Friday, November 03, 2006
The quest for something to believe in, something that would make sense of life was for me a hit and miss thing. A bit of history for you. I grew up the son of a career Navy man. That meant I spent the majority of my life near the ocean. That is significant only in it was the time I spent alone on the beach watching nature at work that I would contemplate the "meaning of it all."
Early on, I decided atheism was not the way to go. Mainly because it required a blind faith and I lean more towards the Mr. Spock type of personality. Theoretical atheism requires you believe something you cannot know, that there is no God. That is not rational. While you may argue from reason for the position there comes a point where reason must be set aside and blind faith applied. I found I could not do that.
Practical atheism, the term I use for believing there is little evidence that God exists, is a more benign form of the theoretical. The weakness there is the apparent evidence there is a god. It is the intelligent design problem. There is an even chance the universe is backed by an intelligence One can still present reasonable arguments for the practical atheism, but at some point must accept the premise on faith. I still see that as too big a leap to bet my life on.
Even at an early age I found order in nature that suggested more than chance was involved. The evidence for the universe to have had a beginning, meaning it is not eternal, is over whelming. If the space time continuum (I love that term) has a beginning point then those who wish to deny a supernatural being have a huge problem. I know there is much work to come up with an answer that leaves God out of it, but I have heard at least one theorist admit that search is born more of preference than evidence.
Anyway, that is my personal findings on atheism in a nut shell. The Fair One is not here to proof read this so if there at typos, please be kind.
Early on, I decided atheism was not the way to go. Mainly because it required a blind faith and I lean more towards the Mr. Spock type of personality. Theoretical atheism requires you believe something you cannot know, that there is no God. That is not rational. While you may argue from reason for the position there comes a point where reason must be set aside and blind faith applied. I found I could not do that.
Practical atheism, the term I use for believing there is little evidence that God exists, is a more benign form of the theoretical. The weakness there is the apparent evidence there is a god. It is the intelligent design problem. There is an even chance the universe is backed by an intelligence One can still present reasonable arguments for the practical atheism, but at some point must accept the premise on faith. I still see that as too big a leap to bet my life on.
Even at an early age I found order in nature that suggested more than chance was involved. The evidence for the universe to have had a beginning, meaning it is not eternal, is over whelming. If the space time continuum (I love that term) has a beginning point then those who wish to deny a supernatural being have a huge problem. I know there is much work to come up with an answer that leaves God out of it, but I have heard at least one theorist admit that search is born more of preference than evidence.
Anyway, that is my personal findings on atheism in a nut shell. The Fair One is not here to proof read this so if there at typos, please be kind.
