility that God is. It’s as if God is a three letter curse word that should never be uttered.
But they have had other scientists, scientists who were stars in the camps of the atheists, who suddenly, started saying Intelligently Designer, and all of a sudden, these scientists are pronounced as not knowing what they are talking about. They are ostracized and excommunicated from the church of all hallowed halls of evolution. That is why the evolutionists fight so hard to keep Intelligently design from being taught in schools. They know that it makes as much sense as a square circle. That is what some of the science’s own are saying about evolution. They are saying that life looks to be designed. This is what scares them so much so that they are even calling scientists who are creationists, crack pots, that they aren’t real scientists, even though many of them have studied in the same schools, under the tutelage of the same professors, and received the same diplomas and letters behind their names. But they are crack pots. (what does that say about themselves and their professors?) Why even Hawkins and other athiests were caught off guard when the very person who “created” the RNA, said that their holy tree of life was not real, and that it had been discredited.
Watch it in this video, http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-great-debate-what-is-life/what-is-life-panel
And pay particular attention to what Chris McKay and J. Craig Venter say which causes the other atheists to squirm in their seats. Some even look like they want to push past the statements that have just punctured their balloon of faith. Why Christ Mckay even says that all organisms appear to have been placed upon this earth in its end evolutionary state. As if they had always been as they were. And there have been evolutionists in the past who made the same statement. One even went as far that looking at the fossil record, that life appears all at once with out time to evolve, making it seem as if the Bible’s narration of life is correct. (my words) will try to find quote.
https://evolutionnews.org/2015/01/problem_5_abrup/#backfn70
“by Kyle Butt, M.Div.
The concept of creation by a supernatural Creator has been a powerful and persuasive aspect of truth since the beginning of time. The idea that there is no supernatural Creator, and that everything we see in the Universe—from hummingbirds to humans—has evolved through mindless, chance processes has been advanced in an attempt to dispel the truth of creation. One reason that naturalistic evolution has not made more head-way against creation than it has is because, intuitively, humans can see the obvious fact that the world exhibits every indication of intelligent design. Even the most outspoken atheistic evolutionists tacitly admit this to be the case.
For instance, Richard Dawkins stated: “Living things are not designed, but Darwinian natural selection licenses a version of the design stance for them. We get a short cut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is designed to pump blood” (2006, p. 182, emp. added). Did you catch that? He said that things weren’t designed by any intelligence, but we can understand them more readily if we assume they were.
University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne, in his book Why Evolution is True, wrote: “If anything is true about nature, it is that plants and animals seem intricately and almost perfectly designed for living their lives” (2009, p. 1, emp. added). He further stated, “Nature resembles a well-oiled machine, with every species an intricate cog or gear” (p. 1). On page three of the same book, he wrote: “The more one learns about plants and animals, the more one marvels at how well their designs fit their ways of life.” Atheist Michael Shermer, in his book Why Darwin Matters, stated: “The design inference comes naturally. The reason people think that a Designer created the world is because it looks designed” (2006, p. 65, ital. in orig.).
Consider another example. Kenneth Miller is an evolutionary biologist at Brown University and co-author of a biology textbook published by Prentice Hall that is used widely in high school classes across the country. In his book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, he admits that structural and molecular biologists, as they study the natural order, routinely mention the presence of design in their explorations. He, himself, admits that the human body shows evidence of design, pointing out examples like the design of the ball and socket joints of the human hips and shoulders, as well as the “S” curve of the human spine that allows us to walk upright (2008). So powerful is the design inference, Dawkins was forced to grudgingly admit: “So compelling is that illusion [of design—KB] that it has fooled our greatest minds for centuries, until Charles Darwin burst onto the scene” (2009, p. 416).
The irony of the situation is that each of these writers contends that such design is a product of naturalistic, mindless factors. But their telling statements underscore the obvious conclusion. If an Intelligent Designer really did create the world, what would it look like? Answer: Exactly like the one we have!
REFERENCES
Brown University (2008), “There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues,” ScienceDaily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217143838.htm.
Coyne, Jerry (2009), Why Evolution Is True (New York: Viking).
Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin).
Dawkins, Richard (2009), The Greatest Show on Earth (New York: Free Press).
Shermer, Michael (2006), Why Darwin Matters (New York: Henry Holt and Company).
