NOTES TO AN ATHEIST

Part One

    My first Unification News article on this topic (here presented as this essay's first two main sections) was inspired by two rather intense online discussions. One was with a minister I know. A friend of his had just been murdered, in a crime so terrible I'd seen it on the national news. We discussed God's grace, and the spiritual world.
    The other was with three members of my online writer's group: an atheist technician, an agnostic scientist, and a struggling Catholic musician. It was about Science and Religion, and whether either is based in reality, and if they can really help us.
    The subject has already filled entire libraries with centuries' worth of hard-thought-out tomes. In this incarnation, it's just long enough to fill an online essay.
    There are saints who proclaim they see the glory of God everywhere, during every waking moment. For them, a heartfelt proof of God is more than enough, and they have compassion for those who lack this spiritual foundation. There are also scientists who tell us, flatly, that they see no evidence of God whatsoever. Cool rationality prevails, and they're content, even proud, to rely upon their own practical understanding. (For the purposes of this discussion, a stated adamant disbelief is considered definitive of atheism.)
    Overall, there are so many reasons to doubt, and not enough reasons to believe.
    Let's begin by framing the discussion.
    The most fundamental question has always been: Is there a God? This might be rephrased in this scientific era as: Is there a supernatural? (Things that have not been, and perhaps cannot be, measured by science.)
    I won't ask anyone to attempt to 'prove a negative,' only to remain open minded. Many things once unsuspected, even in theory, are now accepted as routine.
    Are there forces that current science cannot measure? There is little agreement about what such forces might be like. Many Pagans believe in an amorphous 'life force' or many-named 'divinity' which imbues the cosmos. There are several very old, as well as some modern New Age, versions of this belief.
    If that is true, then monotheists such as myself would say that this force is but one aspect of a vast, personal God.
    Let's look at the monotheist's descriptions of God. Religious liberals believe in an all-forgiving, milquetoast sort of God. Fundamentalists see a demanding, judgmental God. One version sends nearly everyone to Heaven; the other, to Hell. Deists see an indifferent God, who 'wound up' a big cosmic clock, then went away and did something else.
    I would say the truth encompasses, and is larger than, any of those ideas. To illustrate, there have been eras and regions, also phases of many people's lives, in which God acted strict and demanding, even harshly judgmental. There are others times and places in which God is gracious and forgiving, offering many chances and opportunities. Sometimes God is hands-on, with many prophets and dramatic miracles, while on other occasions God seems to withdraw, allowing us humans to handle things on our own, even demanding we solve major difficulties.
    God has good reasons for all of this, over the millennia of history and throughout the decades of our lives, even at times we're not sure of the larger picture. All in all, He created us in His image, with both a mind and a heart. Let's use them both, like God does. With modern sensibilities in mind, I will use 'His' for God, while accepting that God is big enough to embrace both genders, and every sort of human.

GOT PROOF?

    Atheists don't want to take things on faith -- especially not on blind faith. Some have asked, "I can't see any clear evidence for God, so would you please show me some?" Assuming, I suppose, that I won't have any.
    Before we get into that, let's take another look at the underlying assumptions. Folks boldly ask for dramatic and incontrovertible evidence, in order to make such a major decision about their worldview.
    In response, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb has presented a brilliant analysis of our 'criteria for responsible decision.' Briefly: in the ongoing conduct of their lives, few people demand this kind of absolutely-solid evidence ^†, even while making very serious decisions.
    What do I mean? Okay, who eats at restaurants? Any idea how many people die each year from food poisoning, and related contamination? (Hint: many.) So, do you inspect the kitchen before eating? Ask to see the Health Inspection certificate? Do you know the inspector, and regard him as both competent and not corrupt?
    What about airliners? Squeaking automobile brakes?
    How many parents hire a babysitter? Community is essential to humans, and that requires a great degree of trust, even involving the most precious and vulnerable entities in our lives. Humans are social, and usually trustworthy, yet there are inevitable trade-offs. In reality, people go with the best probabilities. Most reasonable folks will take the great convenience over the slight risk.
    What about those intimate personal aspects? Dear reader, have you tested your DNA, and compared it with your parent's DNA? In other words, are you certain they are your father and mother? Your probable answer is, no and no. I would venture to say that you would not demand this evidence, or even be comfortable asking for it.
    What about your children? How many men have tested the DNA of their children, to ensure they are the real father? Again, relatively few. In truth, a lot of men don't really want to have that much 'evidence' in hand. (Note: since this essay was first written, DNA testing has become affordable and more popular. As it happens, the Dear Abby type advice columns are filled with surprise-engendered anguish, as people face some challenging revelations.)
    Overall, in our lives and surroundings, the stricter the standard of proof, the more nearly impossible it becomes, in daily practice, to obtain. So then, what is so different about a belief in God, our heavenly parent?
    {† The best counter-argument I've heard to this is: "I could obtain the needed physical evidence, and for various personal reasons, usually choose not to. However, I cannot obtain comparable 'spiritual' evidence."
    To this I would add: "Yes, obtain evidence that satisfies you personally, by the agreed-upon standards that you (along with many like-minded people) have set." Meanwhile, readers of mystery and conspiracy-thriller novels realize how thoroughly some elaborate plot can fool a targeted individual (even a really smart person), about what's really happening.}
    Billions of people have indeed found adequate spiritual verification, perhaps not readily summoned in a laboratory setting, but more than satisfactory nonetheless.
    All this being said, there is plenty of evidence, and counters to the usual objections.

