All right, folks; we at last have the first Episode of “Reflections with Alice,” our new video hopefully series. This is my first time giving a monologue to a camera, so be warned. It’s in three parts, a total of about 26 minutes long (ehe), so take your time and feel free to leave your thoughts and comments. I’ve also got a basic transcript below which is pretty much the same content as in the video, if you would rather read that. So, without further ado, I give you: Episode 1: Atheism, Morality, and the Gospel.
Hey! Welcome to Reflections with Alice (that’s me) at the Asinamirror blog, and hopefully this will go well! Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts, and Thank You! to all of you patient loving people who read my blog and leave nice comments and stuff, you’re very patient people.
Today we’ll be discussing a couple of topics that may seem unrelated at first, but there is a common thread through them, that will ultimately show their relation. I’d like to start by talking about one of the latest/prominent atheist arguments. Now, they’re always coming up with something new to “debunk” the idea of God; if they really believed there was truly no God, they wouldn’t spend SOOOO much time attacking Him. But the way we in the Christian community respond to these arguments I think is important, maybe a little enlightening.
Lately it seems there’ve been a lot of atheists saying stuff like “Christians don’t have a monopoly on good,” or like Sam Harris, “We can figure out a moral landscape without the idea of a God who gives it to us.” Now, when atheists say like, “Christians don’t have a monopoly on good,” is “Oh, yes we do,” and I think that’s funny, and I’ll show you why. Now of course, there are many problems with Sam Harris’s arguments that scholars have talked about, but I am about to present to you my own personal take on his claims. Now there are surely some scholars out there who have already said basically the same things as I will, but I’ll tell you according to my own pattern and hopefully you can follow. 
Sam Harris says that we can basically figure out what is “right” and “wrong” by “what is good for society.” “morally good” things pertain to increases in the “well-being of conscious creatures”. “what causes people to flourish.” Now, from this idea, he can conclude that things such as murder, rape, and torturing children are morally wrong. Now, to that I say, “Sure, okay.” But why stop with these things? What else is not beneficial to society or conscious creatures? Is lying?
Now, if I am lied to, this could produce threats to my well-being, maybe my life, if for instance I get wrong directions (being a woman). It could also ruin my self-esteem, if I found out i was lied to. If I didn’t find out, this would indirectly insult my intelligence. It could also ruin my self-esteem, if I found out i was lied to. If I didn’t find out, this would indirectly insult my intelligence.
How about stealing? I do not want to be stolen from. I have what I have for the benefit of myself and those I love. If I lost I would be deeply hurt emotionally as well as suffer loss physically. Now what if we got scientifically down to the motive for stealing: coveting. Is that wrong? If it is potential for stealing, and men are unable to control the chemical reactions that cause such emotions, then coveting is not beneficial to society.
How about adultery? And the motive for that? Lust? Is that wrong? I know that I do not want to be lusted after. Men who have no care for my well-being have no business coveting what is not theirs. As a woman, I could argue that I am not property, but a creature of value. Maybe Sam Harris would agree with me there.
If murder is wrong, what about the motive, hate?
Now, if murder, rape, and torturing children is “wrong,” isn’t lying, stealing, and adultery? And the motives, greed, lust and hate? Now, if this is so, we have another question to ask: who has not lied, stolen, coveted? I have yet to hear of someone. These things lead us to conclude that every man and woman is detrimental to society, because they lie, cheat, steal, etc. None of us is truly living for the well-being of conscious creatures.
This leads us to another problem with Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape: where is the ultimate justice for the evil men in society? Murders, rapists, thieves– what about those who commit phenomenal atrocities and get away with it??? Where is the ultimate justice? Mr. Harris, where does judgment come in, when we figure out what is best for humans? Sure, as you said, we can generally figure out what is good for humans and create or discover morality based on that. But what about the rebels? What about the murderers like the Taliban extremists? What about Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and Hitler? What happens to them? Sure, we would think that we should bring these people to legal justice, but what about those who are never brought to legal justice? Is there no ultimate justice? Is it just that their memory is despised after death? Sir, some claim Hitler as a hero. Where, Mr. Harris, is justice?
Now, doesn’t something in us cry out for justice, just as it does when we see the consequences of murder, that it is wrong? I believe that there is a Just Judge. Now, if there is one, we have to remember something: every man is morally fallen. Like we discussed earlier, we’ve lied, stolen, etc. Now, when we understand the element of justice, we ultimately come to the understanding that all of our immoral acts are against this Great judge. Lying, stealing, coveting, murder, is sin against Him.
So now, why do we Christians respond the way we do? It seems to me that the best retort to the Atheistic Moral Landscape Argument is not that we have a better explanation for why we should be good, but that we recognize that there is none good but one, and that is God. We need to look at His perfect standard and compare ourselves to it and realize that every one of us falls very short of it. Now, His standard is written in our consciences, which I think is the real reason why dudes like Sam Harris can “figure out” what is “beneficial to society.”
The Gospel is that each one of us has sinned against a Good God. Not the tyrant that Sam Harris thinks he is, or the figment of imagination that Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens says He is. God is Good. Man is bad. But in God’s incredible, infinite perfection, He is just and merciful at the same time. God took on our flesh in a man, and was sacrificed to pay the ransom for our sin, and rose from the dead so that He lives to intercede for us, to stand in the gap that existed between us and God. He didn’t just give us another chance; He offers to forgive us and regenerate us. It’s a mystery that you can only understand if you’ve experienced it, and the only way you can experience it is if you have come to Him in brokenness. It’s what we call repentance, the first step needed to approach God, and the next is faith in Jesus Christ, receiving His ransom for you. It’s not enough for you to “clean up your life,” because it won’t erase your criminal record.
This is the Gospel. This should be our focus. This should be the message that we communicate to the world. Now this brings us to our next topic: what happens when we do not preach the Gospel.
Two immediate consequences are obvious: The lost do not hear, and we neglect the duty that Christ left us with. However, I think there is something else that happens when we do not preach the Gospel, and that’s that we forget the Gospel, and we replace it with either a moral system or a licentiousness.
We set up a system for ourselves, hoops and hurdles, rules and morality; we base our lives on religion, and religion is not “talking the talk;” religion is creating a walk. This can be a system of some outward works that you have to do, and what’s going on inside doesn’t matter, or it can be constantly condemning yourself for both, the outside and inside. When you strive and strive to be holy enough thinking it will justify you.
Now when the Holy Spirit fills the new believer, it immediately begins producing fruit, and this process does continue for as long as the believer lives. The true believers really are being regenerated, working out what God works in them.
If we would focus on the Gospel, if we held fast to our first love, the fresh and simple faith and love we had for Christ when we first believed, we would know that the greatest thing is that Jesus Christ delivered us from sin. Grace does not cease to be amazing! We grow deeper into it as we grow in our walk with Christ. When we remember the Gospel and the hugeness of God’s grace, every other material blessing is extra. healings, financial blessing, success in ministry or career, material blessing– are the lavish goodness of God. We need to remember the holiness of God, that He has chosen to pour out His favor on us “unholies.”
If we would remember our first love, we would not have so many false converts (false brethren see Galatians 2:4) and religious people who do not even know the Gospel.
Is it the Gospel we preach? Do we preach Christ crucified? Do we preach the flesh crucified? Or do we preach “health, wealth and happiness?” Do we preach that you can have your best life now? Now, Christ did not die so we could have material blessings. He died to secure our eternal life with Him, and of course it starts now, but while we are on this earth we will have trials and battles. But we wait for the place where righteousness dwells– and that’s the thing: is our thirst after stuff or after righteousness?
God sees us as righteous not because of the good works we’ve done but because we put our faith in Christ’s righteousness. Righteousness is not our superior morals or doctrine, but faith in Christ.
What happens when we do not preach the Gospel? We forget the Cross, we forget love, we rely on our own goodness. There is a cross for those who follow Christ!
When we do not preach the Gospel, we bicker among ourselves and form divisions. We doctrinalize, moralize, and politicize Christianity, when we should be simply living in faith. We forget what it means to love. When we forget grace, we forget to live by grace through faith.
Paul Washer:
The greatest crime of this generation of Christians is its neglect of the Gospel. From this neglect, all our other maladies spring forth.
All who confess their sinful estate, and throw themselves on Christ will be pardoned, justified, and reconciled to God. This is the Gospel.
To be faithful stewards, we must be absorbed in the study of the Gospel, take pains to understand it, and pledge to guard its contents.
The Gospel is the greatest of all treasures given to the Church. It is not “a” message among many, but “the” message above them all.
Why is it that people who make a decision for Christ “fall away”?
They were not converted to Christ. They “made a decision”– this is not the regeneration the Bible talks about. The issue, therefore, is not sufficient follow-up but insufficient soil. Were their hearts broken up, fallow when they heard the word of God?
It is upon regeneration that we become disciples of Christ! Because we repent and put our faith for salvation in Him, and we have then become a disciple. From then on, we continue to be disciples.
Helen Roseveare came to a point where she realized and confessed the Gospel and that she wanted it. The Christians then told her that she was “converted” and proceeded to train her in doctrine and “discipleship.” But the truth was, she had not yet been born again. Her regeneration experience came a little later.
