Tag: Apolgetics

The Nothingness that is Something

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

The Nothingness that is Something

What is the nothingness that is outside space-time, i.e. that which was before space-time existed? You might be saying hold on, you can’t speak about nothingness, because nothingness means nothing. Does it? Does not the law of causality say that something cannot come from nothing and that the cause must be equal to or greater than the effect. So, when we say that something came from nothing are we not violating the law of causality? Yes, that is why reason will take us to a something instead of a nothing. And it is science that gives us insight to what this something is like.

What do we know about the nothingness that is outside space-time? If we accept the law of causality, we also have to accept that whatever the universe came from, must be greater than the universe. This tell us something about the prime mover; It, He or She must be extremely powerful. So powerful that It is beyond a humans capacity to understand and articulate. This deduction is based on the fact that anything in which existence came out of, must have had its origin in the prime mover. This means that everything, to some degree, was somehow a part of this prime mover before space-time existed. Therefore everything that exists, existed in Him and came forth from Him in some way.

Therefore, whatever we see or experience in the creation was in some form a part of the prime movers consciousness before the beginning of time–space and this constitutes a part of his nature. The implications of this are staggering. Since we see in the creation a mind, or consciousness, this would necessitate, based on the law of causality, that the prime mover would possess consciousness far superior to everything in the creation, for the creation cannot be greater than the creator. We might refer to the consciousness of the prime mover as super consciousness. What would super consciousness encompass? For one thing, it would include super knowledge. We could say it was all knowing; for the essence of all things was designed, created and made by its consciousness.

On the other hand, nothingness is the void created when something is removed, or it is the absence of something. For example, darkness is the absence of light, darkness in itself is nothingness. In like manner, evil is the absence of good and it is equal to anarchy or chaos. Chaos is the absence of order or you could say the absence of law. The reason the universe is a cosmos and not a chaos is the fact that there are laws that govern it[1].

Because there are laws in the universe we can also know that this super consciousness is principled and creates laws to govern all things. These laws reflect the very nature of the uncreated one. There is no corner of the universe that is not controlled by his laws. This is the reason and the grounds or foundation on which we reason, do science and mathematics. Without the first principle of philosophy, which states that the world is an orderly place governed by principles or laws, there would be no reasoning, science or mathematics. It is unbelievable that some mindless force would create these laws. If there are laws then there must be an intelligent being that created them. It would follow that because there are principles and law, there has to be a something and not nothingness.

Some have responded by saying that they can believe in a super consciousness, but not in one that has a personality[2]. But why not? If that quality that we call personality exists, which we know it does for we each share in it, why would not a super consciousness have a super personality and even the emotions associated with personality. Emotions like super love which would be the complete negation of hate and fear. Of course, super personality and how it is integrated with super consciousness would be impossible for humans to understand seeing we cannot understand our own consciousness, personality and emotions.

Science tells us that there are four forces in nature; gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear forces. However, there is one that they have missed. That force is life. All life is a force that acts on the material world and can copy the prime mover by making decisions and acting on them. In the Greek language the word for this life force is called spirit. We know that all living things have a life force that animates them and gives them the unique thing that we call life. Because there is life we know that the prime mover must be in itself the giver and very essence of life. As the prime mover does not exist, for he is existence. He likewise does not have life, but rather he is life or spirit. It is interesting to note that Jesus said that God is spirit not a spirit[3]. We might interpret spirit as a life force that has personality.

From the above we can gather that super personality and super consciousness is beyond our understanding and beyond our languages ability to explain. It is beyond dispute that we cannot comprehend the Wholly Other but we can apprehend Him by studying the things revealed about him in His creation, this includes the study of nature. From a biblical perspective this would especially include man for the Scriptures say that man was created in the image and likeness of the super consciousness.

[1] The law of causation is being question by some scientists that are trying to justify their materialistic worldview.

[2] I do not believe in a personal God that does my personal bidding. However, I do believe in a super consciousness that knows how many hairs are on my head.

[3] John 4:24.

I Believe (An essay on science and faith)

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

Author:  Skip Reith

Date:  9/26/2015

I Believe

I believe!  These two little words contain a lot of power.  These two little words are also misused, misunderstood, abused, and often ridiculed.  What do we mean when we say I believe?  That is what I will explore today.

Belief is that understanding a person has when they analyze and process all of the facts and information they have on a particular subject.  Belief can come from direct observation (I’ve been to New York so I believe it exists); or belief can come from indirect information – that is from an authority on the subject (I’ve never been to Tokyo, but I believe it exists because I have been told by maps and people who have been there that it exists).

One important note before I continue.  When I use the term authority here, I am not talking about some governmental organization.  I am talking about an expert on the subject whose knowledge, skill, and background gives them a special place in the hierarchy of understanding on the subject.  An authoritative source is one step up from an expert.  If the authoritative source is a person then that source not only is an expert, but that person also has a breadth and depth of knowledge around the main subject that allows them broad understanding on the subject.  If the source is not a person, then the source is complete and detailed.  For example, a professional astronomer with 30 years experience is an authority on astronomy.  The complete body of written papers and books on astronomy is an authoritative source on the subject.  In addition, an authority on the subject is one that other people agree and believe is an authority on the subject.  Is possible to think a person is an authority on a subject when they are actually not an expert and may have little knowledge in the subject.  (This technique is used all of the time by advertisers.  They get a famous person to promote their product.  Since people know the authority of the famous person’s specialty, they subconsciously assign authority to this other, advertised subject as well.)

