Answering Atheists #2

It never ceases to amaze me how smug a person can be when he thinks he has all of the answers. I, myself, am not immune to that, but I will at least listen to opposing points of view and try to see if there is anything of value in them. If you are really so smart, you can try to see how the big framework can let smaller things fit in it together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle; until you get the big picture, you are fumbling with putting small bits in wherever they go.

I am not a "flat earther" and I don't try to interpret scriptures literally. Such nonsense is an insult to critical intelligence. Rather, if you  allow metaphor, analogy, reason and common sense, it gives you a lot of freedom.

This is a response to a YouTube chat between Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss.

Part One:
If you argue that the Big Bang happened spontaneously because of the action of quantum physics, then you have to explain where the laws of quantum physics came from. At last report, you guys haven't even figured that out how to work on that yet.

You can NEVER get the Universe to "happen" from no existence at all, since the Universe is not entirely self-subsistent. Even Stephen Hawking admitted that "black holes" can eventually evaporate. If the universe can die, clearly it can't birth itself. God, however, IS self-sustaining -- being the very nature of Being-in-itself, and so is capable to sustain the Universe, as well as to create it.

Note: every event needs a cause. If there is nothing, there can be no immediate  cause, but only a "first cause" or a "prime mover", i.e., God. Your tiny "quantum event" is only a flick of his Will.

There can't be any "something from nothing." It's impossible, unless God was playing at "being nothing" when He did it. This is actually something He does frequently. The Kaballah has a series of discussions on how God created the Cosmos. You should try reading another book, or two.

Evolution is not an argument for Atheism. It is an argument for Divine intervention and stochastic direction. The odds against random mutations selected by survival of the fittest for adaptation to any given environment ever having the luck to evolve into an Intelligent being make the word "Astronomical" pale by comparison. We are talking ENORMOUS Fermi Paradox "Great Filters" here, and LOTS OF THEM. Each with only a small percentage chance, like  lottery odds.

1. Big Bang
(why & how did it happen? )
2. Suitable Star, Planet & Moon
(very specific conditions)
3. Abiogenesis
(another why & how)
4. Multicellular Complexity
(not necessary for survival)
5. Intelligence
(is it even an efficient aid?)
6. Progressive Technology
(actually a hazard)
7. Wisdom for Self-preservation
(yet to be seen)

If you want to gamble an infinite number of times, forever ... We will all win the lottery before this would replicate itself by itself, without Divine intervention and direction.

Science forces us to realize that Nothing can happen without God. Now, THAT is a great gift.

Part Two:
The Multiverse Hypothesis is not even good science. It is untestable, unverifiable, unfalsifiable and violates the principle of Occam's razor. Just like God Himself, who actually is the simplest explanation. So it is not an answer to anything. It only dodges the question.

The anthropic principle is not a reason to doubt. To say that we are here because the universe is conducive to the appearance of life says nothing profound. We would not be here to ask why we are here, if God did not design the universe to be able to support life. Of course, I am here to ask the question, and I'm not going to let you weasel out of it. Not that easy.

Part Three:
You say that strict scientific trials of the effectiveness of prayer in hospitals have failed to show any benefit? And yet, there are many doctors who will vouch for it.

Perhaps you are overlooking the central essential condition of prayer: It requires Faith. Further, God forbids us to put Him to a test. So your scientific double-blind test carries it's own failure within. It begins with doubt, and wants God to cooperate with its parameters.

You want Magic, not Miracles.

Part Four:
You mock Heaven, saying we should not take our morality from any religion. But Heaven forbid that we should take our morality from Atheists !!! Then we would follow Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, and genocide would be a good thing.

We have been given brains for a reason. To use for the Good of humanity and the world, and to Discern what is the right way to live. Buddhism is a fine religion, even without God. And many theologians will agree that God both exists and does not exist, all at the same time. He is both, Being and Nothingness.

Which, by the way, eliminates Islam from the status of a religion, simply because it encourages violence, slavery, honor killing, terrorism, oppression of an underclass, deception and has no consistent moral code. It is the only ideology that does that and gets away with calling itself a religion, because it talks about Allah, and an Apocalypse. But Allah is not the God of the Bible.

Part Five: A final argument ...
An atheist claims that he has the answer,
that he knows why we exist. Oh, really?
Are you sure you understand why we exist?
Unless you want to tell us what it is ...
(Oh? Nothing to say?)
I doubt that you even have a clue.
That is the prerogative of Faith.

And then he goes on to say, "Nothing is sacred."
Hmm, what kind of thinking is that?
Nothing deserves to be protected from desecration...
because the concerns of Spirit don't figure in.
Oh, right! That's Empiricism!
A self-limiting tool used only by hardcore materialists and scientists.

Scientists start off with a bias saying, there is no God. Only what can be experienced through our five senses can be real. So of course, they can't find what they refuse to look for honestly. They are searching with one hand tied behind their backs.

If you insist that "hammers" don't exist, but then you trip over one, you would have to say that it's a funny looking piece of metal on a stick, and obviously not a "hammer."

A simple syllogism:

Atheists say that it is absurd to believe in a God who can't be proven to exist, because he would be outside of the bounds of science.

But they then say that they believe that the universe somehow magically created itself out of nothing ... which equally baffles any scientific explanation.

On the other hand, ...

Theists say that God claims to be the self-sustaining source of all time and being, (i.e., He is not contingent). There is a long tradition of prophets who are believed to have spoken with God. Their experiences confirm that God is an eternal Being.

We know that the universe has a beginning and most probably will have an end. So its existence is contingent upon time and the lawful strength of physical forces, at the very least.

Further, it is illogical to say that any contingent object created itself, because, it would have to have effective volition and agency before it actually exists in any form or capacity.

Theists say that their self-subsistent, non-contingent God actually can do what He claims to have done, because He stands outside of time and CAN will something before it happens.

God conceived and implemented the physical laws, and all of the ways that things in this universe work together, so that He could create worlds with people in them. That's what He told us. (He didn't say whether we are the only ones, but wow! Such superfluous engineering it would be if we are alone!)

So, if the only problem preventing a logical conclusion, asserting that God created the universe, hinges upon God being outside of the reach of science and puny human understanding, then which is the more logical position?

A. We can't touch it, so that explanation is forbidden ... but we still can't figure out how science can explain it ... or,

B. We have known for millennia that God says He made the universe for us.

Who says that we can and must have a scientific explanation for everything?  Scientists?  Who made them the exclusive authority?

God gave us a revealed explanation for everything, in language appropriate to the level of understanding of the person who was asking the question. He gives better answers today, when we better understand the questions we are asking. And what He doesn't answer, He asks us to wait to find out when we can grasp the knowledge.

That does not mean that we should stop trying to figure stuff out for ourselves, using reason and science, or whatever we can get to work for our knowledge of the universe. But it does mean that we should not be so smug as to assert that we know what we clearly don't know.

By the way, GOD is the final authority, but He trusts us to be honest with ourselves, and to admit when we get something wrong.

"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely [Cosmos]."
            -- Carl Sagan

So why do so many scientists try so hard to suppress the truth?
God exists.