There are several reasons why I’ve come to believe in Creationism and why I believe that other Christians ought be as well.
1. I believe in God.
For several reasons. I’ve never been an atheist. To my point of view, it always just required more faith to rule out the possibility of God than to believe that God was possible. I have the same problem with skepticism: How can I rule out that we can’t be sure we know anything before I at least try? And how can I know that I can never really know? Isn’t that a self-defeating proposition? Since I have NO RESPECT for agnostics [The guys who claim we can't know if there's a God. If you believe that a God is possible, it makes sense to investigate whether it's PROBABLE and, if it is, to find out what that God might expect out of you! And why are we just ruling this possibility out from the beginning? Agnosticism is lazy-mindedness parading as intelligence.] or apatheists [the guys who don't care whether God exists or not], intellectual integrity demanded that I investigate the matter. For the sake of brevity, the cosmological argument, the argument from design and the argument from Moral Law pretty much sum up my reasons for my belief in God.
a: The cosmological argument is the idea of a First Cause. The universe, as evidenced from studying Edwin Hubble’s red shifts, had a beginning. The universe we see now is an effect. The universe as a whole doesn’t explain it’s own existence; it requires an explanation for why it bothers to exist. An infinite regress of reasons is impossible, rather like a paradox, so there must be a self-sufficient independent cause to the whole universe. It’s important to note that since this First Cause would cause the universe to exist that time, universal laws, et cetera would not apply to the First Cause, which necessarily must exist independent of the universe we observe. Some people feel this a cop-out. If so, they need to tell those scientists who’re out there looking for a “grand unifying theory” or final “theory of everything” that they’re wasting their time!
b: The argument from design [the teleological argument] has been summed up famously by William Paley’s Divine Watchmaker analogy [and attacked voraciously by Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker book/argument, among others.] The basics are that if we saw a pocket watch lying on the ground [as opposed to a rock], we would have cause to presume that the watch, having all the characteristics of design, had a designer, not that it had formed from natural processes. Likewise, the universe and life in particular show evidence of design, through homology of species, universal constants, the anthropic principle [Consider how perfectly fit Earth - and the universe - is for life!], et cetera, and it is therefore probable that we should presume a Designer. Dawkins argues that the “blind, unconscious, automatic process” of Natural Selection had produced the appearnce of design, however minute and complex, so that it is sufficiently “the explanation for the existence and apparently [as opposed to actually] purposeful form of all life… It is the blind watchmaker.” [Richard Dawkins. The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), page 5 - [brackets mine])
Dawkins’ counter argument of the mere appearance of design fails for the excellent reason that it is wrong. First, natural selection is a biological agent which presupposes life. Natural selection cannot operate before it has life to evolve; therefore, it is in no way an explanation for the “apparent design” of the non-living universe: universal laws and constants, the order of rotating galaxies and systems, the order of weather patterns, geometic design in non-living matter, et cetera. Also, natural selection itself requires an explanation. It did not cause itself. Where did it come from? And what criterion are we using to determine the difference between design and only apparent design? Humans do design things. We know that when WE do it, it’s not just how we perceive things to be: no, it was actually designed. So is it merely arbitrary that we assign Nature the label of apparent design and human invention the status of actual design? So why the proposed ambivalence? The idea of design suggests a Creator. A Creator suggests that Man might be accountable to someone else.
c: Which brings me to the moral argument. There is a Moral Law that pervades humanity. As C. S. Lewis put it, men might not agree on how many wives a man ought to have, but we agree that it is wrong that a man should try to sleep with another man’s wife! By and large, man agrees that we should not lie, murder, cheat, steal or beat one another senseless. As one commentator put it, our freedom to do as we please with our fists must necessarily end at the other guy’s nose. Most people call it a conscience. We feel guilt when we do something wrong, even if no one else knows we’re wrong. It’s possible to dull or even negate the effects of conscience by contrary conditioning. Any more, society - even the Church -seems to be trying to do away with the concept of guilt, but it’s there and it’s an integral part of concience. We’ve based our civic laws on the one we know intuitively, but where did this ingrained sense of right and wrong come from? The presence of a universal Moral Law implies a Law Giver. Moral Law also implies accountability to man and possibly even God.
So there we have it: Deism bordering on theism. A God may’ve wound up the universe and designed it in minute detail, going so far as to give men free will [and all the intelligence that implies] and a conscience to keep them from using that free will to hurt each other too badly, and then went about His business to do something else. It seems more probable that He’s interested in the doings of a Creation He designed so inimately. It seems probable that we are about to discover a God who is personal.
2: I believe that Jesus Christ lived, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried and rose again.
I have catalogued some of the reasons I believe this here: Resurrection Apologetics. It is in fact the resurrection of Christ that converted me from mere deism bordering on theism to Christian theism.
3: I believe that the Bible is historically, archaeologically and supernaturally true.