Let’s look at belief in more detail.  Belief and knowledge are similar, but not identical.  Belief is your understanding of a situation, but you may not be able to prove that understanding to another.  Knowledge is a direct understanding of something that you can easily prove.  I know one plus one equals two and I can prove it in a number of ways, including demonstrating the summation with two pennies.  I know New York exists (or at least it did) because I was there.  I cannot prove its existence now because I am not there.  I can show evidence of my trip (pictures and souvenirs) but until I go back I can’t definitively prove its existence.  So, at the moment I believe that New York exists.  My belief in the existence of Tokyo is indirect.  My only proof is the maps and pictures I have seen of Tokyo.  If someone does not accept the authority of my proofs then they will not believe in Tokyo.

Science is the attempt to quantify beliefs and turn them into provable knowledge while authenticating the proofs.  The scientific method (described in my Observation – Applying the Scientific Method to Religion) is a disciplined approach to proving an understanding and turning belief into knowledge.  For example, I could apply the scientific method and fly to Tokyo and prove to myself that it exists, turning my belief into knowledge.

The problem with science is that it can only prove physical things.  It can prove the existence of matter and the existence of something called gravity, and so on.  It can dig out the understanding of how things function and explain the interactions of various objects.  Science also has beliefs, but to make it sound more important, scientists call those beliefs theories.  The scientific method attempts to prove that the theories are correct and to expand the understanding and details of those theories.

Science cannot prove strictly personal items.  It is not possible to weigh love, measure directly satisfaction, or count hate.  It is not even possible to directly analyze pain.  Scientists try to measure these strictly personal objects, but everything science does with these items is indirect.  For example, a doctor may ask you your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, but that is a subjective measure and not an objective measure.  It is impossible for the doctor to measure directly your pain level.  The doctor cannot get a scale out and weigh your pain.  Even brain scans and EEG measurements do not measure pain they just measure physiological response to nerve stimulation.  Your awareness of pain is greater and more personal than the physiological response.

Consider, for example, love.  I know that I love my wife, son, step children, grandchild, dog, cats, and so on.  I cannot prove that love, except by my actions and that is just indirect.  No one could take out a ruler and measure my love.  Science cannot apply the scientific method to my love in such a way that others could know definitively my love.  Love is completely and utterly personal.

It is impossible for one person to know directly what another person feels.  Even if we could hook two people’s brains together, they still could not know each other’s feelings because our emotions, our response to external stimulations, our core being is determined by every experience we have had up to that point.  Since no two people follow the same path in life, no two people experience emotions the same way.  This puts love in the belief column.  Although I KNOW I love my family, I cannot prove it.  So ultimately, I can only say I believe in my love.

Others may believe that I do, in fact, love my family.  Others experience love themselves, and even though they do not have the same feelings towards my family as I do, they understand that those feelings exist.  Sometimes people may not understand why that particular feeling exists (“how is possible that people actually loved Hitler”), but they understand that there is such feelings.

What about stuff that many people may not experience directly?  What about, for example, spiritual experiences that many people may never encounter.  If something like love cannot be quantized or measured and therefore are not subject to the scientific method, something like spiritual experiences are even further removed from science.  If we cannot prove our love to another, when that other person also experiences love, how can we prove spirituality and religious belief to someone who has never undergone that experience?  It is at this point that ridicule and disbelief occur.

If a person cannot understand directly a spiritual belief of another and has no indirect proof, then that person is faced with a problem.  If the unbeliever (atheist) accepts that the other has had a spiritual experience, then that means the atheist is deficient in some manner.  Unless the atheist wants to admit this deficiency (which is rare) they then have to take the second path – trying to prove the other person’s beliefs are false.  Yet, spiritual experiences are not something you can measure.  It is not possible for the atheist to get out a scale and say “see your belief does not measure up!”  The attack on spiritual and religious knowledge must take different approaches.

One approach is the strawman approach.  In this approach, the atheist constructs a strawman; that is, they liken the religious belief to some other, more tangible belief, and then attack the strawman.  For example, someone could say that the belief in God is like the belief in Santa Claus.  Since we all know Santa Claus does not exist, it is obvious that God does not exist.  This argument fails on many dimensions.

Santa Claus is a belief children develop because they accepted their parents and adults as an authority on the subject.  The adults lied to the children (we hide that fact by calling it a fantasy or a story, but it is still a lie).  The children have no other source, so they accept the adult’s authority.  They believe in the existence of Santa Claus on authority of the lying adults.  Once the children grow old enough to perform an independent validation, they uncover the lie.  Their belief changes because they have new facts and data.

An atheist saying that belief in God is like a belief in Santa Claus is actually saying that belief in God is like a belief in a lie that some authority told you.  This may hold for children and extremely gullible people, but it does not hold for discerning, open minded adults who have directly experienced God.  In addition, the believer has additional proof of God that the believer in Santa Claus does not have.  There are corroborating historical documents that validate some of the religious writings.  There is the fact that millions of people have died for their belief – something that has not happened over the belief in Santa Claus.  More importantly, the belief in God is open to everyone, and everyone can run the religious experiment.  That is, each person has the opportunity to follow the authoritative sources on God and see the results for themselves.

The other approach an atheist can try to discredit a religious belief is to claim that science has never proved God exists and they only believe in science.  Before I get into what science can and cannot prove I have to address this belief in science.  Science has brought a lot of knowledge and understanding to the world.  Science has enabled a lot of engineering and technology that brings enhanced medicines, labor saving devices, and so on.  (It also enhanced war, pollution, oppression, and other ills, but we don’t need to go there for our current discussion.)  So, saying you believe in science seems reasonable.  The problem is most people have no idea what they are talking about or what they believe in when they say they believe in science.

First off, almost everything we call science these days is actually engineering.  Computers, cell phones, air planes, medicines, surgical procedures, cars, TVs, and on and on are all engineering feats.  For the most part, the science on these things is done behind closed doors and people never see the actual science.  Most people wouldn’t even know the scientific method if it hit them in the face.  So, what people are really saying when they say they believe in science is that they believe in the technology they have and they believe the authoritative sources that they are exposed to who proclaim the greatness of science.

