Note: I’ve been taking a short break from writing this month to focus on a couple of pressing offline projects (which I will write about shortly), so I’m reposting one of my personal favorites from earlier days when I only had a dozen or so people following my blog. This was first posted in June of 2018, and I still share it from time to time when an atheist acquaintance asks, “How can someone with your education still believe in a God?”
Science has not been able to prove there is a God, but it hasn’t proven there isn’t one either.
Modern science says the universe started with a Big Bang. But if the universe indeed started that way, who or what caused the Big Bang to happen? Who or what created the original matter involved in the Big Bang?
Scientists promote the theory of evolution to explain how life on earth in all its amazing forms developed. But if evolution is indeed a valid concept, who or what created the initial life form that evolved into other life forms?
One geneticist even claims there’s specific gene, VMAT2, that predisposes some people to have spiritual or mystical experiences. But if we have a “God gene,” who or what put it there?
According to astronomers at Ohio State University, the Milky Way contains more than 200 million stars, and there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Science Daily reports that the earth contains more than 8.7 million species of plants, animals and other living organisms. Could all of that have really happened through a coincidental fluke?
I often feel the presence of a God in the changing seasons.
I’ll never forget riding along a thoroughfare through Atlanta one Easter Sunday with my husband and his parents. A profusion of trees and vines bloomed simultaneously: dogwoods, redbuds, wisteria, peach trees. Each side street treated us to a riot of color: white, pink, purple, yellow, red. Nature’s fireworks, I thought. Each time we encountered another side street, we’d say in unison, “Ooo! Ahh!”
In the summer, I can sit in our backyard swing and gaze upon a lush green carpet of grass, interspersed with the vibrant hues of my flower beds. Hummingbirds hang suspended in mid-air, their tiny wings moving so fast they appear to not be moving at all while they sip nectar from bright red bee balm blossoms. Cicadas sing in harmony in the twilight. Fireflies flick their tiny lights on and off. Butterflies flit from bloom to bloom. Life asserts itself even in the face of lingering drought.
I recall taking a twilight walk one beautiful fall day when I suddenly stopped short. Before me stretched a scene that prompted me to gasp. The leaves had turned yellow-brown-orange-crimson, and light from the setting sun bounced off the tops of the trees in even more vivid colors. The sky competed with the leaves for sheer outrageousness, with the sun painting the clouds red, orange, yellow and pink. A still-warm breeze blew across my face. I had to extend my walk by several blocks so I could drink it all in.
Even the winter can be pretty. As I sit in front of the fireplace in my “swaddling clothes” (flannel nightgown, sweatpants and blanket), feeling warm and protected, a delicate coat of snow covers the tree branches. Perched in the middle of the pear tree in our backyard, a pair of cardinals add tiny splashes of color to a black and white landscape. One of my cats settles in my lap, purring loudly as I stroke his fur.
In my mind, Someone or Something had to create all this extravagant seasonal beauty.
I think about the miracle of birth. We start with one cell, then two, then four, then eight. At some point these cells know to differentiate into brain cells, heart cells, blood cells, muscle cells. How do these cells know to do this? If our cells are programmed this way, then who or what programmed them?
I think about the magnificent way our bodies are made. According to the Scientific American Book of the Brain, an adult brain, which weighs about 3 pounds, has more than 100 billion cells. The Franklin Institute says that in an average person’s lifetime, the heart beats more than two and a half billion times, pushing blood through more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels. There are 206 bones in the adult body, according to Wikipedia, including 54 bones in the hands, 52 bones in the feet and 6 tiny bones in our middle ears. According to the Human Genome Project Information Page, a human genome, which carries all of an individual’s DNA, contains anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000 genes.
As Shakespeare declared in Hamlet, “What a piece of work is man!”
“I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” says Psalm 139:14.
I see all this as evidence of God.
From the macro (galaxies, endless galaxies) to the micro (human cells, atoms, quarks) – the universe seems too intricate and too perfect for there not to be a Creator of some kind behind it. Logic tells me the original matter involved in the Big Bang and the original life form that evolved into all the life forms we have today had to come from somewhere. Logic tells me Somebody or Something had to create the sheer splendor, beauty and intricate orderliness.
To me, the idea that everything started with a random Big Bang and that life and matter all evolved by chance is more of an intellectual stretch than the idea that there is a Creator behind it all. Who, after all, created all those laws of nature?
Albert Einstein has been quoted as saying, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Blaise Pascal said, “If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. [So] you must wager. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.”
That’s Pascal’s Wager, and I’m inclined to go with it.
Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, proclaims himself a “de facto atheist” and writes, “I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.” (I want to ask how something that doesn’t exist can have a gender. But I digress.)
I’d call myself a “de facto theist.” I’m inclined to believe that God exists, and I’ve decided to live my life as if there is a God and life is not absurd, but rich in meaning.
Seriously Seeking Answers 