TO Believe in God or Not

If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up.

Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67, mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day. And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents. Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water about two-thirds of the human body is water.

You'll see why the characteristics of water are uniquely suited to life:. It has wide margin between its boiling point and freezing point.

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Water allows us to live in an environment of fluctuating temperature changes, while keeping our bodies a steady Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that various chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels. Water is also chemically neutral. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body. Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth's water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.

Your brain takes in all the colors and objects you see, the temperature around you, the pressure of your feet against the floor, the sounds around you, the dryness of your mouth, even the texture of your keyboard. Your brain holds and processes all your emotions, thoughts and memories. At the same time your brain keeps track of the ongoing functions of your body like your breathing pattern, eyelid movement, hunger and movement of the muscles in your hands.

The human brain processes more than a million messages a second. This screening function is what allows you to focus and operate effectively in your world. The brain functions differently than other organs. There is an intelligence to it, the ability to reason, to produce feelings, to dream and plan, to take action, and relate to other people.

It has automatic focusing and handles an astounding 1. Yet evolution alone does not fully explain the initial source of the eye or the brain -- the start of living organisms from nonliving matter. Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen.

Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade The universe has not always existed. It had a start Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter. Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day: How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable? There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics.

This astonishment springs from the recognition that the universe doesn't have to behave this way. It is easy to imagine a universe in which conditions change unpredictably from instant to instant, or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.

All instruction, all teaching, all training comes with intent. Someone who writes an instruction manual does so with purpose. Did you know that in every cell of our bodies there exists a very detailed instruction code, much like a miniature computer program? As you may know, a computer program is made up of ones and zeros, like this: The way they are arranged tell the computer program what to do.

The DNA code in each of our cells is very similar. It's made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G, and C. These are arranged in the human cell like this: There are three billion of these letters in every human cell!! Well, just like you can program your phone to beep for specific reasons, DNA instructs the cell. DNA is a three-billion-lettered program telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual. Why is this so amazing? One has to ask These are not just chemicals.

These are chemicals that instruct, that code in a very detailed way exactly how the person's body should develop. Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved. You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it. I was an atheist at one time.

And like many atheists, the issue of people believing in God bothered me greatly. What is it about atheists that we would spend so much time, attention, and energy refuting something that we don't believe even exists?!

When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean?

What causes us to do that? When I was an atheist, I attributed my intentions as caring for those poor, delusional people To be honest, I also had another motive. As I challenged those who believed in God, I was deeply curious to see if they could convince me otherwise.

Part of my quest was to become free from the question of God. If I could conclusively prove to believers that they were wrong, then the issue is off the table, and I would be free to go about my life. I didn't realize that the reason the topic of God weighed so heavily on my mind, was because God was pressing the issue. I have come to find out that God wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know him. He has surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us.

It was as if I couldn't escape thinking about the possibility of God. Casually observing that nearly all the founding pioneers of modern science were devout individuals is a good tactic. However, pointing solely to historical figures may not be enough.

Americans' beliefs about the nature of God

Many of the aforementioned scientists wrote extensively about the interplay between faith and science and responded to skeptics of their time. If anything, the Standard Big Bang Model of cosmic origins, under which time, space, and matter have a beginning, shifted the playing field in favor of the religious side. The best thing to dispel this prejudice, though, is the personal witness of intelligent believers here and now.

And when she did, it changed how she framed Christianity before she considered it herself. There is an immense difference between the atheist who believes religion is bad for society and the atheist who believes it is beneficial. Both may personally find religion preposterous, but the latter is far better disposed to religion than the former.

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I distinctly remember a sense of unease in my atheist days when it slowly became apparent that the cultural riches of western civilization were either the direct product of, or profoundly influenced by, Christianity and especially Catholicism. Without Catholicism, there would be no Gothic or Baroque architecture, no Renaissance paintings, no classical music, no Shakespeare or Dante, no university, and hence, probably no empirical scientific method.

Moreover, the devout in all social-economic strata suffer less from divorce, drug abuse, suicide , depression , and donate a higher percentage of their income to charity. This can be a real challenge and is often a slow, uphill battle. All you need is honest, well-researched history from professional historians. Although this will successfully bust a lot of myths, it will also dig up some admittedly dark episodes in the history of religion. But it will dig them up truthfully and show them to be far more nuanced than the exaggerated smear jobs that often pass for history.

This is the critical turning point. It is where genuine doubts about atheism begin to emerge. Remember, this is a person who has already made up his or her mind not to believe, and anything with a whiff of apologetics will likely be laughed off as utterly unconvincing. The trick is for the atheist to see the tensions and inconsistencies with his view of reality without muddying the waters by bringing God into it.

A few examples help illustrate how it works. Not that those critiques turned him into a believer overnight; but once the crack in naturalistic materialism opens, it opens wide. Recognizing that mechanistic views of reality are not as convincing as he supposed, Feser began to re-evaluate theistic arguments he had previously dismissed and, as is common with atheists, that he had never fully understood.

Her inability to reconcile her belief that there was no real meaning to life with the sense of awe and transcendent love at the birth of her son was a turning point. For Jen, the apparent meaninglessness of life collided with her unshakable sense of the transcendent, and the transcendent won. I also think the work of Peter Singer is particularly effective in this stage.

Is There a God?

Beauty and apologetics go side by side at this stage. On the one hand, beauty naturally evokes a sense of the transcendent, offering the atheist a glimpse of the joyful divine mystery. On the other hand, apologetics can be used to dislodge obstacles and address objections. Beauty is probably the closest thing to the spiritual experienced by a lifelong atheist. At the same time, beauty rarely carries any dogmatic baggage.

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And even when it does, the dogmatic element speaks for itself with no need for persuasion or even articulation. Beauty is, therefore, both a window into authentic religious life and a non-threatening invitation into it. I remember reading the account of an atheist journalist who walked into an Orthodox church in Moscow and was brought to the brink of belief by the beauty of the liturgy and the smell of incense.