What can be more fundamental than understanding the root of our existence? My Catholic upbringing instilled in me a love of Jesus that I took for granted until I reached the age to understand there were doubters.
Is God Real?
I started questioning the existance of God around the age of twelve or thirteen. I believed in God. But was I 100% sure?
“What if you’re wrong?” my husband asked me just a few years ago.
“If I’m right, it’s going to be so awesome. And if I’m wrong, I’ll be dead in the ground and not know otherwise. So what is there to lose?”
How to believe something we can’t see?
It’s hard to believe something we can’t see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, or touch with our own hands. But I found a simple and ‘almost’-irrefutable explanation that means that God MUST be real, and it’s based on scientific fact and has nothing to do with hope or faith. Isn’t that what skeptics need?
How I know God is Real
Let’s use your cell phone as an example.* Did you see it being manufactured? No. Well, then, how do you know it was created and didn’t just magically appear on the store shelf out of nowhere? Because something can’t just appear out of nowhere, right? Can we agree on that?
So, with your cell phone in mind, let’s go back to the beginning of time. Of the great black abyss that existed before the world existed. The nothingness. I know it’s hard to imagine nothingness, but this is where it all started.
How could the world start from nothingness?
So where did the world come from? A blast of particles? Where did the particles come from? What was the catalyst that started the big bang? We know that to create an explosion, we need fuel and an ignition source. In the case of the big bang, what action caused the particles to collide? There can be no action without something causing it.
There was nothing there to cause it, remember? It was just nothingness.
The point is, that the question of whether God exists goes back to the very conception of the earth. If you take your mind back as far as you can, you will have to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that some being created the particles, created the ignition source, created the galaxy, or whatever starting point you choose. Nothing simply “springs” out of nothingness, just like your cell phone.
The only logical explanation is that the world was created by the intervention of a being.
I honestly don’t know the specifics of how the world was created. But I don’t think it matters. (If you’d like a very scientific explanation of the science behind trying to validate whether the universe can come from nothing, here is a link. The conclusion is that the science is inconclusive.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/01/05/how-did-the-matter-in-our-universe-arise-from-nothing/
So let’s say you’re still holding out and until it can be scientifically proven that something cannot come from nothing, then let’s see if we can agree on a logical leap. Let’s use the “within a reasonable doubt” method.
Within a reasonable doubt
Is it logical that the enormity of the universe, the mental capacity and complexity of human beings, the DNA that makes up all living creatures, the reproductive process, and so many other intricate aspects of our world, were really created out of random chaos? If the bang happened without divine action, could a random explosion create such unimaginable perfection and complexity?
Can you fathom an explosion resulting in unimaginable perfection? I see the twin towers collapsing into dust and rubble, planes exploding into tiny particles of debris and shrapnel. I don’t see unimaginable perfection coming from exploding things. I see utter ruin.
Is it realistic to believe random explosion created the world?
The realist in me cannot give a random explosion such possibility. This belief is not based on faith or hope, although I do have a healthy dose of both.
Beyond a reasonable doubt, I know that a power much greater than I can fathom created us and the world around us. Who can possibly know this and not want to know and love the being who loved us enough to create us?
Get to know our Creator by talking to Him. He’s been waiting for you.
*I first read of this logic as described in an article that I can no longer find. I believe it was a college lecture and involved a book appearing out of thin air. If you are aware of the original source, please let me know so I can give the proper credit.