Category: Science

Francis Bacon “Of Atheism”.

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Religion, Science

The following essay was written by Francis Bacon in his book “Meditations Sacrae”. Bacon is accredited for introducing the scientific method into natural philosophy. The last paragraph of the article makes it worth reading.  

OF ATHEISM.

“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”

First, it is to be noted, that the Scripture saith, “The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart;” that is to say, he doth not so fully think it in judgment, as he hath a good will to be of that belief; for seeing it makes not for him that there should be a God, he doth seek by all means accordingly to persuade and resolve himself, and studies to affirm, prove, and verify it to himself as some theme or position: all which labour, notwithstanding that sparkle of our creation light, whereby men acknowledge a Deity burneth still within; and in vain doth he strive utterly to alienate it or put it out, so that it is out of the corruption of his heart and will, and not out of the natural apprehension of his brain and conceit, that he doth set down his opinion, as the comical poet saith, “Then came my mind to be of mine opinion,” as if himself and his mind had been two divers things; therefore the atheist hath rather said, and held it in his heart, than thought or believed in his heart that there is no God; secondly, it is to be observed, that he hath said in his heart, and not spoken it with his mouth. But again you shall note, that this smothering of this persuasion within the heart cometh to pass for fear of government and of speech amongst men; for, as he saith, “To deny God in a public argument were much, but in a familiar conference were current enough:” for if this bridle were removed, there is no heresy which would contend more to spread and multiply, and disseminate itself abroad, than atheism: neither shall you see those men which are drenched in this frenzy of mind to breathe almost any thing else, or to inculcate even without occasion any thing more than speech tending to atheism, as may appear in Lucrecius the epicure, who makes of his invectives against religion as it were a burden or verse of return to all his other discourses; the reason seems to be, for that the atheist not relying sufficiently upon himself, floating in mind and unsatisfied, and enduring within many faintings, and as it were fails of his opinion, desires by other men’s opinions agreeing with his, to be recovered and brought again; for it is a true saying, “Whoso laboureth earnestly to prove an opinion to another, himself distrusts it:” thirdly, it is a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true; not only in respect that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine; but in respect of human and civil wisdom: for first of all, if you mark the wits and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most contrary to wisdom and moral gravity.

Secondly, amongst statesmen and politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of Deity, as they which you shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence.

Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to their own cunning and practices, and to the immediate, and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, “Have sacrificed to their own nets,” have been always but petty counterfeit statesman, and not capable of the greatest actions.

Lastly, this I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it, will bring about men’s minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this, “There is no God”

 

A Letter From An Young Atheist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Letter From An Young Atheist

“So Lyle, you don’t believe that you can discover God through reason alone?  I ask then, what else does it take?  I would guess your answer would be ‘faith’, correct?  If it is as you say, that God cannot be discovered through reason and rationality alone; that is the ‘crux’ of the matter for me and it is not something that I can accept.  Starting with a conclusion/presupposition and working backwards is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do.”

You may find a god through human reason; however, it will not be the true God.  The true God is so far beyond human consciousness that human reason cannot comprehend him and only marginally apprehend him and his existence.  This is why theologians define him as the totally other.

I do believe that you have a neat and tidy view of science and how it works, which is  completely naïve and totally contrary to reality.  If you read Thomas Kuhn’s book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” you would see that science is not done as neat as you seem to think.  Do you think scientists are sitting around, talking about the scientific method like religious people talk about the ten commandments?  If they do they will respond to law (scientific method) the same way that religious people respond to the ten commandments.  They may give it lip service and then ignore them or use them as a general guide for doing science.  If they took them legalistically not much science would get done.

What you claim ‘you are NOT supposed to do’, is actually what is done much of the time in science.  It’s very common for scientists to form a hypothesis and then set out to prove it.  What is a hypothesis if it is not an opinion or a hunch?  Yes, it is a guess, but a guess with a lot of convictions behind it or what we might call  faith. You can bet more effort goes into proving them rather than falsifying or disproving them.  If they are disproven it will be by the community when they’re published. The same things happen in philosophy and theology.

When Darwin set sail on his famous voyage, he had a will to believe his hypothesis.  He was looking for evidence to prove a belief he already had held for years.  He was taught evolution by his grandfather and father.  Moreover, ideas on evolution were in the air  during his time and both his grandfather and father believed in some form of evolution.  What did he find?  He found what he was looking for.  He found some clues that there was evolution within the bird family, which he already knew.  He saw it on the farm with the select breeding of animals.  However, he found nothing that would prove his overall theories on his voyage.  Note this is not to say that I do not believe in some forms of evolution, I am just stating a fact about Darwin.  The finches (birds) of the islands did not in any way confirm the whole show of Darwin’s later theory of evolution.  I am saying this to point out that Darwin was not a legalist about the scientific method and to some degree ignored it.

You asked what else does it take beyond reason to believe in God?  As William James points out you need a “will to believe”.  Reason will come to the aid of the will, for it is often the handmaiden of the will.  It also comes to the aid of our passions, to justify them; you see this with those who are addicted to drugs.  Their reasoning will give them all kinds of rationale for using and then it will justify their using, and just about anything else.

