Tag: science

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 8

What does believing entail? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A surprising statement in this chapter is that Graffin doesn’t like the word natural. He says that in a sense, everything is natural. There are some problems with such a statement. If we don’t know what natural means, what does it mean to say everything is natural? Second, if we don’t know what it means, how could we know that everything is natural? Finally, if you are equating natural with what is real, is that not begging the question?

This is also one reason I don’t speak of natural/supernatural. The terms are too vague. I prefer to speak of material and immaterial or extramaterial.

He also says he has a similar problem with God. If the word refers to something that is everything and everywhere, what purpose does the word serve? First off, the word would likely still have some meaning. Second, that’s pantheism, Patrick!

He then goes on to say that if God is something, it should be observable by everyone, examined, and shared by other people. If this is the standard, then several immaterial realities cannot be real. That would include triangularity, goodness, love, numbers, and even existence itself.

“But I see existence every day!”

No. You see things that exist just like you see good things and you see triangles, but you do not see existence, goodness, and triangularity.

Not too long after this, Graffin says the naturalist worldview says that everything is capable of being observed, experimented on, and understanding. Again then, none of those things I mentioned can exist on naturalism. That is the problem with it.

If there is no destiny, there is no design. There’s only life and death. My goal is to learn about life by living it, not by trying to figure out a cryptic plan that the Creator had in store for me.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 214). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a problem science has got under naturalism where it denies final causality in denying ultimate purpose. Get rid of final causality and science can’t exist. There has to be regular connection between A and B. I do agree that there is no cryptic will of God for our lives that we are to discover, which will be the subject of soon-to-come blogs.

Standing among those remnant populations, it is impossible not to conclude that we are somehow a part of all this. Some would call this a “spiritual connection”—the sense of being part of some larger web of life. Whatever you want to call it, the feeling is inescapable that we are living among the leftovers of a recent mass extinction. This realization is as emotionally moving to me as, I’m sure, the realization of God’s will was to my great-grandpa Zerr.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 232). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I find it fascinating that Graffin so often makes these statements in this book. He says earlier there is no destiny but just life and death, and then says this. It’s like he’s almost there but refuses to take that final look to see if there is something more. It’s tragic really.

In the last chapter, we’ll see what Graffin says about the after-death.

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

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 7

Is there a place for faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, it’s a relief to read Graffin in comparison to other atheists. Graffin does not speak down on faith entirely. There is a problem that he never defines it, but at least he’s not on a tirade like someone like Richard Dawkins is. He says there is a place for it.

So let’s start with this quote I found directly relevant to me:

Not everyone feels empathy to the same degree. On the one hand, some autistic people appear to be born with a neurological condition that severely limits their ability to appreciate the emotional state of other humans, despite having similar experiences. On the other hand, sociopaths either feel no empathy or have become so adept at suppressing it that they never bother to assume another’s perspective. And all of us can become so tired, frustrated, angry, or bored that we ignore our empathic impulses, even when doing so makes others and ourselves miserable.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Speaking as one such person on the spectrum, it’s not that I do not care about other peoples’ emotional states. It’s that I cannot tell what those states are. If someone is silent around me when I think they should say something, I wonder if the problem is me or not. This is especially so when it comes to the opposite sex. I know other neurotypical men struggle with this, but I suspect much more with me. Is the girl flirting or is she just talking? If she speaks with me is that interest or not?

That being said, empathy is not a good basis for our relationships since people have different degrees of understanding and just because I can feel X with someone, it doesn’t mean that I am obligated to do anything. Not only this, this is a highly western way of thinking. This is not a Woke thing with saying Western Civilization is bad. Western Civilization is incredible. It’s saying that in Eastern honor-shame cultures, empathy wouldn’t have the same appeal. People would think not based on how the individual feels, but on the attitudes of the group at large.

Graffin goes on to say that Western religions base moral codes on analogizing human nature and then looking at superhuman figures, such as Jesus or for a lot of Catholics and Orthodox people, saints. (Not to say Protestants don’t have saintly role models as well.) I do not know what he means by analogizing human nature, but I contend he would be benefitted by reading a book on Christian ethics to see how we make our decisions.

In a surprising twist, he says that science is based on empathy. He says that it relies on a shared experience of the world. He then turns and says it is also the best basis for human ethics, which again does not work since many cultures actually have quite different experiences of how the world should work. How do we adjudicate between them? We have to point to something beyond them.

Many religious believers mischaracterize naturalists as people without faith, but that is absurd. Everyone must believe in something—it’s part of human nature. I have no problem acknowledging that I have beliefs, though they differ from more traditional kinds of faith. Naturalists must believe, first of all, that the world is understandable and that knowledge of the world can be obtained through observation, experimentation, and verification. Most scientists don’t think much about this point. They simply assume that it is true and get to work. But this assumption has relevance to people other than philosophers. When intelligent design creationists, for example, speak of replacing methodological naturalism in science classes with theistic naturalism, they are threatening to remove this assumption from the shared presuppositions of public discourse.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a surprising statement again, but yet a refreshing one. He is right in that science assumes that the material world exists and we can have knowledge of it. This is something they should consider. I am again unsure what he means by theistic naturalism.

