Category: science

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 1

Is there any reason in the atheist universe? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I get email subscriptions for Kindle books on sale and I saw David Mills’s Atheist Universe for sale. It sells itself as the thinking person’s answer to Christian fundamentalism. Those who can’t do, obviously teach.

I really strive to be open when I read different books and be as fair as I can. I have said a number of Christian apologetics books are no good. If I see good points in an atheist book, I will point that out. Your book is not automatically good because it’s Christian or bad because it’s not. The same holds in this case.

No. This book has thus far found a number of other reasons to be bad.

The first chapter is an interview Mills had with someone who I didn’t see named. Unfortunately, whoever it was gave a lot of softball questions. On the other hand, Mills could have sought them out for that reason. Who knows?

I wasn’t too long into this book before it was so bad I was sharing the quotes on Facebook.

So let’s start with one question asked. Why don’t you believe in God? In that answer, we find this gem:

Indeed I’ve written three full-length books devoted to thrashing out these arguments myself in great detail. But I now believe that it is a perfectly acceptable philosophical position to dismiss the god idea as being self-evidently ridiculous as Darrow quipped. Christians instantly disregard the Greek gods as being figments of an overactive imagination, and so I view the Christian god in the same way that the Christians view the Greek gods.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 28). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In this, Mills treats all forms of theism as the same. I reject the Greek gods because none of them are ultimate. They are all dependent beings that depend on something else for their existing and are pretty much just superhuman beings. This is not at all like the deity in all three monotheistic faiths. Mills rejects them because they are gods.

But to answer your question directly, I am an atheist because no more evidence supports the Christian god than supports the Greek or Roman gods. There is no evidence that God—as portrayed by any religion—exists.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 28). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is frankly a nonsense statement. You can say there is insufficient evidence for the Christian God. You can say you don’t find it convincing. To say there is no evidence means that all the people out there who believe in the Christian God, including brilliant intellectual minds, do so without any reason whatsoever.

It’s fairly easy to demonstrably prove that the Genesis accounts of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s worldwide deluge, are fables. It’s easier to prove these stories false because, unlike the notion of God, the Creation account and Noah’s flood are scientifically testable. Science may explore human origins and the geologic history of Earth. In this regard, science has incontrovertibly proven that the Book of Genesis is utter mythology. So while, on esoteric philosophical grounds, I hesitate to claim absolute proof of a god’s nonexistence, I will claim proof that the Bible is not “The Word of God” because much of it has been shown by science to be false.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 28-29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Perhaps if you went with a literalistic YEC interpretation and even then, I know some YECs who I am sure could give Mills a run for his money in a debate.

Remember that the rules of logic dictate that the burden of proof falls upon the affirmative position: that a god does exist.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Actually, they don’t What is the reality is that whoever makes the claim has the burden to prove it. Suppose I was unable to convince Mills that God exists. It does not follow from that that God does not exist. What follows is I didn’t have good reasons to believe or Mills is not following an argument properly for whatever reason. If I do show up and say “God exists” it is my burden to demonstrate that. If you show up and say “Christianity is false”, it is your burden to show that.

We should recognize that all children are born as atheists. There is no child born with a religious belief.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Actually, there are studies that have been done that seem to indicate children instinctively find purpose and design in places. Also, children are not born knowing their multiplication tables or the laws of physics. So what?

The interviewer later asks how the universe could have been created without God. The response?

Leaving aside your presumptuous use of the word “created”—that line of reasoning is known as the Aquinas cosmological argument. Thomas Aquinas, who lived during the 13th century, argued that everything needs a cause to account for its existence. Aquinas believed that if we regress backward in time through an unbroken chain of causation, then we would eventually arrive at the cause of the universe itself. Aquinas argued that this “First Cause” could be nothing other than God Himself.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 29-30). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Well, Aquinas didn’t say anything about backward in time. He actually didn’t think the universe having a beginning could be established by reason alone. He even wrote a small book arguing against that notion. Other than that, what could possibly go wrong here with Mills’s argument?

Many of you probably know where this is going and are waiting for it.

This so-called “First Cause” argument, however, is a textbook illustration of ad hoc reasoning. For if “everything needs a cause to account for its existence,” then we are forced to address the question of who or what created God? If God always existed, and therefore needs no causal explanation, then the original premise of the cosmological argument—that everything needs a cause—has been shown to be erroneous: something can exist without a cause. If everything except God requires a cause, then the “First Cause” argument becomes ad hoc [i.e., inconsistent and prejudicially applied] and is thus logically impermissible. If we can suppose that God always existed—and thus requires no causal explanation—then we can suppose instead that the mass-energy comprising our universe always existed and thus requires no causal explanation. Many people, including some atheists and agnostics, misinterpret Big Bang theory as proposing that mass-energy popped into existence ex nihilo [i.e., out of nothing] before the universe began its current expansion. This something-from-nothing belief is not only false, but flagrantly violates the law of the conservation of mass-energy.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 30). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

There is not a single defender of the cosmological argument that has ever put forward such a thing, and by defender, I mean someone who knows the literature well, not Pastor Steve down at your local Baptist Church. Aquinas would want Mills to explain the actualizing of potential in the universe to which Mills would likely give a blank stare and say the typical atheist quip about word salad.  Then, Mills goes and repeats the other false notion about the argument.

