11Prompt

Recently I put the following question to two persons both of whom are atheists:

“Can you name a single thing in nature that has the property of hardness but that is not hard itself?”

Reply from one person was this: “That does not make sense.”

However the second person’s reply was that it is sand. After getting this reply I wrote back to him again:

An atheist has recently asked me to briefly describe an experiment by means of which God’s existence can be demonstrated. In reply I have to write to him that God’s existence cannot be demonstrated in this way, however God’s presence can be detected. For that purpose we will have to first posit that there is a God. But before positing any God we will have to first define this God, because there are many religions on earth and each religion has its own concept of God. So who's God to posit here? Now when we utter the word ‘God’, what do we mean to say by that word?

About the God who was never there it has been said that he/she/it is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. About the God who was never there it has also has been said that he/she/it is spaceless, timeless, changeless, immortal, all-pervading, one, unborn, uncreated, without any beginning, without an end, everlasting, non-composite and immaterial.

We say God is all-pervading, God is everywhere. God is everywhere means God is present at each and every point of the universe. Although God is present everywhere, yet it is not the case that God’s presence is more at some points of space and less at some other points of space. Rather we will say that God is equally present everywhere. We will say that God is wholly present, fully present, entirely present at each and every point of the universe.

The difference between the atheists and the scientists is this: atheists can afford to be dogmatic or close-minded, but scientists cannot; their job or profession forbids them to be so. As scientists they have got some responsibility that the atheists do not have. As scientists they are supposed to provide explanation for all the events, phenomena or effects in nature and therefore they have to keep their mind open to the possibility that they may not always be able to explain everything purely naturally.