Given Utah’s recent post, and a story I read that aggravated me to no end, I thought I would post this. If you are among the skeptics in our society, I strongly urge you to read this post and especially to watch the video series to which I linked you. If, after you do so, and you understand the implication of the information presented, you still do not believe this world has a Creator, then you will get no argument from me. We will simply agree to disagree. However, if you cannot answer the problems presented by the information that follows… Well, at the very least, you might want to stop claiming allegiance to science 😉
HISTORIC REVISIONISM: Left Attacks Religion As Enemy Of Science
Religion Is The Father Of Modern Science, Not Its Enemy
I am currently preparing to teach a class on Christian apologetics for my church. As a philosophically/scientifically oriented Christian, this is a subject for which I hold a great passion for this subject. I also hold a bit of hostility toward those who revel in ridicule toward those who believe in God – especially those who do so by claiming ‘science’ while using straw man arguments against people of faith. Aside from the fact that straw man is a fallacy, which negates any claim to hold an allegiance to the scientific method, such attacks are deceitful. So, when I saw this story, I immediately knew I had to use it as an opportunity to show that both of the men in it are among those deceitful persons who claim science while using fallacious, straw man arguments solely to ridicule people they do not understand:
‘Religion Is the Enemy of Science’: Bill Nye Joins Bill Maher in Lambasting Creationism
Scientist Bill Nye and comedian Bill Maher targeted Republicans and religious individuals as enemies of science, especially in regard to the growth of the U.S. economy and overall human progress, while lambasting creationism and spiritual fervor.
First, if you read the series of posts on The OYL about the Progressive movement (and collectivist ideologies in general), you will find that I have repeatedly explained that these people believe their ideas are based in ‘science.’ And I have explained that, in the name of this ‘science,’ atrocities such as the Holocaust and Planned Parenthood – a eugenics program expressly designed to rid American society of blacks and other ‘undesirables.’ This is not a new assertion. Though I came to it independently, it is essentially the same conclusion drawn by C.S. Lewis, as well as the authors in the following link:
I hope you will read the rest…
The Rio Norte Line 
Complexity arising from a random environment does not prove there is a god. If you want to prove there is a god have it come down and do something supernatural in a lab setting. It is that simple. You said if you could prove god you wouldn’t, because that would deny faith. Well then you should stop trying to prove god exists.
Karl,
If you found a working laptop in the desert, would you just think “Ah-ha! Naturally occurring, random complexity!” No, you would recognize the result of design. Well, the universe is infinitely more complex and finely tuned than ANYTHING man can make. This is not the result of random complexity. It is beyond the math.
Now, like I said: present the answers tot he problems Dr. Ross presents to YOUR side of this issue or understand that you are the one rejecting science — because SCIENCE is how we know the creation of the universe meets the definition of “miracle.”
Oh, and I am not trying to “prove” God exists. Apologetics is the proof that faith is reasonable, well-founded. It is NOT “proving God exists.” This is why I consider you to be an intellectual light-weight: because you have yet to exhibit a command of even the most basic principles of logic.
There is no working laptop in the desert.
If the universe is so finely tuned how come there is has only been one planet that has life on it?
How come it took trillions of years for life to develop?
If everything is so finely tuned, why do humans regularly face natural disasters?
Faith is not reasonable by definition it requires an embrace of ignorance.
You said you can blame oil for middle east interventionism. If you follow that logic. You can blame free-market economics for making middle east oil so cheap it is worth bribing politicians to start wars over. You can also blame the drive for profit for the corrupt congressman and the bribing capitalist. They have not stolen property they have only exchanged it voluntarily. Which means they do not violate “natural law.”
NOT the point and Karl knows it. He dodged answering my challenge because he knows the answer iplies I am correct and he is wrong.
Karl’s does not understand basic logic, so he does not understand that this actually supports my claim. The universe has been finely tuned specifically to allow human life on this planet. As to why it took BILLIONS of years (Karl is ignorant of his timeline here) is of no concern. Created beings stuck in a time line to which our Creator is not confined couldn’t imagine anything other than what we experience. But that is NOT an excuse for refusing to deal with the clear implication of the fine tuning of the universe.
One POSSIBILITY is to help us grow. Without struggle, many creatures fail to thrive — many will even die. Once again, Karl is trying to throw a straw man in front of an obvious conclusion — Intelligent Design.
False assertion and founded upon fallacious reasoning. faith is not irrational — especially in the face of the overwhelming evidence SCIENCE has presented to us. Just as faith that Karl is actually sentient is not irrational, in spite of the lack of evidence 😉
“The universe has been finely tuned specifically to allow human life on this planet.”
In a finely tuned machine every part has a purpose.
Do the moons of Saturn have a purpose? Does Neptune have a purpose? Does the aids virus have a purpose? do child rapists have a purpose?