Let’s look at those authoritative sources.  In most countries a major part of scientific research is funded by the government.  Research gets published in journals, but most people have never even seen a scientific journal, let alone read one.  Even though scientists publish, the publication is controlled by a review from scientific peers.  The government controls what scientists investigate through funding, and therefore control what scientists understand and believe.  I will point out that the government is controlled by politicians and bureaucrats not scientists or even people with a scientific background.

People’s exposure to science first comes about in school.  The classes are taught by the teachers, who are managed by administrators, and the whole thing is controlled and regulated by the government.  A lot or research and enhanced scientific advances come from universities.  Universities get a major part of their funding either directly (through grants) or indirectly (through tuition) that is paid by the government.  Other sources of scientific information and “discovery” comes from governmental agencies like NASA, national science foundation, food and drug administration, US department of agriculture, the atomic energy commission and its various follow on agencies, the department of defense, environmental protection agency, national weather service, US geological survey, and on and on.

Some people are exposed to science through things like public television.  Public TV gets a majority of their funding from the government.  If you perform a review of a lot of “scientific” articles on public media you will find that a lot comes from some governmental source (like NASA). Non-governmental entities, like the Discovery Channel may present “scientific documentaries” but these are often sensationalized stories.  Interestingly enough, many of the critics of these documentaries are government funded agencies and government supported public media.

So, when a person says they believe in science, they are really saying that they believe in the government.  The government is controlled and run by politicians, and we all know that politicians lie, cheat, twist the truth, hide information, and do whatever they can to remain in power.  Since most people have no direct experience with science, then when an atheist says they believe in science what they are saying is that their belief is just like the belief in Santa Claus – it’s based on a lie.

As I have shown, science cannot prove or disprove love.  Science cannot measure anything that is personal.  Scientists cannot measure thoughts, feelings, ideas, responses, or any of thousands of deeply personal experiences.  Yet, we all know these are real.  Science cannot answer basic questions like why does the universe exist or what is the meaning of life?  While modern science has discovered a huge amount about the physical reality, there is way more to our existence than just the physical.

Science (as people define science, which are the physical and social sciences) cannot, and never will, be able to scientifically prove personal, internal experiences of people.  Science is limited.  So, when an atheist says they only believe in science, they are also saying that they do not believe in emotions, thoughts, ideals, creativity, art, spirituality, honor, or God.  That’s kind of a limited point of view.

When I say I believe in God, I am not saying that I believe that someone once told me God exists and I accept their authority on the subject.  I say I believe because I have personal knowledge that I have tested using the scientific method.  I have investigated life with and without God.  I have researched God, the authoritative writings, and talked with people who I feel are experts on the subject (both for and against).  I have weighed all of the evidence and data and I have found that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of believing that God exists.

I cannot prove God’s existence.  I cannot pull out a photograph of God or take out my telescope and show you God.  However, I have looked deep inside myself and have found God there, waiting for me.  I cannot force you to believe.  I can only say that if you run the experiment – that is, if you follow the teachings of an authoritative source on religion and God, then you too may experience God in a way similar to (but not exactly the same as) my experience.

I hope you do.  I hope that you run the experiment and prove to yourself the existence of God.  However, if you instead try to hide behind science and use science as a shield, you will find that the shield is very small indeed and not much protection against larger truths.

The Cruel Joke of Atheism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Cruel Joke of Atheism

Atheists fiercely argue with theists about the existence of God. But why? Is it simply to win an argument to justify themselves intellectually, or is it out of love for the theist, believing that the theist would be happier as an atheist? In order to have any of these motives they would have to make a moral judgment on the value of religion and religious people. The problem is that in doing this they are doing the exact thing that they criticize religion for, i.e., making moral judgments of what is good or bad. I believe there is a story in antiquity about people who wanted to usurp the right of the deity to determine good and evil and become the judges, assuming the role of God.

Let’s talk about the happiness hypothesis first. Drawing from my personal experience, which I admit is limited, I have a number of friends who are atheists, and I do not think of them as especially happy people. From reading blogs written by atheist on the Internet, I would not personally judge those people as happy people. Some seem to be hinting at their emptiness and unhappiness in their compulsive blogging and criticism of religion.

The only real study I have found on happiness is Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Happiness Hypothesis, in which he clearly points out that believers are overall happier than unbelievers. By the way, Jonathan is an atheist. He claims that his book is based on scientific research. So the idea that atheists are spreading happiness is nothing more than a cruel joke. Of course, the atheist must believe the allusion that atheism is the salvation of the world and that materialism is the new gospel (good news). Is it really good news that we are just sacks of star-dust with a bio-chemical illusion maker, which we call a brain, telling us what to believe and leading us from nothingness to nothingness? According to the atheist, this is good news giving us all kinds of meaning and purpose. Is it good news or a bad joke?

Other atheists say they do not believe in God and speak out against faith because they believe it is not true or in some cases they say that it is evil. However, what do they mean by truth and evil? How can they condemn anything as evil? It seems the reality would be that it would be very hard to believe in the traditional meaning of truth or evil if there is no final and ultimate authority that stands above man. Is there is no authority outside of man as to what would make a thing right or wrong? Reason? The next question would be whose reason? Who determines whose reason is correct? Of course, the atheist believes in reasoning done by atheists, for they are the only reasonable people. Of course, in the end under their thinking it will be the reasoning of the guy who has the gun (power), which in the end means the state. Who do you think determines right and wrong in atheistic China or Russia? In atheistic cultures religion is not just wrong, it is bad and those who practice it are put into prison. Who determined that morality? Reason or the state?