But let me summarize by saying that the “First Cause” argument not only begs the question logically and is scientifically bankrupt, it also fails to address which god is supposedly proven existent by the argument! In other words, Zeus or Allah has just as much claim to being the “First Cause” as does Jehovah or Jesus.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 30-31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And?

The first cause argument is not meant to prove which God does exist. It’s meant to prove that some God does exist. Mills is faulting an argument for not proving what it was never meant to prove in the first place.

How about beauty and order? How is that explained?

There is some degree of beauty and order within Nature. But each year, Nature also cruelly victimizes millions of perfectly innocent men, women and children through natural disasters:

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But is there beauty and order? How does that get explained? Christians have a ready explanation for the cruelty we see. We live in a fallen world. You can think that’s a cop-out, but it is fully consistent and an essential part of the Christian claim on reality.

Christians are masters of selective observation—or “counting the hits and ignoring the misses.” Anything Christians perceive as attractive or orderly is counted as evidence for God’s existence. But anything Nature offers that is grotesque or in disarray is never counted against God’s existence. Any theological conclusions based upon such selective observation are therefore meaningless.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It appears there’s only one master here of selective observation. Mills has brought up all the cruelty and said “No God”, but the beauty is not explained at all. He needs to explain both. Christians freely admit the problem of evil and have written numerous theodicies explaining it. Has Mills written something on what Chesterton called “The Problem of Pleasure”?

On another question he says:

Atheism is synonymous with freedom and freedom of thought, which, in my opinion, are highly positive and desirable.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 33). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s hard to say how they are synonymous since some atheists say that on atheism, you have no free-will. You’re just matter in motion and doing what the matter in you has to do. On that, I agree with them. As for my Christianity, I do value freedom of thought and freedom in general and think God provides for both of those.

Then he is asked about a sort of Pascal’s Wager question:

That argument is known as Pascal’s Wager, because it was first articulated by Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French philosopher. There are several fallacies in the argument. But the most obvious is that the same argument can be applied to any religion—not just to Christianity. For example, I could say that, since we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by converting to Islam, we should all become Muslims. Or since we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being Hindu, we should all adopt Hinduism. Christians never stop to consider that they are in just as much danger of going to the Muslim hell as I, an atheist, am in danger of going to the Christian hell. Pascal’s Wager is also flawed in its premise that a person has everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by converting to a religion. The fact is that, whether we like it or not, our earthly life is the only life we’re ever going to experience. If we sacrifice this one life in doormat subservience to a nonexistent god, then we have lost everything!

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 33-34). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s a shame this is the one argument Pascal seems to be remembered for the most. Everyone should go and read the whole of Pensees and hear his other thoughts. Not only this, but I don’t understand Mills’s reasoning at the end. How have we lost everything? After all, if atheism is true, you’re not going to be kicking yourself in an afterdeath wishing you had lived differently.

In talking about Christians, he says:

No wonder His followers are so intolerant. They are only following Jesus’ declarations that anyone who disagrees with their religious beliefs deserves eternal incineration.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 34-35). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Well first off, many Christians like myself don’t believe Hell is a fiery torture chamber. Also, Christian societies are by and large extremely tolerant. Let Mills go to a Muslim country and see how well he does arguing that there is no Allah or arguing in favor of the LGBTQ+ community.

There is more in just this first chapter. When we return to it, we will start looking at the historical Jesus and what Mills has to say.

Brace yourselves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Obsessed with Blood Part 4

What about original sin? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Baker looks at the topic of Original Sin. Well, we’ll see how much he stays on topic. He starts it off with talking about what the sin of Adam and Eve was. His reply? Seeking knowledge.

Well, no.

For one thing, this tree was in the center of the garden, which would make it the most important tree of all. The term good and evil is not meant as knowledge, but more as a merism in Hebrew thought. It meant that they wanted wisdom on their own terms, not on the terms of God. They wanted to be in charge. They wanted to rule the garden on their own.

Seeking knowledge was not the problem. It was how they were seeking it.

He also says he spent years following God’s plan for his life and found it to be a myth. Once again, I have to say I get tired of so many of my fellow evangelicals talking about God’s plan for your life. If God has a personalized individual plan for your life, let me assure you you have already ruined it, as have I. No. I can tell you the real plan God has for your life. It’s easy. His plan is to conform you to the likeness of Christ if you are willing.