Reason surely does not rule in human beings. The reign of reason is a myth of the Enlightenment and in much of western culture.  Humans will believe pretty much what they want to believe or what they have a will to believe[1]. The men of the enlightenment needed something to break the power and authority of the Catholic Church, so they created the myth of the preeminence of reason as the dominating force in humans.  So, they replaced the authority of the church with the authority of human reason.  The thinkers of the Reformation (Protestants) also needed something to supplant the authority of the Catholic Church, so they also threw in reason along with Scripture as the new authority.

The scientific method was created to try to keep the will and passions out of reason. However, it is doubtful that any method or law could keep the  human will and  its passions out of the human thought process.  An example of this is the atheistic communist party of the Soviet Union influencing and directing the scientific community. In communist countries the scientific method failed to keep ideological influence out.  You could say that the well was poisoned, even the scientific well by group passion and ideology.

Humans also reason within their cultural environment. In this, they think corporately as well as individually, i.e. the community controls their thinking and thus their reasoning. In this setting, science is no different from religion or philosophy.  In any discipline the various schools of thought argue and defend their party or community’s position.  Once you become a part of a community and turn into a true believer, with the help of the community, you will see the world through the eyes of the community. You will have acquired their world view.

I think you might want to spend some time thinking about this metaphysical force that you call reason.  Where does it come from and why should we trust it?  Can you trust reason totally when you believe that it comes from an unreasonable cause (evolution)?  If our minds are nothing more than blank slates, how can we know that the information that is written on them, including the idea of reason, is true? Could everything simply be created by our society and culture, even the idea of reason?  What about the concepts of freedom and virtue? Are these concepts real or just an illusion of  the biological illusion maker that we call our brain?  Could consciousness come from a universal consciousness, which exists outside of our brain and nature?

Therefore, I think a man should begin a search for God by asking why he does or does not will  to have a belief in God. It may be reason or it may be ones will or even one’s passion more than reason.

You say that you, do not believe because you want to believe the truth?  Well, atheism empties the truth of any real meaning[2].  In the end what different would it make? To the materialist or the atheist truth is nothing more than an illusion; that is, if their idea of truth is going to be consistent with their beliefs.  The only materialists who are consistent are those who have embraced nihilism.

Nietzsche was one of the few atheistic philosophers of his day and is still, to this day, one of the few that had the courage not only to embrace nihilism but to tell others of the consequences and the logical outcome of atheism.  He understood and believed rightfully so, that atheism will lead to nihilism and anarchy, if it is embraced and consistently lived out.  I believe that the French Revolution is an example of what happens when people lose their faith.

Nietzsche, said ‘truth is fiction’, and if you are a materialist you should either be honest enough to stop claiming truth in any fashion other than “my truth” because for the materialist, truth  only exists in each person’s mind.  At  best, reason can only define truth as what works for the individual and the tribe.

In your search for God by all means use reason.  However, do not make it an absolute,  for if you do you will find it chasing its own tail or falling into a series of unending doubts and questions.  Reason was given to us as a gift from God and is a fantastic tool and has brought many blessings, but if it is misused it is like a wild animal that can kill you.  It can bring you closer to God or it can cause you to fall into the abyss of unceasing doubting. That is if you have the courage to go there.

[1] I recommend the reading of William James essay on “The Will to Believe”.

[2] It seems that as atheism has increased, so has postmodernism.  Postmodernism is a philosophical position that teaches that true is a personal thing or is socially created, but has no real ground in reality. This questions the very concept of reason. Some investigation will demonstrate that most postmodern’s are unbelievers. It is extremely hard for the Christian to embrace such a philosophy that would deny human reason.

A Skeptics Takes a Look at Science Part II

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Skeptics Takes a Look at Science

Part II

Personal Observations on Science as Salvation

 

Let me share with some personal observations that I hope will help the true believers to put science in proper perceptive.

  1. It seems from my point of view that much of modern science is no longer based on observation and experimentation, but rather on metaphysical cues, e.g. string theory.  Cues that they spend an inordinate amount time and money chasing, trying to convince us  that they are truthful. Why?  Then there is the huge amount of money spent proofing things that are supposedly already proven. An example is their constant chasing for the missing links of Darwinian’s evolution.  If Darwin’s evolution is a fact why are they sill chasing the evidence as though their life depends on it?  If they have overwhelming evidence like they claim, why keep looking for more? This seem to be a case where their behaves or action do not square with their words or beliefs. I was taught when studying counseling  not to believe what people said but to watch their action to know the truth of what the belief. Of course, scientist may be trying to falsify the theory, but how can you falsify a fact? The truth is that you cannot falsify facts. The problem with many scientist is that they really think their theories are facts. When a theory becomes fact, it is no longer science but something else. It can be religion, philosophy or history  but it cannot be science. Much of Darwinian evolution can never be a fact or even a good scientific theory, because the scientific method cannot be applied to it. Note Gee’s book “Deep Time”. Of course you can change the definition of science,  which I believe is not to far off. The age of proving things with empirical evidence is just about over and when happen the age of science will be over.
  2. In general the scientific community claims the higher ground of being free of bias. This belief is absolutely not true. There is no human being that is free of bias much less a community of human beings . All human knowledge is tainted by ideology and the spirit of the age. The best that any community can do is to be aware of the problem and try their best to avoid biases, which comes from ideology and undetected presuppositions.  The scientific method was created to overcome subjectivism of every kind, but to an increasing degree these fundamental principles are being set aside. For those who have either forgotten or have abandoned the scientific method: (1) Make observations on some area of interest. (2) Create a theory that explains those observations (3)Make predictions based on that theory (4) Run experiments and make new observations to test the predictions (5) If the predictions prove wrong (that is, the new observations do not match the predictions) go to step two. (6) If the predictions prove correct, go to step three.