When we forget the Gospel, e become like the Ephesian church who Jesus wrote to in Revelation 2; we base our lives solely on the hoops and hurdles, and risk the loss of our lampstand. We become like the Galatians and the Corinthians; though God wants us to live lives bearing the fruits of the Spirit, and many of the epistles clarify how we practically know we are bearing these fruits, we must not forget the Gospel. They were very good morally, doctrinally, but they forgot their first love. We must not believe that we can be justified by some works. We must go into all the world preaching the Gospel, while there is time. Despite the technological advancements of our age, missionaries are still using primitive tools; they are flying 1950 model airplanes while our government searches for intelligent life in outer space. People even two thousand years later say, “We have been waiting all our lives for this!” What is stopping us? is it a complacency and licentiousness? Is it that we’re focusing on “being better people,” forgetting the goodness of God and not telling it to others?
Do we live in a form of godliness denying His power? The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Are we shining the light of Christ or of our better moral system?
The time is short, but we still have time. We need to recognize the urgency to go. In this age, we have more than ever the resources and the capabilities to Go, and we gotta realize we won’t have these same privileges forever. We need to preach the pure, unrefined Gospel. It’s good news that no man could have concocted.
I know it’s a little long 0:) I don’t believe I will make all of the Reflections Episodes so long at all; but if you’re going to start, you know you gotta start big to know you can do it! So let me know what you think! Hopefully we’ll have more soon.
That’s the same thing Penn Jillette explains in his essay There is no God. He also points out how it is easy to be an atheist, and how you may not be able to prove a negative, but it isn’t nessicary.
Evil Theists: I don’t know if I understand your statement; is it that there is no way to prove a negative, but that is not necessary to be an atheist? If so, how would that be?
Thanks for stopping by.
Hey Alice,
I dug up the search term atheism on Godtube and found your videos at the top of the pile. Consequently, I also found your blog here. I’m sort of a fan of just going where the flow takes me, and so here I am. The flow brought me to “As In A Mirror”.
I actually commented on your first of the Godtube videos, but I wanted to touch slightly more in depth here. I’m not too sure how open you are to discussion. My experience thus far has established that after I talk to Christians for a while, they tend to just lose their willingness to hold a friendly discussion any longer. Pastors don’t even like talking to me any longer, so the search for friendly discussion continues! I wish it was because I am just a boring person, but unfortunately, the truth is that pastors don’t particularly enjoy talking themselves into holes they can’t get out of. The two I’ve spoken with have both done just that regarding Bible translations and Jesus’ alleged sacrifice respectively. They’ve avoided contact with me since.
*sigh*
I have the tendency to be long-typed, so I can ramble a bit, as evidenced here, but I’ll TRY to touch on only one point at a time. You’ve made a LOT of great points here, so hopefully we can consider this to be the budding of a nice conversation that lasts a while.
My first issue is with the idea of we petty atheists always coming up with something new to “debunk” God. Actually, to get technical, you said the “idea” of God. First, I hope you understand that there is simply no way to “debunk” God. It is quite literally impossible. Have you ever sat down and tried to “debunk” Allah? What about Zeus? Try it with me sometime. I’d be willing to bet that for every one of my locations of Zeus that you debunk, I’ll be able to find two more places he could possibly be hiding as well as come up with his reasons for hiding there. This is perhaps what Evil Theists is alluding to by saying you can’t prove a negative. You just can’t prove that something doesn’t exist.
Okay, I said just one point at a time, but you pretty well included these two points in the same sentence. Your second point was that if we REALLY didn’t believe there was no God, we wouldn’t spend so much time attacking him. This is an interesting argument. It’s quite common. In fact, I believe it’s probably one of the most common arguments made. It amuses me that really the argument isn’t one that proves God’s existence, or even attempts to. It’s simply a round about way of sticking fingers in the ears and yelling “la la la la, I don’t want to hear you”. That being said, I’m not here to insult you. I’m quite certain that’s not literally what your intentions were in making that argument. So, I’m not going to end this wonderful conversation before it even begins by upsetting you, but I digress.
There are multiple reasons we atheists argue about the existence or non-existence of God even though we don’t believe in your god or any other. But instead of taking that route, perhaps I could first flip the situation around a bit and help you to understand from our point of view. Take the following sentence:
Atheists don’t believe in God, yet they continue to argue that he doesn’t exist.
This doesn’t make any sense to you, and that’s fine. But lets turn the tables a bit and see if it can clear things up. After feeding that sentence through the table turner, we get the following sentence:
Christians don’t believe in evolution, yet they continue to argue that it doesn’t exist.
Question: Does this new sentence make any sense to you? If it does, then perhaps you will understand why the old sentence makes sense to us. The sentences are expressing precisely the same sentiments, yet the subjects have simply switched around. The fact is, we argue on the topic of God’s existence because 1. We believe we’re right, 2. We are affected daily by the “idea” of God and religion, so to stand idly and quietly by would result in our being trampled over, ultimately resulting in our loss of the freedom to practice (or not practice) whatever religion we choose, and 3. We are quite literally insulted by the hijacking and misuse of terminology, behavior that Christians all too often exemplify.
Anyway, I am off to sleep now. My shift is over at work, I’ve successfully wound down and I’m about to pass out on the keyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybbbbyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Hey, Steven;
Whoa, I guess I’m not the only one who makes long comments! (No, I don’t mind!) I hope you don’t mind taking the time to read a equally long response. I agree with you that in my three-part video, I did argue off some presuppositions. Yet, we have to remember that everyone has presuppositions; the only question we have to ask is “Are these presuppositions justifiably founded?” Now, I’m not sure if you saw the other two parts of the video, but in the first video I was only getting started.
Now, let me say two other things from the start: first, I’m not going to badmouth the other Christians you have talked to. (About to make another presupposition
here…) I am quite sure that God led you to talk to those you have thus far talked with, and maybe the reasons aren’t evident to you yet, but it’s ultimately because of this: He cares about you, Steven. That leads me to the second point: I believe atheists are people too, and that God cares deeply about them. I explain more in the second video, but morally I’m probably no better than you. The difference between you and me is I am a recipient of God’s lavish grace. I’m no more deserving of it than you are, I just received the free gift.
Maybe this provides some sort of answer to your questions about Allah and Zeus? As mortal humans limited by time and space, it doesn’t seem to me that we could sufficiently “debunk” an idea, as it seems you also have said. However, we can test our presuppositions to see if they are reasonable. If you study the character of the God of the Bible, you see someone drastically different from Allah and Zeus. When did Allah and Zeus heal people? Did they ever come to earth and give up their life? Did they ever rise from the dead? Do they transform lives to this day?
I do seriously wonder often times why it is– that is, what assertive reasons may there be for the belief in no God, or the non-belief in any God, etc. I don’t mean this in a ridiculing way, but we just have to examine our presuppositions, once again: Did you watch my video, or read my blog, and suppose that it was just a factory mistake? I mean, didn’t you suppose that there was at least a somewhat-intelligent being that crafted it and put it there?
We live in an old house, and the man who designed and built it wrote a book and other people wrote books that mentioned him. He and his brother built a few houses and various structures in the village, one of which is the one we now live in. I have a problem with this story, however. I hear the man’s name from time to time, and live in the house that many people blindly believe that he indeed built the house. But… I have never met the man, never seen him, not even his grave or his brother or father or mother or wife! He never did anything for me to PROVE that he indeed built the house over a hundred years ago. As a matter of fact, there are more things wrong with this house than I can count on my fingers and toes together; how could I possibly believe that this house, with SO many problems, whose supposed builder has never showed up, even had a builder? Somewhere in the realm of possibility, it could be that ALL those documents were forged, and/or people were duped. I really can’t believe he existed; in fact, I can’t believe this house even had a builder!
Now, I bring up this illustration, not to mock, but to give us some perspective. Wouldn’t I be nuts to presuppose that the very house I live in, the very house I daily trust with my own weight as well as the weight of my furniture, to have come into existence without an intelligent cause? Isn’t it a scientific law that every effect MUST have a cause?
Think about your own body: you’ve got a brain more complex than any supercomputer. Your circulatory, respiratory, nervous, digestive, and immune systems are all dependent on one another. You are symmetrical (for the most part), you have not only the ability to function, but to enjoy life, and to contemplate and discuss things like we’re doing now.
Your cells are constantly dying, but your body somehow knows to keep producing new ones. The atmosphere is JUST RIGHT for life to exist on this puny planet, one among billions and billions of stars and other universes. Does it not seem plausible that there is a cause?
I believe for sure that my house has a builder, not because of what I’ve heard or read, but simply because this structure exists. There is a building; logic demands me to conclude that there is a builder. The paint on its walls demands me to conclude there was a painter. There is infinitely more design in creation; logic demands me to conclude that there is a Designer. Now, this does not tell me who that Designer is… and THIS I think is the most important question to be asked, and I want to talk about, but for now I think you have something to chew on for a bit.
