E xistence » A cousin’s Question part2

A cousin’s Question part2 April 19, 2006

Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , trackback

Ok, so thereâ€™s a lot of stuff in your email that I might question, but it makes sense to start with the foundation, so here goesâ€¦

First, it is interesting that you make the distinction between a strong atheist and a weak atheist, or agnostic. I would venture to say that there is actually no such thing as a true atheist, and that those claiming to be atheists are really agnostics. Hereâ€™s why: in order to make an absolute negative statement, one would have to possess absolute knowledge.
For example, if I were to say â€œthere is no gold in China,â€ I would have to know the contents of every jewelry shop, pawn shop, set of teeth, rock, stone, and underground caveâ€“I would have to have absolute knowledge of China to make that statement true. Conversely, if I were to say â€œthere is gold in China,â€ all I have to have is one piece of gold to make my statement true. In the same way, in order to make the absolute statement that there is no God, you would have to have all knowledge of the universe. Even if you possess a generous 1% of all the knowledge in the universe, that would still leave a 99% margin of knowledge that you have not yet come across that could sufficiently prove the existence of God.

What you say is true, but I never said there is no god. I said I don’t think there’s a god.

:::Edit::: That didn’t come out quite right. What I mean is: Even if I say there’s not God, I can only mean I don’t think there’s a god. Just as if you say there is a god, all you can really mean is you Think there’s a god. There is no god, there is no god…

So when you say that you know there is no God, aren’t you really saying that, according to the limited knowledge you have at present, you don’t believe there is a God?Yes.

And due to your limited knowledge, doesn’t that mean that you don’t really know for sure, and are really an agnostic, and not an atheist?No. The difference between the two, in my opinion and I read different definitions occasionally, is that the atheist believes that with total knowledge, you still won’t find a god.

As far as faith is concerned, you said that we all make a faith-based decision when we think about the universe. You are totally right. When it comes down to it, we are human beings with finite minds, and there are just certain things impossible for us to know. It is interesting to me, though, that the origin of the universe many people see as the most “logical” actually makes very little logical sense. If I told you that my car did not have a maker or that my house did not have a builder or that the Sistine Chapel painted itself, you would say I was crazy. There is nothing in our world of experience that would allow us to accept the notion that it created itself or just came into being. No scientist has ever been able to make something out of nothing, and yet that is what is considered the “logical” explanation of the origin of the universe. Is not creation itself evidence for a Creator?What makes the origin of the universe as “We” see it have little logic? Surely an anthropomorphic god made in mans image snapping his fingers is less logical than the Big bang, which has a tremendous amount of evidence to support it.

In the same way, if I dropped 50 oranges on the ground and told you that they landed in 5 rows of 10 oranges, perfectly spaced, you would not believe me. It’s a statistical improbability at best. Order implies intelligent design. Back to the example of my car–it doesn’t just happen to have an air conditioner or headlights or windshield wipers. Intelligent people design our cars to make our experience safe and comfortable. Doesn’t the fact that the earth is perfectly designed in every way to support life make you at least wonder if there’s not someone intelligent behind it? You said “ask away” so there you go. Some interesting things to think about…The Earth is perfectly designed to support life? Could’ve fooled me. The damn things been killing us for a long time. But no, the fact that life exists here is not evidence that life was placed here. Life on other planets, which surely exists, may also think that their planet was designed for them. This is backwards. Our life developed around this environment. In one sense, you may think of evolution as intelligent. But it’s not the same as ID purports.