Do you believe in god?

[Unicorndreams24]

i have recently been thinking a lot about religion and wondering how many believe in god and also what made you come to the decision of believing?

@MrsSkylerWhite love your username. To address your point, that’s not something I dispute re gravity, sun etc but where did the clouds, dust and gas come from?

Scroll back up thread.
I posted lots of quotes from scientists of varying disciplines.

I find the sort of "complementary lanes" speak entirely spurious and frankly meaningless.. sorry. It just feels to me like a way of ducking the issue with the fudge of semantics.

Quick search for modern physicists who believe in God resulted in -

20th & 21st Century Physicists

Max Planck: (Quantum Theory) A Protestant who believed in a God revealed through religion and science.
Werner Heisenberg: (Quantum Mechanics) Raised Lutheran and deeply religious, finding Christianity intellectually compelling.
Arthur Compton: (Nobel Winner) A Presbyterian who saw God in the fine-tuning of nature.
Charles Townes: (LASER Inventor) A believer in God, seeing science and faith as complementary.
Francis Collins: (Human Genome Project) A Christian who found atheism irrational and faith intellectually satisfying.
Ian Hutchinson: (Nuclear Physics) A Christian physicist who approaches faith intellectually.

HTH.

You might find this article helpful

“But for Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and an evangelical Christian, scientific knowledge complements rather than contradicts belief in God.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2008/04/17/the-evidence-for-belief-an-interview-with-francis-collins/

more detail and some more names:

Modern & Contemporary Examples

• Ian Hutchinson: A nuclear physicist at MIT, he is a devout Christian who finds compelling evidence for Christianity, especially the resurrection of Jesus, and believes science and faith are complementary, as detailed in his book, "Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?".
• David Snoke: A quantum physicist at the University of Pittsburgh, he sees no conflict between his Christian faith and his scientific work, viewing science and Christianity as complementary ways to understand God's creation.
• Jing Kong: An MIT professor in electrical engineering and computer science (nanotechnology), she converted to Christianity in graduate school, seeing her research as a platform for God's work.
• Christopher Isham: A theoretical physicist (Imperial College London), he incorporates philosophical and theological views, seeing Christianity's concept of the Incarnation and Resurrection as central.

HTH

Well, that was a rather delightful exercise in standard theo-science fudgery 😁

I'm grateful to Mr Collins for his closing remarks, though: science is doing what science does really well, which is telling us something about how and very little about why. How spiritual experiences are mediated by the various neurons and neurotransmitters is a scientific question. But why they happen in the first place?

I hope earlier remarks of mine, about spiritual experiences being neurological, cause less offence now they've been vindicated by a famous scientist and Christian.

What is the point of listing Christians. Do we really want to do an argument from majority competition ?

All those listed, do they believe the same ? Are they even the same denomination? Joe Biden is a Catholic. Do you believe in the Catholic doctrine ?

A good example is Georges Lemaitre. A cosmologist who coined the term " Big Band. He was also a Catholic Priest.

Yet Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationist's , many branches of intelligent design etc, all reject Big Bang theory. Argument from majority does not work.

:-)

The answer to "Where did the original matter come from?" is the same as the answer to "Where did God come from?"

Humanity's more likely to get an answer to the first than the second, but it still won't solve the conundrum. It - matter or god - cannot spontaneously appear from absolutely nothing. And if it appeared from anything, how did that arise?

All possible answers re-create the question. If you want eternal, this question is it!

A poster asks for physicists who believe in God.

A list is posted.

Another poster objects to said list and complains that they’re not all the same denomination.

You have to see the funny side 🤣🤣

I was not complaining. I was pointing out argument from majority is pointless.

:-)

I believe in Schrodinger's God. I both simultaneously believe that God does exist, and believe that he does not.

The funniest part of this is that no argument from majority was being made. 🤣🤣

On this theme, a thought experiment I done a while back.

If we take Exodus at a million people. And God told them to take all the stuff around them.

Do it again. But this time have 2 identical enpty islands, the UK is ideal. Around CoalBrookdale. Resource rich.

But take a million people from Exodus era, and a million from Egypt today. Plonk each group on their virgin UK islands.

In a 1000 years or so, the Exodus era folk will likely still be arguing over what god. The modern group will be setting up printing presses, looms, Iron smelters, building generators from scratch etc, within a few years.

Because the amount of knowledge within our combined noggins today is really staggering. So instead of us fighting over what God, most of our "God of the gaps " holes are already filled. The speed we have developed science from the time of the reformation is astounding.

