This was great. What irony that a speculative multiverse is treated as simpler than a personal Creator, even though it is arguably the more metaphysically expensive claim.
When this subject arises, I always refer to this outstanding visual you've pinned on your X page. One picture says a thousand words—or, just a few mighty ones: "Let there be Man."
Looking forward to viewing THE STORY OF EVERYTHING—worthy of a Facebook share on my timeline (not that you would know, since you're not there ;-) How about a separate posting about this, so I can also repost?
I appreciate your willingness to share about the movie, Robert. I'm not sure how to do a separate posting that wouldn't annoy many of my subscribers, since I've already posted about it here. I think you could probably copy the movie poster and my blurb over on Facebook?
I’ll have to check out this Documentary. Amazon just posted Craig’s final volume of his Systematic Philosophical Theology for preorder. Can’t wait for this and the movie :)
Your piece reminds me of my journey. When I was going through the transition from apathetic agnostic (I didn't know and I didn't care) to Christian, I was staring at a T-Rex skeleton wondering at the similarities between my skeleton and hers (it was a replica of Susie). There are vastly too many shared features just in the bones. Add in organs and it gets technically crazier. So as I'm pondering why she had two bones in her forearm, the same as me, I had only two conclusions. Either evolution is true and one thing spurred from another, or creation is true and a brilliant creator used similar platforms because they work. The latter is seen in how cars and trucks are all basically the same. A radical shift in design would require a radical shift in environment. So the creator would have used a similar framing for vertebrates because it's smarter than reinventing the wheel every time. (I can now also believe evolution is possible but only if it was designed to work - not sure I've seen good evidence for it yet though.)
>> The multiverse sounds scientific, but Craig has leveled strong objections. An actual infinite multiverse leads to bizarre paradoxes (like the Boltzmann brain problem, where random fluctuations would produce isolated observers more often than ordered universes). It often requires even greater fine-tuning of the multiverse-generating mechanism itself. And it lacks independent evidence—it’s speculative, not predictive in a testable way. Positing unobservable infinities to avoid design more like special pleading and less like parsimony.
1. God's existence also lacks independent evidence
2. I argue that an infinite multiverse is actually more parsimonious than God - because "everything exists" is more parsimonious than "only some things exist, and that's thanks to an intelligent creator, whose own creation is unexplained"
3. "where random fluctuations would produce isolated observers more often than ordered universes" This sounds like an interesting and possibly compelling objection!
OBLIQUE HEADS UP….NOT SHOUTING JUST “A STREET SIGN” FOR EMPHISIS
THE EARTH THAT YOU KNOW OF IS FLAT...... NASA IS FAKE... ISS IS FAKE...... ORBITAL MECHANICS & SATILITES ARE FAKE MATHEMATICAL CONTRUCTIONS THST ONLY WORK ON PAPER NOT IN REALITY....... HOWEVER, ANTI GRAVITY IS REAL... THE COMMING "SPACE SHIPS" WILL BE REAL BUT THEY ARE NOT ALIEN.... THEY HAVE BEEN INTENTIONALY LYING & HIDING THE BEST TECH IN PREPARATION FOR THIS COMMING EVENT FOR OVER 50 YEARS...... THEY HAVE BEEN INTENTIONALY TEACHING GARBAGE PHYSICS & SCIENCE TO KEEP THE "MONKEYS" STUPID BUT "EDUCATED" ENOUGH TO BE "USEFUL IDIOTS".
[Gravity is a vibration it is simply a Longitudinal/ scaler wave that travels through the plank - aether quantum feild @ 1x10²⁹ x C ……. At that speed it traverses any size universe “instantaniously”. The same type waves also create the pilot wave of the double slit experiment as well as the “non locality” effects of entanglement. Anti-gravity is basically just a fancy noise canceling headphones that produce a wave cancelation counter wave in a local region… no sound wave noise or no gravity …..]
