George, welcome to the forum!GeorgeNar wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:37 pm Can we truly rely on a list of reasons to believe in a higher power, or should our faith be grounded in personal experiences and introspection rather than external validation? Is it possible for a comprehensive list to encompass the complexity and diversity of individual beliefs and experiences?
We KNOW a Creator must exist - and science unmistakably reveals this: Physicists universally believe that the Big Bang event, nearly 14 billion years ago, began the universe - a universe which did not previously exist. And NOTHING can create itself - as EVERY contingent thing requires a source it comes from. Moments before the Big Bang began, there was no time, space or even matter. A moment later, there was an unfathomably powerful, controlled expansion in which the spectacularly designed building blocks of the universe IMMEDIATELY appeared and began to assemble with incredible precision and interactions - all in mere minutes - and an incomprehensible scale. And those first things are why we have the universe that we have, and why earth and all living beings can and do exist. Biochemists and cellular specialists have discovered the astonishing, massively sophisticated language inherent in the DNA of every living organism, of which it's individual components withing a cell cannot evolve. Likewise, the working parts of a cell must ALL come into existence ALL at once - as they cannot evolve. As if ANY of a cell's components did not exist, the a cell could not function as an operating cell. So far, science has discovered well over 200 astonishingly fine-tuned elements that make the universe and our world possible - including the ability for lifeforms on earth to exist and thrive. These things all require an Intelligent source of immense capability and power.