Now all historians gather around and prepare for a laugh:

Throughout history, medical science, astronomy, philosophy, sexuality and even art, have all been adversely affected by Christian thinking.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (p. 66). Kindle Edition.

I always refer atheists on this to go to Tim O’Neill and his History for Atheists series. There is so much misinformation in these simple sentences that I can only recommend the great myths series. There is a constant problem ex-Christians have that they go from blindly believing what they believed before to blindly believing whatever else is said on the other side. He can also check out Dominion by Tom Holland.

Contrary to what modern Christians are led to believe, the Bible really does describe the earth as being flat with the sun and moon revolving around it. For centuries, this is a belief the church upheld so vehemently they actually killed blasphemers who thought otherwise. Strangely it is not something they cling to quite so vehemently anymore. The Bible’s support of slavery, which will be discussed in different book; is also a teaching they distance themselves from.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (pp. 66-67). Kindle Edition.

The first myth on O’Neill’s page is the flat Earth myth. We will deal with slavery in the other book if it is read, but I can say based on Tom Holland that the reason he opposes slavery is because he has absorbed background Christianity. There is nothing on the basis of atheism that can lead to the idea that slavery is inherently wrong. (I would actually argue that anything is evil or good for that matter.) Naturally, Baker has no citations for any of these claims about Christian history.

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1590 for going against Bible theology and correctly declared that the earth rotates around the sun – heliocentrism. Galileo also defended heliocentrism and the belief the earth was not as described in the Bible. The Church responded by threatening Galileo with torture and confining him to house arrest until he died.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (pp. 67-68). Kindle Edition.

No citations again. No. Bruno was not burned to the stake for heliocentrism but for various heresies and for all the idea of Bruno being a scientist, his scientific works are never cited. One can only wonder why…..

The Galileo affair is not an open and shut case. The church really had no problem with Galileo believing in heliocentrism as long as he treated it as a theory. It didn’t help that he wrote a dialogue depicting the pope as a simpleton. Also, the evidence for his claim was good, but it wasn’t sufficient yet. Again, O’Neill has several articles on Galileo if Baker wanted to peruse them, but I suspect he won’t, despite his claims that he loves seeking knowledge.

Without a doubt, science and culture have all been suppressed due to the ridiculous belief that the Bible is more than just a collection of ancient stories, but the actual inspired word of God.[xxxii]

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (p. 70). Kindle Edition.

Oh look! He has a citation! What great source did he cite?

None. He just referred to 2 Tim. 3:16 on the belief in Scripture being the inspired word of God.

I am not surprised.

We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Do We Believe In Magic?

Is our society more involved in magic than we realize? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

No. This isn’t really about the New Age movement or about witchcraft. This isn’t about reading Harry Potter or watching Sabrina: The Teenaged Witch. This isn’t really about fantasy as fantasy.

In our day and age, we like to think we are a scientific people. We have abandoned the ways of magic and religion. We only believe in that which can be empirically verified, and by that, we mean scientifically verified, even though the two aren’t identical. All scientific verification is empirical, but the reverse is not so.

If anything, today we see science as a new priesthood. I do not say this to demean science in the sense of the study of the material world. That is wonderful and that needs to continue. What I do demean is the idea that because someone is a scientist, they are qualified to speak on areas outside their expertise. However, there is also the danger that something can supposedly fall under science, but like scandals of bought priesthood in the past, so a scientific person can be bought off as well.

The Covid “pandemic” really brought a lot of this to light. At the time, I was not at all worried about it. It was a virus. It would come and it would go like any other virus. I never got caught up in mask hysteria and when I was required to wear one, I took it off as soon as I could. I never practiced social distancing for the virus. If I was doing it, it was generally just because I don’t like being close to people in general. I am also one of those people who never got a vaccine at all.

And yeah, I’ve never had Covid.

My parents also never got the vaccines and they’re in their 70s. They each got Covid earlier this year and then within a week of each of them getting it, they were both fine. My rule has been to never get caught up in hysteria where everyone is panicking.

Many of us now look back and realize that a lot of mistakes were made. The lockdowns were a mistake. Pulling kids out of school was a mistake. Plenty of people are questioning the vaccines and it used to be a conspiracy theory to say the virus came from a lab in Wuhan. Now it’s pretty much established fact.

A number of us also don’t support climate change hysteria either. When I take any kind of online survey, I can easily answer questions when it comes to environmental claims. It’s not that I don’t care about the planet, but I think that many of our solutions are harmful in the long-term even if we think there are short-term benefits. I would like to see us using nuclear power more and I would like to see the Keystone pipeline open.

As soon as I say any of this, there are people out there getting their proverbial pitchforks ready. After all, I have questioned the reigning dogma. We have seen that people who do go against whatever the reigning dogma is, particularly today on climate change, are quickly castigated and they are the new heretics.