He also says natural selection is not the main driving force of evolution. He says luck is actually a big part of it. He also says we cannot base our lives on the idea of saying “I am more fit than you, so I get to reproduce and you don’t.” The problem is, “Why not?” Graffin may say he doesn’t like that, but the person who thinks they are more fit could just say “Why should I care about what you like? I need to produce progeny!”

He also says we cannot judge people with respect to an arbitrary idea of what should be considered optimal, but from a naturalistic perspective, why not? It can be granted he would not like that. It is not granted that from his perspective, that is automatically wrong. Graffin has to give the reason why the person in power should care.

He then tells us that simply by existing in the human race, we all have a worth and a dignity that is inherent. Okay. Why? If all we are is matter in motion from a cosmic accident that will die in a universe that will cease to be, why should I think any life has inherent value? I agree that all human life has inherent value, but I do not think it can be supported in naturalism.

I don’t believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about the value of love. I’m sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law or flaunt society’s expectations of me? No. It simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology. Humans impart meaning and purpose to almost all aspects of life. This sense of meaning and purpose gives us a road map for how to live a good life.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 206). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Why doesn’t it follow though? If Graffin’s worldview cannot explain love, it is a quite weak worldview. Humans can import meaning to loving relationships, but they could also just as easily import it to destructive ones. Who is to say someone would be wrong in doing so in naturalism? What is this good life Graffin speaks of? Again, there is no real in-depth look at the questions.

He lastly speaks of love in relationship to Allison, his now wife. Love requires a trust in that there is no 100% knowledge, though there can be good evidence. He describes love as a unique feeling. I contend love produces feelings, but it is not a feeling. It is an action that one does. Still, Graffin does speak of that trust as a form of faith, which again is refreshing.

Next time, we’ll talk about what it means to believe.

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

 

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 5

What happens when suffering comes?

What role does tragedy play? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Graffin introduces us to the role that tragedy plays in a life. I found myself moved by reading accounts of people he had lost in his life due to drugs and alcohol. I definitely resonated when he talked about how when you go through a divorce or lose a child to death, it is as if the laws of the universe have been broken. Divorce is easily the greatest tragedy I have gone through. Nothing comes close.

In contrasting to the theistic view, he writes that if there were no death, the world would not be able to contain the biological exuberance. This is certainly true. Yet he goes on from here to say that death requires and receives no justification. It’s simply a part of life.

If this is true, why do we all act like it is not that at all? Are we all just deluded? Why are we all sad? Why do we all try to make sense of death? Why is it that we are scared to see a corpse or to touch a corpse? We can say death is natural in a sense, but natural does not always equal good.

He also says it is hard to be a theist after looking at the fossil record and trying to explain all the death that came before us. No reason is given why this is so. Theism doesn’t require a perfect world at all. Why should it? From a metaphysical standpoint, I find that hard to conceive. Even with Heaven, it is a good world in every sense, but could we not add one more soul and say it is a better world? Only God is perfect in Christian theism.

He also says the central problem of theism is all the suffering in nature, but how can this be the central problem when it is a necessity of Christianity that that problem be there to be dealt with? Christianity has evil right at the center of the world in the cross. Also, if theism has to explain all the evil that comes about in a world made by a good God, can we not ask like Chesterton did that in a world of total chaos, why do we get so much good?

He says also that none of the explanations given for suffering is comforting or satisfactory. The problem is, he doesn’t interact with any of these theodicies. There are plenty of them. Is Graffin throwing all of them out? This is someone who has talked about being skeptical and about the joy of learning, but when it comes to his position, he is not skeptical of if naturalism can explain good and evil and he seems to show no interest in learning about theodicies from theism.

I do agree with him when he speaks out against at funerals saying that God thought it was that person’s time to go. We don’t know that. I always get cautious when I hear someone claim what God is or isn’t doing. How do they know? Do they have access to the divine throne room?

In the end, Graffin unfortunately does not really engage. I wish he had said more. We both agree that there is a lot of tragedy in this life, but Graffin doesn’t give me any hope or meaning to it. At least my worldview can do that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth) Continue reading Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 5

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 4

Is atheism an idol? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, this is a refreshing chapter title to read as Graffin writes about The False Idol of Atheism. Would that more atheists would write this way. I have said before that the best service someone like Dawkins could do is to write about just science and not touch at all on subjects he has not studied. When he does so, he loses in those areas, but those who are skeptical of the science and know the other areas well will not take him seriously in the science.

In this chapter, Graffin talks a lot about his love of music, but says something tragic. He says that in listening to his mother’s album of Jesus Christ Superstar, he learned a lot about music, but he also learned about the basic outline of the New Testament. He considered it a bonus that he didn’t have to read about the New Testament to learn about the life of Jesus. What would he say to someone who said “I watched a movie on the life of Darwin! What a bonus! I didn’t have to read books on Darwin to learn about him!”?

This is not to say one cannot learn from such sources, but it is to say the best sources are normally books and one who wants to be informed should be reading them. I have produced materials like podcasts and YouTube videos, but I encourage people to go to the books. Learn from the main sources.

