Response to Bad Idea

As Bad has stated, him and I are having a bit of a debate about wether or not the answer of God explains anything.  It started on “Response to ‘The Atheist Is A Thief’” and continued on his blog.  It has taken me several days to respond to him because, frankly, I didn’t want to debate his entire readership (which jumped on me when I posted on his blog) and just wanted to debate with him.  So here is my post regarding his response on his blog (scroll down a bit and you’ll see his response in full).

Bad

“You repeat “strawman” a lot, but there’s more to fallacies than merely alleging them left and right.”

Actually, I only accused you of a strawman fallacy twice and it fit both times.  You did not repeat your strawman here so I am not repeating it again.

“First of all, I never said anything about you using cosmological arguments. My point is simply that you offerred God as explaining something that the lack of God, supposedly, cannot.”

You stated that I was using God as an explanation for the beginning of the universe, I was doing no such thing.  I was stating that an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator God accounts for the uniformity of nature while the lack of that God cannot.  There is a subtle difference there, but it’s an important one.

“But as I have argued, your “explanation” isn’t: it doesn’t actually explain anything. When I say that you can offer it, I am noting that it is not contradicted by anything (indeed, you could claim that God does everything all the time: how can this be contradicted?). But it also does not accomplish anything.”

So which is it?  Is it that a God explanation is not an explanation or is it that the God explanation can’t be contradicted?  You can’t have it both ways.  Is it that a God explanation isn’t an explanation or that it’s not a USEFUL explanation?  You made both statements here.  I just want to clarify what it is that we’re actually discussing.

[In response to Bad’s assertion that “God” doesn’t enhance knowledge, I had previously stated that “God accounts for the uniformity of nature” DOES explain certain things to us.  Such as that the universe: had a Cause, took knowledge and therefore sentience to form, was a God choice and therefore has a purpose, if the Universe has a purpose then so do we]

“How do you know that causing a universe requires knowledge? Have you created one recently? Are you going to let us all in on the process, and the specific steps, including how and when forethought is necessary to do it? What are the constraints one faces when creating a universe? What are the ranges of possibility? Can things simply exist uncaused, or not?”

Those are not the questions I am asking.  You may ask them, and that’s fine, but we’re discussing wether or not a God answer explains anything, not “everything”.  You could ask endless question that I wouldn’t have the answers to and then you could say, “See!  God isn’t an answer!” but that wouldn’t really be honest of you.  If I remember correctly, you are the only one saying that “we can’t really know anything about the beginning”.  Asking question after unanswerable question just to prove your “we can’t know anything” statement might make you feel better about your position, but it doesn’t refute that a God answer DOES tell us something!  That the universe has a cause and purpose for example. 

“Again, asserting God allows you to simply bypass every single substantive question about how the universe came to be the way it is (nor does it answer the question of whether it even came to be in the first place).”

But I thought you stated that we CANNOT know anything substantative about the beginning of the universe, period.  So which is it, can we know something substantative and the God answer is hindering us?   Or is it that we can’t know anything about the beginning but God is an explanation?  How does the God answer NOT tell us that the universe exists?

Also, you are assuming that there CAN BE a naturalistic answer for the beginning of the universe, something you cannot know. 

“It’s as if you were given a multiple choice question, and you claimed that you’d gotten it right because you’d chosen EVERY option, and thus, chosen the right answer in the process. That still doesn’t tell us anything about which answer was, in fact, the right one.”

That is NOT what we’re doing at all.  Not even close.  By saying that every answer in a multiple choice question is the right answer is to violate the Law of Non-Contradiction.  To say that the only way to explain the uniformity of nature is through God who created nature uniform, and sustains it uniform, does NOT violate the Law of Non-Contradiction.

“The difference between you and I is simple: you are jumping to a very particular and extremely extravagant philosophical assumption on how and if the universe came to be, while I am remaining honest in admitting that we don’t know.”

We are comparing worldviews here, that’s all we are doing.  I have a simple premise;  Science requires that nature is uniform.  I have a simple question;  Which worldview is able to explain this uniformity?  A naturalistic atheistic worldview definetly cannot explain it, only have faith that it is so while the Christian worldview is able to explain why we expect and believe nature to be uniform. 

“But talking about anyone “trusting” that nature is uniform is to completely misunderstand things. We don’t trust this at all: I don’t at least.   It’s an axiom: an assumption we inevitably make because without some basic assumptions we cannot even acknowledge the existence of our common reality, much less learn anything about it.”