OBJECTIONS TO BELIEF

    I would like to address some common objections to belief in God. By now, I suppose I've heard them all. Fortunately, they can be answered. Here's a great review of the traditional proofs of God's existence. There's also a rigorous newer proof, from philosopher Bernard Lonergan, which is partially explained in this linked article.)
    Doubters ask, "Why evil?" The old lament goes: "Why do the wicked prosper, oh Lord, while your own people suffer?"
    Many who have suffered personal tragedy tend to blame, and then to doubt God. "A good God would not have allowed such a thing to happen," is their heartfelt cry.
    God does not treat with this fallen world, directly. With the rarest of exceptions, He only works through the minds of people, especially those He has called to lead His Providence.
    In other words, God does not micro-manage the physical world. He might keep His eye on the sparrows, but He usually doesn't prevent the raven from swooping down on their nests. He might number your hairs, but He may not intervene if they begin to fall out.
    An example: when a tornado passes through their town, the people whose house is spared ought to thank Chaos Theory -- and not God alone -- when the fickle wind veers around their home, and wrecks the neighbor's place instead. God was not taking the side of the "winners," in this. Nor is He against the losers, in sports contests and most other venues.
    Some wonder why evil exists at all; and how it could have emerged in a cosmos that should have been entirely good. This question occurs to every perceptive child, and is formally known as theodicy. The answers vary between religions, and most have in fact reconciled the idea of a Good God with the existence of Worldly Evil.
    Roman Catholic Cardinal Schonborn offers some brilliant insights on this and related topics.
    An unusual response, once controversial, now subject to serious theological discussion, can be found in the Divine   Principle. (The links are to text pages and to a YouTube channel.)
    Based upon a clear grasp of its overall framework, it explains three specific reasons, near the end of its second chapter. For now, I'll try to summarize them here.
    God always maintains His original standards and blueprint. For web readers: in an online context, His dealing with (directly engaging, and thus formally acknowledging) evil forces would be like a human discussion forum administrator getting into a big argument with a cynical troll. This would "feed the troll," tarnish and distract the person in charge, and drag everything down. God prefers to honor our dignity and free will, and at the same time, maintain the purity of the ultimate Ideal.
    Hence, He does not stay the hands of the evil, except when good people arise to do it, whether in crime or war. Several years ago, over in Scotland, there was a terrible massacre of school children. During the memorial service, the town's Pastor said a wise thing: "God's heart was the first to break." We make Him suffer, but we can also bring Him great joy.
    Without a crystal clear understanding of these issues, Christianity has often been challenged by compelling heresies and competing beliefs; such as Mithraism, which teaches that Good and Evil have always existed, and that the best we can hope for is to keep the two "in balance." Today this is the darker variety of New Age belief. This is also the basis of The Force, to the extent it's ever explained, in the Star Wars franchise.
    There are other tragedies also, with 'neutral' causes. We need water, but could drown. Gravity is quite handy, yet falls cause numerous deaths. Common sense and good technology mitigate these dangers tremendously, as does medical science. With time, this will only improve. Science can provide safety, and religion a healthy lifestyle. (Folks could be so much more sensible, but then we've have to do without the Darwin Awards.) It's strange, but Darwin and the Bible do agree on one thing: our mortal bodies are but temporary vessels.