“Without struggle, many creatures fail to thrive”
Lab rats do fine, as do many zoo specimens and aquarium fish.
Joe you clearly want to believe in god. I ask you why do you choose this path? Are you afraid of death? Can you not accept that life ends at death? Does deep seated desire to be a hero or good guy, force you to create a moral system where you are a good person? Did someone make you feel like a bad person when you were a kid and now you try to redeem yourself psychologically, by “fighting” against the “evils” of society.
First, you called the universe a machine. Machines are made by CREATORS! 🙂
Second, yes, every part of the universe has a purpose.
Are you a lab rat? Or a fish?
Am I afraid of death? Not at all 🙂
Why do I believe in God? Because EVERYTHING I see and know screams testimony to Him. Why do you reject Him?
Funny you should try to use morality against me (and fail, BTW). YOU are the one whose entire ideology revolves around a moral judgment.
No, no one made me a bad person. I did that all on my own. But I also know I cannot do anything to make me a good person, either. There are no good people. But then, I am speaking to you of things you cannot understand. I wish you could, but you have placed scales over your eyes, ears and heart. 😦
I reject god because there is no reason to believe in him.
I didn’t call the universe a machine. I contrasted the universe to a machine. By contrasting the many pointless extra parts of the universe, to the lack of pointless extra parts in a machine.
By saying every part of the universe has a purpose you fail to explain the purposes.
If I was working for an automaker and I design an engine with a small fan facing the firewall and put a touchschreen that plays “America the beautiful” nonstop on the inside of the airfilter case. The head engineer asks me what purpose do these things say. and I reply “every part of the engine has a purpose.” Will s/he stop questioning me there and approve the designs?
You have failed to explain the purpose of the moons of Saturn and the planet Neptune and child rapists.
The universe does not scream “believe in god” it screams “survive, adapt, learn.”
The real problem is not that the world if the world can keep going on without god, it is you can’t keep going on without god. God is an emotional or philosophical crutch you need to believe in. Obviously science can’t get rid of such things. You need to see a therapist. So you can develop into a man unafraid of the world and able to form good relationships with those around him. This “me, my constitution and my bible against the world” paranoia is dangerous and unhealthy.
This is a demonstrably FALSE statement. It is not debatable; it is just false. There are MANY logical reasons to believe in a Creator. The illogical belief is that something came from nothing, and that life came from dead material.
More fallacious argumentation. There are MANY useless parts on the machines you use every day. For example: how many parts are put on a machine simply to make it look more appealing? According tot he logic you are using, they are useless. You also make the mistake of asserting things as useless simply because YOU deem them to be. Unless you know ALL things there are to know, you are making an argument from ignorance.
No, I explained it — to those who can understand. If there are things in this universe that serve no purpose other than to make Man wonder, they serve a purpose. As I said before, you cannot understand this.
I know you will not understand this, either, but you just made a case AGAINST Darwinism. 🙂
Neptune helps to protect the inner planets from asteroid and comet strikes. The rapist is nothing more than free will: a free will acting against God’s law. This is sin. HOWEVER — once again — YOU just testified to God’s existence. You claim you do not believe in God, which means there can be no such thing as morality, yet you continually point to moral judgments to make your points. Why use a rapist as an example if you do not believe in God? Isn’t that just “survival of the species” in your world? You keep destroying your own arguments and never see it 🙂
If you understood the nature of the universe and the second law of thermodynamics, you would understand you just made another ignorant assertion. Karl, you are sooo wrong here. What we know of the continuation of the universe SCREAMS there must be a Creator. Our continued existence VIOLATES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS! You claim there is no proof of the ‘super natural,’ yet your existence is the proof you deny. I really wish you knew and understood enough science to have this discussion. Sadly, you do not. More, you have so closed your mind to it that I doubt anyone will ever reach you.
And I would counter by saying you need God. 😦
“Neptune helps to protect the inner planets from asteroid and comet strikes.”
Why did god put comets and asteroids in the first place?
If a rapist actions are permissible by god allowing him to rape a child and a child is too weak to defend. Does that mean god’s law is might is right?
“Our continued existence VIOLATES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS”
How?
Anyways the universe isn’t predicted to exists forever. Have you not heard of heat death and the big crunch? Why id god make a universe that is doomed to end?
Karl,
I will pray that — SOMEDAY — God will open your eyes and you will see the error of your ways. But, until then, I am going to try to ignore you. You are an ignorant, irrational, close-minded and — honestly — rude individual. These exchanges harm me much more than they help you and I want nothing more to do with them. I tried, you refuse to listen. It’s that simple (BTW: this is actually how you get condemned to hell- not by God, but by your own choosing)
Karl,
Prove evolution in the lab. Until then God is the only answer. Checkmate.
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When you discover something that has been proven to the trillionth decimal point, I do believe it warrants being taught alongside evolution.