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And yet despite of all of this, despite the fact that some of their own peers have now accepted intelligent design and what must have happened, these evolutionists refuse to at least admit that they could be wrong. Their theories, put down due to their own scientific method, they still claim that there is no way that God is.
“If an Intelligent Designer really did create the world, what would it look like? Answer: Exactly like the one we have!” So if a GOD had designed a world, we would expect to see a world where organisms have to kill each other to persist when that’s not necessary and any designer could design it otherwise? One where organisms suffer because of built in mechanisms in the way DNA behaves, causing abnormalities and cancer and other illnesses? One where organisms are designed with one tube for both breathing and eating, so that they are in constant risk of choking to death? One where people have to give birth to too large offspring through a too narrow birth canal? One where sensitive sexual organs that have to be kept very clean are build next to and even into the organs that get rid of waste products. One where there are no round numbers in anything in nature? Where we have to change our calendar and our watch all the time, because the designer couldn’t make it an even 24 hours or an even 365 days? One where 99% of every organism that has ever existed is now extinct?
You can proclaim that there’s indication of intelligent design all you want. That’s not what I am going to argue today. I’m going to leave it at this to start with: Even if an intelligence is indicated; there’s nothing that indicates a god. Nothing. Remember, that gods are infinitely more powerful and knowledgeable than anything that would otherwise count as an intelligent designer, and yet what we observe is that the world is FULL of things that are really really stupid “designs”. The list above is just what I can think of off the top of my head in 3 minutes or so. They are in no possible way anything that anyone would expect if a god (omnipotent and omniscient) had made it.
You were the one who asked what the world would look like. What we would expect to see. Nothing we see is what we would expect from a god. And what we see is what we would expect if there were no gods. You are pointing to imperfect “design”, and you’re trying to argue that it’s what we would expect from a perfect (omnipotent omniscient godly) designer. That doesn’t fly. It just doesn’t. At best, you can believe something close to deism or shall we call it semideism. Where an incompetent half-god tried to design a world and he did the best he could, but because he was incompetent and stupid, he didn’t know how to do in any better than this. You can maybe believe that. But do you? You call yourself a Christian, do you not? So you subscribe to the bible that states that this is the perfect being that is both omniscient and omnipotent? That’s what you do, right? Well, I’m sorry to inform, but nothing that we observe what so ever is what we would expect from that. You have to make mental gymnastics and construct vague categories to smuggle in gods when all that you have any ground for at the most is some intelligent being. It would be like saying that it takes people to build buildings, then make your definition for “people” and “building” vague, in order to make the ridiculous conclusion that two kindergarten kids built the empire state building. If you were honest enough to be specific with your words, and say as it is that you are not arguing for just any old intelligent being, but actually an omnipotent omniscient god, then you would have to be honest enough to say it as it is: Nothing we observe supports that even remotely!
YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME NOW BY BELIEVING A LIE
Are you that sure. Explain how what I just laid out, has not validity. Take my points and disprove what I have said. Statements like yours are all that have been provided about what I have said. But no one shows how they don’t hold water. You run away, shooting back as you scurry for cover. Come on. I gave you why what you have said is not so. If it is not true, then surely you must be able to give “evidence” that will make me eat my words and blow the theory of intelligent design out of the minds of everyone forever more. I mean after 200 years of you should be able to bring more to the table then just “it ain’t so” or “we have the evidence and evolution is true, believe it because we are scientists”. I’m waiting for your rebuttal. Not your excuses.
Man you are really reaching without thinking. This statement, “One where organisms are designed with one tube for both breathing and eating,”. Let me see. How many organisms meet the criteria you just made? Times how many of those that are of the same species. And then tell me how many end up choking to death. “320.9 million (2015) of the USA.https://www.google.com/search?q=Population+of+USA+in+2015&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS747US747&oq=Population+of+USA+in+2015&aqs=chrome..69i57.22020j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8″
More than 5,000 People Died from Choking in 2015.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS747US747&q=choking+deaths+in+usa&oq=choki&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.35i39k1j0i67k1j0i20i263i264k1j0l7.7002.7936.0.10025.5.5.0.0.0.0.158.754.0j5.5.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..0.5.750…0i131k1j0i131i67k1j0i20i264k1.0.MOg8wLDrRWg
Now you seem to think that accidental occurrences, or trial and error would have done a better job in designing and manufacturing. Tell me how would this be possible without an intelligence to do it. You are not taking into account the fact, FACT, that according to the atheists, there was no intelligence involved in any part of the making of the universe, or life. And the only thing that you can give for contesting the apparent design of everything is that it looks designed by accident and it only seems designed. But for all of the accidental occurrences that you are collecting, you are fast running out of percentages to prove that what you are claiming is possible.