An assumption is something you believe to be true without evidence.  To say that “we assume it but we don’t trust it’s true” is to redefine the word “assumption”.  But I agree with you, without the assumption that nature is uniform we wouldn’t be able to function.  Christianity can explain that assumption while atheism cannot.  In fact, it’s no longer assumption for Christians, it’s something we expect based on the nature of God and His revelation to us.

But you’re situation is worse than that.  If you followed our your “we can’t know anything for sure about the laws of nature” position to it’s logical conclusion, you’d actually have to expect that nature would NOT be uniform. 

Let me ask you a question:  Why were the early scientific fathers able to assume that nature was uniform without anyone having assumed it before them and without any testing done to suggest it might be?  Also, did their old-world, dogmatic, YEC belief in God hinder them from doing great science?

Response to “The Atheist is a Thief”

I will admit to attempting to be inflammatory with the title of my last post, “The Atheist is a Thief“, but I honestly didn’t expect the plethora of comments that I got.  Ok maybe it’s not a lot for some blogs, but it’s alot for mine in one day.  I have six people to respond to and, instead of mucking up the discussion board, I thought I would respond out here in the open, and go from there.  Each responder will have his/her name put in bold and then have their response . . . responded to.  Afterwards, if any of you would like to weigh in again, then we can keep it on the discussion section.

(The original comments can be seen here)

Sweetwaffles

You said:  “I don’t know what kind of atheists you have been talking to, but the universe most certainly did not come about by random means; unless you define random as coming about without the thought of a higher being.”

I define random as being not guided or controlled in any way.  If you attempt to say that the beginning of the universe was guided by natural forces then you’re in trouble because the natural forces didn’t begin until the beginning of the universe.  You’ll be begging the very question asked to you.  If you attempt to say that the universe can be guided by something outside the natural laws, you’ll be making an argument for a Guider.  So I ask you:  If the beginning of the universe wasn’t random, what was it guided by?

I’ll also ask you:  Do you disagree with Bertrand Russell?

“Everything comes about from something else.”

The only way you can know this is if you’ve studied “everything” and discovered the origin of everything.  This is an absolute, faith based statement.

“One cannot say with knowledge that the universe was made by God.”

Another faith based statement.  In order to make this statement true I ask, have you searched all of the knowledge in the world and some how discovered than none of it pertaines to knowledge of God’s Creation?  Why are you the only one who can make absolute statements?

“And if one cannot explain the origin of the universe (or anything else), it is quite silly to commend an imaginary being.”

Your presupposition here is that God is “imaginary”, this is something you cannot know.  When reasoning through an argument, it’s a good idea to think through the presuppositions one is making.

On a basic level, my attributing the universe to God is no less silly then attributing it to “natural processes somehow”, especially when you consider science to be the way all knowledge is gained and how unscientific the phrase “somehow” is.  Your “god” called Naturalism has shown NO power to create while God has.

Greg

“An atheist doesn’t have to know anything about science or adopt any particular worldview; all the atheist has to do is find theistic claims unconvincing.”

Stop it.  A human being HAS TO have assumptions and presuppositions.  No human being can have “no position”.  One of the main theistic claims is “God exists”.  You find this position “unconvincing”.  Fine, you’re not convinced that God exist, that means your position is that God doesn’t exist.  It’s a position, and it’s an assumption (since the position can’t be tested empirically).  Please read my posts “The Myth of Neutrality” and “Worldviews Are For Everyone” and respond to my arguments there. 

“Science has certainly worked better than faith where technological progress is concerned;”

When have I ever argued against “science”?  I love science.  When was I talking about “technological progress”?  Talk about the definition of a strawman!

“I’ll stick to science for explanations about the parts of the universe we do understand, content to say “I don’t know” when no answer exists. Faith isn’t an answer; faith is something someone makes up or accepts.”

This makes me think you didn’t actually read or understand the entirety of my post.  Scientific explanations are based upon faith.  You have “faith” that nature is uniform.  You have NO reason to believe that nature is uniform except that you believe it is true.  Science is based upon the unscientific principle that EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE acts the same way (this is unscientific because it cannot be tested).  It’s also based on the circular reasoning that the future will inherently act like the past (this is something we cannot know).  Please, read the part of my post about the Uniformity of Nature and respond accordingly.

If “faith” isn’t an answer, then science is in trouble.

Scott

“If I handn’t read this post entitled “The Atheist is a Thief”, I never would’ve known I didn’t believe in absolutes.”