THE AI & ROBOTS ARE MUCH BETTER THEN WHAT THEY SHOW IN MEDIA. IN FACT THEY SHOW THE CLUMBSY ROBOTS & "SUPER JETS" TO MAKE EVERYONE THINK THAT IS THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THE ART SO WHEN THE FAKE ALIENS ARIVE IT WILL BE EVEN MORE BELIVABLY "NOT HUMAN"...."NOT OF THIS WORLD". THE BEST MAJIC TRICKS ARE "SET UP" YEARS EVEN DECADES IN ADVANCE....... THATS WHY IT WORKS
Charles Darwin used natural selection to explain away biological fine-tuning. Physicist Lee Smolin hypothesized that cosmological natural selection could explain away cosmological fine-tuning. Universes evolve and reproduce not for the sake of life but for the sake of black holes since black holes hypothetically are involved in how universes reproduce. Life is just a byproduct of stars, and stars are needed for black holes. What do you think about that?
What does it mean to say God designed the universe? When we say a human designed something, we’re talking about a process of dealing with limitations in order to achieve an end. A human designer has a limited set of materials and tools to work with, and their materials and tools limit what sort of things they can make. Think about older civilizations creating large buildings; their materials were stones or bricks, their tools were ropes and iron or what have you. In the absence of more advanced materials and tools, their buildings could only be so big, and could take limited shapes.
When humans design something, they figure out how they want the form and the function of the object to relate: how the thing looks and how it does the job it’s supposed to do. What we expect from design changes over time; it’s a historical process, and human designers are always within and working in response to that development.
This is why I ask: what does it mean to say God designed something? Remember, I’m contrasting this with more straightforwardly religious or theological terms for God’s relation to creation, such as creation or production. We’re supposed to be able to look at the world and see elements of design, but God wasn’t working with limited tools and materials, given that he creates everything ex nihilo. He also isn’t constrained by the laws of physics, given that he created them and is also capable of tweaking them at any time. God never went through a process that has any analogy at all with the human process of design, so even if God is somehow responsible for the world as it is, why are we using the words designed or designer?
The universe doesn't have parameters exactly. These are quantities that we come up with to try to explain the fundamental physical reality in the best way that we can, but, there's no sample of universes with different parameters such that we can infer what is likely or unlikely.
There is only one universe that we know of, this universe has life in one place that we know of. That's it.
I apologise for spamming your blog (as he does it again SMH)
But there are currently at least three independent groups rushing to unify the standard model all deriving D = 3 (3d space) as the root of the formation of the universe.
(1)
Jonathan Washburn (with Elshad Allahyarov) — Recognition Composition Law (RCL)
Independent researcher backed by the Recognition Physics Institute (Austin, Texas). Multiple PhDs on staff. Washburn is also CEO of an AI company (Hammer, >$10M ARR). First arXiv submission June 15, 2025; latest revision March 14, 2026. Derives all twelve fermion masses (3 charged leptons, 6 quarks, 3 neutrinos) plus the fine-structure constant α⁻¹ from a single discrete functional equation, with the golden ratio φ = (1+√5)/2 as hierarchy base. Three dimensions selected by combinatorial identity.
Bernhard Mueller — Observer Patch Holography (OPH)
Independent researcher (formerly security research, Pwnie Award). Started OPH publicly in 2025. Derives the Standard Model gauge group, 3+1D Lorentzian spacetime, and Einstein gravity from four information-theoretic axioms about observer-overlap consistency on a 2D holographic screen. Uses two external continuous inputs (pixel area + screen capacity inferred from observed Λ). Standard Model gauge group selected via "Minimal Admissible Realization" axiom. Higgs at 126.48 GeV (1.02% off), top at 171.1 GeV (-0.87%) via UV-synchronized D11 reconstruction.
