Rick Beckman

Misusing Science: A Look at the God Debunkers

I’ve been spend­ing a lot of time Stum­bling late­ly, and while gen­er­al­ly I’m pre­sent­ed with a great vari­ety of fun­ny sites, I’ve come across quite a few “athe­ist apolo­get­ics” sites — sites which either poke fun at Chris­t­ian apolo­get­ics or which attempt to seri­ous­ly deal with them.

The vast major­i­ty of them have this in com­mon: Chris­tians are pre­sent­ed as idiots who do not under­stand how the world works.

Great lengths may be under­tak­en at these sites to present and explain the sci­en­tif­ic method, basic sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples, and so on.

I’m not an idiot. I’ll even go so far as to say I under­stand the sci­ence pre­sent­ed on athe­ist apolo­get­ics sites bet­ter than they often appear to under­stand the Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy they’re else­where mock­ing or attempt­ing to refute.

I under­stand that the uni­verse appears to be expand­ing, that repro­duc­tion does­n’t result in per­fect genet­ic prop­a­ga­tion (muta­tion hap­pens), and that water, no mat­ter how much one may desire it, sim­ply does not turn into wine.

None — I say again, none — of that is an ade­quate argu­ment against Christianity.

Sci­ence may show — repeat­ed­ly and demon­stra­bly — that man can­not walk upon the seas. It may show that regard­less of how many gar­ments are touched, prob­lems with bleed­ing do not instant­ly heal. Based on avail­able mate­r­i­al evi­dence and log­i­cal and/or math­e­mat­i­cal deduc­tion, the big bang and macroevo­lu­tion may very well be the only accept­able choices.

But God is the wild card. With Him, all things are pos­si­ble. If you want to con­clude that God does not exist — or does not exist in the form of the Chris­t­ian God — that’s fine. The meth­ods you are using by nature can­not prove or dis­prove the super­nat­ur­al. Sci­ence deals with the nat­ur­al, the mate­r­i­al. You can’t use the rules of com­ma place­ment to prove or dis­prove that Nike’s logo is effec­tive; like­wise, you can­not use the rules which deter­mine how the phys­i­cal world oper­ates to deter­mine whether or not a super­nat­ur­al world exists or how it would oper­ate if it did. It is supernat­ur­al for that very reason.

Again, though, I’m not an idiot. I accept that many of Chris­tian­i­ty’s claims are fal­si­fi­able. After all, sci­ence can show that mir­a­cles do not hap­pen, and thus a great deal of the Bible is read­i­ly debunked. And I expect athe­ists to accept that and abide by that. They’re not vio­lat­ing their world­views by doing so, nor are they mak­ing use of “bad science.”

Yet God is the wild card. By (super)nature, He & His actions are not fal­si­fi­able. When athe­ists try, they are show­ing them­selves to be the fools which God declares them to be.

I implore such athe­ists to stop mis­us­ing sci­ence in their per­pet­u­al quest to debunk the idea of God. I can think of few greater exer­cis­es in futility!

Posted

in

by

Rick Beckman

Tags:

Comments

18 responses to “Misusing Science: A Look at the God Debunkers”

  1. Senior Avatar
    Senior

    I agree with your entire post.

    Reply
  2. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Hel­lo,

    You wrote, The vast major­i­ty of them have this in com­mon: Chris­tians are pre­sent­ed as idiots who do not under­stand how the world works.

    When the large major­i­ty of Chris­tians reject firm­ly estab­lished facts such as evo­lu­tion or the age of the earth, then you have to won­der if such sites don’t have a point.

    You wrote, But God is the wild card. With Him, all things are possible. 

    Are you not aware of the claims that the Chris­t­ian god inter­venes in the nat­ur­al world, through such things as cre­at­ing the earth, mir­a­cles, and answered prayer? When we test such claims, we find they are with­out basis.

    But I sup­pose, since “with Him, all things are pos­si­ble”, that the Chris­t­ian God DOES inter­vene, but cov­ers his tracks very well with dis­com­firm­ing evidence.

    It seems you’d con­sign the Chris­t­ian god to the super­nat­ur­al realm only, but then, you essen­tial­ly elim­i­nate the Bible. There’s a word for peo­ple who do that: deists.

