I don't really know what to say about your question but I'd like to ask you one. My brother is a bible guy too and I know it appalls him as well to imagine that everything just was and then evolved to become what we see today. Like you, I take it, he thinks everything really needs to be explained or else we really are living in a magical world where things pop into existence and transforms with no apparent rhyme or reason and yet comes together in such a purposeful, seemingly well-designed way. How's that going to happen without a designer/maker/creator/call-it-what-you-will?
But how is imagining a magical being who pulls everything out of nothing and then arranges carefully so that it will continue in static perfection forever really any better? If it is indefensible to just assume that everything always existed and then transforms through internal interaction, how do believers get off assuming that there are magical beings who have always existed and then impart order to the stuff they bring into existence. Isn't it just kicking the question of origins down the road? It reminds me of some hindu explanation of the world that imagines it as existing on the back of a horse that stands on the back of an elephant that stands on the back of a turtle. When pressed to say what the turtle stands on the hindu teacher answers "it's just turtles all the way down". Doesn't god need a creator too? It's pretty convenient to say "well god was here first, everything else is his idea." How is that any better? An honest Christian would say "that's right but it is just what I choose to believe". Why are there so few honest christians?
But how is imagining a magical being who pulls everything out of nothing and then arranges carefully so that it will continue in static perfection forever really any better? If it is indefensible to just assume that everything always existed and then transforms through internal interaction, how do believers get off assuming that there are magical beings who have always existed and then impart order to the stuff they bring into existence. Isn't it just kicking the question of origins down the road? It reminds me of some hindu explanation of the world that imagines it as existing on the back of a horse that stands on the back of an elephant that stands on the back of a turtle. When pressed to say what the turtle stands on the hindu teacher answers "it's just turtles all the way down". Doesn't god need a creator too? It's pretty convenient to say "well god was here first, everything else is his idea." How is that any better? An honest Christian would say "that's right but it is just what I choose to believe". Why are there so few honest christians?
