Five atheist logic tests and how to pass them – a skeptical response to “How to make an atheist backslide”

About the first example dealing with the banana, its interesting to point out a true wild banana and show it in comparison to the banana’s we purchase in local supermarkets.

A wild banana has very few of the characteristics that the banana’s we enjoy. Here are two pictures of wild bananas.

http://cairnarvon.rotahall.org/pics/wildbanana.jpg
http://www.dasmirnov.net/media/users/paul/PBF_02_3_image_04_full.jpg

Unknowingly, of course, creationists are actually pointing to something man did to the banana. Over the course of thousands of years humans have actually cultivated the banana into its current popular form. It’s not by God’s grace or design, its by man’s selective breeding pressure that the supermarket banana’s have the characteristics that they have instead of being wild bananas. So just like the coke can, humans have designed the banana as well…

Good article, just wanted to toss this idea in to help strengthen it.

Actually, not all humans, a friend of mine makes his private “sociologic research” re. banana peeling and it’s roughly 50/50 for both ends ;o)

** So, you wanna criticize The Bible? Why beat a dead god? **

>> ignorance is no excuse

One of the central problems with discussion on almost all sites I’ve come across using StumbleUpon, I call “conceding out of ignorance.” Four (interacting) dimensions of discourse . . . of perspective get ignored:

1. time — xianity appeared as a jewish heresy. It is a belief structure which has been in steep decline since 1600. Attempts to preserve it are shrill and vicious. They will fail because they are socially destructive. And xianity will totally cease as a “living” religion. (This what Nietzsche meant by the infamous phrase: “God is dead.”)

2. space — most of the world’s people are not xian. They would resist (and have resisted) attempted conversion. Their religious views, of course, are mutually inconsistent. As myths, they are fictional prose and poetry.

3. value — India and Japan are good examples where the dominant culture will not absorb an alien framework of religion. Japan is basically a secular society. India has withstood domination by Buddhist elites and by Moslem elites. Buddhism no longer exists in the land of its birth, and by partition Islam was simply cut out of the Indian body politic.

4. culture — most Europeans are secularists, and admit it. Most Americans are secularists, but don’t admit it. The elections of 2008 — showed that the disease of fundamentalism can be limited by our cultural “immune system” now trained to recognize christo-fascism and begin a long overdue process of limiting its virulence.

>> the essence of concession

Xianity looks big because you’re standing too close to it. In perspective, it can be dismissed — as an unbelievable belief structure — along with all its closely related near eastern relatives: zoroastrianism, judaism, and islam.

All matters related to defects of xian’s so-called sacred writings — contradictions, bad arguments, polemics — that is, directly taking on its apologists is a total waste of time.

You might as well be parsing Batman at a comix convention. And, theology is fifth-rate fan fiction.

bipolar2

not really to confident with argument number 4 about the building. It seems by focussing on the architect you seem to dodge the question, if you see a building you know it’s been constructed how do you know this? I would go back to darwins theory of evolution and say the building could not have come about by small consecutive steps, (ignoring the illogic assertion that a building could evolve.)

“I trust you know as well as I that abstract and invariant laws of logic, universal moral absolutes, and the uniformity of nature as the predicate for all science are entities which one’s worldview must be able to account for if it is to escape arbitrariness or inconsistency. I was wondering if anyone here can explain how the anti-theistic worldview can rationally account for the reality of these entities.”

- I’m not sure what you mean by ‘the reality of these entities’. I’d argue that they are entirely dependant upon humanity, for starters. I doubt animals have many logical or moral concerns. I’m also not sure how putting God into the picture helps matters. Sure you get a ‘source’ for these things, but that seems fairly arbitrary to me. And pretty inconsistent if you want to talk about God’s ‘absolute moral values’.

- Logic as I see it exists in virtue of the terms by which we define our world. We see a circle and a square, we try to imagine something which is both, and we fail, so it cannot conceivably exist. This is rudimentary logic. Something cannot be both P and not P. To say it can would be to completely redefine how we think about the world.

- ‘Absolute morality’ is a highly debatable concept to begin with. I don’t see why moral judgements appearing to be ‘arbitrary’ is a problem – it’s only a problem if you don’t trust yourself or those around you to be moral.

- The ‘uniformity of nature’ is another interesting concept. Again I don’t understand why we’d need a God for this. Some would say that if nature were any other way, we would not be around to sit and wonder, so we should not be surprised that we find ourselves in an ordered universe, as we could not have existed in any other sort. If it were chaotic, perhaps, we would wonder why it is not uniform.

- None of these are comprehensive arguments by any means, but I think the burden of proof falls upon you to argue why we should need a God for any of these concepts in the first place, without being inconsistent and arbitrary yourself.

@J: I think you need to actually read the article. I’m not sure what the point of the bible summary was, but your last paragraph implies you are a skeptic or non-believer. If so you’re on the same side as the author.

+++++ +++++ +++++

@Michael: Could you have phrased that in more complicated terms? I’m not sure if it was your intent, but it really seems like you used complex words and phrasing along with a run-on sentence just to confuse things.

I trust you know as well as I that abstract and invariant laws of logic, universal moral absolutes, and the uniformity of nature as the predicate for all science are entities which one’s worldview must be able to account for if it is to escape arbitrariness or inconsistency.

So based on some synonym rewording, is this what you’re saying?: “I trust you know as well as I that theoretical and constant laws of logic, universal moral perfection, and the uniformity of nature as the establishment for all science are entities. A person’s worldview must be able to account for these entities if said-person is to escape chance or chaos.”

I still don’t understand the question. So you think all these things are entities? It almost sounds like you are trying to personify them. To me this seems like some kind of irony since that is where gods were born; humans trying to explain things they could not explain, and personifying them so they could relate to them. So these are like demigods you’ve created?

i know i didnt prove it, but it has been proven. a/b with whole numbers can only get you rational numbers, and pi is not rational.

wikipedia explains it well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

Hello Anna,

Thank you for your reply. You were gracious to take the time, and I appreciate it. I wanted to take a little time to respond to your thoughts.

- “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘the reality of these entities’. I’d argue that they are entirely dependant upon humanity, for starters. I doubt animals have many logical or moral concerns. I’m also not sure how putting God into the picture helps matters. Sure you get a ’source’ for these things, but that seems fairly arbitrary to me. And pretty inconsistent if you want to talk about God’s ‘absolute moral values’.”

I agree that laws of logic and morality are human concerns. In my worldview, the invariant and universal laws of logic reflect the thinking of God. The Bible says that God does not contradict Himself. You say that I am putting God in there, and you are not sure how that helps matters. God, far from being “put in there” as an arbitrary explanation for invariant universal laws, is the transcendental necessity for such laws. In other words, all attempts to account for these laws apart from the Christian God end in arbitrariness or inconsistency. The naturalistic worldview cannot account for universal abstract and invariant laws. I have given you an explanation for the existence of universal laws. You say God is an arbitrary explanation. You may not like the explanation, but that does not make it arbitrary. On the other hand, you have assumed the existence of the laws you and I both acknowledge and live by, but you cannot adequately explain their existence in the anti-theistic worldview. They are unintelligible in an anti-theistic worldview.

- “Logic as I see it exists in virtue of the terms by which we define our world. We see a circle and a square, we try to imagine something which is both, and we fail, so it cannot conceivably exist. This is rudimentary logic. Something cannot be both P and not P. To say it can would be to completely redefine how we think about the world.”

You are right to say something cannot be both P and not P. But the law of non-contradiction is universal. It is immaterial. It is invariant. How does a naturalistic worldview account for it? Your remark relating logic with the terms by which we define our world begs a hundred questions: how, for instance, our thoughts correspond to the things around us; how there are universals like “squareness”; how there can be order and invariant laws in a contingent universe . . .

- “‘Absolute morality’ is a highly debatable concept to begin with. I don’t see why moral judgements appearing to be ‘arbitrary’ is a problem – it’s only a problem if you don’t trust yourself or those around you to be moral.”

Without a universal standard, there is no evil. Like Dostoyevsky said, “If there is no God, everything is permissible.”

- “The ‘uniformity of nature’ is another interesting concept. Again I don’t understand why we’d need a God for this. Some would say that if nature were any other way, we would not be around to sit and wonder, so we should not be surprised that we find ourselves in an ordered universe, as we could not have existed in any other sort. If it were chaotic, perhaps, we would wonder why it is not uniform.”

The question here is not why we need a God for this. The question instead is: What is actually the case? In fact, though, God’s existence accounts for the uniformity of nature. The universe operates according to laws. Day and night continue, cold and heat continue, the seasons change, etc. The Book of Genesis assures us of this. How does the naturalistic worldview account for the uniformity of nature? In a contingent universe, we might wake up tomorrow to find the laws of physics turned upside down. God’s propositional revelation assures me of the uniformity of nature. You might claim that is an arbitrary statement, but what reason do you have to assume tomorrow will be like today?

- “None of these are comprehensive arguments by any means, but I think the burden of proof falls upon you to argue why we should need a God for any of these concepts in the first place, without being inconsistent and arbitrary yourself.”

I have provided a version of the transcendental argument for the existence of God. Morality, laws of logic, and the uniformity of nature cannot be rationally explained apart from God. The Christian God exists; the contrary is impossible.

