Sir, – Michael Nugent's line of reasoning (Opinion, October 11th) on existence and origins is profoundly flawed. As a scientist myself, I find no contradiction between science and faith as have many before, and above me, including Einstein and Copernicus. Atheistic scientism makes three fundamental mistakes. In the first place it makes the a-prioriassumption that existence and being is measurable and quantifiable. It has no right to make this groundless assumption. The beauty and design in the universe weighs in favour of a supreme intelligence. The sequence of supposed "coincidences" to make life on Earth possible, from the need for a large moon and a Jupiter sized planet, to the need for a nearby and unusual type II Supernova at precisely the right moment in the evolution of the universe (among many others), now puts the possibility of the spontaneous emergence of life at vastly greater than 10 to the power of 50, which is accepted in probabilistic terms to be essentially and mathematically zero, given the accepted age of the universe. The onus is on the atheist to prove that God does not exist, not on the believer to prove that he does.
In the second place, it makes the mistake associated with all ideologies – that of glorifying the mistakes of others to bolster its case, be they Stephen Hawking or not.
Thirdly, on the question of origins, invoking quantum mechanics to propose a spontaneous origin of the universe merely transforms the question as to where laws of physics came from which provided the initial conditions. The fact that scientists such as Mr Hawking cannot or refuse to see such a glaringly obvious mistake betrays a violence to the reason to protect an ideology, rather than a sound scientific principle.
Regarding the invention of religion, the first sentiment of the human person is a desire for something “greater”, not fear, which comes from the possibility of losing the object of desire. Therefore humans, before being inventors of religion, are fundamentally religious beings, as history attests. – Yours etc,