The Bible has been substantiated by the archaeological record time and again. It must be really embarrassing for all of the naysayers to eat crow on such a regular basis: they claim the Bible is inaccurate because, say, no one’s ever heard of Hittites, but then we re-discover Hittites. Then we get guys claiming that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, not on dry land but during a season where the water was really shallow, yet these same experts can’t explain why the narrative states that Pharaoh, his armies and his horses were all drowned in such poor quantities of water! It’s actually pretty funny. More than one historian has commented on the geographical accuracy of Luke and Acts.
And then there’s fulfilled prophecy. Jesus himself fulfilled tons of Messianic prophesy. The chance of his fulfilling just eight of them was averaged up. The number was so big that the easiest analogy would be to fill the state of Texas several feet deep with silver dollars, mark one red, blindfold a man and tell him he may walk as long as he wishes in any direction, but when he stops, he must reach down and only pick up the red one. Steep odds! Yet, impossibly, Jesus fulfilled ALL of them, not just the eight studied! Besides Messianic passages, there are prophecies that deal with kings and history that have come to pass just as prophesied.
Because I can trust what the Bible says about the resurrection, history and prophecy, I can trust it in all that it says.
4: I believe that the Bible accurately describes the world. The Fall, the sin nature of man, and its contrast with a creature enobled, being made in the image of God with a conscience, God’s law written on our hearts, to do and judge what is right is evidentially evident in the world we live in and in the pages of history. Man is capable of great evil but also great nobility. This picture of man is described in tthe Bible. Also, Christianity is a reality-based religion. It does not deny evil or suffering or promise its adherents unrealistic reprieve from calamity. Jesus stated, “In this world you will have trouble, but I give you my peace.” The Bible’s insistence of the eternality of the human soul speaks of the worth of the individual. I could go on. Suffice it to say that the Bible has proven to be experientially accurate in what it predicts about the world and human nature. I am confident then that I am not following some unrealistic philosophy like Christian Science or Buddhism with their denial of the reality of suffering.
5: As a result of the Bible’s evidenced reliability, I am a fundamentalist.
A fundamentalist, in historical context, is someone who believes we ought to take the Bible literally. I believe this, though one would be a fool not to realize that the Bible makes use of figurative speech and metaphor, as we do in our everyday lives. We say that the sun rises and sets when it does no such thing! It appears to. We say it’s raining cats and dogs when it’s raining condensed water vapor. The Bible includes similar figures of speech. We estimate and round numbers. The Bible makes use of this same tool in places. We also may give different yet all truthful factual accounts of the same events. We may omit a detail or add one [perhaps we don't mention there was a passenger in the vehicle, or we mention the driver's name was Bob when no one else did, or we refer to Bob as Robert or by his nickname Squirrelly], but the difference in these views of the incident do not make the witnesses liars unless they make truly contradictory statements like “There was only Bob” when Bob had a passenger. A literal reading of the Bible, you see, isn’t necessarily an unreasonable one.
Of course, this means that I believe in miracles. Why? Well [follow me closely here, because this is reeeeeally difficult to grasp], it seems rather inconsistent to believe in the miracle of the resurrection and preclude all other miracles. It seems hypocritical to believe in a supernatural God and then to exclude supernatural acts recorded in the Bible, explaining them away as ignorance or allegory. Do Christians no longer THINK out the implications of believing the resurrection?
We are then to believe in the death and resurrection of Christ for our eternal salvation, but the rest of it [or at least the beginning, which also relates in the verses concerning Man's Fall our need for salvation and predicts the Redeemer, which journey to remdeption forms the basis of the entire Biblical account], gleaned from the self-same sourcebook, is obviously bunk, right? That’s consistent. The problem is that we accomodate the disputers of this age because they make truth claims in the name of science. And we don’t want to be thought of as ignorant. And we forget that science comes with philosophical baggage, even if it isn’t examined. Scientists who repudiate the idea of miracles are saying that the resurrection never happened, despite the evidence, because that’s just not what good scientists believe.
Scientists believe in what it empirically testable and proveable, right? Which brings up the question of whether they would ever recognize a miracle if they saw one. Seriously. Humans have this tendency to sort everything through their bias filter. If what they see agrees with what they already suppose to be true, they accept it. If it doesn’t, they throw it out, assuming that something must be wrong with their methodology or they got a bad specimen or whatever. It’s true of all of us. It’s efficient, but it can get in the way of unbiased observation. We try to nullify the effects of this bias filtering as best we can, but it’s impossible to be rid of completely: it’s how we think and process new information. So if a scientist sees a miracle, what does he do with it? He throws it out as an anamoly and moves on. Besides which, by definition miracles are the acceptions to the rules. Scientists test things to find rules. There is no way to test for divine intervention. Since God doesn’t subject himself to scientific verification, the purely naturalistic scientist is in a quandry. He has to rule out God and the supernatural from the start because the scientific method can never have anything to say about these things. The Christian must reasonably allow that the supernatural is valid but outside the realm of empirical science. On the other hand, while we can’t see and test God, we can see and test the effects of what God has done, those things which have left His fingerprint on His Creation. Much as we can’t see nor test the wind, but we can see and test the effects of the wind. The purely naturalistic scientist’s hands are tied, but the scientist who allows for both the natural AND the supernatural can test these things.
