By Timothy Fox

The problem of evil (pain or suffering) is probably the number one argument against the existence of God. While it is definitely not a problem that can be answered quickly and simply, I’d like to offer some short, rapid-fire responses that can be used to begin a deeper discussion:

Free will – Freedom is a great good that God has granted us. But God can’t give us free will and then forbid us from using it. He can’t give us commands and force us to obey them. And when we disobey God, we – and others – get hurt…

Consequences – Bad decisions often have bad consequences. If there were no consequences for our wrong choices, what do any of our choices matter?

Learning from experience – When we face evil or experience the suffering of others, we (should!) learn from it. Evil teaches us what not to do and should inspire us to stop it.

God is king – God is not a beat cop or a superhero. God is King of the universe. A king makes commands and delegates authority to others. He is not a soldier; he commands soldiers. God has authorized parents to guide and protect their families. He has authorized rulers to promote good and punish evil (Rom. 13). God does not micromanage the universe, and neither is he a helicopter parent. Similarly, …

Minimal interference – What if God simply wants us to make the best of this world – problems and all – with minimal interference? Maybe he wants us to grow and to learn, to solve our own problems.

Inspiration – People who overcome great obstacles are an inspiration to others. The greater the pain, suffering, and other hardships, the greater the inspiration.

Priorities – Tragedy reminds us that life is short, fragile, and should not be wasted. It teaches us to pursue what really matters in life. Similarly, …

Life-altering events – There have been major events that have altered human history, such as the Holocaust and terror attacks of 9/11. Likewise, there are events that impact our individual lives and can steer them into a different direction. Experiencing an act of evil may not result directly in a “greater good,” but it can simply shift the trajectory of our lives and result in a greater end.

Evil chases us to God – What if someone had a perfectly pain-free life but never came to faith in Christ? Instead, what if someone experienced a great evil that led him or her to turn to God for strength? If knowing God is the greatest possible good, then a life with great pain and suffering that leads us to God is infinitely better than a pain-free life in which we never come to faith in Jesus.

Suffering binds us together – Suffering brings us to God, and it also draws us to each other. When friends and family suffer, we learn to lean on each other for strength and help. We develop love and compassion. Suffering can create a community that would not have otherwise existed.

Perspective – We experience evil from the “bottom-up.” We witness it firsthand and don’t understand it, causing us to question the existence of a good God. But we need to view evil – and everything else in life – from the “top-down.” Everything has a purpose. All of our actions are connected. We don’t have a God’s-eye view of reality. God does

When God prevents evil, we still complain – The great flood. The destruction of the Canaanites. The Bible gives accounts of God punishing the wicked and preventing further evil, and yet skeptics complain that God acted immorally. So no matter what God does or doesn’t do, some people are going to be unhappy.

Unknown evil – The previous point refers to evil; we know that God has stopped. But what about the evil that God has prevented without us even knowing? It’s possible that God has prevented far more evil than he has permitted, and only as much evil necessary to bring about the greatest amount of good.

Evil awakens our consciences – Because of sin, our moral compasses are misaligned. We believe some evils are good and are even apathetic towards evil. Great instances of evil may jolt our consciences awake, or snap them back into alignment.

Soul-building – Pain, and suffering strengthens us and builds our souls (Rom. 5:3-4, 2 Cor. 4:17). We develop virtues such as patience and determination and gain compassion towards others who suffer. Our suffering molds us into citizens worthy of the Kingdom of God. Remember, the purpose of life is not happiness but holiness.

Fallen world – Living in a fallen world, we should expect pain and suffering. Suffering reminds us that things are not the way they ought to be and to hope for a world in which there is no pain or suffering…

Heaven – Once we reach heaven, all of our sufferings, no matter how great it may be here on earth, will be a distant memory. There will be no sadness or pain there, and perhaps our past sufferings on earth will help us to appreciate heaven all the more.

Jesus – God did not sit idly by and watch us suffer from a distance. God entered into history and lived among us. He also suffered and died for us. Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of evil.