Bingo! Especially when Dr. Ross and those working with him do not deny evolution — just evolution as DARWIN described it. 🙂
This is what I was chatting with you about. I mean, can they not now reason with the SCOTUS? I understand the misgivings from earlier, but it seems that now, this is very worthy of being taught in schools.
Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.
Brandt,
I am sorry you feel that way — because it means you are dogmatic. It also means you have more faith than those of us who believe in a Creator. Science — REAL science — has shown that life simply couldn’t have evolved the way Darwin described. There are far too many obstacles to “spontaneous generation.” Logic — REAL logic — defeats your little video — soundly. I wish you had watched Dr. Ross’ video clips. You might find that you and Darwin have been refuted.
When was this law passed? It is hard to imagine the governor before Haslam was a Democrat, but he was.
Brandt, you need to watch the video that B. presented; it’s very compelling. Also, you should be questioning one of your attributed quotes: “Concepts like evolution and climate change should not be misrepresented as controversial or needing of special evaluation. Instead, they should be presented as scientific explanations for events and processes that are supported by experimentation, logical analysis, and evidence-based revision based on detectable and measurable data,”
-The National Association of Biology Teachers
We all know very well that both evolution and climate change are, in fact, controversial due to the fact that they are misrepresented as fact instead of scientific explanations.
Kells,
You should take it one step further. Evolution — as Darwin theorized it — and “climate change” are not only THEORIES, they are FAILED theories. Anyone who understands the scientific method understands this to be true. It is not a matter open to debate among REAL scientists.
Now, this does not mean those same scientists must accept my arguments. All it means is they know that Darwinism and climate change are not what they claim to be. The actual observations have rendered them both failed theories and this leaves a void as in our explanations.
Kells — [side bar, since the Chinese spammer referenced the post] ….
How’d that fried chicken recipe work out for you?
I haven’t tried it; I’m wary of frying chicken on low for a long time, and then cranking up the heat. I suppose doing it backwards can’t hurt. I have my bacon fat in the freezer……
You fry the grease for a long time to blend it. Then you crank it up, add the butter, and then the chicken.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear from before.
Oh! I’ll do that Monday, then. We open tomorrow, and I’m freaking out totally 100%.
Why do I feel that deep down, you have an ulterior motive with this fried chicken recipe? Is it for my one-way trip to the ER?
Ok, hold on here. Time out. Karl’s arguments are proving to contain more holes than Swiss cheese. The tactic being used here is so obvious. Karl has a barrel full of fish, and he is firing into is with a shotgun. The only problem is, its a military grade shotgun with a drum magazine and full automatic capability. In this case, the Rounds represent very bad reasoning. When I get a chance to sit down at a computer, we are going to look into this atrocity against reason more closely.
“There is no working laptop in the desert.”
Missing the point. Joe was using this as an analogy.
“If the universe is so finely tuned how come there is has only been one planet that has life on it?”
That we know of. With the discovery of more and more planets, life elsewhere is minimally plausible.
“How come it took trillions of years for life to develop?”
Irrelevant. What does fine tuning have to do with time?
“If everything is so finely tuned, why do humans regularly face natural disasters?”
Irrelevant again. Fine tuning is describing the condition of the universe, not the benevolence of the universe’s Creator.
“Faith is not reasonable by definition it requires an embrace of ignorance.”
By what definition? This statement assumes that people of Faith do not embrace reason. This enters into the waters of the “appeal to ignorance” fallacy.
“You said you can blame oil for middle east interventionism. If you follow that logic. You can blame free-market economics for making middle east oil so cheap it is worth bribing politicians to start wars over. You can also blame the drive for profit for the corrupt congressman and the bribing capitalist. They have not stolen property they have only exchanged it voluntarily. Which means they do not violate “natural law.”
Irrelevant YET AGAIN. Classic textbook “red herring”. What does this have to do with the original topic of discussion at hand?
“Do the moons of Saturn have a purpose? Does Neptune have a purpose? Does the aids virus have a purpose? do child rapists have a purpose?”
Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don’t. These are all loaded questions if I have ever seen one.
“Joe you clearly want to believe in god. I ask you why do you choose this path?”
Are Joe’s beliefs in God all that perplexing? Has he not made his reasons obviously clear in his last couple posts on this subject? Joe doesn’t want to believe in God, he does believe in God. I don’t get why this is so difficult to comprehend…
“Are you afraid of death? Can you not accept that life ends at death?”
Why is it reasonable to conclude that Joe is afraid of death. Maybe Joe doesn’t fear death. Many religious martyrs have gone to their deaths in authentic displays of faith, what of them? Does somebody who fears death, burn at the stake while the sing hymns? Do they enter into prayer while hanging on a cross or being mauled by wild animals? Do they pray for their tormenters while they are tortured to death? History has many examples where these loaded questions fail to meet their intended purpose.