    Reply
  3. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    When the large major­i­ty of Chris­tians reject firm­ly estab­lished facts such as evo­lu­tion or the age of the earth, then you have to won­der if such sites don’t have a point.

    Most of us don’t reject firm­ly estab­lished facts. The world is round, and we know it. Like­wise, muta­tion does occur. All of that was men­tioned in the orig­i­nal post above.

    Are you not aware of the claims that the Chris­t­ian god inter­venes in the nat­ur­al world, through such things as cre­at­ing the earth, mir­a­cles, and answered prayer? When we test such claims, we find they are with­out basis.

    But I sup­pose, since “with Him, all things are pos­si­ble”, that the Chris­t­ian God DOES inter­vene, but cov­ers his tracks very well with dis­com­firm­ing evidence.

    The Judeo-Chris­t­ian God con­founds the wise and gives knowl­edge to the fool­ish. To those who have no desire to believe in Him, He active­ly hides the truth from.

    In oth­er words, sec­u­lar sci­ence’s find­ings that God has no place in the Uni­verse is per­fect­ly con­sis­tent with Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy. Those sci­en­tists are find­ing exact­ly what God wants them to.

    It is only when the mir­a­cle of the new birth occurs that one’s eyes are opened and heart is made anew. Only then can the exis­tence of God be so clear­ly manifest.

    It seems you’d con­sign the Chris­t­ian god to the super­nat­ur­al realm only, but then, you essen­tial­ly elim­i­nate the Bible. There’s a word for peo­ple who do that: deists.

    No, I’m not con­sign­ing Him to the super­nat­ur­al realm only. Rather, I’m say­ing that even His activ­i­ties in our realm defy sci­ence. Sci­ence requires repeata­bil­i­ty, yet God is not at exper­i­ments’ beck & call.

    Reply
  4. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Most of us don’t reject firm­ly estab­lished facts. 

    Accord­ing to a 2007 Gallup poll, as much as 66% of the US pop­u­la­tion believe “the idea that God cre­at­ed human beings pret­ty much in their present form at one time with­in the last 10,000 years”.

    Is it a firm­ly estab­lished fact that the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

    To those who have no desire to believe in Him, He active­ly hides the truth from…Those sci­en­tists are find­ing exact­ly what God wants them to.

    So the Chris­t­ian god plays a game of hide-and-seek? Got it.

    I sup­pose, then, that the earth is real­ly less than 10,000 years old and was cre­at­ed just as Gen­e­sis describes. Evi­dence to the con­trary is “fool­ish­ness” and meant to confound.

    No, I’m not con­sign­ing Him to the super­nat­ur­al realm only. Rather, I’m say­ing that even His activ­i­ties in our realm defy science.

    The Chris­t­ian god is such a trick­ster! No won­der the major­i­ty of the world’s pop­u­la­tion has nev­er believed in him. There must be lim­it­ed space in heav­en, else why con­sign this major­i­ty to hell?

    Reply
  5. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Allow me to jump in here for a moment, Rick. :D

    Dear Bob, you claim that Chris­tians reject “firm­ly estab­lished facts.” But what exact­ly leads you to believe that such things as evo­lu­tion or the age of the earth, to use your own exam­ples, are “firm­ly estab­lished facts?” I mean, it’s a nice claim and all, but what evi­dence can you give to sup­port this claim?

    For exam­ple, how could you prove to me that evo­lu­tion real­ly occured? If my under­stand­ing of sci­ence is cor­rect, I should be able to test your hypoth­e­sis repeat­ed­ly and get the same results. But, you see, the prob­lem with evo­lu­tion is that one can­not test it. By def­i­n­i­tion, evo­lu­tion is the ran­dom muta­tion of a cer­tain species, and any attempt to test some­thing that is ran­dom nul­li­fies the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ran­dom­ness. In which case, I dare say evo­lu­tion is, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly speak­ing, an unproven propo­si­tion, and noth­ing more.

