A question about "God's creation" for religious believers

I have a question for religious people: most religions believe that God or some other divine being created the universe. Which, naturally, includes Earth.

I read a lot of science books. I'm not expert in the details of cosmology and evolution, but I'm familiar with the broad outlines of these fields. I know how much solid evidence supports certain basic facts.

Such as...

The universe started off in a big bang some 13.8 billion years ago. Stars and galaxies eventually came into being, along with our sun and the solar system. 

Chance, in the form of countless unpredictable chaotic deterministic events, led to the formation of Earth. The orbits of planets in our solar system have been much different in the past than they are now, and those orbits are continuing to change.

Earth was hit by a very large object fairly early on in its history, which caused the Moon to be formed. Other objects have impacted Earth over billions of years, leading to mass extinctions of the life forms existing at the time.

All life existing now on Earth has a common ancestor. Almost certainly this is a single-celled organism, such as a bacteria. The relatedness of humans to other species is evident in our DNA. Our ancestors include not only bacteria, but fish, birds, and mammals.

Before Homo sapiens came to be the only Homo species, quite a few other species closely related to us (such as Neanderthals) existed. Human DNA reveals that our Homo sapiens ancestors interbred with some of these species, leaving genetic traces that are evident in our cells today.

At one point the number of Homo sapiens dwindled from thousands down to a few hundred. If these early humans hadn't survived, our species wouldn't exist now. Neanderthals or some other Homo species would.

I could go on in this vein, but I've described enough to ask my question of religious believers.

Given all of this scientific knowledge about how the universe, Earth, and humans came to be, how is it possible for you to believe that God or some other divine being created all of this?

What plausible story do you have for creation that incorporates what I've broadly outlined above? What sort of God or other supernatural entity would utilize natural mechanisms for bringing about the supposed creation of everything that has existed, and does exist, in the cosmos?

It sure seems to me like religions either have to ignore scientific facts (which many do), or twist "divine will" into an exceedingly bizarre shape. Meaning, if divine will is equated with the evident laws of nature that have led to the world we have now, why bring God into an act of creation at all? 

I've never come across an answer to my question that even begins to make sense to me. Maybe some reader of this blog will be able to share one. I'm waiting...

Comments

[777]

Hi Brian

I explained this already scientifically and NOT preachingly using Math
but I cannot easily find it now

First I calculated the chance that some godlike power
was at work to create a Brian in Salem Oregon
with the present constitution of today etc

and I proved that that is impossible

I calculated in that comment that it's easier to win all lotteries on earth
every week than to perform a Brian

The extend of impossibility was such that you had to place a Cray supercomputer
on each electron in this universe, calculating 13,8 Biljon years
and it was much to little math power to find the figure representing that chance, . . that a Brian should exist at this actual moment

You ignored it at that time or you didn't see

So : IT'S IMPOSSIBLE A BRIAN EXISTS

Now, one possibility is :

There is a Power ( probably alone ) which is for one reason°° or another is imagining a Brian and is adding some molecules around that concept
in a way is disguising Herself in that form known as Brian
and then creates some stuff around Him

That ,. . . when you have sufficient power and imagination would be an acceptable hypothesis

I called it Solopisme c q solipsism

In nano nano nano split seconds that power is maintaining that 'farce' to see how it works out

You can compare with reading a Science Fiction novell, placing ourselves in the place of one of the persons there and ENJOYING even the parts which turn out badly
( Movies have big time destructed this preparing to much what my own imagination can do better

Now,
Why would such a powerful Guy restrict himself to one person only
So It's doing this a hundred times, a trillion times 9 to the power of many trillion times

Now WHY would such a power ( actually named Brian do this ) :

I asked you this in this forum many times ; perhaps 5 times
and you ignored it

Why would such a power having everything already do this

The answer is LOVE
Nobody can have enough of that stuff

Whatever the sad happenings , sad chapters, each particle in this processus will acquire the necessary consciousness to realize that it can only survive in a comfortable way by GIVING it's Lova away

