I did mention that I came to believe in some kind of Causing agent that we call God via science, not so much religion. The science I spoke of is a general reading of a great deal of material over years that informed me that the exactitudes required to produce a universe, as revealed by science, could not be an accident.
So there are only 3 ways this universe and life could exist.
By Accident / by Voluntary assemblage of all the parts / by Involuntary assemblage.
An Accidental Universe is impossible, the exactitudes of all the various elements, natural laws and forces as presented by science, makes this clear.
Next we have the Voluntary Universe, science then informs me that if the universe came together because all the parts had preexisting, unique properties that they could just blend together so that when they met they each did exactly what was required to establish matter, life, natural forces, etc. This too is utterly impossible.
The only possible outcome is the, Involuntary Universe where a Cause of Purpose and Will directs outcomes at the subatomic level to produce desired, preordained outcomes. This Cause we call God and I came to this conclusion via reading a lot of scientific papers, so as you can appreciate I can't present you with a nice wrapped up response. It seems that natural laws are immutable across the entire universe and they have exact limits, this is not the outcome of a self-causing system, a system that would cause itself before it exist is impossible.
The next point that I derived from science is that evolution never develops excess, it develops traits and abilities that never overshoot the basic needs of an organism. Yet in humans we have a mental capacity that is vastly greater than we need to survive. This is proven by the fact the creatures like Lucy, a Ramapithecus, survived quite well with little more brain power than a chimp and we have today apes and monkeys that do okay if we leave them alone. I believe the only answer to the vast separation of human and animal is because we have a spirit which is of the same substance as God Himself, as per the breath into Adam in Genesis. This is what enables us to be the only creature who can manipulate the very nature we arose from.
So having come to a vague conclusion from science that there was a Cause driving reality, and that humans had a spirit and that is what separates us from animals I could no longer be a fence sitter, a bit agnostic and a bit atheistic.
I have studied or at least read the scriptures of all the worlds major religions and a fair bit of information about indigenous religions, I have also read the works of many of the great philosophers that get quoted on HC from time to time and I came to the conclusion that humanity is hardwired to religion. That religion in fact is the foundation of human civilisation. The trick is then to extract what might be valid from religion as opposed to all the junk beliefs that get added along the way. Once again I was able to use science to filter out the superstition and dogma that religionists love so much and at its core I found religion is one of the great pillars of human civilisation, the other is science.
The main thing that convinced me that Purpose and Will is imbedded into our lives is the fact that we die. One imagines that evolution would have had no trouble eliminating death to a degree. It would be no more than replacing cells without the lost of genetic information, so I think death is the strongest proof of God.
I'm sorry if this is not the answer you wanted but there is no way I can point to a specific scientific paper and present it to you.
I was reading something the other day and a group of scientists said that they think there is evidence for Purpose in the natural world. They seemed taken-aback by this finding. The next step is to understand that Purpose comes from without, not from within, that being a God of unknowable nature and beyond description.
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