The basic presumption of the scientific community is atheistic[1], which in itself is a bias. You could say the scientific community is “no gods land” for many who practice science.   One of the basic law of the community is “You cannot use God to explain natural causes.” Therefore, the community actual imposes a presupposition or a dogma on its members.   If you violate this dogma you will be expelled or excommunicated from the community. Taken to  extremes this unwritten law can blind science to a world of possibilities. Fortunately , not all scientist take it to the extreme.

I once asked a scientist about this and he told me that the law was put in place to distinguish natural philosophy from natural science.  His explanation sound logical until I began to think about it. He never did explained to me how a man who was a believer in a God could practice science without deny his most basic beliefs?  And why should a believer have to do science as an atheist?  Cannot a believer do experiments and observations as well as an atheist? Is not atheism based on a metaphysical philosophy of materialism that has nothing to do with science? Why the inconsistency? Why not push atheism out of science? William James the father of American pragmatism said this about the neutrality rule of modern science which in essence is a will to atheism. “I, therefore, for one cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or willfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game.  I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.  That for me is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no matter what  the kinds of truth might materially be (The Will to Believe).

Another scientist told me that they had to leave God out of science because to bring the idea of God in would hurt the scientific enterprise because people would appeal to what he referred to as the “God of the gaps”. What he was saying is that if you bring God in to science people would stop looking for answer to the gaps or problems with a theory and in turn would just make an appeal to God. My response was, what do you do now without the god of the gaps? His answer was, we assume that when our knowledge increases that we will be able to fill the gaps. At first I thought this was a fair answer and then I came to realize that it was the only answer. However, this answer is not without problems. The problem is that it bias the scientist toward filling in the gaps at any cost, for it easier to fill gaps than to falsify and create new theories or simply to say we do not know. It is also the same answer which a theologian could use to explain the gaps in theology. However, if this argument was used by theologian it would not be accepted by many scientist as a satisfactory answer. Why should we accept it for them.

  1.  I question a of lot of science because many scientist are fundamentalist, which take metaphors literally and therefore distort them and the reality that they point to . For example  many of them must exalt nature to the place of a metaphysical absolute or embrace chaos. Most cannot embrace chaos so they must put their faith in some cosmic order, which they call nature. Because of their dogma that you cannot appeal to a God, they must refer to the cosmic order with a different symbol than god.  They choose the symbol of nature, which they believe is  “the hold show[2]” that directs and control all things, i.e. their absolute. Thus, nature is used as a symbol that replace the concept of God.  For this reason scientists could accept nature as god or even a god within nature, e.g. man or some alien life form, but they cannot tolerate a God that is over or outside of nature, which created nature as the God of the Bible. The hold show must be the alp and omega or nothing.  The hold show must be the eternal one. Of course, nature being a metaphor of a large  unseen system is itself a creation of the mind of man and is used as a metaphor to express a metaphysical concept which science need to keep from slipping into chaos. How can you do science if there are no laws of nature governing the universe? And how can you have laws without a law-maker? Well, you have nature where the laws are simple there without begin or end. Sound a lot like God. Could we be playing the game, keep the concept, but change the name of the symbol for it?
  1. It also seem the older the discipline of science gets the more it resembles a religion or an ideology. It seem to have its holy men that you dare not question like Darwin, Freud, and even Max. Of course, Freud and Max have fallen from grace. However, there was a time when to question these pillars of the faith you would be brand a heretic and  be excommunicated  form the community.  Science as religion also has its apologist and its evangelist who guard and propagate the faith[3]. Scientism says you cannot believe in a heaven and be rational, but you can believe in a universe with 11 dimensions and be a genius. In other words, you cannot believe in a two story building (heaven and earth) but you can believe in a 11 story skyscraper as long as God did not make it.

One scientist told me that science is not like religion because it is self-correcting.  However, the Christian religion has had from the begin prophets that have call the faithful to change and reform. What would you call the reformation, but a self correction?