GitHub repository (canonical, with code, paper sources, README):
Paul Watford — independent researcher, Tunbridge Wells, UK. Working on a structural framework that derives Standard Model parameters from a single algebraic axiom (ω² + ω + 1 = 0) via modular forms evaluated at the CM point τ₀ = e^(2πi/3). Apparatus: exceptional Jordan algebra h₃(𝕆), Chern–Simons levels, Pell's equation, Chowla–Selberg. Output: 26+ SM observables, the cosmological constant exponent, and the averaged scale-invariant period of planar three-body orbits — all from arithmetic at a single point.
Main framework paper — The Standard Model from one equation — derives N_c = 3, the framework integers, the gauge couplings, and cross-sections from the axiom alone.
Li–Liao match paper — closed-form match to the empirical three-body period law: C₀ = 16π⁴/(√3 Γ(1/3)⁶) = 2.434346, agreeing with Li–Liao 2017 at 0.018σ with zero free parameters.
Background: not academic. Develops the framework independently. Contact: paulwatford@gmail.com.
All three have cross over with their math and their findings. Combined you have a near completed standard model. They converge, from totally different directions, and methods, and come to the same answers.
I'll leave you be now. Apologies for the messages. As you can imagine it is hard to just not stand on a soap box and shout.... Except... people would think I was mad. I will keep my fingers off the internet for a while. I have math to improve and get better.
I was a staunch atheist once. Debated people online, felt 'smug' when I popped holes in the bible. I was not a great person, and I am not an atheist anymore. And I may now be a far better person.
Your logic is sound, and I think we can go much further, not just on faith, but on pure geometric math. I'm not a physicist, but somehow I produced something that appears to line up, from very simple steps. I asked why Pi was measured in lines. Changed all the famous equations that used Pi into rotations on a sphere in native curve geometry, then asked an ai to see if the new forms could join up. That question carried on for 3 months.
You frame it as Chance vs Necessity vs Design, and say Necessity doesn't hold because "nothing in the equations dictates the specific numerical values." That's been true for 50 years. I've spent the last while working on the possibility that it isn't true anymore.
It derives 26 of those "magic numbers" from a single equation — τ² + τ + 1 = 0.
The only thing you were wrong about was that we cannot tell what happened at the big bang. It can be Necessity AND designed. It's up to each persons view of the world to decide which. They are not exclusive, if a designer makes the machinary that can only work one way.
But if this paper is right. There are no decimal places anymore on many of the main constants. They are rounding errors on counts and spins, and Eulers irrationality? it's the loose change from inexact number formats. And more profoundly every single thing other than life in the universe is predertimed, except life, the only way a pebble can move to a non predictable location.
Even if we've heard the term "fine-tuning" often, it's helpful to review just how powerful the evidence of fine-tuning in the universe actually is. This post is a great reminder of the basics! Looking forward to unpacking this with you on the ID The Future podcast soon, Sarah!
Did you read my article? I explain how fine-tuning points to God.
Kicking the can is a problem for the multiverse, not for a spaceless, timeless, immaterial God who transcends the universe. God is the only way I know of to avoid infinite kicking-the-can.
Your article claims an external intelligent designer is necessary to set initial conditions. Accepting this as true, it could be absolutely anything and probably would be something completely beyond human imagination.
Yet you opt for 'God', meaning the biblical god of Christianity. This is a very specific claim. It means you must in some sense accept six day creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's ark and Jesus 'dying for your sins'. You must believe 10²² stars were created but ours is uniquely important, not just for us, but for God. How do you make that connection when, as an astrophysicist, how KNOW much of it isn't true?
I just have to remind myself of what Paul says, that the present suffering is "light" compared with the glory that is to come. Requires a lot of faith.
Why not, though? Sometimes that's all we have. Paul didn't write those words flippantly, but from a Roman prison after enduring many harsh trials. Nor am I writing this from a place of ease and comfort. I've just had surgery to deal with cancer a fourth time. I don't know if I'll live to see my daughter graduate from high school. I had to endure the loss of her sister several years ago. I've been homeless, gone days where I didn't have enough to eat. I've been through long periods of deep depression. What else can a person do when times are tough? I rely on my faith to get me through.