These are some rapid-fire responses to the problem of evil. Remember, they are not exhaustive, but are simply starting points for deeper discussions. Maybe you can think of more responses yourself, or you can use the ones here to reflect on the pain and suffering you or your loved ones have faced. And for greater study, I highly recommend The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis and Why Does God Allow Evil? by Clay Jones.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Z03V2k

By Bob Perry

In classical thinking, saying that something is beautiful is not a matter of subjective opinion. It’s a way to identify an objective feature of the world. We don’t construct beauty; we discover it. And we try to mimic it. A lot of ink has gone to a paper discussing this view when it comes to truth and goodness. In fact, Christians make the case that truth and goodness are grounded in the character of God. But there’s more to the story. The ancient philosophers who talked about those also included a third feature with them. They called it beauty. For some reason, we don’t talk the same way about beauty anymore. But don’t be confused. Beauty is in the same category. Classical thinkers have always linked truth, goodness, and beauty together as interdependent, objective features of the world.

The Ancient Idea of Beauty

The ancient Greek philosophers saw beauty in objects that displayed symmetry, order, balance, unity, and proportion. In fact, the Greek word we translated into “beauty” was hora. This is the root from which we have derived the word hour. That’s because beauty includes a sense of timing. It takes into account what we know about the purpose for which the object exists.

Think of a flower. The ancients saw beauty not only in the symmetry of the flower’s petals or the vivid colors it displayed. They also recognized that these properties became most prominent when the flower reached its prime – when it bloomed. In the same way, fruit was most beautiful when it ripened. A mature woman was beautiful – and a young girl was beautiful – each in a way that fulfilled their purpose for that stage of their being. There was no beauty in an older woman trying to look younger than she really was. Nor was it beautiful when a young woman tried to look older than she should.

In other words, the characteristics that made something beautiful were built into the object one was observing. Beauty was dependent on an object’s nature and purpose.

It had nothing to do with an observer’s opinion of it.

Recognizing Beauty

design in a Chambered Nautilus Shell
Photo by Pixabay

Scientists uncover evidence of this kind of beauty everywhere in nature. We see it in “eerie proportional coincidences” like the “Golden Number,” Phi (1.618), and the “Golden Triangle” derived from it. The ratio shows up in commonly-accepted shapes of rectangles used to frame pictures and in the triangle-faced sides of the Great Pyramids. Humans design things using these proportions because they make them look pleasing to the eye. The mathematician Fibonacci derived his infamous Fibonacci Sequence from it.

But this ratio also shows up in nature all on its own. The radius of a spiraling Chambered Nautilus shell expands in relation to it. The similarly appealing geometry of flower petals — and the radiating pattern of combs in a honey bee hive — grow by the same proportions. These kinds of forms and patterns appear so often in nature; we use them to our benefit … and for our pleasure.

Leveraging Beauty

In their book, A Meaningful World, Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt show how “the arts and sciences reveal the genius of nature.” One of the examples they use to demonstrate this is the Periodic Table of Elements. That table, we all learned about in junior high school is a snapshot of nature’s beauty. The chemists who developed it did so by finding “elegant mathematical relationships between atomic weights of elements and the properties of elements.” Doing so drove them to predict the existence of elements we didn’t even know to exist. It was the beauty that led them to fill the table in.

Resonant Beauty

The same type of patterns and relationships that led to the Periodic Table bring meaning and transcendence to our lives. Consider the relationship between mathematics and music, for instance. We can describe musical harmony using mathematical equations. But it works because it resonates with our souls.

The philosopher Leibniz described music as “the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.” But music has a way of moving more than just our feet to the beat of a song. It stirs our emotions. Tradition has it that when Handel was composing his epic Messiah, one of his servants walked in on him while he was writing the famous “Hallelujah Chorus.” The composer was weeping.

Handel is said to have remarked, “I do believe I’ve seen the gates of Heaven.”

Beauty Inspires Us

The beauty of a rainbow inspires us
Photo by Frans Van Heerden

The God-glorifying nature of music is just one of the many ways beauty is manifested in our world. The symmetry, form, and vivid colors of a butterfly enchant us. We marvel at the complexion and immensity of a rainbow, or at the power and majesty of a grand landscape.

These things elicit involuntary reactions in us when we experience them. They can take our breath away. They can make our feet start tapping. They can bring us to tears. They are the kinds of things that add richness and depth to our lives.