HORRORS!

    By now, any conscientious atheist must be itching to tell me all about the horrors described in the Old Testament, also promulgated by 'organized religion,' with events such as the Inquisition and Crusades. Those are mentioned constantly, despite having happened many centuries, even millennia ago. (They've already been apologized for.) The historical reality is complex, and frequently misunderstood.
    Critics normally point to the Bible's books of Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, with the latter probably the very oldest extant text, written down well over 3000 years ago. (Portions being even older.) There are divine commands, and graphic depictions, of mass slaughter. Canaanites in particular are in for holy wrath, slated for utter extermination and blotting from the landscape. Nasty! Critics accuse: how could a God of love do any such thing, and how could a chosen people be so awful?
    There are now clear answers to this, archaeological and historic and theological. For starters, the Biblical timeline may not be strictly accurate. For example, while the city-state of Jericho stretches back to about 7000 BC, some archaeologists claim it was not inhabited when the Israelites first arrived; that any armed conflict would've taken place later. In any case, it turns out, bloodthirsty boasting was the normal style of that Bronze Age Middle East. "We killed them all! Slaughtered their cattle and sheep!! Pulled down their walls!!!" was a common boast, of many different tribes against many other surrounding tribes, and in every direction. Yet those tribes were not ended, rather, similar boasts were made again and again, for centuries, until some other force (such as an invading empire, or major cultural change, or an economic collapse) finally did bring about an end to those various distinct peoples. (Except for Israel!)
    In other words, much of that oft-touted slaughter never actually happened. One thorough, opinionated, scholarly analysis has been offered by Charlie Trimm in his book The Destruction of the Canaanites. Further, the religious founder Rev. SM Moon has proposed: perhaps such a Biblical commands for (what we now call) genocide weren't from God at all. Rather, those may have come from an evil spiritual entity, such as a fallen angel. In such primitive, brutal, superstitious times, people would've been easy to convince; and current world news shows that some factions still are. Actually, for peoples other than the Canaanites (and thousands of years before the Geneva Conventions), the Bible contains the first descriptions of just warfare, and rules for war. Like offering treaties, then a chance to surrender, and only then aggressive attacks. With safeguards for noncombatants, and rules for any valuable acquisitions.
    This misguided criticism continues, for better-known events within Christian history. For instance, the Inquisition is one of history's first examples of a formal, deliberative court of law. Bad as it surely was, the "pitchforks and torches" alternative was much worse. As for the Crusades, they were preceded by centuries of invasion and rule by peoples from another land. (Lots of small tribal principalities, back then.) Some have termed them a counterattack, brought on by the harassment of pilgrims to the Holy Land, plus incursions on Byzantine territory.
    Here is a different take: what the Church authorities could not overcome by virtue of their own weak doctrines, they sometimes crushed by brute force. For example, a medieval incarnation of Mithraism, called the Cathar heresy, was exterminated by one of the bloodiest massacres in French history. (Here's a sympathetic essay on Catharism. Others claim they provoked violence.)
    Then we come to some enduring, and very personal, horrors. Many people wonder why a good God would condemn so many to an eternal Hell. Or how a powerful God could lose so many of His creations to ruinous perdition. If Heaven and Hell's populations were sports scores, then (according to mainstream doctrine) God is losing badly.
    Some theologians have gone so far as to posit that the inhabitants of Heaven have amnesia. Why? Consider a mother, who was deeply faithful and finds herself in Heaven close to God. However, for various reasons (and as is common in real life), all of her children were not saved, nor her husband and her parents. According to evangelical doctrine, all of her family are suffering eternal torment, horrific suffering forever, downstairs in Hell. With no hope of rescue or relief! What mother, anyone with a heart, could enjoy repose in Heaven, knowing what else is going on?
    That simply isn't what God made, or ever intended. Think not? God prefers to succeed!
    Let's use a simple analogy. Say I'm a baker, have an important order for a thousand fresh baked cookies. Then 997 of those cookies turn out awful. Need to be thrown away, in fact they're so toxic they have to be get burned and their ashes buried. But, at least, 3 cookies turned out wonderful. Loved and honored, lifted up to praise, entered into the Cookie Hall of Fame.
    What sort of baker does that make me?
    Now substitute God as the master baker, and we, with our immortal souls, as the important cookies He has made. By some doctrines, at least 997 of those thousand have failed, are permanently ruined, will burn a long long time, deeply buried down in hell. While 3 of those souls turn out as the Elect, the Chosen, the ones who got sincerely successfully saved, have all the honor and glory. (Heck, some doctrines, such as hyperCalvinism, say this is deliberate! Foreordained, unchangeable, with no real choice as to who's the elect or not.)
    So then, what sort of "baker" would that make God?
    On the other hand, perhaps God will be a success, and those conventional doctrines are missing a few important aspects.
    How? Simply put, God condemns no one -- people do this to themselves, in this life and the next. Also, though Hell is a real and terrible place, there are ways out. Difficult roads that anyone can follow to Heaven, if they agree, and if Godly people evoke such divine grace.
    Two well-known examples: long ago, both Dante Alighieri (in his Divine Comedy), and C.S. Lewis (in his The Great Divorce) hinted at possible escape routes. (Dante in only the rarest of special cases, Lewis more generally -- and generously.) Thus, while Hell itself might be eternal, God never gives up, so at some glorious future date, no one will be left down there. (That's "down" in a metaphorical not geological sense. If those spiritual realms are in any specific 'direction' this might well be along a fourth spatial axis.)
    Believe it or not (heh, heh), Hollywood has managed to illustrate this well. In my opinion, at least three movies give fairly accurate depictions of physical death, and life the spiritual realm, and the effect of loving grace. These are Ghost,  What Dreams May Come, and The Sixth Sense. Yes it's "just" pop-culture, but you must admit how influential it is!