    Is it a firm­ly estab­lished fact that the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

    If you would bear with me for a moment.…

    Assum­ing you have read the account giv­en in Gen­e­sis, you would know that when God cre­at­ed man, He cre­at­ed man as an adult. There was no sperm meet­ing an egg, which devel­oped into a zygote, then embryo, then fetus, and even­tu­al­ly into an infant, child, ado­les­cent, and final­ly an adult.

    In the same way, it is fea­si­ble that God cre­at­ed the world as an “adult,” if you will. While the earth appears to be much old­er than 10,000 years old, and would by all evi­dence be more than ten thou­sand years old, it is sim­ply less than ten thou­sand, based on our stand­point today. Go back rough­ly ten thou­sand years, and the world would not have exist­ed. Until, “in the beginning…”

    No won­der the major­i­ty of the world’s pop­u­la­tion has nev­er believed in him.

    God has giv­en us ample evi­dence of His exis­tence, first­ly in the cre­ation of the world, sec­ond­ly in the prophets and apos­tles, and last­ly in His Son Jesus Christ.

    There must be lim­it­ed space in heav­en, else why con­sign this major­i­ty to hell?

    Per­haps it is because they sinned and are entire­ly unde­serv­ing of Heav­en. But no, that can’t be right. It’s just too obvi­ous of an answer. There must be some deep­er mean­ing behind it.

    Reply
  6. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Dear Jus, nice of you to jump in for Rick!

    Dear Bob, you claim that Chris­tians reject “firm­ly estab­lished facts.” But what exact­ly leads you to believe that such things as evo­lu­tion or the age of the earth, to use your own exam­ples, are “firm­ly estab­lished facts?” I mean, it’s a nice claim and all, but what evi­dence can you give to sup­port this claim?

    Fair ques­tion!

    Age of the earth

    Evo­lu­tion as a fact

    For exam­ple, how could you prove to me that evo­lu­tion real­ly occured?

    Oh, I can­not do that. You have a mis­un­der­stand­ing of proof as it relates to sci­ence.

    While the earth appears to be much old­er than 10,000 years old, and would by all evi­dence be more than ten thou­sand years old, it is sim­ply less than ten thou­sand, based on our stand­point today.

    I don’t find this fea­si­ble at all. In fact, I find it plain loony (see my “God is such a trick­ster!” com­ment above).

    God has giv­en us ample evi­dence of His exis­tence, first­ly in the cre­ation of the world, sec­ond­ly in the prophets and apos­tles, and last­ly in His Son Jesus Christ.

    1) “Cre­ation” can be explained with­out a cre­ator, and the gaps in our knowl­edge are being filled in all the time, rel­e­gat­ing a deity to the shad­ows. Why would your god cre­ate this unimag­in­ably immense uni­verse, and pop­u­late it with this mere spec of a planet?

    2) Where are these prophets and apostles?

    3) Jesus may have exist­ed, but the sto­ries told of him in the gospels and oth­er lit­er­a­ture are almost cer­tain­ly fic­tion. Extra­or­di­nary claims (ris­ing from the dead) require extra­or­di­nary evi­dence, and that stan­dard is far from being met.

    Is your belief based on evi­dence, or faith?

    Per­haps it is because they sinned and are entire­ly unde­serv­ing of Heaven.

    In oth­er words, if you weren’t lucky enough to be born at the right place and right time, you’re going to hell, sonny!

    Reply
  7. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Since we are throw­ing out links, let me toss a few of my own… :D

    http://home.earthlink.net/%7Egbl111/extraord.htm

    Sor­ry, I haven’t quite mas­tered the abil­i­ty to make it into an actu­al link.

    This is in response to your “extra­or­di­nary claims demand extra­or­di­nary evidence.”

    ~~~

    As for my sup­posed mis­un­der­stand­ing in regards to proof as it relates to sci­ence, your link does lit­tle to help you. All I got out of it was that there is no such thing as a “proof” for any the­o­ry will have to be mod­i­fied as more new knowl­edge is acquired.

    To quote from the arti­cle itself, “In truth, sci­ence can nev­er estab­lish ‘truth’ or ‘fact’ in the sense that a sci­en­tif­ic state­ment can be made that is for­mal­ly beyond question.”

