DJ Abs on God - Part I

Groovers,

Thanks for all the great feedback on my blogs. Glad to know you’re enjoying them. And apart from some quibbles on the correct order for David Bowie’s albums, everyone seemed in complete agreement that the DJ Abs plan for world peace was a.) the right thing to do and b.) never going happen :-). Still one can only try.

So given it is Easter, DJ Abs turns his mind to matters spiritual and answers for you the biggest question of all – is there a God?

The answer is of course: no, yes, perhaps, possibly and not sure.

Indeed this question is so big DJ Abs can only answer in five parts:

1. What is question all about (ie. Why Dawkins et al are misguided?)
2. What evidence is there of God?
3. How could a loving God allow suffering and evil?
4. Isn’t the whole Easter/cross thing a bit silly?
5. Given Parts 1-4 what does this all mean for my life?

I may merge or compress a few of these rants depending on how we go but am told young Gen Y’s can’t cope with too much detail, length or complexity so need to chunk it down – hence a rant in 5 parts.

OK so looking at the initial question - is there a God?

The traditional agnostic view of God - commonly misunderstood as being that you can’t make up your mind – is that knowledge or proof of God is impossible within the realm of human experience. So the question is incapable of answer in the strict sense. And this makes sense to me. If there is a God, I imagine he or she sits in a spiritual world outside the physical world. And as we don’t inhabit that world – we can never know for certain he or she exists or doesn’t exist. And there are plenty of examples even in the physical world of things we believe in that we can’t proof or even experience but we consider likely to exist. Atoms for example. Or deeper than that - one-dimensional vibrating “strings” that are said to make up all matter. Indeed, science now believes there are likely to be 10 dimensions of space plus time but we humans can only ever experience 3 dimensions of them. The other 7 don’t exist for us in any real sense but science is pretty sure they are there.

“So what?” I hear you say (or at least some of you say) – just because you can’t prove God doesn’t exist doesn’t mean he does. Yes – good point.

But the agnostic view does at least explain why Dawkins and his supporters are to a large degree barking up the wrong tree when they try to disprove God through an examination of the physical world. The question cannot be answered by science alone.

BTW – and for the record - DJ Abs is not an Earth Worm and does not believe the world was created 10,000 years ago with Adam and Eve*. I think in any rational debate about God we must start with the assumption that we accept all science (acknowledging of course that science has its limits and is fallible).

The important point is that a belief in science does not contradict a belief in God. One is looking for a truth in the physical world, the other a truth in a spiritual world.

OK – DJ Abs is getting a tad mega-physical here. Back to the initial question.

So you can’t prove the existence of God. But importantly this does not mean you can’t look for evidence of God.

Otherwise you might as well believe in fairies and flying mounds of spaghetti and anything that takes your fancy. My key point though is that in looking for evidence of God, you will never get a completely convincing answer to the initial question. As God, if he or she exists, sits outside the realm of actual human experience, evidence can only ever point or hint to his or her existence – never actually prove it. Some faith is required.

Thus ends Part 1 of this rant. Part 2 next week.

Until then groovers,

Peace. Amen. Respect. Love.


DJ Abs