The God vs No God Debate

Impossible Tasks in God Debate: Definitions Create Roadblocks

2010-07-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

If I take a picture of Jesus sitting in my home tonight with an amazing glow around his head, showing me his scars, and telling me amazing stories and parables that would clearly identify him as having incredible brilliance and teaching skills, a naturalist would argue that this was great teaching, great acting, and doctored video to create the appearance of something supernatural.

If after careful analysis of the video, there was no doctoring, then it would be argued that there just wasn't enough science to discover how it was doctored, and that the illusions in the film had natural explanations.

If I persuaded Jesus to come back on another evening, and invited 1000 folks to be there as well, and had five cameras with well know atheists manning all five cameras, and Jesus healed someone blind since birth by touching mud to his eyes, there would be claims of mass hysteria, the videos would be suspected of being altered before or after the fact, or replaced. The fact of having 1000 folks agreeing on what happened would be further dismissed as a conspiracy by all in attendance. And these would just be the contemporaneous skeptics. 100 years from now the skepticism would merely grow. 2000 years from now it would just be compared with other videos of the time.

In other words, it doesn't really matter what kind or how much evidence is produced, the Bible cannot be proved to a naturalist to be supernatural, Jesus cannot have been other than man, and there is no afterlife, heaven, etc.

This also begs the question of what is natural. If there is a God, then he would be the most natural thing of all. If there is an afterlife, then it would merely be an extension of the natural. The spiritual realm is certainly no more fantastic than quarks or black holes, just part of nature.

So I think we commonly end up with debates that can't be decided, much less won because the definitions of such things as truth, evidence, and natural differ between the debaters.

I come to all of these conclusions after spending 7 hours on Sunday reading about the shroud of Turin. It cannot be explained by Science, and the historical evidence is that it really is the burial shroud of Christ. That combination is pretty powerful. However, the naturalists merely state, calmly, that they will eventually figure out how the image got there by some natural means, not by the transmutation of Christ. So 1000 years from now, we could be no closer. In the meantime, one "natural" explanation would be that this was the natural result of a man/God transitioning from human to spirit.

Shroud of Turin Adds One More Piece of Evidence of Supernatural Christ Jesus

2010-07-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am confident that many in the atheistic community have had a chance to review some of the arguments back and forth regarding the Shroud of Turin. Is it actually the burial shroud of Jesus or a 16th century fake? In any case, how was it made? The more recent work done by the history channel to reveal the three-dimensional aspect of the image, and the computer programming-like information stored on the cloth. In case you missed all of that, here is a short documentary on the Shroud of Turin that talks about the longer History Channel Documentary.

Here is a 60 minute documentary that has a few variations from the History Channel, but does cover much of the same scientific and historical analysis.

Watch Shroud of Turin (Material Evidence) in Educational & How-To | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Christian vs Atheist Debate on YouTube - Bahnsen vs Stein

2010-07-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

Youtube is the repository of many outstanding debates between various theists, primarily Christian apologists and naturalist, objectivists, and atheists. For those in this audience who have been actively engaged in, reading, and listening to such debates for more than a few months, you might sometimes feel as if there is nothing much more to be said.

Therefore, I was delighted to find this series. I believe you will find new grist for the mill. The online archive of videos starts with #2. I suspect that this is because #1 was introductions and rule setting. Whatever the case, enjoy #2 and then you might want to go to the channel and take in the rest. I will likely post some of the others in future posts when they relate to some specific element of the debate on this blog.

Atheist Fallacy #2 - A Perfect Loving Good Would Not Allow Imperfection, Evil, or Suffering

2010-07-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

There are many possible reasons why a perfect loving God would allow imperfection, evil, and suffering into his creation. I have enumerated them elsewhere in this blog, but will list them briefly again:

Difficult circumstances build character such as patience, perseverance, courage, resolve, and test our honesty.
Difficult circumstances provide us with opportunities to exhibit charity, empathy, humility, and to embrace the different.
Suffering prepares us for future tragedy and bonds us together in sympathy.
Pain creates a feedback mechanism for either avoiding or handling other pain in the future.
Evil provides us with an appreciation for Good. Our own evil nature makes us humble, and thus needy for a savior.
Imperfection keeps us humble, often results in compensating factors that create greatness, and creates a longing for a better time.
Evil creates a longing for justice and provides an opportunity to learn the character trait of forgiveness and longsuffering.

The list could be much, much longer, but all of this is contained in that old book of myths.

Any Sex OK Between Two Consenting Adults or God's Way?

2010-07-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Not sure whether or not my partner on this site is alone in his thinking or if he would be joined by most or many atheists and naturalists. If I understand his argument correctly, unless I can show a negative outcome resulting from consenting sex between adults, then the only restriction Bernardo would place on sex would be based on age. Not sure what age, but I suspect that since this is a consent issue, society would have to decide what age to allow kids to consent. Regarding sex, this has had some experimentation ranging from about 12 up.

Leaving out sex with animals, since they can't consent, this would leave us to pairing off in any combinations of partners participating in any kind of behavior as long as everyone in the room was up for it. Not sure how drugs fit into this, but we do know that various legal and illegal drugs can be used to heighten the experience, so potentially this would be a question of consent as well.

Providing evidence that this type of society would be an improvement on a society based on family, sex kept between a husband and wife after marriage, and a general societal proscription against all other forms of sexual expression would seem to be a stretch, but if there is evidence, I'd love to see it. There seems to be quite a lot of historical evidence that such licentiousness has led to the decline of other societies. And there is huge amounts of evidence that almost all societies have had an expressed preference for the monogamous approach with commitment by the male to a spouse.

So, the question is, should we as a society open the doors to a much wider expression of our sexual selves, and see what happens? If not, where do we draw the line and why?

Atheist Fallacy #1 - Belief in God Limits Curiosity and Scientific Inquiry

2010-07-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

The first in a series of at least 20 of Fallacies believed or at least used by some atheists and naturalists to either advance the notion that atheism/naturalism is better than Chrsitianity, or that Christianity is either not true or limiting.

I have started with this fallacy, because it is so demonstrably false, and because the only source of the hypothesis is the feelings of the atheist. He has a hard time seeing how a committed theist or Christian could be open to finding species-to-species evolution as an atheist is, or exploring evidence of life on other planets, or the existence of strings or emotionally involved genes. But this is false and provably so.

The scientific movement was powered by Christians, underwritten by Christian Universities, and taught to students in Christian Churches and Schools. The fact of some resistance to accepting some aspects of new ideas is not unique to Christians. And often the rejection of the science by Christians turned out to be true. I would be most curious indeed to hear from any among the atheist community who believes they can make a scientific case for this fallacy.

The 747-8 of morality

2010-07-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

No one can argue that the 747 is one of the greatest airplanes ever made. It was the biggest and heaviest and longest-range airplane in the world when it was first introduced over 40 years ago (and even today is just a hair smaller than the other giants). It was the first twin-aisle passenger transport. It is currently the fastest airliner in operation. (The Concorde and the Convair 880/990 have been retired; Passengers thought that the cost of extra fuel for going fast just wasn't worth it). Over half the world’s air freight is transported by 747 cargo planes. The factory built to assemble the 747 is the biggest building in the world by volume. Most importantly for you and me, the efficiencies introduced by the 747 (primarily the very-large-bypass turbofan engine, and also the wider cabin) made international air travel affordable to the masses; No longer would “the jet set” refer only to the very rich. Its impact in the world cannot be overstated.

(You may by now be thinking that I took an entry meant for one of my aviation blogs/podcasts/publications, and mistakenly posted it here. That’s not the case. Bear with me).

If there’s one product that could be manufactured without changes or improvements, you’d think that the 747 could be it. I mean, it’s a fantastic machine! Why change it? Who in their right mind would take the risk, the cost, the time, and the inconvenience to change (and re-test, and re-certify) such a phenomenal design?

Well, Boeing is doing it. It turns out that we’ve learned a heck of a lot about airplane design in the past 40 years. New materials are lighter, stronger, less prone to corrosion or fatigue, and more durable. New turbofan engines have longer, curvier, more optimized blades, allowing for yet another drastic drop in fuel consumption, leading to even cheaper tickets and an even longer flight range. Aerodynamicists have figured out how to distribute lift over a wing in a way that allows it to create less drag, to give the pilot more control at a wider range of speeds, and to be bendy and flexible enough to absorb most turbulence. And all kinds of little things, from air conditioning pumps to hydraulic pistons, can be built much better today than in 1969. Boeing invested a lot of time and money to develop these technologies as much as currently possible for the 777 and 787, and then asked itself: If we were designing the 747 today, how would it be different from the 747 of 1969? Can we implement these new technologies, epitomized in the 787, into the 747? The result is the “747 dash 8”, a vast re-design of the classic jumbo jet, bringing it into the 21st century. It is currently in the middle of a several-month-long series of FAA-certification tests: 70% of the airplane has been modified from the previous version, including all-new engines and an all-new control system which are pretty much right out of the 787.

It’s always risky to apply new technologies to aviation. You think that you know how to design a fuselage to withstand the fatigue from repeated pressurization-depressurization cycles… and then you find out that you’re wrong, and people die. You think that you understand the forces of trans-sonic flight… and then you find out that you’re wrong, and people die. You think that as long as your structure is fail-safe, then it does not require regular inspections, since one part can fail and the others will carry that load… and then you find out that you’re wrong, and people die. You think that your cockpit displays do a good job of telling the pilot which way he’s going, and how much fuel he has left, and whether the runway is clear of other aircraft, and whether the weather at the destination airport has dropped safety margins below the minimums… You think that a quadruple-redundant hydraulic control system can withstand a failure at any one spot, or that your fancy computer-controlled fly-by-wire control system can prevent pilot-induced oscillations and inadvertent engine commands… You think that structure will have small stress hot-spots that can function as a canary in a coal mine since it will fail first, and fail safely, rather than a whole bunch of evenly-loaded structure all failing at the same time… You think that your computer simulations will accurately predict how and when a piece of carbon-fiber will start to break… You get the idea. Even updating as solid a design as the 747 brings about inevitable minor problems with aerodynamics, structures, etc.

In any company, government agency, or other group, be it Boeing or Toyota or Apple or Pfizer or NASA or the US Marine Corps, “new technology” is practically synonymous with “risk”.

But we develop new technologies, and we face the risks. Why? Because we have determined that, in the long run, the benefits outweigh the costs. Because where there is potential to make everyone’s lives better, we feel the imperative to investigate the possibility, to at least give it an honest shot before we decide that it’s not as beneficial as we thought.

Now I actually get to my point.

What could be more important to human well-being than our moral system? By that I mean: Our expectations of everyday behavior, our feelings about which behaviors are “good” and which behaviors are “bad”, our systems for encouraging good behavior and deterring against bad behavior, and so on.

Different societies have different moral systems. Each society has a moral zeitgeist that changes over time. And different people within a society will carry and defend different sets of moral values. Each country’s laws try to capture this moral system – this belief that certain actions are detrimental to justice and to everyone’s well-being – but the differences in moral preferences mean that no single legal code can capture all of the moral beliefs of all the citizens it applies to. (Besides, there's a difference between what things are right/wrong, and what things a government should have the power to regulate).

Most societies’ moral systems change over time. There exist many widespread social beliefs that such-and-such an action is detrimental to justice and to everyone’s well-being. Some of these beliefs get coded into law, some do not. Some of these beliefs are true, and some are not.

Here’s the interesting part: We’re still learning about ourselves. As different people experiment with different modes of behavior, as more data is gathered about the correlation of certain behaviors with certain consequences, as neuroscience reveals more about how we form our preferences and convictions, about what makes us happy and why… we are continuously in a better position to re-evaluate those moral beliefs.

Maybe the use of tobacco in public spaces is detrimental to most people’s well-being! Maybe state recognition of same-sex marriages isn’t detrimental to most people’s well-being. Maybe tough and strict gun-control laws don’t reduce (and actually increase) the rates of gun-related crimes! Maybe valuing kids’ self-esteem doesn’t help them become more successful! Maybe removing some traffic signs leads to an improvement in road safety! Maybe corporal punishment isn’t the best way to teach kids about discipline, or to reform criminals! Maybe drawing pictures of the prophet Mohammed, or naming a teddy bear after a boy named after the prophet, doesn’t hurt anyone other than angering some silly people.

Any issue – any proposed legislation, any decision made by an organization, any question about what everyday behavior is right or wrong – can be framed in these terms: When it comes to people’s well-being and to justice in a society, will [one of the alternatives in the issue] be beneficial or detrimental?

This is called consequentialism. You evaluate whether something (such as the adoption of a certain rule, or the choosing of a certain option) is right or wrong by evaluating the impact of its consequences in terms of justice and people’s well-being.

This is in contrast with absolutism. That’s when some things are “just wrong”, and some things are “the proper right way to behave”, whether or not these things are unjust and/or optimize people’s well-being.

Consequentialism involves always trying to get more data about people, about the impact of trying different things, so as to be able to make better choices in the future. You can only make data-driven choices, choices based on what actually works and what actually doesn’t, if you’ve observed how people actually behave. As you learn more about how people behave, you change your optimal choice-making systems accordingly, if your goal is to optimize well-being. Consequentialism is the moral equivalent (or, one might even say, the moral field) of science and engineering, which try to understand the mechanisms and processes of the world and to apply/harness them towards some goal (such as optimizing well-being).

Absolutism, by contrast, does not change. Even after a certain action is shown over and over to be harmless, or even beneficial, an absolutist can keep considering it to be “just wrong”.

All but the most liberal religions contain absolutist moral beliefs. Many Muslims consider it “bad” (fit for corporal punishment or even execution) to draw an image of the prophet Mohammed, to name a teddy bear after a boy named after the prophet, to publicly display romantic affection, etc., even though these things cause no harm (other than angering the people who believe them to be “bad”). Many Christians consider it “bad” for people of the same gender to have romantic relationships, even though these relationships are no more likely to cause harm than any other romantic relationship. Many Jews consider it “bad” to eat meat and cheese together, to eat pork or shrimp, to cut the hair that grows on their temples, etc, even though those things can all be safely done today. Many Christians consider it “bad” to teach kids about sex and contraceptives, even though teaching kids about these things leads to lower rates of unwanted pregnancies and of STD infections. Some Christians think that, since sex cannot be 100% safe, the optimal course of action is to abstain from it entirely (although, for unknown reasons, they do not feel this way about driving cars, flying in airliners, etc). These people feel this way because their absolutist moral code was sketched out thousands of years ago by people living in tribal or feudal societies, then edited by power-hungry leaders of empires. When designing these moral systems, the writers sometimes had their own power as a higher design objective than justice or people’s well-being. And even when they DID aim to optimize people’s well-being (such as by observing that people who ate shellfish tended to get sick, and then telling people “God says; Don’t eat shellfish!”), their data set was very limited, and was gathered in an ancient world lacking many of today’s medical technologies and understanding of sanitation.

(To be fair, some Christians - like Randy - try to support their moral convictions in a consequentialist way. They point to studies about the supposedly-nonbiological causes and supposedly-detrimental consequences of homosexuality, about how the sexual revolution of the 1960s supposedly made women worse off and was supposedly a detriment to the well-being of most people, etc. I sincerely appreciate their efforts, and wish them the best of luck. Because, who knows, their moral beliefs might be right. And such consequentialist research is the only real way to find out).

Some Christians are proud of the fact that their moral system works, and has worked pretty much unchanged for thousands of years. They say that it’s better to not mess with a winning team. They say that any change to those systems could only be bad. They say that, when you observe the consequences of some behavior and make recommendations based on your observations (“People who do X Y and Z tend to be healthier/happier”, etc), there are unacceptable risks, because your observations might have missed some crucial subtle consequence that make the recommended behaviors actually be detrimental in the long run.

All the arguments in the paragraph above are the same arguments for continuing to build the 747 from 1969, unchanged. I believe they are not very good arguments.

Let’s try and learn more about human behavior and human happiness by observation. Let’s try and apply those observations, to use them to create and promote behaviors that seem to improve justice and well-being. We’ll make mistake sometimes. Those mistakes will be costly. But we will learn from them (something that absolutists refuse to do).

It certainly beats the alternative: Restraining ourselves to a moral system sketched 4000 years ago by tribal leaders, edited 2000 years ago in order for a power-hungry empire to keep its citizens under control, and tweaked 700 years ago by unjustly-powerful monarchs and religions to claim that their power was divinely ordained. A moral system that explicitly allows slavery, and calls for harsh and painful punishments to actions that we today know to be inconsequential (by which I mean: beneficial to those who engage in them, and not harmful in any way other than angering the people who mistakenly believe those actions to be “wrong”).

How do we figure out which behaviors are good and which are bad? How do we tweak and optimize our moral systems? The same way we tweak and optimize other systems: The scientific method! We gather tons of data about what is working and what is not working, we maybe run some experiments to see whether this behavior or that behavior leads to greater justice and well-being, we use this understanding to develop better moral codes, we make mistakes and learn from them to make even BETTER moral codes. This is how we create, develop, and continuously improve things like buildings, medicine, airplanes, and even systems of government.

How is this possible even though “happiness” and “well-being” cannot be precisely defined? Well, “health” cannot be precisely defined either, but we know it has to do with longevity, with physical strength and endurance, with the absence of pain, with a mind that can think and remember and have fun and express itself, with the ability to do certain things unassisted, and so on. This loose understanding of the ideals of health – one that is different from culture to culture and from person to person – has not kept doctors and researchers from coming up with recommendations for how people probably should take care of their bodies. Some of those recommendations have been tragically wrong on occasion, but those are far outweighed by the good ones. We all live much much longer than we did just a few centuries ago, are far less impacted by most physical conditions, and can cure or outright extinguish many diseases. Yes, sometimes a medical recommendation leads to disaster until people realize it, but no one would sacrifice all of modern medicine to prevent the occasional mistake. It just wouldn't be worth it.

Why don’t we apply the scientific method to optimize our morals and our happiness, as we do for our health?

Because some absolutists think that they already have all the right answers, that their moral systems are either already-optimal or that the risk of change is too great.

They are wrong. Let us build the 747-8 of morality. Many people already are. The absolutists may win small victories, but it is only a matter of time before their mistakes are exposed by us consequentialists. The long arc of history favors us, and the absolutists will gradually be left in the dust.

How could we go about doing this deliberately scientifically, the way doctors and researchers do it for health? I'll let Sam Harris (video, article 1, article 2) take it from here.

Comments

2010-07-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 6:

Before I write my much-anticipated ;] post on morality as continuously-improved happiness-optimization, a quick note:

I wrote a series of comments last night, in four parallel threads (How much do humans know, Brilliant minds are dumb or deceived, Do atheists do evil acts, and Why do humans act unnaturally), and they all disappeared. Vanished without a trace. A comment I wrote this morning (to clarify a comment from last night) has not vanished, though. A quick search of Blogger blogs' recent posts shows that many blogs have experienced this problem.

So I would recommend that no one posts any comments for now, until it becomes clear whether or not yesterday's vanished comments will ever reappear.

--- UPDATE ---

Wednesday, July 7:

I've tried posting a bunch of comments, starting yesterday morning, and those have not disappeared. So it's probably ok to comment now.

But before you post a comment, be sure to copy it and paste it somewhere else (e.g. an email to yourself or a Word doc, etc) in order to "back it up" in case it disappears.

How Much Do Human's Know? How Much Do You Personally Know?

2010-06-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

Taken as a percentage, what would you propose is the sum of man's knowledge of the known universe? If I were to break that down a bit, what do we know about all things outside of earth's domain? Of all the stars, planets, black holes and other things swirling around out there, what do we human's know? 1%? Less than that? .1%? .0000000001%? What would you suggest?

Closer to home - Of all that there might be to know about the things in the domain of earth above the ground, what % do we know of what there might be to know? About clouds, whether patterns, things that might live 5 miles above the earth? 1%? .1%? .0001%? What number would you put on that?

Still closer - Of the things that populate the earth's floor, like animals, plants, rocks, bugs, and other things that are neither in the air or under the earth or water, what % do we know? .0001%? more? less?

What about the percent of our knowledge of things under the ground? Then what percent of thing under the water? What % of knowledge do we possess of all the things there are to know about human anatomy, especially the brain? What % do we know about human psychology? And what % do we know of human interaction with others, including other animals, plants, and our environment?

What % do we know about the microscopic and invisible things of life. What % of knowledge do we have about the history of man, life, the planet, the universe?

If man's total knowledge of the things of his world and his universe amounts to some miniscule amount compared to all there is to know, then what percent of all human knowledge do you personally possess? 1%. .01%. Much less? And of what you "KNOW" to be true and what gives credence to your unique understanding? The ideas and opinions of other men who also know as much as you about all of this, but maybe a bit more about something you don't? And what is the source of their knowledge?

And yet we are ready to fight, draw blood, destroy lives, and kill over our understanding of how things are or how we think they should be. Personally, as I sit in my home office and stroke my new kitten, I know for sure that I know a very small fraction of the workings, thinkings, and ways to train and take care of this much studied little animal. We are fools to think we have any real knowledge, and this is the Christian God's definition of pride.

The Most Brilliant Minds Alive Today Are Either Horribly Dumb or Deceived - Atheist Thinking

2010-06-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

In a corollary to my post yesterday on atheists believing they are basically very, very good. There is also a kind of attitude in the blogs of intellectual atheists that is very derisive towards those who are believers. Sometimes it borders on smugness or even bordering on snarkiness, but it is rarely very far from derisive.

Thus one is left wondering if this tiny minority of the population has arrived at some special knowledge or insight that is kept from the overwhelming majority of those who are the intellectual giants of, not merely the past, but of the present day.

On the one hand, we have Christians who are curious as to how one looks around at nature and doesn't see design, and how one cannot feel the presence of God. Thus some Christians or other believers are not kind towards atheists either, and inclined to see them as crackpots or worse. It is well said by many atheists that it is unlikely that an atheist will ever be elected to high office. But in this case a huge majority are experiencing something and intuiting something about the universe that is demonstrably proving itself in their lives to be true and valuable.

On the other hand, atheists are not, to my knowledge, experiencing anything or looking around at nature and seeing chaos or something that is obviously not designed. Rather the atheist goes out of his way to find any explanation other than God to describe how things are and what things mean. So how does one become smug believing in the absence of something? Help me out.