    Thus, how can you argue that the age of the earth is a “firm­ly estab­lished fact” if “facts” as we know them to not even apply in science?

    ~~~

    I don’t find this fea­si­ble at all.

    So you deny that some­thing can be made to appear old­er than it actu­al­ly is? It is impos­si­ble, in your mind, for some­one to cre­ate a car that looks like it is twen­ty years old, but not even a day old?

    For exam­ple, could Ford start cre­at­ing a 1954 Ford F100 today, and although it appears to have been made in the fifties, it is only one day old?

    ~~~

    In fact, I find it plain loony (see my “God is such a trick­ster!” com­ment above).

    Again, “fool­ish­ness” yad­da, yad­da. All that Bible stuff that you seem to be unable to understand.

    ~~~

    “Cre­ation” can be explained with­out a creator

    How so? If I find a draw­ing, I can only log­i­cal­ly con­clude that there was a draw­er. Draw­ings just don’t happen.

    ~~~

    Why would your god cre­ate this unimag­in­ably immense uni­verse, and pop­u­late it with this mere spec of a planet?

    This argu­ment does­n’t dis­prove God’s exis­tence, my friend. Just because I don’t under­stand why Stal­in did what he did does­n’t mean he did­n’t exist nor that he did­n’t do what he did.

    ~~~

    Where are these prophets and apostles?

    Of course you know they are dead and passed away, but their tes­ti­mo­ny lives on in the Bible.

    Of course you can claim they are not real­ly the works of the prophets and apos­tles, but you would be dig­ging your­self into a hole because how can you deter­mine that “The Repub­lic” was writ­ten by Pla­to, “Ham­let” was writ­ten by Shake­speare, and “Ori­gins of Species” was writ­ten by Dar­win, unless you are using some oth­er basis to deter­mine the author­ship of each book?

    ~~~

    Jesus may have exist­ed, but the sto­ries told of him in the gospels and oth­er lit­er­a­ture are almost cer­tain­ly fiction.

    Again, a great claim, but where is the evidence?

    ~~~

    Is your belief based on evi­dence, or faith?

    Nay, rather my faith is based on evidence.

    ~~~

    In oth­er words, if you weren’t lucky enough to be born at the right place and right time, you’re going to hell, sonny!

    1. What are you talk­ing about?
    2. It does­n’t mat­ter. If a per­son breaks the law, the judge isn’t oblig­at­ed to give them a chance at any­thing. In the same way, we sinned. God isn’t oblig­at­ed to save any­one, let alone every­one. We broke His Law, and we are guilty. It is pure mer­cy if He decides to save one per­son, and it is per­fect­ly just of Him to not save another.

    [edit­ed by Rick: fixed HTML usage]

    Reply
  8. Senior Avatar
    Senior

    “But, you see, the prob­lem with evo­lu­tion is that one can­not test it. By def­i­n­i­tion, evo­lu­tion is the ran­dom muta­tion of a cer­tain species, and any attempt to test some­thing that is ran­dom nul­li­fies the pos­si­bil­i­ty of randomness.”

    It is not so much ran­dom­ness as prob­a­bil­i­ties. Sci­ence deals with prob­a­bil­i­ties all of the time.

    “How so? If I find a draw­ing, I can only log­i­cal­ly con­clude that there was a draw­er. Draw­ings just don’t happen.”

    No, they don’t. And if you find a draw­ing, it stands out from the envi­ron­ment around it. It is clear­ly dif­fer­ent from the “image” that some might see in the ran­dom mot­tling of any num­ber of sur­faces. You know there is an artist because the draw­ing sim­ply does not fit into the nat­ur­al world.

    But to point to the uni­verse in which we live and say that it must be cre­at­ed is an entire­ly dif­fer­ent thing to do and not at all anal­o­gous to the drawing.

    You have no larg­er con­text to view the uni­verse from. How can you say it clear­ly does not fit with­in the larg­er scheme when the larg­er scheme is beyond our ken.

    Reply
  9. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    And if you find a draw­ing, it stands out from the envi­ron­ment around it. It is clear­ly dif­fer­ent from the “image” that some might see in the ran­dom mot­tling of any num­ber of sur­faces. You know there is an artist because the draw­ing sim­ply does not fit into the nat­ur­al world.