All of that said, I would not approach an atheist who is suffering or agonizing over the suffering of others with "you need to have faith." If I'm asked how I deal with suffering, I'll answer truthfully. But it's not helpful to people who don't believe. The best approach, if one can't materially help such people, is to come alongside them in their suffering.
This was great. What irony that a speculative multiverse is treated as simpler than a personal Creator, even though it is arguably the more metaphysically expensive claim.
It is. I think people who use the "expensive" argument aren't thinking it through or are hoping we aren't.
Also, Angel Studios just released 'Universe Designed'. It features all my favorite scientists and Christian Apologists. It can be rented.
When this subject arises, I always refer to this outstanding visual you've pinned on your X page. One picture says a thousand words—or, just a few mighty ones: "Let there be Man."
https://x.com/sarahsalviander/status/776068700906500100
Looking forward to viewing THE STORY OF EVERYTHING—worthy of a Facebook share on my timeline (not that you would know, since you're not there ;-) How about a separate posting about this, so I can also repost?
I appreciate your willingness to share about the movie, Robert. I'm not sure how to do a separate posting that wouldn't annoy many of my subscribers, since I've already posted about it here. I think you could probably copy the movie poster and my blurb over on Facebook?
They have their own Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/thestoryofeverythingfilm
Oh, thanks for posting this. Awesome visual.
I’ll have to check out this Documentary. Amazon just posted Craig’s final volume of his Systematic Philosophical Theology for preorder. Can’t wait for this and the movie :)
Your piece reminds me of my journey. When I was going through the transition from apathetic agnostic (I didn't know and I didn't care) to Christian, I was staring at a T-Rex skeleton wondering at the similarities between my skeleton and hers (it was a replica of Susie). There are vastly too many shared features just in the bones. Add in organs and it gets technically crazier. So as I'm pondering why she had two bones in her forearm, the same as me, I had only two conclusions. Either evolution is true and one thing spurred from another, or creation is true and a brilliant creator used similar platforms because they work. The latter is seen in how cars and trucks are all basically the same. A radical shift in design would require a radical shift in environment. So the creator would have used a similar framing for vertebrates because it's smarter than reinventing the wheel every time. (I can now also believe evolution is possible but only if it was designed to work - not sure I've seen good evidence for it yet though.)
>> The multiverse sounds scientific, but Craig has leveled strong objections. An actual infinite multiverse leads to bizarre paradoxes (like the Boltzmann brain problem, where random fluctuations would produce isolated observers more often than ordered universes). It often requires even greater fine-tuning of the multiverse-generating mechanism itself. And it lacks independent evidence—it’s speculative, not predictive in a testable way. Positing unobservable infinities to avoid design more like special pleading and less like parsimony.
1. God's existence also lacks independent evidence
2. I argue that an infinite multiverse is actually more parsimonious than God - because "everything exists" is more parsimonious than "only some things exist, and that's thanks to an intelligent creator, whose own creation is unexplained"
https://ramblingafter.substack.com/p/infinity-kills-the-fine-tuning-argument
3. "where random fluctuations would produce isolated observers more often than ordered universes" This sounds like an interesting and possibly compelling objection!
OBLIQUE HEADS UP….NOT SHOUTING JUST “A STREET SIGN” FOR EMPHISIS
THE EARTH THAT YOU KNOW OF IS FLAT...... NASA IS FAKE... ISS IS FAKE...... ORBITAL MECHANICS & SATILITES ARE FAKE MATHEMATICAL CONTRUCTIONS THST ONLY WORK ON PAPER NOT IN REALITY....... HOWEVER, ANTI GRAVITY IS REAL... THE COMMING "SPACE SHIPS" WILL BE REAL BUT THEY ARE NOT ALIEN.... THEY HAVE BEEN INTENTIONALY LYING & HIDING THE BEST TECH IN PREPARATION FOR THIS COMMING EVENT FOR OVER 50 YEARS...... THEY HAVE BEEN INTENTIONALY TEACHING GARBAGE PHYSICS & SCIENCE TO KEEP THE "MONKEYS" STUPID BUT "EDUCATED" ENOUGH TO BE "USEFUL IDIOTS".