ATHEISTS

    Surveys indicate that over 90% of Americans believe in God, or at least, some type of Higher Spirit. Normally this is a comforting enhancement to one's life, but sometimes it can foster an abrasive fundamentalism. Either way, that belief is often based upon emotions, or childhood faith, as much as intellectual conviction.
    Militant atheists are busy crusading against belief. In defiance of logic, they've concluded that for certain, no type of God exists. (One cannot always 'prove a negative,' especially about something intangible.) However, this anti-believing minority of Americans may not be as certain of their position as they sound. In fact, their convictions often mirror those of the people they mock.
    Many atheists have a rebellious attitude toward Authority Figures, usually stemming from their own childhood. Others are cynical deconstructionists, with a mind set to challenge any and all beliefs, the more popular the better. For a few people, since God is omniscient, the idea that "someone can see what I've been up to" is cause enough for alarm, and thus for denial.
    Unfortunately, some atheists have experienced a senseless tragedy, and concluded that "a loving God would never allow such a thing to happen." For them, I recommend Rabbi Harold Kushner's excellent book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. There are numerous faith-based memoirs, and one of the best is A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, by Jerry Sittser.
    It's common to proclaim, "A good God would not allow for flaws and suffering, therefore there can't be such a God." Logically, this presumes the Biblical narrative is correct. Does nature, does Darwin, guarantee no suffering? Hardly! We can even ask, why is that so important, aside from the obvious issue of immediate personal comfort, for one's self and those around?
    Did anyone sign a contract, at some point in their life (or during the life of a predecessor), promising that their mortal existence would include no pain or loss? Of course not. Clearly, those things are baked in to the physical world, literally unavoidable. And yet we humans see beyond all that, because we do have souls, which can dwell in a different sort of eternal world someday. (The apparent trade-off being, profound love yet no new babies, a fine but crucial point.) A wonderful explanation is found in the book Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a Story to Live By, by Anglican pastor Samuel Wells.
    This potent hope is shown in scripture, with visions of a glorious future Heaven on Earth; also reflected in secular views, such as promised visions of an idyllic Workers Paradise. However, common doctrines misunderstand, and imagine that such physically incorruptible timelessness would somehow occur upon this familiar planet Earth. (Ultimately, a fitting heaven would exist in both realms.)