“I agree that laws of logic and morality are human concerns. In my worldview, the invariant and universal laws of logic reflect the thinking of God. The Bible says that God does not contradict Himself. You say that I am putting God in there, and you are not sure how that helps matters. God, far from being “put in there” as an arbitrary explanation for invariant universal laws, is the transcendental necessity for such laws. In other words, all attempts to account for these laws apart from the Christian God end in arbitrariness or inconsistency. The naturalistic worldview cannot account for universal abstract and invariant laws. I have given you an explanation for the existence of universal laws. You say God is an arbitrary explanation. You may not like the explanation, but that does not make it arbitrary. On the other hand, you have assumed the existence of the laws you and I both acknowledge and live by, but you cannot adequately explain their existence in the anti-theistic worldview. They are unintelligible in an anti-theistic worldview.”

First I want to point out that you say the Bible doesn’t contradict itself but this in not true. There are parts in the Bibles that I’ve read that contradict scientific facts such as the Bible stating the Earth is flat when in reality the Earth is a sphere (I know it’s not quite a sphere but I’m just going to leave it as that for simplicities sake). Here are some sites that have lists of contradictions in the Bible. http://skeptically.org/bible/id8.html http://www.thinkatheist.com/notes/101_Contradictions_in_the_Bible
You saying “God did it” is indeed arbitrary (based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something). There’s no reason to NEED a god to explain nature and you saying your God is the cause is what you prefer as it could very well have been no god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or any of the Nordic or Greco-Roman gods.

“You are right to say something cannot be both P and not P. But the law of non-contradiction is universal. It is immaterial. It is invariant. How does a naturalistic worldview account for it? Your remark relating logic with the terms by which we define our world begs a hundred questions: how, for instance, our thoughts correspond to the things around us; how there are universals like “squareness”; how there can be order and invariant laws in a contingent universe . . .”

I’m unsure as to why you used contingent there but I assume you meant random.
There can be order because everything is based on simple rules and there has been NOTHING that has EVER been shown to break these rules. These rules give way to the more complex mechanisms in the universe which make it seem random to humans as we have incomplete knowledge.

“Without a universal standard, there is no evil. Like Dostoyevsky said, ‘If there is no God, everything is permissible.’”

This is an appeal to consequences. The proposed outcome makes no difference to the truth of a statement. Saying people would be able to anything without a god doesn’t have an effect on whether or not there is. Hint: There’s no evidence for one so there isn’t.

“The question here is not why we need a God for this. The question instead is: What is actually the case? In fact, though, God’s existence accounts for the uniformity of nature. The universe operates according to laws. Day and night continue, cold and heat continue, the seasons change, etc. The Book of Genesis assures us of this. How does the naturalistic worldview account for the uniformity of nature? In a contingent universe, we might wake up tomorrow to find the laws of physics turned upside down. God’s propositional revelation assures me of the uniformity of nature. You might claim that is an arbitrary statement, but what reason do you have to assume tomorrow will be like today?”

The Book of Genesis is hardly a good source as it’s self contradictory. I’ve already explained the uniformity part in a higher post. I fail to see why tomorrow would NOT be like today. The laws of nature haven’t changed in the past so it’d be foolish to assume they’ll change in the future.

“I have provided a version of the transcendental argument for the existence of God. Morality, laws of logic, and the uniformity of nature cannot be rationally explained apart from God. The Christian God exists; the contrary is impossible.”

I have just proven otherwise. Though, even if your case were true, it doesn’t prove your God it proves A god. On that note, I shall post a quote and end this.
Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

You can argue about how complex a cell or eye is all day long, but to then jump to the conclusion “therefore it must be magic” is ludicrous.
If that isn’t the arguement from incredulity, what is?
There is not one miniscule scrap of evidence for a magic creator.
Furthermore the bible is a disgusting immoral book written by a primitive superstitous people, simply trying make sense of the world, life and death.

Tim,

You have evidently overlooked this passage from the Bible: “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.” – Isaiah 40:22

Both the Christian theist and the naturalist have precommitments to their respective worldviews. Neither is neutral in the debate; neither can be.

The question becomes: Which worldview provides the preconditions for making the human experience and reality intelligible? The transcendental proof for the Christian worldview is that without God, you could not prove anything.

Your equation of the God of the Bible to a fictitious god (the flying spaghetti monster) is absurd; Christianity and the claims of the Bible are propositional, and the system of Christianity is falsifiable. Jesus’ resurrection is attested to in the Bible by five hundred witnesses. One can examine the Bible for him or herself and observe its unparallelled coherence and consistency. One can know that the texts which comprise the Bible have been meticulously copied and preserved. There are over 5000 Greek manuscripts alone; among them are no doctrinal contradictions, but merely slight grammatical variances. The earliest manuscript copies follow the original autographs by, historically-speaking, a remarkably short time. In this regard, no work of antiquity can come close. Do not take my word for it. Examine the evidence.

I defend the Christian worldview as a system because only the Christian worldview does not reduce the human experience to absurdity. I embrace Christianity while rejecting other religious systems because those systems are found to be internally coherent and self-contradictory. Elsewhere I have pointed out some of the internal contradictions of the Koran. In the Bible, there appear some apparent contradictions. They are in no logical sense true contradictions. The vast majority of the so-called contradictions pointed out by unbelievers result from unwarranted assumptions about context and meaning. Anything removed from its context can be made to appear contradictory.

Were you to stand inside my worldview, you would see that universal logical laws, laws of morality, and the uniformity of nature are accounted for. Their reality makes sense in my worldview. They do not make sense in yours. You have wholly failed or neglected or refused to explain how there can be universal laws of logic, moral laws, and uniformity of nature in a universe such as the naturalist imagines — random, uncaused, accidental. For all the criticisms hurled by unbelievers at believers like me, unbelievers cannot account for meaning and purpose, laws and other abstract entities, or the uniformity of nature.

You say: “There can be order because everything is based on simple rules and there has been NOTHING that has EVER been shown to break these rules. These rules give way to the more complex mechanisms in the universe which make it seem random to humans as we have incomplete knowledge.”

You beg many questions. You start with the assumption that there are “rules” upon which the naturalistic universe is based. How can that be? Rules presuppose order, repetition, and predictable relationships among things and events, among countless other things. I agree with you that there are rules; but in your worldview, there should be no rules. The very concept should be unintelligible — meaningless. You talk about the persistence of these rules as the reason for your confidence in their continuation. Your reasoning is based on a logical fallacy. You are relying on the past to prove what the future will be like. What about the many repeated occurrences of an event in the past necessitates its continuation in the future? Even Bertrand Russell, with his anti-Christian worldview, conceded that all of science hangs on the unprovable assumption of the uniformity of nature. Before him, David Hume had run headlong into this problem of induction. It brought him to skepticism.

Again, you say: “These rules give way to the more complex mechanisms in the universe which make it seem random to humans as we have incomplete knowledge.” You admit to having incomplete knowledge, and you nevertheless reject Christianity on account of a promissory materialism. In other words, you have faith that all future knowledge will cohere within a naturalistic framework. Now don’t get me wrong. The Christian is committed to his worldview too. But were one to first stand inside the naturalistic worldview, then inside the Christian worldview, which would have proved to him that it can make sense of human experience? Again, whether you like or dislike a worldview is not the test of whether it is philosophically defensible.

To the naturalist, I ask further: What do we make of the many abstract, immaterial things that impress themselves upon human experience? How do you explain human love, and sacrifice for another? How are these consistent with naturalism? You see, naturalism cannot adequately explain them. However much you might dislike my worldview, my worldview can make sense of human love, and sacrifice for another.

Are you an atheist? I did not want to assume this and impute words and thoughts to you that are not yours. In the atheist worldview, are not people mere bags of biology? Would not our thoughts and actions be determined by randomly-occurring chemical and electrical processes? What is the point of a debate if this is true? Why should I believe your randomly-firing electro-chemical impulses? Are the randomly-occurring processes in your brain any more reliable or meaningful than those in someone else’s brain? Would nature not have dictated them? For that matter, how is language and communication possible?

Mankind has always asked “Why?” I am asking the naturalist these questions: Why are there invariant universal laws of logic? How do you explain them? How can there be rules in a random universe? And if the universe is not random, how can it be accidental, or contingent? How does the naturalist avoid annihilating the whole of human experience and all meaning?

Michael

ty,

You make a good point when you say that “most are talking from their biases.” I would go further and say that neutrality is impossible. We all have certain precommitments to our worldviews.

Ultimately, all metaphysical reasoning involves circularity. As a Christian, the God of the Scriptures is my ultimate authority. The unbeliever will insist that the believer appeal to some neutral and universal authority to prove God exists — human reason, or logic. But in requiring appeals to logic to prove God exists, the unbeliever has demonstrated his precommitment to logic as an ultimate authority. But by what standard does one establish the ascendancy of logic in the realm of authority? Ultimately, one cannot help but beg the question, whether he or she is a believer or an unbeliever.

For the Christian, there is one ultimate authority, apart from whom logic is unintelligible: the triune God of the Scriptures. The Christian does in truth reason in a circle, but that is to say he reasons consistently.