[Gravity is a vibration it is simply a Longitudinal/ scaler wave that travels through the plank - aether quantum feild @ 1x10²⁹ x C ……. At that speed it traverses any size universe “instantaniously”. The same type waves also create the pilot wave of the double slit experiment as well as the “non locality” effects of entanglement. Anti-gravity is basically just a fancy noise canceling headphones that produce a wave cancelation counter wave in a local region… no sound wave noise or no gravity …..]
THE AI & ROBOTS ARE MUCH BETTER THEN WHAT THEY SHOW IN MEDIA. IN FACT THEY SHOW THE CLUMBSY ROBOTS & "SUPER JETS" TO MAKE EVERYONE THINK THAT IS THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THE ART SO WHEN THE FAKE ALIENS ARIVE IT WILL BE EVEN MORE BELIVABLY "NOT HUMAN"...."NOT OF THIS WORLD". THE BEST MAJIC TRICKS ARE "SET UP" YEARS EVEN DECADES IN ADVANCE....... THATS WHY IT WORKS
Charles Darwin used natural selection to explain away biological fine-tuning. Physicist Lee Smolin hypothesized that cosmological natural selection could explain away cosmological fine-tuning. Universes evolve and reproduce not for the sake of life but for the sake of black holes since black holes hypothetically are involved in how universes reproduce. Life is just a byproduct of stars, and stars are needed for black holes. What do you think about that?
What does it mean to say God designed the universe? When we say a human designed something, we’re talking about a process of dealing with limitations in order to achieve an end. A human designer has a limited set of materials and tools to work with, and their materials and tools limit what sort of things they can make. Think about older civilizations creating large buildings; their materials were stones or bricks, their tools were ropes and iron or what have you. In the absence of more advanced materials and tools, their buildings could only be so big, and could take limited shapes.
When humans design something, they figure out how they want the form and the function of the object to relate: how the thing looks and how it does the job it’s supposed to do. What we expect from design changes over time; it’s a historical process, and human designers are always within and working in response to that development.
This is why I ask: what does it mean to say God designed something? Remember, I’m contrasting this with more straightforwardly religious or theological terms for God’s relation to creation, such as creation or production. We’re supposed to be able to look at the world and see elements of design, but God wasn’t working with limited tools and materials, given that he creates everything ex nihilo. He also isn’t constrained by the laws of physics, given that he created them and is also capable of tweaking them at any time. God never went through a process that has any analogy at all with the human process of design, so even if God is somehow responsible for the world as it is, why are we using the words designed or designer?
The universe doesn't have parameters exactly. These are quantities that we come up with to try to explain the fundamental physical reality in the best way that we can, but, there's no sample of universes with different parameters such that we can infer what is likely or unlikely.
There is only one universe that we know of, this universe has life in one place that we know of. That's it.
Dear Sarah.
I apologise for spamming your blog (as he does it again SMH)
But there are currently at least three independent groups rushing to unify the standard model all deriving D = 3 (3d space) as the root of the formation of the universe.