DARWIN & AQUINAS

    Most people have great respect for science, and atheists have told me they think religion has mostly opposed it. Therefore, that religion itself has been a roadblock to the advancement of humanity. This view is shown in a popular, but highly inaccurate, history chart. (More on this in later sections.)
    Evolution is an obvious example. Science seems to have won, hands down, on this point. Even the Pope has admitted that evolution must be true.
    Believers in Creationist theology (a fairly new 'reactionary' doctrine) have consistently invoked a so-called "God of the gaps." Everything science could not explain, they attribute to God. But as more is discovered, God is then (supposedly) shoved out of one more perch. Eventually, atheists gloat, God will have no possible role. (Rabbi Moshe Averick answers this, along with several other common objections, via an essay and book.)
    Darwinians like to claim that Evolution eliminates God's role by 'multiplying' species in a natural, apparently random, way. Unfortunately, certain Young Earth Creationists actually play into their hands, by proclaiming that the Earth and universe are less than ten thousand years old, and that all extant species existed from the beginning. (In order to maintain this ultra-literal worldview, YEC believers conjure up all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, such as the speed of light slowing drastically, and baby dinosaurs hibernating aboard Noah's Ark.)
    In fact, traditional Christian theology is much more observant and profound. Way back around the year 1260, Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa contra gentiles II. 45:

    "The goodness of the species transcends the goodness of the individual. Therefore the multiplication of species is a greater addition to the good of the universe than the multiplication of individuals of one species."

    Thus, Aquinas was comfortable with the 'origin of species' a good 600 years before Darwin. It was left to Darwin to figure out the scientific details, and how divergence could arise, when it seems obvious that offspring tend to resemble their parents. In doing so, Darwin actually supports Aquinas's reasoning!
    On the flip side, believers can comfortably embrace science, and learn the big picture, about how the two have almost always supported each other. Journalists Margaret Wertheim and Eric Metaxas, scientists like Francisco Ayala and John Lennox, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, and many others, have guided countless students into this greater understanding. (They don't agree on every detail, however their basic worldview is most important.)


