Not again!
“God” doesn’t say that. One of the authors of the Bible does. I don’t find him more reliable than the author of the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, or Hubbard, or any of the others.

I agree that the “dead-endness” of a philosophy may first seem to be a subjective state of mind. But I think eventually this state comes to dominate and control full societies and cultures, with totally objective results. Here I would like to point to the quality of art and architecture now as compared to the age of faith – but you would probably argue that . So how about the fact that we Europeans seem to be disappearing, demographically speaking?

My problem with atheistic materialism is its superficial and illusory nature packaged in pseudo-scepticism (“opium for the intellectuals”, as someone more eloquent then I am has already remarked). Even if we had a grand-algorithmic-theory-of-everything-using-only-matter, it would still be a tautology. In reality, of course, we are very, very far away even of that. If you think that my opinion as a Christian is biased, you may want to read this (http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib148.html) true classic from the “other” side…

I would say a supernatural universe is *more* scary than the clock-work one. I was primarily an atheist because I was comforted by believing in an algorithmic world with some randomness thrown in for fun. An eternal soul, a mysterious deity with personal plans for me - now that is the frightening alternative…

I didn’t say that reason is a dead-end street. This would be rather silly for someone who is a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas. After all, sapientia donum dei. My point was about atheism/scientism/materialism/relativism, short, the new European religion of the educated masses.

Oops - I have to take a break. A lesser deity (my wife) is calling me to lunch…

Because you witnessed a “miracle”, which was not a “real one” such as parting the waters of an ocean, but something trivial like someone changing his or her mind, which could have happened naturally anyway? Because your knowledge of biology is not enough to see how life could have appeared and evolved naturally on Earth?

Or is it because you feel that a world with a God is less scary than a world without one?

How is atheism and reason a dead-end street, by the way? Because it doesn’t fill a need you have? Because to you life doesn’t make sense without some supernatural meaning to it, such as pleasing a higher-than-human father figure? Because you’re afraid of dying and want to believe in an afterlife?

Really, I’m curious as to the answers to these.

I was there twenty years ago. And it is a dead-end street.

God is real. If you think that human suffering is an argument against him, try meditating on the meaning of the cross.

God isn’t dead nor does he slumber. There are myriads of evidences that he is at work.

Such as…?

It seems to me that to deny the reality of a supernatural dimension is necessarily to deny the reality of free will.

I don’t see how there has to be something “supernatural” for it to exist. We have brains. Minds. We think. Is thought a supernatural act? I don’t think so - it comes from our brains. Are feelings supernatural? Nope, it’s our pesky brains again (though not necessarily the same bits), although people tend to say that a blood-pumping organ is actually responsible for them.

“Free will” comes from making choices. We make choices… guess how?

Or do you have some different definition of “free will”?

Atheism is as much a religion as any other religion.

The usual reply to that is “atheism is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby”.

Contrary to what some say, you don’t have to take any kind of leap of faith to be an atheist. You just look around, observe and learn, and then consider what is most likely.

I do not think so. Merely suspecting or believing that a “higher power” exists is not religion. Merely suspecting or believing that no “higher power” exists is not religion. Atheism is not religion, and one should not confuse God with religion.

The problem religion has is trying to explain an infinite being in finite terms. You can’t use finite arguments against an infinite God. So, God leaves clues and allows us to come to our own conclusions. The whole point of this existence is to use your agency to become what you want to become. If God intervened at every step, there would be no agency. God isn’t dead nor does he slumber. There are myriads of evidences that he is at work. Many people have seen things that emanate from a higher intelligence. If there is an intelligence higher than ours, then the highest we would term God.

We live in a physical world. As a student of physics, I’m acutely aware of how true this is. We live in such a physical world that it seems that each and every law fits just so, and that even small changes would throw the entire system out of balance.

This, for now, convinces me of the relative uniqueness of such a system - it does not require a designer.
Further, such a tightly fitting system leaves no room for miracles or other deviations.
Such events would basically be a divide by zero in the equations, and result in a very destructive singularity.

Regarding the beginning of life on Earth, to everyone who requires divine will;
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You dont’ have a primordial soup, you don’t know the structure of the first organism and can’t say it’s chance of arisal. We dont’ even know for sure how long liquid water existed on the surface. However, each time we do a calculation, it looks like life arose almost immediately after it was possible, which argues that the number of interactions is huge enough that the small chance of self-organization is irrelevant.

It’s nice to believe in God. I’m sure he likes that. Arguing that he must exist to screw about with physics is the wrong road.