Take cosmology. Scientific measurements of space have led to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning, what some call a Big Bang. Naturalistic scientists are faced with a quandry. What came before the beginning? In order to escape a First Cause, they have speculated about imaginary time, multiverses no one can see, even the idea that aliens in another universe created us as a science experiment whose success and results they could never verify [fruitless exercise!]. Creationists are comfortable because their view that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” was not established in order to synctretize or force a harmony between science and the Scriptures. Our theology is fixed. Science is the ever-ammending enterprise. Astronomer Robert Jastrow has put it famously: ”For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” [Robert Jastrow. God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), page 107]
Consistently, this is how the drama is played out: Theology has its fixed claims. Science comes up with a claim that seems to contradict theology’s claims. Some try to find ways to force an agreement between the two. Naturalistic science scorns both theology and attempts at syncretism and touts the supremacy of science. Theology has its fixed claims. A new discovery or paradigm leads to a new revelation and uh-oh it looks like theology was right all along. Theology has its fixed claims. Science comes up with a new, seemingly contradictory claim…
Now, scientists don’t [all] do this to try to tear down religion. They do it because there is a difference in how they go about their search for the truth. Theologians believe there is a God and that therefore there is an order to the universe and that something about God may be known through the Bible and through nature. Theologians search for why truth is true. Scientists try to discover truth. They too believe the universe is ordered [a concept borrowed from theologians] and that the rules of the universe can be known [even though their intelligence is a chance mishap of blind, accidental processes and there's really no reason after all why they should trust that their intelligence is dependable]. Scientist try to discover truth independently of divine revelation. In doing so, they have limited the means of their search to reason and what is empirically [naturally] observable alone. In limiting their search thus, they have eliminated the possibility that the final answer will be supernatural. It follows that if truth turns out to be supernatural [that is, God], they have doomed themselves to failure from the ouset due to a too narrow methodology. Ever learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth….
The problem is that Christians inconsistently try to explain away the Bible and syncretize it with the latest fad of science. Dinesh D’Souza makes a statement that sums up my view of the Bible in regards to science: “I am not citing the Bible to prove that God created the universe. I am citing it to show that the biblical account of how the universe was created is substantially correct… What it [says] about creation - about the fact of creation and about the order of creation - turns out to be accurate.” [Dinesh D'Souza. What's So Great About Christianity? (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing Inc., 2007), page 124.] The irony, with respect to Mr. D’Souza is that he doesn’t take the Bible literally when it says that God created in 6 days. He explains it away as best he can as requiring a figurative interpretation claiming that “most traditional Christians have no problem with a creation account that extends over millions, even billions of years.” [D'Souza, page 122] Elsewhere he carefully distances himself from fire-breathing fundamentalists like myself. He is capitulating to “science, falsely so called,” when it contradicts the Scriptures instead of saying, “No, I believe what it says because it also says that I am literally saved by the shed blood of Christ Jesus, who literally died, was buried and rose again bodily and will literally return one day, and either the Book is bunk and I’m deceived or the Bible Stands and I’m saved.” Why? Does he think Christendom will fall if we do not bend to what the world supposes [for now] to be true? Instead, he ought to stand by his Bible and remember that it is God-breathed and inspired and that it is not a collection of cleverly-devised fables. He ought to stand by his Bible because our Lord validated the OT record of Adam & Eve and of Jonah, quoted the Scriptures as truth and declared, “Sanctify them by Thy Truth; Thy Word is Truth!” He ought to stand by his Bible as tell them, simply, that they are wrong and one day, if God allows, they will see the truth of it, for His Word stands secure. He ought to proclaim, no matter their scorn or derision, as Martin Luther did, “Here I stand; I can do no other!”
On an anticlimactic note, I cannot conceive of a fundamentalist who is not also a Creationist, simply because the literal, face value interpretation I have described here could faithfully come to no other conclusion about the Genesis account.
–Sirius Knott
17 responses so far ↓
bobx2x2 // March 17, 2008 at 9:16 am
“I have NO RESPECT for agnostics” Neither do I. I’m an atheist and I have no respect for wishy-washy agnostics.
I also don’t have much respect for theists. They invoke a designer, which is really a sky fairy who can perform magic tricks, because that’s the easy solution. Invoking a god (magic) is an excuse to not think. Invoking magic makes human progress come to a complete stop. This is why scientists never invoke magic. If they chose this lazy excuse to not think, they would never accomplish anything.