  1. It is also obvious that a large number of scientist has been brought under the influence of the ruling class and its money, if not directly, indirectly by the placing of grant money with those that will see things the way the oligarchy see them. Of course, this is the exactly the same thing that happen to the church during the dark ages. We have examples of this happing in science were science was directed by the German Nazis and in Russian by the communist. In Russian, science was direct not only by the scientific method but by the ideology of materialism and the state. They even had a church they called “the church of scientific Atheism”. It is truly amazing to see how money and power controls and directs the march of science, but what is more amazing is the fact that so few see it.
  1. Many who have placed their faith in science base it on the continuous progress of the discipline. They believe that science will continue to progress at its present rate or its past rate. They fail to see that there are limits to human knowledge and that already the number of large discoveries are dwindling. Many of the so-called new discoveries are really the development and refining of things already know. We could say that the discipline of science has picked all the low fruit off the tree of scientific knowledge. The outcome is that it will become harder and harder and cost more and more to pick the higher fruit. It is very likely that we will reach a omega point where human knowledge will reach its end.[4]

You might say that all of this is very pessimistic about science. However, I disagree, it is not pessimistic but realistic. For when we are talking about science we are talking about human knowledge and human knowledge is finite, which means it has limits and is often filled with Gaps and errors which will never be filled or corrected. The belief in unlimited progress is an illusion that denies our finiteness. This illusion in the end will unravel much of the progress that we have made and take us into an abyss of human arrogance.

[1] Richard Lewontin (evolutionary geneticist), “[The public] take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” “Billions and Billions of Demons,” p. 31.

[2] That is everything that is, which means that there cannot be anything outside of her or above her. Sounds a little like God. Some are using the word universe instead of nature as the ultimate reality.

[3] Neil DeGrasse is an example of an apologist and evangelist for atheistic science.

[4] Many scholars feel that physics as we know it as the queen of science has reached its end. The science of biology will probably be the heir to the throne at least for a short time. However, it to will come to its end.

A Skeptic Takes a Look at Science Part I

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Skeptic Takes a Look at Science

Part I

It would like to share with you why I am skeptical of many of the theories of modern science.  My motive for writing this is not to put down science but to put people’s understanding of it into a proper perspective.  That perspective is this, science is not God and it is not your salvation from death or nature.  Those that put their faith in it for salvation will be sadly disappointed.

My concern for Peoples attitude toward science began to mount when talking to a young man at a funeral about death; something he seemed very uncomfortable to talk about.  Shortly into our conversation he told me that he believed by the time he approached old age that science would discover a cure for death.  First I informed him death was not a sickness or a disease, but rather a law of nature and there was no cure for it, at least by science.

One of my complaints about modern science is its unspoken attitude toward nature.  It seems to think that nature is an enemy or a disease that needs to be overcome or cured[1].  For all I know it may be an enemy but if it is, it is one, where I don’t think we’re going overcome or cure it unless we evolve into gods.  And at the present rate of evolution I don’t think that’s going to happen before sun burns out.

In contrast to the above young man, I talked to a real scientist that headed up a research group in a large university and asked her if she thought that science would overcome cancer in the near future.  Her answer was forth right and struck an authentic cord of realism.  She said that they really did not know what caused cancer.  She went on to say that science had made tremendous advancements in treating cancer but it is lagging behind in the understanding of what causes it.  She said the latest theory was that it was a combination of a virus, the immune system, and genetics; she did not see a cure on the near horizon.  Then she dropped the bomb, when I asked hear what her personal opinion was about cancer.  She said she believed it was death and if they found a cure for it, it would just break out in some new form.  Now that is realism.

The above young man who had accepted the myth of science as salvation has accepted a false religion.  The young scientist had a proper perspective of science and a realistic view of salvation and science.  Science can hide you from nature for a time and it can heal you from some of the wounds of nature, but in the end it cannot save you from it, nature will kill you.  So if you are looking for ultimate salvation you had better look elsewhere than science.

[1] Some want to overcome it and others want to worship it.

A letter to a Christian Science Teacher

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

A letter to a Christian Science Teacher

Your interpretation of the Bible seems to align with those that you dislike i.e. fundamentalist, and your defense of science seems to contradict your statement that it is not a religion.  You defend science as though it is your religion and the way you defend it seems to be a little over the top. If you view it simply as a method of finding the truth i.e. the scientific method why the big fuss. No one disagrees with the scientific method. The question is do scientists really follow the scientific method? I personal think not. The scientific method is used pretty much to make the scientific community respectable and they keep it as law about as well as the Jews kept the Law of Moses and Christians the commandments of Jesus.

I think it is self-evident that in many people’s minds science has become a metaphysical concept, which goes way beyond people in white jackets applying the scientific method to their research.  Science has become the authority that people appeal to in a secular atheistic culture and in this, for many science has evolved into a new religion which has been labeled “scientism”. It used to be that people would appeal to the Bible or the church as the authority for their statements. “The Bible says so or the church says so” now it is nothing but science says.  For many in our culture the only knowledge that has not been debunked and found useless is that which is called science.  Of course, this is nonsense; however it is fostered by many in the scientific community.

To me there is far more truth in a good work of art than in most scientific theories or more power in a song than all the science in the world. Science has given us many toys and made life easier in some ways, but I think it has not given many people meaning, peace of mind, joy or love. In fact, many scientists are arrogant jackasses.  “Knowledge puffs up love builds up”. Science does not teach this the Bible does. Moreover, the false god of science has taken us to the very edge of the abyss. It has given evil men the power to take away our humanity and turn us in to machines. The state is already using it to manipulate the herd in any direction it wishes. Science is now the handmaid of the state as religion was a century ago.  I personally, value my freedom more than comfort, ease, and pleasure which science promises.  To me science is like religion, it is human and therefore needs to be criticized and critiqued often.  The power that it has is equal to that of religion and is therefore one of the powers that the Bible speaks about as being oppressive to human beings.  Remember that our battle is not with flesh and blood but rather with the metaphysical principalities and powers.  Those heavenly powers have their counterpart on this earth and science as metaphysics is one of them. What do you think stands behind the metaphysical concept of science?