He says later that many people who come to naturalism start from a religious worldview and just ask questions and do not get answers. Sadly, this is true. Even more sad, many churches treat the questions as if they are a problem instead of embracing them. There are pastors out there who will have the judgment of souls on their hands for not tending to their flocks properly, a statement that should frighten every pastor out there. It should. That is a serious responsibility and you’d better be able to base your position in the pulpit on something serious.

He also says some people want to hold on to religion and run from scientific claims. Sadly, this is also true. If you insulate your worldview from reality, what good is it? Christianity must be capable of explaining everything just as any other worldview.

He then says he doesn’t understand the idea of spiritual, but not religious, to which I also agree. We live in an age where there is a spiritual vacuum. Naturalism just doesn’t cover it.

I am also pleased to read how he says that he doesn’t talk about Darwin’s reasons for rejecting theism when he teaches undergrad. What is more important in Darwin is what he thought. Even if one does not believe in evolution, this should be accepted. We need to understand what Darwin thought first.

Graffin then goes on to quote some song lyrics he has to a song and then talks about them in a statement I found quite inspiring.

In my opinion, the worst line in this song is the one where I made a bold claim about religion (“religion’s just synthetic frippery”). The rest of the song conjures up images that apply to everyone, regardless of whether they believe in God. And the most compelling lines of the song, in my opinion, are the questions. This song has been a perennial favorite among Bad Religion fans—believers and nonbelievers alike—and part of the reason for the song’s success, I think, is that its questions are ones that listeners ask themselves.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 113). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I appreciate someone who says they made a bold statement about religion and regrets it. He does acknowledge his band has Christian fans. Generally, it’s not a good idea to alienate your support base and I think a lot of atheists would revel in singing a song that blasted religion. Graffin is a step up from them.

He also talks about non-believers who seem to loathe God and form groups of their own which he says come off like the groups they tend to vilify. Indeed. In a way, internet atheism is a cult of its own. You have to buy into every argument and you can’t give an inch to your opponents on anything.

He says religious believers do not want to debate the big questions in life, but then says many atheists are the same way. I contend many religious people do not want to debate the big questions, but we should. We need to face the big questions head on because we believe Jesus answers the big questions. This is why I encourage atheists to read books that disagree with them, and sadly, they do not.

Yet after saying this, he ends the chapter saying it’s time to cast aside the endless debate on God’s existence. Not at all. If we want to talk about the ultimate questions, this is the biggest one. This is the one that shapes everything else. We must face it head-on.

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

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 3

Is natural selection an idol? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

That question comes from the title of this chapter. Graffin has called it “The Idol of Natural Selection.” It’s quite refreshing to read an atheist writing these kinds of things.

At one point in this chapter, he says that Darwin and Wallace shattered the comfortable intellectual certainty that natural theology had. Unfortunately, it is not said how they did this. Since many natural theologians can comfortably fit evolution into their worldview, it’s hard to see how that is something that ultimately shatters it.

He also says after this it did damage to Darwn too as it left him thinking there was no design to nature. Now if he was going with Paley’s watchmaker, which is likely, that could be, but had he gone with an idea such as teleology, this would not have been a problem. This is not to demean Paley as Paley wrote much outside of the watchmaker argument that is excellent in Christian apologetics and it is a shame that what he seems to be most remembered for is an argument lambasted by many of his critics.

He then says that Darwin’s daughter Annie died at the age of ten which destroyed the last bit of religious belief Darwin had. It is important to note that many cases of atheism do seem to hinge on emotional despair and loss. It can often hide behind intellectualism, but scratch long enough and you uncover an emotional wound. Let’s make sure we’re not the same way. If we are Christians and say we go where the evidence leads, then that means that we can’t hold on to something for the sake of an emotion. We would not want Mormons to be doing that.

There are times Graffin says something that seems to indicate that he could be on the right track. Unfortunately, he immediately drops it and moves on. Consider this for example:

Natural selection even had a shadowy, theological appeal. It seemed to offer a direction or ultimate purpose to life. Over time, living things appeared to grow more complex. As new generations of organisms acquired new traits, they became progressively better adapted to their environments. What better evidence of a wisdom in nature preordained in the mind of God? Even for nontheists, the order created by natural selection might have seemed at least partially to compensate for the loss of God’s oversight.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (pp. 58-59). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Such is the point. If a system is set up to make objects better and better, that can be an indication of divine wisdom and if you believe in teleology, it fits in just fine with that. I am unsure what Graffin has in mind with the statement of the loss of God’s oversight. What was He supposed to do differently?