“The difference though is science is evidence-based and religion isn’t!”

Which is entirely a straw man. The evidences are different, but all sides use evidence. Religions tend to use history and philosophy more as well as interpretation of sacred texts and analysis of it by believers and skeptics. Of course, some dogmas can be right, just like in science, and some can be wrong, just like in science.

One area that this comes to an interesting place is in how we use words. Magic is the idea that one can use words to somehow alter reality. Properly, this isn’t always the case. When a minister says “I now pronounce you husband and wife”, he is doing something his words have the power to affect. There are times when this is not the case.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has referred to seeing men’s and women’s bathrooms as segregation. Don’t believe me? Go take a look here. (Warning. This is something unedited so there is language in the video.) It starts around 2:50. Shortly after 4:00, NDT says he sees men and women bathrooms and thinks “Colored and white”.

Go back twenty years, maybe even ten, and this wouldn’t be being questioned at all. Now NDT acts like it’s segregation. Why? It’s the spirit of the age. It’s where the politics lie.

I recently shared this picture on my Facebook.

One of the first replies I got was “Transwomen are women.”

What is this said today but a mantra? Repeat it enough and it will become true?

The next worth talking about is I just asked the question “What is a woman?” and got told that the idea of a woman is a societal construct. To which, I gave the reply that the idea that the meaning of woman is a societal construct is itself a societal construct.

We live in an age where we believe if we declare it to be so, it is. What is it called when someone goes in for a transgender operation? “Gender-affirming care”, when it is really the exact opposite. We have said that we should include couples of the same sex under the label of marriage, but did we stop to ask what marriage is and what it means? Consider also a group like Black Lives Matter. So if you don’t support the group, which is about many many things besides black lives, then you don’t think black lives matter?

This isn’t science. This is magic.

Too many of our leading scientists are also leading the way in this. The basic reality of biology would not have been denied until the political climate rolled around and then all of a sudden, we think we know something that no one else before us in history knew. We live in a society where we want to erase differences between men and women, do economic Russian Roulette and think only our intentions matter, and think that if we say the words, we can change reality. We can’t.

Reality will always win in the end.

For those in the scientific establishment also, this has only hurt them in the long run. There are more and more people unwilling to trust science when we think that there is a political side to it. If anything, we are not a scientific society. We are anti-science.

That doesn’t make us like religion in the past. Religion in the past still tried to tether itself to external reality by basing their conclusions on the idea of a supreme being outside the cosmos that created a rational universe and thus made the universe rational. Now, the basis for how we see reality is not without, but it is within. How someone feels about themselves and society determines reality.

The good news is, this path cannot last long. It will destroy itself.

The bad news, I have no idea how much it will take out with it when it collapses.

Let’s be prepared.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Are We Arguing the Demiurge?

Do we miss the point of an evolution debate? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While I was watching on Facebook an atheist and a Christian debating evolution, I started pondering what was being argued. Both came from a position where this was a dealbreaker. If you disprove evolution, lo and behold, there’s God! If you prove evolution, lo and behold, God is out of a job!

Looking at that, one question comes to mind.

Which God?

For us, is that all God is? Is He just a fill-in-the-gap and if a naturalistic process comes along, then God is done? That’s not really a worthwhile way to see God.

For the atheist, isn’t it the same then? God is just a placeholder until we have something else that can take His place. Again, not worthwhile.

Both sides also treat the material world as a given to some extent. An atheist can say it’s a brute fact and the Christian seems to go along with it. The Christian can say “Yeah, we agree on the Big Bang Theory (Unless they are YEC), but after that, it’s all God.”

I don’t doubt that’s an imperfect representation, but there are similarities.

However, not only is matter treated as a given, it looks like both sides also treat existence itself as a given. The atheist says “The natural world is here and you have to prove a supernatural world.” (I am using terms that they use. For reasons why I don’t use the term “supernatural”, see here.) The Christian seems to too often buy into that and thinks he has to accept the material world as is.

The problem is this isn’t God being argued. This is the demiurge.

If you’re not familiar with that, it comes from Plato where the demiurge is a being invoked in a dialogue of Plato’s called Timaeus. This is a being that does not create matter so much as he just takes it and shapes it and makes what needs to be done. Implicitly if Christians accept this, we are arguing for a lesser god.

From the perspective of Aquinas, we need to go and ask about existence itself. The material world is not a given. It needs to be explained. Existence is not a given. It needs to be explained. If you can take the concept of God and remove it from your theology and still have something that exists, you did not have a true concept of God.

This is not to say you shouldn’t argue for or against evolution. That being said, if you want to argue against, let evolution fall scientifically. If it is bad science, that will happen. The main point is to know what kind of God you are arguing about.

If you are not arguing for the demiurge God, then your opponent has to give an account for everything to change your mind. Everything. He has to explain the universe, morality, numbers, ideas, and even the very fact of existence itself.

