A reply to an atheist regarding the unlikly chance of naturalism

The question: “do you think our evolution without a designer is like so many pennies landing on their edges because you know anything about the chemistry and physical constants at work or do you think that because somebody else said so and you were happy to adopt the idea?”

the short answer is both…

My understanding is growing along with a belief in evolution and how it does not conflict with a Creator and designer of the universe.

Science can be a way to grasp a better understanding of God. Yet science is by definition opposed to anything supernatural and can not grasp the supernatural.

For instance if I say there is a multiverse and an innumerable number of universes yet I can not go outside this universe to observe this, would you take this on faith? I could only possibly hope for some indirect evidence. I can’t really substantiate a multiverse with a certainty unless I can access other universes.  The idea that this cosmologicaly fine tuned universe is just one of the infinite permutations is a proposition that takes an astounding amount of blind faith.  Not to mention the infinate regress problem.

So why must there be objection to the cosmological proof of a Designer who had to manage the construction of this universe so as to support life? We can know a great deal about what had to happen in the early seconds of the big bang in order for there to be the universe we so clearly observe directly. We even find new constraints in the form of dark energy and dark matter to add to the complexity of this universe and how fine tuned the mixture MUST be in order for me to type this response.

In other words the long shot odds of getting the fine tuning just right may exceed the number of atoms in this uniquely fine tuned existence we all can observe directly.

So the numbers and probability can certainly point to a Creator Higher Power that is outside of any limitations in this universe.

But we don’t only have the cosmological argument as a point of evidence for a Creator. Yet if this is all a natural occurrence and has no intelligence behind the fine tuning means we are all lottery winners already.

Then you add biology…

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d5082c909684c57107e7

If you watch the video you should at the minimum come away as a deist. We have not only a fined tuned universe but also a process of evolution that requires simplicity be ever more complex by genetic drift and natural selection. A presuppositional affinity for emergence and ever greater complexity despite the greater entropy of thermodynamics. You have to take on faith the idea that from the very FIRST mitosis life was ready to replicate in a way that got all the bits just right and then continued to get it right time and time again (with only about 3.5 billion years to try hitting all the needed bulls-eyes) when it comes to the current complexity. An affinity to emergence in the face of the entropic pull.

Our current complexity is a good indication that we are in a garden that was tended by a Gardener. It would be a strong faith in deed to think that all this complex interdependency is an act of pure natural processes with no directed intelligence behind them. Meaning that I get those five pennies to land on edge without any Intelligent directive influences. And have to have subsequent casts of the pennies replicate the same result or near statistical inprobablity.

Yes what I am saying is noting new or uniquely my own. There is a multitude of indirect and direct evidences for God. Understanding molecular and chemical affinities only adds to the points of evidence.

The analogical use of the five pennies example was my idea on expressing what would need to happen on several fronts to bring us to our current complexity.  Naturalism would say that a godless force is fine tuning the processes and affinities without any intelligence to direct the proses.

An atheist might argue that there is a natural affinity to having those pennies land on edge. Even in the first picoseconds of the big bang. It was blind random chance in other words. A continued natural affinity for life to happen from non-life. And another natural affinity for chordates making it as far up the evolutionary lader as they have today. For all the affinity there had to be a limit to how many tries you get before hitting the sweet spot. There may be times that fewer pennies landed on edge. But to say this is ALL a godless process is to in some way deny reality in the face of indications that something supernatural is at work. Science by its nature blind to the supernatural. Science is in a box of limitations. But we (humanity) are an interesting gestalt that would indicate more than just blind random luck with natural selection mixed in.

Again the wealth of evidence for even an Aristotelian God is out there for any self aware conscientiousnesses to grasp. The greater faith is to say all happened in a godless way. Just like the idea of a multiverse takes blind faith that has no access to anything outside this universe. Just like the blind faith required for Darwinian evolution being the correct and exact model of how all life has evolved to this point. Look at the chances that had to take place regardless of affinity for certain outcomes. We don’t have a time machine to go back and get all the proofs needed to fill all the gaps that do exist. Blind faith that the phylogenetic tree has all the relationships right without any genetic sequencing to really test accuracy. Blind faith that pakicetus is the ancestor to whales when we can’t sequence the genetic code sufficiently for irrefutable proof. Bind faith that science has ALL the answers given sufficient time and the right questions. There is a greater amount of blind faith required of the atheist then is required for even an Aristotelian First Cause to all things view or deistic watchmaker.

Even my Biblical view of God requires that there be doubt and free will. One can doubt the existence of God and even God honors our free will to reject God. God may even be cruel and playing a malicious joke yet less faith is needed in even that unlikely proposition.