Reproducing Beauty

We discover beauty in our world and then try to reproduce it in the things we create. And we long to create things because we are made in the image of the ultimate Creator. Part of what it means to be “made in the image of God” is that we attempt to mimic Him. And when we’re successful, the results are stunning.

Today, we are beginning to use the digital capabilities we have discovered in biology to revolutionize our computers. We design airplanes based on the features we see in birds. We write literature and poetry that elevates our aspirations and invokes the divine. We paint landscapes to reflect the majesty of the world we live in.

We build cathedrals that point to the heavens.

And that’s the point.

Beauty Transcends Us

This all makes sense inside the Christian worldview because beauty is just another form of truth. And like truth itself, we don’t make it up. It draws us in. The character of God is the common reality that explains the trinity of truth, goodness, and beauty. They are the essence, character, and reflection of Him.

Beauty is not subjective. It’s part of the fabric of the universe. It inspires us to think outside ourselves.

 


Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/30TeZzO

By Alex McElroy

I’ve never been much of an artist. I do, however, have great respect for those that possess the skill and patience to create a masterpiece. In fact, I admire anyone that can draw anything beyond a stick figure. I remember when I was growing up, my brother would draw figures from comic books, and my best drawings would pale in comparison. My wife is an amazing artist as well, and I now see similar talents in my daughter. I have to give credit where credit is due.

Often when you are in the presence of a great work of art or anything that has been finely made, you stand in awe. However, we are not simply in awe of what was made but that someone was able to conceive of and make it. The magnificence of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel is not the details in the design of what has been painted but in the fact that Michelangelo had the ability to paint such details.

To not give credit to Michelangelo is a lesser example of not giving credit to the designer of everything… including Michelangelo. We also see evidence of design in ourselves, on the earth and in the universe. We all see it, but we don’t all give credit to whom it is due. To acknowledge a work of art while ignoring the artist is disrespectful. To benefit from the works of the ultimate artist and not give Him credit is to worship the creation while ignoring the Creator. We have a purpose precisely because the ultimate designer has purposefully designed us.

Credit for making

When we see elements of design, we always understand that a designer initiated the process. In 1953 Francis Crick helped discover DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the molecular building blocks of life. DNA is the most complex system of message every composed. There are five levels of information transmission (statistics, cosyntics, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics). The highest level, apobetics, involves requests with an expectation of a response. DNA is information at the highest level. In other words, there is a clear design to DNA. To assume that this level of information could be achieved randomly or as a result of impersonal, non-communicative physical forces seems illogical. It seems, in that case, we would not be giving credit to whom it is due.

In Life Itself, Francis Crick proposed that some form of primordial life was shipped to the earth billions of years ago in spaceships—by supposedly ‘more evolved’ (therefore advanced) alien beings. Unfortunately, that theory still begs the question – who created the aliens? When it comes to how we’re made, maybe there is someone else we should be giving credit to.

Credit for morality

When we are trying to understand objective truths, it is helpful to note that they usually exist through their opposite. For example, we know what left is because we know what right is. Almost everyone agrees that true evil does exist. This implies that true good must exist. For those that don’t believe in God, where do you root this idea of objective good? C.S. Lewis, who was an atheist and called himself ‘England’s most reluctant convert,’ wrote, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

If moral values originate from humans, they will fluctuate with the whims and preferences of humans – thereby making them subjective. If there is objective evil, then there is an objective moral law. If that is true, then there is an objective moral law-giver – God. And He deserves the credit for the moral standard that we seek to live by.

Credit for meaning

If we are the product of time plus matter plus chance, then life has no meaning. However, everything about how we live and the fact that we are able to live points to the fact that life does have meaning. It behooves us to give credit to the source of that meaning.

The worldview we espouse will, by and large, determine our understanding of the meaning of life itself. This is important because if life has no ultimate purpose, then neither do you or I. In that case; there would be no purpose to fulfill, assignment to complete, or reason to exist. Once you are clear about your origin, you can gain clarity on your purpose. Once you gain clarity on your purpose, you gain clarity on where you’re going. That clarity comes from determining what is true and by giving credit to the source of all truth.

