I felt the talk was genuine, witty and intellectually informative; though, obviously, I have some partiality toward people of faith.
However, the reference to Steven Hawking (from 20:25 ff) does not mention the quotation you cited, as far as I can tell. It might, however, be in the book he wrote “God and Steven Hawking”.
I think the most important distinction that I notice and was brought out in the talk is that, as Christians, we believe there is something more than just stuff. Not just dark matter, but probably lots of things we don’t know and are left only to ponder.
Another thing is his emphasis on “creativity”. We can very well educate people to do tasks – even very complex one – but we cannot make people creative. Are these just chemicals in my brain, or is there something strangely more? Being a serious musician and a professional scientist, I still cannot explain how that light kicks on. Yet we know that some things are creative and some things not. Hence, I favor the “something more” argument, because we have an imagination that extends (or at least appears to extend) beyond mere stuff. What ultimate reality is, is, of course, a different matter.
To inject my own perspective on this. … I sense that part of the reason we are stuck in this never-ending exchange is that we are given a choice. We can choose to say that matter is all that is and the laws of naturalism are all that is, or we can choose to say that yes there is matter and naturalism, but there is also something more. Whereas it is difficult – and indeed perhaps impossible – to show that there is something more, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. After all, where would the faith be required if we could prove the things of heaven? Moreover, were we to access that “something more”, how soon would it be between when we gained control of those things of heaven and we begin to destroy things on scales of universes with our own hubris? We see enough of how power is abused in the world to know what would soon become of it. Maybe we are cut off for good reason.
Most atheists are good people and probably reject God more due to the hypocrisy (and sometimes also the cruelty) of us Christians than anything else. However, there is also “practical atheism”, this is what Psalm 37 and Psalm 94 talk about. When you throw away the foundations, it is not long before the children of God will become the children of the world.
Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal. – Robert Heinlein
– by grace we proceed