Michael

Hello Nick,

Thank you for your response. I do not presuppose that there is a god. I presuppose that the Christian God as presented in the Old and New Testaments is the precondition of the intelligibility of the law of identity (A=A), and all of reality.

Adherence to logic is commendable. Good reasoning is that which is regimented by logical laws. I think we would both agree on this.

You say: “The answer as to why there are invariant rules of logic: Because we chose an axiom and derived from that point. The axiom there is also the identity function. The idea that A cannot also be ~A.”

This is another way of saying that there are laws of logic, and this is not in dispute. You say that we “chose an axiom.” An axiom is an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth. Does the law of identity exist a priori? If so, how can a law — any law — exist in an accidental universe? The law of identity applies universally. How can that be?

We arrive at the same place if we say that “we chose” an axiom. It was there to be chosen, and it is this fact which worldviews must account for if they are not to be considered arbitrary. It is the existence of the thing in the first instance that is the issue. If we chose an axiom, and that axiom universally applied, then somehow our thoughts would have corresponded to the world outside of our thoughts. Our thoughts certainly do correspond to the world outside of our thoughts. But how can this be in an accidental, immaterial universe? How is conceptual thinking possible? How are abstract concepts possible?

The world makes sense if we are thinking God’s thoughts after Him. It has been said that in this way we are thinking reconstructively, not constructively. Philosophy has always been trying to solve the problem of the one and the many. How can we rationally tie all of the particulars — brute facts, if you will — together into a coherent and meaningful whole without destroying individuality and unity in the process? If man is himself just one of these particulars, just another brute fact, how can he create a coherent and meaningful unity out of every particular, including himself?

The Christian worldview gives the answer: God created us in His image and placed us in the universe He constructed, and endowed us with minds whose thoughts can correspond to the created order.

God Bless.

Michael

Michael, I’m not trying to offend or attack you personally. I don’t know you. Chances are you’re a bright, generous, and loving individual (kinda like me). I just know religion stinks.

Please, just answer this question. Do you believe that every word in the Bible, from beginning to the end, is directly from the mouth of your god (of course, we have to assume that your god has a mouth, otherwise we wouldn’t have one, seeing as we are “created” in its image)?

If your answer is yes, then please explain why you do not follow the words exactly as they are written. I tend to think that any creature with the powers of universal creation wouldn’t waste a single syllable in its declaration of how things came to be and what we “ought” to be doing down here on little old planet Earth. I mean, why waste any words at all? Aren’t they ALL important? If you directed your child to clean his room, make the bed, and put away his folded clothes, you’d expect him to do just that. If he followed you dearly (as good, honest children do) he would do it ALL. What should one make of the child cleaning his room and making his bed, but shrugging his shoulders come time to fold that laundry! You would be doing the same by not slaughtering all those you meet who idolize other gods than Yahweh, or not taking strange women from conquered tribes for your personal pleasure, or not killing defenceless children for being born into a different worldview. Again, if you disagree, study your Bible harder.

If your answer is no, please don’t call yourself a Christian. You’re a liar if you do, and believe me, there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who would call you the same… not just a silly, unbelieving atheist like myself. You can’t cherry-pick the Bible. All the different off-shoots (of which there are some 13,000 +) of the original Christian religion are just that, off-shoots. I gotta tell ya. If your beloved idol couldn’t get you all on the same page, what else could it do wrong? Hmmm… create the universe and everything in it? Nope.

What I’d like to know is why all believers of the various gods out there continue to do so without any proof whatsoever (sorry, can’t claim the Bible is proof). Granted, you’ve done pretty well for the last few hundred years at saving face in light of all that we’ve come to understand about how the world REALLY works. But when it comes time for that pesky little thing we call “evidence”, you fall flat. No matter what the argument, you’re never going to escape the fact that it all depends on evidence. Testable, verifiable, falsifiable, evidence. And evidence that we can ALL get the same vantage point on (revelations are garbage, period).

I don’t really expect you to answer the question. You’d be in trouble of putting a major kink in your life answering either way. And to be honest, you probably can’t answer it. But if nothing else, at least you might be one step closer to understanding why the unbelievers of the world see you as we do.

Don’t hate ya brother… just don’t want to see you miss out on such a beautiful life.

Robin..

Des I don’t think you fully read my eye argument.

Long story short, we need to have faith that, yes, in fact this eclectic bunch of “tests” did all come together by chance..?
Fair enough, I admire your level of faith!

To be accurate, the banana did have a designer, and an intelligent one at that. Man. The banana that exists in North American supermarkets does not exist in the wild. It is a cultigen, a plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans; it is the result of artificial selection.

Ergo the argument they make which supposedly proves the existence of a sacred designer actually proves the opposite quite conclusively.

(Sorry Navin, you make a nice argument about the banana too, but I think mine is more elegant.)

I would recommend to Michael the Lord of the Rings series; it is so unparalleled in its coherence and consistency that it must be work of a higher entity.

Footnote: to anyone who does not believe in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, I would like to call to attention the thousands of Oliphaunts, Easterlings, Variags, Orcs, Trolls and others who are attested to be witnesses to it in the Return of the King.

ty,

I won’t presume to understand fully your remarks about the eye and evolution. To a layman like me, you are essentially saying that the theory of evolution is undermined by the fact of irreducible complexity. The eye is a marvelous example of irreducible complexity. It works in the form that exists; it cannot work at all in any imagined less-developed form.

More generally speaking, the evolutionary theory requires a confluence and coordination of numerous events which, even individually, are, practically speaking, impossible.

Forgive the oversimplification on my part.

God bless,
Michael

Michael I just laid the eye debate all out more clearly and amazingly I lost all my writing again because I hit the wrong button. Just go to “what good is half an eye” and you’ll see a video which I linked to in the comments section. I didn’t explain the eye thing too clearly above. It’s not about the complexity issue, it’s about four separate parts of the eye magically combining and how natural selection doesn’t account for this, because nat selection demands that each of the four parts give survival advantages to the animal BEFORE they come together. There’s more to it too.

Christopher do you have thoughts on my comments about the five points? I didn’t make my argument airtight hoping that someone would argue the opposite. I’m looking for a fight, it’d be fun. I could play devils advocate as a darwinist if anyone wants to do that, I don’t have ego tied into this.
Also I might not have current research or be wrong. I don’t want to get into the banana thing I don’t see the point.

Spencer -

Why should one be concerned with the welfare of the population? If one may get ahead by hurting another, why shouldn’t he? If someone chooses to act in a way you would not approve of, so what?

The Nazis thought they were advancing humankind by eliminating the genetically inferior. Were they wrong?

If you want to assume evolution, you should not flinch at a systematic killing of the infirm, the disabled, and the weak among us. These hold an evolving society back.

I have just stepped inside the atheistic worldview. It is a frightening place.

Michael

James,

I really appreciate your candor. God gives grace to endure all things to those who trust in Him.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

And when you have received water, food, and love, know that God has provided them.

God Bless,
Michael

Christopher and Ty, regarding this comment:

“ty,

For god’s sake, man, Wikipedia is FREE.”

And Michael, regarding this comment,

“The eye is a marvelous example of irreducible complexity. It works in the form that exists; it cannot work at all in any imagined less-developed form.”

…DBSkeptic also has an article on the same topic that addresses the issue:

What good is half an eye?

Here’s a better question: IF there is a God, what difference does it make?

Spencer -

“The backbone of evolution is the natural selection of the most viable genes in a population. The active ‘cleansing’ of “the infirm, the disabled, and the weak” hardly constitutes natural selection.”

Why not? As you say, we are products of natural selection. Whatever we do must therefore be explainable by natural selection unless we can somehow transcend it.

The murderer is no less a product of natural selection than you are. When he kills, he merely does what nature has determined he will do. He is pure matter in motion. Evolution is to blame, not him. It would not be fair to punish him unless he were free to choose one action over another. This requires abstract thinking. It requires immaterial mind. It requires apprehension of the immaterial concepts of right and wrong. How does naturalism account for these? How does a materialistic worldview account for ideas, communication, rationality, mind, love, justice, fairness, mercy, self-sacrifice, and free will?

Those skeptical of evolutionism might also ask: How did we get from the inorganic to the organic, from pure matter to sentience, and from blind impersonal forces to self-consciousness? Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?

Michael

Argumentation par excellence. God is very much alive, friend.

Micheal
I have a question.
How can you reject the mountains of corroborative and overwhelming evidence that (a) the earth is c 4.5 billion years old and (b) evolution is a fact of life?
Even the Pope cannot deny it.
The only answer I can think of is, that, God created the earth (the whole universe in fact) in such a way that would trick us into thinking that evolution is fact.
A truly brilliant prank worthy of an omnipitant being, since the more we investigate and the more intelligent and technilogically advanced mankind becomes, the more the prank seems true.
Perhaps that explains why the bible doesn’t contain a single word that could not have been written by the people of that period or geography. God communicated to his people through men via the holy spirit. He must have been very specific with the holy spirit not to mention anything that might spoil his ultimate plan to fool mankind into believing an alternative worldview.
Maybe Depeche Mode got it right with the lyrics “I don’t want to spread any blasphemous rumours , but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor”
What do you think?

Hello Jack,

Thank you for responding to my remarks. I wanted to reply to some of yours.