 


Alex McElroy is an international speaker, author, blogger, leadership advisor, and the Pastor of Education at New Life Covenant Southeast Church, with over 20,000 members led by Pastor John F. Hannah. Alex has been serving in both youth and teaching ministries at New Life for over 12 years. In his role, he teaches Discipleship class designed for adults to learn, fellowship, and grow in their faith within a small group setting. Alex also trains hundreds of teachers and ministers to deliver lessons in proper lifestyle, Biblical study, focused preparation, and Apologetics in order to maximize their effectiveness in and for the Kingdom of God.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2XCLosh

By Luke Nix

Introduction- Why Is God’s Existence So Important?

One of the most heated debates in any setting is the existence of God. If God exists, then He is the foundation for objective morality. One’s view of morality governs their thinking in everything from politics to workplace interactions, from scientific research to everyday behavior. If God exists, then there are objective behavioral boundaries which should never be crossed. If God does not exist, then no such objective boundaries exist, and anyone may behave however they wish in any situation without concern for the violation of some objective standard (that is not to say that relative/cultural/legal standards cannot be violated- but that is a topic for another time). If we do not examine this question carefully, we risk believing what is false about reality and morality, and such false beliefs will necessarily lead to behaviors that are not in keeping with reality and morality. This means that many of the political and ethic debates opposing people have come down to whether or not God exists.

Presenting A Cumulative Case for God’s Existence

Numerous lines of evidence and philosophical arguments have been presented over the centuries for God’s existence. All of them come together to create a powerful cumulative case. Much like a detective’s case for the guilt of an accused murderer, multiple independent lines of evidence are presented that all point to the guilt of the accused. If such a method is valid for discovering the truth behind the claim that a murder took place and for the specific identity of the murdered, then the same method is also valid in determining the truth behind the claim that God exists and the identity of this God.

God’s Crime Scene

One of my favorite books that takes some of these arguments and presents the cumulative case comes from cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace. In his book “God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines The Evidence For A Divinely Created Universe.” Wallace presents seven independent lines of evidence that all point to God’s existence in the same way that he would present multiple lines of evidence to a jury for the guilt of an accused murderer. The lines of evidence he presents are summarized in these quotes from the book:

Does God Exist

  1. The Beginning– “The Standard Cosmological Model, accepted by physicists today is grounded on the foundational premise that the universe came into being from something beyond the space, time, matter, and energy of our universe.”
  2. Signs of Design– “The totality and interconnected nature of our galaxy’s unique backstory, along with its rare circumstances and unlikely conditions, overwhelmingly indicate design.”
  3. Consciousness– “In order to think rationally about our thoughts, we must have the freedom to do so, but this freedom is unavailable if the laws of physics and chemistry are controlling our thoughts.”
  4. Law and Order (Morality)– “Naturalism cannot adequately explain the existence of objective moral truths or objective, transcendent personal obligations.”
  5. The Origin of Life– “With each passing year, the level of complexity and interaction at the cellular level has become more apparent and more difficult to explain.”
  6. Free Will– “Choice is a feature of design and a reflection of intelligent agency. Designers make conscious choices between options. Their designs often reflect these decisions, especially when other options are available.”
  7. Evidence of Evil– “True evil requires a source of transcendent righteousness, a source for goodness that transcends the universe and everything in it.”

Wallace concludes by stating that as a detective, who must follow the evidence where it leads, “I believe God exists because the evidence leaves me no reasonable alternative.” If the objective standard of morality exists (God), then that standard is what must be used to judge ethical and political positions.

Conclusion- Prepare for Your Ethical Discussions With Objective Evidence For God’s Existence

If you find yourself involved in discussions of an ethical or political nature or just want to be able to more critically evaluate the political and ethical claims of others, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Wallace’s book to help establish a foundational point on which to begin evaluation and discussion. While not comprehensive on the case for God’s existence, it is one of the most accessible and engaging books on this topic, and it should not be passed up by anyone serious about investigating the truth of reality and morality.
For more great books on God’s existence, check out the many books that I have reviewed on this blog, and for the topic of ethics and politics, specifically, please check out my Top 5 Recommended Books for diving into those details.

