Out of the mouths of babes, or, as it were, an atheist. Author and medical doctor Raymond Tallis proudly declares that he is an atheist and evolutionist. But he goes on to admit that something is missing from evolutionary theory. Look carefully at these quotes:
"Isn't there a problem in explaining how the blind forces of physics brought about (cognitively) sighted humans who are able to see, and identify, and comment on, the 'blind' forces of physics?"
How is it that the universe "brought us into being by mindless processes that are entirely without purpose?" In other words, how does a mindless process create minds?
How can an undesigned process create "one species that is indeed a designer? How did we humans get to be so different?"
It is far too easy to dismiss these sort of claims without actually wrestling with them. These questions seem too simple, too rudimentary; relics of past cultures and superstitions. Yet they prick us, even make us bleed, if we ponder them with ruthless honesty. The materialism that has swamped the sciences would have us believe there is nothing beyond the physical universe. But by what analysis do they come to that conclusion? By using the sciences of course. And what are the sciences? A tool specifically designed to observe, explore, and measure the physical universe. It should not be shocking that a tool with a scope limited to the seen, finds no material evidence of the unseen. It doesn't follow that the unseen is fantasy and superstition. It simply means that we are looking for the material, and thus we find the material. How you interpret that should not be limited to that information, for we are much more than a conglomeration of atoms. And anyone who denies this is quite blind, because they all live each day as though there were more than the physical; for who lives without a belief in purpose and value and right and wrong? But if materialism is right, all of those things are fantasy to.
Photo Credit: Chase Elliot Clark || Creative Commons
* I came across these quotes in Nancy Pearcey's book, 5 Principles For Finding Truth.