Not by getting others peoples Love, = stealing / forcing love makes it pseudo stuff
we have to give is away, even when we have only a sad quantity
of one milligram per year
When we give this little piece away , , , it will double itself in the giver
and exponentially and so this scheme makes us all equal
because the doubling factor can be rapidly increasy love to a Warren Buffet level
who in his life did the probably the opposite

Compassion it the reason , the underlying force of this tiny tiny universe
The Great Guy calls it LOVE and She eats=harvest that the whole day
All compassions without second thought, agendas. . .

This offers also Mr Moongoes his 'necessary' funds for instruments he asked recently
Begin by giving with what you have to a needing guy needing an instrument
and you will be overflowed with music
OH NO, . . . can't be done because of the agenda

<3 everybody

777

ps
I left any religious philo aside
The above can be checked out in a day

[Jon]

I don't have a religious cell in my body so this response is not coming from a religious point of view.

That a god or some kind of divine being created the universe(s) and all that exists is just too preposterous for words - the concept just doesn't add up at any level and is plainly the product of the limited imagination the evolved mammal that we are (that we tend to picture god as another somewhat superior mammal is in itself hilarious.)

But…

That the universe and the world and life and consciousness - from formless hydrogen to Einstein, Shakespeare and beyond, just came about through a series of accidents - and that the algorithms that lawfully determine those accidents themselves came about through a series of accidents - and that the arising of this spectacular (some might say miraculous) capacity for accidental creation just appeared ex nihilo... seems (nearly) as preposterous.

Now, reading the above, you may well think 'ah, so you do think that there is a designer behind all this'. No, I don't, I'm convinced that it's an unsound dilemma.

Our primitive minds came up with the solution of a god or gods. Our slightly more sophisticated minds settles for the countless accidental events hypothesis. I feel certain that in five, ten or twenty thousand years time this will be as laughable as the god concept.

Human cognition and perception are limited, contingent, temporal and practical evolutionary adaptions based on earlier forms of intelligence - in themselves, nothing particularly special, certainly not all-knowing in any sense. Human beings generally believe that they have the capacity to fully grasp the inscrutable workings of reality itself. But we don't. We have a working understanding of existence that will be amended again and again over vast stretches of time. Paradigm shifts can revise or destroy the most solid of ideas - and we have many many more to come. And although I think that we can reasonably throw out many outlandish magical myths about creation, ultimately we don't know (until, perhaps, we do.)

[777]

Jon
Thanks to tell you can't answer Brians question with more than
a simple NO

There seems to be stuff
Brian asked : from where, from who & why

777

[Brian Hines]

777, you don't make any sense in your lengthy comment above. Do you understand that there are two and half billion billion ways to arrange 20 cards in a deck of 52 cards? And over six billion ways to arrange 13 cards?

http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/cardperms.htm

Yet try this: shuffle a deck of cards. Deal out 13 cards face up on a table. It is virtually impossible that the order those 13 cards are in could have happened -- just one chance in over six billion. Yet... it just happened.

Deal the cards again. The same miraculous happening will occur: a highly unusual ordering of 13 cards. In fact, this virtually impossible event will happen every time you shuffle the deck and pick out 13 cards, laying them down in a certain order.

Likewise, the chances me and you existing as we do, given all of the random events that have occurred in billions of years of evolution of life on Earth, is exceedingly low.

Yet here we are. As everything else is. That's because what is, is. And what isn't, isn't.

Think about this for a bit. Or for a very long time. However long it takes for you to give up the idea that you or I existing is miraculous. It is just as miraculous as getting a certain hand of cards dealt. Something has to happen, and what happens, does. This isn't miraculous. It is just what has happened.