“You make the argument that every action that we do is a part of natural selection, we are, with every movement and motion expressions of natural selection and evolution.”

This is not my assumption. I was assuming natural selection and evolutionism for sake of argument to show how it collapses into inconsistency and arbitrariness.

“Using this belief we can then state that the Nazis’ Final Solution – I must also advise you to look up Godwin’s Law at this point – is an example of an unsuccessful trait of humanity. The Nazis, along with their Final Solution were defeated by the Allied forces, who were also “matter in motion,” who obviously had more successful evolutionary traits than the Nazis.”

The questions again arise: What gave the Allies the right to kill Nazis? Do you believe the Allied response to Hitler was morally imperative? Was the Allied response determined by forces of nature? Are all human actions determined by nature? If so, how can we call any act evil?

“In fact we can categorically state that Hitler, being the leader of the Nazis displayed aweful evolutionary tactics as he died without children.”

How can we categorically state anything? Hitler was a product of evolution. How can a product of deterministic forces criticize the behavior of another product of deterministic forces?

“I think it would also be acceptable to postulate that had Nazi Germany conquered Europe then Europeans would believe eugenics to be a morally acceptable thing to do, you may claim this to be a result of gradual brainwashing through various techniques such as propaganda, but as you yourself argued, this would still be natural selection, and thus your example strengthens the idea that morality and evil as we know it are purely evolutionary traits.”

There is no such thing as “evil” in the naturalistic worldview. All human behavior results from deterministic natural forces. You have no right to condemn anything. I trust you abhor murder as I do; but in your worldview, the murderer is just doing what his atoms and molecules compel him to do.

“On a very different, but nonetheless important note, I would like to address you comment that “[you] have just stepped inside the atheistic worldview. It is a frightening place.” I am sorry, but I find this to be extremely objectionable. The atheistic worldview is frightening? What about a religious worldview? A worldview which discourages reason and rationality. A worldview which encourages blind obedience and subjugation. A worldview which promotes intolerence and violence. A worldview which we have had to suffer for thousands of years, leaving nought but death and destruction in its wake. I have seen a religious worldview. I have seen the scars that it has left on the world and the atrocities which it has committed, the atrocities which it has commmitted and my God is it a frightening place. All hail the divine dictatorship of our Lord and Father and eternal damnation to those who object. It is a frightening place, a very frightening place indeed.”

Both atheists and the religious are capable of, and commit, great evil. When the Christian does evil, he violates God’s law. We can go back and forth on the atrocities committed in the name of religion as well as in the name of the state. I need not remind you of the atrocities committed by Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin, to which the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition pale by comparison. But we should not stake the debate over the truth of a worldview to the behavior of some of its professed adherents.

Not all who profess to be Christians are Christians in fact. The behavior of false Christians purportedly committed in the name of Christianity, though grievous, is logically irrelevant to the issue of the truth or falsity of the Christian worldview.

But I can condemn as evil the act of a professing Christian that violates God’s law. In your worldview, nothing can be called evil.

Finally, I would refer you again to my questions posed to Spencer: How did we get from the inorganic to the organic, from pure matter to sentience, and from blind impersonal forces to self-consciousness? Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?

Michael

Shortest comment. Good work Navin.

Db skeptic I think you read someone else’s post and thought it was me, do you have any comments on my review of the five points?

this is retarded – you could just as easily prove that monkeys have evolved around the banana…those who had the traits that would help them to eat them more easily would survive better, and therefore that’s what genes came to be selected for.
yup.

Ni I’m a fan of Buddhism and I understand you have to make a separation between the modern myths and what G. Buddha said but do you really think Buddhism was founded on the idea that past lives were a myth? When G. Buddha was under the tree for six days or whatever, he took a mind trip into his past lives to become enlightened, and this wasn’t a later embellishment by some others. The whole foundation of buddhism is that you have to keep living again until you’re out of the birth death cycle for good. Do you have some other info?

Taylor the burden of proof is on both sides because they both claim to know if an entity started things or if matter has been here for infinity or we’re in a time loop.

Also, I don’t understand “you can’t prove a negative”. This keeps coming up but isn’t explained. Does it mean science has nothing to do with truth or truth doesn’t exist? That’s the only conclusion I’ve come to but maybe I don’t have the right context.

ty,

G. Buddha (or Gautama Buddha) is the current (and most recent) of the 28 who have been known to exist (there might have been more, but only 28 are known). He did not go through a trip to his past lives under the tree. He merely figured it all out. (if you have read the HitchHiker’s guide to the galaxy series (So Long and thanks for all the fish), this is similar to what happened to Fenchurch, but I digress). He didn’t just figure it all out on his own, but had the help of a few people on the way who taught him different views of the world. After studying all that, he went into deep meditation where he figured out what all this is about.

The past lives stories were told later on (he did live for 80 years, 55 years after his enlightenment. He had to have something to tell the people) and my interpretation of this is that he was very good at storytelling. He would tell a story rather than state a fact, in order to put the point through. It was India 2500 years ago, so keeping the crowd captivated was the trick.

As for the life and death cycle, although there is some evidence to support that (in my family as well, but I don’t want to get into details of that), I don’t think it is something that can be proven scientifically because there are so many variables that makes it very difficult to do a scientific experiment. (For example, how do you test if and where you (Or a given subject) will be re-incarnated?)

The one thing that comes from all this (and Gautama Buddha put it in no uncertain terms) is that everything is due to cause and effect. If you commit a sin, it’s not a god that punishes you, but you yourself. It’s psychology. Of course some people never seem to get a break despite being good all the time. Even cases like this have been explained in Buddhism (for this, reincarnation has to be believed to exist).

All that chanting, all that offering flowers and incense and all that, is just made up stuff to keep the less intelligent happy. Buddhism is a philosophy for the wise. If you are not very wise, you would still understand it, but there is a tendency to veer off the true meaning of it, and since a group of people is only as smart as their dumbest member(s), this has happened a lot to Buddhism. There are some really dumb people out there. How else do you think Christianity exists in more than 33,000 different denominations? (that number itself shows you how man made it is)

If you thought this was random, it’s because I took more than 5 hours (from start to end) to write this (I am writing this during the precious few breaks that I get), so forgive me.

Eventually quantum physics will prove all of you wrong! Your definitions of ‘God’ reflects your personal views/bias, your Atheist reaction to religion is understandable, but everything is not as it seems, and everything is not seen. Yet.

It seems I came to this site a bit late for my own satisfaction, as Michael seems to have taken his leave with that last statement about, you know, saving our heathen souls and whatnot. (Yes, I’m paraphrasing for emphasis.) But maybe I’ll sleep better tonight knowing I responded anyway:

I don’t believe in God. This is not because I have spent years studying the Bible and/or the arguments against it and have logically concluded that he (“He”) does not exist. I simply do not have any faith in God. I was raised Catholic, and I desperately wanted to believe in God, but I just plain did not. I never really did. I was always so angry with myself for not believing, because I thought I was doing something wrong that caused me to not believe. But now I am older, and in some ways wiser. And I feel no guilt for the death of Christ, that is, Jesus the historical figure or Jesus the religious icon. I feel no guilt for living my life without any God or gods in it. I feel no guilt for things like premarital sex, my same-sex attractions (I am a bisexual), the use of birth control, or a number of other things that the Bible or the vast majority of Catholic/Christian sects would condemn or suggest I should feel guilt for. What do I feel guilty for? Well, let’s see. I feel really bad when I’m tired or stressed out from school and work and I get short tempered with friends, family or my boyfriend. (I always apologize promptly and try to learn from these mistakes/make it up to the people I’ve offended.) I feel guilty when I’m running late in the morning and can’t take my dog for a long, leisurely walk, which is better for his health and seems to make him happy. On a larger scale, I feel guilty when I hear that there are bombs going off in the Middle East because of my country, the one I pay taxes to, and that the money I worked for is going to blow up people who are just like me but who perhaps speak a different language or believe something different. That’s what I feel guilty for. The things that happen in real time, right now, the things that have immediate consequences. Because it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, how much or little “proof” or how sound an argument someone can provide for the existence or the denial of the existence of a God or gods. At the end of the day, I just plain do NOT have any belief in it. I don’t have the faith in it. I have faith in my family and friends and boyfriend being good people and doing the right thing when they can. I have faith in myself, to do the right thing when I can. I don’t believe in hurting living things when it can be avoided, I don’t believe in scaring people into accepting my beliefs. You can think of me as a sinner as you like; I know that I am no sinner. I am a good person who does her best to make the most of the time I have here, because I don’t believe there is an afterlife, and I’m okay with that. If I died right now, I wouldn’t go anywhere. It would be a shame, I believe I have more yet to do, but I have so far lived the best way I could, enjoying the good moments to the fullest, and surviving the bad moments with what lessons I could take from the experiences. I don’t believe in your God, or any god, and I’m not a sinner or any kind of bad person for it, I assure you. If you are right and I am wrong, and I find myself at the pearly gates awaiting my eternal fate, I would stand there confident in the knowledge that I lived my life in a good way, a moral way, and that I deserve no punishment, regardless of this missing faith that you seem to think no one is complete without. I am complete, Michael, if you read this. So don’t worry about my soul tonight, and I won’t either. Thank you and goodnight.