“Does deep seated desire to be a hero or good guy, force you to create a moral system where you are a good person? Did someone make you feel like a bad person when you were a kid and now you try to redeem yourself psychologically, by “fighting” against the “evils” of society.”
It’s obvious that is is an ad hominem attack disguised with loaded questions. We are seeing lots of loaded questions here. I mean, A LOT of loaded questions. So many loaded questions, that it is becoming redundant to even THINK about. Thus, the intention here isn’t to understand Joe’s beliefs and reasons for faith. The intention is to invalidate and discredit Joe’s reasoning on this subject. Which leads me to the next point. Karl’s inquisition reaffirms Joe’s early point: “Karl’s does not understand basic logic”. It’s that simple.
Libercrite,
I do not mean this as idle flattery. It comes from the heart and is as sincere as anything I could possibly say:
I THINK I LOVE YOU!
Seriously, when I see such a solid demonstration of reason and such a sound grasp of logic as you just displayed, coupled with judicial guidance of your intellect, I feel a renewed hope for this nation and for mankind.
Thanks. Seriously, thank you :*)
No worries, Joe. I speak your language!
Those are basically my feelings when I read on OFYL or the Road to Concord! I was ignorant to a great many things before I accidentally stumbled across RNL (I actually thought this site was a mockery like The Onion, at first), and then eventually OFYL and RTC. Not that I have arrived anywhere, but the challenges in your writings (as well as the great content of other RNL contributors) have led me to read, research, and consider many things, thus opening my eyes to the decaying state of our nation. I find myself already looking for ways to subtly criticize progressivism in my business classes LOL!
I wish I could participate in that apologetics class. Apologetics has always been a great interest to me. Unfortunately, I’ve had to do a great deal of self-educating on my own time. Lee Strobel’s works were a great starting point for me. I came up in a non-denominational evangelical stream of faith where apologetics wasn’t emphasized too much. There was always those one or two guys at Church who were in the loop with all of the latest works from the current names in apologetics, but other than that, there was never a big thrust to get people involved with thinking critically on issues of faith. It was treated as more of an insurance card than a discipline. In my opinion, the biggest threat to our faith isn’t the arguments of atheists and all around skeptics alike, it’s the lethargy and general intellectual laziness of the Body of Christ across denominations.
This next thought is a bit misplaced, and I probably should have commented on that particular post instead of this one, but I agree with your thoughts on Salvation through faith in your discussion with CDE. Perhaps I would have felt more compelled to comment on it if you hadn’t already said everything that I felt was necessary to say!
Libercrite,
I plan to start a section on the OYL dealing with Apologetics. Until then, I strongly urge you to look into the works of Dr.s Hugh Ross and Michael Behe. The Left goes after them hard, and for good reason. When you read their books and follow up on their cited sources, you quickly realize they have thrust a knife through every non-Creator explanation for the universe and the origin of life.
Now, to be fair to those who hold different beliefs, this does not mean one ‘has’ to believe in a Creator. HOWEVER, it DOES mean that it is perfectly logical and rational to do so because God offers the best explanation for everything modern science has discovered about our universe and life.
Joe/Libercrite: I don’t often weigh in on this kind of topic, although I’ve studied it and thought about it since childhood. I also had the wonderful privilege of studying under some incredible teachers at Gordon College and Princeton Theological Seminary who focused on these questions. But my personal thoughts and beliefs are strictly my own, and no institution or intellectual mentor can be blamed for where I’ve arrived at this point on the issue of Creation. I think there are several categories of knowledge and belief that exist around this topic.
First, what we can “know” from a scientific perspective about the age of the earth, and the history of the human race or races has changed dramatically in the last 200-years. There is much more available in this area than there was even 50-years ago, although to me there is often an attempt to speak with more certainty than is warranted. Einstein and other cosmologists have provided much more defensible theories about the size, age and direction of the “universe” as we understand it and as it has traditionally been understood. The most credible theories I have encountered indicate the universe probably had a beginning in a cosmic event of some sort, often called “The Big Bang,” that saw the creation of matter and its expansion outward at an incredible rate of speed, and that “outward” expansion continues today. The “existence” of the known universe is theorized to have begun billions of years ago, with the solar system, the earth and the human race having comparatively much shorter histories, but all stretch back millions of years, all numbers that individual humans, who today generally live 60 – 80 years today cannot fathom at all. By the way, over the history of our species, the average age at death has been less than 30-years and at times much shorter. When I write that Einstein’s and other scientific estimates of the age of the universe and our planet remain “theories” it is because while we can now observe radiological data about the universe’s rate of expansion and utilize carbon dating to trace the age of archaeological finds, we have no way of confirming the efficacy of those conclusions using accepted scientific requirements, and in fact cannot definitively state that “our” known universe is the only such entity…such questions remain far beyond the reach of human comprehension, Richard Dawkins and Al Gore aside. In treating these theories as “scientific facts,” characters like Dawkins are knowingly engaging in a form of “scientism” or scientific hubris that Einstein would have summarily rejected. Such “scientism” refers to the false elevation of pseudo-scientific methods to a state generally reserved for “religion,” since humorously, accepting Dawkins’ and other atheists’ views of the universe actually requires a “leap of faith,” that from my view is not supported by the methodologies they claim to follow. Ooops!
