Atheists: why is it so hard to believe...(read rest of question)?

Question

Why is it so hard for you to believe that an intelligent designer (God) had a role in the creation of this world? After all, it has order and rationality. If this is all a mistake, there is no reason to expect beauty and order.
I'm not saying God created everything out of nothing, but He in some way created this world. If there was a big bang, I believe God played a role in that.
A mistake or something that happened by chance does not have that. DNA also has information in it. Last time I checked, someone has to program that information. It doesn't appear by itself.
Good science takes into consideration all possible causes and seeks the truth. It is not biased.
So why is it so hard for you to believe in the intelligent designer we call God?
Thank you for any time you give.
Serious and civil answers only please.

Answer 1

There are none so blind as those that refuse to see.

Answer 2

You say "Last time I checked, someone has to program that information." Where did you check? That is a misconception that creationists like to repeat to one another, but nearly every serious scientist disagrees with you and the creationists.

You seem to think that evolution says that things happen only by chance. That ignores the role that natural selection has to play, and natural selection is by far the dominant factor -- especially when you take into account the long scales of time that evolution works over.

As to the Big Bang, I think most scientists will honestly tell you that it is a big mystery as to what the conditions were before the Big Bang. We simply don't know. I expect that quite a few scientists either believe or are willing to consider that some kind of intelligence played a role in causing the Big Bang. There are two big problems with that hypothesis that you should consider:

1) Where did the intelligence come from? If you have to assume an intelligence was required to make the big bang happen, then why don't you impose the same requirement on the creation of that intelligence? I simply don't understand why theists are so willing to believe that a god has always existed, but that some kind of space time with physical laws couldn't have always existed.

2) Even if it is true that an intelligence created the big bang, that in no way proves the Bible to be true. Believing the stories of the Bible might actually be counterproductive to learning the truth about the real creator.

Answer 3

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that an intelligent designer (God) had a role in the creation of this world?"

Mainly because there is no evidence for it. None. at all.

"If this is all a mistake, there is no reason to expect beauty and order."

Why do you use the word mistake? The big bang theory may be correct, it may not be. The theory of evolution by natural selection is almost certainly correct - but if it is proved otherwise, scientists won't say - "Oh, but that was just allegory - what we ACTUALLY meant was..." They will simply discard the old disproven theory for the one that fits with whatv we know at the time. Are you aware that Evolution by natural selection is the exact opposite of a chance process? You should research it to get a better understanding.

"If there was a big bang, I believe God played a role in that. "

So God didn't actually make all the stuff, he just kinda put it together? He's not the creator of all things? Or he is the creator of all things by your logic that all thing must have a creator. If all things must have a creator, then by the same elementary logic your god must have a creator. Who created your god? By the way, there was no explanation for this until some goddist, fed up of hitting brick walls came up with "God is outside time". Nice one - wish i could cop-out of everything like that.

"Last time I checked, someone has to program that information."

No, the information you are talking about, which needs to be programmed, is artificial inteligence information. That does indeed need to be programmed, but to suggest that all information for everything must be programmed, from human thoughts to the organisation of the universe is absurd! If you can't see the difference between "programming" information and natural processes, then again, you need to do some research. Real research, from books that don't mention God but deal in facts. Provable, testable, repeatable fact.

"Good science takes into consideration all possible causes and seeks the truth. It is not biased."

That's right - but you obviously are biased.

Also, if this god of yours exists, why does everyone interpret the bible differently? why do so many people have such a different view of god? Surely he would have "programmed" us to see him as he actually is, or to interpret the bible in the way it was meant?

What do you think people who believe in 6 day creation think of your theory of an intelligent designer that took millenia longer to make things than the bible states?

Why are they any more or less wrong than you about who/what/how god is?

These questions, and the fact that there are not any answers to them that point to the existence of a divine creator of any sort, are the reason I don't believe.

Hope that answers your question a little. If you want to discuss further I'd be happy to - just email me.

Have a good evening!

Answer 4

Sorry, but some of your "conclusions" are incorrect. The arguments for "Intelligent Design" have been soundly refuted, and they are not necessarily true even if you believe them to be "orderly and rational". If this is all a "mistake" there is no less beauty, and there IS reason to expect beauty and order, because it exists NOW. DNA does indeed have information in it, but to say that someone HAD to "program" that information is also not true - eons of time have selected what works and what doesn't. The information that works is still here, the information that doesn't did not survive. Good science does take into consideration all TESTABLE possibilities, and you are saying that the existence of the supernatural is testable, and it is not. Science is not in the business of testing that which is impossible to prove - it is beyond the scope of science. What a lot of the scientists are wondering is why is it so hard for YOU to see the beauty and the miracle of the natural order of things? Nature works in the way it works and YOU do not get to decide simply because what you believe doesn't fit in with the evidence - in essence, you are telling God what to do, and you don't even know it. "Intelligent Design", when pushed to the limits says "God did it" instead of answering the question of "HOW?" This is not science - this is religion. For me personally the natural universe IS "God". Just because the world came about the way it did and not by some supernatural magic trick makes it no less miraculous to me. After all, lets see anyone of us create the universe - go on - I dare you. Thus although I do not believe in the same God as you, I am not an atheist, and I still know that your conclusions are in error.