Rob,

I think you have hardly proven your point. We are trying to prove the existence or non-existence of something in the vast (and quite possibly limitless) universe, not just in the chair beside you. If Obama is not in the chair beside you, all that proves is that he is not in the chair beside you. It does not prove whether or not he exists in the wider world. Right now for example there is not a flying cat in the chair next to me. What conclusions are you able to draw from that statement concerning the existence of flying cats?

Linus you said
“Theists need to be able to show up with evidence of gods existence since Atheists can only show up with lack of evidence of Gods existence.”

Atheist have an assertion that god doesn’t exist, so they need to show up with evidence that god doesn’t exist. They too are having to show evidence and are not neutral. But I think you sort of said this in a post addressed to Rob.

To the departed Michael .. He asked

“Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?”

An excellent question. why? But in my experience these activities are for the living, not the dearly departed.
(I believe they know not, and care not)
We grieve for our loss.

The believers should rejoice, and try to get to this state of being sooner. (like JonesTown?) That is the true christian believer’s purpose in live is it not?

Why then do they care if Terry S has her life support removed. The believers should be pulling the plug and partying for her far far better existence and not fighting to save her merely mortal meat.

Funerals and other symbols are strictly for the living, not the omnipotent eyes in the sky.

Ty

Your thoughts are a bit tooincoherent to be certain of your point. But let me say this.

If I declare with absolute certainty that unicorns exist, is it your responsibility as a unicorn sceptic to prove that they don’t? You would probably think that spending a lifetime looking for evidence of something you are certain does not exist would be pointless, especially since I could easily settle the question by producing an actual unicorn, but inexplicably refuse to.

Linus you’re pitting a believer against an agnostic regarding unicorns. But in the God argument we’re pitting a believer against a non believer.

I wouldn’t have to spend a lifetime proving unicorns don’t exist unless I said that they don’t.

But unicorns aren’t a good analogy because when you’re talking about god you’re talking about “did a sentient (aware of what’s going on) entity (thing) start things or not?”

It’s a totally different and more reasonable argument than “does a specific creature exist or not?”

Bridgette I think you’re rebelling against people trying to control your actions and make you afraid using their faked higher knowledge of god, which what bad religions do.

p.s.

The Haida people think the Raven made everybody, I don’t know what their evidence is.

Ty

I’m pretty sure physicists do have a better understanding of the processes of the universe than you outlined in two paragraphs. Notwithstanding that, you are quite right that there could be any number of possible explanations for why the universe is emanating from a single point. That is why scientists call it a theory not a fact. It is a theory which is supported by some evidence, but that evidence is not conclusive and no scientist claims that it is an incontrovertable fact.

(I think I’m responding to your comment, but now I’ve just reread what you wrote and apart from illustrating the fact that you have a very shaky understanding of the scientific process, I can’t figure out what your point was.).

Linus, what part of “the scientific process” don’t I understand?
And by “processes of the universe” you are referring to the big bang specifically?
What about the big bang do physicists understand better than me?
Regarding you not knowing what my point is, this is about the fifth post in a row from you to me where you say you’re not following what I’m saying because I’m incoherent or pointless. In each of these posts I’m making specific, very pointed arguments, it is never vague or ambiguous. Point to a section of any of the posts to you or anyone and tell me what’s confusing about it and I’ll state it differently.

Re: You can’t figure out what my point was of the last post? It was an exact answer to all the points of your post that preceded mine. There was no deviation from answering you’re questions and statements exactly. Paste the confusing or off-topic quote from me and I’ll clarify.

Ty,
Just read your post to Linus regarding the Big Bang, et. al….I’m not sure where to begin

Are you for real, or are you just trying to be provocative? To the extent that I can follow your chain of thought:

1)No reputable scientist would present inflationary cosmology (what you are calling the big bang) as incontrovertible truth. It’s a well tested (falsifiable) theory of how the observable universe went from just AFTER it’s first fraction of a second to what we see today. It is well known to be incomplete, and reasonable people have divergent opinions as to its long term viability.

2)I’m pretty sure that the Stephen Hawkings, Roger Penroses, Andre Linde’s, Lisa Randalls, and Leonard Susskinds of the world have a better grasp on the theory than you, your statement notwithstanding.

3)A point is not a single dimension. It is dimensionless, and the condensation of matter into such a point is not in violation of known physics. It is in fact a predicted outcome under certain conditions of either cosmological or stellar evolution..the challenge is in developing a theory of quantum gravity which explains what is going on AT THAT POINT. A challenge that we have so far been unable to overcome, but on which there has been much work. There is a further challenge in understanding where the original point came from , and from whence the rules governing it’s expansion derived.

4)The expansion of the universe is not an expansion in the sense that the universe is expanding into anything…space is actually being created. The fact that you or I can’t picture how this could possibly be doesn’t make it invalid. It simply means that our powers of conceptualization are limited.

5)Who’s stopping whom from investigating other theories? You are correct, if you are asserting that there are theories that aren’t given the time of day, but this is the way science works. Not all theories are created equally, and you have to present a TESTABLE hypothesis before it sees the light of day in scientific circles. It SHOULD be hard to upset/change scientific orthodoxy. This mechanism has worked pretty well for the past 500 years, and I see no reason to throw it out now.

6)Scientists are addicted to truth…are you suggesting that this is a BAD thing?

If I didn’t know better, Ty, I would say that you have a metaphysical axe to grind…

Tim
1. The context is, the big bang is taught in schools and through media dogmatically.
2. Ok, how do they understand this better than me. Your pretty sure but are you really sure?
3. Ok what physics law are you refering to when you say all matter can shrink down to a non-dimensional point? And how can you have a non-dimensional point? You say this doesn’t violate the laws of physics. And you say it’s a predicted outcome of stellar evolution, do you mean to say the big bang says it’s so? And developing a quantum gravity theory at “THAT” point. It seems as if the problems are larger than that.
4. Why not say you’re clueless?
5. Nobody’s stopping anyone from investigations, do I contradict your point in my post to linus?
6. Read this sentence again in it’s context to see what I’m getting at.

Ty,
You originally said the theist needs to prove God exists and the atheist needs to prove God doesn’t exist. This is different from the statement that each needs to prove their case. Theists believe the explanation for “all that is”, is God, Supreme Being, etc. Atheists/Agnostics believe the explanation is something else. Therefore the burden on the Atheist/Agnostic is to prove that “something else”, whatever it is and NOT that God doesn’t exist. Based on your statement I trust that you now agree with this position.

I do believe that science is fundamental to finding the truth, but I will concede that this is a different subject than who needs to prove what. However, my attention to that subject was driven by your posts, not a misunderstanding of what the discussion was about.

I did not say that theists were more married to their beliefs than atheists were. I said that Theists cared a lot more about their belief that God exists, than atheists cared that he doesn’t. It’s not the same thing. And the point was made in an attempt to illustrate to you why the atheist isn’t compelled to prove that negative. Since you originally made the statement that Atheist needed to prove God doesn’t exist, how is my response for why this isn’t the case a different subject? Also, I didn’t claim that the original argument was “what is the most productive way to arrive at the truth”. Again, I was responding to YOUR assertion that Atheists needed to prove that God doesn’t exist.

Regarding your second post (the big bang)

1)You’ve made an assertion without presenting any evidence.
2)I clearly can’t be sure, but if what you have stated is what you know, then yes, I’m sure
3)General Relativity…I would suggest you do the research
4)Because I’m not. I was being polite
5)here is the quote (yours) that I was responding to in this point:

“They are over the rainbow with naked faeries but acting like they’re close to some final solution all the time. I don’t even have a problem with charlatans, except when they stop others from further investigation because they “have it all under control”.

6)You’re right I missed your point. So, do you believe all science/scientists is/are corrupt?

So Ty….what is your bottom line? What do you believe? What point are you trying to make with all this?

Compared to Tim’s eloquence I often feel like a monkey lobbing bottles at a brick wall, but I’ll try again.

You said, “That is not the atheist position. Atheists believe that god does not exist. Belief in “something else” is not part of atheism.”

I don’t claim to be an expert on atheism, I call myself one but I know of no structured rules or guidelines for being an atheist telling you what you must think of the world. Most atheists probably have a personal understanding of the word. But I do know this. I hate it when some non-atheist tells me what it is I believe based on some farcical distortion of what an atheist is. Atheists, as far as I can tell, do not have some religious belief that god doesn’t exist. They believe something else. That the world can be understood through rational investigation. So far nobody has found one shred of evidence supporting the notion of a sentient creator that watches over us all and knows when we are naughty and that he made a rib woman out of a dustman, or that any religion has the goods on any of it. If verifiable, repeatably testable evidence surfaces that any or all of that is true then we will adjust our view of the universe, but barring that we are more likely to pursue avenues of inquiry more likely to yield results. I’m sorry if you think this scientific viewpoint sends a chill through the research community and discourages people from investigating the notion of miraculous origins. I thought hundreds of thousands of churches already investigating that for a couple of thousand years would have been sufficient, but maybe we haven’t found the divine truth because we aren’t looking for it enough.

I’d write more but I’ve got to run.