The way I see it, science is the false god of many worldly people and even some that profess Christ. It promises them salvation if they will give it their money and commitment.  It promises health and wealth to all that follow it. It claims to be able to predict the future (global warming), something the Bible says only God can do. Not only does it claim to know the future, it also claims it can control it. It also boasts of its miracles of healing and its signs and wonders. To me this sounds a little like the antichrist in the book of Thessalonians and surely sounds a lot like false religion and not true science. Of course, I think science is what you make of it, but for many they have made it their faith and religion.

Remember what the apostle Paul says, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders,  and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie  and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess 2:8-12).

Am I saying that science is the antichrist? Absolutely not , but when used and controlled by bad men it become as dangerous as religion that is controlled by bad men. Like religion it can empower evil men which use their power to oppress humanity.

“Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

 

 

 

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Extraordinary evidence

Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”  The problem with this is that Sagan does not define what would constitute an extraordinary claim[1] or what would represent extraordinary evidence.  So, no matter what evidence you give the skeptic he will simply say it is not evidence or it is not extraordinary evidence.  The skeptic then becomes the judge of what is evidence, what is not evidence, and what is extraordinary evidence.  From this simple observation I would have to conclude that evidence is for the seeker or for a person who has the will to believe.  A seeker or a person who has a will to believe is surely not a person who has a prior commitment to skepticism.

 

Usually, what the skeptic wants is absolute or overwhelming evidence.  In other words he wants you to beat him into submission.  Of course, this is a requirement and condition that many skeptics only apply to the existence of God.  For example, many of them believe in the string theory and the existence of aliens, both of which have no evidence at the present time, yet they believe these highly speculative theories.  So, what is the difference between these  beliefs and the belief in a deity?  These theories seem to be extraordinary claims, which means they should all have extraordinary evidence to prove them.  However, they have none and yet they are believed.  This is said not to disagree with Carl Sagan but rather to show the inconsistencies of skeptics and their bias towards faith in God.  Many of them have a prior commitment to materialism and atheism[2].

We also need to point out that you can prove very little to a person who has a will to doubt.  René Descartes the famous French philosopher believed that you could only prove to yourself your own existence.  Thus his famous statement, “I think therefore I am”[3].  When people demand proof before they will believe something, they are asking for a lot.  Proof and evidence seem to be somewhat in the eyes of the beholder.  Absolute proof cannot be given, because a person could claim that the thing to believe, or the evidence, is an illusion or that we live in a matrix where everything is not real.  On the other hand, there seems to be room for different degrees of evidence which point to the truthfulness of something.  There can be circumstantial evidence which is inferred from other things and there can be eyewitness evidence.

However, I do believe there is some extraordinary evidence for the existence of God.  That extraordinary evidence comes in the form of miracles.  By miracles I mean something that cannot be explained by natural causes or by the laws of nature.  When we use the word miracle we also are inferring that the things that we are talking about are very rare or only happened once in the history of the universe.  These miracles are (1) That something came from nothing. (2) That part of the something was alive. (3) That some of the living stuff had consciousness (4) That something which was alive changed into something else.

Let’s look at each one of the above.  First, that something came from nothing.[4]  This miracle happened when the universe came into existence.  Science refers to this event as the big bang theory.  If you wanted a detailed explanation of what happened in the big bang, you need to go to science.  If you go to the book of Beginnings (Genesis) it simply says in  concise speech, “In the begin God created the heavens and earth”.  In this we find that the something came not from nothing, but was rather created by a something (God).  For the how of that, you would have to go back to science again.

My question is this, what is more of extraordinary claim.  That God, an intelligent being, created the heavens and the earth or the claim of the naturalist atheist, that something came from nothing.  If you believe that something came from nothing please send me your extraordinary evidence.

The second miracle is that a part of the something that was created is alive.  When we look at the universe, its order and its complexity, we must stand in awe not only of the universe but also of the fact that there is life in it.  Life is a miracle and there is no evidence  of life coming out of nonlife today[5]. That secures the creation of life a place among miracles of miracles.

The third miracle is that some of the living stuff had consciousness; certainly we are talking about the existence of man.  The fact that the universe gave birth to a conscious being like man is an extraordinary happening beyond imagination.  There is one thing that is more miraculous than consciousness  and it is that conscious beings could believe that consciousness came from unconsciousness.

The fourth miracle is that something that was alive, changed into something else.  Yes, I am talking about evolution or continuous development.  Did you ever think about how much of a miracle, evolution is?  In essence the universe and life does not exist but it is becoming and we do not know what it is becoming.  Some say it is dying, but I don’t think so.  I think it is simply changing, growing and maturing.  Could it be evolving toward the omega point?

