Posted by Dinah on July 10, 2002, at 18:07:04
In reply to loss of faith, posted by Dave1 on July 10, 2002, at 14:38:34
I've come full circle Dave. I was raised in a religious home. Then I lost my faith in a history of religion course taught from what I would swear was an athiestic outlook at a Catholic University. It made belief seem foolish somehow, and the belief in God a human psychological phenomenom.
Then many years later, I again regained my faith, but on a different level perhaps. My favorite story is that of the rabbi and his atheist friend. His friend was talking one night about the world and human life, etc having evolved by unguided evolution. The next time the rabbi saw him, he gave him a scross full of beautiful poetry written in elaborate calligraphy. His friend was dumbstruck by the beauty of the scroll and asked his friend if he had done it. The rabbi answered that his cat had knocked over the ink and walked all over the paper, and that was the source of the scroll. His friend of course did not believe him and told him "You can't possibly ask me to believe that such a beautiful creation came about by random chance."
That's not the exact story, but I think I've conveyed the idea.
The more science discovers about just how small the odds of this planet hosting life, the more the belief in God seems easier to believe than the huge amount of chance that would be necessary. If the orbit of the earth did not keep us within the same general distance from the sun, the extremes of temperature would make life impossible. If Venus was not so large as to pull space debris towards it and thus miss earth, earth would have been hit by many meteors etc. that would make life impossible. And so on and so on. Each thing perhaps not so great, but added together they make the existence of life here miraculous.
Or at least that's how I've interpreted it.
poster:Dinah
thread:414
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20020527/msgs/416.html