Let’s see, the universe, by accident. Nothing to life, by accident. Life to organism by accident. organism to other organism by accident. Now with all these accidents, just why would every organism that is coming by accident, come out with no problems. Each new organism, is able to survive without problems. But it stands to reason that since it all is happening without the benefit of an intelligence to guide it, there is no way that every organism could come out without some of those organisms dying on the table. Why look at the number of times that Dr. Frankenstein, attempted and failed to build Frankenstein. We should be seeing many failures littering the fossil landscapes. But you don’t see any failed attempts. You don’t see any rejected models. They all come out hitting the ground running. Plus, remember you are still talking about no Designer, right? Well tell me, how is it that every different species that is produced, are produced looking alike. There was no Designer, so there was no pattern. And yet the DNA, has been so programmed that each species has its own DNA pattern. And not one cell is made without having the complete programming so as to be able to be used to make other parts of the organism other than what that cell was told to become. You are heckling, and trying to make it seem as though we are not intelligently designed, yet you fail to explain how that we are made as ingenuously, as we are. You make fun of one tubing for both sustenance and respiration, but you fail to recognize that the system to perform these processes, are so finely made that for us to do it, it would not work a tenth of what our systems are able to do. But we are not intelligently designed. I’m afraid you are thinking illogically. All these flawed systems, “One where organisms are designed with one tube for both breathing and eating, so that they are in constant risk of choking to death? One where people have to give birth to too large offspring through a too narrow birth canal? One where sensitive sexual organs that have to be kept very clean are build next to and even into the organs that get rid of waste products.” But systems that 99.9% of the time they work flawlessly. You are making much ado over nothing. No, really you are complaining about nothing. Everything in our systems work so well and compact it all in a pretty, fine container. When you are able to design something better, then come back and nit pick. Until then, you don’t know what you are talking about. Everything, everything around us is beautiful and miraculous. And man tops the list of it all.. And my last question, is if God didn’t do all of this, then you must have an idea of what it all would look like if there was a God? Let me know how you would design. Right down to the Lymphatic, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, sensory,(wait a minute, this is easier).
“Cardiovascular system / Circulatory system:
Circulates blood around the body via the heart, arteries and veins, delivering oxygen and nutrients to organs and cells and carrying their waste products away.
Digestive system / Excretory system:
Mechanical and chemical processes that provide nutrients via the mouth, esophagus, stomach and intestines.
Eliminates waste from the body.
Endocrine system:
Provides chemical communications within the body using hormones.
Integumentary system/ Exocrine system:
Skin, hair, nails, sweat and other exocrine glands.
Lymphatic system / Immune system:
The system comprising a network of lymphatic vessels that carry a clear fluid called lymph.
Defends the body against pathogenic viruses that may endanger the body .
Muscular system
Enables the body to move using muscles.
Nervous system:
Collects and processes information from the senses via nerves and the brain and tells the muscles to contract to cause physical actions.
Renal system / Urinary system:
The system where the kidneys filter blood.
Reproductive system:
The sex organs required for the production of offspring.
Respiratory system
The lungs and the trachea that bring air into the body.
Skeletal system
Bones supporting the body and its organs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systems_of_the_human_body
Now thinking up the systems, one by one, then you need to get them working in tandem. All maintained and functioning through chemicals that are produced and absorbed, all of it being analyzed constantly to make sure it all runs smoothly.
You know the one that says that we are not fearfully and wonderfully made, are just simply not willing to admit the truth. Why just regurgitating what I know about these systems, brings back the wonder and beauty of it all. You need to accept Christ and allow God to reveal to you what you and all the other atheists are missing out on.
No, Dylan … I do not have such a feeling (that there has to be a god).