The next section is also worth quoting in length:

And since I believe that dogma must be challenged wherever it is found—whether in religion, science, or music—I have spent time exploring the ideas of the iconoclasts who have examined natural selection critically. The result is a picture of evolution quite different from the standard textbook account.8 But before I look more closely at natural selection, I have to issue a blanket disclaimer. Whenever an evolutionary biologist identifies a problem with standard accounts of evolutionary theory, creationists tend to wave the statement around as evidence that evolution is fatally flawed or “a theory in crisis.” That’s ridiculous. As I’ve already pointed out, the occurrence of evolution is indisputable. The idea that God could have planted the entire fossil record in the earth as a way of testing the faith of believers is preposterous. I am not at all interested in leaving the door open for discussions with advocates of the modern “intelligent design” movement.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 59). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I am not speaking in favor of the ID community, but it seems odd to say that dogma must be challenged and then say you’re not interested in discussing with advocates of an opposite viewpoint. I will agree that we should not use gaps in evolution as an ultimate defeated. Christianity should not be built on finding gaps in science as it assumes then that science is the ultimate battleground that determines if God exists or not. I also agree that it is ridiculous to say God planted the fossil record with it being false to test our faith. Perhaps it might work for a Muslim approach where Allah is the greatest of deceivers, but it will not work for an approach where God is the God of all truth.

That being said, I have no problem with the questioning of dogma, and that includes my own. This is why I ask people in dialogue what the last book they read that disagreed with them was. I normally get crickets to that. Stay in an echochamber and do not be surprised if your mind never changes.

He also says creationists have a tendency to mischaracterize what evolutionary biologists say which shows their intellectual dishonesty. I would have liked to have seen the examples. I am not denying that they exist, but the examples need to be shown. That being said, I could easily say the same about atheists who trot out defeated arguments espousing positions like Jesus mythicism and other claims regularly.

He also says the ultimate motivation of ID is not scientific. Unfortunately, this relies on mind reading. Could it be many are more interested in theology? Sure. I could say the same about many atheists wanting atheism to be true and some have explicitly said they want atheism to be true, like Thomas Nagel. Such claims are irrelevant in the long run. What matters is the data and not why the data is brought forward.

He also says that the idea is to create a “wedge” to break science’s allegiance to “atheistic naturalism”, but we saw in the last chapter, he said that monism is the default worldview of natural science. Why does he put atheistic naturalism in quotes then? If someone says “You have to be an atheist to do science” you will stop many great minds from doing science. I have no problem with someone who is an atheist wanting to enter into studies of theology and Scripture. Have at it! Show us what we have got wrong.

He later says that many scientists do hold to a teleology still, which does show he has some idea what it is. Graffin says that we do not see everything optimized in nature, but who says teleology works in that way? Teleology simply has a link that is essential. An acorn all things being equal grows into an oak tree and not into a stalagmite. The sun’s rays melt ice and do not turn it into bubble gum. This is a slipping in an idea of theology that everything should be optimal that has not been backed.

In all of this, while there is interesting material about science and Graffin’s band, I do not find the claims convincing. Again, Graffin could win the battle on evolution and be no closer to winning the war.

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

 

 

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 2

Does life make sense? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our work through Greg Graffin’s book Anarchy Religion. Again as I go through this more and more, unlike other atheist books, it doesn’t come across as a mockery or an effort to destroy theism at all costs nor do I sense hostility. It’s as if Graffin is saying “This is my opinion and I think you should agree with it, but if you don’t, that’s cool too.”

As I said in the last post, the emphasis is on evolution. He does talk about how he talked to some experts in evolutionary thought and one such as Will Provine said evolution is not his friend. Graffin mentions this because he doesn’t want us talking too much about cultural changes as evolutionary changes.

He does say that before Darwin, nothing made sense in biology except in light of natural theology. The ironic thing is that many people who hold to natural theology like myself would not have a problem with evolution. It would just be that if this is how God did it, that’s fine. He’s God and He will do what He wants. It could be that many of these battles is not about theism, but more about a certain kind of view on how God should do things and how the Bible should be interpreted.

Of course, if evolution is wrong, that’s fine for me too. I don’t hang my hat on either side. I’m not a scientist so I don’t comment where I don’t know. I can comment on what it means if it’s true or false, but on the science itself, I say nothing.

However, Graffin does say that after Darwin, the role of God in nature was reduced to irrelevance. This is certainly a statement I disagree with. If anything, that there exists a means in the universe whereby simple beings become more complex I think points to teleology. If there is teleology, then vis a vis the fifth way of Aquinas, there is theism. Evolution can undo a certain idea of how God should operate, but God is the one keeping the whole chain going and holding all of existence together. That’s not a small part.

Graffin then talks about interviewing scientists to see how many hold to theistic views. It is not a shock that he gets a small number. Too many scientists often make poor philosophers. The question is not a scientific question but a philosophical one. You could poll all the philosophers out there and see how many of them held to evolution. Whatever the results, it would be irrelevant. The philosophers do not speak on this. The scientists do.

He later says that monism is the default view of science and skepticism is the view of science. Monism is the idea meaning that there is only one reality and that is the material one, but why should I think that? He does say in science claims have to be based on empirical knowledge, and I agree, but I as a Thomist think all knowledge is based on empirical claims and science is only a subset. It would be more accurate to say many scientists come from a monistic stance. It is not required.

Also, I hear scientists are skeptical a lot, but the problem is I think they are only selectively skeptical. When they read someone like Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, they think his arguments have dealt a death knell, but they do not go and read the other side to see about them. I have seen many scientists buy into some of the worst ways of thinking when it comes to religion. It is a natural tendency we all have to embrace what agrees with us already and be skeptical of what doesn’t without doing fact-checking. I daresay I am more skeptical than many of these scientists are.

