How do you look at nature and not believe there is a God?

Answer 1

for me, i cannot... i see the plants emerging after winter and see the rebirth.. and it amazes me.... the colors of the sunrise is beyond anything man can do....

Answer 2

Ah, the old Anthropic argument.

I look at nature, its beauty and complexity, see vastness of the universe and am in total awe of it. However, I see no reason to consider a "designer" as the universe is clearly not designed. There are natural explanations of how the universe came to be the way it is. For believers to say that the universe is unlikely because it is so complex is a bogus argument. How much more unlikely and complex is the existence of a supreme being? Any appearance of design is an illusion. To a puddle of water, the world appears designed because the hole it sits in is exactly the right shape.

People who see God in nature have a need to believe in God first, and see evidence for 'him' as a consequence of that. This is known as the confirmation bias.

I don't understand peoples' need to believe in a deity. Clearly it is a strong impulse, as the majority of the world believes in some form of deity. It has never been one of my needs or compulsions, I thought it was silly even as a young boy going to Sunday School. I still think it is silly. I guess I lack the "god gene" Now is that by God's design????

Answer 3

You have posed a good question. It was considered carefully by such Deists as Voltaire, Rousseau, John Locke, and the founding fathers of the United States.

Within theistic religion, wonder at nature finds expression in the outpourings of doxology from people such as Job and the many writers of hymns in modern times.

In the Deist view of our founders, their God is revealed in nature. This is in clear contrast to the view of ignorant Protestant fundies of our time who assume that God is revealed in words in a book.

The poet Alexander Pope saw the significance of the transition from the magical worldview of superstitious medieval Christianity toward the new understanding of secular cause and effect as the way nature works. He writes:

Nature, and nature's laws, lay hid in night.
God said: Let Newton be! And all was light.

A modern person in search of God might well look at nature rather than poring over the pages of a book. Christians ready to grow will do well to explore nature by studying science.

Answer 4

My dad has a cat called Sadie. She weighs about six pounds and loves to be petted. She's a sweetie.

And she's a stone killer.

I've sat in the barnyard and watched her kill a field mouse; it's a slow process, taking about half an hour from initial chase to killing blow.

These days, this is something that most people will never see. Nature is beauty, yes; but it's also predation.

For a really gruesome story, look up "guinea worm."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis

Then just try to imagine what your god was thinking when he came up with that one.

Answer 5

If you really look at nature, it's pretty clear there's no god involved.

Creationists tend to have a dramatically oversimplified notion of what is involved in nature. The most important example is the common misconception about the nature of species that makes them fall for the "micro/macroevolution" argument.

It seems clear that creationists' overly simple notion of nature is what enables them to believe that it could be the result of intentional design processes (e.g., their susceptiblity to the "watchmaker" argument). In fact nature is FAR too complex to be the result of design.

Answer 6

Because God is not necessary to explain nature.

How do you look at nature and make a flying intellectual leap to believe that there IS a God? It's hardly apparent without a strongly socialized upbringing in which God was inculcated into your thinking.

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Answer 7

After reading the replies above, it becomes painfully obvious that the atheists represented here are blissfully unaware of what Nature really is.

They are either too shallow or lazy to comprehend the complexity of the Universe. They are too biased and spiteful to acknowledge that order cannot come from disorder. Logically, if there is order, then some being made it that way.

Answer 8

Because I received a scientific education.
If I was ignorant I could perhaps believe that all the things I do not understand have to be magic.

Answer 9

Because I see nature, not god. You need to go back to school.

Answer 10

How do you look through a telescope and not believe that the bible got it completely wrong. That there is more up there than just lights embedded in the firmament?

Answer 11

How do you look at nature and think there is but one?