Atheism? No. Agnosticism? Formerly. Theism? Yes.

The young women who run threegirlsandamic.com, an Internet radio program, invited me to be a guest on their program about the rise of atheism among their generation of students. I did so on Sunday, 22 January, and thought afterwards that as they were interested in the topic, so might our readers at asiancemagazine.com. So, here goes.

I went from being a Christian to being a doubter, an agnostic, late in my high school years. The horrors of World War II, especially the extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies, and Catholics should not have been allowed by an all-powerful, wholly benevolent God. As I learned of the mass killings under communism in Russia, China, Tibet, Cambodia, I echoed the response, “If God is good, He is not God. If God is God, He is not good,” from Archibald Mac Leish’s play JB, based on The Bible’s “Book of Job.”

Decades passed for me, with more school, a career in science, a failed marriage and then a successful one, being reunited with my college sweetheart, Tina Han Su, now Tina Su Cooper. Life looked better, and my unhappiness with the world as designed by God softened, my doubts became less intense. I started reading more about Biblical times, about religion, and most importantly for me — as I was a physicist — about how some scientists concluded there is indeed a God. I even had a dream, perhaps inspired and perhaps not, that explained to me that in a perfect world, nothing would remain to be done, no goals already unfulfilled, effort pointless.

Where have I ended up? Theism, a belief in God. What do I think is true? The Big Bang 14 billion years ago was the act of creation, by a God so powerful we can barely comprehend Him. The universe is so big that at one time it expanded faster than the speed of light, as God broke what we think is one of His rules. There are billions of galaxies many with roughly billions of stars each. It can be shown that the physics and chemistry of the universe is such that it could not have turned out this way by chance, though that does not tell us of the intent of the Creator. Perhaps evolution was His method of populating the earth. How can we expect to understand it all in our lifetimes? Even in the forty years since my graduate school days, scientists have discovered “dark matter” and “dark energy” that make up the great bulk of the universe. The discoveries keep coming.

You and I will not obtain the final answers. The Bible, the Koran, and other holy books were written by humans, not by God. Some may have been inspired, others simply mistaken. Each religion should be humble about its mastery of the mystery, its answers for the ages. We see “through a glass darkly,” hazily and incompletely. We must wear our wisdom humbly.

I believe God rarely intervenes physically in our affairs. Perhaps he parted the Red Sea to show the Jews that Moses was telling the truth about Jehovah and the Ten Commandments. Perhaps the miracles performed by Jesus were, also, exceptions made to attest to Christ’s divinity. I do not extend that to all the claimed miracles of all teachers and religions, but there may be others that are true.

I think God works through inspiration, consolation, and perhaps some dreams. He could do so without violating the laws of nature. We have been made free, to be responsible for our lives.

Our prayers may help those prayed for. I do not know for sure, but I trust most the words attributed to Jesus Christ, as written much later by others, and so I say the Lord’s Prayer daily, and ask, in addition, that God bless my family, my friends, my neighbors, our staff and their families, all who are good or who are even trying to be good, and even our pets.

I cannot prove my beliefs are true, but I recommend them to you as more likely correct than atheism and as partial answers to agnosticism.

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a retired physicist, a current care-giver and the author of Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage, and Devotion, available through amazon.com bn.com, or their web site tingandi.com.