The Age Old Question
More and more people are asking if God
exists or not. But the question may be as old as creation itself. A believer
like me would only say that even if Man is surrounded by not one but a thousand
reasons that prove the existence of God, Man in his arrogance wants to think he
is the creator and doer of everything.
Who
Created The Universe?
Scientists and atheists proudly claim
that the Big Bang Theory explains the Universe. Scientists are convinced that
our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we
now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists:
the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start
of time itself. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic,
stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted
in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in
the Universe came into being as a
result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic
explosion...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused
that to happen." Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the
moment of this explosion, "the universe was about a hundred thousands
million degrees Centigrade...and the universe was filled with light." But
there seems to be no plausible answer to why that explosion happened, or who or
what caused it to happen. Could it not have been an act of God?
The
Big Bang Theory
Further, Physicist Stephen Hawking,
accompanied by Leonard Mlodinow, claim in their book, Grand Design, "God
did not create the Universe and the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of
the laws of physics. Because of the law of gravity, the Universe can and will
create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is
something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."
Gravity
Is A Force Too
But the law of gravity is a force and
form of energy. Well, that certainly cannot exist on its own, in emptiness, can
it? There has to be a source of power for that gravity to work as well. What
caused the Universe to begin existing? Scientists know the Big Bang happened,
but seem to have no explanation to why the sudden explosion of light and
matter, happened
Nothing
Comes From Nothing
As put forward by Anthony Kenny of
Oxford University, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, if he is an
atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing."
But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does
the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must
have been a cause which brought the universe into being."
Can
An Explosion Create Intelligence?
If Big Bang happened, did it guarantee
intelligent life? Of thinking humans, compassionate animals and perfectly
synchronised bodies in which all organs function perfectly, and Nature, where
sunrises and sunsets happen without a miss? Even scientists agree that the
existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of
original conditions as given in the Big Bang.
Cause
And Effect
So, for the sake of argument, just as
whatever begins to exist has to have a cause, if the Universe began to exist
because of Big Bang, there was a cause for it. The cause, whatever one may
perceive it to be, has to be older than the Universe, and therefore, timeless
or beyond time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well
and therefore be an immaterial, not physical, being.
Laws
of Nature
The very fact that Nature seems to
operate under a systematic law - sunrises are followed by sunsets, tides rise
and fall - is too much to be a mere coincidence, isn't it? As Richard Feynman,
a Nobel Prize winner in quantum electrodynamics, put it, "Why nature is
mathematical is a mystery...the fact that there are rules at all is a kind of
miracle."
Master
Designer
The complexity of our planet points to a
deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it. The
Earth is located at the right distance from the sun. If the Earth were any
further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer, and we would burn
up. The human brain is another miracle - it processes an amazing amount of
information. The eye is not far behind - it can distinguish among seven million
colours.
The
DNA Code
It's hard to believe the DNA code, which
connects us to our ancestors and descendents in amazing ways, just happened.
Just as a computer programme is made up of ones and zeros (like
1100101010110000), telling the computer what to do, the DNA code in each of our
cells is made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G and C.
These are arranged in the human cell (CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT) and there are three
billion of these letters in every human cell, telling each cell in our body
what to do. I find it hard to believe that mere
biology is any answer. There has to be a Master Programmer.
Evidence
of God is Everywhere
It amazes me that God has surrounded us
with so much of evidence about himself and has kept the question of his
existence squarely before us, yet we refuse to acknowledge Him.
Nirgun
Aur Nyare
In Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism,
reality is seen as a single, qualityless, changeless Brahman. Ishvar is
omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. In Vaishnavism, Vishnu is equated to
absolute God.
The
Overseer of Karma
Vedanta says one of the proofs of God's
existence is the law of karma. Adi Sankara, the Indian sage who consolidated
the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta, was of the opinion that karma or our actions
by themselves cannot bring about the proper results in the future, not can an
unseen force provide the metaphysical link between work and its results. He
believed that the fruits of labour are administered through a watchful agent, a
supreme being, who is Ishvara.