So you do believe in absolutes?  Which ones?  And how do you explain that they are absolute?

“Nature aside, do we actually have to have an answer for everything? In the end that seems to be what is required to disprove god.”

Yes, I would say that if you are in the business of attempting to disprove God you have your work cut out for you.  Scott, this is an interesting statement because science drives to explain everything and won’t rest with “I don’t know’s”, are you saying that “I don’t know” is an acceptable stopping point?

Also, this itself is a strawman.  No where, not once did I say, “well since atheists don’t have an answer…”.  In short, I’m saying that atheists cannot account for the reality that we see all around us.  I agree with you, there ARE absolutes.  I’m saying that the atheistic worldview cannot account for the existence of absolutes and cannot explain the basis of science (the uniformity of nature).

“You’re the ones making the claim, we’re not.”

Aren’t you making the claim that God doesn’t exist?  This isn’t a claim?

“I don’t see god anywhere. I go outside, I still don’t see god. I don’t know anyone else that can tell me that they have seen god.”

You cannot see the beginning of the universe and yet you believe God didn’t do it.  You cannot see the beginning of life and yet you believe God didn’t do it.  You cannot see that nature acts uniformly everywhere (which is the basis of all science) and yet you believe it.  You cannot see small evolutionary changes leading to big evolutionary changes yet you still believe it happened.  Can you see how hypocritical it is to say, “I can’t see God therefore He doesn’t exist”?

“If we can’t use our five sences to determine the existance of god, than how did we determine he exists in the first place?”

You are assuming that we CAN’T use our five senses to see God.  Everytime I see a beautiful sunset I see God.  Everytime I climb to the top of a mountain I see God.  You cannot use your five senses to see gravity, you can only see what gravity has done and does.  Same thing with God.

“Just because we don’t know everything or can’t explain everything ABSOLUTLY doesn’t prove that god exists.”

I never said that.  Not once.  The atheistic worldview cannot account for/explain the most basic principle that science is built upon, the uniformity of nature.  THAT’S what I said.  Feel free to respond to what I actually said at any time now.

James

“Before Christianity was humanities worldview that of disorder?”

Pagans?  Yes!  Fickle, malevolent gods messing with humanity at will is quite disorderly.  What’s the point of the question?

labright

“God cannot exist in this universe.”

Well, that’s settles it I guess.  No more need to discuss because of your absolute knowledge on the issue and absolute statement of what God can’t do.  Case close, I’m so glad you figured it out for all of us.

“1. Information must have a physical substrate upon which to exist. There is no information in a vacuum.”

I’m not sure that you know this about the atheistic worldview, but it absolutely presupposes that information can come from nothing.  DNA formed itself remember?  Non-information created information with no cause, so information came from “a vacuum” as you put it.  Btw, YOU are the only one who believes information can come from nothing. That is NOT my position at all.  Information has existed in the mind of God long before Creation.

Also, I think is a round about way of saying that only the material exists.  Is that what you are saying?

“2. The Judeo/Christian/Islamo god is an “entity”, has thoughts and acts upon our real world. Actually, that god must operate faster than light to do all he’s attributed to do.”

And?

“3. Since nothing material can operate faster than light, on what particles do the thoughts of god exist?”

Actually, your first statement is false.  It would be correct to say “we have YET to discover a material that can operate faster than light” and I’m not even sure if THAT’S true.  Are you saying that God is material?  As in, you could touch Him if you found Him?  Cause if you are, then you’ve redefined what the Christian worldview is to fit your argument.  Redifining your opponents’ argument, and then arguing that redefinition is called a strawman argument and it’s a fallacy. 

Upon what substrate do YOUR thoughts exist?  Can you measure them?

You then began to give me a bunch of evolutionary examples.

Evolutionary theory is based on the metaphysical assumption that nature is uniform.  An atheistic universe, which came about randomly and in which only material exists, cannot account for immaterial, universal laws such as the uniformity of nature.  You can’t even explain the basis upon which science is built without stealing the Christian worldview and yet you attempt to use science to disprove God.  It’s irrational.

“You have a “Need to Seek a Higher-Power”, but atheists don’t. That’s why I can’t covert you, and you can’t convert me. “

So you now telling me my psychology?  Is that how you defend your worldview, but telling me what I need?  You’re right however, I do seek a Higher-Power because He created me and loves me.  You, on the other hand, “Seek a Smarter Power”.  You believe that men who are smarter than you have figured it all out and you believe what they say is true.  What’s the difference?

