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Another dimension12/20/2023 ![]() The weight of galaxies, and the press of years, seem to sweep us towards atheism. They hint at reasons why God might create tiny humans in a gargantuan place but are a million miles away from fully explaining why. ![]() The problem with these rival explanations is that, as they stand, they are unsatisfying. Perhaps God values rocks and cosmic dust more highly than humans. ![]() Or, perhaps, God exists but isn’t as human-oriented as we thought. Perhaps the swathes of space strung with gossamer nebulae serve some aesthetic purpose, beauty wrought on an inhuman scale. Perhaps God exists but his motives for not creating humans sooner, or on a bigger scale, are unknowable. The fact that atheism is the simplest reply to the mismatch doesn’t mean that other explanations aren’t possible. The findings of modern science significantly reduce the probability that theism is true, because the universe is turning out to be very unlike the sort of universe which we would have expected, had theism been true. The spatial and temporal size of the universe gives us reason to be atheists. How can we explain it? Surely the simplest explanation is that God doesn’t exist. Temporally speaking, humans have been around for an eye-blink.Ĭlearly, there is a discrepancy between the kind of universe we would expect a human-oriented God to create, and the universe we live in. Earth is around four billion years old, and humans evolved around 200,000 years ago. To paraphrase Adams, the universe is also really, really old. Although we’re focusing on Christianity, these claims can be found in other monotheistic religions, too. These texts show that God is human-oriented: human beings are like God, and he values us highly. And are certainly real, realer than even Earth as they are the internal self. Genesis (1:27) states: “God created mankind in his own image.” Psalms (8:1-5) says: “O Lord … What is man that You take thought of him … Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!” And, of course, John (3:16) explains God gave humans his son out of love for us. Dreams are certainly another dimension, by definition, whether it is only in the mind, or your Spirit leaving Earth and travelling to another plane. Traditionally, the Christian God is held to be deeply concerned with human beings. To explain why, we need a little theology. ![]() Everitt focuses on how big the universe is, and argues this gives us reason to believe the God of classical Christianity doesn’t exist. Philosophers of religion such as Michael Martin and Nicholas Everitt have asked us to consider the kind of universe we would expect the Christian God to have created, and compare it with the universe we actually live in. Over the last few decades, a new way of arguing for atheism has emerged. So do the astronomical discoveries of the last few centuries have implications for religion? It’s a mind-scrunchingly big place, very different to the conception of the universe we had when the world’s major religions were founded. Scientists now know that the universe contains at least two trillion galaxies. ![]()
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