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Learning about crossovers helped convert me from atheist to a believer in God

Let’s see if this one survives.    

I have been an atheist for 50 years.  Recently I became a believer.  One factor that helped tip the scales is the “fine tuned universe” argument - the idea that the physics constants, e.g. the mass of an electron, are so finely “selected” that if they weren’t very close to what they are, life wouldn’t exist.  This is an argument for a creator.  The best counter argument seems to be that there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky.  

When I got into audio, and started learning about crossovers, I was ASTOUNDED at how well the pieces fit together.  Octaves are exact doubles of frequency.  3dB describes so many seemingly unrelated phenomena.  But the one that really got me was the magic of capacitors and inductors.  They share no parts, other than wires sticking out at each end (usually), one acts due to voltage, one acts due to electromagnetism, one resists AC, one resists DC.  And yet, somehow, they are mirror images of each other, using almost exactly the same equations, behaving perfectly orthogonal to each other, even to the extent of how powerfully they perform their function (3dB again).  How is this possible?  Could this have happened due to random chance?  I smell a creator.  

alanhuth

Showing 1 response by sfgak

sfgak
97 posts
 

Beautiful video, @mahgister !

First: I’m assuming (hoping) the people discussing this topic don’t dispute proven scientific theories such as evolution, which led to the complexities of the cell shown in that video. (If you are, for example, a Bible literalist who believes in six actual days of creation, and that God put dinosaur bones in the ground just to fool us, then I can’t have a discussion with you, as any argument you advance will always reduce to the tautology of belief).

But if you understand the basic tenets of evolution, you will understand that there can be emergent properties generated from simpler sub-parts; "emergent" means the property can’t be seen in the sub-components. This leads to seemingly "intelligent design" due solely to random variation, environmental selection processes, and a length of time so long that humans cannot fathom it. That is the big thing: If you wait long enough, even the highly improbable eventually happens. Our written history (read: collective knowledge) is but a blip compared to the timescale of geologic processes, which in turn are a tiny fraction of the timescale of the universe. Our civilization can not experience anything on these timescales.

To the extent I believe in anything, I would simply quote Einstein, who said "I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." That’s what I think most of you talking about symmetry of equations, or inductors and capacitors, are saying. But it doesn’t require a Creator. Just time and the physical laws of the universe.

If there were an actual God-Creator, personally interested in what I do, I would assume She endowed me with rationality. So She should think I’m an idiot for taking the word of the Torah or the Quran or the Bible without any proof. Why would a God who endows me with rationality not provide rational proof of Her existence?

And if this God-Creator is good, then why all the evil in this world? Graham Nash summed this up nicely in the lyrics of Winchester Cathedral (his sentiment is Christian-centric but applies universally to those religions that posit a Creator):


Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can’t believe it all.

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