The Hebraic oral tradition, which is credited to Moses (about 1400 BCE) and is called by Jews and Christians the “Torah,” was written down during the rule of King David (approximately 1000 BCE). It incorporated several different strains of oral tradition. The Creation story told in Genesis actually provides two very different accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, with one account appearing to be significantly older than the other. The account in Genesis 1 is far less anthropomorphic and is basically consistent with what has come to be called “The Big Bang Theory” of the beginning of the universe we know. It posits that “In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void and darkness moved upon the face of the deep.” The Mosaic/Davidic account then proceeds to describe six “days” or ages, during which the universe, solar system, our planet and the human race developed under the design created by the Divine Being, which the Torah gives a number of different names, including El Shaddai, Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai and others. English language translations generally conflate these many names for the Divine Being into a single name “God.” The same term in English is also utilized to name the anthropomorphic “gods” of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Norse and other ancient civilizations. But knowledgeable Jews even today recognize that “names” for “God” are only symbols of that which is beyond the power of human language to describe. Jews generally substitute “Adonai” for “God,” thereby acknowledging that no human language can limit the description of the Divine to “words.” The critical issue in Genesis 1 is that Adonai created the universe and everything in it “ex nihilo,” a Latin phase indicating that unlike Greek or Roman or other ancient creation myths the Adonai of the Jews created all out of “nothing,” a poetic description of Creation qualitatively different from myths that include sea -serpents, the mating of earth and sky and other colorful, but antiquated ways of explaining how everything got here. To my mind, the Jewish/Christian ex nihilo explanation sounds a lot like “The Big Bang'” except that the “scientific” theory does not address the reason the event occurred, nor does it speculate about the “Prime Mover” or “First Mover” that put things in motion “in the Beginning.” In effect, the Torah/Bible creation story explains how everything began in a manner that late Bronze Age listeners (since most did not read at that time) could comprehend, while remaining consistent with the theory most accepted by late 20th century scientific-types as likely to have taken place. Pretty cool, don’t you think.
As for Dawkins and other materialistic/atheistic critics of religion in general and the Judea/Christian tradition in particular, such characters make use of a simple rhetorical technique to attack we primitives who persist in “clinging” to our “guns and religion.” By defining the question of how the universe began as entirely about “how” rather than “why,” these generally Collectivist pseudo-intellectuals simply redefine the argument on their terms and then declare victory over something any sensible person does not care about in the least. For millennia human beings with the time and inclination to ponder the mysteries of existence have argued “why” the universe exists in its current form and what the purpose of human life on earth actually should be about. The mechanical question of “how” things came to be was a secondary concern, since there was and is little we can do about that as an issue. Large numbers of religious Jews and more Christians have attempted to apply an anachronistic modernist perspective to the poetic accounts in Genesis, claiming the universe and everything in it was actually created in six-24-hour “days.” Bishop Usher actually calculated the history of humankind as about 6,000-years, but most scholars understood that the key to understanding the Genesis Creation story was to recognize that the statement that Adonai created the universe ex nihilo, and that to read the Jewish and Christian scriptures as biology textbooks constituted hermeneutical abuse. Today, we know the universe and the earth and the human race are all quite old in human terms, but that the Biblical accounts follow the general direction that has emerged from 3,500-years of scientific inquiry. So the scientific technicians can tell us more about the “how” of Creation than our Bronze Age-ancestors could have comprehended, let alone explained. But the “why” of Creation remains a question inaccessible to the mechanistic, materialistic theories of the idiot-savants of modern scientism like Dawkins and others. By positing the impossibility of a Divine Being, Dawkins and his gang then find what they decided before they started any inquiries. Can we know with ontological certainty that a Divine Being the Jews and Christians call “Adonai” “created” the universe? Of course not, but neither can the atheists prove with certainty that such a being does not “exist” nor that that being created the world as we perceive it. Religious people accept the reality of Divine existence and its involvement in Creation as an article of “faith,” which the atheists refuse to acknowledge even exists. As Kierkegaard stated, faith represents a “leap in the dark.” I think that’s true, but atheists require an equal level of “faith” to accept that the universe is accidental and ultimately without meaning. I’m betting on the Big Guy rather than a meaningless eternity. But that’s just me. CDE
CDE,
Yep! Followed everything you just said. I know there is actually much more to it, too. This is why I tell my Atheist friends they have much more faith than those of us who believe in God — because they believe everything came from nothing and did so in violation of the known laws of physics. What’s more, they have no problem with this, even though it contradicts the special case they set up to “win” their arguments. 🙂
The fun part about all this for me is this:
1 — Philosophy tells us there cannot be an infinitely old universe. Nor can there be an infinite number of universes.
