My Great Awakening

[John Fazio]

Steve:

You are too funny. You made me laugh out loud.

Rob, your beliefs are just about identical to mine. I too lean to atheism, but can't quite make it, because I haven't been able to figure out how the universe spontaneously created itself out of nothing. I read Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Lawrence Krauss's A Universe From Nothing, expecting an explanation, but all I got were words. I sent Krauss a long letter pointing out all the flaws in his arguments, but never received a reply. That means he either had no good response to my critique or he thought I wasn't worth his time. I prefer to believe the former and assume he wrote his book for mercenary reasons rather than to truly enlighten. He postulates the spontaneous creation of positrons out of nothing at the atomic level. I told him that I had a hard time believing that positrons are responsible for the Himalaya mountains, especially when one considers that a positron is smaller than an atom and an atom is to an orange what a cherry is to the planet earth. I will become an atheist when someone explains the origin of the universe to me in terms I can understand, and I will become a theist when someone explains how, when and where this Ultimate Boeing 747 came into existence, i.e. an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being who knows everything, even the future, can do anything and is everywhere at the same time. The Bible (the Old Testament) says we are created in his image. If that is true, it only deepens the mystery, because I have a hard time believing that a being who looks like us is everywhere at the same time. Bottom line: We don't even know how life began on this planet, much less how the universe came into existence. Put me down as a devout agnostic unless and until we have more evidence.

John