But the atheist often insists that there is no evidence for God. Or no sufficient evidence. This is the blind faith I am talking of. The idea that all is a consequence of natural forces. That all can be explained inside the limiting box of science. No God and no gaps that God can hide in. Or one can go on a personal journey and KNOW God and see the abundant evidence for a caring loving God. Both the atheist and theist proposition require a measure of faith. But the atheist one needs the greater exercise of trust that defines what faith is. Because the atheist has only the solipsist view to rely upon and that reason is why the atheist faith is the bigger and more blind faith. One could even say that the atheist is willfully blind and thus only trusts in themselves and what ever they can derive from that selfish internalized and inward facing view.

For me I have to look outside myself and put trust in things that are outside of myself. This small trust is the faith that grows with more evidence. The faith that is tested, questioned, and thirsty for more evidence that will grow that faith like a mustard seed. A faith that has to deal with a measure of doubt built into the process so that one does not go it alone or only focus inwardly. A Christian faith that grows in the nutrient of Gods love for us all.

Question…

The Passion of the Atheist

Oh the passion!

The solipsist wager:

“Agnostic/Atheists Wager – Whether or not you believe in God, you should live your life with love, kindness, compassion, mercy and tolerance while trying to make the world a better place. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will have made a positive impact on those around you. If there is a benevolent God reviewing your life, you will be judged on your actions and not just on your ability to blindly believe when there is a significant lack of evidence of his/her existence.” [1] [ 2]

A wager on the wages of sin: Atheist have a powerful faith in what they know and as such should indeed live a life with love, kindness, compassion, mercy and tolerance while trying to make the world a better place. It’s true that one can lose nothing in this life by doing these laudable things. Atheism would seek to deny their gift of eternity for the finite world of flawed humans. Know that God has given us all a pardon thru Jesus Christ because He is a compassionate God. Atheist claim significant lack of evidence for many things from Moral Absolutes on up to the Creator.

Rhetoric that the Creator is evil because of perfect knowledge of the future is a comfort to them as they attack all religions as harmful. The fallacy in there logic is incorporated into there doctrine. God gave us freedom of choice. While atheism would deny choice as an illusion, God has given all of us that precious and perilous gift. Just as there are moral absolutes so is there choice. A quantum gate of possibility that becomes fixed only when it’s state is observed. Sin is a choice and we are all predisposed to sin as it is our nature. In that choice is where evil can and does come from. God did not create evil but if choice has not aligned it’s self with God’s law the result is not from God. If one denies the existence of God you have made a choice that a benevolent God is going to honor. Eternity with God would hardly be a fun place for even the most moral and upstanding Atheist.

Psychology is a science of human nature and through this scientific method there is proof of what I am saying. Moral absolutes are a nature and nurture process we want to follow them unless we find it hard or think it oppressive. We all at one time or another fall short or want to outright disobey. Jesus asked us to love one another as we do ourselves. Do people tend to unconditionally love others, much less ourselves? With Gods law inseparably incorporated within us this would be no problem yet because of Adam that can only be restored at the return of the Messiah. The Atheist mantra of logic, scientific method, and evolutionary programing is flawed in that there is no perfect knowledge of everything. While theory is a strong explanation by known testing and observational method that understanding can and does evolve through new observations and discovery. While God is easy to discover in the heart and minds of Christians there is also a method to deny that existence.

The solipsist wager: Everything is relative to what can be proven and then tested though the lens of personal perspective and bias. Upon that bias is the absolute that there is always bias and so there is always a significant lack of evidence. Evidence can not be bias if it’s backed up by scientific theory while bringing modification to that theory as more is discovered by bias pursuit of absolutes.

The Atheist and Freethinkers meet Entropy

In a room with a door that says Knowledge are quite a few Atheist and free thinkers who ruminate as to the state of the lock on the door.

A child of God walks in and before anyone could say a word the door opens and the child walks through.

Now it is a room of quite a few atheist and free thinkers who question if reality can be fixed to subjective observation regarding the door.

Suddenly one of the free thinkers rise up to approach the door. Joy appears on his face as the door opens and they go through it.

Now part of the room are fixed on the question of transcendent joy, part on subjective observation and part on the purpose for the word knowledge inscribed on the door.

One has concluded that they are satisfied enough with there evidence and commits suicide.

Now the room is a buzz with ruminations on subjective observation, door locks, reality, the unlikelihood of transcendence and a putrefying odor of death.

Suddenly a few of them are aware that there are four people at the corners of the room who hold with them the light source they need to be able to see the door at all.

