Why I'm not an atheist or a theist.

Forget the Bible, the Koran, the cathedrals, the mosques, the temples, the priests, and forget the doctrines. Instead, think about the central question.

Given what has been proven by science and reasoning, does there still exist the possibility of a "god"?

There are those who say that yes, a god does indeed exist because a book said so. If that were all we needed to prove something, I'd leap from a building and fly. For as the great and powerful Douglas Adams once wrote in his text "There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that provides the difficulties."
But we all know that doesn't quite work (Because some of us have tried).

So books aren't proof.

However! If you ask a scientist why there isn't a god you're bound to either get an opinion or the honest 'Well, I can't say there isn't a god. But I can say that there isn't sufficient proof for the existence of a god.'

Okay so orthodox religion isn't reliable and science is working on something else entirely.

But! There is some circumstantial evidence that points to a god! Evidence that wouldn't stand up in the court of law, like hearsay (the Bible) or something that looks like there may have been someone here potentially sometime in the past but maybe not (the supposed "fine tuning" of the universe. The very concept of "fine tuning" implies that there was a tuner, therefore the name gives the theists an advantage. They do have the handicap of the burden of proof, so we'll let them have this one.)
Moving on, this fine tuning refers to the balances in the universe that led to the formations of stars, galaxies, planets, nebulae, black holes and sandwiches. A nice list of them appears on a website ridiculously biased and untrustworthy. (But they cite sources. That makes it just a little bit more okay to take them seriously.) Fine tuning refers to the scientifically verified fact that if certain constants in the universe like gravity and such were slightly off, the universe would be an inhospitable expanse of space. Here's a quote I found that adequately explains how exact these things must be to maintain life:

"One part in 10 to the 37 is such an incredibly sensitive balance that it is hard to visualize. The following analogy might help: Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles..." "Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billions of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one in 10 to the 37." - Dr. Hugh Ross

Shit, right? But that still doesn't prove there is a god. It's pretty convincing though.

Another fact in regards to the structure of the universe is just how well things seem to work with numbers. In essence there is nothing that says 2+2 should equal 4. Humanity has assigned number values to things and found that certain things are always true no matter how many times you try. This is true for ridiculously complex mathematics. The fact that the universe adheres to these mathematical concepts and theories sometimes boggles my mind. This language which we created ourselves (mathematics) accurately fits inside the universe like it was meant to be there. Most of the time I think, well that's not really a surprise, we built mathematics to explain things so it does what we want it to. But math isn't just a set of bendable rules. It's a ridiculously complex and rigid set of rules that tends to know things before we do. And that, my friends makes no sense. The fact that a mathematical theory can describe things we've never seen before and then turn out to be true implies that math is something central to the universe. The core of what I'm saying is that the math was always in the universe even before we discovered it. It has it's own laws. And I wonder why it does.

But. All rants about math being the "language of god" aside, These are the reasons I cannot accept atheism or theism. Neither side has a bit of real proof.

If science is right, everything is predictable, and if enough mathematical equations were crunched, I could predict the future based on all the atoms positions in the universe, and how they are slated to interact, right down to the atoms in my mind.

If religion is right, everything is predictable because god has the ultimate say in what happens. God is all knowing and all present. Therefore, when the universe began, god knew the end. And that means god knew how the universe would unfold and did it. Therefore god chose how we would act billions of yeas before we were born.

(Come to think of it, science and religion agree on some things.)

Tune in next time when I'll talk about something else.