    But things aren’t ran­dom. Objects in nature are incred­i­bly com­plex & pur­posed — far more so than any draw­ing ever sketched — and indeed, far more beau­ti­ful than any paint­ing has ever been rendered.

    It’s inter­est­ing that artists have striv­en to accu­rate­ly por­tray the envi­ron­ment with­in which we live, yet we’re will­ing to see intel­li­gence & design with­in the artists’ work, but not in the gen­uine arti­cle. Is the mark of design imperfection?

    Reply
  10. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Dear Senior,

    You know there is an artist because the draw­ing sim­ply does not fit into the nat­ur­al world.

    Fair enough. So let’s use your argu­ment against you.

    As Bob was kind enough to point out, plan­et earth, as far as we know, is the only plan­et that not only sus­tains life but is able to sus­tain life. Sure, you may argue that Venus or Mars might have con­tained life at one point or anoth­er, but it is sim­ply a the­o­ry and noth­ing more. Based on the cur­rent evi­dence, earth is a sin­gu­lar­i­ty, just like a drawing.

    ~~~

    It is not so much ran­dom­ness as probabilities.

    I sup­pose if you were to ask me, it would sim­ply be a game of semantics.

    “Ran­dom” just means that some­thing hap­pens with­out rea­son or pur­pose. The antonym would be “order­ly” which obvi­ous­ly means with rea­son or purpose.

    So, if crea­tures evolved through a series of ran­dom muta­tions, we would expect crea­tures to be very messed up. But we don’t. Crea­tures are very order­ly. Which means that there is an inher­ent rea­son or pur­pose for that. But how can there be a pur­pose for any giv­en thing with­out (S)omeone attribut­ing that thing a purpose?

    Now, prob­a­bil­i­ty deals with the like­li­ness of one thing hap­pen­ing rather than anoth­er. If I throw a ball up into the air, there is a greater prob­a­bil­i­ty that it will fall down than get stuck in the air. Prob­a­bil­i­ty does not explain the rea­son some­thing hap­pens. Ran­dom­ness and/or order­li­ness do.

    ~~~

    But to point to the uni­verse in which we live and say that it must be cre­at­ed is an entire­ly dif­fer­ent thing to do and not at all anal­o­gous to the drawing.

    Not real­ly, actu­al­ly. As Rick point­ed out, things are not ran­dom. There is design/intent/order/purpose/patterns with­in the uni­verse, and that can only log­i­cal­ly be if there is a Designer/Intender/Orderer/Purposer/Patterner (okay, I made up a few words to make my point, but I think you get my point).

    Let us say I walk into an art muse­um and see a huge selec­tion of clas­si­cal art. Since one paint­ing is like all the oth­ers, can I, bor­row­ing your argu­ment, assume that the one draw­ing has no Draw­er, since it is like all the oth­er drawings?

    ~~~

    I won­der how you explain away irre­ducible com­plex­i­ty, Senior. I’m sure you have heard the argu­ment: an organ­ism can only be reduced so far before it is impos­si­ble to reduce it any fur­ther with­out destroy­ing it. If that is the case, then it is rather hard for mar­croevo­lu­tion to be true.

    Reply
  11. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    This is in response to your “extra­or­di­nary claims demand extra­or­di­nary evidence.”

    Thank you for the link, but it’s an ama­teur­ish essay at best, filled with straw­man argu­ments as I’ll demon­strate in a bit.

    All I got out of it was that there is no such thing as a “proof” for any the­o­ry will have to be mod­i­fied as more new knowl­edge is acquired.

    Great! Now you’ve learned some­thing about sci­ence. No need to say that evo­lu­tion can’t be proved.

    Thus, how can you argue that the age of the earth is a “firm­ly estab­lished fact” if “facts” as we know them to not even apply in science?

    Oh, but they do, just not in the way you’ve mis­un­der­stood them. As the arti­cle point­ed out (are you sure you read it?), “As Stephen J. Gould has said, a sci­en­tif­ic fact is not “absolute cer­tain­ty”, but sim­ply a the­o­ry that has been “con­firmed to such a degree that it would be per­verse to with­hold pro­vi­sion­al consent”.”