Atheists, in order to prove their world view, must be able to establish by science that there is no God and that science can establish morality. However, they can do neither. All they can do is assert that there is no God on their own authority. Fortunately, in this country they don’t have the guns (power) as they did in communist Russia. Their problems with science proving that there is no God is huge, for anyone who knows anything about science knows that science cannot prove the existence of God or disprove it. The US National Academy of Sciences has gone on record with the following statement: “Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.”[1] So much for their appeal to science. So, what about their appeal to science for their proof of atheism? Reality or a bad joke?

When it comes to morality, only someone desperate for an argument would infer that science should or could create morality. Morality is a subject of philosophy and metaphysics, not science. It seems to me that when talking to atheists about morality they don’t like,[2] they quickly become moral relativist and dismiss it.[3] However, when it comes to the morality they use to make judgments against religion, they are absolutists. Another one of their cruel jokes.

In reality they want us just to accept their opinion because it is their opinion and their opinion is based on an assumed world view of naturalism,[4] which they assume is reality. In this assumed reality, their arguments win by default and become the absolute.[5] Yet, if they are consistent with their world view, their beliefs are nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain and are not real, especially if one of those beliefs is faith in a God. Of course, faith in reason is not a belief according to them, but reality and this reality proves their position that all beliefs in a God are an illusion. Of course, reason is real even though you cannot see it, taste it, smell it, or feel it. It seems to me, reason is a concept or belief like the idea of God. However, for the atheist God is an illusion and reason is real.[6] What a joke.

Still another cruel joke is that atheists are never consistent in the area of morality, nor are they fair or accurate in many of their moral judgments. For instance, they lump all religious groups and faith groups together and make sweeping generalities. An example is one made by one of their leaders in Religion Poisons Everything.[7] Of course, the first problem with this statement to a thinking person is: What is religion? The next question will be: Is there more than one, and if so, which one are you talking about or are you talking about all of them? What happens if you define religion as the practice of virtue? Would the practice of virtue poison everything? If a person’s religion was to love his fellow-man as himself, does that religion poison everything? Only if you subvert the religion and turned love into hate would that be true. However, if you subvert the religion, it is no longer that religion but another form of religion. The other form may poison everything but the original may be good. Another cruel joke of atheism is that it must deny this common sense truth that there is good and bad religion.

Their absolutist concrete mentality proves them to be very much like the religious people they judge as judgmental. Of course, as I have said elsewhere, they are the mere image of a fundamentalist religious person. This is nothing but a cruel joke, but this time the joke is on them.

[1]  Taken from Who made God?: A Searching for a Theory of Everything by Fay Weldon.

[2] Leftist of all kinds especially dislike morality which places limits on their sexuality; for example sexual preference, abortion, euthanasia, etc.

[3] Morality that restricts so-called sexual freedoms.

[4] Naturalism is an ideology that believes that nature is all that exists or is the whole show.

[5] Proof of this is the lack of references to any authority other than themselves in their articles on their blogs. All they have is their opinion or the talking points they get from other blogs, on which they feed their opinions.

[6] The problem is that if reason is real, free will must be real, but according to many atheists like Sam Harris, free will is an illusion.

[7] God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Hitchens.

Spaghetti monsters, Unicorns, and God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

Spaghetti monsters, Unicorns, and God?

Spaghetti monsters, unicorns, and hobgoblins. If you have ever talked to an atheist I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these fictional creatures that they compare belief in, to a belief in God. They say a belief is just a belief and cannot be proven or disproven unless you have tangible proof. But is this true or is it just some mumble jumble from someone wishing to win an argument?

Atheists say they do not believe in beliefs, but is that true? The truth is they believe in some beliefs and not in others. For example, they cannot see, touch, smell or hear their great, great, great, great grandparents however; they believe that they existed based on the fact that they themselves exist. This is  an inference based on causality; the existence of something that is seen now; can prove that something else (which cannot be seen) did or does exist. The causal inference is based on the law of cause and effect; we can infer some things by experiencing the existence of other things.

If we observe an effect, we know that there must be something equal to or greater than the effect and that cause cannot be just a belief, for beliefs without a corresponding reality can do nothing. The idea of a gun cannot shoot you, nor can an idea of a dog bite you. Yet there is something, so there had to be something to create it, not just an idea or belief. God is not just a belief. Therefore, the law of causality places the belief in God in a completely different order of beliefs than spaghetti monsters and unicorns which have no causality factor. Unless you give spaghetti monsters and unicorns causality power; i.e. the characteristics of God that is, all powerful, all knowing and eternal. Of course, if you did that you would simply be changing the name of God.

Atheists say they don’t believe in beliefs however they themselves believe the most unbelievable things that can be imagined, i.e. they believe that something came from nothing. People who believe that something could come from nothing; could also possibly believe in spaghetti monsters and unicorns. Those who believe in the law of cause and effect cannot believe such nonsense.  Do you know why they believe that something came from nothing? Because one atheistic scientist wrote a book claiming it happened.[1] If this is the kind of faith and gullibility required to be an atheist, then I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.

Subsequently, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of atheistic scientists and atheists who believe in a multi-verse of 11 dimensions without having one bit of objective evidence to support it. Are these people irrational? What about the atheist that believes in alien life forms? The truth is those atheists believe in all kinds of things that they’re not allergic to. I bet some of them believed in Santa Claus until someone told them that his real name was Saint Nick

I wonder if they believe that in one of those fairytale universes, that there might be flying spaghetti monsters and unicorns. If you can believe in fairytale universes, couldn’t you also believe in the magical creatures that populate those universes?