That’s quite a tall order.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Can Be Proven?

Is Philosophy a weaker form of argumentation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I asked the atheist on the page why Aristotle should be rejected. Well, he wrote over 2,000 years ago and we have learned a lot since then. Surely we have, but what have we learned that disproved his arguments? In response to that, his arguments are philosophical and cannot be proven.

This is a rather strange argument. For one thing, it’s a philosophical argument (Which means by its own standards it’s unproven) that says that we shouldn’t accept a philosophical argument that can’t be proven. Second, it is quite likely that this is a person who would choose to trust in science. Nothing against science, but proof doesn’t not exist in science. Instead, there is extremely high probability. There are some matters that we could say are practically certain, but today’s reigning science could be tomorrow’s junk science.

By the way, that also applies to history, a subject I prefer much more to talk about. In history, our knowledge is inductive as well. There are some matters that are so probable that we say they are practically certain. One such example in my field is that Jesus died by crucifixion.

Actually, if we only believed things in our lives that we could prove, we would believe very little. I don’t know how I could begin to prove to you what I had for breakfast this morning. Now we are getting to the point where you could start wondering if a blog is by me or an AI. How could I prove either one?

There are plenty of things out there that we cannot prove, but we would be crazy to even question those things. I have never been to London, but my Dad has and I know people at the Seminary who have. Now I could say that there are people involved in a grand conspiracy, including the media, to get me to believe that a place called London exists, but that would be crazy. (Although to be fair, the media being involved in a conspiracy in itself is not necessarily crazy.)

Some of you are waiting for me to get to the areas where there is proof. Those areas are logic and mathematics. Actually, both of them are highly philosophical in dealing with abstract objects and things that don’t depend on material reality for their being. Perhaps there is something to that, but that is something to ponder for another blog.

Let’s consider the classic syllogism.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Socrates is mortal.

If the premises are true, and they are, and the form is valid, and it is, then the conclusion follows with certainty. There is no getting around it. Consider this.

All cats have six legs.
Scooby-Doo is a cat.
Scooby-Doo has six legs.

In this case, the premises are wrong, but the form is valid. If the premises are true, the conclusion would be.

All men are rational.
Linda is rational.
Linda is a man.

In this case, both premises are true, but unless someone has an odd name for a guy, Linda is not a man. Linda is a woman. The form in this case is not valid. There are invalid and valid syllogisms. The point is simply that if we have good data and good form, we can have conclusions.

Then there is Math. It could be something as simple as 2 + 2 = 4 or Fermat’s Last Theorem. Either way, these are things that can be proven or in some cases, disproven.

Once again, I find it odd the way atheists online interact in talking about proof and neglecting the best areas of proof and placing greatest trust in the areas where there is no proof.

Maybe all men are not rational….

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 13

Are we just serving our genes? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Humphrys makes a list of heroic people and why they did what they did. An atheist like Richard Dawkins will write that we are living in service of our selfish genes. It’s a reversal of sorts of the Christian view. In our view, we are doing what we do in service of God, but in the atheist view, it is in service of ourselves. (Not sure how aborting your children works with that considering they can’t pass on any more genes for you or sterilizing your children through “gender-affirming care”, but that’s another point.)

But Humphrys doesn’t think this works. He talks about the Virginia Tech shooting as one example. Liviu Librescu, a 76 year-old math teacher, held the door shut so his students could escape through the windows knowing this would lead to his death. On another aside, it is disappointing that in these cases, many of us can bring to mind the shooter, but not the heroes that held back the shooter to some extent. Was Librescu doing this to serve his genes?

Humphrys doesn’t find this credible, and again, I agree. In a sense, genes have become a sort of god for Dawkins and others who go this route. Whatever the genes are commanding, this must be obeyed. This is not to say that we don’t have base desires that we all fall prey to. If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be a problem with obesity, broken marriages, STDs, etc. in our world today.

Humphrys goes on to list a number of heroes and it’s worth reading this chapter just to hear what their stories are. Too often when we think about evil, we ask what is it that makes evil people do what they do? Could it perhaps be better to ask “What is it that makes good people do what they do?” and then find ways to make that far more likely to happen? Just a long shot here, but maybe we should consider the virtues that lead to people doing that and celebrate those virtues and condemn the vices that go the other way.

However, there is an unfortunate statement in this chapter in that Humphrys concludes that atheists have the best arguments. What they don’t have is a grasp of what it is that makes human beings what we are. I agree with the latter, but I definitely disagree with the former.

On the latter point, could we not consider that if atheists don’t have that, could that lead to the idea that man is more than just a material being? Could it lead to the idea of essences and substances? Could it lead to a soul, a spirit, or something of that sort? Would this not be a problematic position for atheism to explain anyway? If human beings are just material objects and we have been studying matter for so long and have personal experience with this matter, shouldn’t we have a good idea of what we are?