Do Atheists and Agnostics Do Evil Acts or Think Evil Thoughts?

2010-06-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

There is a thread of the atheist vs Christian debate that has both sides believing that Atheists don't wish to follow Jesus because they would need to give up their evils ways. Honestly, most intellectual atheists don't seem to fit that pattern. On the other hand, practical atheists or nominal believers would commonly fit that statement. They may be hard party folks, given to sexual sin, desiring to keep lying, cheating on taxes, etc.

In fact, I would go so far as to say, most atheists I have debated at length are more inclined to think that they are not sinners, and thus would have no need of a savior. A very close friend of mine has stated that they never lie, cheat, steal, etc. And from what I know of this person, he/she might be close to correct.

So, I'm curious to hear from non-believers. Do you do acts which you consider to be very inappropriate and worthy of judgment by somebody? Do you fail to do things that you probably should do that if these failings were known would cause others to judge you harshly? Or do you see yourself as being very, very nice, friendly, unselfish, law abiding, etc. If yes, is it possible that you project your perfection onto others and believe that were it not for .... fill in the blank .... bad parenting, government, religion, poverty, bad luck, bad friends .... that everyone would be close to perfect like you. I know this last bit seems a bit "nasty," but I can't think of another way to get the subject on the table.

If you spend a bit of time in the atheist websites, I think you will gather that most atheists see themselves as better than others, much smarter and certainly wiser. But they also see themselves as not needing anyone to help them make wise decisions. They would be the "good person" that many of liberal political thought think is the norm.

Where have I gone wrong?

Why Do Humans Act UnNaturally?

2010-06-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Assumption: Humans are the highest order of all species.
Assumption: In order to get to the top, humans would need to conduct themselves in a manner that was consistent with both nature and Darwin's evolutionary theories.
Assumption: In a naturalistic word view, it is impossible for anything to act other than under the laws of nature
Assumption: A very clear understanding of evolutionary theory is that species will act selfishly and want to replicate themselves.
Exception: There seems to be an inclination on the part of some life to stop replicating or reduce this natural inclination when they are feeling squeezed by the density of population.
Humans who are not squeezed are purposely reducing replication. The humans who have the least amount to fear from density, food shortage, shelter issues, are the ones who are most likely to "unselfishly" agree to reduce replication.
Thus this intentional decision to not reproduce would seem to be both unnatural and potentially devastating to the most highly advanced of the most highly advanced. (Sorry for the eugenics). The very most successful, regardless of race, or any other observable trait, are the very ones who are most inclined to forgo reproduction.

Separately, the question of why do humans act unnaturally with regard to unselfish behavior of any kind? Why would very, very large percentages of the human population believe that the unselfish approaches to life offered by Jesus and others would be the "best" way to live. Even atheists and followers of other religions point to the beatitudes as ideal.

Bayesian inference

2010-06-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

One thing that we keep tripping over in these conversations is the nature of "evidence". When can you say that a certain observation is "evidence" for a certain hypothesis, for the superiority of one model over another?

I tend to promote the view that almost anything can be "evidence" for an a-priori belief. If you really want to believe in a kind of system, then anything you observe can be explained in terms of that system (or you can trust that your system will probably have a way to explain it, even if you can't come up with the explanation yourself) and this reinforces the completeness and explanatory power of your system. Now, I don't REALLY believe in this, not as extremely as I make it sound. I offer this position in part to play Devil's Advocate, and in part because it is a view that is woefully under-represented in the theism-atheism debate.

I do honestly believe that, when people say "I see evidence for God" or "There is no evidence for God but there's tons of evidence for naturalism", this shows that they haven't stopped to think about what "evidence" means, or about when it is that you can or can't say that an observation supports a claim.

Instead of deconstructing their argument, or constructing a logically rigorous method for evaluating this kind of thing mathematically, allow me to just give an example to get you thinking and to help us move forwards.

---------------------------------------

Say I put several hundred golf balls and ping-pong balls into a box. Some are white and the others are yellow. Say that 70% of the golf balls are white and 30% yellow, and 20% of the ping-pong balls are white and 80% yellow. So, most of the golf balls are white (and the rest of them are yellow), and most of the ping-pong balls are yellow (and the rest are white). With me so far?

Say I mix things around for a while, to make sure everything is evenly distributed. I then reach into the box blindly, and randomly pick up a ball. I tell you that it is yellow. And now I ask: Is it more likely to have been a golf ball or a ping-pong ball?

You might say it’s probably a ping-pong ball, since the chances of a ping-pong ball being yellow (80%) are greater than the chances of a golf ball being yellow (30%).

But that's not necessarily correct. In fact, you simply do not have enough data to answer my question, not even probabilistically. And I can prove it to you.

What if I now tell you that only a tiny fraction of the balls in the box are ping-pong balls? If the box contains a thousand golf balls but only ten ping-pong balls, then three hundred of the balls are yellow golf balls and only eight are yellow ping-pong balls.This means that (despite the fact that the probability of a ping-pong ball being yellow is higher than the probability of a golf ball being yellow) most of the yellow balls in the box are golf balls, since by far most of the balls in the box are golf balls.

So, in this case, my yellow ball is probably a golf ball.

And until I told you how many golf balls there are, compared with how few ping pong-balls there are, you could not have reached this answer. You would just have been guessing (maybe based on the unfounded [and in this case, incorrect] assumption that the total number of golf balls is similar to the total number of ping-pong balls).

--------------------------------

When you understand the thought experiment I just described, we can move on to a more rigorous explanation, and to its implications in the God-vs-no-God debate.

Ready?

Mathematically: Just because X-given-A has a higher probability than X-given-B, this does not mean that A-given-X is more likely than B-given-X.

Ok, maybe I skipped a step. Bear with me.

"A" means "It's a ping-pong ball" and "B" means "It's a golf ball". "X" means "It's yellow" and "Y" means "It's white".

Just because Yellow-given-PingPongBall has a higher probability (80%) than Yellow-given-GolfBall (30%), this says nothing about the relative likelihood of GolfBall and PingPongBall (which could be, say, 99% and 1%, or anything else). This is even true if we know that we have a Yellow ball. The relative probability of GolfBall and PingPongBall is determined by a totally different set of factors (how many of each kind of ball I put in the box) than the factors that determine the probability of the color of each ball (what fraction of each kind of ball is colored each color).

In summary:

Just because Yellow-given-PingPongBall has a higher probability than Yellow-given-GolfBall, this does not mean that PingPongBall-given-Yellow is more likely than GolfBall-given-Yellow.

If we substitute "A" for "It's a ping-pong ball" and "B" for "It's a golf ball", and "X" for "It's yellow" and "Y" for "It's white", we can generalize:

Just because X-given-A has a higher probability than X-given-B, this does not mean that A-given-X is more likely than B-given-X.

Unless you can prove that A is impossible, and unless you can prove that B is impossible, then both A and B are possible. I can't know what kind of ball I have (I can't even know what kind of ball I PROBABLY have) just from looking at its color. The relative probability of A and B simply cannot be learned by comparing the relative probabilities of X-given-A and X-given-B. They can only be learned by taking multiple samples and seeing whether A or B come up more often, or by observing that A is often associated with certain kinds of observations and B is associated with certain other observations (e.g. when I draw a golf ball from this box it tends to be white, and when I draw a ping pong ball from this box it tends to be yellow).

Here's the important part.

You might say "In a world guided by a God, it is probable that intelligent life would be created. In a world not guided by a God, it is extremely unlikely that intelligent life would form". I could dispute both of these assumptions, but let's assume that they are correct for now. (And you can feel free to insert anything you like instead of "intelligent life", such as "beings who believe in God", or "cosmological constants that allow for chemistry").

Saying that the probability of IntelligentLife-given-God is higher than the probability of IntelligentLife-given-NoGod DOES NOT allow you to logically infer that the probability of God-given-IntelligentLife is higher than the probability of NoGod-given-Intelligent life.

In other words, saying “The evolution of intelligence [or any other "evidence for God" you may wish to insert here] is unlikely in a world without God and likely in a world with God, and we see intelligence, therefore God is more likely than No God” is logically equivalent to saying "The ball is yellow, therefore it's probably a ping-pong, ball since most ping-pong balls are yellow". Both statements are fallacious: it's possible that most yellow balls are golf balls, even if most ping-pong balls are be yellow.

This should allow us to see that an evidence-based approach to this God debate is hopeless. No matter how much we learn about the world and the different ways it might have become as it currently is, this knowledge will never tell us about the relative probability of World-given-“God” versus that of World-given-“no God”. All that each person can say is “I don’t need God to satisfactorily explain what I see around me”, or “I need God to satisfactorily explain what I see around me”, both of which are valid depending on what questions you’re asking. (I think that the questions that require God to be satisfactorily explained are not particularly meaningful, but I can see that this is a matter of personal taste).

Holders of different axioms will interpret the evidence so as to make their axioms and models seem, to them, more likely than an opponent’s axioms and models. But as elementary Statistics reveal, this is a fallacy. Besides, the bottom line is, even if it were not a fallacy, it does not deny that the opponent’s set of axiomatic assumptions is still possible, though unlikely. So the opponents can still go on believing what they want.

Human Sexuality and the Evolution Debate

2010-06-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Why is it that other animals don't get sexually transmitted diseases from promiscuous behavior? What possible explanation from survival theory would have man as the only species that faces the partner during sex? What would the purpose of the Hyman be?

Campus Discourse Not Open and Free

2010-06-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

If science is such a preferred way of doing things, why must it quash debate. Global warming is decided. Evolution is decided. Can't discuss supernatural unless it is a natural kind of supernatural (other universes, other species from other planets.) Opinions contrary to the current liberal and scientific politically correct way of thinking is booed and hissed and threatened with violence. The haters of today are primarily unbelievers who hate believers or those who disagree with them and desire to shut them up. Very likely much of this hate derives from the fear of the unknown, since they may be like my neighbor, who says I'm the only conservative he knows.

Not to say that there have never been haters or bigots in religious circles. But you would have us believe that science is perfecting man. Seems like the pride factor is creating a new kind of monster.

Starting at the Beginning - How Did the Universe Begin?

2010-05-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

Christians believe that God has always existed, and that he spoke everything else into existence. This would suggest that intelligence, law, love, and some form of spiritual world existed prior to the creation of stuff, and probably outside of any space/time continuum.

What do atheists believe exactly? Not big bang, but how big bang? Would you consider any such theory to be anything but raw conjecture? Does anything about such an explanation provide us with an understanding of how immutable laws, evil, intellect, music came into existence?

Science and Belief in God - Can These Two Coexist?

2010-05-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

There is much discussion about the percentages of scientists that are atheists vs the general public and/or whether it is possible to be both a Christian and a scientist. I found this speech by Henry F Schaefer III to be quite dispositive. Here was his concluding paragraph and following that the link.

There is a tremendous tradition of distinguished scientists who were and are Christians. I hope that my work is considered sufficiently outstanding to fall into the distinguished among that category. I also hope I have given you enough evidence that you will never again believe that it is impossible to be a scientist and a Christian.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html

By the way, he cites one study showing the same % of PHD scientists in church each week as the general public. (about 43%)

Is There Objective Truth?

2010-05-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

If there is no objective truth, why seek it?
If there is objective truth, where did it come from, and why is it static?
If there is objective truth, those who hold that my truth can be different than yours would be following folly.
If there is no objective truth, what can we know? Wouldn't the very statement be self defeating. In other words we couldn't know whether or not there was no objective truth.

Why Do Top Atheistic Scientists Encourage Us to Ignore Objective Reality

2010-04-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

It appears that humans are wired to tell the difference between created objects and things that are random. If I see a rock that is shaped a bit like something familiar, I'm likely to think it is random and amusing that it looks "something like" something else. But, if the rock looks very much like the face of a human, there is generally a good chance I will know if it is by some other human's hand that it has become quite like a face.

So we look at flowers, eyeballs, humming birds, and universal laws like gravity, and our mind naturally thinks these are designed. The starting point for science is to observe and then hypothesize. But many scientists today specifically admonish us to turn our back on observation and ignore first principles. Somehow in this one instance, we should suspend orr rational minds in order to come up with more complex solutions for how things happened to come into existence looking like design, but actually the result of random chance over millions of years.

What is the Source of Energy for the Universe?

2010-04-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

After a couple of years or so of struggling with personal matters, I am ready to revive the conversation. Two new ideas (new to me anyway) have been brought to my attention while watching a series called "The Truth Project." The first is this. Assuming that one makes the leap of faith that the universe was created from nothing or from some very small compact bundle of matter and energy that exploded at the Big Bang, what source of energy is sustaining what was started? Or will the universe wind down at some point? If in fact the universe has been around for millions or billions of years, how is it possible that this massive amount of energy came into being? Or is there some as yet undetermined energy production furnace that is refueling all of the billion star systems to keep them all in place and spinning and such?

I guess Hawking thinks that the Universe always existed. If that is the case, one would pretty much have to assume that there is a generator somewhere producing an endless supply of energy. Amazing to think about.

Planeseatreclineology

2007-12-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

Obviously I haven't had time to blog on this subject lately, but I couldn't pass this one up. Your comments, please?

Another View of the Cave by Brian Kirk

2007-09-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

While Plato's allegory of the cave caused me to think about things deeper,
I have also begun to ponder what may be considered the converse.

Say that, there were a bunch of free men, examining the perfect world
around them. One day, because of a horrible choice to commit a crime,
they were forced into a cave, and into bondage, shackles around the
neck and legs, much like Plato's cave.

Would not these men try to explain everything they saw in the cave as
a comparison to what they saw in the perfect world? And wouldn't they,
for a period of time at least, long for the world which they had been
cast out of?

Would they not attempt to make discoveries about this cave, all the
while coming to false conclusions because all they have known is the
perfection of the world above?

Would a few generations pass and the discoveries of the world around
would be even further from the truth just like the children's game of
telephone? The meanings of the objects would be blurred and distorted.

Perhaps not though. Perhaps they will begin to adjust to the light of
the fire and "figure out" all that there is to know. But all the
while, the memory of the perfect world would slowly fade.

The children's children of the original few men placed into bondage
might even find the "theory" or the idea of a perfect world to be
ridiculous, and dismiss it as a myth. Of course, it wouldn't be a
myth, but they might believe it was.

More and more, those who still believe in such a world would be the
outcasts of the society, viewed as weak and ignorant. However, in
truth, they would be the only ones that had an inkling of what life
really was.

And it would be these people, the ones that had faith, that the
keepers of the cave and the world in which it is contained would find
a redeemable quality.

Eventually, they would be allowed out of the cave into the perfect
world that they spent their entire life preparing for.

Placebo Effect and Mesmer by Bernardo

2007-09-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Recently I listened to an interesting radio show, which added some substance to my views on people's religious experiences. I thought I should share this with you and get your impression. Randy, if you would like to publish the text below as a guest post on your God Vs No God blog, feel free.

New York's NPR station, WNYC, produces an excellent weekly show called "Radio Lab". The two hosts chat with each other, and with diverse experts (typically scientists and historians and doctors and psychologists, but sometimes people who just have unusual jobs or experiences), about interesting topics such as what time is, where the sense of self comes from, how memories are formed and recalled (or forgotten), how stress works, morality, mortality, etc. You can listen to it online and I strongly recommend it.

Anyways, they had one episode about the placebo effect. The show was introduced with the real-life story of a Native American who became skeptical of the healing powers claimed by the tribe's shaman. The young man simply could not believe that all that chanting and ritual had any effect on disease. So he "went undercover" and asked to become an apprentice shaman. As well as how to make certain remedies using plants and other substances, he learned many theatrical "tricks", such as putting some feathers in his mouth, biting the inside of his cheek to draw blood, then pretending to "suck" out the disease from the patient and then spitting out the bloody feathers. Knowing that the theatrics involved were just that, he started his shaman work, faking it just like the shaman who taught him. But, to his amazement, the "tricks" worked, even though sometimes he wasn't really doing anything (as far as giving them substances that might help them).

From there, the first half of the show is spent talking with scientists about how the placebo effect works. In case you're curious: Say you take a substance, be it aspirin or caffeine or ecstasy or an antidepressant, and it has some effect on you. The fact that it had an effect indicates that your cells have receptors for this substance (or for one very much like it), molecular "locks" that are triggered when a certain kind of "key" molecule snaps into them. But if your cell already has those receptors, then human cells have always had those receptors, and this means that your body can already manufacture that substance (or one very much like it). Somewhere in your body - maybe in one specific gland, maybe in every cell - you have the power to manufacture most of the kinds of "medicines" and "mind-altering substances" you need. The hard part is triggering that production. Mysteriously, thinking that you have ingested a substance that has a certain effect, can often somehow trigger the production of whatever substance the body can make which comes closest to having that effect, at least for a little while. Yes, this is an incomplete explanation but it contains some elegant and powerful insights I did not have until I heard it.

The second half of that show is what I really want to talk about. It talked about faith healers, and about a German guy in the 1700s named Mesmer (from whom we get the word "mesmerized") who claimed to "magnetize" things and to cure diseases using "animal magnetism", a ether-like substance that connects all living things. For example, he would rub magnetized iron rods against a tree, and claim that the tree now channeled "animal magnetism". His patients would then touch the tree, start shaking and moaning and convulsing and screaming... and after a while, many of them got better. But real doctors were losing patients to this, and scientists were understanding magnetism well enough at the time to know that this Mesmer was probably making this stuff up. So a commission of scientists (including Ben Franklin, the US's ambassador to France at the time) was formed, not to investigate whether Mesmer's magnetism worked (because, in many cases, it did) but to investigate whether it involved any real phenomenon external to the people treated by it, any kind of fluid or field that had real effects on the world. They performed a simple test: One of five trees was "magnetized" by Mesmer (or one of his followers, since he franchised this practice), and a patient being treated this way was asked to identify which of the 5 trees was "magnetized". As you may guess, few patients got it right. Still, the effects of mesmerism could not be denied, since a lot of people got better from what ailed them. The commission concluded that the effects of Mesmer's "Animal Magnetism" were not caused by any real ether-like fluid or field, but by the imaginations of the patients.

Many people today claim to have religious experiences, to see lights and speak in tongues, to be taken over by the Holy Spirit, etc. This is most noticeable in Pentecostals who are famous for this kind of stuff, and in Christian Scientists who claim that all disease is really just problems in one's relationship with God, but most Christians will claim to have perceived ( i.e. been affected by) the divine supernatural in some way. Listening to the story about mesmerism, about what it was like and the effects it had, made me think that these things can be easily explained as being induced by the person experiencing it, a kind of placebo effect, which makes sense since these people are the ones who believe that the Holy Spirit could actually come and make itself felt.

So, I ask: What is the difference between the Holy Spirit and Animal Magnetism?

Both have real observable effects. Neither can be shown to be triggered by anything outside the mind of the person experiencing it. I think that experiencing the divine is either a placebo effect, or the assigning of supernatural causes to phenomena that are naturally caused (like they used to with the weather, disease, etc).

Here is the MP3 of this show I am talking about. The part about mesmerism is from 42:35 to 50:20.

http://feeds.wnyc.org/~r/radiolab/~5/118525705/radiolab051807pod.mp3

And some more links for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesmer#The_advent_of_animal_magnetism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism

What do you think?

- Bernardo

A Few Personal Notes

2007-09-06T19:04:00.001-07:00

I know that I have been well short of prolific in these spaces lately. One could hope that the content has been of greater quality while declining in quantity. I actually have been concentrating a bit more on my writing and style. Did anyone notice?

The last few months have been filled with substantial turmoil. My partner and I started a business over 26 years which grew to be very substantial. However, due to conditions within and outside of our control, we were forced to sell the business to the highest bidder last month. This process has been extremely time consuming and draining. It has made it very hard to be "up" for blogging or any other creative endeavor.

To make matters even more interesting (to me at least), I am now in the process of deciding what to do for a living. Part of the sale includes continuing on as an employee for the next 8 months, but there is no guarantee of work beyond that. So I am currently flexing my writing skills, and attempting to sell three book ideas, several freelance column ideas, a couple of freelance articles, check into adjunct professoring, consulting, and expert witnessing.

If anyone has any thoughts on any of those career paths or can be of any help, please comment or email.

The good news is that now that the deal is closed, and the day-to-day management of the company is behind me, I am full of creative vigor and am writing 1000's of words per day. Some for the job. Lots for publication.

Alas, it is unclear to me how much time I can devote to this blog, in that I need to be writing for dollars. However, it is my intent to do at least a post or two per week and stay up with the comments. I could sure use some guest posts. (I admit that Bernardo sent me a good one that I haven't even had time to make ready, but I will.)

Thanks to all who visit and contribute here. I do intend to keep trying to be a good host.

Odds of No Catastrophic End to Life

2007-08-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

Much has been written, even a well argued post here, about the question of the precise aspects needed to sustain life on this planet. More to the point, I have argued here that it is beyond comprehension that this status has been maintained for billions of years without intelligent intervention to keep the systems within a life-sustaining range.

Those arguing against such a proposition say that it is just so. Others suggest that this is flawed logic. One commentor said that we have had a least 4 near wipe-outs of life, but life came back.

Call the following a falacy if you like. However:

1. With so many mindless species having lived and gone extinct, how is it that none has ever been so successful at destroying other life that all but its own species was destroyed, leaving it with no food supply?

2. How is it that nature has such balance that even in the most inhospitable places, life finds a way?

3. How is it that life did recover from the 4 great catastrophes that we believe may have destroyed up to 96% of life?

4. Why life at all? Doesn't it appear that there is something about life which has a huge drive to survive? What is that about? In humans, we have self awareness that might cause us to want to keep living for the things we desire, even in the face of great difficulty. But why does a cockroach have that built into him? What is the source of that drive?

If I was playing serious money poker with you, and you were dealt two straight flushes in a row with no draw, I would want to find out what "magic" you possessed. You could tell me until the end of time that you just got lucky, but I'd never quite believe it, no matter how much evidence there was to back up your claim.