Thanks very much for stopping by and for showing courtesy, I hope you consider these things. Please remember one thing, though: death is imminent to every man. Statistics show that ten out of ten people die; please consider your own mortality and the mere chance of the existence of a God today. If you’re so inclined, take a look at the other two videos, but PLEASE just at least consider the risks posed before you IF there is a God to whom you must give an account. You don’t know when you are going to die; I don’t know when I’m going to die. But we know one thing that will happen when we die: we won’t have to argue about these things anymore.
God bless you, Steven.
Alice,
It was great to hear back from you. And I absolutely don’t mind reading long e-mails. I must say, I haven’t watched your second or third videos, but I did read your entire post which you indicated as being a transcript for the videos. That said, I will certainly go back and view the sequels to the first.
Now to a response. Once again, there are so many things to respond to, including presuppositions, morality, justice, and even intelligent design, but I don’t feel the need to continue in those lines of reasoning just yet. I may actually have to keep track of the claims and presumptions just so I don’t forget to come back to them later. I do promise you, however, that if we get the chance, I will most assuredly revisit them once again.
As for now, I would like to continue with the line of discussion from before. Namely, I would like to talk about atheists and our ability and desire to debunk God. Obviously, we must agree to the statement that God’s existence cannot possibly be disproved. Granted, our reasons for believing this must be different, you believe this simply because you are convinced he exists, and really, how can you disprove the existence of something that must exist? I don’t believe God can be successfully “debunked” simply because I don’t think anyone can disprove the existence of anything. Certainly no one can disprove the existence of the little frog band in my freezer. They do a wicked cover of Elvis Presley’s “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”
I invited you to attempt to debunk the idea of Allah or Zeus. Surprisingly, you seem to have taken me up on this offer! I’m quite pleasantly surprised to hear this. How about we get to it? In all fairness, you did actually agree that it’s impossible to debunk an idea, but you went forward anyway, and that I commend. You asked a few questions regarding either Allah or Zeus. I’ll list them here with the proper responses.
1. When did they heal people? It doesn’t matter.
2. Did they ever come to earth and give up their life? It doesn’t matter.
3. Did they ever rise up from the dead? It doesn’t matter.
4. Do they transform lives to this day? It doesn’t matter.
I hope you don’t think me rude for disregarding the questions up front, but whether they did or didn’t do any of these things, the true answers establish absolutely nothing as to whether they exist or not. Your most optimistic of achievable goals using this line of questioning is simply whether or not they are similar to or different from the god you believe in, nothing more.
In a similar fashion, I could simply ask you questions of Yahweh such as:
1. Did Yahweh save the lives of his brothers?
2. Did Yahweh reveal himself to the prophet Muhammad?
Obviously, it doesn’t matter whether or not Yahweh did either of these things. They’re not arguments against the existence of Yahweh at all. Does this make sense? For the record, of the four questions, according to Christianity, only two of your four questions can be answered yes, in terms of Yahweh. According to Christianity, God has never died, therefore has never risen from the dead. Nor did he come to earth to die. He did, of course, send Jesus to earth to die, and Jesus is part of the trinity, but at Jesus’ alleged death, did God above also die?
The bottom line is that you still cannot disprove the existence of either Zeus or Allah. You can’t disprove the existence of Shiva. You can’t even disprove the existence of my little freezer frog band. You can’t do any of this any more than I can disprove the existence of Yahweh, of God. It simply cannot be done.
Hopefully, we can come to agreement on that statement. I believe, in a sense, we already have. Once we do, however, and I hope that is soon, I hope that an argument such as “atheists are always coming up with new ways to debunk God” can be put to rest. I would certainly concede that some atheists think they are able to debunk the idea of God. Surely, you must realize, as I do, that this is a completely irrational position. Any rational atheists, I think you should know, would certainly have no issue whatsoever conceding this fact.
The problem with an argument like this is that it’s only applicable to a fraction of atheists. Furthermore, as I indicated before, it’s a position taken solely by the irrational among us. It misleads other Christians into thinking that we are irrational in our entirety. Who else, but the irrational, could make such a ridiculous argument? Certainly, Christians already see us as being irrational enough, we certainly don’t require any help via misrepresentative arguments.
What do you think?
Anyway, I think this is enough for tonight. Perhaps we can discuss more tomorrow. I’d like to move on to a new topic tomorrow. I’m not sure that you addressed anything I said about why atheists continue to argue about something we don’t believe in. Perhaps, once we’ve handled our current conversation, we could move onto that one. My goal is to dispel all of the bad arguments against atheism, while you dispel the bad arguments against God’s existence. Perhaps, once we’ve successfully achieved this, we will only be left with the good arguments. At that point, hopefully we can come to a consensus as to which position remains viable.
I sincerely hope we can. Have a fantastic Sunday.
P.S. If you like, feel free to e-mail me at embreeology@gmail.com. We can certainly continue here, as well. It’s entirely up to you. Have a good remainder of the weekend.
Hey, Steven:
Sure, I do respect your position that the idea of God cannot be debunked simply because we as people can’t disprove the existence of anything. I respect this position, and I probably should have made it clear in my statements that I was referring to corporate mainstream atheists like Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. They are the ones constantly coming up with arguments against the existence of God. (Hence books entitled things like “The God Delusion). I will certainly concede to the idea that there are those who don’t believe in God, while not claiming to be able to debunk the idea of His existence.
However, if your position is that the idea of God can’t be debunked, then it seems that your position isn’t that of atheism: “There is no God,” (believing a negative) but rather agnosticism: “I don’t know if there’s a God.” Could this be the case?
As for Allah and Zeus, etc., I can’t debunk their existence, and won’t try to. HOWEVER, we must have assertive proof in favor of something to know it does exist. What assertive proof do we have for the existence of these two figures? So, the fact of the matter is, that the issue at hand is not debunking every idea man has come up with, but rather seeking to discover what IS.
That’s why I mentioned those certain character features of the God of the Bible in comparision to Allah and Zeus. I know that it doesn’t seem that the four points I gave matter, but they give us insight into the character of the object of observation. The characteristics of the Christian God are so different than those of any other God, and suggest to us that perhaps the reason for this is that all other gods are products of man’s imagination, and the God of the Bible is the true, actualCreator.
That’s why I changed the focus a bit, so we know we are focusing on the correct questions, again, bringing us back to presuppositions. I think that the most important matter at hand is the existence of a Creator in the first place, and then if He’s there, we can learn about who He is.
If your position that you just don’t know there’s a God, we have to ask another question: is there a possibility, in the vast realm of obtainable knowledge, that God exists somewhere outside the current realm of your knowledge? If this is a chance… I mean, doesn’t it have some credence? I know you can’t be ignorant of these things; there was some reason you were searching of all places Godtube on the topic of atheism, and came here to leave your thoughts. I mean, you’ve obviously been thinking about these things; out of curiosity, does it mean anything to you that there is the possibility He is there?
I know this may sound funny, but I know for sure He knows you, cares about you, and puts little expressions of Himself in your life. I mean, one of the most obvious is the sense between right and wrong within every one of us; don’t we get a “gut feeling” when we do or see something done wrong? This is an expression of His justice, a signature in His creation. It sets us apart from the animals, showing we are a special creation. The conscience implies responsibility and accountability… to Whom could that be?
I will get back again hopefully soon, but I do hope we’ve gotten somewhere.
Sunday was great; have a great week yourself!
I’m excited to see that we have some common ground. I’m not particularly surprised at the idea that we might agree upon something. I’m quite sure there is much more we agree upon. With regards to the three individuals you’ve named, I’m not aware of anywhere they make the absolute claim that God does not exist. I’m 100% sure that Richard Dawkins has made no such claim. As for Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, I’m only slightly less sure.
Regarding atheism and agnosticism, you’re partially right. I certainly understand that the idea of God can never be debunked. Therefore, you will never see or hear me say “God does not exist.” This would certainly be dishonest of me. The fact is, as you rightly say, that I simply do not know. In that sense of the word, you are again correct in saying I am agnostic. What I think we should clarify here, however, is that gnosticism and agnosticism are terms regarding specific knowledge and what we do or do not know. Theism, and conversely atheism, are terms not indicative of knowledge, but of belief. A theist believes there is a god, in your case, God or Yahweh, while an atheist holds no such belief. We can state our positions of belief or non-belief while also stating our positions of knowledge. As a result, I am agnostic in the sense that I simply do not have enough information to be able to know for sure whether or not God exists or not. However, my lack of exposure to evidence in support of his existence leads to my lack of belief, and therefore, my atheism. I hope that clarifies that up for you.
I’m particularly excited to see your statement in the next paragraph. You successfully shift the focus from trying to disprove the existence of something to proving the existence thereof. This, Alice, is precisely the road we should be taking. I can’t tell you how many Christians I know (as well as non-Christians, I must be completely fair) do not understand the importance of focusing on the establishment of evidence to support existence as opposed to wasting time trying to prove the opposite.