He also says religion does not embrace the discovery of empirical new knowledge, which is why the Catholic Church in the medieval period had their own astronomy centers and why Christian scientists were doing science throughout the medieval period based on empirical thinking. Graffin says some fascinating things, but this is a downside in that he is not skeptical enough. I encourage him to go and read Tim O’Neill for an example. He is an atheist who runs history for atheists.

Then we get this:

After all, religion makes many claims about the natural world. The Bible states that a great flood destroyed everything on earth, that the sun stood still, that Jesus was born of a virgin mother, and that the dead came back to life. Though some of these statements can be understood metaphorically, at least some are clearly meant to be taken literally, since much Christian theology rests on their veracity. I was surprised by the answers I got. The majority of the evolutionary biologists (72 percent) said that religion is a social phenomenon that has developed with the biological evolution of our species. In other words, they see religion as a part of our culture. They do not necessarily see it conflicting with science. This seems like social courtesy to me, not intellectual honesty.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 45). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is quite problematic. I definitely do affirm the virgin birth and the resurrection, but there are all manner of interpretations on the other issues. I also find it disingenuous for him to assume the respondents to a survey he did on this where just being socially courteous. Why not just take them at their word?

But then, he refers to a biologist who rejected theism early on and it is one of the most ridiculous reasons I have ever read.

One of them, John Bonner of Prince ton University, told me, “The reason I decided one day that I didn’t really want any religion at all at that age—well, I was maybe fourteen by this time—was that birds, sparrows outside my window, seem to be having a perfectly fine existence and are managing tremendously well…. I thought, ‘They can do that without God,’ so that’s what made me decide that religion was not for me. [From] that moment on I really did not believe in God.”

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 47). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I suspect John Bonner drives a car, writes on a computer, has a phone, goes grocery shopping, uses language, etc. Birds do not do this. They are still having a tremendously fine existence. Or is it that Bonner just goes with the birds when they do something he wants?

To end on a positive, Graffin does say when he teaches his students, he tries to let them take the science and go with their own conclusions. I hope this is so. One of the greatest problems we have is thinking people have to choose between religion and science. The more this dichotomy is pushed, the more both sides lose great minds.

We’ll continue next time.

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

 

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 1

What do I think of Greg Graffin’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book says it’s by Graffin and Steve Olson, but Graffin seems to be the main writer as it is a lot about his story and his research.

So let’s start with some confessions. First off, Graffin is apparently the lead singer of a band called Bad Religion. I have heard of this band, but I do not know if I have ever heard any of their songs. I could not name one of them. I am impressed to hear that despite this, Graffin has a doctorate in a scientific field and teaches at a university. Most music stars wouldn’t do that.

I also want to say that this book has been surprising. I try to always read one book I disagree with and while I thoroughly disagree with Graffin, I do not find him demeaning or insulting. This is quite relieving to see in an atheist book. If anything, I find him quite enjoyable to read even while I disagree with him. I thnk he’s quite open and he seems to be the kind of guy I could hang out with at a restaurant and talk about our worldviews together.

This book largely focuses on science and readers know that I don’t touch science as science. I will talk about the history of it and the philosophy of it, but not the ins and outs of it. This book also largely focuses on evolution and readers of this blog know I don’t care one way or another about that topic. Graffin can win the battle with me and lose the war.

Looking at the first chapter, let’s look at one statement he makes about morality.

Either harming other people is wrong, in which case God is unnecessary, or harming other people is acceptable, in which case God’s admonitions are misguided.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 4). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

But why is it wrong? This is just another version of the Euthyphro dilemma. It might seem obvious to you, but is it? If we are matter in motion, who cares what one bit of matter does to another bit of matter?

What I want to know is where does goodness come from? Is anything truly good or not? If so, how did it get that way? Goodness is not a material property. You can study the matter of something all day long and you will not find goodness there.

Now do you need to know God exists to know about goodness? No. Do you need to believe in God to know about good? No. Do you need God to form a basis for the existing of good? Yes. You can get to Washington D.C. from anywhere else in America without a map and even by chance if you don’t know that it exists, but you cannot get there without D.C. existing.

Graffin also says that it is a mistake to conclude from the anarchy of the material world that life has no meaning. Graffin says the opposite. The purposelessness emphasizes the tremendous meaning of human life. Okay? Why? What is that based on? Think about what Bertrand Russell said in A Free Man’s Worship.

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins–all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

Graffin also says evolution provides the context for how he lives. He admits that it has implications that can make us uneasy. He ends by saying on matters of important questions we must all accept the truth, no matter how difficult it might be. I completely agree with this last part! This is something that makes reading Graffin so refreshing.

He also says evolution is anarchic, but out of that has risen great beauty. I first want to know how that is possible in a purely material world. Material things are beautiful, but it is not because of the matter itself but because of the form of the matter. That’s Aristotelianism though which would also say evolution does have a purpose. It works towards the survival of the fittest. If evolution is true, it is inherently teleological.

He also says people need a cursory knowledge at least of evolution and even if they want to reject it, they need to understand the basics. I agree. I hope he would agree also that in a society such as ours, you need a basic understanding of the Bible, even if one wants to reject it. While there are plenty of Christians that critique evolution without understanding it, there are plenty of atheists who do the same with the Bible.

