Which is a more likely explanation for creation?

[TGHusker]

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. … It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”

 

And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.”

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

 

A good quote from your link:

Albert Einstein, who is often dishonestly characterized as having been an atheist, agreed that God-denial is foolishness. He once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

“I’m not an atheist,” added Einstein. “The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Illustrious NASA scientist (and agnostic) Dr. Robert Jastrow (1925-2008) put it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

[Moesker]

 

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. … It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”

 

And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.”

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

 

A good quote from your link:

Albert Einstein, who is often dishonestly characterized as having been an atheist, agreed that God-denial is foolishness. He once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

“I’m not an atheist,” added Einstein. “The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Illustrious NASA scientist (and agnostic) Dr. Robert Jastrow (1925-2008) put it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

 

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

 

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. -Albert Einstein

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

[C N Red]

So Einstein is a hypocrite? Hmm......

[TGHusker]

 

 

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. … It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”

 

And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.”

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

 

A good quote from your link:

Albert Einstein, who is often dishonestly characterized as having been an atheist, agreed that God-denial is foolishness. He once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

“I’m not an atheist,” added Einstein. “The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Illustrious NASA scientist (and agnostic) Dr. Robert Jastrow (1925-2008) put it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

 

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

 

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. -Albert Einstein

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

 

 

The bold (Spinoza's God) reminds me of this scripture as Paul notes as one of the ways God reveals Himself - in his creation which happens to be the subject of this thread to come back full circle:

 

From Romans chapter 1: ¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,^[g]in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

 

 

 

Perhaps related as well, I think some people want a restraining order on God and all things religious.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/man-seeks-restraining-order-against-god/

[knapplc]

So.... God does exist!

 

 

[Moesker]

 

 

 

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. … It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”

 

And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.”

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

 

A good quote from your link:

Albert Einstein, who is often dishonestly characterized as having been an atheist, agreed that God-denial is foolishness. He once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

“I’m not an atheist,” added Einstein. “The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Illustrious NASA scientist (and agnostic) Dr. Robert Jastrow (1925-2008) put it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

 

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

 

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. -Albert Einstein

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

 

 

The bold (Spinoza's God) reminds me of this scripture as Paul notes as one of the ways God reveals Himself - in his creation which happens to be the subject of this thread to come back full circle:

 

From Romans chapter 1: ¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,^[g]in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

 

 

 

Perhaps related as well, I think some people want a restraining order on God and all things religious.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/man-seeks-restraining-order-against-god/

 

[C N Red]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be they theist, atheist or anti-theist, on this nearly all scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.

Then: bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we, too, popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”

Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.

And then they were.

 

 

 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Christian author Eric Metaxas notes, “The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one-millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. … It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”

 

And so, they have “reasoned” themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no “natural.” They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, “beyond the natural” and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be “supernatural.”

Reader, meet God.

In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/j-matt-barber/big-bang-blows-atheism-sky-high-even-science-may-eventually-catch-gods-word

A good quote from your link:

Albert Einstein, who is often dishonestly characterized as having been an atheist, agreed that God-denial is foolishness. He once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

“I’m not an atheist,” added Einstein. “The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Illustrious NASA scientist (and agnostic) Dr. Robert Jastrow (1925-2008) put it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. [/size]

 

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. [/size]

 

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. -Albert Einstein[/size]

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

The bold (Spinoza's God) reminds me of this scripture as Paul notes as one of the ways God reveals Himself - in his creation which happens to be the subject of this thread to come back full circle:

 

From Romans chapter 1: ¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,^[g]in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

 

 

 

Perhaps related as well, I think some people want a restraining order on God and all things religious.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/man-seeks-restraining-order-against-god/

Same can be said for any belief so point is moot.

[cm husker]

That's actually not true at all. Not all points are circular. And to pretend they are is a dangerous way of thinking.

[Landlord]

That's actually not true at all. Not all points are circular. And to pretend they are is a dangerous way of thinking.

 

 

What's a good example of non-circular belief or trust in something?

