Does God Exist? Part 3

Thanks for your response. Since this is the last round, I hope you won't mind if I take my final response in a different direction. I read through all your recent responses and questions, and I would be happy to keep discussing them. However, I believe we are still too far apart on this issue and giving Christian-specific responses would not be constructive at this point. So, I have decided to focus more on the idea of god in general for my response. I wish to end simply with a few final thoughts that are the biggest reasons I personally cannot accept atheism: Origins: Atheism teaches that everything came from nothing. Out of nothing, the Big Bang exploded for unknown reasons to produce everything we see today. It makes no sense how something can be produced from nothing. Also, atheism teaches that life came from non-life. There is no evidence to suggest that this can actually happen. I believe it makes more sense that there must have been some kind of conscious power or being who set all these things in motion for a purpose. Meaning: If god does not exist, life has no meaning or purpose. Science can never answer what the point of life is, it can only conclude that we are just products of random chance and natural selection. We all die, and most of us are forgotten within four generations. Most of us do not even know our great-great grandparent's names, let alone anything about their lives. Everything we accomplish, no matter how impressive, eventually fades away and is forgotten. That is a very depressing reality if death truly is the end. If there is no god, the universe simply exists as a result of randomness and chance. It is all a big accident with no intentional purpose. Since a godless universe has no purpose, we are forced to make up our own purposes. You can say your purpose is to help others or seek happiness or raise a family or whatever, but those are just things you made up yourself - they are not true, ultimate meaning. They are just goals we choose to invent to distract and entertain ourselves until we die. When we honestly consider these things, they do not sit well. We have a natural sense that life must have meaning, that there is a purpose to our lives. I consider this as evidence that there must be something more to all of this. Morality: I thank you for providing a definition of good and bad. However, I would point out that you used the word "good" to define itself: "An action is good when it does good for you and others. " A word cannot define itself, it's like saying "something is tall when it is tall. " Even so, now that you have offered a definition, we run into a much harder question - what makes the definition you provided better than someone else's? If there is no god, then there is no such thing as objective morality. We simply make up codes of behavior that make sense to us and that other people in our group agree with. When we encounter different groups with codes of conduct that we don't like, we fight them. The stronger group wins and gets to impose its code of conduct on the losers. And on and on it goes. You may say that you believe hurting people is bad. Stalin would say he believes hurting people is good as long as it makes him more powerful. If morality is not objective, then these are both equally valid personal opinions. There is no higher authority to decide who is right or wrong. In a subjective world, you cannot say that Stalin's morals are wrong because you are then appealing to an objective sense of right and wrong that doesn't exist. A completely subjective world is a very, very scary thought. Atheism cannot explain how objective morality can exist if there is no god. Until it can, I will never be able to accept atheism. To conclude, I would like to bring up a point you wrote about in your very first entry in part one - that religious people waste their lives. This concept is called Pascal's Wager. I think we can both agree that someone is not wasting their lives if they find happiness, fulfillment, and purpose. Let's assume that a religious person finds great happiness, fulfillment, and purpose from their belief in god. Now let's assume atheism is true and there is no god. When that religious person dies, nothing happens. Has that religious person then wasted their life? No. They experienced great joy and fulfillment while they were alive, and nothing happened when they died. There is no penalty or punishment for believers in the end even if religion turns out to be false. Now consider an atheist who also finds joy and happiness in life, but rejects belief in god. Let's assume this time that god exists. When the atheist person dies, there is likely to be some kind of punishment or judgment (depending on which religion you consider). There is potentially a huge penalty or punishment if religion turns out to be true. The point is this: Atheists and Believers can both experience joy and happiness in this life. If god is fake then nothing happens when we die and it doesn't matter what we believed because the end is the same for everyone. If god is real though, and something does happen after we die, then the atheist has risked everything on a temporary existence. Origin, meaning, and morality - these are the deepest questions of the human heart. I would encourage everyone to really think about these three things and consider if atheism can offer satisfying explanations for them. As for me, I believe the only satisfying way to explain these concepts is through an all powerful and all loving god.