What is it that you are trying to achieve, Don?

Any belief that is based on material evidence, including even the belief in God - is materialistic.

What good can such a belief bring?

When someone says, "Well, on the balance of evidence I guess there must be God", how could they ever become religious? all they would be doing in that case, is trying to be practical!

They could become Christian by name, but would they become the followers of Christ in fact? If their belief is based on material conviction, how would they ever attain the only miracle worth its salt - the miracle of unselfishness!?

The article contains: "This is not magic, because God, who is eternal and omnipotent, is a sufficient cause for the universe. And He can exist eternally (and therefore has no beginning) because He is a non-material entity (God is spirit, as the Bible says in many places)."

The above is magic. There is no evidence that God is anything but a creation of the human mind. That it says so in the Bible is not evidence either. The Bible is also a creation of the human mind. The article maintains that things are so because the author believes that it is so.

Batten is a research horticulturist. That reminds me of the saying: You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

Really OLO creationist, now have you completely given up, next you'll be letting us know you have got Runner on your editorial board.

In order to explain life and he universe, we are left with just two conclusions, intelligent design or magic?

Perhaps the eternal still explains? And as eternal dark matter intruding into and becoming the known universe and everything in it?

And given everything is merely transformed energy, which can neither be created or destroyed, I believe, holds up as the most plausible argument postulated thus far?
Alan B.

Hi Don,

You are dead right - science has not got all the answers and probably never will have them all. Every discovery leads to more questions but enquiring minds continue to search and along the way human knowledge grows. That is how mankind progressed from living in caves to space science and that is how, eventually, we will move beyond this planet and this solar system.

All the theories of evolution and the origins of the universe have gaps and flaws but they are works in progress and most scientists are humble enough to admit this while they work at filling them. Contrast this with the bigoted, smug attitude of the religious who can blithely assert that everything we can't explain is "God's Work"

The inability of atheists or science to disprove the existence of God does not, in any way, lend weight to the proposition that He (or She) exists. Belittling those who are working to expand human knowledge and comparing them to believers in magic is ridiculous.

The author rubbishes science he clearly doesn't understand while offering no alternative explanation other than "god did it with magic". A new low even for OLO's laughable standards of scientific discourse.