In reality atheists just want us to accept their opinion (beliefs) as concrete fact, even if they are nonsense. They have no facts; all they have is suppositions and assertions. They fail to see that their belief in materialism and naturalism is no different in kind from other people’s belief in God; the different is their opinions (beliefs) have not fulfilled the law of cause and effect[2]. Therefore, their beliefs in materialism and naturalism are equal to believing in spaghetti monsters and unicorns[3]. Moreover, if they are consistent with their world view (none are) their beliefs are nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain, which are determined by the law of cause and effect; a principle that they only believe in when it’s convenient and advantageous for their own arguments.

Consider for example, the beliefs of love and reason. You cannot see, touch, hear or taste love. Yet, most normal people and some atheists believe it is real, however, it is a belief that you cannot put under a microscope, so does that make it just an illusion or just a belief?  What about reason itself.  Is it real or just a belief?  There are some atheistic scientists like Sam Harris[4] who do not believe that love, reason or free will, really exist. He believes that they’re just beliefs or allusions. He says that we are just “biochemical puppets”. Yet, reason has taken him and others to the place that they can deny reason.

How do they know they’re right if they can’t trust reason? If atheists believe that we are biochemical puppets or soft machines why do they spend so much time arguing about their beliefs or lack of them? Are they simply programmed to be contentious and contrary? No, the truth is that their ideologies of materialism and naturalism have taken them into fallacious thinking, which has led them into denying the simplest truths of reality. This reminds me of the words of Aristotle. “For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the most obvious of all.”

 

[1] These atheistic scientists are brilliant men and they know that the law of cause and effect is devastating to their atheism. The idea that something came from nothing was created for the sole reason to skirt the law of cause and effect. Since the time of the big bang theory which basically says that the earth and the universe had a beginning some atheistic scientists have been trying to explain away the law of cause and effect and that the universe had a beginning. Their efforts have led to the nonsense of some claiming that there are multiverse’s and that something can come from nothing.

[2] Materialism and naturalism both have to believe that everything is eternal without begin or end and void of first cause or a prime mover. The only other explanation is that some came out of nothing spontaneously, again no first cause. Both of these ideas seem to contradict the consensus of science that the universe began in what is known as the big bang and deny the law of cause and effect.

[3] Believers have no problem meeting the demands of the law of cause and effect because they start with an uncreated consciousness which is the cause of all things. Spaghetti monsters and unicorns fit in the category of beliefs like, something coming from nothing, which s the spaghetti monster of atheism.

[4] Sam Harris is one of the guru’s of the new atheists’ movement.

The Amazing New Atheist-Revised With Footnotes

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics

The Amazing New Atheist-Revised With Footnotes

I am truly amazed at people who claim they are atheist and then spent a great deal of their time talking about or even arguing about transcendental concepts like love, justices and truth. Well, not so much about love, but a lot about truth and morality.  If there is no God, are these concept not just empty expressions? Why spent the time and effort to try to convince the theist or for that matter anyone that there is no God?  If there is no God, is not truth just a subjective term that has no real content? All concepts which I call ultimate concepts e.g. love; truth, justice and beauty have their roots in a belief in an absolute or a cosmic order, which reveals these things to humanity.  If you remove the absolute or the ultimate you destroy all the concepts that are built on it. Our founding fathers spoke of these things as self-evident truths[1]. If you reject a cosmic order which reveals truths to mankind you turn truth, justice and beauty into nothing but beliefs and according to atheists beliefs only exist in people’s head and cannot be established in reality. In fact this is one of their favorite arguments against belief in God. It is simple a belief like a belief in a unicorn or spaghetti monster. Is believing in love the same as believing in a unicorn or spaghetti monster.To be consistent with their scientific materialism they would have to say yes. Love is only a biological reaction of chemicals in the brain and has nothing to do with reality or the social construction we humans put on love, i.e. it is an illusion like the belief in God.

 When we are talking about ultimate concepts we are talking about the very foundations of human culture and civilization. To take the idea of a deity or a cosmic order out of the equation would mean make up and necessitate the complete remaking of everything, our language, our culture, values, civilization and in essences the very way we think about everything.  We are talking about the world of Nietzsche, a world, which has gone beyond good and evil, a world of a mad man[2]. When this is understood the question may change from, Is there a God, to can mankind survive as man without the idea of God? By survive, I do not mean maintaining biological life but rather living in a state of freedom and human dignity. I personally think not.  For this reason I believe that atheism is the most dangers and destructive ideology in the world. Of course, many atheists are like Karl Marx who criticized all ideology and at the same time fail to see that he was creating one. The new atheists seem so engrossed in destroying religion and belief in God, that they have neglected to considered what a world would look like without the idea of God?

Some may respond by saying that they feel religion is evil and that they are simply trying to do away with evil and replace it with something better. Well I would have to agree that some religion is evil but not because religion itself is evil but rather because there are evil men in religion.  However, we again run into a similar problem as above.  Without the concept of a God can there be any ground for the concepts of good and evil?  If there is no good and evil how could religion be evil? You might reply, because religion hurts people. My answer is, it has not hurt me, what standard are you using to make that judgment? You might say reason. My question is why is your reason different from billions of other people who believe in God and what makes your reason better than theirs? Moreover, how do you know that it is evil to hurt people? Is it evil when my dentist hurts me to fix a tooth? Was it unreasonable for the Nazis to hit children in the head so they could find a cure for head trauma? They seemed to think it was reasonable. You say, no for those children were humans. Without God is there any different between a lab animal and a human being? If you say, there is a different, on what ground do you justify your opinion?

I have had atheists respond by saying that they can create a new morality based on reason alone, which can replace the morality of religion. Of course, there has been other groups that have believed that, like the Nazis and the Communist. The hypothesis of a human created morality raises some interesting questions? Like who are going to be the Angels that create this new morality; Scientists, philosophers or maybe politicians, all of whom would of necessity have to be atheists in order for the foundation of this new morality to be total free from religion. Even then, would this system of morality be free from religion or just a different type of religion? And who would enforce this new morality, maybe the state? I believe I have seen this kind of morality somewhere. I think this experiment was the very thing tried by the Communist in Russia. They even had a church called the church of scientific atheism.

