Opinion: What About the Man Upstairs?

Opinion%3A+What+About+the+Man+Upstairs%3F

Let’s talk about the big man upstairs. Let’s talk about God. When it comes to Him, there are people who either feel very strongly that He exists or does not exist. There are those who have never given it much thought, and there are those who simply couldn’t care less. God, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “If false, is of no importance, but if true, is of infinite importance. What He can’t be is moderately important.” With that said, if you have chosen not to give it much thought, I hope that you will consider these ideas with an open mind as well as a willingness to make a firm decision on what you believe. Whether it be for or against the existence of God, that is completely up to you.  

Many people feel like they have to choose between God or science, and because science sounds like the safer and educated choice they’ll choose it rather than God in fear of looking stupid every time. Mostly the thought of a God who co-ops with science does not really occur to them. I believe God created science, and therefore science reflects God.

To show you what I mean, I’ll bring up a quote from Atheist, Stephen Hawking. He said, “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” In regard to this, John Lennox, who is a professor of mathematics at Oxford University and a philosopher of science, says that the main problem that he has with this quote is that the law of gravity is not nothing. If the universe created itself from the law of gravity, what created gravity? What created the thing that created gravity, and then what created that thing? The loop goes on and on.

For 25-hundred years, most scientists agreed in a universe that had no definite beginning and no definite end. They believed that the universe was always here and did not have a starting point. However, the Bible did not match up with this theory. Genesis one describes an exact time when the universe came to be. Since then, according to www.big-bang-theory.com, a non-religious website, “Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did, in fact, have a beginning. Prior to that moment, there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe.”

What these discoveries really show is that for 25 hundred years, scientists had it wrong and the Bible had it right. The previous website states, “our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know.”  

Many people will say that just because you don’t know the answer to how the universe came to be, doesn’t mean God is a good explanation, or that the answer is still simply we don’t know. However, I would argue that the answer isn’t “we don’t know,” but rather the answer is “it had to be something.” And since something had to have created that singularity it would have to be something that wasn’t previously created. This is why I believe it started with a someone rather than a something. The God I believe in, unlike the universe, was not created at a certain beginning point. The Bible’s point of view is that “before the material creation was spoken into existence, God always was.” (Psalm 90:2) Some other religions agree with this perception of God.

Additional things that cannot be explained by science include morals and instincts. Instincts are innate behaviors we were born with that help us survive. These behaviors, being unlearned, are known scientifically as a phenomena, meaning there is yet to be a scientific explanation for why we have them. Likewise, there isn’t a scientific name for that voice inside of you that makes you able to tell right from wrong. People I’ve conversed with who don’t believe in God have told me that each person decides for him or herself what is right and wrong to them. This claim’s logic demands that anyone should be able to lie, steal, and even harm one another if said person decides it is morally right for them to do so.

Another argument I’ve received is that society decided what was wrong or right and that we all eventually confirmed. However, Larry Nucci, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago did an experiment that concluded with the fact that children from different societies have the same basic morals regardless of what their societies are like. Again I say that the answer to the question of what gives them these morals is not “I don’t know, therefore God.” But rather, “I don’t know, but I do know that it had to be something.” And yet the something that makes the most logical sense to me still happens to be God.

In the end, regardless of what you believe, the fact is that if God does not exist, the big bang was an accident. If the universe were to have been an accident, there would be no real purpose for you and me to be here at all. Simply put if the universe was an accident, so were we. I myself, refuse to believe that. The universe in itself is so complex, so detailed, so seemingly well thought out, that there appears to me no way this all started accidentally. Think for just a moment about the way the universe keeps existing. Organisms keep reproducing, your cells keep dividing, and life keeps on expanding. Don’t you think that if all of this were an accident, it would have ended in a magnificent malfunction by now? I believe you have a purpose, I believe I have a purpose, and I believe they were given to us by the one who designed us.

I began with a quote from my favorite author, C.S. Lewis, for the reason that his story is one that inspires me. C.S. Lewis was a renowned atheist for many years of his life due to his belief that if God were real, the world should not be full of so much suffering. After years of intellectual battles with himself, reasoning and research, he went on to become what he called “the most dejected and reluctant convert to Christianity in all of England.” He also went on to become a very well respected and famous, Christian author of over 20 books, including his book Mere Christianity in which you can read more about his conversion from atheism. His quotes fill me with inspiration and for that reason here is another. He says “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for a different world.”

I suggest we all be like C.S. Lewis in the way that we test evidence on both sides until we can make a firm decision for ourselves on what we believe. One that we are not only confident with, but comfortable debating. After all, if God were to exist, he’d be worth finding out about.