2 — What we know of this universe (or think we know) suggests that the “Big Bang” is accurate. It is a direct conclusion of general relativity, the most affirmed theory in human history. Which means the universe came from nothing, and did so without cause (purpose is another subject 😉 )
3 — This universe is infinitely fine tuned to support human life: fined tuned on a magnitude 650 times greater than the statistical chance of 0!!! To a mathematician, that means the universe had to have been designed by intelligence far beyond the ability of man.
4 — Then there is the existence of life. The Atheist believes that the living came from what is dead. This is as problematic as something coming from nothing.
5 — A cell needs RNA and DNA to form its structure, yet RNA and DNA need the cells structure to survive. It is a chicken and the egg question without a chicken or egg to start with. Again, a problem “science” cannot answer — especially given that the cell is an irreducibly complex organism.
So, as you already seem to understand, CDE, to believe there is no Creator is to have more faith than those of us who do. 🙂
Cheers
Joe: The really humorous thing is that the Dawkins-type atheistic apologists do not seem to understand that their central arguments really represent a tautology in that atheists simply define the argument in such a way that the real questions most people care about don’t even come into the discussion. Anyone who keeps up with developments in scientific research knows that the size of the universe and that the earth is much older than the ancients could comprehend is now accepted as known facts. But the atheists essentially attack the straw man that those who believe there is more to the world than empty materialism don’t understand basic science. Wrong. We understand that most scientific theories about issues like creation are and will remain limited in terms of what they address and that they are ultimately speculative rather than conclusive. Atheists also fail utterly to address the issue of why the universe exist, does it have a purpose and why do human beings possess the full range of emotions and cognitive capacities that we do, while other species on earth have not evolved to the same degree.
Having discussed these issues many times with my many atheistic academic colleagues and friends, my observation has been that they generally have psychological hang-ups that prevent them from even considering whether it makes sense to rule out the possibility that a greater being somehow started the process that brought about the existence of the universe and everything in it. Anyone who has done any type of scientific research knows that the researcher must withhold judgement on the results until all possible solutions are proved or ruled out. The modern cult of scientism rules out any possibility of extra-material reality and then congratulates itself on its open-mindedness. I find this intellectual hubris obvious, transparent and very humorous. It is also anything but honestly scientific. But then I’m a fairly primitive fellow. CDE
CDE,
I’ve noticed the same thing, only, to me, the ‘hang-up’ usually seems to be connected to arrogance and pride. ‘Scientists’ usually think they are the ones who bring order to the world and they like to think they can reshape it to their desires. But then, this is the essence of original sin, is it not?
What the philosopher in me finds ironic — and what my ‘science’ friends can’t seem to understand — is that the very thing they revere (i.e. ‘science’) is based in the very thing they deny (i.e. the non-material). Underlying all science is logic, and though it is very real, logic is NOT a material thing. Thus, where ‘science’ denies the non-material, ‘science’ does not exist without it. The irony in that always makes me chuckle when I have these discussions with my atheist/agnostic friends. 🙂
Cheers,
Joe
Joe: You are quite correct. Logic and mathematics are both human constructs that attempt to explain phenomena in the natural world by organizing it based on rules the human mind can follow. A reasonable person will avoid the intellectual trap of stating that there are not possibly other logics or other mathematical systems that cannot be grasped by humans at this time. Newton and Leibniz are often said to have invented the calculus of variations simultaneously but separately (others credit Gauss, Bernoulli and others), but until calculus became known through their work, it was effectively an “unknown” logic, different from the work of Aristotle and other earlier thinkers. Th hubris of thinking that somehow one’s own work has closed off the possibility of future discoveries is akin to the Roman Catholic Church’s declaration the Copernicus and Galileo were wrong when they placed the sun at the middle of our solar system with the earth revolving around it.
The atheists of the world and the pseudo-scientists among them exhibit a willingness to claim absolute authority over the terms of any discussion of how the universe began, despite the fact that that argument will likely forever be conducted under conditions of uncertainty, meaning any conclusions will, by the accepted standards of science, be speculative and theoretical. Faith is a different story, since faith is like a leap in the dark, but one which the faithful are permitted to make within the rules of their beliefs. Scientists speaking in their role as scientists are not permitted, by the rules of science, to approach their conclusions by appropriating the “faith” that religion deals with as its stock and trade. “Scientists” can only reference objective, provable facts in drawing their conclusions , and my world contains far more interesting realities than that. CDE
CDE,
And yet, so much of what science “knows” is based in nothing but faith. Sweet irony 🙂
Joe: It is ironic that the ancestors of today’s “scientists” were called “natural philosophers,” and that they generally pondered the metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, logical and other aspects of human life, as well as the material dimension of existence. The materialism that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries was a break from the earlier, integrated approach to human knowledge and experience, and it was embraced by the Collectivists in all their manifestations…Marxists, Fascists, Progressives, and others. This division of knowledge into the study of thought and ideas and the physical world may have been necessary after the three explosions in the transmission of knowledge created by Guttenberg’s invention of movable type, the invention of the electronic computer and the creation if the Internet (Thanks, Mr. Gore), but the purpose of the division was not originally to deny the existence of one branch over the other.