I’m back, and have one more elaboration on previous thoughts about your claim that to be an atheist means to BELIEVE there is no god. I think it is more accurate to say atheists ASSUME there is no god. Maybe this seems a minor distinction, but the difference is the difference between approaching the whole question with an open mind or a predetermined answer. Theists approach the questions from the starting point of believing there is a god and fitting all evidence found, helpful or not, around that belief. Therefore when a plane crashes and everyone survives it is proof that god exists and performs miracles, and when a plane crashes and everyone dies it is proof that god exists and is mysterious and likes to test the faithful.

There are a couple of reasons that Atheists start from a position of assuming that god is not responsible for everything when they inquire into the workings of the natural world. One is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the assumption the he is, and the other is that if you conduct science with the assumption that god can work miracles outside the laws of nature then every tricky problem could be solved with something like the following mathematical formula:

12/34 X 3.11117 + (miraculous occurance) = 7

(p.s. why stop at declaring you know more about physics than the Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einsteins of the world? Maybe you know more about everything than any specialist in any field. After all everything in the world might be an illusion except for you.)

You know the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not lie, Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, honor thy father and thy mother.

Has anyone told a lie? Has anyone been angry with or hated another in his heart? Has anyone lusted after another? Has anyone ever stolen something — anything? Has anyone spoken disrespectfully to his or her father or mother? Has anyone taken God’s name in vain?

We know that we must not commit adultery. Yet Jesus said that whosoever looks with lust upon a woman has committed adultery in his heart. We know that we must not murder. Yet God says that whosever hates another person is a murderer. Under the law, you are condemned. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” – Romans 3:20.

The fires of Hell await those who break God’s Commandments, for He loves justice and righteousness, and He cannot tolerate sin’s defilement. His holiness consumes sin and wickedness. To hate, to lie, to steal, to fornicate — these are detestable in the sight of God, and for these you are under His wrath. God says that you are not righteous (Psalm 143:2). You will perish in your sins, for God says that the wages of sin is death.

What will you say to God when you stand before His judgment seat? Have you perfectly obeyed His laws in your heart? If you say you have no sin, you are a liar.

How shall you escape the wrath of God and His righteous judgments? How, unless someone pay the penalty of sin for you? God paid the penalty of sin with the shedding of His blood at the Cross. He has satisfied God’s righteous judgment. But if you reject Christ, who paid the price of your sins, you are condemned already. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” – John 3:18. You are condemned because you shall be judged under the law; and you are a lawbreaker.

This message is for the spiritually broken, the oppressed, the poor, not the self-righteous. It is for those who desire to escape God’s wrath, which even now is being revealed against all unrighteousness.

To the broken, I want to repeat the words of God to the contrite: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” – Isaiah 1:18. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” – John 1:12. Seek the forgiveness of God, that He might show you His mercy in the day of judgment. Believe on Jesus Christ, who sacrificed Himself for us, paying the just penalty of sin.

God will not strive with you forever. Repent of your sin now, for tomorrow is promised to no one. To those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” – 2 Corinthians 6:2.

For those who would reject God, continue on your way. This is for the humble, the broken, the lost who are seeking peace with God.

Michael

Instead of trying to dissuade them from believing in fairy tales, why not attempt to understand why they believe them instead?

So, Michael, ty, why do you believe in a god who is not forgiving, but makes you beg for forgiveness; a god who creates an imperfect being, and then punishes the being for those imperfections; a god who knows not love or just, who would have you suffer for eternity for a so called crime that inflicts no harm (lust)?

It’s kind of hard to swear my life to a god who’s less perfect than man and beast.

Realist,

“So, Michael, ty, why do you believe in a god who is not forgiving, but makes you beg for forgiveness; a god who creates an imperfect being, and then punishes the being for those imperfections; a god who knows not love or just, who would have you suffer for eternity for a so called crime that inflicts no harm (lust)?

It’s kind of hard to swear my life to a god who’s less perfect than man and beast.”

It makes no sense to believe in something that is not true. What would it profit someone to believe a lie? He may feel better for a season, but his end is death. We must believe in the God who is, not in the god of our imagination.

God punishes man because he willfully defies God. Make no mistake in this: He punishes us for breaking His Law. To the unbeliever, He shall be the Supreme Judge who inflicts His wrath. To the broken and contrite believer, though Lord, He is also Father.

You say lust inflicts no harm. God thinks otherwise about lust. What matters is what God thinks. God would not be who He is if he condoned that which opposed his character, his holiness, righteousness, and goodness.

Lust is not love. It is wickedness to God. And it is by God’s standards that we shall be judged, not ours.

Who are we to challenge God about good and evil? He is the sovereign Creator, perfect in all His ways. Psalm 19:7 says His Law is perfect, converting the soul. God need not contend with any of us and could blot us out for all eternity this very instant if He chose. You are alive by God’s grace. It is His grace that strives with the defiance of those who repeatedly reject Him, if in time they might repent and turn to Him, but this only for a time.

God is just. He shall judge the alduterer, the liar, the murderer, not by imperfect human standards, but His perfectly holy standard. We all ought to tremble at that. I urge you to turn to Him today, because tomorrow is not promised to us.

Michael

[Comment deleted]

Ni,

I have replied over and over again. I have said everything I am compelled to say on the matter.

You would rather engage in name-calling than get down to the crucial task of evaluating conflicting worldviews. I cannot oblige.

The gospel is not for the proud and self-righteous. God resists these, but gives grace to the humble.

My prayer is that the contrite, the humble, the broken — if there be even just one here — would know the joy of new life, that they would turn to Him and be healed. The proud insulter can go on his way. Having said what I must, so will I.

Michael

“(michael)My message was not for you. As I said, it is for those who are seeking peace with God, if there be any here; or is “skepticism” ever only directed one way — against faith? That would smack of the very dogmatism you charge me with.”

Saying your message is not directed at me, is a cop out. I have admitted to you that am I willing to change my ideology in the presence of evidence that dictates I do so. Are you suggesting that your message is just intended for those who aren’t willing to push back on contentions that may defy the evidence in their present worldview? Is your message only directed at those who refuse to question? How nice for you…you don’t have to worry about the souls of those who don’t easily give up their natural and (I would contend) HEALTHY skepticism.
My skepticism is directed at anything that demands I believe regardless of a lack of evidence, or worse, contrary to the evidence that is placed in front of me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s religious dogma or new age charlatanism, or bad science. The fact that I ask questions doesn’t make me dogmatic; it makes me curious.

“(michael)But allow me to say this: You are no more neutral than I. You assume that human autonomy in reasoning is the ultimate predicate for all knowledge. Tell me, how will you prove that? How do you not beg the question? If you had read my previous remarks carefully, you would know that I believe circularity is unavoidable when debating what is the truth about ultimate reality. The difference between us is this: You claim man is the measure of all things. I claim God to be the measure of all things.”

I make no such assumption or contention. I will grant your assertion that I am not neutral. I do not give equal weight to arguments demanding faith vs. arguments which present evidence. Guildy as charged.. We are born with a certain intellectual capacity, which may or may not be enough to understand the reality we find ourselves in. But based on the evidence, it’s all we have. Mankind may not be smart enough to ultimately understand the universe completely. But all we have to go on is what we can process with our senses, what we can test, and ultimately what we can conclude. I would argue that this approach has worked pretty well for moving us from savages sitting around camp fires to thoughtful, civilized men sitting around our computers debating the issues. We can make predictions, test them, adjust our theories, make more predictions, and so on. I will agree with you in this regard; some circularity is unavoidable in that there are some postulates that we assume are true, a priori. But I’m arguing from the standpoint of understanding the nature of the evidence presented to me, and you seem to be arguing from the standpoint of having direct knowledge with no falsifiable evidence. Which is a more reasonable position? I’m willing to change my worldview based on new data; you seem much less inclined to do so. Who is the more dogmatic?

“(michael)Is all knowledge derived through the senses, such that it can be experimentally validated? Did you learn through your senses that all knowledge is derived through the senses? If not, how did you learn this? Your suggestion that your knowledge is not faith-based is disingenuous. You obviously have faith that the laws of physics will be tomorrow what they are today.”

Oh please. You know as well as I do that there is a difference between having a measure of rationally and logicall driven confidence in the scientific method, and having an emotionally driven, hopeful belief in something you can neither see nor touch. Don’t talk to me about being disingenuous when you’re very argument defines the word. The fact that I have a degree of certainty that the sun will come up tomorrow (tomorrow), is based on observation and some level of insight into the laws of physics, If you want to call that “faith” , then so be it. I would argue that there are qualitative differences in faith that defies evidence, and faith that is supported by evidence.

I would contend that knowledge isn’t derived from the senses, but that this is where the raw data comes from. Sensory data comes in; I process it; I draw conclusions; I test those conclusions and measure the results with my senses; I adust my conclusions accordingly; sensory data comes in, and so on. Is there knowledge that comes to us without sensory input? Possibly, although that is a contention that more likely springs from a lack of knowledge of how the brain works than anything. So?

“(michael)I have freely admitted that I presuppose the God of the Bible. The Bible says that if you deny God’s existence, you are made a fool. You claim that I beg the question. I do. But what you repeatedly neglect to grapple with is that my worldview — the Christian theistic worldview — can make sense of reality, while yours cannot.”