However, throughout this book, there has been little attention paid to theistic arguments. Even in the chapter featuring Craig, the only response given was that it was nonsense, all of it, and then Humphrys goes on to criticize Craig instead of asking his side how they can better answer Craig. I don’t see the Thomistic arguments ever dealt with nor do I see the philosophers used that have taken on the problem of evil.

Humphrys then is too dismissive. It seems that evil is just something that controls his thinking and that is the real draw. How can a good God allow evil? The problem is this is often a much more emotional argument than a rational one. We see this when Humphrys says that when a cab driver murders his wife and four children, that overpowers an argument.

Could it be atheists actually have the more emotional opinion?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: In God We Doubt Part 8

What is the impact of bad sermons? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Most every speaker has had a bad presentation at times. They have had something happen where they didn’t know what to say or where they said something outright stupid. Unfortunately, when that happens in ministry, the results can be disastrous. Reviewing what I highlighted in chapter 11 where we start today, I saw one pop up immediately and as soon as I started it, I remembered how it ended because of how terrible it was.

Even worse, this took place at a funeral with the wife and kids right there. A funeral is worse not just because the people are grieving, but weddings and funerals are two of the times you are most likely going to have lost people in the church. Your average person who doesn’t want anything to do with a church can come to one of these out of deep respect, and personally, a funeral usually has the closest to a sermon.

So what does the vicar say here?

Terrible though it is to us, God grants the same freedom to cancer cells that he grants even to the most noble and virtuous of us.

Humphrys is right in pointing out that cancer cells are not intelligent agents that can move and make decisions. Of course, Christians need to be able to have a place in their worldview to explain cancer, but this is not a valid parallel at all. God does allow bad things to happen, including deaths from cancer, but are we going to put cancer cells on the same level as human beings?

Fortunately, Humphrys I don’t think sees all ministers like this, but too many will remember this. Sadly, we will have people easily remember the worst things we did to them. “Think of someone who hurt you.” Right now, most all of you have the image of someone in mind immediately.

Moving on from here, Humphrys asks about prayer. Isn’t it a pointless exercise? Isn’t the main emphasis asking for something? Well, no. The main emphasis should be worship and glorification, something I admit I need to work on as well. There is also thankfulness and the asking is not just health and material objects and items like that, but also forgiveness.

Humphrys also says in the Bible, God was performing miracles all the time. Hardly. You have an abundance of miracles in only three time periods, the Exodus and the conquest, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, and the apostolic age starting with the ministry of Jesus. Miracles are recorded not because they are common, but because they are exceptional.

Getting back to prayer after all of this, Humphrys says God hears every prayer that is offered up, and yet doesn’t bother to intervene. I daresay Humphrys knows a lot of people who can speak of an answered prayer, yet will he say that is a coincidence? It seems that he has to.

What about something like Craig Keener’s works on miracles that show miracles specifically coming after prayer? Humphrys and others who do this have a unique method. If you pray for something and it doesn’t happen, that proves God doesn’t answer prayers. If you pray for something and it happens, that proves that coincidences take place.

Rabbi Sacks thankfully does deal with Humphrys well in an interview style saying that Humphrys seems to have this idea that the world ought to be just. This is ironically where C.S. Lewis began as well. Humphrys then says it needs to be like science where we test something again and again and it is proven and religion is asking the opposite.

Well, that’s just false. Having something happen again and again in science doesn’t mean “proof.” It means that it is incredibly likely, the same as in history. It can be so likely it would be nonsense to try to do some things again. If I stick my hand on a hot stove and I burn it, I’m not going to want to try it again. If I drop something and it falls repeatedly, I’m justified in thinking, contrary to Hume, that that is what will happen every time, all things being equal.

Sacks also rightly says that Humphrys buys into a sort of soft scientism where something should be scientifically established before it is acceptable. Much of our knowledge does not come about that way, such as our moral judgments and the rules of math and any number of other ideas we hold. Most of the claims we hold dearest are those that are NOT scientifically proven, such as that our loved ones love us, or that something is good to do, or that beauty is real.

Humphrys lists a lot of things he considers evils and said this would not happen in a just world. Well first off, who said the world is just right now? In a just world, the Son of God would not be crucified when He did no wrong. God promises justice, but He never promises a timeframe to it for us. Justice delayed is not justice denied.

Briefly, Humphrys talks about biblical interpretation with the idea that we are supposed to take the texts literally, though not stating what that means. I contend you should always take the text literally, but not literalistically. If something is written as a metaphor, taking it literally is reading it as a metaphor. If something is taken as a straight forward account, taking it literally is doing just that. Literalistic reading says there can be no inflection or change in language and no stylistic ideas of hyperbole, sarcasm, etc.

