Why Science?
I think, “Why am I here?… Why is all of this here? Why is consciousness here?” From inside of myself, the world consists of my perceptions and sensations, my consciousness, and my thoughts. What does all this mean?
If I seek an answer to these questions, why should me first inclination be to use the scientific method? I think this would be the case only if I began with a predisposition to think of myself and the world in materialistic terms. Why should my first inclination be to look for repeatable ocurrences and orderly patterns to find the meaning? Why should the important clues be repeatable observations?
The scientist seems to view the world and himself from outside of himself. Then the world consists only of events and physical entities. But why should this viewpoint be preferable? It seems to presume that the other is unimportant. In addition, the outside viewpoint is not truly possible. The scientist cannot truly view the world from outside; he can only imagine that he does. This is why he thinks objectivity is possible.
Intelligently Designed or Meaningless?
As a person, I can design things for purposes. I know what it is for something to be designed and so to be endowed with purpose and meaning. The atheist asserts that I, as a person, am not designed. If this is true, then it appears that I can create things nobler than myself.
Either I was put here by an intelligence and there is a design to my existence, or else I arose by unintelligent processes and there is no design, no ultimate goal to my existence. I am on this island for a reason. There is some goal to my being here. Or else, I am just here, and there is nothong more to be said.
Theism may violate Occum’s razor (though this is questionable), but atheism violates the nature of man’s psyche.
Consciousness arises from unconsciousness and finds itself alone, as a strange product of the impersonal universe in which it finds irself. Like a fleeting vortex in the rapids of a great river, it appears, looks about, becomes aware of its existence, and dissipates, dissappears into the torrent. How very strange for the vortex, to contemplate the nature of its existence. It is a great farce.
