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'Ran, manéh pan geus ti Eropa, naha solat kénéh?' Ran, you've been to Europe, why do you still pray?
'Kan masih proses mencari. Selagi masih mencari mah solat aja dulu.' I'm still in the process of searching. Meanwhile, I just pray.

He was just kidding of course. But maybe not entirely. So was I.

Andri, a fellow God-Seeker at GMT+10, had one answer: Grace. Dawkins failed me with The God Delusion, but I actually offered Dawkins' shifting moral zeitgeist argument when Andri offered that answer. I didn't agree with his reasoning. I thought it was vague, but fair deuce to him. In the end, I just realized that we had different questions.

My question was actually on the very thing that I argue against Dawkins.

My take is, why can't God create by way of evolution? And while we're at it, why can't God be complex, more complex than we can ever imagine? I know, Occam's razor, but it's actually only one assumption more (there is a Complex God), just like the atheists believe in one less God.

My lab-mate in NL once asked me, 'Emangnya ada orang berpendidikan yang ateis?'. Is there any educated people who is also atheist? This was after she commented that our colleague was ateis banget (real atheist) because he didn't believe in God and didn't care if we did our religious ritual. I told her that he was an OK-atheist then, in the sense that he didn't try to argue with her about God and religion.

I know I made a generalization. Not all atheists are "preaching" about their "belief" (please note the quote marks). But living in NL for three years, I expected that she knew that already.

From science I see evidence of universe and its entirety evolved in such complex progression. Scientists like Hawking and Dawkins argue that god is not necessary in this process. What appears as design is not (save your breath, it's not merely chance either). But I still believe there is design, there is purpose. See the shift from see evidence to believe? I admit there is a leap of faith. My question, or rather "question", is actually how to close the gap?

What shocked me about my lab-mate's question (yes, I was kinda shocked) was that I didn't really see it coming. Maybe I read too much Dawkins (only one book actually) and (admittedly) Brookmyres back then, so I used to the argument of science vs... I'm not sure. God? Religion? Pseudoscience? Anyway, I forgot that in Indonesia, it's sort of taken for granted. I remember as a first year student, I had an obligatory Islamic mentoring when we discuss about science and, what was that, god and religion. And of course we all agreed that there is no contradiction between them.

It's a consensus. We don't really think about it anymore.

Anyway, I have already "found" what I was searching for way back when, so it's not like I'm questioning from zero. It's only that small glitch, and when I look around I do see signs li qaumi yatafakkarun, for those who thinks. And maybe Andri was right after all. It is grace.

And as for the shifting moral zeitgeist, I found the answer here.

...karena cara berpikir “asli” seperti diatas berarti mengingkari tujuan syari’at itu sendiri, yaitu memberikan jalan keluar bagi manusia untuk menuju mashlahat dunia-akhirat dihadapan berbagai masalah dalam ruang dan waktu mereka sendiri.

...because the "genuine" way of thinking like that means denying the purpose of sharia itself, that is to give solutions for mankind for achieving virtue in heaven and earth, in facing problems in their own space and time.