[BilboBagginses]

The answer is pretty obvious. God must've created the laws of physics which led to the creation we all know and (sort of) love. But if that's true then God must've also created time and before that the concept of time. Let's not forget He needs to create minds to perceive a world (any world) and before that the concept of minds. So, a unit of consciousness, i.e. a soul can inhabit the Lord's creation and have all sorts of experiences.

If your next question is, who created God, then it gets a bit confusing because the axiom of causality may not always hold true for all scenarios.

[777]

Hi Bilbo
You gave my conclusion exactly and in better english
God just IS

Brian
Best is to invite a good actuarian Ph from an insurance company
to explain the difference between cards and a Cray on each electron
in the universe

You reacted in the same way as you did with a new Post the other day

Could it be that when I'm right you have to end this forum ?

777

[777]

Brian
I read you again

I see also the difference between you and me

You see yourself as a random event
Alas I must refer to : "is it preaching" , , , ?
You haven't seen yet some of your former lives and the logic between them and the Grace in all that
Like in the song "Amazing Grace"
, , , , that's it

You still can
<3
777

[Brian Hines]

777, when you're finally right about something, my head will explode from the shock. That will be the end of everything for me, including this blog. But the way things are going, I think I'm safe.

[One Initiated]

Brian,

If it happens, then you'd owe one last blog post to everyone explaining what all you experienced.
I wonder how'd that happen if your head will explode, you won't be able to write a blog post.

Best would be that it happens when you still have some days/hours/minutes to die... BUT, it might can happen when you are on your death bed.
And as it's been witnessed by many of us that someone being on death bed, is not even be able to speak an alphabet.

Can I request you to do everyone a favor ?

Right now, when you are alive, write two blog posts, very short if not long, and keep them in drafts.
Tell the closest person who you think will be around you on your death-bed about the whole idea with permissions;
that if you are not able to speak anything, observe your gesture of either left/right hand of yours;
and depending on the post assigned to left/right your acquaintance will publish the corresponding post.

left-hand-post: mentioning that everything you have written on the blog was correct.
right-hand-post: mentioning that everything you have written on the blog was incorrect and what 777 is mentioning in the comments above is all correct.

~OI

[Richard van Pelt]

When someone points out to me an inconsistency in my reasoning, such criticism or analysis tells me I need to back up, rethink, rephrase, or simply junk the point I seek to make. The purpose of inquiry is not to boldly seize intellectual ground and then hold it at any price. Inquiry can be one step forward and maybe five or ten steps back. An observation may undercut what I had thought to be solid ground.

Not all people think this way, 777 being an example.

The greatest weakness one who inquires can have to have too great a confidence in what they believe, argue, or advocate. Far too few of us are aware of how close our most deeply held beliefs border on hubris. Concepts become untenable when logic or evidence weakens the concept. Too many of us hold one, certain that we are right when that certainty turns out to be just a symptom of hubris.

We need to be willing to step back and rethink our positions when what we thought to be a solid conclusion turn out to be merely a plausible assumption. The truth we seek may still be there but we need to rethink and re-examine how we got to this point in our inquiry.

When I run up against a plausible assumption, such as 777 suggests, the polite and civil inquirer in me points out the fallacy or the convenient myth at work, giving the benefit of the doubt to the other person that they, like me, are seeking truth. Very quickly I realize that they adhere ever more firmly to their plausible assumptions, though such positions are merely accumulations of intellectual dust bunnies.

When these two modes of inquiry come into contention over an issue the debate consists of players shooting billiards on a table without pockets.

It is very difficult for me to be patient with or have tolerance for those who cling to their increasingly implausible assumptions. A fuse has been lit and we disagree on whether it has been lit or not, or even the scope of what will happen. This makes me very angry.

To cope with that anger the best I can do is to critique the moral foundations on which the pleasing, but implausible assumptions are based. We are stewards of those who cannot speak - the silent and oppressed toilers, the children, and the generations yet to be born. I have no concern whatever with what someone believes until those beliefs seek to change what ought to be public policy: prayer, vaccination, global warming, abortion, health care.

