TheBanyanTree: Atheists

[NancyIee at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/21/2008 8:18:31 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
pyewood at pcug.org.au writes:

'At this  season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no
> gods,  no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural
>  world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and
>  enslaves minds.'



Interesting that you describe your son as having an engineer's mind.   Having 
a close encounter with a few with an engineer's mind, I find them bound  up 
in facts.  If something cannot be proven with calculations or formula or  
measurement, it must be false.  Albert Einstein, for instance, tortured  himself 
for a lifetime, trying, with his brilliant mind, to prove several  mathematical  
"facts", such as Relativity, or that space bends. Newton gave  us the 
mathematics to explain gravity, even though we all know it existed before  he figure 
it out.
 
Religion and Faith and Life itself cannot be explained by mathematical  
manipulations/calculations, therefore, it must be false. Right? Thousands of  years 
ago, scribes tried to explain the beginning of it all with, "In the  
beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, And the earth was without form  and 
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God  moved 
upon the face of the waters. And, God said, Let there be light, and there  was 
light ."  They knew it on Faith.  Then, thousands of years later,  the 
'brilliant minds' among us explained it as "The Big Bang."   Out  of nothing, came 
something.
 
Of course the 'explanation' goes on to give the calculations and details,  
but all the calculations and guesstimations do not really explain or prove why  
or how it happened. It simply did.  And, those ancient scribes thought the  
earth was the center of it all, and we, Man, were the singular privileged  
intelligent beings in all the Universe. Yet, their descriptions of the Beginning  
of it all, for all its poetic license, describe the indescribable. It  happened.
 
Other wise minds say life came from the muck, and Man came  through  
evolution. Likely, we did.  Various species, like illnesses, are evolving  all the 
time.  But why? Life forms are so tricky, so convoluted and  detailed, even 
one-celled Life is complicated.  Just because it cannot be  completely explained, 
does not mean or prove it was mere chance. Einstein knew  that space bent, he 
merely had to figure out how to prove it with equations. For  those things 
which we know yet cannot explain, we know on Faith.
 
On day there might be the calculations to prove things we knew yet cannot  
explain. Until then, we know things on Faith.
 
NancyLee
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