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” — Charles Darwin
bobx2x2 // March 17, 2008 at 9:30 am
“the eternality of the human soul” is wishful thinking. There’s not a shred of evidence for a soul, a heaven, or a hell. It’s all wild guessing. People believe in heaven only because they wish it was true. They are being greedy to wish for a second life. They should be grateful they have one life. Some people believe in heaven because they are too cowardly to accept reality. They are willing to believe any nonsense, no matter how insane it is, to avoid admitting they are nothing after they die.
Heaven is a very harmful belief. People waste the only life they have because they believe they get a second life forever. Heaven also made the 9/11 attacks possible. The life after death myth is not worth all the trouble it has caused. I wish religious people would grow up, educate themselves, and face facts, instead of wasting their lives believing in childish dangerous supernatural nonsense.
brooksrobinson // March 17, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Sirius I enjoyed your posts, it was written very well, like a professional. What do you do for a living? haha… I like your organization, mine tends to be a hodgepodge, with random posts. I need to sit down and learn how to group things together or something. I do think though that Agnostics are more mindful then Athiests just becuase they still think theres that possibility. Athiests without ever traveling this massive universe, state there belief as fact. I do agree though that Agnostics are lazy cause they usually refuse to search for God.
Bobx2×2: Face what facts? Prove to me there is no heaven. Why do you stereotype when you say, “religious people need to grow up… educate themselves,” I’ve heard many times that when one sterotypes, they are ignorant (i.e, during the civil rights movement), they lack understanding of which they do not know, and clump it with existing schema’s that they’ve created from past experience. Yes I’d say there are uneducated “religious people” out there, but just the same there are uneducated “unreligious people” out there as well. Science can only take you so far, science changes constantly as new discoveries are made with increasing technology(i.e. saturated fats were bad for you a few years ago, now its trans fat that kills you).
Sirius // March 17, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Hi Bob,
You’ve brought up a few objections, I see.
You’ve misunderstood [perhaps on purpose] my comment about the eternality of the human soul. I did not say that I had proven the eternality of the human soul. I said that what the Bible says about the soul and its described eternality compliments [accurately describes] what we intuitively know about the worth of the individual man. If you believe that individual men have no individual worth then I must point out the hypocrisy of your post: if the individual has no intrinsic worth then neither does his opinions, counting yours.
Now the idea that heaven is a harmful belief is pure balderdash. You’ve painted this canvas black, ignoring where color existed. Those who believe in eternal life in Heaven are grateful for this life. But we see the bigger picture. And while this has lead to atrocities such as the 9/11 terrorist attack, it also leads to the Mother Teresas, hospitals [a Christian invention], orphanages [same source] and charities of all sorts. It led to the abolition of slavery.
You may continue to see only half the picture if you like, but you can hardly say that you “accept reality” if you do.
Now, I should say that while I have no respect for skeptics, agnostics and apatheists, I only have a little respect for atheists. That means “not much.” In fact, I’ve come to agree with Scripture that only the fool says in his heart, There is no God. Now I tend to cut atheists some slack as they may either be willfully ignorant or merely uninformed.
If the idea of a Designer is a farce for lack of evidence, evolution is equally a farce. Darwin did not completely rule out the idea of God. In fact, stated that it would be fair to describe him as a deist.
You state we only believe in superstitions, but how will you go about making your case? Will your objections apply equally to evolution?
be honest,
Sirius Knott
Sirius // March 17, 2008 at 5:48 pm
brooksrobinson,
With due respect, I’ve kept my occupation and my real name a secret quite on purpose. The idea was to let the arguments unfold without the bias inherent in labels. Unfortunately, over time it became obvious that I could proceed with my arguments only so far if I didn’t give away something.
Let me ask you a question: Would you find me more credible if I were a physicist, a theologian or a goat-herder?
Bias [I say this word candidly not as accusation]will supply its answer.
The Bible records one of the prophets as being interrogated as to his education and authority. His answer was that he was a goat-herder but he had received a word from the Lord.
I am not literally a goat-herder, but what if I were it’s equivalent? Would you then judge me by the weight of my arguments or by my occupation and [presumed] level of education? If I were a physicist, would you presume my logic and rhetoric to have authority? Would you take it uncritically? What about a theologian? Or a country preacher? Or a doctor? I suppose were I lawyer one could never be sure if I told the truth! [joke. lawyers need not respond]
As for my powers of organization, I write fiction on the side. In doing that, I create entire worlds. Which requires much organization. God has given me a great gift. My wife only wishes I would use it to organize our great whopping mounds of books!
I’ve never analyzed how I organize things. I shall have to think on it, with all respect to the Golden Goose and the gift horse. I do tend to categorize things. perhaps you should make a list of your posts and organize pages by subject. Essentially that’s what I did for the blog. My prose is organized by the grace God gave me.
But I shall think on it….