 


Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Xz6qvS

By Evan Minton

I discovered a YouTuber called “Rationality Rules” very recently. One of his many videos is “The Kalam Cosmological Argument Debunked – (First Cause Argument Refuted)” which you can watch here. One of my patrons brought this video to my attention and requested that I respond to it, so here we go.

For the uninitiated, The Kalam Cosmological Argument is formulated as follows:

1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2: The universe began to exist.

3: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Let’s look at each of Rationality Rules’ rebuttals.

Objection 1: The Argument Doesn’t Support Theism 

Rationality Rules (RR) says “Even if the Cosmological Argument were accepted in its entirely, all it would prove is that there was a cause of the universe, and that’s it. It doesn’t even suggest, let alone prove that this cause was a being, and it certainly doesn’t suggest that that cause was a being that is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, personal and moral. That is one hell of a leap. Hence, even if accepted, the argument doesn’t even remotely support theism.” 

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Has RR even paid the slightest bit attention to apologists’ defenses of The Cosmological Argument? This is patently false. Given that everything that has a beginning has something that caused it to come into being, and since Big Bang cosmology, the second law of thermodynamics, and the two arguments against actual infinites establish that the universe came into being out of nothing a finite time ago, it follows that a cause transcendent to matter, energy, space, and time must have caused matter, energy, space, and time (i.e the universe) to come into existence. Now, granted, the syllogism doesn’t define this cause as “God”. It only asserts “Therefore, the universe has a cause”. However, in every defense of The Kalam Cosmological Argument I’ve ever heard given, this is not where the argument stops. Once it is established that the universe a transcendent cause, the apologist (William Lane Craig, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, Myself) do a conceptual analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe. The conceptual analysis part of the argument is being totally ignored by RR.

When you do a conceptual analysis of what attributes or properties the universe’s cause must have, you do indeed end up with a being heavily resembling God.

The cause must be

Spaceless – Because space came into being and did not exist until this cause brought it into existence, the cause cannot be a spatial being. It must be spaceless or non-spatial. You cannot be inside of something if you are that something’s cause. You cannot be inside of something if that something did not exist until you brought it into existence.

Timeless – Since time did not exist until The Big Bang, the cause cannot be inside of time. It must be a timeless being.

Immaterial – The cause’s non-spatiality entails immateriality. How so? Because material objects cannot exist unless space exists. Material objects have mass and ergo occupy spatial dimensions. If there is no space, matter cannot exist. This means that because the cause is non-spatial, it is therefore non-material.

Unimaginably Powerful (if not omnipotent) – Anything able to create all matter, energy, space, and time out of absolutely nothing must be extremely powerful, if not omnipotent.

Supernatural – “Nature” and “The universe” are synonyms. Nature did not begin to exist until The Big Bang. Therefore, a natural cause (a cause coming, by definition, from nature) cannot be responsible for the origin of nature. To say otherwise would be to spout incoherence. You’d basically be saying “Nature caused nature to come into being.”

Uncaused – Given that the cause of the universe is timeless, the cause cannot itself have a beginning. To have a beginning to one’s existence entails a before and after relationship. There’s a time before one existed and a time after one came into existence. But a before and after of anything is impossible without time. Since the cause existed sans time, the cause, therefore, cannot have a beginning. It’s beginningless.

Personal – This is an entailment of the cause’s immateriality. There are two types of things recognized by philosophers that are immaterial: abstract objects (such as numbers, sets, or other mathematical entities) or unembodied minds. Philosophers realize that abstract objects if they exist, they exist as non-physical entities. However, abstract objects cannot produce any effects. That’s part of what it means to be abstract. The number 3 isn’t going to be producing any effects anytime soon. Given that abstract objects are causally impotent, it, therefore, follows that an unembodied mind is the cause of the universe’ beginning. Two other arguments for the personhood of the universe’s cause can be given, and I’ve unpacked these in my book The Case For The One True God: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Case For The God Of Christianity available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause, given that the universe began to exist, if follows that the universe has a cause of its existence. The cause of the universe must be a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, supernatural, uncaused, personal Creator.