Unfortunately I cannot delve into this topic tonight. You wouldn’t want me to, in fact, I’m too tired even to develop logical thinking for any extended period of time right now. There would be too much to cover, so I’m moving back to the general idea from before. You are again, very much right, that given the fact that I cannot hope to disprove God’s existence, that he may very well exist. I have absolutely no problems acknowledging that, and I am perfectly open-minded to that possibility. I see you making connections, however, where none exist. I will say that, sure, it means something to me that Yahweh could exist, it means simply that God could exist and nothing more.
Anyway, before I start to ramble incoherently, I must fall off to sleep. Please sleep well and I’ll get back to you sometime tomorrow hopefully.
I have returned. Hopefully my wits are a bit sharper tonight than they were last night. Unfortunately, most of my free time comes within the twenty or so minutes between my arrival home from work and when my head hits the pillow for the night’s rest.
Back to business, however! I will briefly continue with the Allah, Zeus, and Yahweh bit just to cover my bases, but will move onto the presuppositions that you’ve seemed somewhat anxious to get to. Regarding the character insight you specified, it should be noted, and hopefully you will agree, that “character insight” and “evidence for existence” are not the same thing.
Allow me to introduce Cronus.
The legend of Zeus posits that he saved his brothers from their father Cronus. Cronus was informed that he would eventually be dethroned by one of his offspring. In an effort to thwart early retirement, Cronus swallowed his children whole as they were born. This didn’t kill them, but they were powerless against him while within. Cronus’ wife, Rhea, eventually gave birth to her youngest child, Zeus. To prevent Zeus from suffering as his siblings did, she swaddled up a rock and gave it to Cronus, who mistook it for the young Zeus, and swallowed it whole. Zeus was then sent off to safety where he was raised by a goat. Once grown, he returned and forced his father to regurgitate his siblings, saving them all, eventually overthrowing his father and taking reign.
I apologize for the story, but I believe it was necessary to my point. The first thing I think we should notice is some of the similarity between the story and some of the stories within the Bible. Jesus was saved from Herod by being shipped off to Egypt during the massacre of the innocents. (Of course, this is according to Matthew). The story of Moses’ birth follows a similar trajectory. A threatened king (Pharoah), fearful of being dethroned, attempts to destroy the newborns. One is moved, saved, and ends up taking place as a king or a leader. This isn’t as much an argument as it is simple observation.
The second observation, and one more close to the point of mentioning this in the first place, is that this story provides insight into the character of Zeus, in this case, our object of observation. You will undoubtedly agree that providing such insight is in no way an evidence of Zeus’ actual existence. Under precisely the same light, providing character insight to the god you worship is no more evidence of his existence than the story of Cronus is to Zeus.
Could Yahweh, if he does exist, possess these characteristics? That is absolutely a logical line of reasoning. It is entirely possible that Yahweh could possess all the characteristics you mentioned. That being said, you must ask the alternative. Furthermore, you must be able to answer honestly. Is it at all possible that these same characteristics (or any different set) could be assigned to a god that doesn’t exist? The only honest answer is quite simply yes. Once again, maintaining any, whether be the same or different, characteristics in no way provides proof of existence.
Okay, so that wasn’t quite a brief continuance of the alternative gods topic. At least it’s over, however!
—–o
Since I was unable to keep the topic of gods brief, I will attempt to keep presuppositions brief.
I will acknowledge and concede to you that we all start with presuppositions. This is obviously true. However, I will also state that the presuppositions assumed by believers, regardless of the god they worship, are ultimately based on faith. I should define the word faith, however. Faith, as I understand it and as I understood it in my days of Christianity, is ultimately belief without evidence. The presuppositions maintained by an atheist such as myself, however, as well as many other logically minded atheists, are ultimately based upon evidence based reason.
I do not know for sure, but I am quite confident that eventually, any evidence presented in support of God’s existence will lead us down a path that ultimately circles around precisely to the point of faith as I have just defined it.
—–o
I hope you continue to bring your points to the table, openly and honestly. I’ve thought about where this discussion could ultimately lead. In fact, I’ve wondered why I am taking part in this conversation at all. What I’ve decided is that I’m simply looking for something. You will undoubtedly become excited at this statement, I must be looking for God! In a way, I suppose you are even right in suggesting that, though that would be an indirect result of what I am really looking for. I am ultimately looking for truth wherever that leads me, even if it leads me to a conclusion that I don’t like or want.
I should be clear regarding Yahweh, the god of the Bible. I don’t want him to exist in that form. The Bible paints a picture of a flawed and disgusting being, corrupted by vanity, consumed by jealousy, promising love only under the banner of submission and at the threat of torture. This, to me, is not love. This, to me, is not how I would treat my beautiful little girl. It is certainly not how I want to be treated either.
That being said, I should note, again, that I am perfectly open to acknowledging the existence of Yahweh should evidence be provided. I would not worship him. I would not love him. But I would acknowledge him and I would fight along side of Christian apologists everywhere, not in praise of God’s goodness, but in the establishment of truth, and in the end, when face to face with God, if he were to ask why I did not accept the gift of salvation. I will be completely honest. I don’t accept gifts at the threat of harm. That, to me, is not a gift. It is coercion, and I have far too much self-respect to submit at the threat of harm. Once that is stated, openly and honestly, I will accept my punishment or reward, whatever that brings me.
This is the price I am willing to pay by being honest with myself and others. I sincerely hope that you are willing to be honest with yourself as well as with me.
Man I had more of a response. I thought I had put it on here. I will have to rewrite it again, I suppose.
Hey, Steven, glad you got a chance to respond, and I do understand your scarcity of time/ mental cohesion. Sorry I haven’t been around til now, but here goes.
Honestly, any similarities between the story of Zeus and Cronus and that of Jesus or Moses are… pretty superficial. Swallowing his spirit-children whole, but they didn’t die? Mistaking a rock for a baby? Raised by a goat? Who-knows-how-many years later forcing his father to regurgitate the siblings (who have been inside him for who-knows-how-long)? In all honesty, this story wreaks of mythology; they don’t even relate to the real world at all! Not to mention these gods are constantly warring for power among themselves. They can’t control their own realm, let alone ours! Read the biblical accounts of Jesus and Moses again, and they obviously relate directly to our real circumstances; no phenomenons involved are nearly as fantastic as those above.
The stories of Cronus and Zeus… let’s just say they have some “problems.” However, as I read the rest of your comment, I do see that there are some more important issues you’re concerned with.
Now, first off, just coming to the table as if without any bias whatsoever:
Say we are trying to evaluate Atheism vs. Theism, by way of reason.
Atheism is the position that there is no God. Theism is the position that there is a God.
Now, as we observe the world around us, we ask one of life’s biggest questions: Where did it all come from? Did it come from nothing or did it come from something?
If it came from nothing, we assume a scientific impossibility; this directly contradicts the first law of thermodynamics, according to which, by observational knowledge, matter cannot be created or destroyed. We can burn something, but it’s chemical properties merely change to ash– matter.
So, did everything come from something? What something? Did the universe always exist? No, the universe is wearing down, as discovered in recent years, which shows us it had a beginning. What made it begin? The big bang theory (that all matter was compressed into a tiny dot and exploded) doesn’t work. First, it assumes what has never been scientifically observed: that order came from chaos, and also, it still assumes that something exploded… but we don’t know where that something came from. How about life forms on other planets? … That’s… transferring the problem to another planet.
So, if everything came from something, the only rational conclusion we could come to is that an eternal, intelligent force of some sort (presently we disregard the character issue) caused it. This is another scientific law: every effect must have a cause. Now, if every effect has a cause, how was the first cause effected? The first cause must be infinite, not limited by the laws of nature that it itself put into motion.
A few comments back, I brought up an analogy of a building, and how the building itself is proof there was a builder. I told a little bit of the story of my house, and said, “I believe for sure that my house has a builder, not because of what I’ve heard or read, but simply because this structure exists. There is a building; logic demands me to conclude that there is a builder. The paint on its walls demands me to conclude there was a painter. There is infinitely more design in creation; logic demands me to conclude that there is a Designer. Now, this does not tell me who that Designer is…” And for a moment we have to stop there. The question for now is not, “Okay, does Zeus exist? Does Allah exist? Does Yahweh exist?” but “Now, is there or is there not a Creator, a Beginner, a Grand Designer?” What do you think? How could there not be?
Now on the subject of faith; faith is committing trust in something. Now, I put my faith in my chair every time I sit in it; it’s not a blind decision; rather, I’ve examined that other people have sat in it and it has held their weight, and I’ve decided to put my own faith in it, based on the evidence. I don’t know it will hold my weight, because I cannot see the future, but I can come to conclusions based on observations. This is a belief. With the rise of New-Age-ism and postmodernism, the traditional definition of “believe” has been blurred. Whenever people used to say, “I believe so,” it meant, “From what I’ve examined, it seems that this is the rational conclusion.” I put my faith in my mother’s word because of her proven honesty. It is also true that if I ask for directions from a total stranger, and choose to act on their word, I am putting my faith in their word. It’s not a blind or erratic choice, for this reason: I had no reason to believe they were not trustworthy, so I took the chance. Belief in any case does involve consideration and observation.