In view of the above thoughts I would think that if a person really was an atheist they would think long and hard about destroying the ideal of God and the way of thinking that accompanies it. What would a world look like without faith in God? Would the idea of truth and freedom survived in this brave new world?  If history is any commentary they did not do to well in atheistic Russia or China.

Some will say I cannot believe. When people say this they are often saying that their intelligent is keeping them from believing. No, some of the most intelligent people in history have been believers. The truth is that belief in God is as much a matter of the will as the intelligent. So it is not so much a question of your intellect as much as your want too. It is the human ego, which has blinded many to their motives. We all like to think that our beliefs are correct because we all like to think we are smarter than the other guy.

It would be more accurate for many especially those in the educated class to say that they have been conditioned not to believe by a secular education. If honest, the majority of this class would have to say that their minds have been captured by a materialistic liberal world view, which discourages any other way of viewing the world. They are like a man sitting in a room with a multitude of windows that are boarded up except one. Because, they are so occupied with what is going on outside the one window they have forgotten the other ones, which are boarded up. In fact, some are so excited about what they are seeing out of the one window, that they have total ignored the others to point that some actually say they don’t exist or if they do notice them, they quickly ignore them believing they cannot be as important as the one through which they are viewing the world. I challenge these folks to take a look at their conditioning and realize that there are a number of worlds out there other than the materialistic world of science and western Liberalism.

The first step on the road to faith is to ask yourself what is the real reason for you lack of faith[3]. This step many take some hard work but the true God only reveals himself to those that are earnestly seeking Him i.e. those that work at it.  Like many endeavors in life, things may not be equal; it may be harder for some because of their preconditioning to find God. Yet one thing I do know, if you find God too easily you probably have found an idol and not the true God.

[1] The new atheists have little or no knowledge of the concept of natural law and self-evident truth taught in philosophy andtheology. Please note my article “Atheism, Natural Law and Self-evident Truth”. I am not saying that atheist are immoral. I am saying that they don’t know the real reason of why they are moral.

[2] Nietzsche was an atheistic nihilist who preach the death of God. He went mad and died in an insane asylum. He believed that man was evolving into what he called the over man or Superman who through reason alone could live above the old moral codes of religion. His vision was somewhat tainted by two world wars and the moral declension of Western culture. The new atheists believe they are the fulfillment of Nietzsche’s prophecy of the over man. However, they have not reached this state by exceeding the morality of religion, but rather by subverting words and interpreting declension as progress.

[3] Note the article “The making of an Atheist”.

How to Have Faith?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Faith

How to Have Faith?

   I once had a young man tell me that he wished he could believe in God.  As I listened to him, I felt he was looking for a formula or method to create faith. Well, I wish I had a method, but I do not believe there is any scheme for creating faith. If you know of one please let me know.  Faith is a mystery. However, it is not a total mystery.

One thing I do know is that hope is the beginning of faith and without it, faith does not stand a chance. In essence, you must want to believe that there is a God along with all of the implications that come with such a faith, i.e. you must have a will to believe.

If I am right the place to begin for the atheist, or for that matter anyone who is seeking faith, would be to ask oneself “do I really hope that there is a God?” Now, if ones hope is real, it would seem that it would lead to an earnest and diligent search for the true God.  Anything less than this kind of search will never lead to the true God. One of the spiritual laws of the universe is that a half-hearted search will never find the real God.  Unfortunately, this means that most religious folks do not know the true God, for the majority has never searched out God with their whole heart.  The majority have inherited faith from their family or their culture. Now, in itself there is nothing wrong with inheriting your faith. One of the purposes of family is to pass along to the next generation the wisdom of their elders. However, second hand faith may not be good enough to whether the storms of life.

As said above, the true God only reveals himself to those that seek him intensely. A vital part of this seeking is an openness to obey him no matter what the cost. Many who seek him do not find him because they have something in their heart, or in their life that they are not willing to give up. They are like the very religious young man who asked Jesus about God; he was  content until he was told that he had to give up his wealth and follow Jesus. When Jesus told this man that he must sell everything and follow him, Jesus was simply trying to raise the young man’s self-awareness and help him to see the real problem with his faith; he loved his riches more than God.

I believe the truth is that the majority of people actually hope there is no God, at least, not the God, which Jesus spoke about.  However, to justify their ineptness toward this force, they reduce it to something that they can manage, like the God of the Deist or a God that resembles Santa Claus, thus we have religion. In this, religion is unbelief in the form of belief.  Others simply ignore this force and suppress their awareness of it into the recesses of their minds. There it remains until they are forced to think about it because of some unpleasant experience like sickness, death or by the prodding of some babbling seer, which they quickly dismiss as a fanatic.

Then there are the so-called atheists, who are somewhat more honest than the above. These folks cannot play the game of the religious man or the indifferent man; they must justify their rebellion and unbelief by denying the very existence of God. They then can claim reason itself, for their unbelief. Some actually believe that reason alone forces them not to believe in God. In this clever move, they deny any personal responsibility for their unbelief, which is a new twist to the “devil made me do it” excuse. Right, it is no longer the devil; it is now reason. However, in reality, they are like the others, in that they seldom understand the real reason for their indifference and in their case, unbelief. They fail to see that their reason is the handmaiden of their will and it is their will, which hinders faith. Every counselor who works with addicts knows that the will controls reason. It is a myth of the Enlightenment that men can know something by reason alone. I guess they could if they wanted to but the truth is they don’t want to and they do not want to know, that they do not want to know. In this, we see the truth of what the seer says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

All of this would suggest that honesty along with hope would be a key ingredient in one’s search for God, not so much honesty about the existence of God, but honest about oneself and your own search and journey. In this, you must face your authentic self before you can face the true God. The real question is not, does God exist, but rather the question is; why do you not want to do God’s will?

