Late-twentieth-century science has overturned the assumptions that reigned at the end of the nineteenth century. –PATRICK GLYNN
Atheists have always tended to use discoveries of science as a weapon against theists. For a while it appeared they did so with good reason. Starting with Copernicus in the fifteenth century and continuing well into the twentieth, a succession of scientists painted a composite portrait of our universe that seemed quite different from the one traditionally described. The universe was not within our reach but was a vast expanse of mostly empty space, billions of light-years across, interspersed occasionally with stars and their planets. Earth was not the center of the universe, as had been touted for centuries, but just another planet within it. Its claim to fame was that only on it had life been discovered. The world was not a few thousand years old, as creationists had claimed, but was found to extend farther back in time than ever imagined. Man did not appear to be the most special creation on earth but the last in a long sequence of random evolutionary steps within the natural world. Every stone the scientists looked under seemed to yield something atheists could use as evidence and theists had to explain away. It was as if the door to God had been closed shut by science with no key available to reopen it.
The repercussions in the last two centuries should not be understated. Belief in God, once taken for granted, has lost considerable ground to disbelief, especially in the scientific community. Although most Americans still believe that God exists, they are often perceived by the educated to do so out of scientific ignorance. Even among these "uninformed" masses, enough scientific information has become known to them to shake many a faith at its foundation. If theists are honest enough to admit it, at least a seed of doubt has been planted in many of their minds. Atheists, on the other hand, have tended to walk with a swagger. They have boldly asserted that the universe is 100% natural and that belief in God has become obsolete. The cry "God is dead!" has echoed through college campuses and has received considerable ink in the lay press. Along with the announcement of God's demise, the atheists have injected into the vacuum thus formed their own worldview, one that is devoid of any absolute morals, any sense of meaning and purpose, and any hope of life beyond the grave. Thus has been born the culture seen in America today.
What is little known by most people is that science, for centuries the thorn in the side of theism, has in the past fifty years become its pulpit. A series of recent discoveries, all accepted by the scientific community as evidential, has cast serious doubts on the atheist's case. For one thing, the presumption of an eternal universe seems to be inaccurate. Though admittedly billions of years old, it has been found (through the measurement of its background radiation) to have had a definite beginning in time. Once thought to be random, it seems more likely (in light of what scientists call the anthropic principle) to be highly structured and precise, down to the smallest details. What's more, the whole purpose of this fine-tuning of the universe, the end to which the universe seems to be pointing, say the scientists, appears to be the existence of human beings. Adding to this, the veracity of several concepts of Darwinism has been called into question. The picture that science now gives us of the universe is that of a huge, precise, non-random, finite mechanism built for one purpose: human existence. It is as if science has found the hidden key, reopened the door, and brought us face-to-face with the reality of God.
-5 Reasons: Why I Still Believe in God (Day 51)
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