I like a number of ideas in a number of religious works – especially some philosophical viewpoints that they sometimes talk about. And sometimes I do feel what I call a “nostalgia” for my born into faith – mainly for its underlying philosophy mind you – little else.
But generally, overall, I just feel the opposite of what you ask.
Deep down, in my bones, I know and feel there obviously can’t be any god – which for some atheists means I am an unreasonable / militant atheist … since most atheists will talk about the probability of there being god to be minuscule and close to zero (which is the right and rational way to go about this I guess) … while I feel it is exactly zero, though to appear rational I will talk about probabilities and their minuscularity 🙂 .
Its just like / probably as strong as your feeling that there has to be a god.
Just like it probably amazes you why I do not see/feel that there has to be a god (or that a person can be this way), it amazes me why you (or others who have faith) can’t see/ feel that there obviously isn’t any god and the whole concept is a bit weird if one steps back a bit and thinks about it.
Not having faith can sometimes lead to crises of meaning (especially in difficult times) – which might explain why some atheists become theists.
Its worked the opposite way for me – not having faith has led to a lot of thought about meaning and a glimpse of an understanding of it … which I continue to try and deepen.
And at-least in my case, the method of thinking usually used by science has helped me glimpse that multi-hued/ multi-faceted meaning (though science itself is usually always after explanations and not meanings).
Faith is full of prescriptions for the meaning of one’s life & questions of similar variety – but those never appealed to me.
As strong as you feel that there is no God, it would be backward of you to deny that all things point to the fact that there is God.
But let me ask you, what reasons do you have giving you the comfort that you won’t be kicking yourself in the end? Where is your evidence that makes you do adamant. There could not be a God. What are you accepting as proof to support evolution and that no intellect made this universe?
Hi Gerald. I have been reading your answers on this site … some interesting view points … and obviously your zeal for your religion is evident. Its good to have zeal I guess.
Some of your answers are very long – no doubt its you trying to convince us heathens that the underlying beauty of life is all god’s work. Convincing anyone takes a lot of effort and thus our explanations tend to be long when we try to do that. I understand that.
I myself have been guilty of writing very long answers on this site (check out my comment history 🙂 ) but have been trying to keep the answers short of late … since I personally often do not read long answers (I guess its the internet and myriad modern day distractions making our attention spans and patience smaller). Its been a mixed endeavor.
This particular reply of mine is a bit of a failure in keeping things short.
To get to the point, any evidence I give for my absolute certainty for there not being a god will appear feeble to you or anyone who is convinced of god. And obviously its always possible to point to chinks here and there in most evidence. Except for Physics and Mathematics, most sciences are not really “exact”. And Mathematics is more a language in science, not really a science itself (a lot of mathematicians might want to kill me for saying that).
In most non-physics sciences that I am familiar with, there are no formal proofs, no exact QED moments. There are observations of nature, and there are theories, mathematical models & hypotheses (which stand open at all times to be rejected) to explain those observations. And these are usually supported by a massive preponderance of evidence.
Obviously, anyone can argue for or against the evidence (the anti-vaccination brigade for e.g.) on which these theories and models are based – especially on whether the evidence is strong or weak and even if there is a preponderance or actually a scarcity of evidence. There tend to be no standard guidelines for what accounts as strong or weak evidence (sure there is statistical hypothesis testing – but one can’t always use statistical methods in all fields of science and natural investigation). Science accepts or rejects theories often (not always) by looking at their applicability/ how well they work in explaining/ accounting for reality.
I was reading a book where the author said (his personal opinion, I guess) that Einstein came up with relativity based on very flimsy/ indirect/ vague evidence … but relativity turned out to be/ is accepted as true as it explains a lot of cosmological observations with great precision. That generally is how science tends to work – inspired conjecture followed by support & applications in RWOT (Real World Out There).
I look at the explanations that science gives for natural processes, human behavior, etc and I find the explanations to be consistent and complete to my satisfaction. They explain what I see around me and give me a very strong mental model of how the world works. And on multiple occasions this “personal model” has helped me understand situations/ work my way out of situations. No god (constant or variable) enters these explanations – they are all “naturalistic”.