For the time being, I think the issue of whether or not there was a Beginner is pivotal, and the issue of Who He is comes afterward. I know that the reason some people don’t believe there’s a God is because of issues that they have with what they perceive to be the character of Yahweh, but that’s an entirely different issue than whether or not we have reason to believe the universe had a Beginner. I can tell you’re searching for truth; there is a genuineness in your writing that is different than a lot of the obnoxious sardonic stuff I’ve seen come from atheists. So, and I know this isn’t a surprise, I pray God would bless your search, and show Who He really is to you. Of course, before we can mutually agree or disagree, we’ve got to figure out whether or not there’s reason to believe there’s even a Beginner, first.
Alice,
Let’s not quibble over fantastical stories dripping with mythology.
1. Swallowing children whole
2. Being raised by a goat.
3. Angels singing in the sky.
4. Snakes that talk.
5. Stars that stand still in the sky.
These are all equally as fantastic. The point is, stories can be embellished, stories can be stripped down, but the backbone of all three stories Jesus, Moses and Zeus do have underlying similarities. Does that mean they share origins? No, they may be completely unrelated, originating from different sources.
At any rate, there never was any point to really argue here. I just noticed the similar underlying stories.
—–o
You now ask a question. Where did it all come from? You ask it under the blanket of reason as well; a statement I can get behind. Before I go on, however, I want to clarify something.
What, exactly, do you define as reason?
Unfortunately, I think to ask the question of where everything came from, you must first assume that it actually came from somewhere, whether that somewhere was nothing or something. You address this in a way, but you mention of a few other things first, so I’ll come back to this.
I do think you tripped up just a bit. You mentioned the first law of thermodynamics. You also suggest that this law states that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. There are two things wrong with this.
1. The first law of thermodynamics states (paraphrase):
The total change in the internal energy of a system = energy introduced via heat into the system – energy lost by the system doing work.
2. You might be thinking of the law of conservation of energy. The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. (This is not the same as matter, as you stated.)
You also said that we can burn something and it’s chemical properties merely change to ash – matter. You don’t just get ash. You also get heat out of burning something. (First Law of Thermodynamics.)
This might be nit-picky, in fact it is. But if we’re going to define things, we should define them correctly. The details of these definitions may result, in the end, in the changing of our minds.
—–o
Now to the Big Bang Theory. Where do you get the idea that the theory assumes that order came from chaos? I’ve personally never seen this. Nor do I think it’s true. Perhaps to rephrase it, we could come to a better understanding of this. Perhaps a higher order of complexity could result from a lesser order of complexity. You might disagree with this as well. But really, how can you? When water freezes into a chunk of ice, you have an increased order of complexity. When a snow flake forms, you have an increase in the order of complexity. You might even suggest that the complexity isn’t ACTUALLY increasing. That’s fine. I could see myself getting on board with that. At the very least, in that case, you have an increase in the order of organization.
Furthermore, though many Big Bang theorists would say that everything came from nothing. I don’t really buy that. The fact is, that their evidence really doesn’t take them to what happened at the point of the big bang and certainly not before. At most, they can reasonably argue to within a short time post big bang. Before that, we simply do not know. That being said, not knowing does not equate to evidence that “God did it.” I hope you understand that. You STILL need evidence to suggest that God did it even if it’s discovered that the Big Bang is completely false.
You then say that if everything came from something, the only rational conclusion is an eternal intelligent force. Again, we need to refer back to the definition of reason. I’m not trying to be mean, but this simply lacks any application of reason whatsoever. I will say that it is, indeed, rational to suggest that an eternal and intelligent force set our reality into place. That’s fine. You still need evidence to turn this into anything more than a hypothesis. What is irrational is to suggest that this is the ONLY option. First of all, there’s no evidence to suggest that this is even AN option, let alone the ONLY one.
Second, it’s not rational because you emphasize this law of causality. Yet, you will be the first to drop it in the application of your god’s existence. You will surely say, and please prove me wrong, that everything that happened is as the result of a cause. Everything, except God (your first cause). This doesn’t work. Now, you can say a variation of this. MOST things require a cause. At that point, it would be perfectly within reason to suggest that some god makes that list. However, at that point you open up the possibilities of other gods as well as natural processes. You simply cannot pick and choose what you want laws to apply to. It just doesn’t work that way. If you provide evidence, of which there currently is none, for a first cause. This law of causality to which you refer is effectively obliterated.
—–o
Now to the “every building has a builder” argument. Believe it or not, I believe this is the best argument Christians have, bar none. It’s the argument that singlehandedly prevented me from really shoving 100% onto the side of atheism for a long time. It sounds rational. It seems to make sense. Furthermore, it sounds really good.
But then my daughter was born, and it changed everything.
Actually, my daughter was born, a few months went by, and then everything changed, if I’m going to be accurate. You see, my daughter actually revealed to me how simply and elegantly this argument is completely dismantled. She did this and she was only 3-4 months old! She’s a smart girl. Ahead of her age, if I do say so myself.
This is what happened. I was driving home and I was thinking about this argument. Ray Comfort loves it. So did William Paley. In fact, it was William Paley’s version of this argument that I was thinking about. So anyway, I was driving along on my way home from work. It was 3:30am, no one was on the road. The air was cool, my windows were down. It was an amazingly peaceful drive. My truck is small, so my daughter’s car seat is in the back seat, but not completely behind me. I reached my right arm up to rest it, as if on a seat back, but my arm came to rest on her car seat. I was thinking about walking along a beach and finding a watch buried in the sand and how I would immediately recognize it as being man made. I was even thinking of how, perhaps, a member of an aboriginal tribe may even recognize the same thing.
Then it dawned on me.
What if my daughter were crawling on the very same beach? Would she recognize it as being specifically man-made? The answer is absolutely not. She has literally zero prior experience from which to establish the origin of such an object. In fact, if she didn’t see the shine of the object, she would probably just keep moving on. That, or she would pick it up, play with it for a few minutes, drop it, and pick up a rock and start the process over again.
The point is that you recognize that a house has a builder because you’ve been constantly exposed to houses over your life and you understand them to have builders. You’ve seen them being built. You’ve been told they were built. You’ve seen them in various phases of construction, I’m sure. I’m positive you’ve seen land covered in trees that, two years later, was covered with houses. The same goes with paintings! For example. If you were outside, on a glorious evening at sunset overlooking the ocean. You see someone painting a picture of that ocean. Or hey, maybe they’re not even there. Maybe, they’re off getting a lemonade at a lemonade stand a quarter block away. You go over and examine the painting and how realistic it looks compared to the sunset, but you STILL know it’s a painting. My question is this.
How do you know which is the painting and which is the actual sunset?
The answer is you recognize it. Recognition is the key word here, and recognition is the identification of something that you’ve experienced before. If you don’t have prior experience, you don’t have recognition. That’s the bottom line. Paley and Comfort all recognize these things. Christians recognize these things. It is at that time, and under the bias of their beliefs, that they extrapolate this concept of design out to things they don’t understand. It’s inductive reasoning in it’s purest form and inductive reasoning is by far the least reliable of the two types (deductive being the other) in establishing truth.
Furthermore, I’ve seen a house that hasn’t been built. They’re called caves.
—–o
Regarding faith. You don’t put faith in your chair. Not as I define it. You put trust in your chair based on the establishment of evidence that the chair will support your weight. This is evidence based reason. It’s not faith. Well, technically, there are definitions of faith that include this type of reasoning. But it’s not the particular type of faith to which I refer.
Two scenarios.
1. You go out to your car. Everything appears to be as you left it. You’ve started/driven your car nearly every day for 3 years this month. You walk out, the lawn is clear, the driveway is clean, your car is there. All evidence points to your car functioning as you would expect it.
Do you get in and start it up? Yes, you do. This is also inductive reasoning, as is the case in the design argument, yes. There’s no 100% guarantee that your car will, in fact, start up this time. (Your battery could be dead.) There is sufficient evidence to allow for you to move forward.
2. You go out to your car. There’s an engine on the lawn. There are rubber belts hanging from tree branches. Your vehicles hood is open, theres nothing within. Your doors are gone. Your car is resting on cinder blocks.
Do you get in and try to go to work anyway? If you do, you’re exercising faith in it’s purest form. It’s a belief based on a complete lack of evidence. You have no evidence to suggest that your car would start up. In fact, all evidence points to another scenario! Yet, you still decide that your vehicle will function as expected. This, Miss Alice, is faith. And it’s this faith that a belief in God ultimately requires and desires.
———-o
Your final paragraph is absolutely true. A disagreement with the character of Yahweh does not provide reason to not believe in the existence of a creative force in the universe, an all-powerful god, or even a caucus of gods. However, when Christians assert that this god is the ONLY god. Then they assert that he is a good and loving god. A reading of the Bible will quickly reveal that he is not good, nor is he loving. If, at that point, that Christians are wrong about their god being inherently good, why wouldn’t they be wrong about him existing?
In fact, it’s this intolerance towards the acknowledgement of the possibility of other gods (An intolerance and disbelief based upon reason and evidence, or lack thereof, mind you) that provides an incredibly effective tool for atheism. In fact, a great argument has been suggested over and over again. If you would only look at the reasons you don’t believe in the existence of ANY other gods, you would then see, in such plain sight, why atheists don’t believe in your god.