This being that is demonstrated to exist by this argument is consistent with The Christian God. The Bible describes God as spaceless (see 1 Kings 8:27, 2 Chronicles 2:6), timeless (1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2), immaterial (John 4:24, 1 Timothy 1:17, 1 Timothy 6:16), powerful (Psalm 62:11-12, Job 9:14, Matthew 19:26), uncaused (Psalm 90:2, Isaiah 57:15, 1 Timothy 1:17, Revelation 1:8), supernatural, and is a personal being (John 1:12, James 4:8). Moreover, The Bible credits Him with being the Creator of all physical reality (John 1:1-3).

Additionally, as I point out in my book The Case For The One True God: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Case For The God Of Christianity a study of comparative religions demonstrates that only 4 religions are consistent with the Cosmological argument’s conclusion: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (that’s why Ghazali defended it), and Deism. All other religions involve either an eternal cosmos that have God or gods bringing order out of the eternally existing matter, energy, space and time, or else their god is the universe itself (pantheism). Therefore, if you’re picking a view about God based on the cosmological argument alone, your list of options consistent with the evidence is limited to just 4 options, Christianity being among them. Only the Abrahamic religions (and Deism) teach that a God like the one described above brought all physical reality into existence from nothing.

Rationality Rules complains that the argument doesn’t demonstrate the omniscience, omnipresence, or the moral character of the universe’s cause, but the argument was never designed to get those qualities. Richard Dawkins made this same complaint about the argument. Dawkins said it like this “Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts.”[1] and Dr. William Lane Craig responded to it thusly:

“Apart from the opening slur, this is an amazingly concessionary statement! Dawkins doesn’t dispute that the argument successfully proves the existence of an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, and unimaginably powerful personal Creator of the universe. He merely complains that this cause hasn’t also been shown to be omnipotent, omniscient, good, creative of design, listening to prayers, forgiving sins, and reading innermost thoughts. So what? The argument isn’t intended to prove those things. It would be a bizarre form of atheism, indeed an atheism not worth the name, which admitted that there exists an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, immaterial, spaceless, unimaginably powerful, personal Creator of the universe who may (for all we know) also possess the properties listed by Dawkins. So we needn’t call the personal Creator of the universe “God” if Dawkins finds this unhelpful or misleading. But the point remains that such a being as described by this argument must exist”[2]

This is just a pitiful objection to The Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Objection 2: It Doesn’t Prove The Universe’s Cause Was The First Cause. 

I facepalmed even harder at this objection than I did the previous one. Rationality Rules said “A second problem that even we accepted the argument. It wouldn’t prove that the universe itself was without a cause. Or in another words, it wouldn’t prove that first cause existed, which for a first cause argument is pretty damn ridiculous. To be fair, the proponents of this argument do indeed offer additional arguments in an attempt to assert that the cause of the universe must be without a cause. But the point that I’m trying to make here and now is that The Kalam Cosmological Argument, by itself, is pretty damn trivial. And hence, the proponents of this argument almost always employ additional arguments to reach their conclusions including the likes of Craig” 

There are good reasons given as to why the cause of the universe must be uncaused. I’ve given one of them above. I wrote “Given that the cause of the universe is timeless, the cause cannot itself have a beginning. To have a beginning to one’s existence entails a before and after relationship. There’s a time before one existed and a time after one came into existence. But a before and after of anything is impossible without time. Since the cause existed sans time, the cause, therefore, cannot have a beginning. It’s beginningless.” Another reason is that if you do not allow for an uncreated Creator, if you insist that God must have a Creator, you get thrown into an infinite regression. For God to come into being, His creator must have come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the creator before him had to come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the creator before him had to come into being, and so on back into infinity. No creator could ever come into being because there would always have to be a creator before him to bring him into being. In fact, no creator in the entire infinite past series of creators could ever come into being because each would have to be preceded by a previously created creator. And since no creator could ever come into being, the specific creator that brought our universe into existence couldn’t have come into being. But obviously, here we are. This suggests that there wasn’t an infinite regression of creators begetting creators. But if there was no infinite regression of creators begetting creators, then that logically brings us to an uncreated Creator, a Creator without beginning.

