Collins says belief is ultimately a matter of faith—that God's existence can't, in the end, be proved by science. And yet he sees plenty of "pointers to God," natural phenomena that imply the existence of a biblical God. Here are Collins's "pointers":
- There is something instead of nothing.
- The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, which make simple and beautiful laws.
- The Big Bang: out of nothingness, the universe came into being. That cries out for explanation, since we have not observed nature to create itself . . . it causes us to postulate a creator, and the creator must be outside of time or you haven't solved the problem.
- The precise tuning of the physical constants in the universe. If gravity was a little weaker, things would all start flying a part. You can see a creator in these constants. Francis Collins
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
"pointers to God"
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3 comments:
it is always amusing to come across a Christian who is trying to prove a deist's god to be true.
the question is do they know what r they really for? often in the process of debating the non-religious a christian would skip from side to side like Squealer in animal farm n switch between the ideological positions.
a god believing scientist's "god" can be very different from the "god" of an apologist and the pope's "god" and the fair-weathered christain's "god" in terms of definition.
there are many types of ultimate creators, there are agnostics who take a non-personal one like a deist's god as possible though unknowable n verification to be irrelevant.
so what does that irrelevant possibility prove? once 2 of my friends debate on the nature of their beliefs, one is a muslim and the other one is an agnostic, after a lengthy exchange, since the muslim friend would reject arguments from science, n the agnostic would reject argument from islamic scripture, both agree to fall back on a platform which is meaningful to both parties.
n so it's goes, my muslim friend issued the final challenge: "do u concede that at least a non-personal ultimate creator's existence's possibllity is not zero"
agnositc friend: "of cos, i accept that, so do u accept that too?"
muslim friend: "of cos"
both conclude: " we are not so different after all, or is it?"
this set of arguments can be used by a deist to argue for their deist god.
but for a catholic it is too weak.
for example a muslim can use the same argument to counter claim your catholic god, n have no answer.
in that scenario, u'll fall back on YOUR precious scriptures n they fall back on their precious scriptures, n it will be endless mud slinging that follows.
see how useless those arguments are to u now cartwright?
the Church of the flying Unicorn can use the same set of arguments to "prove" their god to a greater effect that your faith.
if u need to prove a catholic god, PROVE it.
don't go around trying to prove a deist's god or a taoist's god.
besides those argument suffer from their own logical problems anyway.
further more for a man of his stature, Collins offers some really dodgy justifications built on shaky logic:
[when he witnessed patients who were near death but who were deeply comforted by their religious faith]
what kind of justification is this? an appeal to emotion?
i have also witness drug addicts being very deeply comforted by consuming opium, perhaps we should encourage masses of ppl to take up that habit since it is so comforting.
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