Just a quick quote that I read today and thought I would share.
"If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of chemical reactions.... Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else."
- Theologian Douglas Wilson
Hmmmmmmm.... Yes, if there is no God then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter... but we cannot be ignorant of what matter actually evolved. We can't ignore our current reality. If no God, mankind is exactly what mankind would be with a God. We are what we are... and we are the luckiest bits of matter that have ever existed.
ReplyDeleteIt bugs me when Christians act as though we are completely meaningless and useless without a creator - like we have no purpose whatsoever in existing. Sure, we're going to die in 80-100 years and be gone forever, but that doesn't mean that each day is lost, that each relationship doesn't matter, and that each moment shouldn't be treasured. We can have huge purpose and significant meaning with or without a god.
You're absolutely right, we can't ignore our current reality. But what would a universe look like with a God? What would a universe look like without a God? I imagine that they would look very similar but from our view point all we can do is speculate. How do we know that a universe composed purely of innate matter can render life and consciousness other than the fact that we are here right now typing away? (And I don't mean that to be a God of Gaps argument I'm simply stating how do we know).
ReplyDeleteAnd what you say bugs me too. Perhaps life is the purpose of life? The fact that we have a concept of purpose is remarkable in itself really.