Atheism

 

God Only Knows

God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
If you should ever leave me
Well life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

Unless you are God, then you don’t know.

A common assumption is that all scientist are atheists.  I would suggest that nothing could be further from the truth. Scientists instead try to uncover natural laws which explain how the mind of God works.  This instead leads to a possible lack of humility that if humans can just find all of the natural laws, then humans will be equal to God and THIS can be confused with atheism.  But if the natural laws include random results, choice, and scientists are not able to predict the results of random events, then scientists have discovered how the mind of God operates, but scientists can never be equal to God.

The hubris is thus that scientists can uncover all natural laws AND that there are no random events, which is the basis for Determinism.  One of the most famous proponents of Determinism was perhaps Albert Einstein who, when confronted with the randomness of quantum mechanics, objected by supposedly saying "God does not play dice with the Universe".  In Determinism, where everything happens for a reason, if you can just discover that reason, then eliminating those reasons that cause outcomes you don’t desire will lead to only outcomes that you do desire.  If you are a believer in Determinism, then eliminating certain actions ( e.g. not stepping on cracks) or blaming actions on scapegoats, makes sense.  However if stuff just happens, then you are NOT a believer in Determinism, and superstition or scapegoating makes no sense.  Saying that God only knows and I can not ever be God is consistent with the latter position.  Saying God knows AND you can be like God is consistent with the former position.

So the question is NOT “Are scientists atheists?”.  The question is “Do Determinists believe in God, tolerance, and free will?”.