You may look at the same explanations and find them to be vague and incomplete without invoking a god. I doubt I can convince you or you me. To borrow from high school physics – you throw a ball down from the mast of a moving ship and it falls directly below … I say that this shows that the ball moves horizontally with the ship – no force required to keep the ball in horizontal motion. You say that this is false … all this shows is that the earth doesn’t really rotate since a force is always required to keep things in motion. Evidence can be read both ways (many ways, in-fact) … what matters is whether the model we create out of the evidence helps us deal with reality better.
I used to have a “personal model” where god was involved at some point of time (college years) but that model often landed me in situations instead of helping me think and work my way out of them (!).
I often see people (very understanding, intelligent and well meaning – most of them) around me often make bad decisions based on personal models that have some amount of god belief. And this observation coincides with my experiences with the god based personal model (college days, as I mentioned).
This, combined with the natural explanations of all I see around me, complements the feeling I have (deep down to my bones) that there is no god.
All proofs and explanations offered by those who believe that there is a god seem untenable.
Sorry … in the Physics example it should have been stationary ship (not moving ship) and the falling ball moves with the ship (which moves with the rotating earth).
Also, might I suggest reading Sean Carrol’s “the big picture” … a physicist’s take on explaining the world without god or a transcendent meaning. It makes for interesting reading and I think it explains the naturalistic perspective well (has a lot in common with my perspective at-least, as I discovered after reading the preview on google books).
Dylan,
I have just the opposite feeling actually. I look around and think about how things are and I feel like there is no way that there can be a god creature. It makes absolutely no sense that such a being could create such a mess.
Not only my heart knows best, but my brain completely agrees – there are no creator beings out there.
Dylan you say, ” I look around and think about how things are” What things? How are they? Would mind explaining these for me and actually give me an idea of what is going on in your mind and how you can come to the conclusion there is no “god creator”
Gerald, your reading comprehension is really bad sometimes…
I won’t deny this. So without having to tell me why or diagnose my really bad sometimes, humor me and explain to me why and what things you wonder about how things are? Are you talking about the suffering and misery, especially for the poor? Are you talking about the disasters that have occurred. Or are you talking about the disparity between the poor and the rich. The millions of individuals who have to go without medical care, decent living conditions, poor wages. Well you are not the only person who wonders about these. But I wonder why you don’t place the blame on evolution and not believe in it, (since there is no God), why support evolution if it is actually the way that all the conditions are so bad. Because I don’t understand how evolution could have brought to life as marvelous as it is, and not be able to fix the part in the organisms that have caused the problems in the first place. The scientists who support evolution have attributed awareness and analytical and intelligence abilities to a “non material” happenstance, that seems to have hit the luck of the draw, in every hand, and not made any wrong moves. It is lucky that it came from out of nowhere. It is lucky that it was able to survive millions of years. It was lucky that it was able to morph. It was lucky that is was able to morph into the first living organism. It was lucky that it could have some kind of awareness and that it could determine how best to meet environmental changes that threatened its survival. It was lucky that what ever it morphed into next, that it was correct an it survived. And so on and so forth for each and every organism, that it was lucky to become on its walk down the macro evolution trail. And of course all of these suppositionary events that has happened, have been purely speculation by the scientists of evolution because they have been able to offer no proof that what they assumed happened, actually happened. But still things are bad, and you want to say that if there really was God, why would He allow such injustice.
As I said you are not the only person who entertained this thought in their minds. And even though there are plenty around who share your feelings, in fact I wonder about it at times, long ago there was a person in the Bible that had your very sentiments and wrote it down in the Bible. Please read Psalm 73. And get back with me. If indeed I hit upon the reason why you have reservations about God.
Gerald writes: [I won’t deny this. So without having to tell me why or diagnose my really bad sometimes, humor me and explain to me why and what things you wonder about how things are?]
First off, to explain the comprehension thing, you asked Dylan why he doesn’t believe in a god creature, when he clearly explains in his original question that he now DOES believe in a deity.
As for your question, the things I wonder about are varied. Lately I’ve spent a good deal of time listening to and engaging in discussions about the post-modernist movement (especially on American college campuses) and how it threatens freedom of speech and other First Amendment rights. I’ve also been thinking about free will, and if it actually exists or not (I visit that topic every once in a while, and haven’t been able to decide where I fall on it).
[Are you talking about the suffering and misery, especially for the poor?]