First of all, I have no problem “grappling” with the fact that your worldview can make sense of reality. I’m well aware of that fact. I even understand how it would. The idea of a caring and loving God, who watches over our every move and guides our path through life, who will forgive our every transgression, and who will welcome us with open arms forever and ever…well that’s pretty potent stuff to thoughtful beings who have a difficult time wrestling with their own mortality and who are tryng to make sense of man’s inhumanity to man. However, the fact that your worldview offers an explanation for reality, doesn’t make it correct. And without evidence, I’m unwilling to concede that it is. If by “making sense of reality” you mean explain reality, then I would strongly disagree with your contention that my worldview is not capable of meeting this challenge.

“(michael)Do you know whether the universe is finite or infinite? If it is finite, do you know how it began? If it is purely material in character, can you explain invariant, immaterial laws?”

No, of course I don’t. So what?…the fact that I can’t explain something means you are correct in your worldview? If you had asked the question if I could come up with a theory that is internally consistent and is untestable (i.e., it requires faith to believe in), then I would answer yes. But that wouldn’t make ME right, either. Bottom line is there ARE theories that have made this attempt and we are figuring out how to test them; they may be wrong. But the fact that I can come up with explanations, requiring no God and which are internally consistent compel me to ask the question “why should I believe one theory, without evidence, and not the other?

“(michael)They do have answers. You just don’t like them. Your bias dictates your rejection of the Christian theistic explanations. Otherwise, how can you say that the questions I have posed do not have answers? Do you know everything?”

Well ACTUALLY, I was talking about questions relating to explaining reality without a Christian god, which, if I understood correctly, YOU were contending didn’t have answers in the absence of said creator. I was simply conceding that RIGHT NOW, there are questions that we don’t have answers to, but which you assert Christian theology DOES have. I don’t have a particular bias against Christian theology; I have a bias against lack of evidence or proof. Secondly, you are assuming a response that is inaccurate. I neither like nor dislike the answers. The truth is the truth. And clearly if I have already conceded that there are questions for which we don’t have answers, I have admitted that we (and certainly I) don’t know everything. Sarcasm doesn’t become you.

“(michael)How did we test the validity of the scientific method for answering questions?”

We observe, we process, we theorize, we test, we revise. It’s just what people do as a natural part of their mental processing (some more than others). The scientific method simply put a more formalized process around this. Maybe there is a better process; I have no way of knowing, but I think we can both agree that over time the body of human knowledge ha grown, and that in large measure this is due to the process I just described.

“(michael)Tim, this is a statement of faith. You do not know what tomorrow will be like, and that fact alone ought to give you serious pause. Unless, of course, you assume the uniformity of nature, an assumption which your worldview defies. Your confidence therefore rests upon another worldview: the Biblical worldview that the sovereign God controls all things. Were this not assumed, science would be a futile undertaking. Men like Newton and Copernicus knew this. Hence they were able to apply science to the universe to discover its laws of operation. In your worldview, there is only chance. Mere probability does not comport with a chance universe, much less near certainty.”

Wow…that’s quite a leap. So the fact that I admit that I don’t know everything, that we don’t live in a completely deterministic universe, but which HAS obeyed the same physical laws out to our ability to test (which, by the way goes down below the level of the atom, and back billions of years), should compel me to embrace your argument, which offers no where near as much evidence as to it’s validity? And I should do this because…..??? Michael…I”ve never said you were wrong; I’ve just said “prove it” with REAL and compelling evidence.

“(michael)I would urge you to read what David Hume concluded about reality, induction, and the uniformity of nature. We assume uniformity and so unconsciously live our lives accordingly. Tim, I am asking you to think more consciously about your assumptions. From the unbeliever’s standpoint, all is ultimately uncertain; science, though it be done, makes no sense unless the Christian worldview be assumed. So you assume what you “must” — order, purpose, predictability, morality — from the Christian worldview, rejecting what you do not like — sin, righteousness, judgment, Hell, the just God of wrath. Your worldview is thus arbitrary.”

I haven’t read Hume, so can’t comment on either his conclusions or yours until I have a chance to gain an understanding of where you are coming from on this one.

“(michael)Then do not condemn the rapist or the murderer. Do not condemn Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot.
Were a criminal to hurt you or a loved one, would you not demand justice? What if the crime was carried out against your loved one in a country that merely fined rapists and murderers. If your loved one was raped or murdered, and the perpetrator was fined for it — say, a thousand dollars — then let go with the blessings of his society, what would you think of that country’s justice system? Of their moral code? Are some codes better than others? Do some mete out justice better than others? How can you answer “yes” without necessarily appealing to a universal standard by which all systems are judged

If natural selection and evolution create moral behavior, how can we punish anyone? Can evolution and natural selection instill free will in their creatures? This is a laughable dilemma for the evolutionist, who cannot have it both ways. Do not speak to the Christian about purposeful, or non-random evolution.”

The fact that morality, ethics, etc, don’t derive from a supreme being does not make them any less important to humans or the human condition. And the fact that we consider these things wrong, heinous, immoral, etc given that we have been raised in a cultural environment where that is so, doesn’t mean they are universal absolutes. It just means that over the course of time these “immoral” behaviors have not benefited the propagation of the species and have ultimately been codified in our standards of good behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I abhor these behaviors as much as you, and I would guess that you would be astounded at my level of conservatism given my postings. But the fact remains that you can offer no proof of the universality of moral absolutes, and arguing from an appeal to consequence is logically flawed. Just because we don’t like the answer, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Yes I would be outraged if the situation as you describe it existed. But that is completely beside the point.
In hindsight, of COURSE they would seem to be universal; but couldn’t it be because we’ve been conditioned to feel that way? The fact that I can’t imagine a society or a civilization where these would not be considered absolutes, does not mean that such a society could not exist, given different environmental, psychological, or sociological pressures.

(michael)As I have repeatedly argued, such questions presuppose the theistic Christian God. Your question is intelligible only within a Christian worldview. Again, I do not expect the Bible to make sense to you. No argument will persuade you because the facts themselves are interpreted in terms of presuppositions. All I have ever attempted to show is that if you reject the Christian worldview, you cannot make sense of anything. Were you to stand on my worldview, the questions you assume have not been answered would have answers after all. You do not like the answers, I am afraid, and that’s really what all unbelief comes down to.”

You evade my question. I have no difficulty making sense of the world, and it doesn’t require god for me to do so. Having said that, I will adjust my worldview according to wherever the evidence leads me. Would you do the same?

I feel compelled to make a statement on Michael’s behalf, although he hasn’t asked for it, and he certainly doesn’t need me to speak for him.

Ni, by name calling, you are engaging in a personal attack against someone who doesn’t share your world view, which in my opinion, has no place in rational debate. Michael is anything but an idiot. He is clearly well read, and his arguments are for the most part well stated and thought provoking. If anyone who reads his posts does not feel compelled to evaluate the source of his/her belief system, then I would argue that person is either being intellectually dishonest, or hasn’t understood what he wrote. I disagree with Michael…vehmently, but I respect him. He has forced me to think through many of my positions and evaluate my own biases. For that I am grateful. He has clearly come to his conclusions through much study and reflection. Most theists I have known, have nothing close to his level of understanding, in terms of either WHAT they believe or why they believe it. Give credit where credit is due

By engaging in ad hominem attacks, we reduce the debate from one of intellectual discourse to a one consisting of close minded “corner sitting”. In this way we become no better than the very people we accuse of thoughtless adherence to a system of beliefs for which we find no compelling evidence in a system.

Tim,

I had not planned on remarking further after my previous remarks. I did want you to know that I appreciate your admonition that the exchange, if it would not be fruitless, must cultivate rigorous and rational dialogue while rejecting ad hominem.

You have spoken much about the need for evidence. I do not want you — or anyone here — to have the impression that the Christian’s approach to belief is fideistic, that he forsakes reason for a leap into darkness. To my mind, the Christian who holds that faith and reason are irreconcilable kings of separate domains holds a heresy.

What I have attempted to convey, inadequately perhaps, is that faith, it turns out, is the foundation of all sound reasoning. We exist. We take this for granted. Much as the naturalist would like the burden to be on the Christian to prove God exists, it lies just as heavily upon his shoulders to prove his worldview — that existence emerged from chance and is yet purposefully guided somehow by inanimate forces — is the correct one. I should also ask the naturalist how he would prove that he exists. Descartes cleverly proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am,” thinking the matter resolved. The problem, however, is that his premise started with “I,” betraying obvious question begging on his part.

So the philosopher is left with skepticism unless he embraces universals, a prioris, self-evident generalizations. Once he casts aside such universals, which permit categorization, predication, and the relating of facts to one another, he forfeits any claim to making sense of any fact in existence whatsoever. So we all accept that there are universals that help us to order and make sense of reality. The question must become: Which worldview can make universals intelligible, and hence lay claim to the ability to relate the facts to one another in an intelligible way, such that there is coherence in the human experience?

To do this, we must set the opposing worldviews beside each other and examine them upon their own foundations. We must examine their most foundational presuppositions and decide whether they can account for the things we take for granted in the human experience. My position has been that if I were to stand on the foundation of evolutionism and naturalism, I could not rationally interpret the human experience and all its incidents; I could not rationally account for universal invariants like laws of logic and all the rest.