So ultimately as we conclude this part, it still looks like again all Humphrys really has is evil. This has just never really struck me as a strong objection to Christianity, especially since Christianity by necessity has an evil action right at the center, the crucifixion of Christ. Christianity is about dealing with the evil in part, so how is evil a defeater for it?

Beats me.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Ready Player Two

What do I think about Ernest Cline’s sequel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t think it’s possible to talk about this without some spoilers so you have been warned. This is one of those books I have been reading just for fun as I am trying to get more fiction in my literary diet. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Ready Player One and so I was glad to see when the sequel was available on Kindle for cheap.

As pertains to content, I still prefer the first story. In this second one, Wade, the main character, finds out that as the heir of Halliday, that Halliday left for the world a headset that one could use to log into the virtual world of the OASIS and it is up to Halliday’s heir to decide if he wants to mass produce and market this or not. The headset isn’t just a device to watch, but also a neural uplink. Wade does introduce it to the world, but the biggest critic of this decision is his then-girlfriend Samantha from the last movie.

Then along the way, a new quest is released like in the first one to find the seven shards of the siren’s soul. That quest is going okay until a threat rises up within the system of an AI that has gone rogue and decided that the seven pieces must be gathered for his own purposes. Wade and his friends then find themselves on a quest to get the shards in time and also find a way to defeat the AI.

Those are all the spoilers I want to give and I think they’re necessary. What strikes me again in looking at this is here we have the problem of technological geniuses creating an AI and lo and behold, the AI turns against its creators and decides it has its own plans. This seems to happen in every science fiction scenario involving it, but somehow, we’re the exception.

There is no doubt that science has been a means of bringing great blessings into our lives, but it has also brought great destruction into our lives. We can live in fear of nuclear weapons being used because we invented them. Whatever you think of the Covid situation, it was produced in a lab and had devastating effects around the world.

We are often told of the evils of religion, but what is really evil is the misuse of religion. Religion used for good does great things, such as fine charity work across the world and the love of one’s neighbor. Religion used for evil can have devastating consequences just as much, like 9/11.

In every scenario, the real culprit is the same actually. Us. Any good thing can be used just as much for evil. The problem is not the tool. The problem is the person using the tool. Science and religion in the hands of good men can be used for good. In the hands of evil men, it can be used for evil.

But let’s also include foolish men.

There are people in religion who are quite foolish, even in my own evangelical tradition. There are plenty of people who are sure they are called to ministry of some kind, but they don’t have the first clue how to do it and they think it’s unspiritual to get an education in what they study. Shouldn’t God just tell them everything? They’re not evil. They mean well. They just cause great destruction.

In the same way, there are plenty of people in science who aren’t evil at all. They could just have a lot of pride or foolishness, just like the person in religion, and think they can handle whatever happens. Both of them make great errors in judgment that affect not only them, but others as well.

It’s good to know we’re different, isn’t it?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

No. Evolution is not an either/or

Is there really a problem of evolution? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I got into a debate on Facebook with someone who was saying that you can’t have evolution and theism both. They contradict one another. Now many of you know that I don’t take a side on evolution. I don’t argue it’s true. I don’t argue it’s false.

So let’s look at the idea of contradiction first. Here is a source with a definition of evolution as follows:

“Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.”

Now I realize that doesn’t get into the inner technicalities as evolution is much broader than that and deeper, but this is a fine definition for now. Now how about theism? Here’s a definition from Britannica.

“the view that all limited or finite things are dependent in some way on one supreme or ultimate reality of which one may also speak in personal terms. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this ultimate reality is often called God.”

Sorry, but I’m not seeing the contradiction. There is no on the surface at least reason why one can’t believe in some form of God existing and at the same time believe that populations change and generations replace one another. What is more at odds is really not the science, but actually the idea of theism.

“Ah! So you’re admitting the problem is the existence of God!”

No. Actually, what I’m saying is that an idea of what God must be like is conflicting with an idea of what evolution is. Atheists believe it or not have a theology. They have an idea in mind of the kind of God that doesn’t exist and think “If God did exist, this is what He/She/It would be like and what He/She/It would do.”

I can say that I do think if evolution on the macro scale is true, as even the most rabid YEC will admit that species do change over time, then that does indeed contradict some forms of theism. This would mainly be Young-Earth Creationism as the Earth hasn’t been around long enough for that evolution to take place. This doesn’t mean that hypothetically the Earth couldn’t go on for billions of years and somehow avoid the heat death when the sun grows intensely and then evolution takes place. I’m not a scientist to tell if that could be possible in future generations or not.

However, if your idea of theism is God exists and must create every being by fiat and without any natural processes whatsoever, then yes, evolution does contradict that idea of theism. Note that this is saying that evolution is contradicting an idea of theism. That says nothing about theism as a whole but rather an interpretation of theism.