You are a believer as well.  You believe that empiricism is the answer to all.  You believe that Naturalism explains everything.

“I suspect you’ll not accept this, but it is truth.”

I want to be clear.  Are you saying that belief in God is the reason the Earth is over-crowded?  And therefore, once “belief in God” goes away then more people will die and the Earth will less crowded and that’s why a non-belief in God is becoming more of a benefit in this day?  More death = good, right?  Are you saying that you’re the next step in the evolutionary ladder?  You’re more “advanced” than I am?

The Atheist is a Thief

In the atheist worldview, the physical is all that exists.  That is to say that the spiritual only exists as a human construct to describe things we don’t YET understand or can’t explain.  God is also a construct used for the same purpose.  What this means is how we perceive reality, existence, truth, logic and morality are all governed by the biochemical processes of our brain.  They are simply human constructs which only work within the human paradigm.  Also, in a purely material universe, empiricism (knowledge gathered by our senses) is the only way to concretely know something.  To an atheist, even using good reasoning will only get us to a good hypothesis, in order to truly know whether or not your reasoning is good, you must test it empirically.

The universe came about by random forces.  In fact, randomness can be the only thing that is assuredly true about the universe.  The famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell put it:

“Academic philophers, ever since the time of Permenides, have believed that the world is unity . . . The most fundamental of my intellectual beliefs is that this is rubbish.  I think the universe is all spots and jumps, without any unity, without continuity, without coherence or orderliness . . . Indeed there is little but prejudice and habit to be said for the view that there is a world at all.”  (The Scientific Outlook, pg. 98 )

What this means…

This basic atheistic position excludes all absolutes.  Not only will every atheist you talk to proudly declare that absolutes don’t exist but, in their worldview, this MUST be true.  Since the universe came about by random means, there cannot be absolute laws. 

How is this a problem for the atheist?  It seems that this position absolves them of any moral responsibility except for what any atheistic individual deems moral for him- or herself.  This position also excludes God on the outset, which suits the atheist well. 

Whether the atheist recognizes it or not, he uses absolutes every day.  In fact, the inclusion of absolutes is REQUIRED for his position to be viable.  We will tackle the full extent of this statement in a later post.  For now, we will focus on just one absolute that the atheist uses.

The Uniformity of Nature

This is the idea that nature, given a set of conditions, will act the same way every where at all times.  Meaning that stubbing your toe on leg of a coffee table won’t suddenly become the most pleasurable experience you’ve ever had.  No, it’ll hurt quite the same as it did the last time you stubbed your toe.  For you nerds out there who want to do further research, this is also the idea of induction.

Science depends on the fact that nature behaves in a coherent, law-like way.  For science to be viable not only must nature act law-like now but it must do so in the future.  Nature must also act law-like in every corner of the universe or we wouldn’t be able to depend upon it anywhere.  In order for any empirical result to have meaning five minutes from now, nature must be uniform.

Problem #1 for the Atheist

The atheist cannot make the statement “Nature is uniform”.  Sure he could say it, but he would be inconsistent with his worldview.  Remember that the atheist will assert that empiricism is the only way to know something.  The atheist cannot know that nature acts the same way every where at all times.  In order to know this he would have to test every inch of the Earth every five minutes and find that it acts the same way.  When the atheist asserts that nature is uniform he is asserting that he knows something that cannot be seen empirically which is contrary to his previously stated position.  He is making a statement of faith.

An answer the atheist may give may be to say, “Well nature has acted uniform so far and we’ll continue to treat nature as it will until it proves otherwise.”  This is a non-answer to how he knows nature is uniform.  He is basically saying, “Well it is because it is.”  Don’t let him get away with it.  Another way to say his statement is, “In the past, the future has reflected the past, so in the future, we can expect the future to reflect the past.”  That’s circular and begs the very question you are asking him.   In short, the atheist cannot know that nature is uniform, he must only believe it without any empirical reason for doing so.

So the next time an atheist says “Miracles can’t happen,” or “people can’t rise from the dead” ask him how he knows this and when he says, “Because nature doesn’t act that way” point out to him that his statement is no less faith based than “Miracles can happen” and point out to him why.

Problem #2 for the Atheist

To put it bluntly, the atheistic worldview cannot explain the most basic principle that allows science to be viable.  Not only can the atheist not know that nature is uniform, he also can’t account for it.  Remember, the universe was brought about by random forces and random means.  A random beginning does not an orderly universe make.  The atheist cannot explain how a random universe can even appear to have such order as we see around us, much less the universal order that science requires.

