I had the very unhealthy urge to start out this article with the typical English-standard opening, summarizing my points and what-not and being quite boring. Please. Only use the English-standard opening when you have to. It really does hamper personality, at least in these kind of articles.
I'll start out by saying that atheists aren't always idiots. They can be, by golly, and I've met plenty atheists whose IQs, I swear, must have been in the double-digits. Like Dawkins - he actually flat-out stated that life could not have begun on its own, and that two possible theories were crystals or aliens. I mean, honestly. HONESTLY. What kind of stone-skull goes about saying "Aliens could have created life, because life is too complex to evolve on its own. Aliens could have done it. Definitely not God, but aliens are a possibility."
Okay. But I have met some smart ones. Like my friend Paul, who I have a feeling will end up reading this article because someone will run to him blabbering "Rachael was talking about you again!" He was a smart atheist. But then he became a smart theist due to circumstances we're not going into right now - though feel free to ask him. (Yes, Paul, consider this revenge for posting that one paragraph over and over while I was in my most tormented state a few days ago.)
There are some really good arguments out there against the whole atheistic standpoint. There are plenty of books against evolution, and while I think that evolution, overall, is rather implausible, it is still an extremely complex theory with so many nuances it is very difficult to be convinced either way. There is the Transcendental Argument, or what we affectionately call TAG, but that again is for people who are . . . well . . . smarter than Dawkins. And there are a lot of those. Hence, go check out my "Transcendental Argument" article.
That aside, there's arguments for our delicate balance in . . . well . . . everything. There are detailed accounts of how every possible tiny detail of the big bang, of our solar system, has to be just so - or life would have absolutely no capability of existing. The odds are astronomical. But that again is a long argument, so we won't dive into it just yet.
So far, the quickest and most persuasive argument I've found is really, the simple question - "Where did we come from?" And I'm not referring to life here. I'm referring to matter. To existence. To the universe. To anything, anything at all. What reason have we to be something rather than nothing? Why do things . . . well . . . exist? Where did these things come from? What is the standard for having matter here and now be what it is rather than anything else? Where did time come from?
Counter arguments can be basically split up into two categories. One, arguments for time's nature, and two, theories regarding quantum physics and/or quantum mechanics (forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on the details; I haven't read a quantum theory book recently).
The first counter argument runs as such: "Time always existed. We don't have to have a 'creation point' because there was none! It's like running a thread forever and ever, without end."
My initial response to this argument was a plethora of creative insults and disparity as to the mental state of humanity.
First counter-counter argument: For time to have existed for an eternity, it would have to extend into the past for an eternity. The present is some point on this eternal line. Thus we must have crossed an eternity in order to reach the present point. Since crossing an eternity is impossible, time cannot have lasted forever."
Second counter-counter argument includes a lot more complex details about the Big Bang and what-not. As for a note of clarification for all ye uninformed creationists: The Big Bang has basically been proven. There's ridiculous amounts of evidence out there for the Big Bang. We've got the expanding universe, the background radiation, all that fun stuff. And the fun thing is, most scientists hated the idea of the Big Bang at first. Einstein even tweaked his equations at first to try to get around it. But they couldn't; the implication of the Big Bang is that time had a beginning. And what's even more interesting, if you follow some of the detailed theories of the formation of the universe after the Big Bang, you'll find stages - stages that are described in the first verses of Genesis, chapter one (for example, what scientists believe in the very beginning was a burst of extremely intense light, since nothing was beyond the 'horizon' yet. Let there be light, anyone?)
But my point was, scientists generally believe that there was a beginning. But they have been developing theories to skirt this, such as the following:
Quantum physics. Basically there are a lot of little theories out there comparing the origin of the universe to the spontaneous appearance of particles. I won't go into these in depth (right now), but their argument is "if these particles can come out of nowhere, why couldn't the universe have done it?"
First problem with that statement - the particles did not come out of nowhere. The particles came out of space that already existed (yes, there is a difference between absolutely empty space and nonexistence), and the universe, as far as anyone has been able to tell, did not have a predrawn 'existence' to randomly spawn from (auugh, too many gamer jokes, kill me now...).
Most atheists, in the end, will shrug and say, "Well there are some things we can't answer." I find this ridiculously ironic, considering that's the line used in defense when science challenges religion. Makes you wonder - is what atheists believe more science or is it more religion?
So you don't have an answer for where the universe came from - "yet." But more evidence might show up to help prove your position. Hah.
Are you then going to base your world view on what 'might' come up? Are you going to say "I believe this one way because we just don't know and no one's proven it yet"? Or are you going to look at the evidence we do have available to us - right now - and make an educated decision based on that?
My faith is based on logical thought and scientific evidence. What is yours based on?
-Antier
