Is Atheism Irrational? How About Religion?

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

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"

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?

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

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?

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?

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

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?

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 ?

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?

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

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

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

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.