SCIENCE & RELIGION

    Regarding one familiar discussion, drawing a correspondence between the 'Days' of the Bible's Book of Genesis and the 'Eras' of the Earth is a sure way to annoy almost everyone. Note that the "Sun and Moon appearing" (in Genesis 1:16) could refer to the clarity of the Earth's atmosphere, after impact events and volcanism have diminished. Remember that this knowledge was being related to, and passed along by, people with virtually no science, hence the signature style of those ancient holy scriptures.
    Although the Bible is very old, it bears distinct truths. Concepts that were brand new, and very close to what modern science now understands. It's popular for skeptics to make comparisons with other, mythic, religions, however monotheism is very different from pagan pantheism and polytheism. Some teachings get closer, and it wasn't until around 700 BC that the Jewish people finally got things clarified. Then it was another 1800 years or so, until Thomas Aquinas codified things in a formal and logical way. (Drawing upon older rabbinical and Christian wisdom, also early-Islamic scholarship.)
    This is shown prominently, in leading passages of both parts of the Bible. Genesis 1:3 declares: "And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That means, power and logos (in a manner of speaking, external action and internal thought; energy and axioms), which according to physics, are the very basis of the cosmos. It points toward the Big Bang theory, and is actually even more profound. Think of E=MC2. The E is energy, and without that nobody would be reading this. Heck, there'd be no planet to stand upon or sun to illuminate it. C is the speed of light, a universal law and a strict constant. We see an equation, based in hard, reliable mathematics and the axioms of logic. Overall, this shows important characteristics of God, and of the created universe, as well as our human ability to discern all of this.
    How might God distinctly interact with humans today? Most believers in God point to the existence of miracles. By their very nature, no one thinks that such things can be readily reproduced in a laboratory. There are people who are famous for their alleged psychic abilities, though the majority of them have been proven as fakes. A vast reward fund was never claimed.
    However, scholars are making a serious attempt to research miracles. Also, the CIA and others have taken a long-term interest in human abilities beyond the ordinary five senses. Millions of people can recount striking 'paranormal' experiences, but almost by definition, such are difficult for science to verify. (Indeed, after a few beers, even hardened skeptics have been known to share some hair-raising tales.)
    I look for God's hand at the time of the Big Bang, and at the genesis of life, and at the time the first fully human beings were born on this world. (Probably over one hundred thousand years ago.) I would look for it in holy places, though usually, well away from the glare of publicity.
    We can also look for God on the largest conceivable cosmological scales. Science has recently given us the Cosmological Anthropic Principle. As in, if any one of numerous physical constants (such as gravity and the 'strong force') were ever-so-slightly different, our universe of stars and planets could not exist. If the laws which affect chemistry varied even a tiny bit, then complex molecules, and life as we know it (or even life in any conceivable form, with enduring complexity), could not exist. If the conditions on (and surrounding) the Earth were slightly different, extinction-level events would be far more common, so 'advanced' life forms would have little chance of arising.
    As for familiar earthly life, forget "billions of years for things to happen," many scholars say the improbabilities are so great, hundreds of trillions of years wouldn't have been enough for life to begin! There are several excellent books which explain these issues in detail. (A cosmos somehow "pre set" to allow so much to occur, by random chance, is equally improbable. However, it must be noted that clever scientists may indeed manage to see simple cells created in a laboratory!)
    Scientist and priest Robert Spitzer summarizes much of this in his excellent book New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy. According to several renowned physicists, a vast (possibly existing) Multiverse must, itself, have a beginning point in time. Even theories which posit a reversal of time's arrow, or some scarcely-envisioned change in the level (or density) of entropy, have problems with don't allow for an infinite expanse of time or space.
    Perhaps the best secular effort, in regard to human life, is by evolutionary biologist Kenneth R. Miller, in his popular-science book The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will . Miller rues the harsh, even contemptuous, attitude of fellow antitheists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet, but he does not challenge their basic worldview. Instead he suggests we can rejoice in the 'top position' we humans have come to find ourselves in. He posits that creativity is real, though doesn't suppose how it could be transcendental; and claims there is free will, even with an utterly materialistic basis. Miller also describes the fortuitous existence of life (as described just above), without bothering to mention how fantastically unlikely that long-lasting stars, and complex chemistry, and diverse life, and more, statistically must be. He even quotes CS Lewis, and that great author's concerns about the limits of the merely material, yet uses an exceedingly fine rhetorical scalpel to remove Lewis's insights. Stephen C Meyer's book Return of the God Hypothesis specifically refutes Dawkins, Dennett, Kraus, and the other New Atheists. Meyer shows (among other things) how their arguments often misconstrue their own quoted sources, and in reality strengthen the theistic view.
    Secular humanists have popularized the architectural word 'spandrel' as an analogy to our superior brains, that we're an add-on that just sort of happened. Claiming that some proportion of added neurons, something we ended up with when no other creature did, rewired themselves to produce all-and-everything that's distinctive about we humans. They say we're less than an evolutionary mistake, rather a fortuitous mess that just happened to begin thinking about itself. It's circular reasoning of the proudest sort, while the least intelligent believer can tell that humans have encountered God, with mammalian bodies, yet a divine spark and a greater purpose.
    Another new pop-sci book (titled The Molecule of More) actually claims that the hormone dopamine is the root of all human nature and accomplishment, in that it makes us restless and unsatisfied. Again, there is no serious (much less philosophical) clue as to how that could, and did, go beyond the basics of life and reproduction. While marvelous molecules, from water to carbon compounds to dopamine, are a pervasive influential substrate, they cannot possibly account for our full human experience and achievements.
    Our human nature reaches into literally infinite aspirations, boundless curiosity, creative inventiveness, and dazzling arts; while daring to challenge all barriers, gain and exceed every ability, and experience numinous spirituality, along with so much more. In our human relationships we yearn for a loving and constant soulmate, within a just and peaceful society. Then, at some point, we're bitterly disappointed when 'fallen' people are never quite able to fulfill these dreams.
    Overall, religion has been a great boon to humanity. Sure, there have been abuses, as there are in every walk of life. Such violent "religious" people, past and present, have not been following the clear teachings of their own Faiths. (There are certain exceptions, but in each case, major splits developed over such things.)
    Even while denying there is anything supernatural, a scientific-minded skeptic must still deal with Plato's (and then Aristotle's) concept of the Platonic   Forms. That philosophical premise has defied refutation for millennia, and is entirely relevant today. It asserts there is an entire realm, beyond the material or the mental, of eternal and unchanging (yet often familiar) realities.
    A pioneering overview of the long positive interaction of Religion and Science was provided by the Hungarian Catholic scholar Stanley Jaki; and a more popularly accessible update by the British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book The Great Partnership. Sacks draws upon millennia of rabbinical tradition, in contrast to certain portions of ancient Christian theology that were influenced by Greek philosophy.    
    Suffice it to say that ancient philosophy and the latest scientific theories have not eliminated, but rather, given us a probable role for an intelligent Creator.