And in regards to atheists: like I told Bob, I only have respect for those atheists who are ignorant but not willfully so. A great many do not think for themselves. They just parrrot Dawkins or harris or the like. Sadly, theism is afflicted with this self-same lack of individual thought.
A pleasure as always,
Sirius Knott
brooksrobinson // March 17, 2008 at 8:26 pm
No it wouldn’t hold any weight I was just going to use you as a source :-p… for some reason saying “Dr. Sirius Knotts” holds more weight in arguments (I don’t hold to this).
bobx2x2 // March 18, 2008 at 6:53 am
brooksrobinson: “Science can only take you so far,”
Why do you think there’s some limit to scientific progress?
“science changes constantly as new discoveries are made with increasing technology”
Right? So what? Of course ideas change when new discoveries require old ideas to be thrown out or modified. That’s progress. The flexibility of science is why science is many times better than the unchanging dogmas of religion.
“Prove to me there is no heaven.”
Why should I have to disprove somebody else’s fantasies? Proof is not necessary. Simple common sense should rule out the heaven idea because no idea could be more crazy. Since it’s your fantasy, not mine, you need to provide evidence for it. You can’t make up some crazy story and then expect somebody else to disprove it. People believe in heaven only because they wish it was true. That’s all they have, their wishful thinking. Heaven is a children’s story. Adults who believe it are the kind of people who are afraid of the dark.
When I suggested religious people should educate themselves, I was talking about science education. It’s disgraceful there are still people who deny the basic facts of evolution. I noticed all of these flat-earthers are religious.
bobx2x2 // March 18, 2008 at 7:17 am
Sirius: “If you believe that individual men have no individual worth…”
Everyone is worth something when they’re alive. After they drop dead they are nothing more than a decomposing animal.
If I understood you correctly, you implied that the belief in heaven led to the abolition of slavery. I don’t get that logic at all.
“If the idea of a Designer is a farce for lack of evidence, evolution is equally a farce. Darwin did not completely rule out the idea of God. In fact, stated that it would be fair to describe him as a deist.”
I suggest you should not be so sure about what Darwin believed in. It’s impossible to read another person’s mind, especially when that person is dead.
Designers and gods are nothing more than magicians. Magic is a childish idea, and of course there could never be any evidence for it.
Evolution has so much evidence that biologists are certain it’s a fact. The people who deny the facts of evolution are not able to cross some religious boundary, so they refuse to accept the evidence for it, and they refuse to study the evidence.
“The idea of design suggests a Creator. A Creator suggests that Man might be accountable to someone else.”
My translation: “The idea of magic suggests a Magic Man. A Magic Man suggests that Man might be accountable to a Magic Man.”
I don’t believe in magic, and I feel sorry for people who think they are accountable to a magic man. That sounds like slavery to me. How horrible for people to waste their entire lives believing they are slaves of an imaginary creature.
Sirius // March 18, 2008 at 11:40 am
bob,
Your translation is in error. Have you condsidered hiring a translator that makes sense?
You’ve attempted to side-step the argument with argumentum ad absurdum. You’re trying to say that my logic flawed; that the idea of design does not suggest a Creator [Designer] any more than the idea of magic suggests a Magic Man. [Does your Magic Man know the Muffin Man? He lives on Drury Lane.] You’ve latched onto the semantical difference between “design” and “the idea of design.” You poor sap. You thought you were doing so well.
We’re discussing actual design here, not the idea of design. I’m sorry if my poor choice of words has mislead you.
Let me give it to you again, for clarity’s sake: The design observed in the universe suggests a Designer, or as many would term it, a Creator. The concept of a Creator comes with implications of possible ownership and accountability on the part of the created. Why? Because things are usually designed FOR A PURPOSE, be it functional or aesthetic. S we must ask: What were we designed for? What does the Designer expect of us? Following me, bob?
Now, put your idiot Magic/Straw Man back in your Dawkins Box-O-Flying-Spaghetti-Monsters and try to use your brain this time.
Onward.
The belief in Heaven is a belief in eternal rewards for what we do on this Earth. Those crazy religious folk who believe in such things, if you’ll take the time to read your history books, fought for the abolition of slavery [btw, bob, slavery involves the suppression of freedom; God has granted us the free will to serve him or damn ourselves] born of Christian zeal. One of the motivations for their efforts was the belief that they should endure whatever they had to in this life for the greater glory of God [they saw doing away with slavery as something God would want] and for the sake of postmortem rewards. Do I have to spell everything out for you, bob?
I’m not reading Darwin’s mind when I say that he described himself as a deist. I’m quoting him. You might also actually read The Origin of the Species. I have. I enjoy science fiction. You’ll find quite a few unsettling [for diehard atheists] references to God and inferences to his deism throughout the book.
Let me ask you a question: How is a man alive
have worth? What gives him, if he’s really just a cosmic accident, an evolutionary rung on the ladder that will one day be replaced, intrinsic worth? Don’t misunderstand me. By worth, I am not refering to being useful. I’m talking about intrinsic worth, the sanctity of human life just because it is. Evolution doesn’t teach this. So why, on what basis would you say that the individual has intrinsic worth? You may be in over your head, bob.