In a way, with the post-modernist stuff, because there is a lot of economic concerns that go along with that discussion. Thinks like universal basic income come up as an offshoot of those debates.
[Are you talking about the disasters that have occurred.]
No. They’ve always occurred, and they always will occur. It comes with living on a meteorologically and geologically active planet.
[Or are you talking about the disparity between the poor and the rich.]
No. I talk about equal opportunity for everyone, but not equal results. I think it is foolish to think that there will never be poor people. We will always have income disparity because we will always have effort disparity, and intelligence disparity. That’s reality. There’s nothing wrong with working to help those in need or those that are less fortunate, but it’s a fool that thinks those things can be eliminated.
You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing is guaranteed about the achievement of happiness…
[But I wonder why you don’t place the blame on evolution and not believe in it, (since there is no God), why support evolution if it is actually the way that all the conditions are so bad.]
How exactly do you blame a random, unguided process for ANYTHING? Evolution isn’t a sentient, intelligent thing. It’s simply chemistry and physics responding to pressures and situations. Do you blame the sun for heating the Gulf of Mexico, which can feed hurricanes and make them grow until they slam into Houston? Evolution is a fact Gerald, it really exists. It does not, however, have any ability to make conditions “bad”. The reason there is inequality in the world is because reality is harsh and unforgiving, and the universe doesn’t care. It has nothing to do with evolution.
[Because I don’t understand how evolution could have brought to life as marvelous as it is, and not be able to fix the part in the organisms that have caused the problems in the first place.]
Evolution didn’t bring anything to life, Gerald. Evolution is the process of change IN living things over time. Why must you continually make the same inane statement over and over?
Evolution HAS done its job. There are people in our society that work harder, have more intelligence, and are more able to survive and thrive. Those are the people whose genes should be passed on to the next generation. Problem is, humans are no longer under most types of “survival of the fittest” anymore. We have become sentient enough to control our environments to some degree, and alter our bodies to correct defects through medical procedures and pharmaceuticals. Evolution doesn’t have much of a chance to fully function with the human population.
Don’t get me wrong, there are known evolutionary traits for things like racism, and why we are more apt to risk danger to save a relative as opposed to a stranger. But economics is extremely complicated and nuanced, and blaming evolution for things like the rich and the poor is complaining about one piece of straw in a hay bale…
[Please read Psalm 73. And get back with me. If indeed I hit upon the reason why you have reservations about God.]
I read it as you asked. I got nothing out of it I’m sorry to say.
I don’t have reservations about gods (please notice I am talking about all of them, not just your favorite flavor). I simply don’t believe they exist. The reason I don’t believe they exist is because there is no evidence for them. Period. It’s very simple and I’ve explained it many times now. There’s no secret reason I’m not talking about, no life altering moment I haven’t mentioned. There’s no proof for them, so I don’t pretend they exist.
As it relates to your particular flavor of god (the Abrahamic god), there are far too many logical contradictions about it’s characteristics that make it impossible to be true. I’ve covered them before, but suffice it to say that your god can’t possibly exist.
“Evolution didn’t bring anything to life, Gerald.” Hi again Tim. You know, for the life of me, I can’t see where I ever wrote that Evolution brought something to life. I could be wrong, but if you don’t mind, that is not what I said. I believe I said that the Evolutionists claim that all organism came from some sort, (and I’ll try to clarify), some sort of pre life of unknown origin. And although you and a few other evolutionists claim that the theory of evolution was not devised to answer the question, (on how life) first awakened, they do not mind making the implication that, a god was not necessary to be around to make life in the beginning, and as we know it today. And because of this statement, you are implying that all life some how appeared under it’s own volition. But, this proved a problem for the evolutionists, because if they allow the theory to just hang out there that life somehow appeared under its own volition, then the risk someone asking the question, “then why couldn’t God have come under His own volition?’
