δουλογος: Unassured Faith...

Mason said, "you make it sound as if evolution is only compatible with some pessimistic nihilistic spirituality"

Perhaps I come across that way, it is purely accidental on my part however.

All I mean is that there was a time in my life when I accepted evolution because it seemed rational and reasonable to do so. I had been trained since birth that evolution was one of those "theories" that so true only a fool would question it.

Yet I found myself one day with questions that evolution could not answer, and in fact questions that forced me to examine just how much weight I was giving to empty speculation.

Questions like: Where did all this matter come from? Like most atheists, my answer was that it either always was here, or it just spontaneously generated without cause at some point. If it was always here, in some form or other (either as matter or as energy in one form or another), then upon what basis could I dismiss a creator? Since, if I am made up of matter, and I am sentient - instilled with certain abilities etc. -- that is, if I myself am evidence that eventually even this same energy that makes up the universe can achieve sentience and react to its environment - then haven't I proven that if I exist - pretty much anything can exist? It seemed therefore rather shortsighted (at best) to demand therefore that mankind was without a creator, since the very fact that I was here proved, at the very least, that sentient energy was not only possible, but real. Who was I, from my infinitessimally minute perspective, to put limits on what can and can not be done? This was not to argue that there was a God - but rather to say that if matter always existed in some form - then I most certainly could not rule out the idea that mankind was created.

But that left other questions. If I was willing to accept that matter always existed (in some alternately expanding and collapsing multiverse) then how could I dismiss the idea of a God who always existed? I found myself at an intellectual crossroad.

You see, if I am willing to entertain the notion that matter always existed, but I am not willing to entertain the notion that God always existed - well, I am not much of a scientist am I? For a scientist doesn't dismiss any possibility based on some preconceived assumption. So while this didn't cause me to conclude there must be a God - it did cause me to examine what a hypocrite I was.

Yet if I decided that everything spontaneously generated without cause, I am left with a greater question - how is it that something can come from nothing - that is, how do I accept on the one hand what is clearly impossible, if I am ever going to use the word "impossible" to dismiss God?

Evolution requires me to dismiss as impossible things which the universe demands are possible. Creation itself reveals just how myopic evolutionary theory is. Oh it is certainly a complicated thing - so complicated in fact that few bother to examine whether it is worth examining.

But I don't deny that I probably sound just as you describe me. One of the great joys in my life is that I stopped caring whether or not the next God thought I was a genius or a fool, I am content to pursue what seems reasonable to me.

Thanks for the comment.