sieg's second philosophical post on atheism

[siegfriedandroy]

Since (1) my first post seemed to generate some good discussion on atheistic morality, and (2) since my aforementioned debate w/ my atheist friend continues, and (3) since Sklansky is apparently a devout atheist (which I did not know before!), I thought I'd try to get some further discussion going.

Although lately I have been semi-obsessed with the moral implications of atheism, there are some other topics I'd like to discuss as well.

1) My friend makes the common argument that science and religion are diametrically opposed. I do not believe this. In my view, this is true only if you presuppose that the supernatural is not possible. Also, I was just listening to a radio program (w/ Lee Stroebel, who was discussing his book, 'The Case for a Creator') dealing w/ atheism. The host of the show mentioned that Da Vinci, who some consider the father of modern science, believed in creation. He also mentioned that Pasteur and Newton believed in creation, and either both or one of them (cant remember exactly) even went so far as to defend the Genesis account of creation. Of course, they mentioned Pascal as well. Anyway, my point is that it seems disingenuous of my friend to merely repeat over and over that one must choose between science (i.e. enlightenment) and religion (i.e. foolish stone-age dogma). Thoughts?

2) My friend also likes to argue by asking the age old atheistic query, "Who created God?" This question likely comes in response to a cosmological type argument which argues that since everything must have a cause, then the universe must have a cause, which is the First Cause, or God. My standard response, as a Christian, is something to the effect of, "God is outside of time and space, and is eternal. By definition, God is uncaused." On the radio program, Stroebel argued something similar in response to an atheist caller. He said that the universe must have a cause, since we know it had a beginning (according to big bang cosmology). So only things that have a beginning were necessarily caused. The universe could not have come from nothing; nothing can possibly come from nothing. Since God, by definition, is eternal, having no beginning, God does not need to have been caused. The question, 'who created god', doesnt really make sense. No one created God.

3) While I haven't really discussed this issue with my atheist friend (yet), I will add it since it is interesting. Another caller on this program brought up the argument about why God would create so much unnecessary 'junk', making this incomprehensibly vast universe with billions of stars, planets, galaxies, etc.
Why would there be so much waste? I believe Stephen Hawking made a similar argument. Stroebel's answer (which made reference to the book of some scientist he interviewed, who I am not familiar with) was something to the effect that in order to create earth, and to make life for us the way it is today, much of this 'waste' in the vast universe is actually necessary and productive in supporting life on earth. Intuitively, while the vastness of the universe used to strike fear into me and make me question how my beliefs could really be true, it doesn't really bother me anymore. Who am I (one man who knows next to nothing- and I believe most all of us, despite the arrgoance in us that seems so commonplace and prevalent in our human race- know next to nothing, just like Socrates- "I know because I do not know"? So who am I to possibly have the audacity to say that God could not or would not create the universe exactly this way, or that it is a million to one shot? Who am I to say that there is no way God could or would allow evil in the world as an effect of free will? etc. etc. ad infinitum.........I am not too familiar with this third argument, so I will just stop there.

Anyway, hopefully this will lead to some further good discussion. That would be amazing if Sklansky was once again the first to respond to my post! I dont want to get my hopes up though!