There is nothing new here. Aristophanes wrote The Birds, in which two characters whose names can be translated as “Trusting” and “Hopeful” attempt to create a perfect city in the clouds, to be named Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Spare me from Cloud Cuckoo Land, please spare me.

[George Poergie puddin 'n pie]

Jon pretty much sums it up for me.

I'd say it a different way - we're up shitcreek without a paddle or a clue.

[x]

Spare me from Cloud Cuckoo Land, please spare me.

Spare me not from reading what Cloud Cuckoo Land inhabitants have to say in defense of their borders.

[777]

One Initiate please
It will not happen like that
Brian will not explode after or while re=realizing the Truth
The explode idea is a concept created by the "random event" idea

When it happens and it will
the RssB Satsangi will be inundated with Love,
I guess it would be enough to change some words in the
Welcome part of the blog

"Welcome to the Church of the Churchless. If this is your first visit, click on "About . . . "

With some incidental exceptions like unproven accusations, . . Brians Blog is offering an outstanding piece of Churhless undertaking
A Philosophical Exchange we can hardly find elsewhere

I was a murderer some lives ago as explained in one of my first posts

This Path , the easy Path is not for the right, the noble.
Our Father the Designer is all the time looking for Sons (Daughters too ) he can prepare a Majestic Dinner for

We are not able to write one letter without His Consent
I see perfectly here His Will in everything happening

What we all need is a going back to our kindergarten when intuition was stronger than knowledge
The Intuition I often referred to which is the tool of any God (Wo)Man

It's not too difficult to realize that it will never conquer a real Iota of the Truth
Love can

So Richard van Pelt, don't be angry, and don't be irritated
Let's Be happy that you are here where at least Truth is very much and intensively sought for
My idea that perhaps 10 or 20 "ex"=Satsangis are among commenters
might be wrong
It would be a shame if Brian would delete the whole Blog

I know a Lady who wrote a recommended letter to the Master with her resignation = of course she is more loved than many gurmukhis
I will tell her to read here when the time comes
Thats the way in RSSB =
Another "ex" lady is director of a publishing house of many esoteric books
I will ask her too to read and perhaps find a good writer to write a book
It's rather special what is here : the whole blog

I know another recently initiated, she hears the Shabd and she uses Brians Book on Karma
as first book advising seekers

Also , like Kirpal, Darshan and Raijinder and the boy guru from Dehli
like the fantastic Malysian Lady going on TV with the name Suprememaster
she is SO ok and so active, God Bess Her = I think she was initiated by Kirpal,
so many I don't see them as Shisms but as preparing schools
like The Holy Taran Taran Saint
who came with his half a million disciples to Charan Maharaji
who, , David Lane , . . Mike Williams , . . and Charan perhaps couldn't believe His Holy Eyes about what His Master was cooking for Him

So let's be glad = Everything is fine

Nothing than roaring sweet Sound containing the Intuitions above the Eyes for Brian and other Good Will people
here

I love you ALL

777

[TonyM]

Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal that there is no Wizard of Oz.

We've been using science to pull back that curtain for centuries now.

The sun and moon are no longer gods. The stars are no longer the heavens, but individual suns.

Each time we pull back a curtain and gain knowledge, we hide our gods behind some other greater mystery, so as to keep them alive.

And now we have pulled back the curtain on so many mysteries that that we have no option but to hide our gods behind the final and grandest curtain of them all - the mystery of the big bang.

And if/when science pulls back that curtain too? Where shall we hide our gods then?

[One Initiated]

777,

Yes, I totally agree with you.

What I wrote was on a little sarcastic and funny note.

As expressed before, I am heartily thankful to Brian for all his efforts in running and managing this blog. It's all HIS will and Brian's efforts.

It's a little private and I can not explain it further what all great things have this blog brought in my life.
And actually I've received lots and lots and lots of Love and this blog has been one of the reason for that.

