Why do you refer to particles as having “design”? That is an assumption that doesn’t have any justification. It’s an assumption on your part that atheists don’t share.

If your question can be rephrased as “why are things the way they are”, I could advise you to pick up a book on cosmology, such as Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time. It’s a huge subject, and there is much that we don’t know, so the honest thing to say about that is: “we don’t know”.

We don’t have some “right” to have all our questions answered: better to admit our limitations and try to find out what is actually happening. The alternative is to take an intellectually dishonest step, of filling the gaps in our knowledge with the products of our wishful imagination. Perhaps we would like everything to be designed – down to the sub-atomic level – but what we want is not important when we “do” science, is it? Religions talk about “humility”, but a study of the universe shows you the real meaning of humility: we don’t even know how much we don’t know, but we’re on the case.

Posted: May 21st 2010

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