A part of this growth and development is still another miracle which was the resurrection of Christ into a higher life form, or the new being.  His resurrection was the last evolution of mankind into his final and complete form.  In his pre-resurrection form he was called “a root out of dry ground” which expressed the unlikelihood of his existence.  His existence like the other miracles was a onetime happening that is hard to explain.  In his death and resurrection he demonstrates something coming from nothing, something that was dead coming to life, and something changing from one state to another and becoming something else.  In this, he is the one that all existence points to. As scripture reads, “He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”.  He is the over man of Nietzsche or the omega man who is over all of creation.

I know that all of these miracles can be explained away by materialists and their tall tale of naturalism.  They tell an unbelievable story of how these things happened and then declare the story as evidence that all these miracles just happened naturally without an intelligent guide behind it.  In other words they were just accidents.  It is up to the reader to choose what they will believe.  Accidents or miracles?

[1] Sagan being an atheist or at best an agnostic only used this criteria when talking about religious questions. He seemed to have no problem with the speculative theories of physics, i.e. string theory, big bang theory and black holes. All of which are based on very thin scientific evidence. Sagan is a classic example of scientific bias, which comes from a prior commitment to materialism.

[2]  Richard Lewontin (evolutionary geneticist), s,” hints at this predisposition and bias when he says “[The public] take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” “Billions and Billions of Demons,” page 31 Quota in Never Pure by Shapin Steven

[3] A statement by the seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes. “I think; therefore I am” was the end of the search Descartes conducted for a statement that could not be doubted. He found that could not doubt that he himself existed, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place. In Latin (the language in which Descartes wrote), the phrase is “Cogito, ergo sum.”

[4] “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing” By Lawrence M. Krauss is an attempt to explain the universe without God  or a first cause. The book is a disappointment, for the nothing that it propounds that the universe came from, turns out to be a something.   Jan 1, 2013 by Lawrence M. Krauss and Richard Dawkins

[5] There was a time when some scientists believed in spontaneous generation, however, this theory was disproven by Louis Pasteur when he established beyond a shadow of a doubt that spontaneous generation is impossible under present day conditions. Even if science were to create life in the laboratory, it would only confirm that the lesser comes from the greater. For such an experiment would show that it took consciousness to arrange the elements to make life.  In 1953 the Miller-Urey experiment created some of the chemical ingredients that are found in basic life forms.  However, these scientists’ claim that they had done this by reproducing early earth conditions has been proven false.  Plus, it is basically a false presupposition that they created life.  A few of the building blocks of life is not life.  A few bricks are not a house.  Even if science were to create life in the laboratory, it would only confirm that the lesser comes from the greater.  For such an experiment would show that it took consciousness to arrange the elements to make life.

 

One Thing Missing-One Thing Missing An Argument Against the Existence of God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

One Thing Missing

An Argument Against the Existence of God

 Not long after I started to study atheism, it dawned on me that atheists lack one thing in their philosophy. That one thing is an argument against the existence of God. Now, this is not to say that they do not have arguments, for they have numerous arguments ranging from the nature of the world and the universe to arguments attempting to prove the superiority of their reasoning power over believers in God. They have arguments showing the source of faith and the evils of religion. However, the one thing they lack is a clearly defined argument against the existence of God.

This is one reason why they are continuously trying to shift the burden of proof to those that believe in God. Of course, their arguments about the burden of proof somehow, in their  way of thinking, it seems to further justify their arguments or should I say their lack of arguments for the non-existence of God. However, shifting the burden of proof to the believer is really a confession that they have no actual argument for their faith. If they did have a real argument, we would hear little about the burden of proof.

What about their arguments from science? They have no arguments from science[1]. The so-called arguments from science are mostly the pointing out of things that we now understand which in the past were not understood and were contributed to God by some religious men. The atheist often uses the expression, “God of the gaps”[2] as though the only reason for belief in God was to fill in the gaps in human knowledge (an assertion without any evident to support it). In fact, theologians were warning Christians not to use God in this way before atheistic scientists even came up with the idea or the expression.

Some unbelievers claim that religion slows down the march of human knowledge because people will fill the gaps either by ignoring them or by filling them in with God[3].  On the other hand, a brief survey of the history of science reveals that many discoveries,  including some of the most outstanding ones were discovered by believers. I think the truth is that dogma is what slows down progress in any discipline and science has its own brand and share of dogma. If you work against the established tradition or dogma in science, just  as in religion, you will be ostracized from the community. This God of the gap’s argument is a quibble and not a real argument, for it says nothing about God but rather demonstrates how ignorant or indifferent some men were in the past to science, and how some of them justified their ignorance.

Take, for instance, the big-bang theory, which explains how the universe came into existence. The atheists will say your see “You religious folks could not explain the creation of the universe, so you simply said God did it” e.g. the God of the gaps[4]. The believer could simply respond “We now know how God did it thanks to science.” Science tells us how, but faith tells us who; that a super-consciousness did it. He started with creating the universe out of nothing as taught in the opening verses of the Bible and then ordered it from the simple to complex. All this was taught in scripture while science was still teaching that the universe was eternal, without beginning or end.  By the way, it was a Catholic priest who first set forth the theory that is now known as the big bang[5]. It seems he was not retarded by the God of the gaps.

