Does God Exist?
A list of some questions that have troubled me in the past.

Written on 3/1/2007 11:11 AM
For comments, critiques, etc, e-mail stevenhalim at gmail.com

Introduction

The question “Does God Exist?” is, without too much debate, a basic question that one must try to find a satisfactory answer before he/she can even think of embracing any of the existing faiths in this world.

Many people are afraid to ask this question. Many people don't want to try to figure out what the answer is. Many people are afraid that the answer may complicate his/her life. How about you? Have you asked the same question too? If yes, let’s continue reading, what if you can find the answers by reading further. If no, let's try it now. If you think you already know the answer, why don't you read on to see whether your answer is similar as mine.

This writing is about my own quest for the search for the answer of that puzzling question. It is true that actually you can probe this question further by browsing a lot of other articles in the Internet, books, or other publications. I know that there are a lot of articles proposed by people who insist that there is no God but I invite you to read one more article: this one, which is written from my own perspective.

My Hypothesis

I’m a PhD student. Similar like many other scholars, I don't believe "unnatural" things easily. I like to think, examine, test them in logical manner. It is hard for me to believe something without concrete proofs or strong evidences.

Thus, when I stumbled upon this question: “Does God Exist?”, I first ask, "what is the definition of 'God'?". Let's define 'God' as “something or someone not us (human) who is said to have created the universe and everything in it (including us)”.

Then, I proposed the following hypothesis “If God exists and he (or she or it) is the one who created our universe and everything in it (including us), then all the creations (including us) should leaves a 'footprint' (or 'fingerprint') that God exist”, or the reverse: "If we found a trace of 'God' in our universe, there is a probability that God does exist.". I'm going to use the reverse statement.

My Sub-Questions about the Things in this Universe

PS: These questions are not exhaustive, if I found a new questions, I will add it to this page.

Myself

I know I am part of this universe, for I live in a planet named earth, and this planet earth is said to be part of a gigantic universe. Starting from my own self, I asked: "Why do I live and breathe, have consciousness, and can think?". Can a complex living being such as me come from “nothing” or “created” by someone/being?

Before we answer, let's move on to the next sub-questions.

My Parents and I

I know that I come from my father and mother and my father/mother from his/her father and mother too, and so on... Is this pattern repeated infinitely or is there a first man and first woman? If there are first man and first woman, who are they?

Biologist said that DNA is the way for a living being to pass down genetic information to their successive generations. So, who create the first DNA then? We know that genetic disorder can be quite problematic. One faulty gene can create a mutant. Biologist said so. So, does the first sequence of human DNA (and also other living being’s DNA) come from “nothing” or “created” by someone/being?

Next sub-question...

Animals and Plants

We know that there are thousands of species of animals and plants. Evolutionist said that these are all come from common ancestor. But how strong is that statement?

Our human’s DNA and ape’s DNA seems so similar, does that mean we have common ancestor? Isn’t that two totally different concrete buildings, if you demolish both buildings and examine their raw materials, you will found that both have common materials: bricks, mortars, irons, glasses, woods, etc.

In fact more scientific facts actually start to refute Darwin's theory of evolution. So, are they come from “nothing” or “created” by someone/being? Anyway, if Darwin's theory of evolution is correct, who created the first 'common ancestor'? This is the similar question as before that we have yet to answer.

This Planet Earth

Why this planet has oxygen, water, atmosphere, etc with such nice composition so that living beings can live on it? Suppose there are not enough oxygen. I don't think we will be here now. Why is the composition is so precise?

Why does this planet is positioned about 150 million kilometers from the Sun (correct me if I am wrong with the numbers)? We know that if the earth is too far from the Sun, then the earth’s surface will be too cold and vice versa, too near – too hot. Not only that, earth also rotate the Sun in good orbit in such a way that it doesn’t get too far or too close to Sun. Why there exists this kind of celestial ordering? Who instructed them to behave like what we know so far? By chance perhaps?

The atmosphere has protected earth from harmful objects bombarding us from the sky, why there is an atmosphere? Many other planets don't have atmosphere and look at their surfaces... Lot of holes because of meteorite crashing into the planets. We will live in fear if we know that at any time, a big rock (meteor) can hit our home. We know this problem does not happen on earth because atmosphere protects us. Why atmosphere exists?

So far, astronomers claim that there is no other planet in the vast universe that looks like earth and have living being on it. Since we know that the universe is very very very big. The existence of this beautiful planet earth seems too impossible without creation. Again, are they come from “nothing” or “created” by someone/being?

This Universe

If the existence of earth itself is already so breathtaking, we will be more amazed to know that we are just a very tiny part in this vast universe. Here, we can apply the same question again: “what is the origin of the universe?”. The current answers such as Big Bang theory will again can be followed by another question: “if true, why Big Bang created such an ordered universe, including this one little earth planet where we live?”. Is the creation of the universe, whatever the reason is, happen by chance or “created” by someone/being?

My Conclusions

The more I ask about various elements of universe where we live in that I have asked above. The more harder for me to refute the fact that there is (or are) someone or (something) out there (not us) who created all these things intelligently (people give this a term: 'an intelligent design'). It is much much easier for me to say than 'God' does exist rather than to say he/she/it does not exist at all.

The only way for me to say that there is no God is by examining everything in this Universe and proof that these things can exist without 'intelligent design', without somebody or something create them. For your information, all the sub-questions that I have asked above can not be emulated by human yet.

But it is too impossible for these things in Universe to happen by chance out of nothing, let me use these two illustrations about this 'impossibilities':

If I ask you to throw a fair dice (with 6 sides numbered 1 to 6) 1.000.000 times. What is the chance, in your opinion, that I will be able to get number ‘6’ all the time (1.000.000 times)?

The answer is (1/6)^1.000.000, a very very small number.
That is roughly analogous to  the chance that, out of nothing, a sequence of DNA of a living being is randomly created out of nothing.

 

How likely is that this writing (which is about 1.000 words), pop out of nothing… Suddenly 1.000 words organize them selves to form this article which you can read and understand? Suppose I keep insisting that this article exists by itself, suddenly the words are jumping around here and there and form these sentences, will you believe that statement?

For me, all these stuffs in the universe points to the act of creation. They don't exist by chance. Creation imply that there is (or are) a/many creator(s) who intelligently designed all these.

Thus, the original question: "Does God exist?", is much much safer to be answered "yes" rather than "no".

So what if God exists?

I have a strong belief that if you ask these questions with open mindedness, you will somewhat agree that God does exist. It is then quite natural to follow up this question to the next question: “Who is this God? (or who are these gods?)”. There are so many faiths in this world telling that they know who is this God, which one should I follow, if I decide that I should get to know who is this 'God'... (This will be the subject of my next articles. I am going to write it soon, but not too soon).

I also know that some very skeptical person will keep on searching and searching for the 'natural' answers for the questions that I have posed above to avoid asserting the fact that God does exist. I am aware of this situation and I actually urge these people to keep on searching and asking, for I believe that if God are the one who created the universe and everything in it, the more you ask, the more that you will think that all these things are getting more and more impossible to exist by chance.

References

Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator

Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

http://www.doesgodexist.org/