Other than that, we have a lot of Graffin’s own personal life and his personal ideas of how to live. It is entertaining, but not relevant for our purposes. Still, this is thus far one of the better atheistic books I have read.

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

Book Plunge: The One

What do I think of this novel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve already interrupted one book to talk about another book and now I’m interrupting that book to talk about a third. This one will be short. It’s only going to be one entry.

I’ve been making it a point to read more fiction lately. I don’t mean Christian fiction. I just mean fiction. This is in addition to mystery novels that I’m also reading. The last book that I read in this category and finished yesterday is The One, which you can buy here.

Please keep in mind that this is not a Christian book. However, it is certainly a book that is thought-provoking. Just know if you’re a Christian you won’t approve of everything in it.

Dating is hard. I know it. I hate it. You have to go out there and find the person and then spend so much time with the person before you decide you want to marry the person. What if there was an easier way?

In this novel, there is. You can just take your DNA and send it to the Match Your DNA company and they will run it through their database and find the one person that is meant for you based on your DNA. Who is that one person that you will click with and form a relationship with?

This is something that most everyone is doing in the society. There are concerns about couples who are not “matched” and many couples sadly get divorced so they can be with their “match.” Couples who marry without a match are seen as passing up “the one” that is meant for them.

A little side note here, but before you roll your eyes at the concept, if you’re a Christian, remember that too many of us have a concept of how we have to find “the one” that is meant for us. Verse in Scripture that says this? None. We just throw it in with the same errant concept of “Finding God’s will for your life.”

Anyway, the novel follows five characters. I don’t want to use the term protagonists because you will not like all five of these characters. All of them use the Match program and while there is some good that comes of it, overall, I conclude there is far more harm. Something that was meant to lead to better relationships seems to lead to harder ones.

Really, I can’t say much more beyond that because some of you might want to read it and if you do, I don’t want to spoil it for you. The main thought I had going through this book was that we praise science all day long in our society, and I’m certainly not saying science in itself is an evil, but there are some decisions that maybe we just shouldn’t be leaving to science. Maybe sometimes we should make the decisions ourselves instead of having others do the thinking for us.

Fortunately, we’re not in any danger of that today. Right?

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

Atheism And The Search For Purpose

Is Atheism looking for meaning? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am reading through a book for a class now called Bulwarks of Unbelief. I am finding it quite good and the main question being asked is “What made atheism a strong enough possibility that many people now embrace it?” Now some might go the route of Richard Dawkins and say it was Darwin who made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Is that it? Is it really that we found a scientific explanation for something and then God was out of a job?

That doesn’t really fit since in the medieval period science was being done and none of it was thought to be the end of God. If anything, it was thought to be explaining and upholding God. If anyone was filling in the gaps of our scientific knowledge, it was the Christians. Yet nowhere in this do you see them saying “Does this put God out of a job?”

The writer of the book, Joseph Minich, brings up Marx and how Marx thought man felt alienated from his labor. Now I oppose Marxism through and through, but while I don’t care for the man, that doesn’t mean he was wrong on everything. Could there be a sense of alienation Marx was right to find, but that he had the wrong solution and explanation for?

Consider this as an example. Before I came here to the seminary, I worked at a Wal-Mart in Tennessee. Now when the time came that I left to come here, what happened? Did the store shut down because I was gone and obviously, no one could do the work that I did and so that was it?

Nope. Hire someone else. I was entirely replaceable. This can be in contrast to a time when a son learned his father’s trade and the business was passed on from generation to generation and there was an investment in one’s labor.

Not only this, but while I was there, did I really care about my job? Nope. I hated it. I liked some of the people that I worked with, but I hated the work that I did. I knew I was expendable and that I was underutilized and that my skills were not being used to the best of their ability.

So yes, I do think the alienation is real.

Minich thinks the main culprit here is technology. We have made the world more and more impersonal. As the world becomes more impersonal, we have a harder time seeing a person behind it all. The world seems to function like a machine.

As a divorced man, I do think there is something to the disconnect from society. I notice when I come home, I go to my apartment building and there are several other apartments. Truth be told, I hardly know anyone in my own building. I have hardly ever had guests over to do anything with me. I also suspect that I am not alone in this. Many of you probably know your Facebook friends better than people you see every day.

As a gamer, I also miss a certain time in life. That was the time of what is now known as couch gaming. Yes, I can play games online with several people and that’s fine, but really, nothing beats getting together and playing Goldeneye, Street Fighter, Smash Brothers, and other multi-player games together in person. Now I can play a game with people I know nothing about and have no investment in other than a desire to win.

Now I think technology could be a part of it, but I also think there is something even bigger looming in the background. If there is a sense of alienation from one’s work and then from the society as a whole, what if there is also that sense from the world entire? What if it seems like we have a world that because we have fostered the natural/supernatural divide, seems to work on its own?

What does this give us but a world without purpose? I find this especially interesting since in my study into game theology, I am noting that purpose is something we all long for. When we think we have a quest, a battle, a goal, we can come alive.