Free Will and Indoctrination

2007-08-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Re: My earlier post about the LA Times religious editor who lost his faith. My last thought in the post elicited the most comments. Do we need indoctrination to hold onto closely held beliefs. Add to this stew the issue of free will vs some form of cause-and-effect only thinking, and it would at least seem to offer new opportunities for contemplation of the human condition.

If "I" and "my actions" are but the sum total of various data inputs, then, he who controls the inputs should be able to finally claim the crown of Emperor of the World. Hitler and Osama think information and oppression alone will do it, but what with chemicals and other biomethods, surely we could turn humans into robots.

Then we will be faced with the question I think I posted about here a while back regarding folks who are mentally imbalanced: "How will we know?" Has it already happened? Enter the Matrix.

The "First Cause" Concept

2007-08-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Picture the three of us (my son-in-law with his Masters in apologetics from Biola, working on a second Masters in spirituality; my son, currently reading John McArthur (the leading US proponent of Calvinism; and me working on this issue around the pool overlooking the Pacific in Hawaii. We tend to agree with the conclusions of the previous post:

Most concepts of a Christian God make the concept of free will pretty hard to consistently consider.

In general, it is hard to imagine any effect, including any human decision that is not informed 100% by previous causality.

Defining Free Will is fraught with peril.

In the midst of this brainstorming session, an original thought (whatever that is) presented itself. There had to be at least one first cause in history. Why only one? Thus humans (and who knows who else) might have the capacity to being completely creative and generate first causes. This doesn't require a spiritual side or a soul. However, it does go to the matter as first presented, who am "I" if I'm not capable of free will decisions. Now it is proposed that I am an agent of first causes.

Free Will Fantasy

2007-08-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

I just needed some time to think it through. Now what was so confusing has become simple at last. I just need to pretend that I actually can make choices. After all, up until now I have been pretending that there is a God and that Jesus is His Son. With all that practice, it should be a no brainer to pretend like the decisions I make have consequences over which I need to concern myself.

Come to think of it, I have been pretending just that all my life. Since I have never considered seriously such contentions from philosophy like "everything being in my head" as being something to seriously ponder, the pile of such discards has included no free will.

I really need to pretend these things, because our entire Western way of thinking is based on volition. The jurisprudence system is based on intent and reasonable man. Our constitution set out the idea of the peons ruling the rulers by making and informed decision. Our commerce is based on consumer choice.

Wonder if there are other aspects of what we think we know scientifically that will require us to pretend to accept the unscientific? First God. Then free will. What next?

Free Will, or at least Cheap Will

2007-08-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning, and I am sooooo confused. I don't want to do what God preordained me to do. Even if it is the absolute best thing for me to do, I don't want to do it, just because. Call me a child of the '60's. A real rebel.

Moreover, I certainly don't want to do anything that is simply the result of random occurrences in my genetics, experiences, and bodily chemical reactions. Yuk. So, my first thought was to do the opposite of what I was going to do. Unfortunately, that would be exactly what my predispositions would cause me to do. I considered doing the opposite of the opposite. I put my options into a random generator. Surely God knew I would do that. Besides, my reading of an article on a new random number generator last week surely caused me to think of that option.

Now my thoughts turned diabolical. If I can't make any real choices about my actions, then I really need to consider why I fret so much over making choices. I have read many places, including the Bible, that we should take care of today, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Coooool! In the case of the Bible, this had to do with not worrying or being anxious. But many, many self help books and pundits seem to mean something far more nihilistic.

So, if I choose not to believe in God, this is because I wasn't intended to anyway. If I choose to maximize my own power, wealth, consumption, and personal enjoyment, regardless of how it effects others, this would merely be the result of previous causes in my life. I can disregard the little voice in my head telling me to be unselfish, kind, loving, and such, since that voice is not the Holy Spirit, and the part of my make-up that can turn off that voice is just as much a part of me that turns it on.

Sure, I have to weigh consequences of my actions. But, lets face it, I'm 59. If I could get in 10 years of living large, there won't be that much time left for paying those consequences. And that's assuming I ever get caught or drive away the friendship of someone who really matters to me.

Need to think a bit more about all this. I'm off to church. Not because I choose to go in the face of all this, but because my Great, great, great grandparents went to church every week.

Calvinists vs Arminians

2007-07-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

It might seem strange that I would offer up an internecine squabble on these pages, but the Kirk house is currently debating the issue, and it gave rise to a couple of appropriate thoughts regarding the debate herein.

Calvinists and Arminians disagree on several things, but the meaty part is over predestination vs free will. "Did God decide 'in the beginning' which of us humans would be saved and which condemned to hell." If he made such a decision, and there is plenty of solid scripture to back up that POV, then how can there be such a thing as free will. If no free will, then how can we ascribe personal responsibility to any act or person. If no free will, why even contemplate the issues of good vs evil or God vs no God? Last element of the set up: Both sides of the C vs A debate pretty much agree that there is no way to resolve the scriptural conflict this side of heaven. You pretty much select free to choose or God already chose by faith.

By now you are probably miles ahead of me in thinking how this applies more broadly to question posed here. Hopefully, however, I will surprise at least 10% of the faithful readers of this blog with my main epiphany. The Bible stands alone among all resources produced by humans in that it claims to provide us with Truth. Other religious texts might come close, but none make the audacious claims about being a depository of all Truth that the Bible does. As a result, the OT has proclaimed Truth for 4000 or so years with the NT now adding to (but not subtracting from) OT Truth for over 2000 years.

One of my other blogs is humbly titled "The Truth About Everything." I intended that to be audacious, over the top, intentionally rediculous, etc. Having named the blog thus, it would be fair for everyone and anyone who visits there to challenge every assertion, including the name. Some might say that I have created a lightening rod. If I had entitled it "Randy's Musings," it wouldn't have been such a direct challenge to visitors.

Fast forward 1 year or 20 years or 50 years, my postings of the Truth would likely seem silly, off kilter, or even have proven to be the opposite of truth. If I were still writing Truth, readers would and should point to my past error in evaluating my current assertions.

Back to the Bible. It is an easy mark for those who wish to comment on its postings. There are so many postings written by so many people that many deem it remarkable that there are no contradictions (or at least none that can't be overcome by sometimes tortuous means.) But on the whole, I think a fair jurist would say that the lack of (whoops) significant contradictions is rare for a work of this magnitude, scope, authorship, etc.

When compared to any other source of truth claims, the Bible is the only one who doesn't have the option of changing its words or statements. We humans may change our interpretation, and like any observable thing, humans will have different takes on what they see, hear, read, smell, taste, etc.

Which brings us back to Calvin and Armin, and to free will and predestination (insert also omniscience and determinism.) We either choose one or the other by faith, or we have been predisposed to our destiny regarding these issues by God or by wiring. And if this isn't the most complex philosophical question facing humans that has real consequences for living, I don't know what would be more so.

Religion Editor Dumps Religion

2007-07-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

Trying to be fair and balanced here, so I report on the LA Times religion editor, who as a self-described "serious Christian," lost his faith while writing about religion in Southern California. He seems to have been most troubled by the Priest scandals and the excesses of the leadership at Trinity Broadcasting Network.

At the time, I never imagined Catholic leaders would engage in a widespread practice that protected alleged child molesters and belittled the victims. I latched onto the explanation that was least damaging to my belief in the Catholic Church — that this was an isolated case of a morally corrupt administration.

and

I understood that I was witnessing the failure of humans, not God. But in a way, that was the point. I didn't see these institutions drenched in God's spirit. Shouldn't religious organizations, if they were God-inspired and -driven, reflect higher standards than government, corporations and other groups in society?

and regarding TBN

I tried unsuccessfully to get several prominent mainstream pastors who appeared on TBN to comment on the prosperity gospel, Hinn's "faith healing" or the Crouches' lifestyle. Like the Catholic bishops, I assumed, they didn't want to risk what they had. AS the stories piled up, I began to pray with renewed vigor, but it felt like I wasn't connecting to God. I started to feel silly even trying.

You will recognize the major issues that William Lobdell struggled against

The questions that I thought I had come to peace with started to bubble up again. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God get credit for answered prayers but no blame for unanswered ones? Why do we believe in the miraculous healing power of God when he's never been able to regenerate a limb or heal a severed spinal chord?

In one e-mail, I asked John, who had lost a daughter to cancer, why an atheist businessman prospers and the child of devout Christian parents dies. Why would a loving God make this impossible for us to understand?

One can only suspect that there were many among his peers at the Times who were only too happy to encourage his steps away from faith. Without the balance of a Christian fellowship, scripture reading, or prayer, it was easy to slip away.

My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago — probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up. Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don't. It's not a choice. It can't be willed into existence. And there's no faking it if you're honest about the state of your soul.

Many questions for both sides of the debate. Was he ever saved? Did his lack of centering in one doctrinal area get in the way of establishing a set of core beliefs (Catholic, presbyterian, TBN, Mormon?) Do we, as humans, need continuous indoctrination to maintain our core beliefs, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, humanist, or atheist?

Read the entire article here

Seeing Beyond the Big Bang

2007-07-01T21:41:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I wondered aloud whether or not we would be able to see beyond the Big Bang. It would appear that at least some scientists think it is possible.

It may be possible to glimpse before the supposed beginning of time into the universe prior to the Big Bang, researchers now say.

Unfortunately, any such picture will always be fuzzy at best due to a kind of "cosmic forgetfulness."

The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently scientists have instead suggested the Big Bang might have just been the explosive beginning of the current era of the universe, hinting at a mysterious past.

To see how far into history one might gaze, theoretical physicist Martin Bojowald at Pennsylvania State University ran calculations based on loop quantum gravity, one of a number of competing theories seeking to explain how the underlying structure of the universe works.

Past research suggested the Big Bang was preceded by infinite energies and space-time warping where existing scientific theories break down, making it impossible to peer beforehand. The new findings suggest that although the levels of energy and space-time warping before the Big Bang were both incredibly high, they were finite.

Scientists could spot clues in the present day of what the cosmos looked like previously. If evidence of the past persisted after the Big Bang, its influence could be spotted in astronomical observations and computational models, Bojowald explained.

However, Bojowald also figures some knowledge of the past was irrevocably lost. For instance, the sheer size of the present universe would suppress precise knowledge of how the universe changed in size before the Big Bang, he said.

Why Not Nothing?

2007-07-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

Chief skeptic, Michael Shermer, says this might be the most important article ever to appear in Skeptic Mag.

DOWNLOAD Why This Universe article by Robert Kuhn (PDF)

I agree that it is a nice single source for almost every permutation of believe about what is and how it might have come to be.

Next From Apple

2007-06-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

Surely, Steve and his pals must be busy working on this new item. If you'd like to see more zany ideas of what the MacMakers might be up to, go here.

Hugh Hewitt Takes Up This Debate

2007-06-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hewitt, syndicated radio talk show host, political pundit, and one of the fathers of blogging, has a 15 week debate taking place on his radio show. Titled "the Great God Debate" with authors Christopher Hitchens and Mark D. Roberts, you can find the audio here for part one. I intend to provide links to the rest later.

In addition, Mark D. Roberts is critiquing specific facts and assumptions of Hitchens' new book, "god Is Not Great," in his blog.

A commentor bring up a variation on a theme long debated:

Hitchens would have us believe that the first century church not only followed a man who never existed, but they constructed from the hearts of fishermen and tax collectors a collection of proverbs and stories that turned the world upside down. If so, then Jesus’ disciples are more clever in death than they were in life and the greatest miracle of all is that those common people not only corporately imagined Jesus’ life, but they went to their deaths by the tens of thousands for their collective dream; for a man who never lived. Hitchens’ contribution to history is his claim that the fire which consumed the Roman Empire was never struck…

Your thoughts?

An Elemental Impulse: Religion Is So Powerful That Even Soviet Antireligious Policy Failed..... by Paul Gabel

2007-05-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

The featured article in this week’s eSkeptic is on the Soviet attempt to eradicate religion by fiat out of the Russian people. The attempt failed utterly. The historical experiment carries an important lesson for those who study belief systems in general and religion in particular: you cannot legislate beliefs and faith. Today’s atheists who are emboldened by Richard Dawkins’ Lennonesque clarion call to “imagine no religion” should read this article (and the book on which it is based) carefully, and then try to imagine another solution to the problems caused by religious extremists, for as another evolutionary biologist — Edward O. Wilson — cautioned us in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, On Human Nature:

Skeptics continue to nourish the belief that science and learning will banish religion, which they consider to be no more than a tissue of illusions… Today, scientists and other scholars, organized into learned groups such as the American Humanist Society and Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, support little magazines distributed by subscription and organize campaigns to discredit Christian fundamentalism, astrology, and Immanuel Velikovsky. Their crisply logical salvos, endorsed by whole arrogances of Nobel Laureates, pass like steel-jacketed bullets through fog.

There is, indeed, something deeply elemental about the power of belief.

— Michael Shermer

The article is reprinted in its entirety here It would be nice to have all the comments back here, rather than under the article, itself.

What Do YOU Fear?

2007-05-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

One might criticize me for going a bit afield on this post, but I do think it ties into the debate. However, my purpose has a wider scope, so I would appreciate as many comments on this one as possible. You might even want to post the question on your blogs and get me some additional thoughts on the subject.

The list of possible fears is long and varied, everything from public speaking to spiders and such. However, for the purpose of this survey, I'm looking for the big picture. I will list 10 that I can think of that should set the tone. If these are big for you, let me know. If there are other similar things that are bigger for you, add them.

The US devolving into a dictatorship
The rapture and God's judgment on earth
Hell
Global Warming
Islamic extremism creating global conflict
Nuclear holocaust
Depletion of critical natural resources
The US devolving into a socialist government
Overpopulation
Underpopulation
Too few culturally "Western Civilization" in the population
Pollution
Nuclear power plant catastrophe - or nuclear waste catastrophe
Aliens (from outer space)
Avian flu or similar disease
Scientific advance out of control (e.g. genetic engineering, nanobots, robots with AI)

Mouth's of Babes Department

2007-05-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

I regret that I cannot link the source on this quote, but it is reported third hand to me that a book of letters written by kids around ten included this idea: "God why do kill things just so you can make more of them."

Could the question of evil be put any more succinctly. Sure, we humans have divided up killing into all kinds of levels of acceptability and cruelty. But a death is a death. Pain is pain. I've been told by countless women that childbirth is like pulling your bottom lip over your head (that might actually have been Bill Cosby.) So God allows evil, torture, lots of pain, horrific bad things happening to children and cute little animals. But the child above may have whittled the issue down to its essential. What say you?

In The Beginning

2007-05-02T19:35:00.001-07:00

Like a good lawyer at trial, I would like to give and ask for a few stipulations:

Matter exists.
Energy exists.
Information exists
Rules exist
Each of these exist at this moment as a result of cause and effect that stretches back either to some point, or to infinity.
It is unlikely that we will ever know whether these first causes of each of these exist or if they are infinite.
The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that any of these came from nothing.
The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that the causes of these things are infinite.

Up until this point in this series of observations/stipulations, there is no advantage to either the God or no God side of the debate.

I suspect that one reason folks tend towards theism is that it is easier to imagine a spiritual world as infinite, and the finite world as being created by the spiritual. Some who have blogged on the no God side here have suggested that time began with the big bang, and that prior to this there was no time. This fits perfectly with the concept that in the spiritual realm there is no time, and thus infinity is no longer impossible to consider.

Also, state elsewhere but repeated here as appropriate to this post, it is impossible for us to grasp matter or energy as have a first cause without a spiritual dimension to "create" it, but it is even harder to imagine how information or rules were included in a godless explosion of matter and energy.

Induced Happiness

2007-04-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago I posted on Happiness vs Joy. It didn't result in much discussion (Ok. No one commented.) This was a bit surprising in a blog where 20 comments is the average. At some level the issues of happiness, joy, contentment, anxiety, angst, fear are at the very heart of the human condition. Wired magazine has a brief essay this month which adds a bit of flavor to the issue from the pharm side of things. I recommend this 3 minute read. But here's an excerpt:

From a distance, pleasure without fear or desire sounds pretty good. But in your grasp, it starts to feel less like paradise and more like soma. A species that shuts out adversity does not survive very long in a Darwinian universe. In the short term, humans with happy-making neural implants would cease to be interesting. Quenching feelings of hardship also means never feeling desire or want. Unpleasant as those emotions can be, they're also the basis for ambition and creativity. "Happy people are not ambitious," Greenfield says. "They do not build civilizations."

One could argue that there is no inherent goodness in building civilization, and I have had some commenters on this and other blogs who feel all this need to grow and build is not the best for human kind. The Jesus People certainly would contend that the constant grasping for material improvement is not of God. Many environmentalists clearly would like to see a return to simpler times.

Now enters the age of Pharma. The article points out that we may be on our way to being able to use various drugs or other tools to completely control our moods. We certainly have taken a number of very large steps down that path with various anti-depressants, anti-anxiety products, ADD and ADHD solutions, and "muscle relaxents." On the surface and case-by-case one has a hard time saying to the chronically depressed person, "You'll get over it," when a couple of tiny pills will give them so much peace. But as a species, is this approach wise?

Taking it directly into the God realm, there is a small and shrinking percentage of the Christian community who proclaim the sufficiency of Christ. This is similar to the Christian Scientist Claim of no medical intervention. However, do we begin to see their point as we move down the slippery slope. (Or should we say slippery slopes...eg. designer babies, gene alteration, or enhancement drugs.) Should we draw a line? Where?

The article concludes with this interesting thought:

Maybe it's no coincidence that some of the happy-making stuff is manufactured in those countries. It's reminiscent of the scenario laid out by another prescient thinker, H. G. Wells. In his book The Time Machine, Wells wrote about a world where the happy, indolent elite — the Eloi — are served by industrious outsiders called Morlocks. The Eloi are also the hardworking Morlocks' food. Grim stuff. And also the exact opposite of what Jefferson was trying to tee up for Americans. Maybe he knew that if you have too much happiness, you don't get life and liberty.

The Question of Evil Takes Center Stage

2007-04-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

What is the source of evil in the human condition? Can we ever understand it? Is it possible to eliminate it? Can humans even make a dent in the amount and degree of evil in the world? Many words have been spoken and written on this subject in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech incident. A new book is out on the subject by Phillip Zimbardo, who is famous for his work on the Stanford Prison Experiment, titled "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil." Allow me a few random scribbles. Then it's your turn.

1. Every single human has done evil things. Christians claim one exception, Jesus.

2. Zimbardo believes that we are almost all capable of significant evil given opportunity, peer pressure, and an certain conditions conducive to the dehumanization of the victims. He also believes there will be some "heroes" that will attempt to undermine such evil, but doubts that they are necessarily endowed with some special "character" that causes this.

3. Some amount of evil seems to be at the hands of individuals who are chemically, hormonally, psychologically, or socially imbalanced. Are we all at least somewhat damaged in this way, and thus inclined to evil?

4. Some evil seems to grow out of the "frog in the kettle" syndrome. This is where the frog is put in a kettle of cold water and the heat is slowly turned up. The incremental increase is such that the frog adjusts and doesn't try to get out. Eventually it kills him. (I've heard that his cannot be proved experimentally.) However it has become a metaphor for the idea of becoming desensitized to messages or images that would have earlier caused revulsion.

5. Desperation can create inappropriate acts. Sometimes we are more inclined to give folks a pass if they seem to be acting out of fear of great loss. However, I think we can find cases where what may have started out as a response to desperation may mature into something more evil or even abjectly evil.

6. A quest for seemingly appropriate ends can provide justification for evil acts...the ends justify the means.

7. Then there is normal human drives that probably produce the most evil on a day-to-day basis. The desire to be liked or loved, admired or even revered; the desire to accumulate wealth, power, or prestige; the fear of loneliness, deprivation, or pain. The evils may start out small in type or degree, but then increase in small steps like drips in a basin. Or the type of evil may be of the type that always needs a newer or greater dose.

OK, enough from me. Add to the list. Challenge the ones listed. Apply it to the blog subject. Offer solutions.

Einstein - Relativity

2007-04-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

In reading a review of two new books on Einstein this morning, I had this odd thought. Under the theory of relativity we are able to study the light coming to our planet which bears images of billions of years past. Currently some scientists claim that we are able to see to approximately 500,000 years after the big bang. So with that set up, here is the question: If the entire universe was compacted into this little ball of matter and energy prior to the big bang, at some point there will be no light for the telescopes to see. If there was something prior to the big bang, and it gave off light, will we be able to see past the point of no light to the place where there was light?

Practical Advantages - Health and Well Being

2007-04-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

One subject regarding the question of how belief effects daily living has received a fair amount of scientific scrutiny, health and well being. The LA Times has an article in the religion section of today's paper that discusses a newly published study. Here is an excerpt:

A nationwide study released earlier this month found that 85% of 1,144 physicians surveyed believe that religion and spirituality have a positive influence on a patient's health.

"They believe they will do better if God is on their side," said Robertson, chief heart surgeon at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

The study, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that only 1% of the respondents said religion can have a negative effect on health. Two percent said that religion had no effect, and 12% said positive and negative effects were equal.

The study, which touched on a variety of subjects, also asked whether doctors believed that God or another supernatural being "ever intervenes in patients' health." Fifty-four percent said yes. Twenty-eight percent said no, and 18% were undecided.

Once again, I don't propose that this proves there is a God, and the study appears to be pretty much type-of-god-neutral. And I wouldn't suggest to a non-believer: "Wanna be healthier and have more people show up when your in the hospital? Well, choose Jesus!" It is just one more thing. Maybe 1% of how the decision process might work, keeping believers in the fold. In most cases, it might not even be a conscious idea, merely an underlying understanding.

Practical Advantage of Belief - Unconditional Love of God

2007-04-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

From the earliest age we teach the song "Jesus Loves Me" to our kids. Later, it is "Jesus Loves the Little Children." God knows that he has built into each one of us a need to be loved. But when that love is based on conditions, it turns into something that drives us to behave in ways that we think will cause others to love us. These “ways” can be very distructive. Maybe I feel that my Mom will only love me if I perform well in school. That would seem like a good thing. Until I fail, that is. Or until I fail to meet what I believe are her expectations. Now I’m living my life for her, not for me.