Answer 5

Why do you find it hard to believe that chance has EVERYTHING to do with it, it is called probability, and mix that with the chaos factor, and ANYTHING becomes possible, except the Idea that there is some supreme being creating whole universes for the fun of it!
And as for DNA information, if there is a God, why is it when two DNA incompatible people have children, they are born with disabilities, mental and physical, if he had made us, he would have removed the flaws in the DNA!

And be VERY careful how you answer that, because there are a LOT of parents who have children like that!
And YES good science takes into consideration all possible causes and seeks the truth. It is not biased, that is why they do not even consider the existence of a dreamt up creator.

Answer 6

Your question is sincerely polite and intelligent. Thank you.
They reason they do not believe is that there is no proof. I think atheists base their beleifs based on scientific evdience, and according to science, there has to be absolute proof of something before it is considered a truth. While it may make sense that an intelligent being created this world, it still cannot be proven.
I am not an atheist, though. I am agnostic. (Which means I am not sure whether there is a god or not, but do not deny the possibility).

So "Bad Liberal", you are saying that you would believe in god if there was just "some evidence?" You would become an instant believer? Wow. I guess atheists do have faith.

"Bad Liberal" : I just know that I wouldn't be a believer (or if you want to get technical, Webster, I wouldn't accept God as a fact) unless I had proof. Not just evidence. Proof. And I don't think there is anything wrong with the words that I am using.
Being a believer and "considering it very carefully" are two different things. I said that an atheist would probably need proof to BELIEVE.
And it does take at least a small amount of faith to believe in anything that is not proven.

Answer 7

There is something to the "design" point, but it has nothing to do with intelligence. What you see as design is the product of interacting laws of the universe. The role that "chance" plays is important, but it has to be understood within that framework of a lawful universe. For example, if I throw a hundred marbles helter-skelter hither and yon, up and down, in every direction, you might expect some sort of "randomness," and you would be correct. But you would not be surprised if a great many of them ended up on the floor - as opposed to the ceiling. You would (correctly) assume that my attempt at "chaos" was limited by laws governing the movement of bodies in the presence of other bodies (gravity).

Yes, DNA has "information," but so do much more elementary processes - actually some contend that all things that can be measured contain information.

And before I bore you to tears, let me cover the issue of "'creation" itself. My challenge to those who use this word is to tell me what it means - at least give me an example., or a model for it. No, watchmakers do NOT create watches. They merely reorganize existing materials. No person you have ever known, or process you can point to, has ever "created" anything. How can something we don't even understand be a governing principle of reality?

Thus "creation" is a bad inference abstracted from our short-sightedness. We "think" that things have a beginning, and that they'll have an end. But that's not even true in our daily lives. There isn't a bit of "you" that hasn't been around since time immemorial - just in different forms.

And that's for starters.

Answer 8

You're making the assumption that god exists. But there's no evidence to back up your assumption.

If you can believe without evidence, that's faith. But please understand that your believing it, does not make it so. It's possible that despite your faith, you may be wrong. In fact, it's possible that your faith is actually causing you to be wrong -- by making it impossible (or at least, unnecessarily difficult) for you to comprehend the difference between believing and knowing.

You also misunderstand the theory of evolution. In no way does it suggest that anything happens "by chance." Quite the opposite, in fact: While genetic mutations occur all the time, the only mutations which persist will be those which help the organism to survive and thrive. Those mutations will be passed along to the next generation, and so on and so on. This isn't accidental; it's natural.

You have a lot to learn; I've barely scratched the surface. Wherever your education takes you, good luck.

Answer 9

there is no order and rationality to the universe. There is only order and rationality to your view of the universe.

people can look at clouds and see shapes of rabbits, trains, etc. The clouds were not arranged to look like that - people just automatically try to impose order on their surroundings.

If someone hits a hole in one while wearing a particular hat, they may decide that the hat is lucky and wear it. As time goes on they assign more favorable events to the lucky hat. Again there is no connection between the hat and the event, but the person invents that order in their mind.

Candy does not taste good. Candy activates certain receptors on your tongue, your brain interprets that as taste, and your brain may or may not decide that taste is good. No one created candy and made it taste good.

You may see a sunset and think it is beautiful and think that because it is beautiful there must be a designer who created its beauty. In a sense you are right. You are the one who created its beauty. The sunset is just light in the sky. Your brain interpreted it and decided it was beautiful.

So your reasoning is based on false premises. You impose order and beauty on the universe and think that you are simply seeing order and beauty imposed by another.

There is not an intelligent designer, there is an intelligent viewer.

Answer 10

What your words relate to is Deism not Christianity. Besides, there are no true atheists. It’s the difference of opinions that (such as opposing forces Catholicism and Protestantism) that cause the “atheists” to emerge. All people hold belief whether it is a god or many gods, a man or many men, a woman or many women, an animal or many animals, or even machines or technology. Every human being has an innate, naturally enforced decency on the “greater” force. It is that these “atheists” choose decline the currents “leaderships” presented in this day and time. There is too much conflicting information and too many confronting ideals such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They all celebrate and honor a single “god” but follow a “god” of different names, texts, and times. Take it into consideration. Besides, can you call yourself a Christian when there is no solid definition? Define the “true” Christian.

Answer 11

Your beleif of DNA is incorrect, it is a way that proteins and such (I wont go into detail) are arranged that causes specific traits. Athiests find it hard to beleive because they don't want to just believe in something they have no proof even exists. There is no solid evidence God/Heaven is real. No one has traveled to it, we cannot measure it. It is not a definite thing and some people have trouble just taking a several thousand year old books word for it.