And this is in spite of religion, not because of it.

The important thing to say is that no-one KNOWS whether a god exists. People hold beliefs - and that is fine.

But people believed the earth was flat at one time until science showed otherwise. In the same way, in the fullness of time, science and observation will help us towards an understanding that has no need of belief or faith - but it won't happen in my lifetime.

I have no problem with the not knowing. I accept it as the human condition.

Better to accept this and simply live by kindness than to get sucked into a religion with its hierarchies, control, rigid rules and the potential for conflict. The history of religions when it comes to kindness and tolerance is pitiful and therefore they are best avoided.

I do think it interesting, however, that your list is almost (please note almost) all people born in the late 19th/early 20th century, a time when Christian faith was far more universal and expected.

As an aside-belief that the earth is flat was by no means universal.

Yes ... these beliefs are many and varied ... and unfortunately contradictory.

Well said, @Mischance. Religions keep trying to explain stuff that doesn't need explaining: especially, as discussed a while back, the "Why" of the world. Science discovers, a little more each day, the "How". Then religions sit there, like annoying pre-schoolers, going "But why?"

They act like there must be a reason - nay, a purpose - to nature. As if a Great Cosmic Parent makes all the things happen, for reasons. Reasons which, with breathtaking arrogance, are assumed to be something to do with humanity.

This pisses me off most when Scientist Christians (or Scientist Muslims, etc) rave about our incredible universe being so perfectly adapted for human existence, it points beyond doubt to 'intelligent design'. How narcissistic! It couldn't be, like, environments give rise to species that can live in them, could it?

Maybe the 'intelligent design' was really to create a perfect world for the giant tubeworms that live on deep-sea hot sulphur vents.

Ah, yes. I thought that might be an objection, hence the limit of the list to 20th/ 21st century, but clearly that still wasn’t enough.

Maybe this list will be more acceptable?
All born post 1940.

• Francis Collins (born 1950): An American physician and geneticist who directed the Human Genome Project and served as the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He is a well-known Christian and author of the book The Language of God.
• Don Page (born 1948): A Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta known for his work on black hole thermodynamics and quantum gravity. He is an evangelical Christian.
• Rosalind Picard (born 1960s): An American pioneer in affective computing and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a Christian.
• Brian Kobilka (born 1955): An American physician and biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012. He is a Catholic.
• William D. Phillips (born 1948): An American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for his work on laser cooling. He is a member of the United Methodist Church.
• Abhay Ashtekar (born 1949): An Indian theoretical physicist known for developing Ashtekar variables and founding the Ashtekar–Magnon–Smehta approach to quantum gravity. He has expressed views on the harmony between science and spirituality.

Of course we could come up with a more limited list, if that helps?

Yup. It's like the puddle argument. See how perfectly the water fills the hole. Almost as if God designed it that way. Or something like that.

My favorite is the banana.

Evangelist Ray Comfort. See how God created the banana as the perfect food. Compare it to this man designed soda can. Both fit in the hand perfectly..... blah blah.

Monty Python voice: " Excuse me, that's a man bred and designed Cavendish you have there. This is a wild Banana "

:-)

I’m firmly with Stephen Fry when it comes to my belief in god. I would view ‘him’ with contempt and anger if he was real.

i believe in the universe, in nature, and probably align best with Paganism if i were to give my belief system a label.

The only person I consider when formulating my opinion is my own - the names listed are no more relevant than you or me.

I think the issue of physicists and other incredibly intelligent people who believe is a complete red herring. The bottom line is that there are people who feel a need to have an answer to the big questions (why? where did life come from?) and if one isn't forthcoming through the scientific method, they make a leap of faith and go for God. And then there are people who are perfectly happy accepting that they don't know, or don't know yet. Atheists fall into the latter group. Neither is better than the other.

Yes - they can be good at logical rigour, yet unable to shake off that emotional need for the "Why" or, perhaps, their childhood & social conditioning.

I think some can't bear the thought that death is the end. One of the listed boffins, Abhay Ashtekar, is an atheist who turns to Eastern philosophies for inspiration when seeking new approaches to his 'quantum universe' problems. From these, he's extrapolated a hypothesis about a unified consciousness field, made up of all human consciousnesses. It may be a comforting thought, but he doesn't give any scientific reasons why human consciousness should be part of the everlasting fabric of the universe.

In the end, very clever people are still people - just as prone to wishful thinking as the rest of us!