Lets say that I believe that God’s love is conditional. How better to live my life than to be constantly comparing what I do to what Ithink God wants me to do? Then I fail, and I will. I think that God’s love is withdrawn. How do I recover from that? Strive harder? Work harder? Or give up in despair? The Biblical God doesn’t intend that. He definitely wants us to work hard and do as he has so instructed us for our own good, not His good. He wants to be there to lift us up when we fail, not abandon us. The knowledge that God will be there, NO MATTER WHAT, even if everyone else has forsaken us, is a phenomenal comfort. If we truly trust in that one thing, it will carry us through much that we might otherwise become self destructive over.

The Golden Rule vs The 2nd Greatest Commandment

2007-04-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

My son hates to use the pooper scooper. He says it makes him gag. Under the golden rule, since I wouldn't want someone to make me do a chore that makes me gag, I should find another way to get this done. Under the "Kit" variation of the golden rule, do unto others as you believe they would have you do unto them (I hope I got that right), it would be real obvious that I should not have him pick up the poop.

Under the 2nd greatest commandment, love others as you love yourself, I will take into consideration the need to teach my son to be disciplined (as explained elsewhere in the Bible), and to handle adversity and to not be anxious about it. He would not have any issue with doing the chore, because he would know that he is to obey me out of love and respect.

I bring all of this up, because some who comment here and elsewhere from the non-believer point of view believe that the golden rule covers it all, and that since this concept is found in other religions that predate Christianity, then the Bible isn't special. The 2nd greatest commandment is not the same, by a longshot, as the golden rule.

Let's Take A Poll - All Who Believe Say, "Amen"

2007-04-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

A while back, we spent some time on the issue of consensus, and I made it clear that I am not terribly persuaded by the fact that most or many scientists say this or that. However, the folks who create the news, politicians, lawyers, and others can hardly speak without inserting the latest poll. We are supposed to be especially impressed if 100 Nobel Peace Prize winners agree on something. (Like, when was the last person who ever voted Republican given a Nobel?)

This issue has been coming up fairly frequently in this blog, and I wanted to try and get some kind of understanding on the issue.

We use polling in the US to determine a lot of things. Who will make the best POTUS, Senator, Judge, whether a new law is a good idea or not, whether I will get big $$$$ because you broke my car or my arm, and whether or not you go to jail. Then there are the Public Opinion Polls which give us the truth on any number of subjects.

As we search for the "truth" of any proposition we can never be certain of our own perceptions. We might be color blind, tone deaf, or soulless. We can't be totally positive about our experimental results, because we can't be totally certain whether we have considered every variable. We can't be absolutists with regard to our experience, because too frequently my wife remembers it differently. Thus, we poll.

My wife asks three friends about their recollection to prove her point. We ask the others at the table whether the wine was excellent to them. We try and find more witnesses to an event. We get more experts to weigh in with their opinion about where the economy is going, or what happened in Dallas 25 years ago. We do more experiments and we do papers on what the total of all the experiments seem to say. Then we get a panel of scientists to say that this is now the consensus.

Does any of this change the objective truth. No, in my opinion. A well run experiment that seems to point to the truth does not tell us what is true, except for that experiment at that time with what we know in that moment. And we have a laundry list of experiments that seemed to show "truth" that are now overridden by later experiment. The truth is what it is regardless of our experimental attempts to find it.

Just because every human on earth says something is true doesn't change anything. If the truth is something else, all that opinion won't make it different.

But we need some system to try and find truth, even as elusive as truth seems to be. Thus we have various kinds of evidence and ways to measure the usefulness of that evidence. Some of the ways are very strict rules (e.g. hearsay.) Some are more loosely understood to be superior (eye witness v. circumstantial.)

Taking a poll of laypeople or experts is a kind of evidence which helps us to move toward the truth of any subject, in this layperson's opinion. I think if we took a poll, most people would agree with me on this.

Dawkins Can Run, But He Can't Hide

2007-04-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

While "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins has been racking up a cool million or so unit sales over the past 30 years (respectable, but not that huge), he has clearly caused more than a million souls to accept some or all of his basic premise: Genes might be the fundamental building blocks of life, and they use various life forms as vehicles to maximize their own future replication. Dawkins goes to great lengths to assure us that this is a mindless pursuit by the genes, but that the genes quite naturally always do that which will accomplish the end of helping them make more little copies of themselves.

In Dawkins' attempt to sell his theory he admitted to needing a very clever title to his book/idea. The selfish gene implies self-awareness and intent, but Dawkins wants us all to be clear that he intends no such implication. Rather the approach is used by him to help us all understand the process, then he wants us to forget the method of teaching, while accepting the ultimate theory or premise. This is all well and good, except for a couple of troubling problems.

#1. Since he uses the anthropomorphising of the gene as his teaching method, he clearly implies that the "vehicles (life forms, including humans)" act in the way that his genes only appear to act. In particular, there is no escaping the conclusion that the self-aware human species which can manifest intent would act in the ways he suggests. If not, then the metaphors would not work as teaching vehicles.

#2. Looking at things through the "eyes of the genes," as he puts it, creates a clear picture for how the vehicles (called "survival machines) they create must act in order to maximize the duplication of the organisms which therefore maximizes the duplication of the genes. That is, short term strategies that are selfish work best.

Dawkins tries very hard in the book to run away from these conclusions, especially since he makes it clear where his politics lie. As a progressive or liberal he has to be in favor of "getting along," or as he stresses "altruistic" behavior. However, he seems to never actually say any act is altruistic, but rather explains that those acts that appear to be so are generally due to ulterior motives. One example includes helping a close kin, so that the genes of the closely related individual can replicate.

In the years following publication, he has tried to stress that many people who read him are just confused by the implications of his work. My sense is that he is too close to it, and just doesn't get it. Whether seen through the eyes of the gene or the survival machines, the best strategy for maximizing lots of children and grandchildren is selfish behavior.

A year after "The Selfish Gene" was published Robert Ringer sold more copies in the first year of his instant hit "Looking Out For #1," than Dawkins has sold to date. Ringer was offering a Dawkins' approach to sales and life in general. Ringer's idea was that we are all self-interested, and we should be, but that commonly our self interest is best expressed by looking out for others.

Ringer was roundly criticized for his title, and very few "got" his message, just like Dawkins. The may both be about how humans act. The question is: what will this message combined with materialistic and naturalistic explanations for life leave us with. I suggest that it leaves not other plan of action than pure selfishness or altruism that is cynical and manipulative.

The final effort by Dawkins to run away from the logical extension of his premise is the use of the prisoner's dilemma. I did original research using this game in my undergraduate work in pscyh, so I'm very familiar with it benefits and shortcomings. This is not a proper forum for explaining the game, if you wish a short primer, go here.

Dawkins uses the game to try and prove mathematically that over many iterations, the biggest winners are those who consistently co-operate and are forgiving. It would take another massive post to show all the holes in this analysis regarding the application to Dawkin's premise, but just consider a few.

1. The prisoner's dilemma is a zero sum game. Life is not.
2. The P/D has only two players, both with intent. Life does not.
3. There is no chance occurrences in P/D. In life, there are many.

Most importantly, the prisoner's dilemma only pays off in money. Dawkins only pays off in replication. We can only hope that your and my neighbors have found more to life than those two issues.

Dawkins - Gene as Demigod

2007-04-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

I have received much criticism from forum debaters and blog commenters when arguing science that, "I am out of my league." The idea seems to be that their vastly superior scholarship in the sciences, particularly biology, rend my arguments sophomoric at least. Therefore, I was most pleased to receive a birthday gift from an unexpected source a few weeks ago. Bernardo sent me a copy of Dawkin's, "The Selfish Gene."

The book has been praised by many for being lively and compelling. I am a voracious reader, and my wife will tell you that I almost never fail to complete a book, even if I'm not very impressed. With "Gene" I was pretty excited for about 4 chapters, but had to force myself to continue on, commonly falling asleep mid-sentence.

As I read and reread certain sections, I kept trying to fully form the impression that I was taking out of this work. After completing the book, I Googled reviews and criticisms to see if I could get my arms around my sense of the book. To my surprise I found that my feelings were shared by none other than Stephen Jay Gould. In this essay, John Alcock put it nicely:

Rejecting the usefulness or even coherency of the selfish gene concept, Gould and Lewontin have proposed that the adaptationist programme and sociobiology generates little more than untestable and unfalsifiable speculations about the origins of organismal adaptations, which after Rudyard Kipling’s tale of how the elephant got its trunk they have labelled Just So stories. If this charge where true, then sociobiology would indeed be the pseudo-scientific discipline its critics claim it is.

It seemed to me that Dawkins, having rejected the Biblical God, needed to find some way to explain the complexity and apparent design all around us, in particular within living creatures. He decided the the gene was the creator of complexity by virtue of its desire to self-replicate, and because from time-to-time the self-replication mechanism creates bad copies. The bad copies, under this theory, sometimes were more successful than their producers, thus they became the more dominant replicators, sometimes causing the extinction of the parent gene.

Some scientists believe that the Dawkins approach is simpler than Goddidit. The constant bouncing by Dawkins from examples in nature to "it could have happened this way," to analogies requiring genes to have self awareness and intent, made it absolutely impossible to be believed. I can understand how some, like Dawkins, who are predisposed to naturalism would find this idea compelling. I am not surprised that some, like Gould, have found this approach to be "just so stories."

Sin As Evidence of God

2007-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

On this Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday it seems only to appropriate to raised the issue of sin and redemption as evidence of God. Do all men sin? What is sin? Can believers and those who don't believe agree on the what constitutes sin? We could start with 7 of the 10 commandments

1. Don't kill. This is taken to mean don't intentionally kill another human except in some well defined exceptions: Self defense, war, state sanctioned executions of criminals, etc. Jesus later added that the OT definition was to narrow and broadened it to include character assassination.

2. Don't steal. Taking something that doesn't belong to you assumes property rights. Once again this concept requires intention. It is likely that this sin is almost universal in that it would include time, office supplies, and sick days from one's employer. These seem so petty to us today, but should they?

3. Don't bear false witness. Widely misinterpreted to mean don't lie, this commandment has to do with lies that intentionally harm another. Clearly this would not include lying to your wife about whether or not she "looks fat in this outfit." Once again, there are very few of us who can claim to have never gossiped or participated in gossip with the intent to build our self up or tear another down.

4. No adultery. If you are married, you shouldn't have sexual intercourse with another person. Whether married or not you should not have sexual intercourse with a person who is married. The broadest definition would include that no one should have sexual intercourse with someone who is not their spouse.

5. Don't covet. Potentially the most widely forgotten and ignored of the ten commandments, this has to do with envy and materialistic desires. The OT may have intended this to only cover coveting specific things that were owned by your neighbor, but NT broadened the concept. I would suspect that almost every human has even coveted in the OT sense.

6. Don't worship idols. God laid down this commandment in terms of worshipping things (the sun, moon, little wooden statues) ahead of him. The NT has broadened this to deal with the worship of money, people (American idol?), things (1967 red Corvette). Worship might mean such things as bowing down to, singing praises to, making sacrifices to, being enslaved to.

7. Honor father and mother. This one is called the commandment with promise, because it includes a phrase suggesting that if you obey it, your life will be better and longer. I propose that this may have been stated here specifically because of how hard it was and is to obey if the parents seem unworthy of honor. I state this because throughout the first five books of the Bible, God makes clear that all of his commands and rules are designed to increase life's benefits.

I have left out the Sabbath day of rest, since very few have an literal or even figurative tribute to this commandment anymore. It seems like a very, very good idea.

I have left out use of the Lord's name as a curse word. Certainly if one worships something, the use of the worshipped one's name in the form of a curse would seem like sin. For those who didn't worship god "A" using god A's name as a vulgarity might shorten one's life or happiness considerably.

Finally, I have not included the first commandment dealing with worshipping God. However, if God is who He says He is, and we fail to worship Him, this would seem to be a pretty significant sin.

The Bible goes on to say that EVERYONE has sinned. If we were to agree that everyone sins by these or almost any imaginable definition, would this then be evidence that the creator knew of this sin nature, wanted to tell man about how to deal with it, and then offer a redemptive strategy for sin?

Practical Advantage Of Belief - Origins

2007-04-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

The issue of where we came from is called origins. Like the other two big questions (purpose of existence and afterlife), it does effect how we conduct ourselves now. If we are just another animal, and the result of relentless biological evolution, where purposeless nature has driven one species to an advantage over others, then we should expect to act in ways that will advance our own gene pool. This might be at the expense of other gene pools, or it might be in cooperation depending on one’s practical view of things. However, we would certainly always be looking over our shoulder at those in other gene pools who may have come to the conclusion that, like a reality TV show, they need to come out on top of our group.

While it would be nice if we could all get along, if our understanding is that it is about natural selection, there will always be those who will ruthlessly pursue an advantage in that game. If we care about our kids and grandkids, should that be our approach to life?

If we were created by the God of eternity, and then he breathed a special spirit into us, we are dramatically differentiated from the other animals. It isn’t about a frontal lobe, an opposing thumb, or self-awareness. It is about having a spiritual dimension, because we were made in the image of God. He created us for a purpose. He wanted to love us, and to be an object of worship by us. Not because he needed to love or be worshipped. However, he wanted to have a relationship with us. And he wanted us to love others, not try and find a gene pool advantage over them.

Evangelism by Atheists and by Christians

2007-03-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

One definition of evangelise is to "cause to adopt a new or different faith." In the broadest terms I would propose that this would mean that an unbeliever who encourages a believer to leave the Christian faith in favor of faith in a purposeless, naturalist world is evangelising. I know that this last could be seen as bordering on fighting words, but I don't mean it to be. It is just one more case of trying to take an evenhanded look at the issue. I suggest that in general there is no difference between my effort to convert someone to faith, and an atheist's effort to convert someone to no faith.

On the other hand, I would argue that there are consequential differences. Some of these might even have ethical implications.

I think it can be fairly argued that, at least in America, there are huge benefits to being a Christian. In fact, atheists seem to commonly feel that they are victimized by their minority status in this country: Can't be president, money says God, etc. So, to the extent that being a part of the majority has advantage, being a Christian has at least that one.

In addition, joining something usually has great benefits for humans. It might be Rotary, the PTA, or a book club, but getting together with others who share common ideas, goals, and such is generally good. Joining a church can be said to offer some additional benefits with regard to care and nurture, community sharing of resources, accountability, and a steady flow of teaching on subjects almost 100% of the population would agree are good: love, forgiveness, peace, golden rule, helping the poor. Excellent evidence that church going has benefits is that so many do it.

There are some pretty clear other health and well being aspects to belief in the Christian faith. I won't detail them here, but most of us know what the claims are.

To the extent that an atheist or unbeliever of any kind intentionally attempts to persuade a believer to stop believing and quit his church, these benefits all stop. They might be able, in some cases, to be replaced by Rotary, classes on love, etc., but there is great risk that the end of a person's involvement in church can be detrimental.

Of course, since no one knows or is likely to find out if there really is a Heaven or Hell, the evangelistic atheist also strips that person of his hope of heaven and of heaven itself (if there is one.)

The Christian evangelist, on the other hand, is pretty clear that bringing a person into the fold will imbue them with all the above benefits, plus heaven. If there turns out to be a black void instead of heaven, no one gets hurt.

I almost hate to use the analogy, but it kind of reminds me of the teacher or aunt who decides to take the initiative in telling a 4 year-old that there is no Santa, while the parents were planning on doing so at 8. My fear of using this analogy is obvious, but in the case of Santa, no one suggests there is a real being. In the case of God, many believe He exists, and no one can prove he doesn't. So the person who takes the intiative to destroy faith does so only because, like the teacher or aunt, he thinks it is important to expose the truth (as he or she understands it.)

Whadya think?

My Own Personal Miracle

2007-03-29T21:06:00.001-07:00

A major issue that divides believers and those who don't is the issue of miracles. Bernardo has mentioned somewhere here that a miracle to him would be seeing a severed limb miraculously regrow before his eyes. The amazing Randi has offered $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove that a miracle happened (subject to a fair number of restrictions.) What is a miracle? The definition is a bit elusive. Following is a glimpse at something that may not rise to Bernardo's, Randi's, or even the Catholic Church standards, but it strays way outside the bounds of the likely or the expected.

I have an undergrad degree in psych with a specialization in human sexual response. In fact, I almost wrote a book with my professor to debunk "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex." But instead it was off to law school, then into business. I stayed up on sexuality issues, but only as a hobby. : )

23 years later I'm having a little tiff with my wife. I pray for God to show me how to resolve the dispute. Out of the absolute blue, I feel an urging to write a book on teen sexuality. My sense it that this is a directive from God. It is Sept 1992. I have written 3 bicycle industry books, and just finished my first national book on business. It is counterproductive to the writing side of my career to do this book. More business books would be smarter. And importantly, I have had no inclination, thought, or intention to write a book on this subject before that moment.
My credentials were not really substantial enough to expect anyone to publish such a book.

Part of the prayer suggests an urgency to have this book to market by the next Summer. This means research, write, find a publisher, and go through the normal one year lag from completing the manuscript to the actual publication in less than 10 months.

I begin the research and writing while running by business, taking care of my family, and flogging the other books already on the market. The manuscript is almost complete in March, but Warner Books (my publisher) isn't interested. My agent isn't interested either.

I'm very close to self-publishing the book when I do a live and in-person interview on a local Christian talk radio show for my business book. The host would not normally have even talked about a business book, but did so because he wanted to help out with the future sex book. Most of these interviews are done by phone, and this one could have been, but it was only 40 minutes from my office, so I go.

After my interview, I go to my car and turn the radio to the show so I can hear the next guest. This guest spends the first five minutes of the show explaining that his publisher took his completed manuscript to market in 3 months. This information would have been totally useless and boring to anyone on the planet except me. It is hard to imagine one other person in that audience having any knowledge or interest in how long it takes a manuscript to get to market after it is in galleys.

I called the publisher that afternoon. The receptionist was out, so the phone was answered by none other than the editor-in-chief. We discussed the project. I overnighted a manuscript. The next day he overnighted a contract. This just doesn't happen - ever.

In September the book was published. Sales were very poor. However, I did over 200 radio interviews and three television interviews from that book. One of the TV events was with Geraldo on his old daytime show. I was the expert against bisexuality. That show was repeated 7 times, and likely seen by 15,000,000 or so people. Total number of people who probably heard my main premise about promiscuity through TV, radio, seminars, and reviews - Over 20,000,000.

Just a whole bunch of crazy coincidences? A fluke? Or God intended?

The Reason We Don't Have Miracles on a Regular Basis

2007-03-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

A guest post from a comment. See her blog.

I would argue that if something is of value (like a miracle - ed) it is valuable because it is not easy to obtain. Precious jewels would be one example. It takes effort and sometimes costs a life to search for some gems or jewels.

Why would people risk thier life to dive deep in the sea to find a particular pearl in a particular cave that is known to be a trap if the silt is stirred by even a ripple of water? That is beyond me...my husband is the diver not me! Anyway.. there is some payoff at the end, something in the experience that makes it worth it.

I believe that God knows the heart of man. He doesn't jump through hoops. How many miracles would it take? How many supernatural acts would convince the world? Using Israel as an example..even though you gentlemen may not agree that the Exodus and other biblical accounts happened... they were the recipients of many supernatural events and still doubted continually. I do the same thing.

In human relationships, in mine anyway, I don't give very much energy to people who are wanting something from me w/o desiring to give much in return. I will help people if they need it but as far as investing time and energy, I save that for people who I can have fellowship with.

The best way for God to reveal himself, in my opinion, is to wait for a person to truly seek to know him, not what he can do - but his being. After a person is in that place they are ready to really listen and hear. Then he can reveal himself. Like the experience of Moses, God was in the quiet, not the obvious. The real transformation of a person's being is the best revelation of God in the world that I have found.

I did have an experience very similar to Saul's on the road to Damascus but it wasn't quick and I was not seeking for answers, just the being I hoped existed and was about to give up on. Christianity came later.

Path to Personal Perception of Truth

2007-03-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

An individual person cannot know what is absolutely true. Yikes! Who would think I would make such a claim? While we must act as if the apple we are about to eat is an apple and edible and full of good things, we can't possibly know that for absolutely certain. Rather, we arrive at these conclusions by the sum of all the evidence that we have at that moment. We have personally eaten items in the past that look, feel, and appear in every way to be similar enough to that which is in front of us to conclude that it is an apple.

We have purchased these items from the same store as these were purchased, and have not become sick or died in the past. The store has a good reputation, as does the little label on the apple. We hope that no one sadist has adulterated the apple, switched the label, or otherwise tampered with it.

We were told by our parents, teachers, and things we have read that apples are good for you, and that in fact we should eat one every day.

This combination of sensory evidence, experience evidence, brand evidence, and trusted opinion of others evidence is enough for us to reach a conclusion about the truth of the above proposition. It may be patently untrue for dozens of obvious reasons. It is a very good wax replica. It has a massive worm inside. Science has not yet discovered the link between apples and brain tumors. Etc.

If new evidence enters the picture (think Alar), we may change our opinion quite quickly from what has seemed to be clear truth to either questioning or downright rejection of the old belief. The new evidence may be some startling new discovery, or it may just be the process of gaining greater and greater amounts of information about a subject. It should be obvious to folks on both sides that more knowledge may actually lead a person further from objective truth, in that lots of highly educated folks on very narrow subjects have vastly different views.

As anon said in a comment below, emotions can enter into the equation, also, but the stronger the evidence the more difficult it is to allow emotion to control the perception of truth. Of course, we all know people who are at the extreme edge of this curve in either direction.

But this is why I continue to insist that an atheist, agnostic, Christian, or Muslim reaches their personal perception of truth by the same method, even if unique personalities may give more weight to one kind of evidence or emotion than another. If I understand Bernardo correctly, he would add in that we may have developed a general world view as a result of our nature or nurture that may substantially color how we reach these conclusions. But bottom line, the personal perception of truth is fluid on all subjects including God, and comes down to the sum total of a person's response to the evidence that they have at that moment.

The Tipping Point Revisited

2007-03-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

Here, earlier, and at an atheist blog, I exposed my own experience of going through tipping points. First was my initial clear personal decision to accept Christ at age 17. Then my decision to leave the church at 21. Later, I tipped to being an agnostic about agnosticism, but was clearly a Darwinist. Finally at age 35, I tipped back to fully embracing Christianity.