Happiness,
Unhappiness Our Doing
A major argument against God is that if
God exists, then why so much misery? However, let me quote the Nyaya school of
thought to say that it is our karma which make us experience happiness or
unhappiness, wealth or poverty. This school believes that God is the one who
dispenses the fruits of our actions.
Implications
Of This Questioning
According to William Lane Craig, whether
one believes in God or does not believe in God, one cannot be indifferent to
God. He says "Does God exist" is one of the most important questions
a person can consider. Our belief in the existence of God has enormous
implications on our views of life, humanity, morality and destiny.
Nothing
Moderate About It
Craig quotes British writer C S Lewis as
saying that "God is not the sort of thing one can be moderately interested
in. After all, if God does not exist, there's no reason to be interested in God
at all. On the other hand, if God does exist, then this is of paramount
interest, and our ultimate concern ought to be how to be properly related to
this being upon whom we depend moment by moment for our very existence."
Three
Reasons Why God Is Important
Craig outlines three reasons why God's
existence makes a difference. The first, according to him, is: If God does not
exist, life is ultimately meaningless. If your life is doomed to end in death,
then ultimately it does not matter how you live. In the end, it makes no
ultimate difference whether you existed or not. Sure, your life might have a
relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of
history. But ultimately, mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the
universe. Ultimately, it makes no difference who you are or what you do. Your
life is inconsequential. Thus, the contributions
of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge; the research of the doctor
to alleviate pain and suffering; the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in
the world; the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the
human race - ultimately all these come to nothing. Thus, if atheism is true,
life is ultimately meaningless."
No
God, No Hope
The second argument, he says that if God
does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. "If there is no
God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of
our finite existence. For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil.
Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil,
by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man's own inhumanity to
man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed
the 19th century's naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist,
then we are locked without hope
in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no
hope for deliverance from evil. Or again, if there is no God, there is no hope
of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. There is no afterlife beyond the
grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope."
Experiencing
His Love
Thirdly, he concludes, "On the
other hand, if God does exist, then not only is there meaning and hope, but
there is also the possibility of coming to know God and his love personally.
Think of it! That the infinite God should love you and want to be your personal
friend! This would be the highest status a human being could enjoy! Clearly, if
God exists, it makes not only a tremendous difference for mankind in general,
but it could make a life-changing difference for you as well."
No
Right Or Wrong
Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century
atheist who proclaimed the death of God, however, admitted that the death of
God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life. Without God, there
is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience.
The
Bible's Take
Jesus says, "Because you have seen
me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
believed” (John 20:29). "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies
proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night
after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their
voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the
ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4). “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no
God’” (Psalm 14:1).
Hindu
Kaliyuga
Hinduism talks of Kaliyuga as the final
phase of existence in one cycle of existence, where Man is at his lowest,
spiritually speaking. Therefore, expecting him to even believe in God is a huge
task.
An
Intelligent God
To believe that there is an intelligent
person behind the Universe, seems to make much more sense than an atheistic
view that the universe just happened by chance, doesn't it...
Science
Discovers God
Consider the case of Professor Antony
Flew, the renowned British philosopher belonging to the analytic school of
thought, who - for more than half a century - was considered the world’s
leading atheist. He advocated the need for believing that one should always
presuppose the non-existence of God until empirical evidence proves otherwise.
Then, in December 2004, Prof Flew, now aged 81, shocked his followers and the
rest of the believing and unbelieving world by saying that he had changed his
mind and now believed in God - more or less based on scientific evidence - because a super-intelligence was the
only good explanation for the origin of life. And what was this evidence? In a
publicly released video called "Has Science Discovered God?", Prof
Flew specifically stated that biologists’ investigation of human DNA "has
shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are
needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved."
by Book Nook
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