    So you deny that some­thing can be made to appear old­er than it actu­al­ly is?

    This was­n’t your claim at all.

    Your claim was that the Chris­t­ian god cre­at­ed the uni­verse approx­i­mate­ly 10,000 years ago, but made it appear far, far old­er. Please pro­vide an expla­na­tion, backed by evi­dence, why he would do this. Until such time, I call shenanigans.

    How so? If I find a draw­ing, I can only log­i­cal­ly con­clude that there was a draw­er. Draw­ings just don’t happen.

    Call­ing earth a “cre­ation” begs the ques­tion of a cre­ator. Just because you don’t under­stand all the process­es which under­gird our real­i­ty, does­n’t give you license to ascribe them to your par­tic­u­lar deity. Do you know how many cre­ation sto­ries there are?

    This argu­ment doesn’t dis­prove God’s exis­tence, my friend. Just because I don’t under­stand why Stal­in did what he did doesn’t mean he didn’t exist nor that he didn’t do what he did.

    I don’t have to dis­prove your god’s exis­tence, and that was not my inten­tion. The fact that we’re but a microspec in this vast cos­mos calls into ques­tion the Chris­t­ian claim that we’re spe­cial some­how. This is why Chris­tians were so opposed to work and the­o­ries of astronomers like Galileo.

    Again, a great claim, but where is the evidence?

    Please objec­tive­ly quan­ti­fy or qual­i­fy the evi­dence that would con­vince you.

    What? You can’t? Tell it to the author of the arti­cle you cited.

    There is a far bet­ter treat­ment of the ECREE principal.

    Nay, rather my faith is based on evidence.

    I gath­er evi­dence for you is what­ev­er is writ­ten in the Bible, oth­er­wise, we’d love to see your evi­dence that the uni­verse was cre­at­ed less than 10,000 years ago, by the Chris­t­ian god, who for some rea­son, decid­ed to make it appear far older.

    1. What are you talk­ing about?
    2. It doesn’t mat­ter. If a per­son breaks the law, the judge isn’t oblig­at­ed to give them a chance at any­thing. In the same way, we sinned. God isn’t oblig­at­ed to save any­one, let alone every­one. We broke His Law, and we are guilty. It is pure mer­cy if He decides to save one per­son, and it is per­fect­ly just of Him to not save another.

    I think it’s obvi­ous what I’m talk­ing about. There have been and will be large swaths of human­i­ty who nev­er heard of your god, his son, and their alleged writ­ten word.

    Since, accord­ing to Jesus, he is the only way to heav­en (John 14:6), such per­sons will be under­go­ing tor­ment for eter­ni­ty, which you believe they deserve. Talk about being unlucky!

    Reply
  12. Senior Avatar
    Senior

    “But things aren’t random.”

    I did­n’t say “things” were. I only was ref­er­enc­ing the phe­nom­e­non of peo­ple “see­ing” images in the ran­dom mot­tling of sur­faces. I brought it up as the clos­est one would come to find­ing the equiv­a­lent of a draw­ing in nature.

    “Is the mark of design imperfection?”

    Per­fec­tion?? Is cre­ation per­fect?? Biol­o­gy on earth is messy and clumsy.

    “Objects in nature are incred­i­bly com­plex & purposed”

    Com­plex­i­ty requires no design­er. Pur­posed?? In whose eyes?? Be care­ful not to read into the world pur­pose that isn’t there.

    “Based on the cur­rent evi­dence, earth is a sin­gu­lar­i­ty, just like a drawing.”

    Based on cur­rent knowl­edge. But to accept this is real­ly arro­gant. Galax­ies in the uni­verse num­ber in the mil­lions. Stars in galax­ies num­ber in the mil­lions. That there are (or have been/or will be) no oth­er life sus­tain­ing plan­ets in the uni­verse stretch­es creduli­ty far beyond where I’m will­ing to go.

    “So, if crea­tures evolved through a series of ran­dom muta­tions, we would expect crea­tures to be very messed up.”

