God's creation or Chemical reaction?

I find this article from 'Korea Times' very interesting. It's a contention whether our belief to God is factual or not; whether our thoughts are mere by-products of chemical reactions or created by God's intelligence and creativity.

No Delusion on God
By William Roger Jones

Last year, ``The God Delusion'' by Richard Dawkins appeared as ``The Created God'' in the Korean language. In the third chapter the author presents ``arguments for God's existence.'' Of course, he refutes each and every argument, as he is an adamant atheist.

I wish to respond to ``the argument from personal 'experience,''' which the author depreciates. He writes, ``You say you have experienced God directly?'' He then disparages such personal experiences by invidious comparisons like ``George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq.'' I think cheap shots do not elevate his refutations.

Dawkins states, ``This argument, from personal experience, is the one that is most convincing to those who claim to have had one. But (it) is the least convincing to anyone else, and anyone knowledgeable about psychology.'' I'm a bit knowledgeable about general psychology and developmental psychology, as they were collegiate courses. All that I know has come to me by personal experience and/or that which I believe on authority.

Furthermore, I say the rhetoric, trumps, anecdotes, and selective quotations of the prosecution (Dawkins) do not escape the eyes and ears of the defense (me). Not that God requires defense, but that I wish to give grounds for my ``God-ism.'' And, I say it that way in order that I might overcome the contention and dissension of semantics concerning the words ``belief, religion, and faith.''

For example, it was put to Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist, by one interviewer: ``Dr. Jung, a lot of your writing has a religious flavor. Do you believe in God?'' ``Believe in God?'' he mused out loud. ``Well, we use the word 'believe' when we think that something is true but we don't yet have a substantial body of evidence to support it. No. I don't believe in God. I know there's a God.''

I further my response to Dawkins' work with: ``If you are a Christian you don't have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong (throughout). If you are an atheist, you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.'' If you are an agnostic you don't have to commit yourself one way or the other. However, this dubiety sets you upon a search and that's good. For if you never set the nagging question aside, i.e., if you never give up your search, then one day you shall receive your answer. At least, that's how it was for me.

Different people believe in God for different reasons. Of course, some people believe in God for the same reasons. C.S. Lewis mentions this one: ``Suppose there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk-jug and hoping that the way the splash arranges itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course, I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.''

According to the Christian view, the final step in evolution, i.e., the step to something beyond man, has already happened. A super-biological fact: ``In Christ, a new kind of man appeared; and the new life which began in Him is to be put into us.'' Nevertheless, how this happens or is done is different among different people. He somehow puts a little bit of Himself into us. I don't know what are the arrangements for atheists and agnostics who are as yet unable to subscribe.

One story I relate from Jostein Gaarder goes like this. A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, ``I've been out in space many times but I've never seen God or angels.'' And the brain surgeon said, ``And I've operated on many clever brains, but I've never seen a single thought.''

As a final note, the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers proposes that ``the human brain is, in large part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others that its owner is right _ and thus a machine for convincing its owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.'' I think it is okay to be an atheist, but better still to be an agnostic, and should one believe in God, I certainly hope he/she is not guilty of thinking they have God in their back pocket.