by Sally Morem

Created on: February 04, 2009

Consider the ancient questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the universe? How did it come into being? No doubt every thinking, feeling, human being has asked such questions since the beginning. The many and varied answers we've come up with can overwhelm the thinker with their contradictory details. To simplify things, I'll divide the proposed answers into three major groups: Atheism, theism, and agnosticism.

Atheism asserts that there is no god, that the universe arose by chance, and that it is inherently meaningless. By contrast, theism says there is a being that deliberately, thoughtfully created everything, including us. The universe was scripted. It was designed as an abode for life, especially intelligent life.

Whereas agnosticism acknowledges the possibility that the universe was created intentionally, it insists that the certainty of the existence of a creator god can never be proven. Such a being, by definition, must exist outside all human experience. Agnosticism also acknowledges that a god or gods might be merely figments of our overactive collective imagination, and yet, that possibility itself can never be proven either.

Difficulties with Atheism

The atheist is far too certain about the nature of the universe. He says, "Science proves there is no god." But science proves no such thing. All science can ever say on the subject is that the universe began and grew in a certain way, and then offer educated guesses based on extensive observations as to how it will develop in the future. Science, as rigorous an intellectual discipline as it is, can offer no proof or disproof of intentionality. The universe is. That's all science can really claim with certainty. Any meaning that may be found for its existence must be sought out elsewhere.

Atheism insists that is has the answers to the questions with which I began this essay. Who am I? A collection of atoms and molecules given order and purpose slowly over long stretches of time by natural selection and chance mutations. Why am I here? As a result of a reproductive act by parents. What is the universe and how did it come into being? A happy accident. An unlikely fluctuation in the quantum vacuum, which grew into space-time, endowed fortuitously with a combination of characteristics that allowed it to bring forth light and life.

But consider the obstacles we're up against when dealing with such questions. We have enough problems comprehending a vast, ancient, relativistic universe filled with countless galaxies,

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