—–o
I’m sorry this was so long. This is why I try to focus on one topic at a time. Jumping around from faith to big bang to intelligent design to whatever requires incredibly amounts of time and concentration. In fact, now my daughter is late for lunch. So I’m going to go and prepare her some food so she doesn’t get too mad at me.
Have a good week!
Hey, Steven; I’m sorry I haven’t been around; it’s been a very full week, but I’ve finally got around to coming back to you. I understand why you’d like to focus on one thing at a time, so I’ll do my best. After quickly answering two things, I’ll move on. I’ll be running a little long, and there’s no rush to respond.
As far as the first law of thermodynamics goes, I do believe that the law of conservation of mass and energy is included in that law, but if I am wrong, I concede. Certainly heat is involved in the process of chemical changes, but it still does not completely eradicate matter; it may change from solid to liquid to gas or plasma, yet we don’t know how to totally obliterate matter from existence.
Secondly I have to disagree with your perception of faith. Faith is the same thing as trust. The very recent understanding of faith (making a decision despite lack of evidence) has historically only had one term: irrationality. It has never been equated with faith. The word “faith” comes from the old French of the 13th century, having the same base as the word “fidelity,” that root being “fidere” which literally means “to trust.” This is the result of examining and weighing the evidence, not ignoring it. It is the basis on which we build trusting relationships; a pattern of how well we steward other’s faith contributes to our fidelity.
Now, something, i.e. the world around us, exists. It has not always existed, because it wears down. In our natural, observable world, every effect has a cause. Now, what are we to do with this last fact? If every effect has a cause, then the series of effects/causes would go on for infinity, and that is not possible. That is why we conclude, substantially so, that there is somewhere down the line an eternal cause, as opposed to an eternity of causes.
The presence of obvious design in the world around us shows us the element of design. Study anatomy or the physique of any living thing, and how evident it is. Numerous features that all work together so well, and without one functioning, the whole is an utter failure, while they are incredibly able to adapt their systems to different environments. This element of design can only lead us to conclude that there is some kind of intelligent force behind them. Think of your beautiful daughter; she was born complete, with every system in her body ready to do its needed work, with all the information regarding her personality, any allergies, the information to grow and develop, etc. Sometimes babies are born with one or more organs or systems not working properly, and their whole body suffers; they have little chance of living. Yet, with all of those marvelous systems and organs, every child needs this immaterial substance called life. I used to work with a dog breeder; I’ve seen dogs born, and I’ve seen them dead. I’ve even seen a stillborn puppy. There was one difference between the live puppy and the dead one: the systems of one was not working. It’s traumatic, to lift a body, with the exact same organs, features, and physical systems of a live puppy, and see it absolutely still and lifeless. Life began, and it ended. But where does it come from?
We don’t stop here and say, “Well, I can’t seem to find a natural explanation, so… God did it!” What we do is look at things the way that they are and think about the biggest question: Why? The sheer existence of a Ford Explorer, or even a Murray 10 speed bicycle, with their intricate cooperating systems and parts, screams origin and design. If there is origin, there is an originator, and if there is a design, there is a designer. The same with the human body; even more so, because a Ford Explorer or 10 speed have no built-in immune system or method of communication with other vehicles! (The only method of communication is a horn or a bell, designed to send messages to human beings.)
If you do not agree with my reasoning (and you are certainly not required to), how then do you think all that is came into existence? Only the human mind, unlike any other plant or animal life, asks the question “Why?” Why is there design in nature? Because something designed nature. (Now if something designed nature, of course there is one designer and not many. Why would we assume first off that there are multiple creators? It’s not a matter of proving a negative, but looking for a definite assertive. All we see is evidence of a Designer; we have no reason to believe in many.) You bring up the point of recognition, and this is a good one. It leads me to ask this question: isn’t the ability to recognize a sign of developing maturity? I mean, your sweet daughter, in her innocence, may pick up a watch and not consider that there was a maker, just like she sees her sandwich and does not consider where the ingredients come from. But the information is all there in her little body, so that as she grows, she will start to wonder these things. In her innocence, she needs you! You know how to obtain the food and give it to her, you know what is harmful for her, you know better than she does that it is dangerous to walk out into the middle of the street, so you protect her. You know that she is only learning, and that, as happens to us all, blocks in our learning will come and we may come to faulty conclusions as to the “Why’s” of life. Yet again, as we are set apart as human beings, we have the incredible opportunity to discover. How do I know what’s the real sunset and what’s the painting? Brush strokes, perhaps? They look alike, but one is a replication of another. The replication itself is obviously the work of intelligence and performance, how about the “original”?
As to the character of Yahweh, I find your situation with Him very wrong, but not at all surprising. It is much like the situation with my dear mother. People have taken harsh offense at my mother and derided her; their reactions seem to me to be totally irrational. They would not think those things of her if they really knew her. Now, take into account that I am not biased because she is my mother, but I have every reason not to be biased. I am her child; I have experienced her wrath and her love; in some ways I’ve experienced her wrath in more drastic ways than anyone else, but our relationship is now close-knit on a unique level, to the point I read her like a close friend would. This is actually a unique circumstance, because I am… a teenager! Teenagers typically despise their mothers, as the one who’s always “telling me what to do.” Yet, all of her kids love her dearly; we know for sure, even though we have experienced her wrath, that she would die for us in a second. We’ve experienced her lavish blessings, but we could just as easily receive these things from the government. We love her because she loved us first, even when we were her trial! Now, it is my choice to either love my Mom or reject her like so many other teenagers reject theirs, in spite of their love, but I’ve chosen to not merely not reject her but to love and respect her. If my love for other things is greater than my love for my Mom, I will surely reject her. But see: her wrath eventually made it through my thick head that she was, at least sometimes, right. I thoroughly deserved her wrath. I was a bad kid. What I then had to consider was: “Gosh, I wonder why she even loves me at all! Why does she even give me good things?” Her love in view of her wrath converted me. So you see, I know my Mom, and I love her. And it strikes me as so ironic, that the very people who have derided my Mom are ones for whom she has poured herself out for. In their prideful and selfish worlds, they have failed to see her benevolence.
And Steven, the way I see your situation with Yahweh is very similar. I’ve prayed to Yahweh since I was very little, but I have only known Yahweh for almost four years. Since I’ve known Him, and not merely observed Him from my ivory tower or my observatory lab, I think I have a right to say something about His character: you don’t understand His character. And I can’t emphasize this enough: I don’t have the power to convince you of the existence of a Creator, or of His true character. And you are no more able to convince me that He is not there. Why? Because I positively, assertively, know Him. I’ve looked at the world around me and asked, “Why?” Why do plants grow in the summer and sleep in the winter? Why do sunrises and sunsets make our hearts glad? Why do I have all these systems in my body working together, even when I’m not making them? Why do things like love, hate, fear, and peace exist? Why is there love? Why do humans have systems of justice, but no other species does? The conclusion I come to is not along these lines of reasoning: “Gosh, I have all these questions that I don’t know the answers to. I’ll just fill in the blanks with the idea of God!” It is rather along these lines: “In all that is around me, material and immaterial, I see the hand of a personality. I also see horrific things around me that taint life. But in little things like the beauty of a sunset or the innocence of a baby, the emotion carried by music, the fact that something bad could have happened by natural circumstances yesterday– but didn’t, shows me that there is Good.”
Think of you and your sweet daughter: you love and care about her; but male farm cats kill their young! Why does such a thing as love, and immaterial thing, exist among the human race? Don’t we know when our love or someone else’s is not perfect? How do we know that there is a perfect?
I’ve seen the Goodness of the Creator, and it led me all the more to see the badness in me. Then it led me to wonder how in the world a Good God could let good things happen to someone as bad as me. Steven, the Creator places expressions of His character in the world around you every day. Even in your beautiful little girl, He’s showing you who He is. I’m not attempting to win an argument with you, but I seriously hope you’ll consider these things. Life is fragile; you or your dear daughter could have your breath snatched from your body at any given time. If you were to meet your Creator (who is bigger than you, greater than you, and smarter than you), what could you say?
Hey Alice,
I actually went through this last week and wrote out a point by point response, but somehow it got deleted before I could post it. It’s at that point that I realized that I didn’t really need that long of a response. I do have a few questions, however.
1. If there was a time when the world around us didn’t exist, and you believe this, how can you use the law of the conservation of energy to support your position?
Again, the law of conservation of energy is that in a closed system, the amount of energy remains constant. In other words, as you stated, energy cannot be CREATED NOR DESTROYED.
2. If EVERY effect has a cause except for your “eternal” cause, how can EVERY effect actually have a cause? Doesn’t the word except effectively negate the word “every”?
I guess that my point is that if you’re going to use laws of science to support your argument, you should probably use laws that don’t completely dismantle your position. Even if you consider God to be “outside” this system keeping the law in tact, you still are faced with the burden of providing evidence of his existence. The law of conservation of energy doesn’t do such a thing.