So this is a question they would rather not have to put out there, they are suggesting that some kind of accident caused the first life to appear. Now of course they have also realized that science before, had already dismissed the theory of “spontaneous generation”. Through the use of the scientific method, they figured out that spontaneous generation was an improbability. It was proven that what they suspected to be “life spontaneously erupting” was nothing more than life that was already present but in a form, too small to see with the unaided optical, sensors provided to them by the Creator. So when the proper conditions that caused the life supposedly spontaneously combustion, were nullified, so to were the “new life”. So to this foreseeable problem they devised another hypothetical assumption. That life became possible due to the mixing of the chemicals that they think were around that could make life start, and then evolve. Now all of what I have just added to clarify, is pure speculation. There has never been show to be any facts to support any of these mini theories that were invented to support the principle theory of evolution. And although I and everyone else have asked to see the duplicated experiments that demonstrate how any of the suppositions that have been offered, were actually shown to repeat the events that they claim were effected not by an Intelligent Designer but all through the accidental, and lucky circumstances that made all as it is.
Now Tim you added this. “How exactly do you blame a random, unguided process for ANYTHING?” Well I would like you to ask yourself the same thing about your idea that a random unguided process being able to construct an entire universe, and then, also by accident, able to construct the most amazing, and unique mechanisms, that were used to construct the most amazing and unique organisms, simple to complex, that this world has ever seen, and that the most amazing organism, man, can barely dream of inventing. And yet, and yet, you would ignorantly believe that it all happened by accident. That through some accidental, random, process, life became, then randomly made all life.
Did I comment that you believe the process that performed what you say it did, all happened by a chain of random events. But you now ignore, the definition of randomness, as you all ignore the scientific method, because they reveal the plain absurdness, of the theory of evolution.
But just to remind you about what randomness is, when it comes to building something from scratch, unless you have already done it before, over and over again, then randomness says that you’ll have to take time to get it right. But that is not what we see, when we look at life. It looks as if life didn’t have any accidents. That it was not a random chance of everything coming together all at once, all at just the right time and amounts. There are no discarded husks that you would expect to see, when an invention, has been thought of and that the inventor is attempting to get to a working model. Life appears not to be random. But designed. Answer me this question, if life happened randomly, why does it all look like it came from some blueprint, and off of some assembly line. Why aren’t we seeing a randomness in the construction of life. Why is it all uniquely made. And among every unique organism, why don’t we see a randomness in their formation. Random means that what we consider normal now, we wouldn’t be seeing today. We should be experiencing the abnormal as normal. Complex organisms that we now see with two eyes, we should be seeing a random number of eyes. And random number of heads, arms, fingers and toes. We should be seeing these, aforementioned, items, in random placements all over the body. Heads under the armpit. Noses on top of the head. You should be able to get my direction of thought. Even though we don’t see them now, we should be finding fossils of discarded organism that were randomly constructed, and not fit to survive. And once again, this is not seen today or in the fossil record. Yet you say, that life and the universe happened randomly. Your definition and my definition, of random, do not match, and your definition of randomness isn’t even found in the dictionary. Evolutionists make up rules as you find out the holes in your theories. And you blatantly ignore, dismiss, or reinvent the very things that you find rips your theories to pieces.
Tim I ask you again. I’m open to whatever proof you feel supports your reasons to believe in the theory of Evolution. Place it all out in the open. I know that you don’t deal with how life began. And their are no running contenders to the position as Creator, other than the Creator God.
But there is still a possibility that something that you have knowledge of that will reveal that one almost organism, was able to produce all other organisms. Where are the transition fossils that are being talked about that, “clearly” shows organisms in their transition periods. As far as I have seen, all that you have, are fossils that were found. Some complete, others just in pieces. So have the answer to an equation. The fossils. So you need to back track back through history, and make all kinds of suppositions about how, and when those fossils became fossils. When the evolutionists say that a piece of a fossilized skeleton and speculate that it used to develop in a previous species. And then you speculate that the change over millions and millions of years continued so much so that eventually a brand new species came to be. But you have no fossils that directly demonstrates this process ever happening. As a matter of fact, several evolutionists have even stated that all all fossilized organisms either appear as though they appeared already in an advanced state of evolution. Or when science has declared an organism extinct, then later this supposedly extinct organism is found somewhere looking like similar or as they say, “very similar” to each other. As if no evolution has ever taken place, even though millions and millions of years have supposedly gone by. And once again the evolutionists change the rules or to benefit your and support your theory. But one by one the evidence is mounting and little by little down comes your house of cards.
And this statement, “Don’t get me wrong, there are known evolutionary traits for things like racism,” is just another purely speculative, unproven statements, that you and the other evolutionists, have been making up and tossing out without any proof whatsoever.