In both of these places where I exposed my own journey, I continued by offering what I imagined might tip me back to Naturalism or away from belief in God. Then I suggested self-examination by visitors with the goal that they might be able to imagine what would tip them in one direction or another. Through either failure of imagination, lack of interest in transparency, or concern about giving aid and comfort to the enemy, very few stepped up to the plate.

Here is a short list of what I believe are the primary tipping points that draw people to Jesus. Future posts will elaborate on some of these.

Parents believed in God. With no big obstacles to making that belief personal, so at some age around 17, most kids brought up in the church make personal/mature decisions to believe.
A major life crisis occurs and the individual is unable to find a solution to end the pain or fear or hurt. Someone suggests God or they know enough already to reach out to God.
A love interest is a believer. The individual desires to know all about their lover, so goes to church, listens to preaching, empathizes with love interest, makes decision to draw close to love interest by making decision for God.
An influential person in the life of the individual is a believer. The individual is sold on the benefits or the "truth" of the gospel.
The individual is merely invited by friends to church or an event and through exposure to the church, makes a decision.
The individual has personal interaction with a believer or observes believers who he then admires. He asks for information or they provide him with information about God.
Similarly, the individual is provided with some kind of help from a Christian organization, and through this contact gains information or relationship values that create a tipping point.

In most of the above cases, it is assumed the individual has some or even a lot of knowledge about God prior to the influence which "tips" them.

Is your experience different? What might a similar list look like for tipping one out of the faith? I will post that second list in a few days, but would like to see your ideas first.

Debate? - What Debate? by Bernardo

2007-03-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

Different people have different requirements for what the universe is supposed to be like. If I present someone a certain interpretation of the universe, then this person might reject my interpretation because my interpretation does not meet the requirements for that person's universe. A person's requirements might include "The universe is naturalistic", "If the supernatural exists, we cannot know it", "The universe was deliberately created by a divine being with a plan", "God loves us", "People have souls", and "The Bible is true in a way other texts are not", just to give a handful of possible examples. Sometimes I refer to these requirements as "axioms" or "assumptions" – they are the starting point, the foundation onto which a structure of belief (a world view) can be built. These axioms may appear to be supported by evidence, but in truth people believe them because they "feel" true in the first place.

Obviously, atheists have certain axioms they like. Not all atheists like the same axioms, but they tend to be pretty similar axioms, when it comes to the purpose (if any) and nature of the universe and of the intelligent species in it. Christians also tend to like certain axioms. These axioms are not all the same (just think of the differences between the beliefs of a liberal Christian in the Northwest and a fundamentalist Christian in the South), but they do tend to include related axioms, and they do tend to not include many of the axioms shared by most atheists.

Here's where the fun starts: Many Christians seem to be convinced that their axioms are right, that their axioms are "truth". Similarly, many atheists seem to be convinced that the Christians' axioms are utter foolishness, and that any "reasonable, logical, educated" person would prefer the typical atheist axioms over the typical Christian axioms.

I believe that this approach leaves plenty of room for discrimination and prejudice and bigotry, but little room for empathy or real understanding. Besides, this approach is incorrect. It is incorrect because it seems to forget the fact (a fact that Christians AND atheists admit) that neither set of axioms is provable or testable. A reasonable person can look at the world we live in, study many things about it, and decide to be a Christian. The things we see in the world around us can fit into the conclusions one draws from the Christian axioms. Also, a reasonable person can look at the world we live in, study many things about it, and decide to be an atheist. The things we see in the world around us can fit into the conclusions one draws from the atheist axioms.

What Debate - Part 2

2007-03-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Both sides of the God vs nogod debate love to point out the "evidence" that supports their beliefs. This is BS, whether it's Behe doing it or Dawkins doing it. Sure, some things may seem hard to explain if you restrict yourself to a naturalist world view (such as the human mind, and the origins of many complex but effective biological structures and systems), and some things may seem hard to explain if you restrict yourself to a "The Bible is true" / "God loves us" point of view (such as all the injustice and unnecessary suffering in the world, the self-contradictory nature of Jesus, or the discrepancies between history (and natural history) as told in the Bible and as deduced from archaeological/scientific observations). But the fact is, all those things CAN be explained/rationalized into the axiomatic system of your choice. So yes, I strongly belief that the axioms you pick are a matter of personal preference. Neither set of axioms can be disproven. Both atheism and Christianity are self-consistent and can explain all the things we see in the world around us. It is impossible to prove that one set is "right" and the other is "wrong". These axioms are simply not testable. You choose whichever ones work for you.

Why do some people prefer the atheist axioms and other people prefer the Christian axioms? I don't know. You'd have to ask them. Many factors are probably involved, like upbringing, education (physics/math/engineering vs art/history/literature), maybe even genetics. But one thing is for sure: To some people, the atheist axioms seem more elegant, more satisfying, more believable, and make for a preferable world. And to some other people, the Christian axioms seem more elegant, more satisfying, more believable, and make for a preferable world. I really don't think there's a way to say that one of those groups is right and the other is wrong.

(Some atheists say that the preference for those foolish religious axioms is a byproduct of evolution, as are most things about the brain. On top of that, the persistence of these axioms over time is a result of the evolution and "aggressive marketing" of churches, of the memetic engineering that churches are so good at. Personally I think these atheists have excellent points. Still, I don't think that these points will make the religious axioms seem any less true to religious people, despite the optimism shown in the title of the most famous book about this topic ).

What Debate - Part 3

2007-03-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

But fans of one set of axioms often point out that a conclusion or model derived from the opposite set of axioms fails to explain something about the world we observe. This brings me to the last point I want to make in this post. Remember that these axioms correspond to requirements. So different people have different requirements for what a satisfactory explanation of the universe must be. This means that a Christian "God did it"-style explanation will not satisfy an atheist – an atheist will claim that this is no explanation at all. And an atheist's "it just happened naturally via mechanisms described by math and physical law"-style explanation will not satisfy a Christian – a Christian will claim that this is no explanation at all.

For example, how did life come from non-life?

An atheist would probably give an explanation that goes along the lines of Dawkins' "survival machines" idea, best explained in his essay "The Replicators", which is the third chapter of "The Selfish Gene". To try and summarize that entire chapter into one sentence gives us something like the following: Once self-replicating molecules came around (and, of course, this only needs to have happened once), they competed for resources until the necessary building blocks were used up, and then some random mutations enabled them to "eat" each other, and then some random mutations allowed for self-preserving defense mechanisms, and so on, leading to the prokaryotic cell… or something along these lines. In other words, given that we live in a world where chemistry is possible, it is almost inevitable that life would form.

A Christian would probably focus his explanation on the idea that God created the universe as an environment where life could form, and then set things up (or miraculously acted) in such a way that life did form. (I do apologize if I don't do the Christian view justice. Please believe me when I say I am trying to be as fair as I can).

The Christian may not be satisfied with the atheist's idea that life appeared, and then evolved, through "accidents", without a purpose, for no reason. The atheist may not be satisfied with the Christian's idea that life was deliberately made by a Creator for some reason - because, then, the problem shifts to the origin of the Creator, which could not even be speculated about. To the Christian, the development of the world could not have been an accident. To the atheist, the natural world was all accidents until intelligence (decision-making with foresight) came along sometime in the last million years.

(In fact, I think that what anchors most people to theism is the thought that the world as a whole would have no meaning if it were not deliberately created as part of a plan, and so the atheist world view simply cannot be correct, because the world must have meaning).

To the atheist, one preferred axiom might be "Intelligence is nothing more than a certain pattern of stuff" - a certain very complex kind of chemistry that embodies within itself a model of the world around it and of itself. To the Christian, one preferred axiom might be "Stuff can only exist if it is deliberately created by an intelligence". Surely you can see the incompatibility between those axioms, and the fact that neither axiom can be proven or disproven.

I hope you can see why I think we would all benefit from understanding that the other side is not "wrong", that they are just working on a different set of assumptions, and that there is no way to say that one set of assumptions is better than the other. You may say that the evidence is more elegantly explained by your assumptions, but that's because you have different requirements for what a satisfying explanation is - Christian explanations must address "why" things are the way they are (for what possible purpose), and atheist explanations must address "how" things got the way they are (through what possible naturalistic processes). The Christian vs atheist "debate" focuses on things that the opponent's world view has a little more trouble explaining, and ignores the fact that different people have different expectations for the explanations they find satisfying, and that neither side can be disproven - so in the end, you just believe what works for you, but you can't expect it to work for everyone. Each side should be aiming to convince the other of the validity of their axioms, not of the truth of the consequences of those axioms. It's quite frustrating, really.

Happiness vs Joy

2007-03-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

While this topic is not specific to the debate of God vs No God, it is such a fundamental part of the Christian story that I think it should at least be on the table, clearly stated.

What difference does it make, really, whether God exists or not? How are our lives impacted by the question of whether we are merely an advanced animal or children of God implanted with a spiritual something called soul? Should we care whether there is any purpose to our existence, or if there is a purpose, whether a Maker has anything to say about that purpose? And in some kind of overarching way, how does any of this effect what seem to be fundamental things humans seek: food, shelter, clothing, avoidance of pain, love, significance, understanding, knowledge, etc.

Our American forefathers included the pursuit of happiness in the top three things we should be guaranteed as a people. Happiness is a good thing, and worth seeking and protecting, at least it seems so on the surface. But it can turn into the famous bumper sticker, "He who dies with the most toys, wins."

I don't pretend to be an expert at this from either a secular psychology pov or a theological one. And I find myself conflicted at times with certain aspects of the issue. But since it's my blog, allow me to indulge myself a bit.

Happiness is primarily self seeking, aimed at satisfying our own need to feel good. We might be happy when eating a favorite food, shopping for clothes or a new boat, working in our garden, or helping a charity. It is the kind of feeling that lasts for as long as it takes with a potential afterglow and a good memory. We help somebody out. We may feel happy while we are doing the work, still have good feelings about what we have done later that day or for a few days after. At some point, the happiness from that effort fades away. Months or even years later we might have reason to reflect back on that moment and get some of the feeling back.

Happiness, however, can be very fleeting, and can easily be defeated by other events, disappointment, our emotional state, fatigue, overindulgence, etc.

Now comes joy. Best stated by Paul in the NT when he said that he had been rich, poor, large and in charge, in prison, and gone through a whole bunch of other trials, but that through everything he was content in his circumstances (intentionally loose paraphrasing.) It is my belief that this is the ultimate best bet for humans, and that it has always been what the Bible has been proposing. Do this, this, and this. Avoid this, this, and this, and you will have great joy.

That would seem to be less anxiety about such things as acquiring money, things, applause, even professional success. Less drama in the raising of kids and comparing achievements with other adoring parents. Less interest in overconsumption of foods, sex, television, gossip, power, or other methods we use to lessen pain or avoid dealing with stuff. No interest in mind-deadening substances. No enticement to join cults.

Why am I conflicted about any of this? A certain level of anxiety (broadest definition of the term) should produce better results in anything we do; competition in the marketplace, for instance, or in sports, or even in this blog. Some level of pain generates a certain amount of empathy that is useful in helping others. Things like that. Enough from me.

The Wedge Document - Let's Get It Out in the LIght

2007-03-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the wedge documents has done more than almost any other published work to cause naturalists, humanists, and others to become angry with or question the motives of the leaders of the ID movement, and by extension others who would like to see the trend towards humanism in our schools and laws reversed. The document is long, so I am only showing the goals here, and for now, I will only speak to one of them, as this has been an issue for Kit and others in comments elsewhere on this blog. Feel free to discuss other aspects of the Wedge Document here, as well.

Governing Goals

To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

Five Year Goals

To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.

Twenty Year Goals

To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its innuence in the fine arts.
To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

The concern of many seems to be that those who are behind the wedge document are interested in imposing their views on everyone else, and that these views are theistic. My answer is a short one. Everyone is interested in their views being imposed on the rest of us to some degree or other. Even the desire to end a rule is the imposition of a view. In this case it is clear that ever since Dewey introduced humanistic principles into the schools, we have been moving as a nation in the direction of humanism and a way from objective ideas of morality. Are those objective ideas of morality religiously based? Some are. But as stated on other posts, if my world view is based on moral absolutes, I certainly have the right to vote my opinion. If your view is based on your understanding of the current science on a subject, you have the right to vote your opinion.

A theocracy, on the other hand, is where the church and clergy are in charge. We can all pray that this never happens here. Our form of government allows for my pov to provide the basis of my vote, even if I'm an unconvicted mass murderer. May it always be thus.

Descrimination Against Atheists by Bernardo

2007-03-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

Christian asked:

"Can you explain more about how society is unfair toward atheists?"

Bernardo responded:

It's pretty subtle, and I admit I am overly sensitive to it. But here's one example: If you're an atheist, good luck getting elected.

Another example is how, by putting "In God We Trust" everywhere and "So help me God" at the end of oaths and having prayers during meetings and speeches, the US government implies that if you don't believe in God, you are not as much of an American, that monotheism is somehow officially "right". Politicians play up their religiosity as much as they can, not caring about alienating atheists. Atheists feel alienated from the government in general, since the government supports theism. Saying that America is a Christian nation, and ending a speech with statements that only Christians would like, is about as politically correct as saying that America is a white nation, or ending a speech with statements that only white people would like.

I mean, America was founded by white people, and most Americans are white, and it was the morals and hard work of white people that shaped America to be what it is today, so what's wrong with plastering the money and the walls of government buildings with statements about the superiority and importance of white people and white people's morals? If others don't like this, they can just leave!

The previous paragraph was not meant literally, but if you replace "white" with "Christian", you get exactly what a lot of people say. However, just because you're a majority, and just because people of your group have always been in power in the US, doesn't mean that you get to be politically incorrect (i.e. disrespectful) towards minorities.

And then there are incidents like this one, which I know are not representative of the bigger picture, but when I hear about them I am filled with suspicious anger at theists (the kind of suspicious anger that I hear most black people experience a lot of the time). When I hear about stuff like this, I have to resist the impulse to go online and shout angry things at theists. I think that most Christians are not bigots like this, but it's not like statistics on Christian bigotry are easy to come by.

Real Atheists

2007-03-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

Many who post and comment here and profess disbelief in God are clear about their agnosticism. I found this interview question by Razib and answer from Justin Barrett which sheds a bit more light on the distinction.

2) In your book "Why Would Anyone Believe in God?" you answer the question why people believe in God. More specifically, why the majority of humans believe in God or Gods. As an atheist, I have to ask, why don't I believe in God? Or, more seriously, do you believe that there are cognitive reasons why some people are just biased to be atheists? I actually emailed Robert N. McCauley about his conjecture that autistics might be 'natural' atheists because of their lack of social intelligence, but he responded that he hadn't stumbled upon any hard empirical confirmation of this hunch...yet. Do you know something we don't?

As self-proclaimed atheist Jesse Bering has observed it can be very hard to identify true atheists. He even suspects that they comprise a very tiny number of people. By true atheists, I mean people that consistently hold no belief (cognitive commitment that motivates behavior) in superhuman agency. Lots of people say they don't believe in superhuman agency (including gods and ghosts) but will still modify their behaviors around cemeteries on spooky nights ("just in case"). I also run into plenty of people who say they don't believe in God but they really have chosen to act as if they don't believe in God because they are angry with God or don't like God. With these qualifications in place, certainly there are a number of factors that might predispose individuals to become atheists. As I agree with McCauley that theory of mind or social intelligence plays a critical role in theism, those who are weaker in these areas (relative to other higher-order reasoning) might be less disposed toward theism. I find it suggestive that women-who tend to have stronger social intelligence-tend to be more religious than men; and men are disproportionately represented among self-proclaimed atheists. Autism has been referred to as a severe form of "male-brainedness," I believe by Simon Baron-Cohen. I suspect social and environmental factors are even more important in supporting atheism, and I speculate on these in my book.

God Is The Same Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

2007-03-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

I will admit to having desired a better explanation for God's actions in the OT. Well, while wandering around the internet, I found this outstanding analysis. Anyone who intends to be serious about debating the question of evil should read the entire article.

Here is an exerpt which provides the basic outline.

The Israelites had been promised a specific area of land, since the time of Abraham. Most of the local indigenous peoples were either descendants of Abe or very familiar with the traditions of those people. When the "time had come," God judged the Canaanites and decreed for them to be expelled from the Land. Their tenure was up--they were evicted. New tenants were moving in. The Canaanites were given decades and decades of notice--in many ways and at different times. And they understood clearly--all the records we have of their understanding of their plight is TOTALLY in line with the Land-Grant of YHWH.
With the 'eviction notice' published, the Canaanites could decide to either vacate the premises peacefully or deal with military force. If they vacated peacefully, they could choose their locations, mode of travel, and not have to deal with unpleasant military overseers. If they choose to challenge Israel's God and His expressed intentions, then they did so with complete knowledge of His power--as displayed in Egypt.
Even though they were the 'scourge' of the earth at that time--by international consensus--God did not desire to annihilate the people. His expressed intentions were to move them away from His people. He gave them ample opportunity to leave peacefully before Israel arrived, and even allowed the bulk of the 'less institutionalized' to have a little longer. His people were not instructed to hunt them down in neighboring nations at all.
Israel was severely restricted in the Conquest. They were not allowed to be simple 'land grabbers' or 'wealth seekers' or 'self-righteous' or 'land scorchers' or 'international empire builders' or 'captive-abusive'. At the same time, they were to eliminate the threat of Canaanite destructive influence (both spiritual and physical) if called upon.
And God allowed no double standards. When Israel began to look like 'Canaanites', God judged them IN THE SAME WAY...and 'vomited' them from the Land as well. This expulsion was also accompanied by the harsh measures of warfare faced by the Canaanites.
The punishment of the Amorites/Canaanites was thus one of 'deportation'--NOT one of genocide.

The interesting additional thing about this description of God is how consistant it is with the Christian view of the coming "end times." Promises, plenty of time to repent, clear description of God's intention and how to avoid destruction.

An Agnostic Creed from Tom

2007-03-07T20:28:00.000-08:00

Why I am not an Atheist

I don't care for faith. I came to this realization toward the end of High School, during that weird period of time when I was really questioning my beliefs and trying to figure out what it is I believed personally. I went through a bout of self-motivated, self-centered depression as a sophomore, and then an identity overhaul or two the following year, so my religious beliefs were naturally in flux a little.

Of course, "in flux" suggests that they were ever really solid. See, the church I grew up in was a little off the beaten path. My religious education was pretty light; I never learned a lot of the stories that the more devout kids hear, and some of the stories I did hear didn't have the ring of truth. Even as a kid, I thought "man finds special magic breastplate and seeing stones, which allows him to read a holy book written on golden plates" was farfetched. As I grew older, I found out that the official church history didn't exactly jive with the official historical history, and that really didn't sit well with me. So, while I'd play in the handbell choir and whatnot, I don't know how much I ever bought into all of it.

Anyway, by the time my third year of high school comes to a close, I'm not really buying any of it. I still prayed, and I still believed in God, but I quickly realized that I didn't believe in the god of any extant religious tradition. The one thing I felt certain of in those days was that the universe had a distinct sense of humor, and that such a thing wouldn't occur naturally, therefore god.

Yes, my spiritual beliefs were rooted in the comedic principle.

As time wore on, as my god donned and shed traits with the shifting winds, and as I toyed with calling myself a panentheist, I realized that I really didn't have a clear concept of my personal beliefs, except that I didn't like organized religion. This didn't necessarily bother me; I was able to say "I know what I personally believe, and it doesn't fall in line with any one religion. It's a personal thing," but the situation seemed to warrant further attention and self-examination.

I wasn't an atheist. Maybe for a short time, but I couldn't bring myself to really call myself that, and I couldn't figure out why.

Ultimately, sometime during my first year of college (or thereabouts, I can't recall the actual date of epiphany), I realized that my problem wasn't with what I believed, but with belief itself. I realized that I couldn't handle faith, that I really didn't like believing in the unseen, belief without evidence. Once I figured that out, everything else kind of fell into place.
In those early days, I'd wax philosophical and say "I don't like faith, I don't trust it, and it's just as much of a faith statement to say 'there is no god' as it is to say 'there is a god.' So, that's why I'm not an atheist."
And so I decided that I was an agnostic. I might have some beliefs some days, other beliefs other days, but all my spiritual beliefs were based around one very important caveat: I don't know. Any spiritual beliefs I had, one way or another, were predicated on the fact that I didn't have any evidence, and that an influx of evidence could overturn whatever beliefs might be hanging around at any given time.

But, I started hanging out at atheist websites, and reading that argument I presented against atheism, and recognizing the subtle difference between "not believing" and "believing a negative." There are atheists who claim that "there is no god," and I continue to assert that that's a faith statement. And I'm sure that a significant portion of atheists will continue to regard agnosticism as a wussy position.

But as far as "not believing"? I don't really have an answer for that one. Not yet anyway. And maybe that's why I don't feel so bad for siding with the atheists about most everything.

But I'm not an atheist. Maybe it's not because I "don't believe" in god, but that I do believe in my own lack of knowledge. I can be pretty certain about that, anyway. My beliefs about faith haven't changed any; I don't trust it any more now than I did a few paragraphs ago. No, I am an agnostic, and I plan on remaining agnostic until there's sufficient evidence to suggest a better alternative.

Augie Physics said...: Agnosticism is not a wussy position. Admitting that you don't know and don't have proof is only realistic.
What's really wussy is being afraid to ponder the possibility of faith...
OR being afraid to ponder the possiblity of doubt.; 11/01/2006 1:07 PM

Anonymous said...: God loves you. Agnosticism is not a wussy position, because it is humble to say you don't know when you don't know. It's blasphemy when you do know, but refuse to believe.
If there is willingness to believe, open your heart and pray earnestly to God to reveal Himself to you. I pray He will Tom. But like when you meet any new person, you won't know Him well. It takes a long time of friendship with anyone to know the person enough to really love Him or Her, or invest trust and faith in. it is the same with God. If you have willingness to believe, my friend, God can use that.
Just make sure you are sincere and you are willing- because miracles can happen all the time, and you may not believe and say future scientific developments will explain the phenomenas. I am not saying that some things that appear supernatural are not that extra-ordinary. Be willing Tom. Please. You don't know what you are missing.; 2/05/2007 5:34 AM

Filby said...: That's a very reasonable position, and it takes a lot to come out and say it. I'm an outright atheist -- I deny that God or gods exist -- but you're right: it's totally a statement of faith. I can't prove it, it's just what I'm most comfortable with.; 2/16/2007 11:34 AM
Anonymous said...: Ah, the labels. I want to be accurately labelled too, but it's difficult to find one that fits just right. Maybe we should all just go with "hellbound heathen."