Now this post is a sort of thinking out loud, but it does explain to me not just atheism in that sense, but a certain kind of atheism. You probably know the type. Let’s be clear this is not all atheists as I suspect some atheist readers of this blog will be able to hear the description and say “Yes. I know someone like that. I agree with their atheism, but I don’t agree with their other beliefs about it.”

For sake of discussion, let’s refer to these as a sort of evangelistic atheist. These are atheists who think that they have been delivered from the shackles of irrationality and superstition by being embracing atheism. They now think that all theists they meet are ignorant fools who stay cloistered away from anything that goes against them, believe anything without evidence (Constantly thinking faith is belief without evidence), hate science, are sexual prudes entirely, always vote Republican, and that Christianity has done nothing but harm for the world.

These are the people you find in Facebook groups who seem to do nothing all day long but argue against Christians and other theists. I consider it something akin to many that I see on the left who have what is called Trump-Derangement Syndrome. Whatever you think of him, these are people who seem to have their lives more dominated by Trump than any conservatives that I know. As many of my fellow conservatives say, he lives rent-free in their heads.

If you are an atheist who says “I don’t think God exists, but I know that there are many Christians who do and many of them are smart people and have good reasons for what they believe”, then you are not one of the people I am speaking of. You can also say “I do agree that Christianity has done a lot of good for the world and many people are better for being Christians.” You will debate with Christians, but it is never about who is smarter than the other based on worldviews alone.

When I have seen these evangelistic atheists in the past, I have been confused by it. If you really thought this was the way the world was, why are you wasting your time here? Go on vacation regularly and hit the beach. if you think there is ultimate wrong and right, why not just go out every night sleeping around?

If I am correct, the answer now is obvious. These people are still wanting to find some sort of reading, something that they can do in the world, and they have decided they will be evangelists for atheism to set people free from the shackles of theism into the glorious light of science and reason. Dare I say it, this could be considered a cultic form of atheism.

When I have met atheists like this, they are amazingly like the idea of Christians that they always go against. They refuse to read anything that disagrees with them. They have the entire side painted in an us vs. them battle and the other side is just ignorant of the real truth out there. They alone are the sole bearers of freedom and they must deliver the good news. They will often go about their personal experiences of how they were once Christians. They will not investigate any other ideas contrary to what they believe. They also love the fellowship of other like-minded atheists and seem to have a mutual admiration society going on.

When it comes to the Bible, it must always be interpreted literalistically. They will believe anything whatsoever provided it agrees with them without researching it. If anything could make the other side look bad, it is automatically true. If anything makes it look good or at least is neutral to it, it is automatically false.

I suppose I could go on if need be, but I suspect you get the idea. So, why they do it then is they do it to at least give themselves some sense of purpose. They can think that they are accomplishing something. If work doesn’t give fulfillment and pleasure doesn’t, you have to go somewhere else to get ultimate fulfillment.

Part of my study into gaming theology has been that we have a need for quests in order to find fulfillment. We want to be part of a grand story. If my theory is true, why should that be just the case for Christians? It will be just as true for atheists or any other position. Evangelistic atheists get some fulfillment then out of what they do in spreading their gospel of atheism.

This is a theory that for me is just in its opening stages. This post is a sort of thinking out loud. i do invite your opinions on the matter and especially if you are an atheist that would be not an evangelistic atheist and can say “I know some of the atheists you talk about and yes, this does seem to describe them.”

I look forward to hearing from you.

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

 

Book Plunge: Improbable Issues With The God Hypothesis Part 5

Is the universe Godless? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this one, we’re asking the question of if the universe is godless or not. Brucker starts off with a clear position on the matter.

But ever since God was the most plausible option, scientific thought and exploration have demonstrably proven those archaic beliefs as false. In the past, these hasty speculations were accepted rather quickly amongst these populations because there hadn’t existed differing and testable facts.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 83). Kindle Edition.

How these beliefs have been proven to be false is not shown. Also, scientific work had been going on for quite some time. Had Brucker just read some ancient works and some medieval works, he might have learned something.

As I’ve suggested and offered as an objective criticism, I would postulate the idea that if God were, in fact, the author of truth and that the writings he inspired were literal, what has been established throughout the centuries would be an accurate representation of reality as God is the creator of all and the Abrahamic texts would correspondingly agree.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 84). Kindle Edition.

What is the hang-up with literalism? It is a modern way of thinking and certainly not the way Jews and Christians always interpreted. The Jewish people had a number of ways of reading the text as did the early church fathers.

I find it humbling that my purpose in life is what I make of it, and the reason I’m here is a miracle, not in a metaphysical sense but because of the sheer odds that were trumped for my presence to exist.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 90). Kindle Edition.

Which is a quite scary statement. We could say that any mass-murderer in history said that their purpose in life was what they made of it. On what grounds could he said to be wrong? That would assume that there is some objective purpose to life, but that’s a teleology that atheism has to deny.

Not a single article of scripture suggests that each star has its solar system, or that there are close to 1,000,000,000,000 stars within each galaxy. In our universe, it is believed to contain roughly 1,000,000,000,000 galaxies, bringing the total number of stars to an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Also, let us refer to the scale of known planetary and solar objects. A neutron star, essentially a star to have already exhausted its internal resources after a supernova has occurred, is roughly 10,000 times bigger than a human. The Earth is approximately 1,500,000 times larger than the average human. The sun is roughly 10,000 times larger than the Earth.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 91). Kindle Edition.