The element of design is a discussion in and of itself, so I’m going to discuss that in my next comment. That way, I can get this out tonight before I go to bed.
The question “why” is a question that animals definitely ask. They may not ask it in the same manner as humans, but the question is definitely one that they ask. I can explain it more later, but I may not need to. Just look around a bit, think about what animals do and why they do them. Also think about how they learn. The question “why” is a pivotal question in life.
Regarding your mother and the comparison you make to her and God, I simply have one question.
Do you think your mother could/would ever lock you up in a room and set it on fire if you disagree with her?
Perhaps that sounds like a ridiculous question. Believe me, it is. But it’s a question that if you ask of your idea of God, you have to answer yes.
Now, I’ve asked a lot of questions, but you closed with one. You ask me what I could say to God who is bigger, greater and smarter than me. This is my response.
—–o
I would say first, that, there are many people who are bigger than me, stronger than me and smarter than me. Does that make it right for me to follow them or worship them just because of that?
If God is so much more infinitely strong, wise, and perfect than I am, then why does he need my love and devotion so badly that he is willing to torture me for all eternity if he doesn’t get it? Have you ever watched a movie or seen a TV show where the girl tries to break up with her boyfriend and he says he’d kill her if she ever left him? How is this any different?
If God is omniscient, then he knows that I’m not lying when I say I simply cannot choose to believe something for which there is no evidence. If this is the case, then how is it my fault for not believing when it is supposedly him that made me to think this way? I can’t help but to be honest with myself and with everyone else.
Why not just show up? Why not just show people he exists? Why not just give us a real reason to believe and not just some image on a piece of toast?
—–o
These are a few things I would say.
Howdy, Steven; been busy and a bit bushed (say that ten times fast) but I’m finally around.
In response to your first question, I think you should read my fourth paragraph in my response before that again; in our natural, observable present world, these are the laws we see played out. It’s a closed system, but we have to ask, “Who closed it?” Matter and energy, in our natural observable world, cannot be created or destroyed; but for some reason it exists. So we can only conclude that it came into existence by supernatural causes. It was created, and it was finished.
The same response goes for your second question. I already answered this in the fourth paragraph of my previous response. These are laws we observe in our natural present realm; that does not mean it’s how it’s always been. These laws do not dismantle my position, but rather confirm my position. Again, I covered the “why” in my previous response.
Now, regarding your third question: “Do you thing your mother could/would ever lock you up in a room and set it on fire if you disagree with her?”
What? Seriously, this confirms my previous point again; this is not a valid comparison to Yahweh; you DO NOT rightly understand His character.
Yahweh does not send people to hell because they “disagreed with Him.” We have to start off with the correct context. God created the world and set it with all its laws in motion. He made you and set you above the animals. Think of how a parent has natural authority and affection for their child; Yahweh, as Creator, has far more authority over and care for us as His creatures. He had every right to set up rules for us, for our good. ‘Nother fact of the matter: when the tempter came, we broke those rules that were designed for our good. It’s like when Mom and Dad give us all good things for us to enjoy in our lives, and then tell us: “Just don’t eat all junk food and don’t do drugs.” But then the kids at school tempt us with those very things, and we break those rules, to our own destruction. Mom and Dad then have every right to punish us. We may even end up in jail with those friends because of our wrongdoings.
If we reject our Creator to follow the tempter, we will then receive the fruit of our own decisions and end up with the tempter in the long-run. Hell was made for satan, and anyone who follows his way (serving anything else besides God) will end up there. Is it not just to punish liars, thieves, murderers, and adulterers?
But consider the great kindness of God: while we were sinners, Christ died for us. How could you reject this kindness? I wrote a fuller exposition of this entire topic here: http://asinamirror.com/why-should-we-come-to-god
My point in saying that God is bigger, stronger, and smarter than you is basically an understatement just to bring a little bit down to earth that God is great, and nothing for any of us lowly human beings to boast against. He knows what He’s doing, He’s never helpless.
A mistake we often make is starting in our man-centered world and bringing in some idea of God into the picture. But if there is a Creator, He is great and good and deserving of our respect and our love. Don’t look at God as some stone-faced dictator in the sky craving for adoration; that’s not who He is. Look at the beauty in the world around us: the colors in a sunset, the innocence of a child, the grace of the animals, the fresh smell of summer leaves, the fragrance of the flowers, the majesty of mountains, the beauty of the ocean, and see expressions of His character in them. There are certainly imperfections in this nature– the corruption that man’s sin brought into this world. But His character and attributes are expressed in His creation.
You say there’s no evidence; yet before you said that you can’t know for sure that there’s absolutely no evidence. I’d strongly encourage you not to ignore the issue of design; it’s just evidence that the element of design indeed does demand, in the heart of every man, a Designer. You won’t approach God rightly until you correctly understand His character. Don’t let your pride taint your understanding of Him. Just simply look around you for expressions of who He is in the world around you. He is Just, but He is loving. I know. I am assertively convinced.
I know these points may just seem very closed-minded at first glance, and I understand, but at the same time I cannot skirt around what I have been positively convinced of. Maybe it would be beneficial for you to do some reading on these subjects? If you’re interested, I think one book you’d like is “The Reason for God” by Timothy Keller, written with sympathy and generosity toward skeptics. I don’t personally agree with Keller’s conclusions regarding some scientific topics, but he has great philosophical approaches. Another book is “One Heartbeat Away” by Mark Cahill, also directed toward skeptics. You may also want to check out “Has Christianity Failed You?” by Ravi Zacharias and “The Rage Against God” by Peter Hitchens; the Kindle versions of both these books are available at Amazon for $3 each. I also cannot recommend more highly that you read the four Gospels of the New Testament in the Bible, and also the Psalms. The Psalms are big, but if you take just one or two a day, along with maybe a chapter in the Gospels, or whenever you can, these open our understanding to who God is. Try perhaps reading an updated version of the Bible for the straightforward language; I personally recommend the New Living Translation, which you can read off almost any online bible. Look especially at the Gospels and study the character of Jesus Christ. What you ultimately decide about him will be pivotal. I know these statements may sound just nutty, but why not check them out? If you have questions, ultimately they have the answers. I know you’re trying to be honest in your search, so I couldn’t recommend these sources more highly.
Regarding design, your evidence that things are designed is that, well, things look designed? It simply doesn’t work that way. You’re presuming design from the get go, this is the anti-thesis of the scientific process.
It is fine to start with a hypothesis that things are designed, but then you have to look at the evidence. A few pieces of evidence include the fact that:
1. there are slight differences between animals that were originally thought to be the same species.
2. Upon examination of the fossil record, we can clearly see that there is a pattern whereby the older the fossils, the more different they are from any animals we’ve seen today.
3. Genetics has exposed the genomes of many species. Upon examination of these genomes, it has been noted that species thought to be more closely related have genomes that are more similar to one another. Genetics has also revealed relationships between species not thought to be particularly closely related as well.
This evidence points to the fact that things change over time. Even the most stalwart of evangelical young earth creationists will admit that things “adapt” and that small changes take place over time. The one individual I have in mind is Ken Ham. He just suggests that these small changes, or microevolution, are a different type of evolution than the large changes, or macroevolution. Unfortunately, there are no prevailing theories on two separate types of evolution. They are simply one in the same.
The bottom line is that science has established clearly and with no serious or legitimate contest that the evidence points to one conclusion, evolutionary theory.
—–o
You suggest that features “work together so well, and without one functioning, the whole is an utter failure.” What is your evidence for this? What about deaf kids? What about people who lose their hearing? What about people who undergo appendectomies? What about amputees? What about the blind? What about the color blind? What about individuals with trisomy 21 (a.k.a. Down syndrome)? I simply wonder if you would be so brave as to tell any individual that suffers from any of these conditions that their “whole” is an utter failure.
And these babies that are born without one or more systems working properly are experiencing better survival rates every year. Why? It’s surely not because God is JUST NOW getting around to answering prayers. It’s because the scientific process is at work and the nurses, physicians and parents are better able to counteract the effects of these processes. Many of these children are now able to live full and complete lives whereas before science was able to help them, they would have died.
—–o
Your Murray and Ford comparisons admittedly brought a smile to my face. I mean, seriously, of all the examples of wonderfully constructed intricate design you could pull up to illustrate your point, you come up with Murray and Ford? Ford is just now starting cycling back to producing decent vehicles whereas before they, like every other American company, simply made crappy vehicles. Murray, the company doesn’t even exist anymore. You could say that it went the way of the dinosaur and is now extinct.
This is not my point, however, you are still correct in suggesting that, at first glance, we are clearly able to establish that representatives from these two brands are immediately recognizable as being designed. However, there are a few pieces of information that are notable with regards to this equipment.
1. They are composed of largely non-organic materials. The material we see life being composed of is of largely organic origin, namely carbon and five or six other elements.
2. We recognize their design origins. That is to say, as I mentioned before, that we have been previously introduced to these objects as having been designed. Without this prior knowledge, we would not have recognized their design origins.