I just say I'm an atheist, because for all intents and purposes it's close enough. If anyone cared to question me, though, I'd point out that while I don't think there is a god, I would never say that I know for certain there isn't one. And it is a knowable thing, at least in the positive. If the Big Dude shows up and starts smiting and slinging thunderbolts or whatever, man, I'll know.

Heck, I don't think there's a Bigfoot either, but if I sat next to him on a flight to Chicago I'd change my tune.

In the meantime, though, I don't believe in God, just the same as I don't believe in the island of Atlantis or a giant floating banana. I will if I ever see some solid evidence of their existence.

So I dunno what that makes me. An athenostic?; 2/28/2007 10:42 AM
Randy Kirk said...: I liked this statement, also, Tom. I appreciate that you are seeking, and I suspect you always will be. I get more frustrated with Christians or atheists who think they've got it all figured out, and there is no longer any reason to "think."

Practical Advantages of Christianity - The Hope of Heaven

2007-03-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

1. The Hope of Heaven - If you have ever dealt with emotionally disturbed individuals, you will know that one of the most difficult problems to overcome is their hopelessness. Their feelings may be partially based on reality. They may have disabilities, major problems in their past, or lack certain kinds of life skills that make it hard to enjoy or experience life to the fullest. Certainly, even individuals in very difficult circumstances can overcome hopelessness through counseling or self help, but it is sometimes a big mountain to climb.

Others have few or none of the problems that might make hopelessness seem reasonable, but they have personality disorders or mental diseases that cause them to feel this way even when most around them would see great promise in their lives.

For most functioning adults, there is also that sometimes fleeting, sometimes very present question of what happens when we die. If one believes that life merely ends and we “sleep” permanently, this alone would cause many to feel hopeless, not only about the finality in their own lives, but also at the time that their loved ones pass away.

Believing that God’s word is true, and that there is a heaven to look forward to after death, provides a very unique kind of hope. A hope for eternal life. A hope for an end to present difficulties. A hope that loved ones will be seen again. A hope that answers to life’s most interesting questions will be answered. A hope that we will experience an entirely unknown and unknowable dimension with untold beauty and joy and peace. And the hope that we will one day meet Jesus.

These hopes have a very practical benefit to those who have faith that they are true. It greatly reduces anxiety about present problems, helps through the grieving process, and provides great comfort as we face our own death.

Intelligent Design of Organisms Proof

2007-03-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

Since intelligence has been acting on the design of species for at least a few million years (human intelligence), and since that is now accelerating, how do we know now and how will we tell the difference between those future organisms that are designed by natural selection as opposed to the imposition of human intelligent design.

Conversely, if we are able to reverse engineer the evidence of human involvement in the design of organisms, then we might be able to establish a proof regimen for evidence of supernatural design.

Beliefs That Can't Be Proven

2007-03-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

I don't want to generalize from the little bit of debating I've enjoyed on some science/atheist blogs, but there is a resistance to saying "I believe" among many, if not all, of those I encounter. The idea, I think, is that science is about reason, not opinion. I'm not sure why this would lead to not having other ideas based on "believing." But there does seem to be some kind of internal conflict that keeps some (many, all) in this group from "believing." To wit, I found this quote:

Anyway, just remember that we all believe in things that can't be proven. Such as when we believe that rationalism is the best way to live our lives, or when we believe, or presume, that logic and reasoning can prove anything in the absolute. In fact, believing in rationalism is itself untenable, since rationalism values reason, and reason differs from person to person, being but an internally (logically) consistent system of beliefs that must be grounded on one's assumptions.

Biblical Christianity Is Totally Unique and Counterintuitive

2007-03-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

Almost without exception, my atheist friends posit The Golden Rule as the basis of morality. They propose that this rule predates the Bible and is almost universally understood. The Golden Rule is a fine rule, and it totally makes sense as regards the social compact that seems to underpin most standards of ethics: I won't hurt you in hopes that you won't hurt me; I'll drive in my lane if you'll drive in yours; I will not have loud parties after midnight if you will agree to the same.

But Christianity is very different. I won't hurt you because to do so is not loving. In fact, even if I don't know you I will come to your aid and help you through crisis. When you spit on me after I help you, I will wipe off the spit and continue to offer my help. If in a fit of rage unrelated our my helping you, you attack me verbally or even physically, I will continue to love you and pray for you, (though I may withdraw from you.) And in the midst of all of this I won't judge you.

If you are my neighbor and you have the loud party, I will quietly ask you to stop doing so. My decision to not have loud parties has nothing to do with whether you may or may not do so, but is out of respect for your peace of mind.

Some say that you don't need to have Christian morality to sacrifice your life for another. But I would argue that Christ was telling us that sacrificing our time, our money, and our egos would be more important than even sacrificing our existence. And this sacrifice was to take place without any hope of recompense, honor, glory, or applause. Just to glorify God.

Submission, humility, turning the other cheek, forgiving and praying for our enemy. The list is long. Many who followed Jesus said that the things he preached were too hard, and they turned away.

As humans when we see things that are counterintuitive, and then we see that they work, we are forced to ask ourselves why? The first thing we would do is look for the source of the information.

Imperfect Biblical Heroes

2007-03-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

One of the most amazing aspects of the Bible is the imperfection of its heroes. Almost without exception (Jesus), the others are shown to be far from perfect.

God's main man in the OT was David, and he had quite a few bad days. But, ultimately, he was a man after God's own heart. By this, I believe it is meant, David was constantly desiring to do the will of God. This desire was always foremost in his mind, though his flesh won out on several occasions.

"Jesus coming to fulfill the law" means that he was changing the way the law would be dealt with to the Davidic principle. No longer was the goal following archaic laws that had lost their meaning, but following the heart of God as revealed through the Holy Spirit. The Scripture OT and NT continue to inspire our understanding of God, but only in the Bible "as a whole."

As soon as you start parsing the Bible in order to prove your point (as a skeptic or to prove one doctrine is better than another) then you have missed God's best. The whole scripture with illumination from the Holy Spirit provides the law.

eSkeptic Feature Article - An Elemental Impulse

2007-02-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

An Elemental Impulse by Paul Gabel, the author of And God Created Lenin: Marxism vs. Religion in Russia, 1917–1929.

The separation of church and state was so construed by the state that the churches themselves and everything that hung in them, was installed in them, and painted in them belonged to the state, and the only church remaining was that church which, in accordance with the Scriptures, lay within the heart.

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn

While Vladimir Lenin was languishing in Europe waiting for revolution, he championed freedom of religious expression in Russia. But when he took power in November 1917, he reverted to the Marxist imperative of destruction of all religious faith — whether institutional or psychological. Marxist theory predicted that the end of class warfare would automatically lead to collapse of the class-based superstructure of religion, and Leon Trotsky held that the superstitious Russian muzhik was on the verge of atheism already — all that was needed for the whole rotting corpse to collapse was a good shove (like murdering Orthodox Patriarch Tikhon). But Lenin knew that the task would not be easy.

While the Bolsheviks worked to persuade foreign governments that no religious persecution existed in Russia, Lenin and the Cheka (secret police) decided to help Marx’s automatic process along by arresting clergy and ordering them shot, imprisoned, or exiled, often without trial.

The government spied on priests, censored their sermons, raised their taxes (as unproductive citizens), and ordered them to live outside the villages they served. It seized churches and monasteries, and reopened them as antireligious museums. It abolished religious schools and prohibited religious education until the age of 18. When a disastrous famine struck the Volga region between 1921 and 1923, the Bolsheviks used it as an excuse to confiscate gold, silver, and pearls from the churches — allegedly for famine relief but actually to line commissars’ pockets — while refusing to sell the tsar’s crown jewels to buy bread for the starving. The Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and others offered all non-consecrated treasures, but everything of value was stripped from places of worship.

The Bolsheviks promoted a “progressive” schism within the Orthodox Church with a panoply of communistic priests — after all, hadn’t Jesus united Palestine’s working class and ordered the wealthy to offer their riches to the poor? The government poured so many resources into this Living Church (in contrast to the Dead Church) that people began calling it the Red Church. Finally, in 1927 this tactic was abandoned in favor of support for the newly elected Patriarch Sergei, who submitted to pawn-like status.

Wild pageants erupted in the largest cities, mocking and ridiculing the Christian celebration of Jesus’s birth. Young, working-class atheists paraded through the streets carrying effigies of religious leaders of every faith they could think of. They dressed up as priests, monks, rabbis, mullahs, and shamans, while fellow demonstrators taunted and mocked them. An article in Izvestia described some of the characters: God embracing a naked woman, the Virgin Mary, the pope in a fancy motor car blessing the people, a monk riding on a coffin full of holy relics, a priest offering to marry anyone for a price, a Protestant pastor, a Jewish rabbi, a yellow-robed Buddha, Marduk of Babylon, and a group of devils with long tails and horns bringing up the rear.
And God Created Lenin (cover)

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For centuries monks had been manufacturing “relics” of saints using cardboard, wax, animal bones, and goat hair. The Bolsheviks discovered these frauds and filmed them so the people could see how they had been deceived. The Communist Youth League and the League of the Godless distributed millions of scientific and antireligious tracts throughout the countryside. They replaced religious holidays with workers’ holidays — the Day of Industry for the Feast of Transfiguration, and Harvest Day for the Feast of the Intercession — as if traditions could be invented. And they organized festivities on Sundays to lure young people from the churches. Bibles could no longer be printed or imported. Even the teaching of chess was marshaled to the cause — emphasis on logic would surely undermine irrational faith.

The Orthodox Church seemed such an easy target. Almost a thousand years old in Russia, it was a product of pagan and Christian syncretism. The peasants planted pagan penis figurines in their fields to encourage crop fertility and paid the local priest to sprinkle Holy Water on their crops to ward off pests. Their faith was not spiritual but habitual. They worked during the week, drank and fought on feast days, then confessed their sins and went back to the same regimen in endless cycles. Most considered priests to be magicians rather than God’s delegates on Earth. They indulged in what would seem to Westerners as the silliest of superstitions and seldom prayed for anything except better weather.

As each day went by with no divine retribution, it seemed to the Bolsheviks that they were right. If God had created Lenin, He could have uncreated him with a snap of his omnipotent fingers. And if God truly existed, why had he not done so? Surely the party had crossed any line that the Almighty might have drawn to limit the behavior of man. It would seem that they had exceeded even the transgression of Eve, yet their leaders were neither banished from Eden, turned into pillars of salt, nor consumed by fire.

Yet on days of ideological frailty they must have felt like the early Christians waiting daily for the Second Coming that never came. There was even a church revival during the 1920s as many citizens — especially the intelligentsia — rediscovered what they had lost. Nikolai Bukharin wrote words in 1919 that he could just as well have written in 1991, when the Communist experiment was over:

It has been comparatively easy for the proletarian authority to effect the separation of the church from the state and of the school from the church, and these changes have been almost painlessly achieved. It is enormously more difficult to fight the religious prejudices which are already deeply rooted in the consciousness of the masses and which cling so stubbornly to life.1

The Long Run

Religion is like a nail: the harder you hit it, the deeper it goes in. Our efforts should have been directed toward drawing it out.

— Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar of Enlightenment

While the Communists ruled Russia, religion (Christian or otherwise) never died out. It had its setbacks, to be sure — there were not enough priests, many churches were closed, and it was dangerous to be too vocal about religious ideas — but religious emotions had burrowed deeply into the Russian collective mind.

By 1936 Stalin felt that he had made progress on the antireligious front, but rumors circulated that about 40 to 45 percent of the population was still religious. Being well along in the process of wiping out all conceivable rivals to power, he was in a tolerant mood. Attending a meeting on the writing of the 1936 Constitution, he commented: “Why should the clergy be disenfranchised? Not all of them are disloyal.”2 However, the January 1937 nationwide census revealed a surprising endurance of religious sentiment; apparently many dared to check the box “believer” as a silent protest, and many who were indifferent toward religion could not quite bring themselves to check the box “unbeliever.” Stalin was furious. He could avoid embarrassment only by refusing to publish exact numbers, though the figure of 50 million believers leaked out. Another Western source claimed that 57 percent had claimed believer status, which if true would amount to some 80 million persons. These figures were astounding when we consider that respondents’ names were on the forms!

Why this religious persistence? Communists, obsessed with science, approached the churches of Russia as if they were a product of some type of malformed science. They believed that if they could simply educate the populace in “correct science,” religion would go away. Hence they scratched along the surface of religion, exposing internal contradictions, revealing the origin of gods in early man’s fear of natural forces, and ridiculing the existence of miracles.

Though this method, coming from a lack of appreciation of the deeper psychological aspects of religion, did have an effect on some individuals, it could not penetrate very far into the social psychology of the masses. Robert Casey, writing in 1946, used a different metaphor: “The Soviets accomplished little more than the pruner who cuts the leaves and surplus branches from the treetops. The result in the long run was to encourage a more healthy growth.”3 During the Great Patriotic War of the early 1940s, Stalin even had to appeal to the people’s faith to keep the country united against Hitler’s onslaught.

In the early 1960s Nikita Khrushchev, irritated with the lack of antireligious progress, ordered a new crackdown on the churches and their clergy. Completely lacking imagination (never a socialist strong point), all of the same failed tactics were regurgitated to be tried again. Believers just went underground and waited it out — time was on their side.

Eventually, as post-war standards of living inched upwards, Russians developed a certain apathy toward the church, but this does not appear to be a result of Marxist prognostications or Bolshevik tactics — rather it mirrors the Western European experience of less suffering leading to less church attendance.

Excuses abounded. In the early days, failures on the antireligious front were attributed to practical difficulties with implementation: inadequately trained cadres, poor organization, lazy workers, and communications problems. Then Soviet apologists pinned the survival of religion on carryovers from tsarist times. Marx predicted that post-revolutionary life “would be stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it had emerged.” This still seemed a reasonable explanation for religious persistence when Emelyan Yaroslavsky, head of the League of the Godless, used it in 1923:

The human spirit is characterized by inertia. Although the body already finds itself in new relations of labor, the mind lags behind in grasping the new forms. Traditions, legends, have their hold on the brains of the living.4

Stalin’s contribution to the Marxist excuse factory was his “surrounded by capitalism” theory, arguing that since the Revolution was supposed to be international it could not come to fruition while capitalist nations existed on the Soviet periphery. While the USSR was temporarily a mere enclave of socialism waiting for ultimate world victory, religion within the country could be expected to have some life left in it.
The Even Longer Run

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

— The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Over tens of thousands of years is such a thing as (collective) life without religion possible? Did Bolshevism have a chance of wiping this ancient way of thinking from the map of Russia and the minds of its people? In spite of their tactical blunders, were there reasons for failure beyond their control — reasons that less ideologically blinkered leaders could reasonably have been expected to understand, or at least to notice? Is there an elemental impulse toward some kind of worship?

The Protestant reformer John Calvin believed there was a semen religionis — a religious seed common to all humanity that, when expressed, could remain pure (as in his denomination) or be corrupted (as in Romanism). The German philosopher Rudolph Otto called this the sensus numinis — an innate sense of awe and longing for the otherworldly that was the basis of all concepts of god. Julian Huxley argued that religion is “a function of human nature,” but Leo Tolstoy upheld a universality of religious experience that had nothing in common with the forces of nature. It was based, he thought, upon man’s awareness of his insignificance, his isolation, and his sinfulness.

Modern-day neuroscientists have even found that stimulation of certain neurons in the temporal/limbic system of the brain can produce intense sensations of joy and visions of being in the presence of God.5

My personal theory, which is as plausible and unprovable as any other, is that a religious sense exists as a consequence of the evolutionary process. Over millions of years hominids with larger brains were favored due to their improved ability to interact socially, communicate linguistically, and obtain food. As computational power expanded, these same brains incidentally acquired the ability to grasp their loneliness in the larger world and to anticipate their own deaths. Those who could not imagine a purpose for living turned to less purposeful lives and were marginally less likely to survive to reproductive age, or even to be interested in reproduction. As people without purpose were weeded out of the gene pool, increasingly large percentages of the surviving population were capable of turning their powerful minds to thoughts of gods, whose “existence” would itself become the purpose of life. Man became an animal that could no longer “live in a world it is unable to understand.”6 The neoconservative Irving Kristol observed:

If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded — or even if it suspects — that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe.7

Perhaps we know too much for our own good.

Another explanation for the universality of religion that I find attractive imagines religion as a forward extension of the gullibility or impressionability that a child needs to learn language and culture. The child must have the capacity to trust that whatever surrounding adults say is true and useful. It is similar in process to neoteny (the retention of juvenile features in adult animals). Just as over thousands of years wolves/dogs were selected by man for retention of their adorable juvenile features and for obedience, thus retaining them into adulthood, humans’ childish acceptance — providing “answers” to the unknowable — gradually extended into adulthood in the form of religion. Faith could be simply an extension of that adaptive trait, with priests (“fathers”) as guides.

Regardless of any anthropological theory of religious origins, the ubiquity of a religious sense cannot be denied. Writing in the 1930s, the anthropologist Ruth Benedict concluded:

No matter how exotic a society the traveler has wandered, he still finds the distinction [between religious and nonreligious] made … And it is universal. There is no monograph in existence that does not group a certain class of facts as religion, and there are no records of travelers … that do not indicate this category.8

Michael Bakunin took up this issue in his 1871 God and the State, where he pointed out that universality is no more a proof of validity than was the commonly held belief that the sun revolved around the earth proof that it did. Writing in the immediate post-Darwinian world, he saw religious universality as a stage in man’s development from the animals and supported the study of religion only as a method of supplanting it as the human mind moved forward. Nonetheless, Bakunin admitted the pervasiveness and necessity of faith up to modern times. “Nothing,” he wrote, “is as universal or as ancient as the iniquitous and absurd.”

Nicolas Berdyaev (along with the Grand Inquisitor) asserted that man was by nature a spiritual being and that “the soul of man cannot live empty of religion.” Nothing can take from him the urge to venerate and adore something higher than his mere self. There is an imperative toward the superhuman.

Universality within societies implies the inherent nature of a behavior or trait. Of course, what applies to societies does not necessarily apply to every individual within that society. There is a natural sexual desire that can (sometimes) be overcome by vows of abstinence; presumably there are celibate monks and nuns, though I doubt there is one who has never entertained a sexual fantasy from the day of his or her vows. An evolved biophilic love of pastoral lands with moving fresh water can be overcome by an individual’s desire to live in the desert. In the same way individuals pledged to rationality and humanism can overcome a natural religious tendency; modern societies contain a significant minority of nonbelievers. (The Bolsheviks seem to have accomplished it, except for a smattering of “Godbuilders,” who tried to fashion a new religion out of Communism so they could fill the gaping spiritual void they, themselves, had created.)

If faith is inherent in the human condition, then the Bolsheviks were doomed from the start, for their goal was not just the physical destruction of church buildings or the legal destruction of religious institutions, but the emptying of minds of even the possibility of religious thought or emotion. Marx, Engels, and Lenin, of course, rejected the premise of a religious human nature, arguing that ever since separate social and economic classes emerged, religion had become nothing but a tool of the ruling class. The Bolshevik rejection of innateness is what led them on their hopeless quest.

Five years after the Communists lost control of greater Russia — after decades of antireligious parades, endless propaganda, and cruel persecution — Russian Orthodoxy still claims (at least nominally) almost 72 percent of the population and “no religious affiliation” claims less than 19 percent9, which is roughly the figure in America, where no such antireligious crusade occurred. That tells us something significant about the religious nature of our natures.
References

1. Bukharin, Nikolai and E. Preobrazhensky. 1966. ABC of Communism — A Popular Explanation of the Program of the Communist Party of Russia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 253.
2. Timasheff, N.S. 1943. Religion in Soviet Russia, 1917–1942. London: Religious Book Club, 65.
3. Casey, Robert Pierce. 1946. Religion in Russia. New York: Harper, 105.
4. Yaroslavsky, Emelyan. 1990. “Is the Communist Movement Antireligious?” In William G. Rosenberg, Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, Part I. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 242.
5. Carter, Rita. 1998. Mapping the Mind. Berkeley: University of California, 129.
6. Quoted in Guthrie, Stewart Elliott. 1993. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford University, 32.
7. Quoted in Pinker, Steven. 2002. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 131.
8. Quoted in Davis, Nathaniel. 1995. A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy. San Francisco: Westview, xviii.
9. Chart, Time, May 27, 1996.

Reprinted with permission from Skeptic.com. Subscribe to eSkeptic by sending an email to join-skeptics@wood.lyris.net

Only Reasonable That Christians Invented Science

2007-02-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

However, that just makes sense. And it makes absolutely no sense to consider that believing in God is a hindrance to science. First, imperially and historically, this can be disproved. Secondly, why do folks do science? Primarily because the want to know more about how things got the way they are.

Frequent contributor and now friend, Bernardo, commonly maintains that there are two ways of thinking about the universe and how it works. One involves purpose and one doesn't. However, at the root of every desire to know must lie the desire to know not only how, but why. And folks who are serious about their Christianity are always desiring to go deeper, learn more, about God and his purposes. And there is no way to do this without also being aware of the natural world. Thus Biblical Christianity and Science are natural kissing cousins. (I used that on purpose. Heh heh.)

A Third Proof Of GOD

2007-02-26T22:52:00.000-08:00

If you and I are able to communicate, we will find that our minds work almost exactly the same. This is true all over the world. It is true of primitives, isolated tribal groups, and sophisticated first-worlders. Why haven't our minds evolved in very different ways? Why don't we have Babylonian confusion?

Because God created our minds.