    No, we would­n’t. Some­one who does not under­stand the the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion might think that. But prop­er evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry does not at all pre­dict “messed up” crea­tures. Nor does it pre­dict “order­ly” crea­tures. It pre­dicts what we have. Crea­tures that suc­ceed through (some­times awk­ward) adap­ta­tions acquired through evo­lu­tion via through genet­ic vari­a­tion and mutation.

    “Prob­a­bil­i­ty does not explain the rea­son some­thing hap­pens. Ran­dom­ness and/or order­li­ness do.”

    Depend­ing on what you mean by “rea­son”, I would argue that none of the above explain it.

    Sci­ence explains how things hap­pen. It can explain “why”, if by “why” one means what event caused a giv­en event. But it can­not explain “Why?” It can­not explain pur­pose in the high­er sense.

    “There is design/intent/order/purpose/patterns with­in the uni­verse, and that can only log­i­cal­ly be if there is a Designer/Intender/Orderer/Purposer/Patterner (okay, I made up a few words to make my point, but I think you get my point).”

    I don’t see the log­ic there at all. That there must be a design­er is a judg­ment call at best. But it is not a log­i­cal necessity.

    “Let us say I walk into an art muse­um and see a huge selec­tion of clas­si­cal art. Since one paint­ing is like all the oth­ers, can I, bor­row­ing your argu­ment, assume that the one draw­ing has no Draw­er, since it is like all the oth­er drawings?”

    You can, but you would be a fool. Now you are com­par­ing the draw­ings to each oth­er and not to the uni­verse around you. How is this anal­o­gous to look­ing at the uni­verse and try­ing to decide if it is unique among universes???

    “I won­der how you explain away irre­ducible com­plex­i­ty, Senior. I’m sure you have heard the argu­ment: an organ­ism can only be reduced so far before it is impos­si­ble to reduce it any fur­ther with­out destroy­ing it.”

    I don’t have to refute it. It has been refut­ed very well by evo­lu­tion­ary sci­en­tists. (If I had the time, I would get out my books and get study enough so that I under­stood it enough that I could explain it to you. But I don’t have the time and my present under­stand­ing is not strong enough for me to teach the sub­ject.) That you bring it up only demon­strates that you do not under­stand the the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion. You under­stand what cre­ation­ists have told you about the the­o­ry, but that isn’t the same thing. I have observed repeat­ed­ly that the “debunk­ing” of evo­lu­tion is pre­ced­ed by a mis­state­ment of evo­lu­tion. It is the mis­state­ment that is debunked.

    Back to Rick­’s ini­tial post. This dis­cus­sion is a good exam­ple of his point. Sci­ence and reli­gion are two dif­fer­ent ways of look­ing at the world and they too often try to influ­ence each other.

    Sci­ence can­not prove the Bible is false and Jesus was the Son of God. Reli­gion can­not prove (and not just because reli­gion does not deal with “proof”) that the uni­verse is not bil­lions of years old and man is not a prod­uct of evolution.

    Sci­ence is a study of the phys­i­cal world around us. As it stands today, evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry is the par­a­digm under which sci­ence func­tions. There are lit­er­al­ly moun­tains of data from many dif­fer­ent fields that sup­port this paradigm.

    From a sci­en­tif­ic point of view, God is not a viable par­a­digm. That does­n’t mean that all sci­en­tists do not believe in God, just that sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly God is not an accept­able explanation.

    If a sci­en­tist wants to dis­cuss the­ol­o­gy, then the dis­cus­sion should be the­o­log­i­cal. If a the­olo­gian wants to dis­cuss sci­ence, then the dis­cus­sion should be scientific.

    Rick­’s point is that too many sci­en­tists don’t prop­er­ly grasp reli­gion and choose to refute it despite that lack of under­stand­ing. His case is not with­out merit.

    Rick says he under­stands the sci­ence bet­ter than the sci­en­tist under­stands the the­ol­o­gy. That may be, but I’m not con­vinced that Rick real­ly under­stands, for exam­ple, evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry. I’m much more cer­tain that you, Justin, do not under­stand evo­lu­tion­ary theory.