It is amazing that very time science finds the mechanism that God used to create or make things the atheist heralds that God is no long needed to explain things. However, finding out how God  accomplished something does not prove that he doesn’t exist, it simply tells us how he did it. Learning how Henry Ford  built the first car doesn’t prove that Henry did not existence.

The only way unbelievers can prove that God does not exist, is by starting with the dogma or presupposition that He does not exist. But, if your view (opinion) of the evidence comes from a presupposition or a dogma, you are simple reasoning in circles. Your suppositions prove the evidence, and the evidence proves your suppositions. Now, that sounds more like faith than reason and more like religion than science. Yet, this is exactly what atheists often do. In the end, the God of the gaps is just another straw man to deflect people’s attention away from the lack of real evidence. Remember that the explanation is not the evidence. To explain everything with a naturalistic explanation is not proof in itself that your explanation is indeed a fact.

In reading the material of many atheists, I have discovered that many of their supposed arguments against God appear to be more like arguments against organized religion. Of course, if you do not have any facts or an  argument against one problem (the existence of God) you need to find something else, another straw man. In arrogating their  argument about the non-existence of God, they have chosen religion as their primary straw man. I had often wondered why atheists resist the idea that there is a difference between religion and faith in God, and then it dawned on me, that to make a distinction between faith and religion would take away their straw man of religion. Once faith and religion are separated, they would have no metaphysical concept to criticize. Atheism needs organized religion in order to survive[6]. It needs a target that it can construct arguments against. It cannot construct a sound argument against God so it must target religion.

In what I am about to say I do not wish to leave the impression that I am for or against religion. However, we should strive for an accurate appraisal of religion.  When atheists argue against religion, they seem to try to focus on all the negative aspects of religion and they totally ignore all the good it has done. It appears that they believe that if you can heap enough dung on religion, it might kill it.  For some this tactic may work, but not for the honest person.  In most cases the target of  choice is the Christian religion, for it is the biggest target and is hard to miss. It is made up of billions of people throughout the ages and has attracted all types of people, some good and some bad. Like people in general, it has done good and evil. However, to be fair, in the past before the welfare state came into existence it had taken care of the poor for centuries, and it continues to minister to the poor and disadvantaged around the world. It laid the foundation for Western civilization by building schools and hospitals. It has resisted the spread of totalitarian governments around the world, which includes atheistic communism. On the other side of the coin, where are the hospitals or nursing homes, which were built by atheists? In my experience (which I admit is limited) I have never seen an organized attempt by atheists’ to minister to people in nursing homes or hospitals. Yet they rail on the evils of the Christian church. At their best, atheists use the absolute power of the state to collect money in the form of taxation to help people, which seems to be nothing more than a form coercion, which they somehow interpret as a moral virtue.

This is not to say that religion does not have its problems. But, should we expect anything different? Religion is made up of human beings and humans have a propensity for messing things up. Where is the human system that has not failed to live up to its ideals? I think the best,  that humans can do is to make sure that the system  they cling to offer a higher vision of human potential, but we should not be surprised when they fail. This holding out of a high vision of human potential, I believe is done to varying degrees by most religions. Of course, like everything, there are good religion and bad religion. This is simply a fact that many atheists do not recognize.  The radical atheist believes that religion poisons everything, and this faith demonstrates their distorted view of reality. It is totally out of balance and is just not true. What I am calling for is a fair and accurate view of religion, which many atheists have not done.

However, ones view of religion has nothing to do with the question of God. At this point, the matter of the utilitarian nature of religion is a question that can be debated, but is seldom actually  brought up by atheists.  Religion is typically brought up as a straw man by atheists to divert people’s attention away from the question of God’s existence, since they have no real answers or arguments. At best, they raise some questions and make shallow attempts to use science to prove their faith and dogmas.

Some may reply that their conclusion from science, that there is no God, is inferred from  scientific fact. That may be true, but inferences are not facts. Facts, like stone lying on the ground, tell you nothing[7].  An inference is simply your interpretation of the facts. Inferences or interpretations are not based on reason alone. Reason is one part of the equation and is never alone. There) are hidden biases and suppositions in any inference. An honest person of faith will admit this by adding the element of faith to the equation. It is the atheist who hangs on to the enlightenment faith and dogma that reason can stand alone. In many cases, reason is the handmaid of one’s passion and dogma.

In my personal discussions with atheists, again I admit that it’s limited, I have sensed that their views of God and religion are influenced by strong passions of anger and hatred, which seem for most to be void of any real personal source. I have asked them what religion had done to them, to make them so bitter toward it. Some retort that their father made them go to church or that their parents were religious, and it did not help them; they were hypocrites. Others have pointed to all the bad done by religion in the past. But, does religion hurt people or do people hurt people.  You see religion is neutral. Its character is made up of the people in it.  In this, it is like government; it can be good or bad depending on the men and women in it. I can hardly believe that reasonable people will use reasons like this to reject God or for that matter, even religion. However, there is a reason for their rationale and in most cases; no one will ever know the true root of their unbelief. For those interested in reading more about the possible reasons for atheism see my article entitled the “Roots of Atheism, The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist.”