The fact that this equipment is made up of non-carbon materials is a clear indicator that it was of man-made design. You could, and rightly so, make the argument that even before we knew what organic materials were, we could make this distinction. This might be true. However, though we may not have known precisely what organic materials were, we could recognize a distinct difference in the materials that compose life and the materials that compose these brands.
Also, I think that if you look around at what mankind has “designed”, you will eventually recognize that it is in some way, reminiscent of things already present on earth or in nature. The watch comes to mind. Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that man-made “design” is not really design at all. It’s more along the lines of mimicry. If it’s not mimicry, it more than likely had origins of an accidental discovery. Potato chips are a good example of this, so are antibiotics.
To put it differently, your position describes a series of events such as the following.
1. The earth was around long before us, with these established events, processes and designs.
2. Humans come along and start mimicking these processes and trying to “improve them” for their benefit.
3. After this mimicry, humans start to claim that they are the only ones able to design things.
4. Since humans are the only ones able to design things, everything must have been designed by some great big super human.
For example:
1. Snow falls.
2. You examine a snowflake and think “Wow, this is pretty.” I want some for my room! So you pull out a small stack of paper and some scissors and soon you have a room full of “snow-flakes”.
3. You start to think, well I’m smarter than nature because I have intelligence. I know that these snowflakes were assembled using scissors. In fact, ANYONE can look at my beautiful snow flakes and recognize that they were made by an intelligent person.
4. Therefore, there is NO WAY that these snow-flakes were able to come together by any other process than by some form of intelligence.
This is the highest and purest form of arrogance. It’s almost a form of plagiarism! Humans are copying nature, modifying it (in a manner that’s far inferior in most, if not all cases) , and then taking credit for the design. It’s arrogant, it’s dishonest, and most importantly…
There is STILL no evidence to suggest that any supernatural being actually exists.
—–o
Anyway, this is my response to your design. I really could go on for hours more, but I have to cut this off for right now.
Check out http://www.talkorigins.org.
I’m sure you have probably heard of it, and if you have, that’s great. I hope you go in there with a mind that truly is open to evidence. If not, I still hope for the same. It’s jam packed with information on the topic of evolution/design.
I just read your latest response and I have a number of issues to address, but I’ll do that for my next response.
As always, it’s a pleasure. Have a good weekend!
Alice,
In order to make this a bit more clear, perhaps we could defer to some very simple statements. Consider the following:
1. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
2. God created energy.
I wanted to boil my understanding of our respective belief systems down to their simplest forms in my opinion. I hope that we can agree that the following scenarios could be the case regarding these statements.
A. Statement 1 is correct, while Statement 2 is false.
B. Statement 2 is correct, while Statement 1 is false.
C. Statement 1 and Statement 2 are false.
Given the simple language, I hope that we can also agree on the following statement:
D. Statement 1 and Statement 2 cannot both be true.
Given the scenarios A-C, which do you believe to be true? Can we also agree on scenario D, as I have laid it out above?
—–o
Let’s try the same with the following statements:
1. Every effect has a cause.
2. God has no cause.
Could you please also answer according to scenarios A-C above? Again, can we also agree that scenario D applies as written?
—–o
Unfortunately, it’s apparent that you’re no exception when it comes to playing the game of shifting the goalposts. For that reason, I’m going to, once again, generalize things to as simple of a scenario as possible since there is no way I could possibly understand the complexity of God as I am no longer a Christian.
Could you, FOR ANY REASON, send your child to be tortured by burning?
Hopefully this question is general enough to encompass the character of the god you worship, as again, I simply do not properly understand his character.
I think, for the question above, a simple yes or no would suffice.
—–o
I understood your point in expressing Yahweh’s greatness. However, that doesn’t work for me. Evidence works for me. Again, I don’t just take things because anyone says it. There has to be enough evidence behind their statement in order for me to accept the statement at face value.
For example, your statement that “if there is a Creator, He is great and good and deserving of our respect and our love.” That’s great! It sounds fantastic! I would love for that to be true. However, when I hear this from a Christian, I have to wonder what your definition of great and good is. That sounds silly, I know, but the evidence I’ve gathered suggests that Christians typically bend the meaning of words in order to fit whatever argument they’re trying to make at the time. How on earth am I supposed to know the particular meaning that any Christian is trying to use at any one time?
For example, regarding the definition of good. Would you define me as good if I murdered my child? Would you define me as good if I asked or demanded someone to murder my child? Would you define me as good if I told my friend to steal a car for me?
For the record, I would not define myself as good if I did any of these things. In fact, I loathe even the idea that I would even put them into sentence form. However, the point must be made. Could you define me as a good person were I to do any of these things?
—–o
“A mistake we often make is starting in our man-centered world and bringing in some idea of God into the picture.”
I honestly could not believe that this just came from the tips of your fingers. I honestly, truly and honestly, could not agree any more if I tried!!! This is a point on which we can agree wholeheartedly. Of course, I don’t think that we agree on this. Truthfully, I’m quite positive that I read this out of context from the particular point of view that you were trying to express. Perhaps we both could agree on the following statement.
It is not right to knowingly take the intent of a statement of it’s author out of context.
—–o
You caught me. I’m glad you did, actually. I made a mistake in saying “There is STILL no evidence to suggest that any supernatural being actually exists” even AFTER you caught me in saying it. Granted, that was written already at the time I read your latest points, but it was still before I submitted it.
The fact is, you’re absolutely right! I shouldn’t say that there is absolutely no evidence for God’s existence. Perhaps there is! Perhaps there is an abundance! I should rephrase. This is what I meant and this is what I will try to maintain from here on out.
There is STILL no evidence that has been revealed to me that any supernatural being actually exists.
Perhaps you wish to dispute this. That’s fine! But before we do, I would like to know what your precise definition of evidence is. But please note, once you define evidence, you MUST stick to it. If I find any holes in your definition or in your application of the definition, please be prepared to acknowledge them as I was willing to do just now in my misstatement about evidence.
For your convenience, I will go ahead and agree to use the following definition as is found on http://www.dictionary.com.
ev-i-dence: n: The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true.
—–o
Regarding design, I think after reading my latest post, you’ll agree that I have not dodged the topic of design. Nor would I want to. I think the teliological argument is by far the most interesting argument that a Christian can posit for the existence of a supernatural being.
I should be clear that in no way does the teliological argument provide evidence for the existence of Yahweh, or any god for that matter. That said, it is still an incredibly interesting topic and I absolutely LOVE talking about it.
Also, you will note that I will not dodge any question or argument that you might have. I was delayed in responding specifically to design only because the idea of design is an incredibly robust topic in and of itself and required a response of it’s own. In fact, there was much I left out only to try and remain as terse as possible in responding to the claim. An objective I am clearly not aiming for right now.
—–o
Regarding reading material, I’m absolutely excited at the prospect of new books to read. I will include, in my following response, a book list that I have that is growing all the time. I will absolutely put those books onto my list, though, as you will see, I may not get to them for a while. Actually, the gospels are all part of the Bible which I try to get to as often as I can. Actually, my blog, which I haven’t touched in a few months, is focused in part in taking my point of view from what I read in the Bible. Right now, I’m stuck at Genesis 5 (in reality, I’m much further than that, I am just stuck there as far as writing about it.) My goal is to write a review on every chapter of the Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, as examined from my perspective. You are free to read and respond at your leisure.
http://www.embreeology.wordpress.com
As you, no doubt, have noticed, I absolutely love to write. However, with a great deal of uncertainty surrounding my current place of employment, my concentration right now is almost fully fixated upon taking care of that. Occasionally, however, after those responsibilities are satisfied, along with my other, I am able to take the time to read and respond to various interests. As you may have noticed, right now that includes your blog. That said, however, I am transitioning to a more normal 7am-3pm shift, so this should bring about slightly more free time to read and write.
You did mention a few other books. I’m actually halfway through another book by Ravi Zacharias right now. It’s called “Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith we Defend.” It was recommended to me by an evangelical Christian neighbor of mine. I must say it’s a deplorable book so far, one based on assumptions and mischaracterizations. I’ve exhausted an entire pad of sticky notes just through half of the book noting misused logic, faulty definitions and just general opinion. Perhaps I can write a review and you can read that as well! I hope your recommendation is more grounded in reason than this one is.
—–o
I should go. I should reassure you. Your suggestions and opinions are not what I would define as being closed minded. Reading these materials does not make you closed minded. However, what does make anyone closed minded is if they’re not willing to look at the situation honestly from a different point of view.
You’ve suggested to me that I simply “do not rightly understand’ the character of God. That’s perfectly fine to state that as opinion, but I think in all honesty you should include that it is simply that, your opinion. The fact is that you cannot possibly know whether or not I understand the character of God. The fact is, I saw this entire situation precisely from your point of view only a few short years ago. You don’t need to believe me, I understand if you don’t. I don’t expect you to. But I know the truth in what I once believed. I made the honest decision to take a leap of faith, an honest leap of faith. I decided to really and fully trust that God was there and that he would provide for me a light and guidance to see the truth of his word and of his existence. After all, according to Psalm 118:6 “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” I decided I didn’t have to be afraid of exploring the truth of this world. If he is real, the evidence would reveal itself and support that position.
Fortunately, I was wrong.