(1)
Jonathan Washburn (with Elshad Allahyarov) — Recognition Composition Law (RCL)
Independent researcher backed by the Recognition Physics Institute (Austin, Texas). Multiple PhDs on staff. Washburn is also CEO of an AI company (Hammer, >$10M ARR). First arXiv submission June 15, 2025; latest revision March 14, 2026. Derives all twelve fermion masses (3 charged leptons, 6 quarks, 3 neutrinos) plus the fine-structure constant α⁻¹ from a single discrete functional equation, with the golden ratio φ = (1+√5)/2 as hierarchy base. Three dimensions selected by combinatorial identity.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12859
(2)
Bernhard Mueller — Observer Patch Holography (OPH)
Independent researcher (formerly security research, Pwnie Award). Started OPH publicly in 2025. Derives the Standard Model gauge group, 3+1D Lorentzian spacetime, and Einstein gravity from four information-theoretic axioms about observer-overlap consistency on a 2D holographic screen. Uses two external continuous inputs (pixel area + screen capacity inferred from observed Λ). Standard Model gauge group selected via "Minimal Admissible Realization" axiom. Higgs at 126.48 GeV (1.02% off), top at 171.1 GeV (-0.87%) via UV-synchronized D11 reconstruction.
GitHub repository (canonical, with code, paper sources, README):
https://floatingpragma.io/oph/
(3) Me:
Paul Watford — independent researcher, Tunbridge Wells, UK. Working on a structural framework that derives Standard Model parameters from a single algebraic axiom (ω² + ω + 1 = 0) via modular forms evaluated at the CM point τ₀ = e^(2πi/3). Apparatus: exceptional Jordan algebra h₃(𝕆), Chern–Simons levels, Pell's equation, Chowla–Selberg. Output: 26+ SM observables, the cosmological constant exponent, and the averaged scale-invariant period of planar three-body orbits — all from arithmetic at a single point.
Main framework paper — The Standard Model from one equation — derives N_c = 3, the framework integers, the gauge couplings, and cross-sections from the axiom alone.
https://zenodo.org/records/19674289
From ω to Cross-Sections — companion paper showing the seven-layer derivation chain end-to-end, axiom to measured e⁺e⁻ cross-sections.
https://zenodo.org/uploads/19727204
Li–Liao match paper — closed-form match to the empirical three-body period law: C₀ = 16π⁴/(√3 Γ(1/3)⁶) = 2.434346, agreeing with Li–Liao 2017 at 0.018σ with zero free parameters.
https://zenodo.org/records/19688258
Background: not academic. Develops the framework independently. Contact: paulwatford@gmail.com.
All three have cross over with their math and their findings. Combined you have a near completed standard model. They converge, from totally different directions, and methods, and come to the same answers.
I'll leave you be now. Apologies for the messages. As you can imagine it is hard to just not stand on a soap box and shout.... Except... people would think I was mad. I will keep my fingers off the internet for a while. I have math to improve and get better.
Hi Sarah,
I was a staunch atheist once. Debated people online, felt 'smug' when I popped holes in the bible. I was not a great person, and I am not an atheist anymore. And I may now be a far better person.
Your logic is sound, and I think we can go much further, not just on faith, but on pure geometric math. I'm not a physicist, but somehow I produced something that appears to line up, from very simple steps. I asked why Pi was measured in lines. Changed all the famous equations that used Pi into rotations on a sphere in native curve geometry, then asked an ai to see if the new forms could join up. That question carried on for 3 months.
You frame it as Chance vs Necessity vs Design, and say Necessity doesn't hold because "nothing in the equations dictates the specific numerical values." That's been true for 50 years. I've spent the last while working on the possibility that it isn't true anymore.
I published a paper on Zenodo in April
https://zenodo.org/records/19674289
It derives 26 of those "magic numbers" from a single equation — τ² + τ + 1 = 0.
The only thing you were wrong about was that we cannot tell what happened at the big bang. It can be Necessity AND designed. It's up to each persons view of the world to decide which. They are not exclusive, if a designer makes the machinary that can only work one way.
But if this paper is right. There are no decimal places anymore on many of the main constants. They are rounding errors on counts and spins, and Eulers irrationality? it's the loose change from inexact number formats. And more profoundly every single thing other than life in the universe is predertimed, except life, the only way a pebble can move to a non predictable location.