A small few in the group want to go for the door. But this time it does not open and none want to put down what is in there hands to grasp the knob with.

Hands full of the riches they had did not seem to buy them any way to open the door without loss of there goods.

Now there are those standing around the door smelling the bad odor and peering at the door knob mechanism while ruminations on all the reality around them continued.

A lamp holder approaches the door and some drop all and go through the door with the light bearer.

There now seems to an appeal by the cult of the dead one that adding to the stench is preferable to smelling it.. Observation tells them that one can not exit carrying anything. It’s soundly denied that the ones who go through the door appear to be naked as the child who first went through.

Order in the room is now approaching panic as two more lamp holders are missing and so absorbed in debate a time for critical analysis can not be given to what happened.

Now the room has focused on how little light there is upon which to study the nature of what seems to be happening. some want to declare they see just fine while others are in a committee of fear and loathing about the door.

As all the rational events are being documented under the appalling light conditions those who see into the room make out with greater clarity what is on the other side. Most of these rush though the door.

The final light bearer leaves and the darkness blinds everyone. Then it is herd there are those who have had lamps with them but now can not see to find the fuel. Cries of confession are heard in the utter darkness as the lamp bearers are found out as not being prepared to light the room.

In a pitch black room of white noise, entropy clams dominion.

Atheism a proven benefit? (a reply)

We are built upon the components that are purely chemical and it’s human ego that refuses to accept this.Our human ego has yet to be able to combine components in a lab and create life.

Wow Jack. Matt just destroyed your argument. And I’m about to kick it while it’s down.

In your context I would then have to assume the great benefit of atheism is a happier healthier world. Atheism has yet to prove a great benefit to mankind. As a movement it is small and so far unappealing to a mass market. I have a question. How can mankind create good when there is so much that man does to destroy his own habitat. We shit in our own nest only to pursue mental ideals of how we can better that nest. Again where are the great charitable Atheist institutions of Health and Happiness?

It worked just like for the Egyptians their pantheon which was worshipped for a very, very long time.

An early Egyptian creation story is how there god masturbated and from his penis the stuff of the universe was created. It made for a great worship service as the Egyptian priest would stand in a circle and recreate how the universe began. The Egyptians had no consistency in there religious practice or there gods. For five thousand years the God of Judaism and Christianity are the same. My point of fundamental consistency still stands.

a logical trap…

Where is the logic trap in complexity? Where is the logic trap in maintaining that order in atomic structure comes form somewhere. There are countervailing forces to keep from collapse or dissipation. Science is doing it’s best to explain and unify everything but we find more questions when we get one answer. There is no logic trap in pointing out how wonderfully wrought the universe is. Even Atheism recognizes the inability for perfect knowledge.

To improve the state and consciousness of humanity, to make the world a better place for the next generation. That’s just for starters.

Again where are the great institutions of Humanist endeavor. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins should take all the money they make and create a free healthcare network. I wold love the idea of Doctors without god complex.

We’re human, we have emotions and have empathy with other humans that we come to know and share our life with. We naturally miss those that pass away and thus mourn for them.

I would say those things come from God. Humans are a gestalt greater than the sum of our parts and I would ask why are we not like the rest of the animals in how we deal with death. Our closest simian relatives do not burry there dead or leave monuments. A field mouse will eat her young when threatened. Imminently practical recapture of the protein needed to have another batch of babies latter and yet we would not dream of eating our young. If man where driven by instinct alone we would eat our neighbors given enough hunger.

religious people attack the idea of evolution.

We are adaptive creatures and there is adaptation going on all the time. Many things have elasticity that can change form and adapt to environmental changes. Science proves there is adaptation yet can not find the root animal for say all mammals or how the evolutionary tree comes back to common ancestors. There is no fossil of this mythical root or base branch pair. Again look at the deoxyribonucleic acid structure and how it is found in all living creatures. The word is complexity even in the smallest of things. I embrace the idea that we are all adaptive and evolve from children into adult and so on. In 1905 Einstein evolved an Idea. Evolution is all around us as a gift of our Creator. Creative ability it’s self is a form of evolution. I personally like the latest evolution of the Volkswagon Diesel.

“It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism was really a theory of chance, it could not work.“

Richard Dawkins

Appeal…

Mass Market appeal is what atheism needs and yet pure logic can be rather dry. What ever man creates is tanted and will not last. Gods creation will last forever. Atheism would deny eternity existed in order to bring the here and now. If the here and now is all we have then this is our heaven and our hell. What are we doing in our own nest?