The denial of a non-material dimension of human knowledge was, and is, very helpful for the Collectivists, since Marxism, Progressivism and other branches all seek to replace true religious beliefs with a false religion that replaces the “State” in the traditional role of God or the Divine. In Russia the nomenklatura sought to replace the Russian Orthodox Church with belief in “The Party” and the cult of personality focused on Stalin and Lenin. In China the Communist Party’s Central Committee tried to replace the centrality of the family and the Confucian philosophy of life with the cult of Mao and the Maoist flavor of Marxism. In America today, our Liberal/Progressive friends have sought to create an all-powerful and all-giving government centered on the flawed, false deity of Barack Hussein Obama. All these movements are motivated by their own interests to deny the possibility of a Divine Being’s role in Creation. And yes, Joe, Scientism and its political brethren in the Liberal/Progressive movement all depend on a very un-scientific suspension of skepticism about their conclusion drawn from insufficient evidence…Creation, Global Warming (or cooling) and other scams all require faith in other human beings’ infallibility. Sorry, but I’m not buying any of it. CDE
CDE,
You put that very well and — for you (and I) — rather succinctly, even 🙂
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the philosopher in me is going to skulk over to a corner and snicker at all those whose panties you just wadded up 😉
Joe: This post deals with issues I have been studying and pondering for 50-years, and the “Scientism” of Dawkins and other atheistic critics of religious belief has long appeared to me to be a caricature of what true science has been about for at least a thousand years. Further, as an American of largely Irish descent, I detest bullies of any sort, and intellectual bullies are the worst kind. Most scientists today confine their true expertise to fairly narrow, often technical aspects of their disciplines, which while interesting does not advance the long standing questions of philosophy and theology in the manner that the more complete intellectuals of the past, Copernicus, Newton, Bacon, Franklin and others, did as part of their speculations and research. Richard Dawkins and Noam Chomsky are standard bearers for many others who master a single discipline and then feel compelled to offer authoritarian pronouncements in other areas where their knowledge is not particularly advanced or cogent. In my less moderate youth, I sometimes referred to the Dawkins and Chomsky-types as classic idiot savants, the “Rain Men” of the scientific community, with incredible skills in the intellectual equivalents of card-counting, but little to contribute to serious discussions. Of course I have moderated in my advancing age. CDE
CDE,
My fondest desire would be to ‘debate’ Dawkins (or Maher) about the Creator — and in front of a live audience where they have no chance to escape the debate. They do not do this with anyone who can actually hold their own, so their experience with me would not only be enjoyable for me, it would be a rude shock for them. I can hold my own on this subject. I suspect you may even occupy higher ground than myself on the subject, so it would be equally as entertaining for me to watch them have to deal with you 🙂
Joe: I enjoy your pugnacious approach to the Dawkins and Mahers of the world, and I am confident you could hold your own with either, given a remotely fair format and an audience whose average IQ’s make it into three digits. But these fellows are intellectual bullies who the American media has declared to be cognitively gifted, so the debate format and the moderator would likely be of the Candy Crowley variety, meaning you would be debating two against one, including one holding the gavel. As Mr. Romney discovered, it is sometimes not enough to be far smarter than one’s Liberal/Progressive opponent nor to be completely correct in one’s facts…in the Presidential debate Ms. Crowley repeated a complete fabrication about Our Dear Leader’s Benghazi comments, casting Mr. Romney falsely as misrepresenting the facts of the case and damaging his well-earned reputation as a teller of truths. You or I could expect no better.
While Maher is a legend in his own somewhat limited mind, and a “poser” (my kids’ term, but I like it), Dawkins is a brilliant scholar within his field of evolutionary biology. That is not my field, but I’ve read some of his stuff and it is extremely interesting. But in dealing with the Divine or other religious issues, Dawkins himself admits himself that he basically truncated his exploration at 15, when he decided he “believed” in evolution and had no place for God or a Divine Being. At 15, I was a committed Marxist on my way to thinking of myself as a full-fledged atheist, or at best an agnostic. Although I had already read Marx, Bentham, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and others, my actual understanding of economics, religion, philosophy and other important ideas was completely limited by my lack of life experience and by my lack of broad-based knowledge of the things that really matter. Virtually everything I thought at 15 has evolved and changed dramatically and continues to do so. Had I chosen to arrest my own development in any area at 15 or 18 or 21, I would have been arguing the position of a bright but only marginally knowledgeable 15-year-old. And that is essentially what one finds in Dawkins attempts to deny the possibility of a Divine Being or any super-human contribution to the creation of the universe. As a result, the Dawkins who is brilliant when writing about evolutionary biology manages to be quite mundane and even boring in books like THE GOD DELUSION, where he sets up and demolishes one Straw Man after another, like a school yard bully who fancies himself powerful until he finally confronts someone who is his equal or superior in size and strength.