And why should they? What would anyone care? How could anyone find this out? What would it mean to anyone who read that?

The largest know star, VY Canis Majoris is almost 100,000 times larger than our sun, making it 1,500,000,000,000 times larger than ourselves. I find it impossible to imagine that this universe was designed specifically for us, as this star is almost 5,000 light-years away with a circumference so great that it would take a Boeing jet 1,200 years to complete a full circle, which doesn’t allude to an intentionally created universe. I can agree it is a very daunting proposition, that we are significantly unimportant and that we may not have an absolute purpose. But to arrogantly claim that it was created for us is undeniably wrong.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 91). Kindle Edition.

There is no connection between the data and the conclusion. “We live in a big universe, therefore it wasn’t made for us to inhabit.” How does that follow? He can say that to claim it was made for us to inhabit is undeniably wrong since I do deny it as do and would several others.

But what about arguments for God? We all know where this is going.

1. Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe exists and began to exist. 3. The universe must have a cause. 4. The cause of the universe is God.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 94). Kindle Edition.

No one has ever defended the idea that “Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause.” Somehow, atheists think the argument is “Everything that exists has a cause.” To this, Edward Feser’s post is still essential. As Feser says:

Here’s the funny thing, though.  People who attack this argument never tell you where they got it from.  They never quote anyone defending it.  There’s a reason for that.  The reason is that none of the best-known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this stupid argument.  Not Plato, not Aristotle, not al-Ghazali, not Maimonides, not Aquinas, not Duns Scotus, not Leibniz, not Samuel Clarke, not Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, not Mortimer Adler, not William Lane Craig, not Richard Swinburne.  And not anyone else either, as far as I know.  (Your Pastor Bob doesn’t count.  I mean no one among prominent philosophers.)  And yet it is constantly presented, not only by popular writers but even by some professional philosophers, as if it were “the” “basic” version of the cosmological argument, and as if every other version were essentially just a variation on it.

But now let’s get back to Brucker:

What I find troubling about this is that the essence of God is often left alone, believed that God is outside the realm of creation as he has always been. This, of course, fits well within the line of reasoning held by the monotheistic individual, but if they wish to argue such a claim they must first prove that this creator exists; and if he does exist, they must also demonstrate how he can exist without the need of a first cause.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 94-95). Kindle Edition.

So in order to make an argument for the existing of God, you first have to show that God exists. To this, I’m only going to accept arguments for atheism if Brucker can first show that atheism is true.

All of which must be answered or else the cosmological argument holds little weight. There is also nothing to suggest that if the cause was a supreme being, that it, in fact, is the God of Abraham behind the conception of the universe. When I’m faced with an argument of this sort, I often attempt to stress the fact that while the first cause for matter may hold weight, there is nothing to suggest that it was any specific deity; nothing about the argument carries any defining traits of the Abrahamic deity.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 95). Kindle Edition.

Let’s go back to Feser:

People who make this claim – like, again, Dawkins in The God Delusion – show thereby that they haven’t actually read the writers they are criticizing.  They are typically relying on what other uninformed people have said about the argument, or at most relying on excerpts ripped from context and stuck into some anthology (as Aquinas’s Five Ways so often are).  Aquinas in fact devotes hundreds of pages across various works to showing that a First Cause of things would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and so on and so forth.  Other Scholastic writers and modern writers like Leibniz and Samuel Clarke also devote detailed argumentation to establishing that the First Cause would have to have the various divine attributes.

Of course, an atheist might try to rebut these various arguments.  But to pretend that they don’t exist – that is to say, to pretend, as so many do, that defenders of the cosmological argument typically make an undefended leap from “There is a First Cause” to “There is a cause of the world that is all-powerful, all-knowing, etc.” – is, once again, simply to show that one doesn’t know what one is talking about.

Also, no one who made the argument ever said it gets you to one particular religion. Maimonides, Avicenna, and Aquinas in the middle ages, the Jew, the Muslim, and the Christian, could all use the argument to establish a first cause. Then they would use other data to debate who the first cause is. What He is was not the question so much as who He is.

Now the question comes: How could energy spontaneously exist without cause for its existence? First of all, the idea of causation – as we understand it – must be erased, as Lawrence Krauss has explained that what we assume to be “logical” may not apply to the universe because the universe existed long before our brains developed the ability to decide what was logical and what was not. After years of dedication, scientists have found the evidence in our universe that suggests that the formation of energy, both negative and positive, happens without intention or guidance. All matter is consisted of positive energy as it is needed to maintain the integrity of the atoms, of which an object consists.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 96). Kindle Edition.

You gotta love it. Here we have the one saying he is championing rationality saying the universe might not be logical at its start. So God can’t be accepted if He has a logical contradiction, which is true, but if the universe has that, it’s cool. The argument doesn’t even make sense. Logic doesn’t apply until humans show up?

What a train wreck.

Next time, we’ll start looking at history.

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