Not all biologists are sure evolution is a fact. Many have grave doubts about the theory. There are flaws. Gould tries to plug the holes with punk eek. Dawkins denies the elephant in the living room like the good atheist fundamentalist he is. But if you want to go on believing what the atheist ghetto tells you, OK… Does an argument ad populum make something true? Just because a majority believe a thing, even so-called experts, does it make it true? Does calling something a fact make it a fact? You might like to know [or you might prefer your insulated world] that a good portion of the biologists [and scientists from others branches] who have grave doubts about evolution aren’t religious. They’re atheists and agnostics. They’re just more honest than their dogmatic fellows.
Onward.
You made some comments to brooksrobinson:
Science does have limits. Here’s one: science can only tell us something about what’s naturally observable. As a result, scientists can guess and hypothesize about our origins [life, the universe, intelligence, love], but they can’t really can’t ever prove anything [unless they build a friggin time machine]. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle also places a limitation on science. It turns out we can describe what usually happens. If it usually happens with nearly impossible frequency, we call it a law. But there’s always the possibility that something ELSE will happen instead. Science can only describe what it can observe and test. A scientist can tell us what happens chemically and biologically, perhaps even electrically, when we get mad or fall in love, but it can’t always predict why. There are many limits to science. Here’s another: Do you feel there is a purpose for your existence here on Earth? Why? Science can’t tell you. Well,wait, it’s that survival of the fittest thing, right? If that’s so, I feel sorry for you. You see, in terms of fitness, religious numbers are growing worldwide. God is not dead. Atheism isn’t doing too hot, despite predictions to the contrary and despite that their tiny minority almost exclusively populate our universities where they’ve attempted to redicule religion out of existence. Atheists tend to be suicidal while the majority of religious folk actually seem to enjoy their lives - even though they’re looking forward to the next one! If Darwin’s right, atheists are an endangered species!
Fortunately, science changes constantly, meaning it’s been wrong before, and before that, and before that, too, and…. [you get the idea], so maybe science will say Darwin was wrong someday, too.
Here’s a factoid: Most people believe in heaven. YOU are in the minority of the people who do not. You have provided no proof that we’re wrong. You’ve appealed to common sense, but why isn’t the majority’s working. [Hey! That's an argumentum ad populum! Relax. I'll get to that.] We could , for the sake of argument, decide as Mark Twain did that common sense ain’t.
Now, I’m not afraid of the dark… and I still believe in heaven. I’m not the type of person who’s afraid of the dark and neither have most of the guys I’ve known or read of historically. In fact, some of these heaven-believing nuts actually invented the scientific method and a whole host of other sensible things. So we’re not just superstitious flakes, so why the prevalence of this belief?
Here’s a hint: We believe in God. I’ve already given you my reasons for this belief. It is a reasonable faith.
You believe there is no God. You believe this is a reasonable faith. But based on what?
be honest,
Sirius Knott
brooksrobinson // March 18, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Bob:
“Right? So what? Of course ideas change when new discoveries require old ideas to be thrown out or modified. That’s progress. The flexibility of science is why science is many times better than the unchanging dogmas of religion.”
The reason of my pointing out that science changes is this… Why would I put so much faith in science when 10yrs from now, all that I think I know in science could be completely false and old. All your dogmas on evolution and science that you hold as fact and as your religion, are held to this scientific standard, that it could possibly change. What will happen if this theory does not progress, (just like it hasn’t in the last 100+ years), your religion hinges on science, a changing study. Where as in Christianity, if by some miracle (since the probability of evolution is a miracle), evolution is true, this does not prove God doesn’t exist, nor Christianity.
“Why should I have to disprove somebody else’s fantasies? Proof is not necessary. Simple common sense should rule out the heaven idea because no idea could be more crazy”
The burden of proof is on you since you note this as your belief. Your belief that there is no heaven must be backed up. I can back up my proof through a series of logical proofs, that would ultimately lead up to a proof of heaven.
What Creationists think gives an argument worth « Notes from Evil Bender // March 22, 2008 at 7:52 pm
[...] Sirius has taken the argument to a fun new conclusion, and one that is unintentionally telling. He writes If you believe that individual men have no individual worth then I must point out the hypocrisy of [...]
Sirius // March 23, 2008 at 4:04 am
Just in case Evil Bender erases my response to his straw man, here it is:
Wow. Looks like you think that your opinion has more worth than mine….
You’ve missed the point, which is par for the course where you’re concerned. Perhaps my wording could have been clearer.
I shall be happy to elucidate.
My ideas and your ideas, if creationism is truth, have potential worth [not intrinsic worth, so feel free to burn that straw man and thatch together a new one.]. The potential worth of our ideas, from, the theist perspective, are based in no small part on the fact that our minds were designed to operate rationally.