It would seem that the way to faith is to start hoping that there is a God and start living as if there is one. Stop arguing with God and start listening. Ask God to change your will, not your mind, for it not your mind that is hindering faith. The reason you cannot wrap your head around God is because He is either too big or your head is too small.  If it were purely a mind problem, there would be no intelligent believers and there would be no smart addicts.  Therefore, the beginning place of faith is not to question God, but to question yourself. God is not on trial nor is his existence.  No, it is you who is on trial and the question is, “will you find your authentic self”? This is not an easy task for creatures who are prone to believe lies and illusions. Good luck on your journey, it is not easy or comfortable.

 

The Seeing Eye

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Faith

The Seeing Eye

 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”  Matt 6:22-23

I once had a man compare believing in God to believing in unicorns or a spaghetti monster.  His augment is that he never saw a unicorn, so he does not believe in them, and because he has not seen God he could not believe in Him.

It is not uncommon for people to say they cannot believe in God because they cannot see Him.  However, it seems to me that humans believe in a lot of things they cannot see.  In fact, some of the most important things in life are things we cannot see such as love, joy, and hope. Yet, we believe in them and we believe they are real.  We believe in the wind and the force we call gravity, and yet we do not see them.  All we see and feel are the effects of them.  We believe we see light but do we?  In essence, we believe in these things not because we see them but rather because we experience them.

The truth is that sometimes we must believe in order to see. For example, if scientists did not believe in atoms, they would never have found them. There were natural philosophers (scientists) that believed in atoms 2500 years ago. They had no way to see them, but they had a hunch they existed and they began a long search to prove their hunch.   Even to this day, no one has actually seen an atom, all we can see is a trail of one or a computerized image of one, yet we believe they exist. In like manner, if scientists did not believe that there was life at the bottom of the sea, they would not have found the incredible life forms that they have found recently. They actually found creatures that are more unbelievable than unicorns.

If humans believed in only what they could or have seen they would believe very little.  The truth is we believe as much in what we have experienced as what we have seen.  Things like love, joy, and hope are not seen but most of us have experienced them to some degree. Of course, sadly, there are some who have not experienced these things.  However, their lack of experiencing these things does not prove they do not exist.  We could say that experiencing something is just another way of seeing or knowing. In spiritual matters, we call this the Seeing Eye, “blessed are the poor in spirit for they will see God.”

Spiritually minded people often speak of their experience with God. In the Bible, men speak of having visions, dreams or hearing a quiet voice. I do not think the majority of us will experience God this way or have a burning bush experience like Moses, but I do believe we all experience God to some degree though we often fail to recognize it.  We need the Seeing Eye and the hearing ear of faith.

We all may not hear the voice of God directly, but all can hear the echo of his voice when we sense that we were created for the stars and in our longing to explore.  We hear it in our love for life and our disdain for death.  We hear it in the universal need for meaning and self-esteem.  We hear it in the human cry for justice. We hear it in death as well as life. In death, we hear the voice tell us that we are not God. In life we hear it say that life is moving to completeness.

If you are seeking God, go to a quiet place and drop all your worldly beliefs.  Remember, it is these beliefs that keep you from seeing. Truth is often found through subtraction not addition.  Then think of your life and see if you can see God at work in it and in the lives of those around you.  Ask God to open the eyes of your heart that you might see Him and hear His voice.  Jesus promised that those that keep asking and seeking would find.

 

 

Turning Nothing into Something

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics

Turning Nothing into Something

Does Evolution Explain Life and the Universe?

 

“It is absurd for the evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for and admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything” C.K. Chesterton, “Thomas Aquinas : The Dumb Ox. 

Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something and nobody can get an inch closer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. However, this is exactly what many atheists attempt to do. They think they have explained existence by explaining evolution[1]. However, they have a number of large problems. (1) They must first prove that Darwinian evolution is a science. If they believe that science is made up of knowledge, which comes from following what is known as the scientific method, the study of deep time evolution might be something other than science.[2] (2) Let’s assume they prove that evolution is a science. Then they must prove one theory of evolution[3]. That is, they must prove that evolution is not directed from outside of nature, which is impossible. (3) Then after proving 1 and 2, they must show how evolution of any kind proves that there is no God. What if the deity just created everything and just threw dice and left the creation to work out its own evolution? If this were the case, there would be no trace of design in the universe or evident for God. This would be the God of the deist, but surely would not rule out the existence of a God.

In actuality, after all of this work, all unbelievers would have done is prove that they have the ability to come with a story of how something changed into something else. They still have not proven that God does not exist or how something came from nothing. In fact, all they would have proven is that they have shown how someone could imagine how something could turn into something else. Of course, the same imagination could come up with what would seem a reasonable explanation of how a horse could become a unicorn or how pink flamingos could become pink elephants, given the magical ingredient of enough time and the human imagination.

Though their explanation does not prove evolution or that God does not existence, they have demonstrated the power of the human mind and imagination, and the gullibility of the masses. Humans have the ability to create whole systems of thought, which to some degree actually shape reality for them who believe them. These systems of thought are called myths by some. In a vulgar sense, myths are thought of as stories that are not true. However, in a broader sense, they are stories on which cultures are built and reflect the values of people. Culture is first; then comes the myths that support it. I believe a case could be made for Darwinian evolution to be a myth or a story, which came out of a pantheistic and a materialist culture that began to emerge around the Renaissance and continued to gain strength up to time of the Enlightenment.  The myth was strengthened by a capitalistic system, which preached the survival of the fittest and a new atheism that was strengthened by the decline of Christian morality and a decorative corrupt church. The proof of this can be seen by the overwhelming quick acceptance of Darwinism without one shred of scientific evidence.  It seems, to be somewhat obvious that the culture of the 19th century prepared people for the new evolution myth of creation.