[1] Werner Heisenberg physicist and Nobel prize winner for physics confirms  this, “If anyone wants to argue from the indubitable fact that the world exists to a cause of this existence, then this assumption does not contradict our scientific knowledge at a single point.  Scientists do not have a single argument or fact with which they would contradict such an assumption, even if it was about a cause which–how could it be otherwise– would evidently have to be sought outside our three-dimensional world” Wermer Heisenberg quoted by Hans Kung Pages 79-80 in “The beginning of All Things: Science and Religion”.

[2] The expression “God of the gaps” was coined by a Christian theologian Henry Drummond. He used it to point out that the Christian should never use God to fill in the gaps of human knowledge.  Strangely the expression was picked up by some scientists who accused Christians of doing the very thing Drummond condemned.

[3] Atheists and scientist might consider that early man was just not interested in filling the gaps. History bear out that they were wholly capable of filling a number of the gaps if they so desired. However, they were busy building languages, systems of thought, religion and political theory, which were a necessary foundation for modern science.

[4] Christians and Jews have believed for centuries the universe was created. It was science, which lagged behind for thousands of years. Before the Big Bang theory science believed that the universe was eternal with no beginning or ending.

[5]  Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest, was the first to propose the bi… g bang theory and was given approval by the Pope to publish it.

[6] Atheism is a negative parasitical worldview which is wholly dependent on religion. Without religion it would contribute nothing to humanity.

[7] See my article on “Rocks on The Ground” on lyleduell.me.

Chaos or Cosmos? An Argument for the Existence of God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Chaos or Cosmos?

An Argument for the Existence of God

When we observe cultures around the world, we see what seems to be a continuous declension into disorder when things are left alone and in turn a constant reordering of things by human intelligence. We see this tendency in every culture, a disordering and a reordering. Otherwise any culture would soon slip into chaos. Moreover, when I examine my own personal life it is obvious that if I neglect to organize and reorganize my stuff, it will soon fall into disorder, suffer damage and eventually fall apart. I find the same thing is true in my thought life; it seems that I spend a great deal of time keeping my thought world in order. When a person’s thoughts are out of order, we say they have a mental disorder or that they are crazy. Don’t you find it strange that we must continually keep our thoughts ordered? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Who is the I, which keeps the thoughts of me in order?” It seems that everything that is ordered must have an intelligence to set it into order and maintain it. The ordering does not just happen; it takes consciousness to set it into order.

However, when we look at the quantum world, it seems at first to be chaotic, but we know that there must be something working there, setting it in order, else it would fly apart and we know that out of the chaos of the quantum world comes the cosmos[1] or orderly world and universe. This raises the question, what kind of force keeps it in order and is that force unintelligent or intelligent? The naturalist tells us that the universe simply fell together and that it maintains itself without any intelligence to order it. But is that really what we see going on in the universe, our world and in ourselves?

The problems for naturalism are huge, but one of the biggest dilemmas is showing how order came out of disorder, without the aid of intelligence. This is like saying that reason came out of non-reason. They point to evolution and natural selection as the cause, but natural selection presupposes something to pick from, something which previously existed, something which has already been ordered. Natural selection never can be causal when it comes to ordering things; it always starts with something and develops it. It must start with something that is already ordered. If naturalists start with non-directed or Darwinian evolution, they are starting with a mindless process and are claiming that an irrational process ordered the universe. If this were the case, how could they trust their own reasoning?[2] Why should you trust the well-developed brain of a monkey? Darwin himself had doubts about mans power to reason correctly. He said in a letter to a friend “with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”[3]

In all areas of life, we see the law or principle of “order coming out of disorder. This raises the question; where does this law come from and what is the force behind it? There can only be two hypotheses that can answer this question. (1) The hypotheses of the naturalist who says basically it just happened, or the law always existed. In other words, it was all an accident or that’s just the way things are. Some in this school go so far as to say that the order we see in the universe is an illusion and it only appears to be orderly. This is no answer but rather the quibble of a man in a corner with no place to run. To me, all the answers of the naturalist seem to be nothing more than begging the question. (2) Then there is the theistic hypothesis that a cosmic order, i.e. God created and ordered the universe[4] and in turn keeps it ordered by his divine power. This is not to say that the forces he used are beyond our discovery. Sometime in the future it is quite feasible that we will understand these forces. However, discovering the “how” will never do away with the cause as many atheists or naturalists would like to think.

[1] The word derives from the Greek term κόσμος (kosmos), literally meaning “order” or “ornament” and metaphorically “world,” and is antithetical to the concept of chaos.

[2]  In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis wrote, “if minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees”  (page 230).

[3] Darwin’s quota: Letter to William Graham, Down (July 3, 1881), In the life and letters of Charles Darwin including  an Autobiographical Chapter, edited by Francis Darwin (London: John Murry, Albernarle Street, 1887), Vol. 1, 315-316.

[4] To say that God created does not mean he created everything out of nothing instantly. He could have created things fast or slow. Seeing He is outside of time space-time.