The biggest one is the existence of life. I know the theory that organic molecules bumping together formed the first seed and that natural selection took it from there. I just can’t buy that argument. A single celled animal is a very complex machine. It has to be able to process energy from the environment and have the ability to replicate itself. Additionally, it needs to be able to adapt and change. Those abilities are not simple. Ok, a virus is simpler but they depend on cells to replicate. There was a recent article in Discover that talked about a newly discovered virus that had bacterial traits. They think it may have been the ancestor to all modern life but even that virus was very complex.

If life did happen accidentally, why would it lead to ever more complex forms? Why not just stay in the simplest form? And how does this original organism develop intelligence or the ability to sense and control it’s environment? Why are humans so much smarter than we need to be just to survive?

It seems like a large leap of faith to think that something could accidentally spring into existence with all the above abilities and complexity. To me it makes more sense that life in all it’s complexity and adaptability was designed to be that way by something with a very high level of intelligence. Scientists talk about natures survival drive. They recognize it as the force that drives evolution but never question where it comes from. Even our computer simulations of life have the drive to change and adapt programmed in. Without it, there would be no changes. Why would an original accidental organism care if it survived?

I program computers for a living. To me, life looks like a very complex adaptable program operating in the physical universe on a molecular scale. I can see the result as an evolution but I see intelligence in the design. A design that uses the very principals of evolution to create ever more complex forms. I personally can’t see any logical way for it to happen by chance. If I see a program, I think there must be a programmer somewhere - and a damn good one. Others may disagree but there’s no scientific proof either way so their disagreement will be based on their own faith and how they perceive the world.

You just assumed that free will exists. What proof do you have? We assume that we have it, but by your own initial statement, you point out that we can’t tell if we’re actually free or acting in a preordained manner. We can’t know what the truth is from the inside of the box. Believing otherwise is simply that: belief.

I grew up a Protestant Christian. I’ll never forget the day I refused to go to church with the family. My parents blew their tops. I told them it would be fake of me to church if I don’t WANT to go! For them it was more important that we all go together ‘for the sake of it’ and be seen by everybody that know them! This is the main reason I became disillusioned with Christianity (dogma) and then god: The hypocrisy present in many of the religions and their practitioners (esp. Christianity).

The same people who got pissed out of their skulls the previous night and swear like sailors (like I do) are the same ones sitting piously in the front of church the next day. The excuse these people will always use is that they are not perfect and that god forgives. Quite a nice loophole if you ask me. Basically these people ‘believe’ for the ‘what-if’ that there actually is a god.

But I am hammering on religion and more particularly dogma. On that point; your statement about ‘wishfull thinking’ and ‘refusal to think about things’ also very true… Or as one voice sample from a This Morn O’ Mina song goes : “Knowledge is the enemy of faith”. I like to rephrase this as: “Faith is the enemy of knowledge and free thought.”. Look at the role of faith / religion in destroying human knowledge during the centuries: The crusades and the burning of books written by the ‘heathen’ arabs… Man; and they wonder why we had the dark ages… Look at the banning of mind altering substances, long used in many native cultures, by the Christian-dominated governments because they did not want people to obtain insights that are different from their limited insights.

Look at the role of religion (Muslims esp.) in oppressing women, denying women the right to further their education.

As for a god, the burden of proof is on the believers. The inability to prove the non-existence of something does not imply it exists.

Welcome, you are now part of one of the most despised and feared minorities in the world!

I have a similar story for how I became an atheist. I was an agnostic when I started college, but I took many philosophy courses, and these pretty much revealed the degree to which people have been engaged in wishful thinking around religion for the last 2000 years.

Respectfully, it could also tell you that you (again) saw what you wanted to see; I don’t see any evidence in your report here that you took the question at all seriously. That’s not to say that you might not be right, but what you presented wasn’t “logic”, it was a description of how your attitude towards the question changed.

Ask yourself this: Do you belief in a purely naturalistic, material universe, that can be completely described by the laws of physics? Or, do you believe that there’s a supernatural dimension to the universe, that’s beyond the world that physicists can describe?

If the universe were completely governed by the laws of physics, then your “free will” would be an illusion. Your every thought, feeling and action would be predetermined. The idea that you somehow had any control over your life would be a lie, because the idea that you had any ability to truly choose between any two alternative actions would be an illusion. Thus, we would all, truly, be no different than robots - really complex robots, perhaps, but still just automatons.

The existence of “free will”, therefore, would necessarily mean that there is a dimension of existence that goes beyond the material world described by the laws of physics. And, it means that activity in that dimension (the action of your free will) can influence the way the material world develops. And, if you, via your free will, can control your own actions from one moment to the next, how can you exclude the possibility that there isn’t some purely supernatural being that can control the way the universe develops on an even bigger scale?

This isn’t supposed to be a proof of anything, but I think it’s a strong argument for the reasonableness of belief in a supernatural world. I think it’s much more reasonable to believe in the supernatural than to deny belief in free will.