In reality, even your most rabid YEC will accept that some things are made through natural processes over time and this includes things that the Bible says are made by God. Consider how in Psalm 139 we are told that God knits us together in our mother’s womb. That doesn’t mean that God is directly involved in every single step purposefully as if He is causing everything. Everyone accepts that there is a process that God has set up of gestation whereby a new human life comes into being.

I also stressed in this discussion that evolution is inherently teleological. Now some people really balk at that idea. Doesn’t teleology mean that there is a mind behind the process guiding it? At the start from an empirical sense, that is not what is being said. All that is being said is that A causes B.

Edward Feser uses the example of an iceberg floating in the water. As it moves, the water within its range gets colder. It does not turn into cotton candy. This is essential for science. Imagine doing experiments and every time you got wildly different results. There has to be order in the universe to do science. This is also why miracles are not disproven by science but actually depend on the world being scientific to be possible. If the world was not orderly, you could not recognize exceptions.

So how does this tie in with evolution? Evolution leads to the survival of the fittest as the most fit survive. That is teleology. It is not saying evolution is a mind that intends this. It is just saying that this is what happens if evolution takes place.

Of course, I was also told that all of this comes from DNA and we all come from our parents and no maker is needed. This would have mattered had this been the question I had wondered. I instead asked about the ground of existing. Note the difference. Existing and not existence. It is not just how things came to be, but it is also what keeps them in being.

Consider that you wake up in the morning and you hear a strange sound. It keeps going on and on and you ask “What is causing that sound?” You don’t ask “What caused that sound?” until you hear the sound stop.

Now you wake up the next morning and open the door and there is a giant orb blocking your way. It is valid to ask “What caused this orb to be here?” However, it is also valid to ask “What is causing it to be here?” It is not as if these things, including you and I, have the basing of their existing in themselves. If that were true, a suicide could just will himself out of existing by pure thought alone.

Evolution doesn’t talk about how things are existing. It just talks about existing things and how they become other existing things over time. That’s not a problem to me.

If you want to know who has the problem here, as Plantinga would say, it’s not the theist, but the atheist. For the theist, evolution could be true or false and it wouldn’t matter. For the atheist, at least at the moment, evolution is the only game in town. Who has the most to lose here?

So go ahead and argue evolution all you want. I really don’t care. It doesn’t change my theism or my interpretation of Genesis or the data for the resurrection of Jesus. You can win a battle, but you’re still losing the major war.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Abstinence and the Virgin Birth (Which I do affirm)

Is there a problem with holding to abstinence and the virgin birth (Which I do affirm)? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This one has been going around Facebook a bit and as the main virgin birth guy (Which I do affirm), I figure I should be the one to address it. Looking at this, I do wonder what the main contention is. As is the problem with memes, it’s rarely clear.

So let’s consider if it’s a moral objection. Can you believe in the virgin birth, which I do affirm, and still believe in practicing abstinence? Yes. You recognize that this is a miracle that has taken place and that Mary herself did nothing wrong in this case.

By the way, along those lines, all Christians know that there are other forms of birth control. What we do know also is that when practiced, abstinence is the only one that is 100% effective. For most of the world today, it’s just incredible to think of a person going through life without having sex. The premise of a movie like the 40 Year-Old Virgin is meant to be obvious.

So let’s go the more likely route. It’s meant to poke fun at us for believing in something that is unscientific. After all, this involves a miracle and don’t we know that those never happen.

At this, I think even the most hardened skeptic would not want to try to take on the burden that there has never been a miracle in history and have to demonstrate this. How could you even begin to do that? What is more likely to be argued is that we do not have sufficient evidence to believe that a miracle has taken place in history.

Thus, we get to the first problem. There is really no way to establish that a miracle has never taken place in history so why should it be treated with incredulity that a miracle has taken place. I actually call this the argument from incredulity. The problem is it only works if you accept a worldview at the start that says miracles never happen.

Imagine if I made a similar argument.

Christians: We know Christianity is true.

Atheist: How?

Christian: Because Jesus rose from the dead.

Atheist: And how do we know that?

Christian: Because Christianity is true.

If you take at the start that a naturalistic philosophy is true and a miracle has never taken place, then obviously, a virgin birth, which I do affirm, has never taken place. However, that is the very claim under question. Has a miracle ever taken place?

If you affirm the existing of God and have reasons for believing in such, then you have a basis for believing that a miracle has taken place or at least could take place. If someone wants to mock that because atheism is true or some version of metaphysics that denies miracles, then they need to establish that. Whatever your worldview, it does not work to go to the other side and say “Your position is laughable because it disagrees with my position.”

In the end, I see no reason you cannot both affirm the virgin birth, which I do affirm, and consistently practice abstinence. Issues about birth control can be debated among ourselves. This is just more of the type of argument from incredulity that works on those with the mindset already of materialism, but not much of anyone else. It has strong rhetorical pull, but nothing logical behind it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)