But this section is about reasoning. This whole little endeavor is to give some of my reasoning behind my beliefs, and believe me, I do reason these things out. One of the things that frustrates me is the people who believe that believing in Jesus requires checking your brain at the door. There are a lot of very smart people who have put a lot of thought in Christianity and believe. Author C.S. Lewis originally was an atheist. He set out to disprove Christianity and ended up converted. He has gone on to write not only the popular Narnia series, but also engaging works on Christianity such as The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. In fact, if you want a far more eloquent and ordered look at basic Christian theology, Mere Christianity is a great place to start.
Another little point I'd like to squeeze in here is the issue of science and religion. Note I don't say science versus religion. I don't think that they are in opposition to one another, but nor do I think that they don't overlap. They are both means to understanding the world and its Creator. But when people talk about proving that God exists, they mistakenly choose a scientific level of proof. With what we know right now, I don't think we can scientifically prove God. However, I think we can easily reach a legal standard of proof. Can we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God exists? Yes, I think we can.
Okay, I don't have a lot of scientific learning, and I'm sure that I don't have everything straight. Any mistakes I make are mine, not others. Here's my thoughts on the origin of the universe. The universe has to have a beginning. I know that well-educated cosmologists have postulated that the universe could be an infinite cycle of contractions and expansions, but the universe is a closed system (scientists have detected the edge), and entropy says that a closed system loses energy over time. So theoretically, after an infinite amount of time passes to get us to where we are, we should have cooled down to an inactive big crunch.
So if we have a beginning, where the heck does matter come from, huh? What caused the Big Bang? I have not heard any good ideas on this. I've heard the idea that some molecules might have just popped into existence and then happened to start vibrating and everything snowballed after that. If you can believe that, I think that believing that there was a Prime Mover that started it all should be very easy. I like the theory that God is outside of time, and that is how He was able to start the universe which time is a part of. If we think of time as the dimension in which cause and effect happens, then nothing in the universe could have started the universe, because time would have had to exist. God sounds like a good candidate for something that can be outside of time and create a universe.
Anyway, just a thought.