The question becomes, how then can the atheist use science for the basis of his worldview?  How can the atheist deny absolutes and yet use empiricism as a way to knowledge?  The answer is that…

The Atheist is a Thief

An all-powerful, all-knowing God who created an orderly universe and sustains it just as orderly as He created it accounts for absolutes/universals in general and specifically accounts for the uniformity of nature.  The Christian is able, through explaining the nature of God, to account for the uniformity of nature.  The Christian can know nature is uniform and trust that it will remain so.

The atheist must steal the Christian worldview to account for the uniformity of nature.  When pinned down the atheist may say that they are open to the fact that nature isn’t uniform, but they don’t live their lives or form their beliefs that way.  They make statements like “evolution explains life as we see it”, and “there is no evidence for God” which require the absolute (and not just apparent) uniformity of nature to be viable statements.  The irony is that only in a Christian worldview is the uniformity of nature explainable.  They use Christian principles to make science viable in order to deny the existence of God.  It’s like a small child who climbs onto his fathers’ lap to slap him. 

The Christian Response

Instead of arguing evidence for evidence with the atheist, show him that he cannot explain the principles upon which he builds his evidence against God.  Show him that his presuppositions cannot be accounted for in his worldview.  Show him that he must stand upon the Christian presupposition of an orderly universe and the uniformity of nature just to be able to deny the existence of God.

Hiatus

As anyone checking my site has noticed, I haven’t posted for a week and a half.  This is due almost completely to the fact that I haven’t had anything interesting to say.  I’ve been processing and working into my apologetic some revolutionary (to me) material and it’s led to a lack of coherent arguments.  I’m working on one that will be done probably tomorrow so thanks for sticking with me.

Dogmatic Evolution

In my previous post I was talking about worldviews and how they affect how we interpret facts.  There are no brute facts, we always filter what we observe and learn through the presuppositions in our worldview.  This scientific discovery, and how it is interpreted, is a perfect example of how our presuppositions already decide for us what our conclusion will be.

T-Rex Soft Tissue

During a dig on a T- Rex in 2005, Montana State University’s Dr. Mary Schweitzer, in order to lift the leg of the T-Rex by helicopter, was forced to crack it open.  Inside was what is described as fibrous, soft tissue, complete with red blood cells that is “flexible and resilient and when stretched returns to its original shape” ( www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/).  The leg bone was not filled with minerals as is usually the case and chemicals were used to dissolve the bony skeletal matrix that was hiding the soft tissue (24 March 2005, NewScientist.com) .

Dr. Schweitzer’s Dogma

Dr.  Schweitzer was quoted as saying, “The microstructures that look like cells are preserved in every way” and that “preservation of this extent, where you still have this flexibility and transparency, has never been seen in a dinosaur before.”  The general consensus is that this hasn’t really been looked for before in the bony matrix of the inside of dinosaur bones. 

T-Rex’s are “known” to be about 65 million years old, so the discovery of surviving soft tissue in their bones is . . . unexpected, to put it lightly.  Before this discovery it was “known” that soft tissue couldn’t survive for 65 million years either.  Dr. Schweitzer reveals her dogma when red blood cells in dinosaurs were first discovered 12 years ago:

“It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it. I said to the lab technician: “The bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?’” (Science 261:160, July 9, 1994)

Instead of questioning her presupposition (the bones are 65 million years old) she questions the evidence!   The paradigm is not questioned, the paradigm is just slightly modified.  If one listens close enough one can hear evolutionists every where saying, “We must rethink our previous conclusions on how long soft tissue can last”.  This ability that evolutionary theory possesses, to be slightly modified when “unexpected” facts come to light, means that evolution is impossible to prove wrong. 

The discovery of T-rex soft tissue makes it blatantly obvious that no matter what facts are discovered, evolution is “true” without a shadow of a doubt.  This is the definition of dogma.

The Creationist Response

Since we believe God’s Wisdom to be superior over man’s ever shifting “wisdom”, we know that the Earth is thousands of years old, just like His Word says it is.  So when we see that soft tissue has been found in “65 million year old” fossils, we know to question the paradigm that brought about the “old Earth” dogma.  When we begin to question the validity of the “old Earth” paradigm, we see just how many holes it has in it and how obvious it is that soft tissue could not survive for 65 million years.