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Why does he believe in God? Because he doesnt know all the answers to the questions he has. He takes a "leap of faith." Faith: belief in something with no proof. Just because we dont have the answers doesnt mean that God is the answer.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/col...ary/index.html
ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.
As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.
I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.
I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God)
I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."
But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.
For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.
So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?
Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.
But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.
I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.
Why does he believe in God? Because he doesnt know all the answers to the questions he has. He takes a "leap of faith." Faith: belief in something with no proof. Just because we dont have the answers doesnt mean that God is the answer.
I think you can believe in God, and be a scientist. I do not, however, think that you can be a fundamentalist, every word in the Bible is literally true Christian, and be a scientist. Science requires a large dollop of skepticism, something that Fundamentalism will not brook.
Best exstatic post ever. Agree 100%. They've never been contrdictory philsophies except at the fundamental level. Evolution in no way disproves the existence of a higher power....more like a detailed explantion of how the changes occurr.
And Science doesn't have the answers for the origins of the Universe yet anyway.
In leiu of the actual knowledge, anything can sound like the stuff of fantasy.
Take you or I with modern technology and drop us 5000-10000 years into the past...with a story about the origin life and rules to live by, let us interract with a speices that evolves at the bio cultural level....
Think about how they'd interpret us....they wouldn't have the words to actually describe what they saw, or what they heard except at the most superficial level, the detailed words would not exist...it'd be very primitive language and pictures.
Think about how they'd see us......and then think about how those stories would have changed after 5000 years of being passed down and translated, and reinterpreted to the benefit of certain leaders time and time again.
The bottom line is that since Zarathrustra was the father of the Dharmic and Abrahamic religions, and basically all modern religions are just retranslations, with varying degrees of enlightenemnt of that philosophy...anything could have happened...there's still so much we don't know about ancient man and the rise of humans to sentience...
But anyway...I agree with your view and I wish more people shared it.
...we don't even underatand much of anything about our remote ancestors, and quite a bit of the technology they used...much less the absolute origins of life and universe.
To me...the question is...how can anyone believe humans are the highest form of life in the Universe, we are the only sentient creatures in the universe?
I find that next to impossible to believe....Religion says we aren't(alrthough it says it in a confusing way)....and science has a similar underlying instinct.
Last edited by whottt; 04-04-2007 at 11:10 PM.
Evolution is real. God is real. I believe both of these statements to be true.
Here we go again.
Bottom line... people will believe what they choose to believe. Their belief structure will comform to suit the needs of their life.
Let's not forget that many claims in science also require 'leaps of faith'... most just aren't aware, or don't care, or don't want to face that reality.
You really ought to read his book before sumarizing Collin's entire belief structure to the premise of "I don't know - that's why I believe in GOD".
It's much beyond that.
ie...
Fundamental LAW (Meaning no longer a theory) of nature: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
Right?
But there IS matter!
If it can't be created, where did it come from?
Could one of you Atheists please explain (without a leap of faith)?
It was all pure energy before it condensed into matter.... (granted, I also believe that none of this existed until GOD said, "Let there be light".) But that's not what I was referring to.ie...
Fundamental LAW (Meaning no longer a theory) of nature: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
Right?
But there IS matter!
If it can't be created, where did it come from?
Could one of you Atheists please explain (without a leap of faith)?
I'm referring to selective assumptions on the creation of life's molecules from a 'prebiotic' soup. Or claims that the 'sudden' creation of DNA (or RNA) is chemically possible without regard to the relevance of the code, or the insurmountable entropic constraints required to create them. How all of their assumptions on said front fail to adequately harmonize the concepts established by chemistry, physics, and molecular biology (i.e. in order for their premises to stand, chemical or physical constraints are conveniently ignored). Furthermore, that the code itself defies all odds of random assortment; i.e. random chance cannot create purpose.
Last edited by Phenomanul; 04-05-2007 at 09:13 AM.
uhh, it can easily be converted from one form to another. that doesn't take a leap of faith.ie...
Fundamental LAW (Meaning no longer a theory) of nature: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
Right?
But there IS matter!
If it can't be created, where did it come from?
Could one of you Atheists please explain (without a leap of faith)?
That's only true in light of Albert Einstein's theories (particularly e=mc^2)... But if the question were rephrased to ask:
"Where did all the matter and energy come from", "has it always existed"....
The athiest would still have no answer.
It should be noted that Einstein later became a deist himself.
converted != created
"What is the moon made of?"
Guy 1: "I don't know"
Guy 2: "Cheese. I'm absolutely positive about it"
Guy 2 has "the answer", so Guy 2 must be correct, right Phenomanul?
If not an answer, it requires a "leap of faith" does it not?
That is what an earlier poster's problem with a belief in god was.
Read the context of the thread....
With proof, it will end the need for faith. Saying an athiest has no answer? True. He's just not willing to build his house on a foundation of fantasy. It doesn't mean he's not interested in the truth.
obviously, what's your point? circular arguments prove nothing. if that's all you've got, it's weak.
I see. Better be Guy2 and take a leap of faith so that you have an "answer" than be Guy1 and live in doubt.
Thanks to guy 2, guy 1 now has an answer. That's how you spread the word of God.
Or one can believe that GOD is absolute Truth.
Yeah, if you rely on word from man. I'd rather examine the product before the salesman approaches.
An atheist, by definition, is not one who says, "I don't know the answer." That's an agnostic. An atheist has arrived at the answer that there is no God. And since there is neither positive or negative proof, the atheist has arrived at that answer through an inductive process similar to that of the religious person.
You're right. I missed the connection and provided an inaccurate definition. Being athiest is also having blind faith.
Science isnt a leap of faith. It requires experiments and tests based around the scientific method before it can be accepted. Try Putting God to the scientific method.
Phenom have you ever read the God Delusion or any atheist book? Or any religious book other than one of your own faith? I ask because I have only met two Jesus pushing people in my life that have looked outside their faith, and stuck with it.
To say that because I cant explain something so it must be Gods work is ridiculous. I am seeking the truth and the more I look for it in organized all I see is lies. Its possible there is a God but there is no reason I neen to worship Jesus. Most of organized religion is manmade.
All Catholics believe in Adam and Eve right? Because without them there would be no original sin? Any Catholics out there?
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