The rest of the story

Self Awareness and Natural Selection

2007-02-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

I've seen many attempts to show how reptiles became birds or bats learned to use sonar, but I have not seen any (they may exist) attempts to give a step-by-step evolutionary explanation as to why self awareness was so useful that it flourished. And in a related way, why would self-deprecation, depression, and all the other aspects of self awareness contribute to better dispersal of genetic matter?

I should probably leave it for another post, but I have a tendency to think in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. Personalities have a very substantial range of differentiation within humans. One would say that these differences could not all be beneficial, yet they all seem to be universal throughout various societies and over time. Shouldn't some of them have selected out by now.

If you agree that these aren't related, tell me. I'll be happy to separate them.

The Perfect Father

2007-02-17T18:02:00.000-08:00

In bouncing about the atheist and naturalist blogosphere, it seems that one argument against God is that a perfect God would act somehow differently than God has. He wouldn't have had some of the laws He is credited with. He would have made people and even animals different, so that they wouldn't suffer so much or do evil things to one another. And He certainly wouldn't allow his children to suffer and die in such seemingly immoral ways. One possible way of getting a better understanding of his concept is to compare God to fathers. This would make sense in that God has directed us to see Him that way.

As a father, I have sired two children, adopted two, and am helping to raise one more. In today's world that would make me at least in the top 10% of experience.

In the course of deciding to have children, I did not stop and think: "Maybe I shouldn't do this, because the world is a nasty place, and some children turn out nasty no matter what you do." I wanted children (and grand kids), as did my wife, because they provide a great deal of joy, because it is part of our "citizenship" to propagate, and undoubtedly because of biological urges that are harder to define very precisely.

As part of my expectation in having children, I knew I would need to sacrifice substantial time, energy, emotional energy, money, and ultimately my life for theirs if it came to that. When you think about it that way, one might wonder why so many folks make the decision so easily.

As a father I am put in a position to decide how to raise the children. How much and what kind of discipline? How much intervention? How do these things change at different ages and maturities? How do I make decisions when there are two or three children involved and all can't be served at one time? What if I'm forced to make health or life-and-death decisions that effect one child differently that another? It goes on and on.

Then there are the rules. I'm a great believer in making sure the rules are clear, known well in advance, administered constantly, and handled the same among all the kids. Rules about when they can get new privileges and what it takes to get these. Rules about what happens when stuff doesn't get done as it should. Rules about when and what kind of discipline will be meted out for what? Rules about how to treat others in the family and why?

In order to keep this post within some kind of reasonable size, I will stop here. Hopefully, it is clear about how God the Father has basically done the same thing with his Human children.

Now for a bit harder set of comparisons. What if someone walked in my house and threaten my children, and said that his whole family was dedicated to trying to kill my family? I think I would be justified in taking him out, and maybe his whole family.

What if I had to allow one of my children to die so that the rest could live? I know for a fact that all will die or one will die? Get harder.

What if one of my children had to die so that 100 members of my family could live? What if it were the entire community? What if my child was 18 and he was merely going to be put in a position where he might die in order to provide a better life for the community?

What if I felt that I needed to make a rule in my house that I would beat a child within an inch of his life if he raped another of my children? We will assume there is no other authority to intervene.

I'll leave this for now. I'd love to hear some comment.

Another Proof Of GOD

2007-02-14T22:37:00.000-08:00

If I am a fish looking out of the water at a fly, I see the location of the fly and propel myself out of the water in that direction. If I don't take into consideration the refraction of light coming into the water, I will miss the fly.

Everything that I think I know is impacted by things about which I have no idea. Those who are currently claiming that the earth will warm by 4 degrees over the next 40 years admit that they no next-to-nothing about clouds. Thus there may be actions of the clouds that will dramatically alter their predictions.

In order for me to make predictions about thousands of things each day, I assume that certain conditions that existed last time will exist again this time. I also use deductive and inductive reasoning to come up with variations on these predictions.

In reality, however, I don't really know if the apple will taste sweet and not kill me. This is because I don't know if it has been adulterated as to taste or poisoned. I don't know everything. Therefore, in the broadest sense, I don't know anything.

However, I act every day on the basis of this reasoning, and so does everyone else, theist and naturalist alike. This is because we believe that things are coherent, structured, and uniform. There is no actual basis for believing this without God.

See here for more detail.

Proof Of GOD

2007-02-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

Just read some material produced by a couple of philosophers that are no doubt famous, but new to me. I will give a lay interpretation of what I read.

Assuming there is objective truth, and one would expect that both naturalists and theists would agree that there is a metaphysical reality, we cannot know that truth unless there is a God.

I will presume to make two arguments for naturalists. I'm sure you'll correct me if these are not accurate. 1. Humans have evolved as a result of our ability to survive and reproduce. 2. Christians and other theists have invented God. A corollary to 2 is that the invention of deities would be a survival method.

To the extent that we have invented gods or others things that we believe to be objective reality, but that are in fact myths that help us survive, our minds are not able to actually differentiate between objective reality and these myths. If this is true, then this would also be true for naturalists. Therefore none of us really knows what objective reality looks like.

Alternatively, if God is God (the Christian definition), and He has made man in his image, then He has both created objective reality and created in humans, minds that can discern what is real. Thus He has created naturalists who are able to discern what is real also.

Clearly, folks of all types and stripes have some varying opinions about what is and isn't real, so this ability is not perfect, except in God. However, to the extent that we possess the ability at all, it must come from God, not from evolution.

For all the details see here.

A Perfect World - One Without Evil - What Would It Look Like?

2007-02-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

I would love to be a novelist. I've tried, but don't have the talent. In reading about novels, however, it turns out that what holds the interest of the reader is conflict, resolution of conflict, tension, especially life and death, building to some kind of climax where things are at stake, and there will be winners and losers. Things like that.

I think humans are fascinated with not just fictional things of this nature, but are actually made better (and worse) as they face real and imagined crisis.

Some who have a not-very-thorough understanding of how the Bible describes heaven often suggest they don't want to go there because it would be boring.

I don't believe heaven will be boring. I don't think the description we have sounds boring. Something will replace conflict and fascination with death, etc., to make heaven even more exciting by far than earth. But I don't believe I can comprehend what God has in store.

That is why I laid down the challenge. Any time I've tried to create a perfect world, it soon becomes clear that my version would not be better than the one we have. Different, but not better. Try it.

Is Skepticism Good Science?

2007-02-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

As a youngster in science classes, we were taught to observe nature, look for things about which we might find classification, causes, rules, laws, etc., construct hypothesis, construct and conduct experiments for testing those hypothesis, then make our conclusions. Such conclusions might lead to the establishment of theories, or show that we were on the wrong track, or suggest new hypotheses. At no time do I ever remember the teacher suggesting that we look at nature with the intent of overthrowing common sense. The goal was positive, not negative. Now, it seems that many in the science community seem as intent on destroying foundational beliefs in God as they are in discovering how nature works. Certainly there seems to be more joy when a new "discovery" carries with it some aspect that will tear greater holes in the fabric of Christianity.

Not to say that this doesn't work both ways. Christians are pretty happy when they think they have found a breach in the walls of science. Especially if those breaches are in evolutionary or astrophysical science. Thus we are skeptics of science in much the way that some scientists are skeptics of religion. Each group is less skeptical of its own dogma.

For the purposes of this blog, my concern is that naturalists look at things that are totally self-evident and work overtime to try and find bizarre explanations, which explanations usually require at least as much faith as faith in God, and usually have much less evidence of any type.

I will admit that there are times when Christians look at things which are pretty self-evident and work overtime to try and fit scripture into current scientific thinking.

Another idea in the middle of formation. Maybe you all can shoot me down or add to what I've started.

What Would Be Your Tipping Point?

2007-02-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Returning to one of the basic concepts of this blog, "rational," "reasonable" humans generally review evidence both before and after making a decision. Even if the decision is taken at an early age and fully due to the influence and authority of respected elders, teens and young adults will almost always need to own their own decision at some point. This need to take ownership is at the root of most "positive" rebellion. (Disrespect being the negative type.)

So it is the contention of this blogger that both sides of this debate come to their positions, at least to some measure, by reviewing the evidence available to them. Then, once having come to a decision about faith in God, they are in a constant battle to hold on to that decision. There may be a natural inclination to indoctrinate oneself by selection of input (friends, reading material, memberships, etc.), and their will be the normal tendency to dismiss materials that don't fit into the belief system. However, both sides will find plenty of information slipping past these filters to challenge basic assumptions. Thus, the weighing of the evidence is a never ending proposition.

If this is true, then evidence matters. The questions then becomes: "What was your tipping point?" and "What might tip you back?" Note that the two questions are not specific to either side of this debate.

For me the tipping point out of the church was hypocrisy. The tipping point back in was realizing that there was plenty of that everywhere I looked, and church folks actually had less of it. The tipping point to agnosticism was 5 points in evolutionary theory. The tipping point back to God was to learn that those 5 points were either fraudulent or found to be not true.

So what was your tipping point? What would it take to tip you back?

Natural Consequences of Naturalistic Thinking VS and/or In Concert With Spiritual Thinking

2007-02-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

The Naturalist declares: "Everything that is came into being by chance. To some extent, at least, there is cause and effect, though the amazing natural physical universe and the living creatures on earth, have come about by some combination of random occurrences within a system that has rule sets that never, or at least have never, changed. Most importantly, whether or not this is true, we will pursue knowledge assuming it is correct. This will keep us from being sidetracked by God-in-the-gap type of approaches that might hinder the determination of how things really came to be the way they are."

The Spiritualist declares: "God did it, and you can try to prove natural processes until the end of time, but it won't change the fact that God spoke the universe into existence, and he can just as easily speak it out of existence. However, he has provided us with a text that tells us His plan, and that He is worthy of our trust that He will not deviate from that Text. Since, up until today, the rules of existence are seemingly unchanged, He has been worthy of that trust. Case closed."

These two positions are commonly being seen as VS. Why couldn't they be combined? This post will argue that the vast majority of Christians see these two as potentially in combination. And it would seem that the consequences of either of the first two standing alone are not what either side would want.

I think it is reasonable to say that a purely naturalist view leaves open the potential for everyone to have their own moral code, and for this moral code to be changing as quickly as science comes up with new ideas. That has been the experience of my lifetime, and seemingly the experience of history.

I could so easily go to the eugenics issue which was born straight from Darwin and survival of the fittest. We could talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat, a result of economic and social sciences. Maybe we should look at the morality that grew out of some of the best known scientists of the 50's. Kinsey or Dr. Spock come to mind.

In the 60's science told us that we had the cures to STD's and we engineered a method for birth control. Combine these with the God is Dead thinking and you get "make love, not war," and "everything is OK if it doesn't hurt somebody else."

Christians have done some pretty sad things over the years using or misusing the Bible to back them up. However, that same book seems to constantly work as a corrective for evil. (Slavery) And, if there was not a Divine author, it just becomes one more book to choose among for a moral system.

If we take spirituality out of the "marketplace of ideas," even the ideas in pure science, we lose the balance. Science may seem pure at its root, but he who is believed to hold the "truth" will not only be held up as an idol, he will believe himself to be one. Thus, the holder of the truth will feel compelled to make recommendations for how that truth should play out in the future. I love engineering almost more than I love science, but engineers have created some of the most horrible disasters ever. (Like global warming, if you believe it is man-made.)

If we all become naturalists, will the art and literature and science and music be anything close to as powerful as it is now? Where does passion come from? Where do we derive our desire to leave a legacy? Would you die for Darwin? For Ayn Rand?

So, like the USA, where we have balance between the branches of government, and then more balance between federalism and the states, and then leaving the power in the hands of the folks, our system of finding truth is divided between the pure scientists, the philosophers, and those who offer a spiritual dimension. I have a hard time imagining the system with one of the three taken out. And it was Christianity that created scientific inquiry, so I have a hard time imagining our system functioning without that leg either.

In a system where only the theologians hold sway, they now hold "truth" in their pocket. They become the idols and believe themselves to be little gods. Folks follow them mindlessly, and no one who has that kind of following can easily keep their humility. Even if the first generation is benevolent in either a pure theolically driven or pure naturalism driven system, the second generation will assuredly use whatever means necessary to hold onto the power. I think this is what you are seeing in the new Dawkin's approach. He is turning vile in an effort to hold onto the small amount of power that he thinks science has amassed.

This is a theory in development, first draft. Take your shots.

Are We Worthy to be Participating in this God vs No God Debate

2007-02-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't lost my mind. I realize that if I win the point here, no one will ever have a reason to visit this blog again. However, any good debate must have worthy opponents. When I participated in debate in high school, we spent hundreds of hours preparing for a very limited issue. I feel confident that those who are so far giving their ideas, thoughts, and opinions in this forum, are very bright. It would also appear that each one has spent quite a bit of time researching and thinking through the issues. And, believe it or not, I don't raise the issue in this post to discourage young thinkers, or those who are new to the subject from commenting. I have been commonly amazed at the insightfulness that comes from those who are fresh to this or any subject.

No the issue here is more philosophical. I can't speak for you, but I see myself as one very small organism among 6 billion or so similar assemblages of matter, which taken together are a minor blip on this planet, much less the universe. To suggest that we, individually or together, have gotten it right more often than wrong would even be a stretch. In fact, one of my favorite retorts to an employee who is concerned that they screwed up is: "I've probably already screwed up something more costly today. Go, and screw up less."

So, if I'm a naturalist claiming that science (the folks who brought you "little boys and little girls are basically identical without society telling them how to act - Uh Huh) has so much wisdom that they know Darwin was right, and the big bang is fact, and string theory is going to explain it all, I have to really wonder if we are truly that smart. Then, should I really be turning to the believer in the lab next to me, and telling him with great assurance, "There is no God, and your Bible is just the greatest marketing tool in history."

On the other hand, if I'm a God follower, and think I have it all together because I have most of the population on my side, should I be getting all snooty and telling the naturalist that evolution is total bunk. After all, the pea brain that God gave me is not capable of figuring out how to get my 2 year-old to use the potty. But I claim to know how the Grand Canyon came about in 10,000 years?

Is Atheism Irrational? How About Religion?

2007-01-31T15:55:00.000-08:00

Ben Bateman has a great post over at his blog. This was actually a comment he left over at the blog of Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.

“Atheist: “Religion is irrational.””

The atheist is confusing the use of logic with the truth of the premises on which the logic is based. This is very common among atheists. Those who stridently emphasize their rationality and use of logic generally do not understand that all their thoughts necessarily rest on a foundation of unproven assumptions. The atheist assumes, for example, that he is capable of understanding the world around him. He assumes that he can distinguish reliable sources of information from unreliable sources.

Most importantly, the atheist assumes some moral foundation, some basic principles about what he should and shouldn’t do. And that moral foundation is usually very weak, because the atheist rarely gives it much thought. To excuse his lack of thought on the subject, he usually declares his moral assumptions to be self-evident, and then goes back to bragging about how rational and logical he is.

But morality is actually a very complicated subject—so complicated that a single lifetime of experience and reflection is not nearly enough to produce a system of moral thought that is both internally consistent and complete enough to cover nearly every situation in which people find themselves. It is therefore irrational for an individual to attempt to generate a moral system on his own. There isn’t enough time.

Fortunately, you don’t have to do it all yourself. Wise men throughout history have collected a wealth of experience with different morally challenging situations, and they’ve devoted countless hours to reflecting on these situations and generating systems of thought that can handle them all with internal consistency.

So if you’re serious about morality, then you can’t really escape the necessity of relying on these older systems of moral thought. But there’s one hitch: Those older systems of moral thought are called religions. So if you are emotionally conditioned to reject anything connected to religion, then you are doomed to moral idiocy.

God and Evil - How to Reconcile

2007-01-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

Cordin said...

I am an ex-christian that lost my faith several years ago. I first accepted Jesus as my saviour when I was about ten years old but am now a confirmed agnostic (age 37).

I would like to introduce the topic of theodicy and what I see to be an impossible reconciliation between the God of the Bible and natural evil.

My biggest obstacle to faith must still be the suffering in this world, and in particular, amongst the animals.

Yet, we are told that God IS love. (1 John 4:8).

According to the apostle Paul “…his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world's creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.” (Romans 1:20) Humans might be responsible for much of the pain brought upon other humans (and animals), but who is responsible for the natural violence of the animal kingdom. If it is “perceived by the things made” that what has been made is in fact imperfect, at times evil, and quite violent, what does that tell us about God’s nature and His qualities?

I cannot bring myself to believe that humans are the only sentient beings on this planet. (Mirror/mark tests with chimpanzees for eg. indicate a level of self-awareness.) To me, animals seem to have been completely forgotten by God. A loving human often puts an animal “to sleep” out of its misery. Why does God let them die slowly?

I have to quote Mark Twain here:

“God will provide for this kitten.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because I know it! Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it.”
“But it falls, just the same. What good is seeing it fall?”

-Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

Earth’s living creatures are born, suffer, and then die with no hope of a second chance. To say they are ‘just’ animals or that they do not have souls does not change the fact that they feel pain. There is no reason to believe that animals are exempt from many of the same sufferings that we pray release from. (Romans 8:22) One only needs to step on a dog’s paw to learn this quite quickly.

If God hates violence, why create venom to paralyze? Why create claws and fangs for ripping and shredding flesh? Why create instincts in birds to bludgeon their siblings, forcing them out of a nest so as to die of starvation? Why do some monkeys practice infanticide?

If these features did not evolve then why did an all-powerful, all-loving Maker fashion them so? Could he not have made something better. Wasn't there already a perfect heavens of angels where sin and death could not be passed on to other creatures? Conditions so wonderful we pray for His "will to take place on earth as it IS in heaven"?

Some have answered that animals were not created to use these lethal anatomical structures in the way they do now. In order for God to declare that “everything that he had made…was very good”, Genesis suggests that all creatures of the earth were originally meant to eat plants. (Genesis 1:29, 30)

But, why then do porcupines have predator-resistant quills, or the blowfish protective spikes, or the skunk and bombardier beetle stinging chemicals? Is it just a coincidence that certain snakes capable of producing poisonous venom also have the fangs to deliver such poison and the physical ability to widen their jaws and the agility to strike with lightning speed and be able to stretch their body to accommodate entire large animals and the instinct to do so? Why do ‘vampire’ bats have anticoagulant in their saliva if they were not meant to eat blood from organisms? Why do parasitic wasps instinctively paralyze and keep a caterpillar alive for the express intent of laying its 'eggs' inside and feeding off their living bodies? Even the Venus’ flytrap seems ‘designed’ to feed on living creatures.

Why do predators have all the features for sneaking, ambushing, and devouring their prey? In turn, why do prey have the features necessary for outrunning, or outfoxing their predators? I find it hard to believe these adaptations are for the hunting of and protection from vegetation. (In addition, the fossil record shows that most species of animals (dinosaurs for eg.) went extinct well before man appeared and often suffered violent deaths or infection even before Adam's sin).

If the Creator of mankind had indeed exercised his power to foreknow all that history has seen since man's creation, would not the full weight of all the wickedness thereafter be deliberately set in motion by God when he spoke the words: Let us make man?"

To summarize: If God, in His wisdom, already had a perfect heavens in which to commune and share His love, where sin could not take hold because of the very way in which it was created- Why did He go ahead with ‘project earth’ when the disobedience of just one man (Adam) could corrupt the entire planet resulting in the death of all it’s creatures, supposedly, necessitating the sacrifice of His only begotten Son? It reminds me of the FORD motor company already having safe vehicles, but knowingly going ahead with the flawed design of the Pinto and it's tendency to explode - killing it's innocent occupants.

I cannot see how the Christian God could be all-loving, all-wise, all-powerful and yet not be partly responsible for evil.

Randy's Response: Clearly this is one of the great stumbling blocks for folks who are seeking God and for those who are already trusting God (or any god.) It is particularly difficult for Christians and Jews where the emphasis is on love. I teach a Bible study, and virtually every person in the study was shocked to one degree or another by the OT violence. Some teach that this was the "God" of the OT, and that Jesus changed all that. I suggest that those who teach in this way go to the last book of the Bible and see if the God of Revelation seems any different than the God of Genesis and Exodus.

So, who is this God who is the very embodiment of Love, and who at least allows for all this evil, torment, unfairness, injustice, anguish, and death? Most evangelicals teach that God "allows" the Devil to reign on earth, but that God did not create evil. I will merely suggest that this is another one of the unknowables like free will and infinity. That is, it is unknowable how the God who created everything is not responsible for evil and yet is pure love.

So, personally, I will take a duck on that part, but not on the logic of "evil" which I will use a shorthand for all the really negative aspects of the lives of people and critters.

The created world was perfect in the beginning, and Biblically it appears that God intended it to remain that way. Our hope of heaven is partially a regaining of that place where "evil" is no longer a part of how things work.

Humans and other animals are seemingly designed with the potential for evil as part of the genetics. This can be said to be God's intent, man's fall, or part of evolution. Dawkins refers to a selfish gene. To the extent that all living things are "self-centered," there is going to be evil.
Christ's answer was for folks to be other-centered, which runs counter to the selfish gene. I'm sure some will argue that it is possible to be selfish and understand that loving others unconditionally, sacrificially, and without expectation of return of that love, can be ultimately selfish if it works to improve the survival chances of the community in some way. I call this a stretch, but don't exclude it totally.

The Bible tells us that some things that happen to us that are seemingly evil are the natural consequence of our actions. Some are things that are allowed to happen to us to make us strong or to prepare us to minister to others. This next idea is my own theology, but I suspect others would agree. Death of humans is not the critical issue for God or man. It is the death of the spirit that matters. And thus we get all the way back to purpose. For the atheist, there can be absolutely no explanation for the death or horrible evil perpetrated on an innocent. With God, it may seem confusing to some, but at least His purposes can be played out by evil acts, however you choose to believe that this evil is created.

The Nature and Value of Consensus in "Truth"

2007-01-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm going to do some research on this over the next days and weeks, but it occurs to me that we are badly in need of some rules regarding the nature and value of consensus in various kinds of investigations of truth. As we have been battling out the issues here, a great deal of the debate revolves around what is and is not evidence. My friend and fellow blogger, Michael Williams, had this post yesterday:

I just wanted to quote a snippet from Michael Crichton's critique of global warming "science" that deals with the popular acceptance of "scientific consensus".

