Is there any human society where people do not believe in the supernatural \u2013 variously called God, the Creator, the source of the Infinite. Most probably there is none.<\/p>\n
Some people who have got their doctorate degrees by reading Charles Darwin\u2019s books are going around saying there is no God; that sacred books such as the Bible are mere fiction. Some who may not be directly influenced by Darwin\u2019s theories about evolution say, when science has ramified, people will cease to be superstitious and will no longer believe in the existence of God; religion will disappear.<\/p>\n
A little knowledge is dangerous and can make someone insane. Perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20th century was Albert Einstein, a German and later American. He had no exaggerated relevance for science. He has been quoted as saying that the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. He revered both science and religion and has been quoted as saying science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind.<\/p>\n
Theologians such as St Thomas Aquinas felt sure God existed by looking at the structure of the universe, the creation. Everything in it seems to have a purpose; the work of an intelligent being. Everything that exists has a cause. As we go further and further in the sequence of detection, we arrive at the First Cause. To this First Cause, we give the name God.<\/p>\n
But atheists argue who created the First Cause. No one has been able to answer this. One of the greatest French writers Voltaire argued if God did not exist, then it would be better to invent Him. To a certain extent, people do indeed invent God by attributing to Him certain qualities which they regard as important in society such as might, kindness and love. A German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his book argued that there would be no right or wrong unless God existed.<\/p>\n
L o u i s Pasteur, French scientist famous for his study of microbes, said: \u201cNatu r e h as some perfection to show that she is the Image of God and some defects to show that she is only His image.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pasteur not only believed in the existence of God but wrote essays with great passion; thus, contradicting those who say that great scientists cannot believe in God.<\/p>\n
Aquinas, the pivot of Roman Catholic theology, when confronted by believers and non-believers, responded aptly: \u201cTo one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why do some people develop faith in something they cannot see or touch?<\/p>\n
Benjamin-Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, said: \u201cI have lived, Sir, a long time and the more I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God governs the affairs of men.\u201d<\/p>\n
This huge environment\u2014the dome, the earth below the sun, the moon and the stars above human beings as thinking creatures\u2014is sometimes filled with awe and sometimes we hope. Humans are imagining creatures. That which they cannot see, they imagine to exist. The imagination is linked to what they see and hear. There is thunder in the sky, lightning follows and there is a downpour. Humans imagine that there must be something causing these. The idea that they cause themselves makes no sense to them.<\/p>\n
The fear of danger and death makes humans long for a protector. When they come face to face with a lion or a poisonous snake and they go without harming them, they wonder if they have not been saved by something that exists in the invisible, the spirit. The fact that they do not see what has saved them is no reason they should doubt its existence. Who doubts the existence of air? But who has seen air? We are sure of the existence of air through what it does. People believe in the existence of spirits because of what happens in their lives.<\/p>\n
Rabindranath Tagore, India\u2019s greatest author of the 20th century and Nobel Prize winner in literature, wrote: \u201cI believe in the spiritual world, not as something separate from this world but its innermost truth; with the breath we draw, we must feel this truth that we are living in God.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was the confession of a Hindu and his confession resembles what is said in one of the Gospels: \u201cThe Kingdom of God is within you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo Tolstoy is by common consent the greatest novelist who ever lived. His monumental novels War and Peace <\/em>and Anna Karenina, <\/em>among others, made him wealthy. He had many children by a wife almost half his age. Such things ought to have made him happy. But, at one time, he was so gloomy with thought, thinking about the worthlessness of life.<\/p>\n He read over King Solomon\u2019s sermon: \u201cGo thy way, eat thy bread and drink thy wine. Live joyfully for there is no work, no devise nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.\u201d<\/p>\n He dismissed this. Many times he contemplated committing suicide. At the end his essay titled \u2018Confession\u2019, he says: \u201cTo know God and live is one and the same thing. God is life\u201d<\/p>\n It was when he acknowledged the existence of God that his worries vanished. Now he saw the meaning of life.<\/p>\n With sages of science, literature, philosophy and theology sometimes agreeing with each other and sometimes contradicting each other, what advice can we give to an individual who is searching for the truth? Choose the view that would assist you to live a stable life; striving to arrive at one\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is there any human society where people do not believe in the supernatural \u2013 variously called God, the Creator, the source of the Infinite. Most probably there is none. Some people who have got their doctorate degrees by reading Charles Darwin\u2019s books are going around saying there is no God; that sacred books such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61062,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61059\/revisions\/61062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}