    That this dis­cus­sion (creationism/evolution) con­tin­ues as it does on a pret­ty wide scale in our soci­ety is in keep­ing with where we are today. Red state/blue state, pro-life/pro-choice, I’m right/you’re wrong.

    We real­ly need to get past this and accept that there are oth­er ways to view the world than our own. You are free to believe your view is the cor­rect one (if you don’t, then what’s the point?), but you should be will­ing to accept that there are a lot of peo­ple liv­ing here on this plan­et and there is going to be a vari­ety of viewpoints.

    Then maybe we can have dis­cus­sions instead of arguments.

    Reply
  13. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Objects in nature are incred­i­bly com­plex & purposed

    Com­plex, def­i­nite­ly. “Pur­posed”? Please cite your evidence.

    As Bob was kind enough to point out, plan­et earth, as far as we know, is the only plan­et that not only sus­tains life but is able to sus­tain life.

    I did not point such a thing out. Please retract. In fact, I believe in the great like­li­hood that we are NOT the only plan­et which sus­tains life.

    Reply
  14. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Because I am cur­rent­ly babysit­ting my broth­er, let me just say one thing…

    Bob,

    I did not point such a thing out. Please retract. In fact, I believe in the great like­li­hood that we are NOT the only plan­et which sus­tains life.

    And I quote:

    “Why would your god cre­ate this unimag­in­ably immense uni­verse, and pop­u­late it with this mere spec of a planet?”

    Reply
  15. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    I did not point such a thing out. Please retract. In fact, I believe in the great like­li­hood that we are NOT the only plan­et which sus­tains life.

    And I quote:

    “Why would your god cre­ate this unimag­in­ably immense uni­verse, and pop­u­late it with this mere spec of a planet?”

    This was a ques­tion for YOU, expressed with­in the frame­work of your belief. I’ve made it obvi­ous I don’t believe in your god, so why would I also believe that this is the only life-bear­ing plan­et in the universe?

    Reply
  16. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Bob, I’m sor­ry that I mis­un­der­stood you.

    When you wrote that, I did­n’t car­ry your unbe­lief through the entire statement.

    To under­stand my thought process, look at this typ­i­cal athe­is­tic argu­ment, “Why would a good and all-pow­er­ful God allow evil to exist?” Just because the athe­ist denies God’s exis­tence does­n’t mean he is also deny­ing evil exists.

    In the same way, I thought that just because you don’t believe in God does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean you don’t believe Earth is the only planet.

    ~~~

    I’ve made it obvi­ous I don’t believe in your god

    Ques­tion: You keep mak­ing a ref­er­ence to “your” God, which leads me to assume that you are at least sug­gest­ing that there is a God, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly of the Judeo-Chris­t­ian type? Please cor­rect me if I am wrong.

    Reply
  17. BobC Avatar
    BobC

    “I implore such athe­ists to stop mis­us­ing sci­ence in their per­pet­u­al quest to debunk the idea of God.”

    Sci­ence is not need­ed to debunk the idea of God. Let’s call God what it real­ly is, a child­ish delu­sion, a belief in an invis­i­ble friend, or an invis­i­ble magi­cian, who has no val­ue and has no evi­dence. What is need­ed to debunk gods is the sim­ple com­mon sense required to fig­ure out all gods are just goofy inven­tions of ancient and igno­rant peo­ple. The idea there’s an invis­i­ble man who lives in the clouds is just plain stu­pid, and no sane per­son should take it seriously.

    Reply
  18. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Thanks, BobC, for that heapin’ helpin’ of ad hominem. Had you read & under­stood the above, sci­ence (and by exten­sion, athe­ism) can do no harm to the con­cept of God.

    I pre­sume you know that, which is why you resort to sim­ply insult­ing the idea.

    You have my pity, Sir.

    Reply

Join the Discussion

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Use your Gravatar-enabled email address while commenting to automatically enhance your comment with some of Gravatar's open profile data.

Comments must be made in accordance with the comment policy. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam; learn how your comment data is processed.

You may use Markdown to format your comments; additionally, these HTML tags and attributes may be used: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Rick Beckman