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.

Examples follow, but plenty should be obvious to even the casual thinker. As I listed in my earlier post about "scientific consensus": Copernicus, Galileo, the Wright Brothers, Newton, Einstein, etc.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

If we compare the concept of consensus in Science to the same concept in history, philosophy, feelings, etc., we should, I think have different weight for consensus as a valuable insight into truth.

If 100 people witness an accident, and 99 of them see it the same way, then this would seem to have very strong weight. If 100 people study the history of an event and 99 come to one or more conclusions that are virtually the same, this would have substantial weight, but not so much as the witness situation. If 100 people look at a picture of a certain scene, and 99 express a feeling that is fairly consistent (e.g. What a beautiful scene), again this would cause reasonable people to expect to get the same feeling if they saw it.

I would also agree that if scientists study historical evidence regarding evolution or global warming, and substantial percentages come to the same conclusion, this has weight. However, it is not the same weight as should be given as the result of an experiment. These results would be more like the eye-witness.

In every case, skepticism has its place, and other evidence may undermine even the seemingly indisputable event (i.e. magic or optical illusions.) But it shouldn't matter how many scientists line up on the side of a "proof." That is just selling, not science.

Who Was Jesus? Simply the Most Amazing Man in History or Son of God?

2007-01-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

10. You can take #9 and pretty much just insert the name of Jesus in each place where it says Bible. There can be almost no question that He was the most remarkable human to ever walk the planet, and has had the most impact of any other man. Given his short life, very brief public activity, location of his birth, life, and death, methods of his work, and claims made by him and about him, an honest intellectual cannot dismiss the possibility that He was more than mere human. It is evidence that must be weighed.

Bernardo's response to #10. Jesus is a combination of many "god-man" myths that existed around the near-east at the times before and during the beginning of Christianity. A historical Jesus may have lived, but I think it is very unlikely that he was born of a virgin, died and came back, etc. I think this just because so many myths existed before the time of Jesus that said the same thing. The following make for good reading: http://www.medmalexperts.com/ POC...arted_pocm.html and http://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-...n/dp/ 0060655186

Randy's response (Please also see Cordin's thoughts related to this on Bible post just previous): Please keep in mind that I'm attempting to build up evidence. If I go draw a straight flush one time at home and nobody sees it, I don't have anything. If I have one witness, I have something. If I have two witnesses, most won't dispute it. If I do this in Las Vegas in front of 25 witnesses, I might make the local paper. If I do it on TV during a competition, it will be almost indisputable, though some skeptics might still try.

If I do it twice in a row, there will be massive scrutiny, and even if there is never a showing of wrongdoing, and it is all recorded for everyone to see, a huge percentage of those called to judge the event will say it was rigged. If I did it three hands in a row, potentially almost the entire population of those who have an opinion would choose "fraud," "trick," or some such.

Jesus's coming was predicted (no one questions the clamor for a messiah), and there were specific aspects that were predicted in the OT. All of those were met. When he lived, he performed "miracles" that were witnessed by 1000's, and there is no record of dispute as to the miracles. His public life was very brief, and was the antithesis of what would be expected of any messiah. But even though he didn't do the kinds of things that one usually associates with greatness, nor did he seem to desire fame, fortune, and even turned away potential followers, he ends up the greatest human leader in history. And his leadership doesn't end at his death, but grows afterwards for 2000 years.

Of course everyone should be skeptical of his divinity, of his miracles, and of the nature of the prophesy of his life and his own prophesies. That includes every Christian. However, 2,000,000,000 people alive today have looked at the evidence, weighed the miracle into the data, and come up with "yes." (3,000,000,000 if you count Muslims who agree he was divine.)

Validity of the Bible - Amazing Work or Word of God

2007-01-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

9. There are 1000's of "coincidences" of fact regarding the Bible that would give rise to an assumption that the Bible is special beyond any other "human" achievement. One can look at all of these facts and deny all of them, and therefore conclude that the Bible is merely an astonishing human work. However, once again, that is not how we look at evidence. Each of these 1000's of facts would need to be addressed individually, and then they would need to be viewed in the context of the entire lot of them.

Bernardo's response to #9. The authors of each book in the Bible probably had access to the most well-known/influential/popular books written up until that time. Besides, many of the authors were probably writing about the same stories, or about stories that originate in the same story. So it's not like each book in the Bible was written independently, in isolation: They were written to build on others, and they were written about common stories. Ah, and they were then EDITED, and selected very carefully by committees before being compiled. Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot, you don't believe in selection... ;]

Randy's response: There would be very few who would argue against the Bible being the most unique, well written, and by far the most important book in history. None of the other tribes who had similar stories put together a narrative of such beauty and substance. Is it just one more coincidence that this phenomenal book has at its centerpiece the most influential man in history?

How Did Life Begin?

2007-01-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

8. Life from non-life. Science has now proposed large number theory as a way to explain how life came from non-life. Once again I would assert that this very recent theory, while plausible, is extremely fragile.

To believe that God created life, as He created everything, is not that hard to believe. Billions believe it to be true. So it can hardly be called illogical or primitive. That would suggest that a very small percent of the population has, with absolutely no proof or even a way to get to the proof, determined that the vast majority of the population (including some pretty smart people) are delusional, and only they have it right. This would not hold up very well in a court of law with finders of fact trying to get it right.

Bernardo's Response to #8. Once self-replicating molecules came around, they competed for resources until the necessary building blocks were used up, and then some mutation caused them to start "eating" each other, and then some random arrangement allowed for self-replicating defense mechanisms, and so on, leading to the prokaryotic cell. Or something like that. Is that so hard to believe? I just tried to say in a sentence what Richard Dawkins says in one paragraph of "The Selfish Gene" (he concludes the chapter with the thought that we (people) are survival mechanisms for our genes - or at least that's one useful way to look at why and how we evolved). So my super-summarized version of the explanation may not sound convincing, but I highly recommend you read the book. Or, even better, that you read "The Mind's I", which includes that chapter of "The Selfish Gene" (followed by commentary/analysis by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett) as well as other excerpts from other books that address the questions of what we are, what it means to "be", to "think", to be "alive", to have a "point of view", etc. Back to the subject of the origin of life, though: whether or not the God "explanation" of things is hard to believe, makes sense, or even meaningfully "explains" anything at all, is a topic that deserves separate attention. I'll write a little about it after number 10.

Randy's response: I've been doing a little reading on this today, and there seems to be a body of work emerging that takes us back to primordial soup theory. More correctly known as the Miller-Urey experiment, the idea is that if you have a certain set of environmental characteristics and you hit the "soup" with a bolt of energy (lightening in the original theory) living things might be produced out of the non-living soup.

This experiment was completely debunked when it was learned by other scientists that the "soup" used had way too much free O2 compared to the earths environment at that time.

Apparently others have now tried some experiments with other possible soups that more closely approximate what they believe was available at the time, and have been able to create something like life. Others suggest that the amount of energy required could not have come from lightening, so have suggested other sources for the energy.

The other problem with even a successful Miller-Urey has always been the small likelihood of this exact set of products coming together, being zapped by some energy, and then having a feedstock available to survive. If all of these things came together, you'd then have issues with continuation of survival. What are the odds.

Now Bernardo would give us a couple of other conceptual ideas of how it could have happened. I think it was either God...or possibly some green guys from a faraway planet started it and left. I do, however, appreciate that it takes immagination to come up with all these possibilities. I just don't understand why the immagination can not include a spiritual option when most humans on the planet feel a spiritual option is at work.

Who Created The Universe? - Then Who Created God?

2007-01-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

7. First cause. For those who want it all to be natural, they ultimately must deal with how the first thing came into existence. For God proponents, they must deal with who created God. Science has absolutely no answer, and it is beyond credibility that they ever will.

Those who believe in God propose that the spiritual realm has no space/time continuum, and that God is the first cause. We can't prove it, but at least we have a conceptual framework.

Bernardo's response to #7. I understand that physicists say that empty space, at a small enough level, is made of a "quantum foam". There are levels of energy that fluctuate enough so that particles can come into existence (especially when at the same time as their anti-particle) and then vanish again (if they collide with an anti-particle). So it is conceivable that the "stuff" in the universe came from this, or from something like this. or it could have simply always existed. Yes, I know this does not explain where the universe itself comes from. But I still don't see why you can say "God has always existed" but can't accept that maybe the universe has always existed. And "the spiritual realm has no space/time continuum" is hardly what I would call "a conceptual framework". I actually have a little more to say on this issue, but I'll leave that until what I write after number 10.

Randy's response: For once in this life, I'm speechless. Not because Bernardo's response is so compelling (although it is useful and wise as always), but because I'm not sure where one goes with this.

Detailed Evolutionary Myths vs God Did It

2007-01-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

6. It is possible to come up with convoluted explanations for how bats use sonar to find their way around in caves by natural evolution, even though it strains credulity to imagine why they would start creating the sounds needed when their ears weren't evolved to respond, or why their ears would evolve to respond prior to their "voice" being able to create the sound. Then it gets more difficult yet to figure out how both of these things evolved to the point of usefulness prior to some bat trying to use it in a cave. It isn't that one can't create a story line to solve this mystery. It is just that the story line wouldn't pass muster in Hollywood.

This is only one such mystery that needs such a workaround. Some, like the eye, are much discussed, but truly there are mysteries concerning almost every organ and organism which beg to explain how one thing developed before the other, even though there was no need for the second thing until the first came about. And that is only one kind of such mystery.

Bernardo's Response to #6. Yes, good old Irreducible Complexity. It's really not that irreducible, though. Half a mousetrap may indeed not work half as well as a whole mousetrap, but if it works 1% as well, and better than no mousetrap at all (maybe the mouse is impaled on it accidentally a small percentage of times) then it might be good enough to be selected into the next generation. Regarding your specific examples: You don't need an exceptionally good ear to use it to judge distance (and other properties) via echo sounds: Some humans can do it (see http://www.people.com/people/ art...68_1,00_pf.html and http://www.slate.com/id/2154696/fr/rss/ ). Once bats started relying on this technique for navigation and hunting, you can imagine that any improvements on their sound-making parts and/or their sound-sensing parts would lead to more effective hunting and navigating, and would be preserved. The thing is, if an animal has any sound-making parts at all (like parts they can slap together), and an ear that is only as developed as the most basic mammalian ear, then they can use eco-location to some limited extent. It's not an all-or-nothing thing; it can start in a primitive form using parts so non-specialized, they could have mutated by accident or evolved for doing something else. Like the eye: some species (like sea stars) only have light-sensitive patches of skin that they point in different directions to see which way is lighter and darker. Cover that up by a refractive material (like some kinds of almost-transparent skin or mucus secretions or membranes) and you have a focusing lens that can provide some directional information about the origin of the light given the patterns of light it refracts onto the sensitive patch. Or, if the sensitive patch is on a convex surface, light will illuminate it more powerfully in the spots perpendicular to the light source. Etc. In other words, complex structures can evolve from very crude structures, since very crude structures can do the same thing, just not quite as well. As if you think these explanations (the ones that show why no complexity is truly irreducible) are too convoluted, then please be sure I still prefer them to some unexplained supernatural intelligence that miraculously makes an animal give birth to offspring so genetically different, it could not mate with members of its parents' species.

Randy's response: While I do think that irreducible complexity is an important reason to embrace God as creator and not aided randomness, it is more than that. It is the narrative myths that are created to explain these things. There is almost never any actual science driving these ideas of how this became that, merely speculation that could have been dreamed up by a bunch of friends over a latte'. How does a lizard learn to fly is hard enough. How does a lizard who learns to fly learn to turn and land without killing himself? This is a harder question. And we CAN'T possibly ever know. The way these things happened is unknowable, because there is no record of how they happened. Thus it will always be speculation on the order of "it could have happened this way." Yep! And it could have happened, because some early intelligent being taught that lizard to fly, turn, and land.

Emotions - How Are They Related to Survival of The Fittest?

2007-01-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

5. Emotions such as love, hate, empathy, selflessness, patriotism, even the contemplation of beauty don't seem to fit into survival patterns without a real stretch. In other words, most honest evaluators would not think that sacrificial love is a product of evolution.

Bernardo's Response to #5. I don't think the evolutionary explanations for these emotions are "a real stretch". A behavior that makes it more likely for the group to survive (even if this means the sacrifice of an individual) makes it more likely that the group will pass on the gene (or the custom) for that behavior. So we evolved compassion for those in our group and hostility towards those in other groups. As for things like the contemplation of beauty or even the invention of gods, those are probably consequences of evolved traits that came about for some benefit other than the ones we experience. Our ability to detect and generalize patterns probably evolved to help us survive in the wild, but it also causes us to experience pleasure when we encounter certain kinds of patterns. Our ability to detect intentionality, our strong psychological tendency to believe what our parents tell us, and other such characteristics, may have helped us to survive in the wild, but today they make religious ideas much more believable than those ideas reasonably should be. It's like the moth who evolved to navigate by flying at a constant angle relative to the incoming rays of light (i.e. by keeping the light source at a certain angle relative to the moth's body): It works really well when the light source is really far away and the rays are parallel (sun), but when the light source is fairly nearby and the rays all emanate from it (lamp), the moth spirals into the light source, sometimes to its death.

Randy's response: Like I said, these ideas seem far-fetched. Not impossible. Merely less likely than that they were built into our being. I'd be more inclined to buy that the ideas of morality, beauty, etc., are similar to the "rules" of the universe.

Why are squirrels cute, and rats not? Why are monarch butterflies considered beautiful, while moths are not? Why not quartz as the prized stone instead of diamonds?

Laws of Nature - Created by Intelligence or Always Existed or ?

2007-01-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

3. Underlying "rules" of properties (matter, energy, life) that are consistent through known time and space suggest intelligent forces at work, not randomness at any level.

Bernardo's response to #3. Why do the consistent rules imply intelligence? Why can't they just be the fundamental nature of the universe? If consistency implies creation, then doesn't God's consistency imply that God must have been created himself? And one more thing: Some levels ARE random (like quantum behavior, radioactive decay, etc), some levels are NOT random (like the motions of celestial bodies, or the laws and equations that govern quantum behavior). So there is significant randomness in some levels, but negligible randomness in others. What's wrong with that?

Randy's response. What would it mean for the universe to have fundamental anything? It would mean that these rules did not happen in any random fashion, but were crafted. You can't have it both ways. You can either have random occurrences that are so numerous that they eventually end up sorting themselves out in the most useful way, or you can have intelligent rule making. Do you have a third way? Is there a way to consider the huge number theory applying to rules in the same way science tries to use it for creation of matter and life?

Yes, we get back to redundancy of creative effort, first cause and all that. However, just because we don't know for sure how God came to be, doesn't mean that He should not be considered as the creator of the rules. Sub note: It is interesting that the Bible, while history, is really about the "rules" for living.

Finally, the random aspects of decay and such are still only random within a range ... or to the extent that any rule turns out to be random, we are not really on very steady ground about whether the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow.

Is Faith Practical: Should We Bother to Consider Practical or Intellectual Aspects of Faith or No Faith?

2007-01-08T18:36:00.000-08:00

Science studies the way things work, but also takes a step back to consider how science works. Similarly, folks who have taken the time to debate the topics appearing in this blog, commonly ask the question: "Is this a debate we should have at all?" And this question comes from both believers and nonbelievers.

After all, they insist, faith is not about what is practical or provable or reasonable. It is about faith.

So let me start the debate this way. It takes great faith to buy food from supermarkets, restaurants, and street vendors. If we were to try and prove that any given can of corn is not going to kill us, we couldn’t do it. Nor could we prove that that very can of corn will be edible and healthy. Not until after we open it and either fully examine it for contaminants (thus rending it not worth eating), or until we have eaten it and waited a day, will we be certain if our faith was well founded.

However, our faith in food suppliers is founded on evidence which is practical and reasonable. We have history, the USFDA, the reputation of the brand and the retailer, the recommendation of friends and critics, and an expectation of other watchdogs such as newspapers giving us a heads-up about bad food supplies.

After we eat the meal, we increase our confidence in the specific source for future decision making. In fact, our faith in the supplier is increased or decreased based on the experience.

Our faith in our parents, teachers, information providers, science, God, Christianity, etc., are likewise so informed by history, results, critics, etc. Even those who have already made a decision to embrace one kind of theology will inevitably be challenged to reconsider as new information comes into play.

Thus, I believe that this argument is the most fundamental and important one that any human can enter into. The consequences are huge for life on earth and in the hereafter (if there is one.) And I conclude that whatever we have faith in, we have come to that faith in some measure by reason, which reason results from evidence and practical considerations.

Improbability of Life Sustaining Environment For Millions of Years

2007-01-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

4. An almost incomprehensible set of requirements for support of life as we know it on this planet maintained in critical balance for either millenniums (Bible) or millions of years (science). Such balance is beyond the imagination of most humans to contemplate without intelligence tweaking systems which might have otherwise gone awry. (Consider how science is now telling us that a mere 6% of warming might destroy human life that has survived for a very long time without help from science.)

Bernardo's Response to #4. Our universe can sustain interesting chemistry; It's a universe where a variety of bonds and energy states and energy transfers and forces between a variety of particles can happen, thanks to certain proportions between certain fundamental constants. Say that such a universe is very unlikely (which it is, given that, as far as we know, those fundamental constants could all conceivably have had very different values). Now, say that all possible universes exist, parallel to each other. On the (relatively few) universes where chemistry (and thus life) can happen, it's quite likely (given enough planets) that life would arise. If that life became intelligent, it might realize that its own existence is very unlikely. But, with an infinity of universes, something "very unlikely" is bound to happen. You might say something like "I'm lucky to have been born in a universe that is this friendly to life", but the fact is, you COULD NOT have been born anywhere else. So, as far as I can tell, there is no luck involved, no huge odds miraculously overcome. Of all the universes that can exist, of COURSE we ended up coming into being on this one. We might marvel at our luck, but that's like a polar bear concluding the existence of God because how else could the bear have been fortunate enough to have been borne on an environment so ideally suited to the bear's needs and wants.

Randy's Response: We not only would marvel at our luck, but we would marvel that we would having any hope of being that lucky tomorrow, also. A very small change could unravel the whole thing, but hasn't. Doesn't that seem beyond ones ability to imagine as just lucky. You can call it an explaination. I would just call it "let me think of some story since I have absolutely no idea."

Does Majority Opinion Have Evidentiary Value

2007-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

2. A shared experience of perception by large majorities of the population gives rise to an assumption of its being real.

Response by Bernardo to #2. Zeus (& company). Quetzalcoatl. Demons that caused diseases and mental problems. Santa Claus.

Response by Randy: It is truly irrelevant whether or not huge numbers of humans have believed wrong things in the past, or even that the various belief systems re: God are to some degree mutually exclusive today. In order for this evidence to be dismissed on those grounds, we would also recognize that most scientist believed that the world would run out of food about 25 years ago. We would certainly have to dismiss many current ideas about global warming, since the number one argument seems to be that "all scientists agree."

This is a relevant argument and deserves substantial weight. Remember, my claim is not that this is ultimate proof, but only that it is valid evidence used in every other environment where folks try to arrive at truth.

Intelligent Design vs Natural Selection Among Large Numbers of Random Ocurrences

2007-01-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

1. The basic human assumption on seeing complexity in design is to assume an intelligent designer, not a random occurrence.

Bernardo response to #1. We are creatures that have foresight. We are able to imagine what the future is like, to decide which outcomes we would like the best, to determine which actions would lead to the desired outcome, and to invent tools to help us reach that outcome (the invention process itself requiring this foresight). So we are used to being intelligent designers of devices, events, and mechanisms. This does not mean, however, that a complicated and effective mechanism is necessarily intelligently designed. They are not "random occurrence"s either - no one says they are. They are the culmination of billions of random occurrences, non-randomly selected by the environment so that the fittest ones (whatever that means in a certain environment) stick around and get improved on by future non-randomly-selected random occurrences. We design with purpose and foresight. The natural world just tries everything and then eliminates the least effective attempts. What nature is left with may look "designed" to our designers' eyes - since it's so complex and so effective - but this is not necessarily an intuition we ought to trust.

Randy response to Bernardo

You posit a possible way things happened. You have absolutely no evidence that this is how the universe became as it is today. In fact, there is substantial evidence that the probabilities of these random events resulting in "life," for instance, are off the charts unlikely.

However, I am perfectly willing to accept your hypothesis as one possible solution, even though it would take a great deal of faith to support it. Logically, however, I would continue to argue that an intelligent force makes more sense, given that neither of our propositions is provable or disprovable.

The Premise of This Blog

2006-12-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

There is no bigger question that man faces in his life than whether this universe has come in to being as a result of a mindless and random set of natural forces, or whether a supernatural creative force spoke everything we humans can see and comprehend into being.

This debate has many, many facets. Thus when approached in other places it is difficult to keep the thread of the debate limited enough to make progress. The goal here will be to create various threads of the debate, and try like crazy to contain each of those threads to the topic at hand.

As we see lines of thinking that don't fit within existing posts or combinations of posts, we will break off into a separate topic. At some point, it is possible that this blog will be broken into several more specific blogs, or that we will recreate the site as a full-on forum.

I will attempt to get leading thinkers on both sides of this debate to come and give their views, but getting the opinions of lay people commonly provides a much more interesting dialogue. At least initially, I prefer to keep this discussions limited to the Christian God vs atheism and agnosticism. As things develop we might want to consider various other "gods" of various other religions. Also for now, this will not be the place to debate the various differences within Christianity.

Please help make this site even more valuable by providing me with links to websites, blogs, forums, books, TV programs, etc., that we can list here. I will be the final arbiter of which resources will be referenced, but I will not unreasonably fail to note any such resources from all sides of the spectrum of thought on this issue. E-mail me at Quixote77@sbcglobal.net.

The first 5 topics will be:

What are the practical advantages of believing in God?
What are the practical advantages of not believing in God?
Why do Christians feel so compelled to convince others to believe?
Why do atheists want so badly to win the debate?
How should evidence be "weighed" in this subject area?

I will create set-up posts for each item over the next few days. However, you may use the comment section of this post to offer your own topics or to suggest things which should be included in the set-up post of any of these threads.