You can’t just say there is a God because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is. The wonder of nature must be taken in its totality and it is a wonderful thing. It is absolutely marvelous and the idea that an atheist or a humanist…doesn’t marvel and wonder at reality, at the way things are, is nonsensical. The point is we wonder all the way. We don’t just stop and say that which I cannot understand I will call God, which is what mankind has done historically.
–Stephen Fry, The Importance of Unbelief, Big Think
Is it possible that NEITHER the skipping-through-the-daisies god of people’s invention NOR the one that fails to exist is true? That neither the stoic, aloof god of people’s imagination NOR the one who winks in approval of whatever people fascinate themselves with is true? Is it possible that He is neither a crutch for that which is unknown nor a crutch used by those who find their identity in their sensual passions and therefore suppose their mentally-constructed god gives them a thumbs-up? Is it possible that He is both love and fearsome? And is it possible that love is defined on His terms, not ours? Is He even knowable except through that which He reveals Himself? The lion has roared…who can but prophesy?