Yes, designed. We can test whether this is so by attempting to order the observable world in a rational manner. We observe that we exist for we could hardly deny our existence if we weren’t around to do so. This is the law of noncontradiction. We observe that we exist in a world over which we have little control, which is largely inflicted upon us, so we know it exists independently of ourselves. Others share this world. Their experience testifies to the same, namely, that universal laws and forces regulate the world we inhabit. We go from there, categorizing, hypothesizing, and reasoning until we come to the conclusion that order is present in the very fabric of our world. Order does not come from disorder. We may observe from human experience that information and intervention is required to order and organize. A Rational Mind is necessary to order the universe, someone to set the constants, program the laws, set in motion the forces: A First Cause.
Now, if I’ve lost you at this point, it may be because you don’t really buy things like cause and effect, reason or scientifically proven universal laws and constants; in short, in the presence of order in the universe. I would caution you on how you might answer me here, for I will invariably ask you where we got all of this precious information required to order and regulate the observable universe. I would even have to demand that you explain to me exactly how natural selection [the working dynamic behind evolution] came to be and how it came to be that such a structure came to work in the manner that it does. Where did the information come from? You see, you can’t just CLAIM a thing is true: you must justify your claim. If you say that this observed irreducible complexity can be explained by natural processes you have to explain how and you have to explain how that process came to be.
Now because Creationism and a rational look at the observable universe infers a Designer, I can trust that my intellect is, in fact, reliable. I can trust that my logic is not faulty. I can trust my conclusions to a large degree, making allowances for the possibility that I may have come to my conclusions based on misinformation, bias, false data, false assumptions, et cetera.
Which means that not all ideas are equal. Some, in the end, are actually worthless.
Let’s compare my worldview to the evolutionary worldview:
Oh. You can’t really comment on the origin of the universe. Natural selection only applies to biology. Since we can’t really say it applies to abiological chemistry either, we can’t really apply it to the question of how life sprang forth from nonlife either. I mention this because some evolutionists actually forget this key limitation to natural selection; which also limits the explanations evolutionary theory can offer us.
But OK, you believe that life evolved as a freak accident and somehow propogated, mutated and changed into various progressive species until we came to the current pinnacle of evolution: the housecat, who uses humanity for slave labor. No, that’s right: it’s man. Man somehow also developed his reason by these blind, accidental processes which is how he kknows the universe was a great big accident, et cetera. Which leads to the inevitable question: How can you know that your reason is reliable if its essentially an evolutionary accident? While you’re thinking about that: If it’s all pointless, meaningless and heading nowhere, why do you bother arguing at all? And evolution at its core does say this: humanity has no purpose. Meaning is a false construct that we’ve erected to get us through the night. There’s no point in our existence. We might have worth to someone, but it’s artifice, chemical reactions to our environment. The only purposes that evolutionists have been able to propose are procreation [continuing the species] and survival of the species. The individual has no intrinsic worth. The individual exists for the benefit of the species.
So how can the ideas of the individual who has no intrinsic worth, but only relative worth be said to have any worth? How do we test the worth of these ideas if our reason and intellect came about by random processes and we can’t really say why they should be reliable?
Fortunately, your worldview takes less sense and more faith than mine. You see, atheism has to prove a negative: you have to prove that absolutely everything has a purely natural explanation. If God exists, your methodology is flawed and you are doomed at the outset for excluding all possibility of the supernatural.
– Sirius Knott
MortifiedPenguin // April 25, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Sirius,
Creationism doesn’t work because it assumes that the infinite complexities of nature can only be made by some higher power. I believe this is flawed as quite simply, natural processes are highly inefficient. Surely you don’t mean to suggest that God is wasteful?
Secondly, you provide no evidence that God the Bible character actually exists, just that there is A god. By your own argument, I would be just as well off believing in Islam, Shinto, Hinduism or even Scientology!
Thirdly, if God created everything, why is Nature (and, by association, God) so cruel? Why is autism there, an alternate neural configuration that unfortunatly leaves people unable to communicate in extreme cases? In this light, God looks less benevolent and more like a kid with a magnifiying glass torching ants for fun.
Forth, the Bible has been used to justify everything, from fascism to apartheid. Just because you can point at some obscurely-worded passage and say “Hey, that happened!” DOESN’T MEAN IT WAS ACTUAL PROPHESY.
I know you’re just going to read this and shoot my two cents’ worth full of holes.
But hey, what do I care?
brooksrobinson // April 27, 2008 at 1:52 am
Penguin:
“Creationism doesn’t work because it assumes that the infinite complexities of nature can only be made by some higher power.”
This is philosophically sound, because their can be no infinite regress. Let me explain:
1.Everything that has come into being must have a cause.
2.The Universe came into being.