Neither Dawkins nor Maher would ever confront you or me in an honest, fair debate about the possibility of God or the unanswered questions about the beginnings of the universe, the earth or the human race. If they were to debate, they would more likely select as their opponent a good-hearted pastor of a Christian Church that believes in good faith that the Biblical account of Creation is somehow the equivalent of a biology textbook, that the world was created by an anthropomorphic God who looks like Michelangelo’s frescoes, and that the whole process took six 24-hour days sometime around 5000 BCE. That debate would be safe for Dawkins, because his logic gaps and un-named assumptions would go unchallenged. The pastor’s followers would conclude Dawkins was an intellectual heathen and Dawkins’ disciples would brand the pastor and his flock as pre-modern primitives, knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers unworthy of arguing the Great Man’s unassailable “facts” and flawless logic. Both would be wrong, but would be unable to even understand why. If a Frenchman and a German debate something, each in their native tongues, little is accomplished other than what I have sometimes called intellectual masturbation…each side may feel relieved at the end, but very little is actually accomplished. So too for the process Glenn Beck has called “arguing with idiots.” Intellectually pummeling someone whose basic understandings are flawed beyond repair can be entertaining if that person has in fact tried to bully others, but there are many more interesting challenges. I’ll leave Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins to you, my friend, but I will buy a ticker and cheer you on. CDE
CDE,
I was the only conservative in my philosophy and sociology departments while earning my degree, and am a former Marine. Bring them on. I can handle it 😀
Joe: While I would buy a ticket to your debate with Dawkins, I think it would be a waste of your time. Dawkins considers all discussions to be best when he’s the only one who speaks, since Collectivists of all stripes regard their callings as running other people’s lives and managing the world’s resources and knowledge. They play by different rules Joe, because they are always the smartest guys in the room. That’s what Our Dear Leader thinks, and that’s what Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher believe. It is hilarious because they fail to see the obvious flaws in their worldview, but that is what they believe. We libertarians believe the opposite, that somehow each individual citizen pursuing his or her vision is the most effective way for a society to succeed. Its sloppy and inefficient and somewhat counter-intuitive, but it works better than any other approach ever tried. Adam Smith laid it out, and America has proven him right, while the central planners and bureaucrats have kept most people of the world in shared misery since the beginning of civilization. As we say in New York, go figure. CDE
Puhlease! The God Delusion? That book is such rubbish. I attempted several different times to try and read it. The last time, I just ended up skipping around. I’m all for learning the ideas and arguments of an opposing party, but I don’t see how anybody could possibly sit through that atrocity to reason. Kudos to whoever had the willpower to do so. On the contrary, I think David Berlinski assessed Richard Dawkins well when he said: “I think it’s just a catastrophic mistake to have somebody like Dawkins address himself to profound issues of theology, the existence of God, the nature of life. He hasn’t committed himself to disciplined study in any relevant area of inquiry. He’s a crummy philosopher. He doesn’t have the rudimentary skills to meticulously assess his own arguments.”
Then again, I’m just one of Dawkin’s “ignorant, insane, AND stupid” youngin’s, talkin’ smack bout things I don’t understand…
libercrite…Aren’t we all. As I stated, Dawkins is the philosophical equivalent of an idiot savant. I did read THE GOD DELUSION and some of his evolutionary biology research, and while the GOD DELUSION is small beer, the actual evolutionary biology research is in some places brilliant. Your quote is spot-on. Richard should stick to his knitting…a philosopher he will never be. CDE
Libercrite seems to hold the same opinion of Dawkins as I do. 🙂
I will look into their works as soon as I get a chance, Joe.
“Now, to be fair to those who hold different beliefs, this does not mean one ‘has’ to believe in a Creator.”
Thats absolutely right. Because of free will. The very thing who’s existence Karl denies. Karl’s free will denies the existence of free will. Irony!
Libercrite,
Hop over to The Road to Concord and look at the post on Free Will. I am having this very debate with a RATIONAL person there now. Your input is more than welcome : -)
Joe, I read the entire conversation there. I don’t know if I have anything more substantial to add then what you have already written! It sounds like the anonymous person(s), is over all missing the point to your writing as you pointed out. Of course, it shouldn’t be too long before he contracts the Karl syndrome of denying everything previously written.
Libercrite,
It is enlightening, though — isn’t it.
It is an interesting discussion, Joe.