[cm husker]

 

That's actually not true at all. Not all points are circular. And to pretend they are is a dangerous way of thinking.

 

 

What's a good example of non-circular belief or trust in something?

 

 

The theory of gravity?

 

Not to be flippant, but there are plenty of theories, physical, economic, political, etc. that are not "provable" (or they wouldn't be theories), but that are supportable by verifiable facts.

 

Even in the context of religion some things are supportable (e.g., the existence of Jesus of Nazareth), but that's different than proving the religious significance of such underlying facts.

[C N Red]

 

 

That's actually not true at all. Not all points are circular. And to pretend they are is a dangerous way of thinking.

 

 

What's a good example of non-circular belief or trust in something?

The theory of gravity?

 

Not to be flippant, but there are plenty of theories, physical, economic, political, etc. that are not "provable" (or they wouldn't be theories), but that are supportable by verifiable facts.

 

Even in the context of religion some things are supportable (e.g., the existence of Jesus of Nazareth), but that's different than proving the religious significance of such underlying facts.

You are making my point for me but somehow are disagreeing??? I said "beliefs".

[NUance]

The thing is, *both* positions take a great deal of faith. And oddly, both positions seem implausible to the adherents of the other.

 

• The universe was created by an omniscient, all powerful God. He designed the universe, including the earth and mankind. Although He is apparently very large, people cannot see him and He doesn’t talk to just anyone. He wants us to worship him.

• The universe sprang from a point of singularity which expanded greatly. Conditions were just right on some planets for life to spark into existence. Somehow that simple lifeform became able to reproduce. It evolved into mankind and all life on earth.

 

Somebody tell me again why the existence of the guiding hand of God is less likely than the universe spontaneously springing into existence from a point of singularity, the world organizing itself into the incredibly complex system we see today, and somehow life began, then started reproducing and evolved into higher ordered beings. That's like finding a ticking Swiss watch out in the forest and saying, "Hey Joe, check out this crazy rock formation!" lol. I just don't have enough faith for that.

[Landlord]

 

 

That's actually not true at all. Not all points are circular. And to pretend they are is a dangerous way of thinking.

 

 

What's a good example of non-circular belief or trust in something?

 

 

The theory of gravity?

 

Not to be flippant, but there are plenty of theories, physical, economic, political, etc. that are not "provable" (or they wouldn't be theories), but that are supportable by verifiable facts.

 

Even in the context of religion some things are supportable (e.g., the existence of Jesus of Nazareth), but that's different than proving the religious significance of such underlying facts.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, all reasoning is circular, including science and logic.

 

There's no inherent, unmistakeable fabric of logic in the universe. Logic is something invented by humans, and we think it's right because logic says so.

 

 

 

 

NUance, as to your question, there's a lot of data that supports the universe springing into existence from a singularity and becoming complex. It's documented and recorded. God has none of those things going for him, so the evidence makes it less likely.

[NUance]

NUance, as to your question, there's a lot of data that supports the universe springing into existence from a singularity and becoming complex. It's documented and recorded. God has none of those things going for him, so the evidence makes it less likely.

I guess it depends on whether you believe the universe sprang into existence spontaneously and then randomly organized itself and developed into what it is today, or sprang into existence from the word of God and then organized itself under his guiding hand. I don't see how the former could seem any more likely than the latter. :

[knapplc]

 

NUance, as to your question, there's a lot of data that supports the universe springing into existence from a singularity and becoming complex. It's documented and recorded. God has none of those things going for him, so the evidence makes it less likely.

I guess it depends on whether you believe the universe sprang into existence spontaneously and then randomly organized itself and developed into what it is today, or sprang into existence from the word of God and then organized itself under his guiding hand. I don't see how the former could seem any more likely than the latter. :

 

Not understanding the science behind it doesn't make it untrue, though. I don't understand how black holes work, but they were first theorized, we went looking for evidence based on the theory, they were indirectly observed, and now they're part of our regular understanding of the universe.

 

We're back to the ancient man way of thinking: I don't understand how something works, therefore god.