However, remember that the explanation is not the data or the evidence. Spinning an explanation may prove that one is intelligent and that one may have kissed the Blarney Stone, but it proves nothing else without hard cool facts. This is true of believers and unbelievers, both are experts at stretching the facts.

The creation tale and explanation of Darwinian evolution can never be proven by science, using the scientific method. Moreover, after all that work of trying to prove it, one is still not any closer to explaining how something came from nothing and all one has for his effort is a hypothetical explanation  how something changes into something else. On top of that, one has to deal with respected scientists like Henry Gee, who would say that much of one’s explanation of deep time evolution comes more from the imagination of men than true science.[4]

Let me close by saying that my beef is not with science or even evolution[5], though I must admit that I personally do not believe it to be a science as physics is a science.[6] My problem is with many atheists, who use science and especially the theories of evolution to attempt to prove that there is no God. Evolution is a “how” question and really has little to do with the question, “Is there a God?” I will grant that if evolution is true, it may tell us something about God, but what it would tell us is that He is great beyond our imagination, and I do not see how this would help the atheistic cause. If Darwin’s theory of evolution is true, the atheist still finds himself in deep water. For it would take more faith (something they hate) to believe that this complex system of nature came about by sheer luck than to believe it was directed by God.

[1] By evolution in this article I mean the system, which teaches that all life came from one common ancestor in deep time and can be explained by natural selection and mutations, apart from any direction from outside of nature by a deity.

[2] Some philosophers of science have argued that evolutionary explanations of past events are not scientific because we cannot test them in the way laboratory scientists test their hypotheses.  This challenge raises genuine questions about the scientific method.  Evolutionists respond that to apply the methodology of physics to any historical science is to miss the point that an empirical study of such questions must adopt different standards.  The situation is complicated by the fact that some biologists support the attack on evolutionism, not because they endorse creationism, but because they feel that evolutionary relationship cannot be studied scientifically.  Peter K. Bowler  Evolution-The History of an Idea  Page 369

[3] There has are a number of different theories of evolution.  The debate on evolution and its mechanism has raged in the scientific community since Charles Darwin.

[4] Henry Gee  Deep Time Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution.

[5] I have been asked if I believe in evolution. My answer is I believe in change that can be proven by the scientific method, which is barnyard evolution, which can be observed by all men and evolution, which is demonstrated in a laboratory. I do not believe in deep time evolution for it unknowable and is based on speculation,  an often a over active imagination.

[6] The study of Darwinian evolution could fall under the discipline of history.  However, even here there is a huge problem, for much of data is prehistoric.  That  means before history was recorded, which means it would have to be based on reading into the facts your imaginational opinion biased on your preconditioning,  If you had any facts, the meaning of the facts would have to come from some other source than one’s imagination even to be called history much less science.  Evolution might make a fine story, but it would not qualify as history any more than the movie “The Planet of Apes.”  The study of barnyard evolution which can be observed, gets much closer to science than Darwinism or prehistoric evolution, because the scientific method can be applied to what is going on in the barnyard or the laboratory. However, laboratory study in evolution includes a consciousness and intelligence manipulating nature, which many raise a question of their true reflection of the natural process.  This kind of science proves nothing of what happens in nature under its own accord.  What it proves is the intelligence can manipulate nature to small degrees.  If intelligence can manipulate nature to small a degree, what could super-intelligence, i.e., God, do?

Is Faith in God Reasonable?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics

Is Faith in God Reasonable? 

In many cases, faith is the most reasonable thing you can embrace.  Say that you were climbing a large mountain and it grew dark.  Now suppose that because of the difficulty of the climb that it would be impossible to retreat off the peak at night.  The problem worsens when you learn from your radio that a storm is coming that would make the conditions hopeless to survive the night.  As you huddle on the mountain waiting for death, you remember a story told by an old man in the camp the week before.  He had mentioned that there was a hidden outcropping of rocks that forms a small ledge just below the summit and off the ledge was a small cave that one could go into to escape the weather.  He said it was marked by a small pile of rocks just a short distance beneath the summit.  However, to reach it you must jump down about ten feet, which is a large first step.  Now here is the problem.  It is dark, and you have found the marker.  However, you cannot see the ledge because it is dark.  The jump requires a leap of faith based upon the testimony of the old man.

In view of the conditions, is the leap reasonable or is more rational to be pessimistic and do nothing?  Would it be logical not to make a choice?  It seems that to both the pessimist (atheist) and the indecisive (agnostic),  a leap of faith is not the reasonable thing to do.  Both would have to choose to die on the mountain.  In this case, not to choose is to choose.  It is to choose death over the possibility of life.  What I am saying is that in some circumstances, the reasonable thing to do is to act on faith.  Sometimes reason tells us that it is not time to use reason.  In some cases, moving forward in faith is the most reasonable thing you can do.

Once the disciples of Jesus were listening to the Master, and when they turned around the crowd was walking away murmuring that they just could not believe what the Teacher was saying.  When the Teacher saw the despair on the faces of the disciples, He asked them, “Are you going to leave too?”

Their answer was their leap of faith in the midst of despair.  “Where shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Maybe you are on a mountain in the dark and in a state of despair.  Maybe the way out is to make a leap of faith in God.  If you do, you will find that it is not a leap into the abyss, but onto the Rock of Ages Who has saved millions of people.  I guarantee that you will begin to see everything differently. LD