Amazing therefore God

[Wertbag]

There is an idea, that when something is so mind blowing that we can't comprehend it, that we reach for an answer equally amazing.  It's this feeling that events must be from a source which is truly staggeringly amazing because the end result is so impressive.  This is the base for several apologetic arguments, such as where the universe came from ("It's so amazing, huge and bizarre, I can't imagine anyone believing this wasn't created by something even more amazing"), where life comes from or the diversity of life.  These arguments being based more on incredulity than actually proving anything.

I would say these types of arguments are some of the most persuasive.  When you explain the size and scope of the universe, it is so insanely massive that our minds cannot begin to imagine it, then give an answer of a super being that could help make sense of it, then that instinctively sounds plausible.  I think this is why the most common Christian arguments are "where did the universe come from?" and "where did life come from?".  We look at those questions as God of the gaps.  We don't know the answer, but that doesn't mean you get to ram a god into that gap in our knowledge.  But for the layperson, you end up with religion pointing to amazing things and saying, "Only a god explains this" while unbelievers shrug and say, "I don't know".  "I don't know" is the right answer, but for the general person it is unfulfilling.  It's sounds more like a claim of "I can't find any answer that isn't god".

 

I personally found animal instincts to be a nigh on supernatural example of amazing things in nature.  A spider with the brain the size of a pin head can design a symmetrical web, a tiny bird can weave flax into a robust fully enclosed house, termites can work together to build an entire labyrinth of tunnels with purpose, and eels can swim 2500km to breeding grounds with no gps.  It's truly amazing stuff, and we don't really understand where it comes from or what causes it.  But then you see an experiment where they give drugs to a spider, and its web building becomes messy and disorganized.  Showing that this knowledge is still within the brain, and that chemicals can change that inbuilt knowledge.

 

We don't know how the universe was created, but we have several natural hypotheses.  We don't know how to create life, but we have learnt a lot about cells and are closer than ever to unlocking that mystery.  Evolution explains the diversity of life, but our minds struggle to comprehend the millions of years timescales that we are talking about.  While we are asking Christians to explain the problem of divine hiddenness, or the problem of suffering, they are asking us to explain the creation of the universe.  We say they have no good answers, while they say the same to the hardest scientific questions.

 

Incredulity is not an argument with any basis, and yet it is likely the most convincing position that religion can take.  It feels like it makes sense, so it's good enough for most people.  You have to dig pass the first layer to encounter the problems, and most people don't want to dig.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

20 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

When you explain the size and scope of the universe, it is so insanely massive that our minds cannot begin to imagine it, then give an answer of a super being that could help make sense of it, then that instinctively sounds plausible. 

For me, the argument from incredulity is only plausible on the surface.  It sounds plausible that something as immense and complex as the universe would have had to have been designed and created by something, or someone, even more immense and complex...

 

...but then, how did that more immense and complex something come to exist?  The only possible answer is that it simply always existed, at least as we understand existence, anyway.  But, then, why could the universe itself not be that something that has always existed as we understand existence.  And the argument falls apart.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Hey, if you believe in magic, or God, anything is possible!!  

 

It is interesting how many people are so insecure when they don't have the answer to a question.  It's like they have a phobia of saying "I don't know".

[pantheory]

Yep, lots of totally amazing things in nature and in living things. But the God-of-the-gaps knife isn't sharp enough to cut anything excepting for a piece of crap

[RankStranger]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:10 PM, Weezer said:

Hey, if you believe in magic, or God, anything is possible!!  

 

It is interesting how many people are so insecure when they don't have the answer to a question.  It's like they have a phobia of saying "I don't know".

A lot of them have been told all their life that "I don't know" is a lack of faith.  

 

To me it seems like a bad idea to put faith and honesty in conflict with each other... but they didn't ask my opinion on it