A childs hand has more power than a star.
Λ/M_P⁴ = (1/2) · (676 / 15.588) · (e^(−π√3))⁵² = 2.827 × 10⁻¹²²
Measured: 2.850 × 10⁻¹²² (Planck + DESI 2024)
Agreement: 0.81%.
Where every symbol resolves to the one axiom τ₀² + τ₀ + 1 = 0:
N_c = 3 — from (2 Im τ₀)² = 3
k_GUT = 26 — dim h₃(𝕆)/tr = dim E₆/F₄ = dim 𝕆P² (Horowitz-Susskind bosonic-M-theory dimension)
|q(τ₀)| = e^{−π√3} = 0.004333420510... — the nome at τ₀, the framework's hierarchy parameter
52 = 2 · k_GUT = dim F₄ — exponent from the non-perturbative vacuum contribution
½ and N_c^{5/2} — volume normalization of V_np at τ₀
Even if we've heard the term "fine-tuning" often, it's helpful to review just how powerful the evidence of fine-tuning in the universe actually is. This post is a great reminder of the basics! Looking forward to unpacking this with you on the ID The Future podcast soon, Sarah!
We cannot (yet) understand the apparent fine-tuning of the universe but how does that point to God or any other external intelligence?
Wouldn't this 'god' also require a universe with parameters fine-tuned for its existence? You're just kicking the can down the road.
Did you read my article? I explain how fine-tuning points to God.
Kicking the can is a problem for the multiverse, not for a spaceless, timeless, immaterial God who transcends the universe. God is the only way I know of to avoid infinite kicking-the-can.
Your article claims an external intelligent designer is necessary to set initial conditions. Accepting this as true, it could be absolutely anything and probably would be something completely beyond human imagination.
Yet you opt for 'God', meaning the biblical god of Christianity. This is a very specific claim. It means you must in some sense accept six day creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's ark and Jesus 'dying for your sins'. You must believe 10²² stars were created but ours is uniquely important, not just for us, but for God. How do you make that connection when, as an astrophysicist, how KNOW much of it isn't true?
Here's a link to my FAQs. If you still have questions after reading it, you're free to ask.
https://schroodle.com/p/faq
Yes, for faith-filled people like us, the God factor is a non-starter for those atheist apologists.
However, those 'dials' also use a frequency that involves incredible pain, suffering, the entropic
death of said universe, not to mention 'damned souls'. This is what sticks in their craws and
for all science can rationalize, the gulf between what is and what should be remains valid.
I just have to remind myself of what Paul says, that the present suffering is "light" compared with the glory that is to come. Requires a lot of faith.
I wouldn't posit that to someone living in the rubble of Gaza or Ukraine but at least we
got our faith.
Why not, though? Sometimes that's all we have. Paul didn't write those words flippantly, but from a Roman prison after enduring many harsh trials. Nor am I writing this from a place of ease and comfort. I've just had surgery to deal with cancer a fourth time. I don't know if I'll live to see my daughter graduate from high school. I had to endure the loss of her sister several years ago. I've been homeless, gone days where I didn't have enough to eat. I've been through long periods of deep depression. What else can a person do when times are tough? I rely on my faith to get me through.
Well, that is a good point you're making about Paul, and yourself. Once again,
I was taking the 'advocate' position on how atheists rationalize. I stopped
trying to figure out God and karma a long time ago.
All of that said, I would not approach an atheist who is suffering or agonizing over the suffering of others with "you need to have faith." If I'm asked how I deal with suffering, I'll answer truthfully. But it's not helpful to people who don't believe. The best approach, if one can't materially help such people, is to come alongside them in their suffering.
I only know atheists who claim to be. My take is that atheism is the sincerest
form of pride and the ones I know are somehow trying to kid themselves or
use it to challenge faith. I have abundant faith that gets tested all the time.
It never gets frustrating but does produce irritation that I need these trials
in my life.