Even Rationality Rules admits that Kalam proponents back up the assertion that the cause is uncaused by arguments, as you can see in the quotation above. However, he doesn’t dispute the arguments. He doesn’t even say what the arguments are. He seems to think that merely having to bolster the conclusion “the universe had a cause” with additional arguments is an invalid move. But why think a thing like that? Yes, the syllogism by itself only gets you to “The universe had a cause”, but why take Christian Apologists to task for unpacking the implications of that conclusion with additional arguments?

The question RR should be asking is not whether additional arguments are needed, but whether the additional arguments given are good. RR’s objection is pretty damn trivial.

Objection 3: It Commits The Fallacy Of Equivocation

Rationality Rules indicts The Kalam Cosmological Argument for committing the fallacy of equivocation. What is the fallacy of equivocation? The fallacy of equivocation is when an argument uses the exact same word, but employs two different definitions of the word. It would be like if someone argued “God made everything. Everything is made in China. Therefore, God is Chinese”. The word being equivocated on here is the word “everything”. In the first premise, it means literally everything that exists, whereas, in premise 2, it only refers to everything that American consumers purchase.

Rationality Rules says that in the second premise, what we mean by the term “Universe” is the scientific definition of universe (i.e all matter, energy, space, and time), whereas in the conclusion, we employ the colloquial usage of the term “Universe”, meaning literally everything that ever was, is, and ever will be. Thus, RR says that steps 2 and 3 of the argument employ the same words with different meanings.

This objection is just as underwhelming as the previous two. For one thing, why isn’t “all matter, energy, space, and time) not synonymous with “everything that ever was, is, or will be”? Perhaps RR is assuming The Mother Universe theory whereby The Big Bang was not the absolute origin of all material objects, but only the birth of one of many “baby” universes” that come into being inside of a much wider Mother Universe. In that case, the origin of our universe would indeed not be “everything that ever was, is, or will be”.

But as I argue in my blog posts “Does The Multi-Verse Explain Away The Need For A Creator?” and “Is The Universe A Computer Simulation?” not to mention chapter 1 of The Case For The One True God, this Mother Multiverse scenario cannot be extended into past eternity. The Borde-Guth-Velinken Theorem, as well as the impossibility of traversing actual infinites, bring us to an absolute beginning of literally everything at some point, whether that be the beginning of our universe, The Mother Universe, The Grandmother Universe, or whatever.

This leads to my next point; we do mean literally everything in both steps 2 and 3. We mean all matter, energy, space, and time that ever was, is or will be in both steps 2 and 3. Now, RR can dispute whether premise 2 is true, but if I, William Lane Craig, Lee Strobel, Frank Turek, Hugh Ross, etc. mean literally everything in both steps, then a charge of the fallacy of equivocation cannot stand. We mean the same thing by “universe” in both steps 2 and 3.

Objection 4: Nothing Has Ever Been Demonstrated To Come Into Being From Nothing 

RR says “And this brings us comfortably to another critical flaw with the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It asserts that something can indeed come from nothing – a concept in philosophy known as Creatio Ex Nihilo (creation out of nothing), when this has never been demonstrated to occur. In fact, to the contrary, everything we know about cause and effect overwhelmingly and unanimously tells us that when a new thing is created it is due to the rearrangement of energy and matter that already existed… that is, everything is the result of Creatio Ex Materia (creation out of material).”

Another underwhelming objection. Before I give my response, let me inform my readers that I distinguish causes via Aristotelian Causation. The ancient philosopher Aristotle recognized that there are different types of causes. A “material cause” is the stuff out of which something is made. For example, a chair’s material cause is the wood gathered from chopped down trees. An efficient cause of the chair would be the carpenter who fashioned the chair from the wood. Another type of cause Aristotle identified was Final Causality. This is the teleology, the purpose or end goal of bringing something into being. In the example of the chair, the final cause would be the purpose of sitting. But for this discussion, only efficient and material causes need to be distinguished.

The objection here is that the inductive evidence is overwhelmingly against the idea that things can come into being without a material cause. The conclusion of The Kalam Cosmological Argument is that the universe came into being via an efficient cause (God), but with no material cause. God didn’t use previously existing material to manufacture the universe.