SPIRITUAL REALM

    A common doubt, shared by virtually all atheists, regards the afterlife, and the unseen spirit world. Do these exist? Science has, almost inadvertently, given us some new answers. Materialists haven't experienced the spiritual realm, and so conclude it's not there to find, indeed that it better the heck not exist! They deride the idea of "a ghost in the machine," some tiny soul widget embedded in the brain so cleverly it's escaped detention by their instruments.
    However, that's a profound misconception. Any actual soul, any spiritual realm, any immortal portion of a human being, is by definition non-physical, not anywhere "in" the familiar material realm. Instead it's part of a different magisterium (to borrow a theological term), wholly different, and yet not apart, but thoroughly (if subtly) linked to each one of us.
    It's not a bodily organ (as Descartes looked to the pineal gland), or a part of our practical mammalian brains, the "meat" we hear so much about. Rather it's a transcendent aspect, a qualitatively different aspect than found in even the most clever animal. Skeptics can't find any "violations of the laws of physics" within the brain or body, but their imaginative scope fails them. All of the material realm, all of life, all conscious beings, and every one of we soulful humans, interact (at various levels and to greater degrees) with that spiritual realm. It's already part of what's being measured, and of we humans especially!
    So then, where is this mysterious realm? There's no magic, nothing beyond the rational. In fact, we can look to modern science for some ideas. Apparently the Multiverse theory was developed, in large part, to counter the Anthropic Principle. It claims that, instead of a universe that's improbably helpful to stars and life and intelligence, we're just randomly born into a favorable one. Out of how many? According to String Theory, there could be as many as 10⁵⁰⁰ distinct, and often tremendously different, universes! According to the Multiverse Theory, to arrive at ours, there would have to be a gazillion others where little if anything happens. Some other universes are said to be virtually identical to ours, like a handful would have another 'you' living there, while others are purported to be so strange that even the rules of mathematics, and axioms of logic, would differ! (Max Tegmark offers an excellent explanation of this mind-bending topic.)
    This bends key secular assumptions back around on themselves, in a vast and all-encompassing circle, since it undermines the atheist's vaunted supremacy of mortal-human-style reasoning. (And the Bible was already there, 2000 years ago. See 1 Corinthians 3:19.)
    Atheist skeptics will eagerly embrace this new Multiverse/Landscape hypothesis, even without any evidence. And yet, if I describe just two kinds of alternate cosmos, called Heaven and Hell, they will bristle with scorn! (Respected biologist Robert Lanza explains this in precise terms.)
    Please understand, I'm not saying there are a vast number of alternate universes, when just a handful seem like enough for humanity, body and soul. (The Hubble telescope can observe hundreds of billions of galaxies, many composed of hundreds of billions of stars. And the spiritual realm is potentially larger still.)
    Also note: any 'spiritual' realm will surely have different qualities than our more-familiar physical one; with varying inherent laws, different physical constants, and possibly a fourth (or even fifth or more) geometric aspect, and etc. Many scholars dismiss its possible existence out of hand, because they cannot measure it via known instruments, nor see it in telescopes. Still, they have no problem accepting the reality of dark matter, which has effectively remained invisible to all attempted detection. If, unlike dark matter, the substance of a spiritual realm does not interact gravitationally (as many traditions would seem to indicate) with our mortal cosmos, then it would be even harder to detect. Further, such otherworldly realms might well be less subject to rigorous expectations and quick repeatability, instead functioning under more subtle, gradually acting, principles such as grace and karma. In other words, such manifestations probably wouldn't jump through a conventional scientist's experimental hoops; and may not want to cooperate, because they're profoundly different, and it seems, inherently willful.
    Please don't be too quick to dismiss these essay sections as a "right back atcha" petito principi type arguments. This is not goofball stuff -- much of it has been covered in Scientific American and elsewhere.

© 2023 by Paul E. Carlson

Proofs of God