I sincerely thank you Brian for all this.

Lots of Love to you.
May God bless you with plethora of Love all the time.
I wish you a very happy and healthy life ahead.

~OI

[Richard van Pelt]

TonyM:

The human mind postulates plausibilities. The inquiring mind ruminates on those plausibilities and through the scientific method distills some of those plausibilities into possibilities. Eventually, a few of those possibilities are refined into gem-like facts.

But, like a fractal, the ultimate question hides behind another unknown. There will always be unknowns as the magnitude of the universe and the multitude of other universes become recognizable possibilities.

If you become tired of the search or if the magnitude of the search is too great, then your inquiry, rather that progressing further and further into the unknown, takes the more comforting route of slowing down and then going into orbit about the most pleasing plausibility. And, as in logic, the questions and the answers become circular, circumscribed by the plausibility around which you orbit.

[Richard van Pelt]

A further note, if I may:

As I progress through my eighth decade, I achieve some clarity in some areas while others remain opaque and that which once seemed clear may now appear occluded. The future I see for myself is to break down into compost, as my favorite song by the Pogues describes:

The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that go in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry, my friends, be merry

Be that as it may, the only lesson I have learned during these eight decades is that I don’t know very much, and I am not bothered by it. The ultimate questions, hidden by the protecting veil I will never know as a mortal. Once my mortality ceases, who knows. Beliefs, fears and hopes once instilled in me are now either myth or metaphor. The protecting veil will always recede, but the quest will always continue. Those who cease to quest cease to be of interest to me, as they have ceased to inquire. Those who have ceased to quest range from the mundane (NRA, anti-abortion, Tea Party, Republicans, and other bigots) for whom I have no use, to those who have framed that which is behind the protecting veil as the ultimate spiritual answer, their plausibility being that what is ultimately out there is beyond human reason to postulate. That is called faith; and I respect that faith - I just happen to be on a different trajectory.

Those for whom I have the most contempt are those who turn their pleasing plausibility into a black hole, seeking to suck in everything and reframe reality to fit their (warped) perceptions. This is the black hole that says each and every word in the Bible is true - “not one word added, not one word removed” in the words (I think) of Martin Luther which restructures the universe to be less than seven thousand years old, with man and dinosaur sharing the Garden.

[777]

Sorry for the repeat
but this is It :

"When the Ocean comes to you as a lover, marry, , , quick, , don't hesitate,
No other experience can be equal to this.

The Kings falcon for no reason has landed on your shoulder and has become yours."

Jalalu din' Rumi.

[TheAncientGeek]

Blogger Brian,

You have offered a challenge to the religious, but have not offered any response to their objections to the scientific view: why did the universe have this starting point 13.8 billion years ago, and what happened before?

The religions that posit a personal creator god, admittedly, suffer from another version of the problem of arbitrariness: why Zeus, not Ra?

But there is a third way, which is to posit an impersonal ground of reality as a non-arbitrary starting point, as Neoplatonism, and German idealism, and many Asian religions do[*]. Nothing and Everything are non arbitrary. Nothing comes of Nothing, so: Everything, [**]

Its not clear whether the Third Way is religion or philosophy, and it's also not clear whether it involves the supernatural. If the natural labels the way the world appears to be, then the supernatural labels whatever may be beyond it. There is no direct evidence of a wider reality, an Everything in which the finite, apparent , apparently natural world is embedded ... but the theory advertises itself as being satisfying rationally, not empirically.[***]

[*] And some scientists, such as David Bohm.

[**] Strictly speaking, nothing can really be added to everything, so these theories also posit the apparent existence of an apparently natural world.

[***] Where empiricism means external,public, objective empiricism. Third way followers tend to regard that as a question begging and restricted form of empiricism, which disregards the ability of subjective experience to reveal reality. Which is to say mysticism, but only in a certain sense,