But more fundamentally problematic for the evolutionist, the universe is a chance thing. Holding to this notion prevents even the acceptance of generally applicable universals, for all the facts in a chance universe must necessarily be brute facts (“Brute” here is a term of art, I suppose, and by it I mean simply that the facts cannot be related to each other in any rational way. They are pure particulars, existing in utter contingency). I have thus argued that systematic assessment and discovery (science) in such a universe lacks a rational foundation; it makes sense only if one assumes consistency, order, facts that are relatable, design . . .

Secondly, as I think I have implied, and think you would agree, it is crucial to understand that neutrality in the debate over conflicting worldviews is impossible; for the facts themselves are interpreted and evaluated by one’s worldview — by one’s theory of knowledge and metaphysic.

Thirdly, and I must stress, I have defended the Christian theistic worldview only. I reject all religions because they are ultimately arbitrary or inconsistent, or internally contradictory, their teachings and assertions reducing the human experience to absurdity. My defense has been of the God of the Bible. My defense has assumed that the Bible is authoritative on all matters to which it speaks, and that it speaks to all matters, implicitly if not explicitly.

Lastly, I do not categorically reject an evidential approach to Christian apologetics (giving an answer to the unbeliever for my hope, yet with gentleness and respect). Evidence testifies to what actually is the case. But as I want to stress, ultimately the evidence for or against a worldview is itself assessed and interpreted through the lens of one’s worldview. It is one’s most basic presuppositions that must be challenged if the evidence can ever be viewed as it should.

Tim, I respect you and your intellect, and consider that you might very well be more intelligent than I. When the Bible says, “The fool hath said in his heart ‘There is no God’”, it is not at all saying the unbeliever is unintelligent; it is saying that he forsakes the right use of his reason and intelligence by denying His Creator, and is made a fool in his thinking.

Before I take my leave, I wanted to thank you again for carrying on the dialogue. I also wanted to show you some scientific facts from the Bible, with this understanding: In the Christian worldview, everything that is evidences the God of the Scripture; nothing can be accounted for apart from him. The very concept “fact” is unintelligible if God be denied.

These facts, by the way, come from various literature and are recited in a multitude of websites, but I would encourage you to go right to the Bible, the very word of God, and see for yourself (I will provide the place where the passage is found).

The Bible speaks of the earth’s free float in space (Job 26:7), which science did not discover until 1650.

The Bible says that the visible things are made of invisible things — which today we call atoms (Hebrews 11:3).

The Bible reveals that the earth is round (Isaiah 40:22).

Psalm 8:8 refers to the “paths of the seas.” Matthew Maury, the father of oceanography, considered the words of Scripture and went looking for these paths. He discovered warm and cold continental currents.

The Bible says that the earth is wearing out (Isaiah 51:6; Psalm 102:25, 26; and Hebrews 1:11). Today we refer to this condition as the Law of Increasing Entropy (The Second Law of Thermodynamics).

The Bible explains the hydrologic cycle, which science discovered two thousand years later (Ecclesiastes 1:7, 11:3; Amos 9:6).

The Bible speaks of God’s creation as “finished” — once and for all (Genesis 2:1). This is what the First Law of Thermodynamics says (The Law of Conservation of Energy).

The Bible describes a “cycle” of air currents two thousand years before scientists discovered them (Ecclesiastes 1:6).

The Bible says that there is “a weight for the wind” (Job 28:25). Not until the sixteenth century was it recognized that the air had weight.

The Bible speaks of the rotation of the earth (“[The earth] is turned as clay to the seal” — like a clay vessel being turned upon a potter’s wheel). – Job 38:12,14.

The Bible speaks of “the springs of the sea” (Job 38:16).

The Bible tells us that the colors can be parted from the white light (Job 38:24), which science discovered in 1650.

The Bible and the universal flood: About 85 % of the rock surface around the world is made up of sedimentary rock, indicating that at some time in the past, water covered the world.

There are many more evidences . . .

Tim, I hope that God will bless you as He has me, and that the considerable powers of your intellect will one day be used to glorify God.

May God Bless,

Michael

OK. I am late and new to this discussion but I have to chime in because Michael is way too full of himself. All I want to do is point out some equivocations.

1. RULES OF NATURE. “Rules presuppose order, repetition, and predictable relationships among things and events, among countless other things. I agree with you that there are rules; but in your worldview, there should be no rules. The very concept should be unintelligible — meaningless.”

Michael, you simply misunderstand the word being used. ‘Rules’ in the natural sense do not mean ‘playground rules’ that God made up for matter to obey. Rules are OBSERVED uniformity of behavior, revealed through empirical observation and testing -as you say, “relying on the past to prove what the future will be like.” Exactly. That’s exactly what natural rules are.

2. MORALITY. Pure and simple, morality is a human endeavor, with suffering and happiness as its metrics – these are the ‘universal standard’ which you seem so desperate to posit. What you and the Bible are more concerned with is better defined as righteousness, meaning ‘what God says.’ Well, in the OT, God and his Chosen say and do a lot of abhorrent, nasty, cruel, capricious, mean-spirited and definitively IMMORAL (but totally RIGHTEOUS) things. Lot’s own daughters seduce him and bear children, entire cultures are slaughtered, etc. Today we call that immoral. Morality is really the simplest of human problems, and it’s been demonstrated and observed that other primate and mammalian cultures exhibit basic ‘morality’ – they tend quite strongly to discourage theft, infidelity, and murder. And they mete out punishment accordingly, what we would call justice.

“God is just. He shall judge the alduterer, the liar, the murderer, not by imperfect human standards, but His perfectly holy standard. We all ought to tremble at that.”

Thank you for proving my point.

…

“But more fundamentally problematic for the evolutionist, the universe is a chance thing.”

This is not at all problematic. A better understanding of probability/time would serve you well.

“The God I serve lives and reigns, and He desires that all mankind should be saved.”

Man, for someone who rails against unfounded assertions, you sure can sling ‘em.

“All I have ever attempted to show is that if you reject the Christian worldview, you cannot make sense of anything.”

Believer, PLEASE. I think that it is you who do not like the answers. Hiding behind politeness cannot conceal the fact that, over the course of your discussion, you have progressed through and beyond semi-rational argument, only to fall back on proselytizing and faith claims.

“The gospel is not for the proud and self-righteous.”

Apparently, though, it is.

comment made by David Davidson above -

‘I’ve never seen a single intelligent researcher who advanced through their studies and career using religion to discover new knowledge.’

- actually there’s been a long history of scientists who studied nature with a belief that better understanding of God’s work leads to wisdom.. and – it does, even when, unfortunately, you don’t attribute his work to him.

but anyway.. if there’s anything I’ve noticed since my change from an atheist to a believer a decade or so back.. it’s the general feeling of hostility and negativity that spews from the atheist community. Of course there are ‘happy atheists’.. I’m not saying there aren’t.. but the general ‘vibe’ I find in these discussions is so harsh and bleak – and basicly any other adjective similar.

The first question would be… why so much energy devoted to what you don’t believe in? So many different excuses are generally given: ‘religion is destructive!’… ahhh… so you do it because you are humanitarians! So glad you are all looking out for our greater good! Definitely proof that atheists truly are moral creatures.. – that’s sarcasm folks, obviously it isn’t out of your concern for mankind.

So many times the old ‘Spaghetti Monster’ is brought up… yet I don’t seem to see too many debates on it’s existence… only God’s. Why even call yourself an atheist? You’ve defined yourself by a negative… devote pages and pages of web content to a negative… In Hollywood terms.. your bad press would only give God more fame..

I at one point considered myself an atheist, although in light of the above statements.. agnostic is a better term, since ‘you can’t prove a negative’. As an agnostic I also was endlessly on the warpath vs. those foolish believers… so I am quite familiar with what fueled my debates — the fear of looking like a fool. I prided myself on my intellect, as does most likely anyone that considers it their strong suit. Part of that viewpoint meant that I didn’t want to be caught believing something which was bull… I embarrass easily when it comes to something like that.. I still do. Although I admit that there was a bigger problem for my belief.. or lack there of – it wasn’t JUST that I didn’t want to be the fool…. I also had the more serious issue of simply not believing it. You simply can’t believe what you don’t believe… no matter what… This is why Pascal’s wager is asinine in construction.. No matter how much you might like to believe something.. if you don’t.. you don’t. End of story.

I do believe now.. and it took a long chain of events to prove it to me.. and of course my subjective tale is useless on non-believers. It has to happen to you individually. But the real point here is.. now that I look at ‘skeptics’ posts.. and debates.. I find them to be like a sad cloud over hanging.. and as much as I’d like to debate the topic with them – It’s almost not worth the drudging through their toxic worldview… where the skeptics own pride and flawed reasoning is the pinnacle of existence. What skeptics view as damaging to the world, the so called ‘God Delusion’, is in my interpretation the precise opposite… what is damaging to the world in my view is their constant attempt to blot out others faith.. since it somehow seems to them to be an attack on their lack there of (how?)

With an open mind you will eventually find belief… without an open mind you won’t. Simple as that. I promise.

and with that skeptics.. I bid you goodbye.. it’s stifling in here – you are free to go back to arguing against what you don’t believe… for whatever reason one would do that.