Month: November 2018

Who made God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, God

 

Who made God?

 When you hear the question, “who made God?” you should notice the first word is always who never what. The Who of the question infers the idea of cause-and-effect. That is that everything must have come from something equal or greater than itself.  We intuitively understand that we are conscious and personal beings, so we infer automatically that if something created us; it must be conscious and personal in the sense of having a personality.

Of course, the answer also depends on one’s definition of God. If you believe that God is simply an idea in someone’s mind, the answer is the person that believes in him made him up. However, if you believe that  God is an infinite being outside of time and space without beginning or end, the answer would be totally different. It would be something like God is the uncreated one without beginning or end and the first cause of all things. So, a reasonable answer to the question who made God? would be, what God are we talking about? This question the atheist cannot answer because they don’t believe in God. To ask a person that believes in an infinite creator the question “who made God?” would be nonsense, because the answer is within  the question and the definition of God.

However, when an atheist asks the question “who made God?” this is a proof that they have an idea or image of God in their minds. You must have an image of something before you can say you don’t believe in it. So, the proper question to the atheist is what god are you talking about? They in turn might say the Christian God or the Jewish god. Now here’s the problem with the majority of atheists whom I’ve talk to, they do not have an inkling of theological knowledge, which means that the God they have an image of is a  figment of their imagination to begin with, i.e. a straw man. In most cases, an intelligent  believer would not believe in the image of the God that most atheist hold in their minds. For the Christian any image of God that an atheist has in their minds is an idol and Christians known that idols do not existence. ” Dear children, keep yourselves from idols”(1 John 5:21).

 

 

Who Created God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

 

 

Who Created God?

 

 

A  father was reading a story to his young son about cosmetology and likened the earth  to a ball sitting on the back of a huge turtle. The young boy replied “but dad who made the turtle and what is holding up the turtle” “The father replied it’s, “turtles all the way down.” To deny a first cause in the end is to deny reason and the principle of cause-and-effect which simply says that everything must have a cause that is equal or greater than itself.  If I find a complex computer in the wilderness I would automatically look for an intelligent life form that created it. I could say that it always existed but it seems that that would be begging the question and surely wouldn’t answer the need for a cause or the ground for understanding the computer. Young children may ask, “who made the turtle”  grown men do not.

Deep Time and Evolution

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Evolution

Deep Time and Evolution

Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch closer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else.[1] But this is exactly what some atheists attempt to do.[2]  They think they have explained existence by explaining evolution in some kind of narrative form. However, they have a number of large problems. (1) They must first prove that evolution is a science. That is if you believe that science is made up of knowledge that follows what is known as the scientific method[3]……….(2). let’s assume that you prove that evolution is a science. Then you  must prove one theory of evolution.[4] That is, you must prove that evolution is non-dirtected from outside of nature.(3) Then after proving 1 and 2 you must show how evolution of any kind proves that there is no God. In actuality, if you prove one and two all you have proven is that you have the ability to explain how something changed into something else. This may prove that you are intelligent and maybe that you have kissed the Blainey stone and that you are a great storyteller, but it proves nothing else.  An explanation that can never be proven by the scientific method is not science in the literal sense of the word.  Moreover, after all that work you still are not even close to explaining how something came from nothing.

In 2000 Henry Gee[5] who was the Senior Editor of Nature published his book “Deep Time” which was somewhat ignored by the scientific community and especially evolutionist. In the book he maintains that span of time in which evolution took place makes it almost if not impossible to have any rational conclusions about the fossil record. In speaking about the two conflicting views of evolution progressive and non-direct he says the following: “The failure of both use of evolution rest, once again, on the failure to understand that deep time cannot sustain scenarios based on narrative. I return, once again, to the thought experiment that is central to my argument. Next time you see a fossil ask yourself whether it could have belonged to your direct ancestor. Of course, it could be your ancestor, but you will never be able to know this for certain. To hypothesize that it might be your ancestor, then is futile, because your hypothesis would be untestable. So, to take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story – amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not science.” Page 114 of Deep Time.

[1] G.K. Chesterton

[2] A few atheist in recent time have attempted to explain how something could come from nothing. However, a close reading at their books always end up pointing to a cause that is something.

[3] “There were five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Had anyone observed the phenomenon—in this case, Evolution—as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” test)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no. In other words, there was no scientific way to test it. Like every other cosmogony, it was a serious and sincere story meant to satisfy man’s endless curiosity about where he came from and how he came to be so different from the animals around him. But it was still a story. It was not evidence. In short, it was sincere, but sheer, literature.” “The Kingdom of Speech” by Tom Wolfe.

[4] The two main theories of evolution. There is Darwin’s that espouses random undirected evolution and there is the progressive that believes that there is a built in progressive element that improves and directs the species.

[5] Gee joined Nature as a reporter in 1987 and is now Senior Editor, Biological Sciences. He has published a number of books, including  In Search of Deep Time (1999),A Field Guide to Dinosaurs  (2003) and Jacob’s Ladder (2004).

“Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology”

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Hi – I’m reading “Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology” by J. P. Moreland and wanted to share this quote with you.

“Science cannot be practiced in thin air; it is based on many assumptions this, each with its challenges. And the business of stating, criticizing, and defending its assumptions is not scientific but philosophical. Just as the structure of a building cannot be more reliable than the foundation on which it rests, so the conclusions of science (i.e., the structure) cannot be more certain than the presuppositions of science (i.e., its foundation).”

The book can be purchased in Kindle form on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

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