3. Therefore there is a cause
Creationist just apply that cause to God. Their is plenty of evidences if you look at the extreme order of the Universe and life on earth (which I don’t have time to get into).
“By your own argument, I would be just as well off believing in Islam, Shinto, Hinduism or even Scientology!”
When Creationists refer to God, we mean the definition in which philosophy prescribed to God, that is ,the greatest most possible being to be conceived. The gods of those religions (minus Islam and Scientology) are human like and go along with idol worship, or in the Hindu case, the many varying aspects of the God idea and sometimes a pantheistic idea. As far as Scientology who knows what they believe haha.
“Thirdly, if God created everything, why is Nature (and, by association, God) so cruel?”
Because man’s original sin has caused creation to become imperfect and “cruel.”
“Forth, the Bible has been used to justify everything, from fascism to apartheid”
Just because someone uses it in that light does not mean they used it in the correct fashion. To use your quote “Just because you can point at some obscurely-worded passage and say “Hey, that happened!” DOESN’T MEAN IT WAS ACTUAL PROPHESY.” In the same fashion people have used the Bible to say what they want it to say. Read Thomas Pain he refutes slavery using the Bible, despite him not believing in the Bible.
“Just because you can point at some obscurely-worded passage and say “Hey, that happened!” DOESN’T MEAN IT WAS ACTUAL PROPHESY.”
I challenge you to read those prophecies, many are in very plain text and not so obscure.
brooksrobinson // April 27, 2008 at 1:53 am
“This is philosophically sound,”
By this I mean God creating.
Sirius // April 27, 2008 at 3:19 am
MortifiedPenguin,
I’m not going to shoot your two cents worth full of holes. I’m just going to point out that it IS full of holes and where they are.
First and third, since these ojections have the same answer, you have failed to take into account the effects/results of the Fall. This was something I commented upon in my fourth reason for being a Creationist.
Suffering and the imperfections in nature are effects; the cause is sin. When Adam sinned, the world was cursed. God is separate from nature, or else He would be accursed along with it. Imperfection and entropy entered His perfect creation. Why? Because free will if it is truly free includes the ability to reject God’s will, but rejecting [disobeying] God’s will in His world has consequences in that you put yourself out of synch with perfection. Like a king bringing his kingdom to ruin, mankind and the world has fallen under judgment in Adam’s sin. We’ve of course added a few of our own along the way.
A brief aside: I have two special needs kids. You may want to read another post I’ve written before you go much further on this particular subject: http://siriusknotts.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/wrestling-with-god/
Second, well, MY second reason states that I moved beyond deism to Christian theism due to the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. I also gave a link to a post as to why I believe this.
Fourth, my third reason for being a Creationist covers prophecy. I aplogize for not giving you the specific list, but rather the impossible odds, but we’re not speaking of some obscurely worded passage like horoscopes proffer.
The prophecies in question were:
1. Born at Bethlehem [Micah 5:2]
2. Preceded by a Messenger [Isaiah 40:3 & Malachi 3:1] - fulfilled in John the Baptist
3. Enters Jerusalem on a Donkey’s Colt [Zechariah 9:9]
4. Betrayed by a Friend [Psalm 41:9 & 55:12-14]
5. Sold for 30 Pieces of Silver [Zechariah 11:12]
6. Money to be Thrown in God’s House and the Price Given for a Potter’s Field [Zechariah 11:13]
7. Silent Before His Accusers [Isaiah 53:7]
8. Hands and Feet Pierced and Crucified with Thieves [Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10 & Isaiah 53:12]
These eight alone comprise the odds given, yet Jesus fulfilled all 61 prophecies and all of their ramifications.
Furthermore, we note that some of these things were beyond his control:
1. His lineage
2. His birthplace
3. His manner of birth [virgin birth - Isaiah 7:14]
4. His betrayal
5. His manner of death - Psalm 22:16
6. People’s reactions [mockery, spitting, staring, etc]
7. Piercing but not breaking his bones
8. Burial, especially in a rich man’s tomb after being condemned as a criminal.
And these are just the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. There are other prophecies as well dealing with therise and fall of specific cities and nations which were fulfilled.
Your last point about how Christianity has been used to justify attrocities is a red herring. Atheism, Buddhism, politics and what-have-you have all been used for the same. Kindly read here for more on this subject of gross hypocrisy: http://siriusknotts.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/hypocrisy-as-apologetic/
Looking over your response, it does seem that you didn’t really read what I’ve written. Most of your points were answered in the main post itself. Why then did you bother to comment upon that which you did not bother to read?
I fear you may be looking for excuses to disbelieve. Many people prop up a volitional objection to Christianity with a hasty wall of excuses and reasons. Put another way, some people have enough evidence, they just don’t want to believe.
I pray this is not the case for you.
I find it fascinating that my personal reasons for being a Creationist have become fodder for so many objectors. I pray some good may come of it.
–Sirius Knott
CyberSafety First // June 1, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I am a Creationist as well.
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