Now, I would agree that our experience shows us that whenever something comes into being, it had a material cause as well as an efficient cause, thus rendering us with as much inductive evidence for material causation, but this inductive evidence can be overridden if we have powerful evidence that all physical reality came into being out of nothing a finite time ago. The Big Bang demonstrates just that. To look at the evidence, see my blog posts “The Kalam Cosmological Argument” and “Is The Big Bang The Origin Of The Universe?”

As I explain in the above blog posts, we do in fact have powerful scientific evidence as well as philosophical arguments which show us that the whole of physical reality (space, time, matter, and energy) had an absolute beginning.

Objection 5: Special Pleading Fallacy 

RR says that Kalam proponents commit the special pleading fallacy. What is that? The Special Pleading Fallacy occurs whenever you make an exception to an established rule without justification. RR says “they [Kalam proponents] assert that the cause of the universe didn’t begin to exist and therefore it didn’t have a cause, without adequately justifying why this cause is an exception.”

My face is hurting from all the facepalming I’ve been doing throughout watching this dude’s videos. First of all, there’s no exception to even be made! The argument is that “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.” The Kalam proponent would only be special pleading if he or she said that God began to exist, but made him the exception by saying he came into being uncaused. However, all proponents of The Kalam Cosmological Argument hold that (A) God is uncaused, uncreated. And (B) we give arguments for that. I’ve given arguments for that above.

Objection 6: Argument From Ignorance

Of course. The overused “God Of The Gaps” objection. This is not based on what we don’t know. It’s based on what we do know. As I explained in subheader 1, the cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, uncaused, and personal. And I didn’t just arbitrarily assign these attribute’s to the universe’s cause, I gave positive arguments for why the universe’s cause must have these attributes. I, nor has any proponent of this argument ever said, “Scientists can’t explain how the universe came into being, so it must be God” or anything of that sort. One must suppose that atheists continue to illegitimately accuse the Kalam of committing this fallacy because they just don’t pay attention when it is explained to them. If you keep falling asleep in class, it’s no surprise that you don’t know what you’re talking about when it’s time to do your essay.

As for being the specific God I believe in, I’d recommend a look at The Case For The One True God. I admit that The Kalam doesn’t get you to the uniquely Christian conception of God, but it does get you to a conception of God that doesn’t match the majority of the ones most religions out there. Abrahamic religions and Deism are consistent with this argument, but polytheistic, animistic, and pantheistic religions are not. And atheism certainly is not consistent with the argument’s conclusion.

Conclusion 

When my patron Kevin Walker, asked me to make a response to this video, I was actually bracing myself for some pretty hard-hitting rebuttals, if not refutations. I was like “Boy, I hope I can handle these responses.” I never expected the pitiful, flimsy objections RR put forth.

Notes 

[1] Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion” p. 158.

[2] William Lane Craig, “Deconstructing New Atheist Objections To The Arguments For God,” https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/short-videos/deconstructing-new-atheist-objections-to-the-arguments-for-god/

 


Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference to The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine.” He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Original Blog Source:  http://bit.ly/2VrWpAg

By J. Brian Huffling

Having seen Dr. Michael Shermer debate many times, I was excited to be able to get a chance to have a discussion with him. Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, accepted Southern Evangelical Seminary‘s invitation to have an informal, but moderated, discussion with me on the topic, “Is the Reality of Evil Good Evidence against the Christian God?” This discussion was the culmination of a mini-conference on the problem of evil at SES. He was a delight to have, and the event was a blast.

My Discussion with Dr. Michael Shermer on God and Evil

I am not going to recount the whole debate. I am simply going to discuss some of the most important points and issues. (For those interested, Michael has a podcast of the debate/issue.)

What is ‘Evil’?

Michael was asked by the moderator, Adam Tucker (his thoughts on the discussion are here), to define what he meant by ‘evil.’ He said that evil is the intentional harm of a sentient being. There is no such thing, he said, of an entity that is evil, such as evil spirits, or anything that is pure evil.

I largely agree. Following Augustine, I hold that evil is simply the privation of good. In other words, evil is the corruption of a good thing. The classic example is blindness in the eye. The eye should have a certain power (sight) that it does not. It is lacking and is corrupted. Thus, it is physically evil. Then there is a moral evil. This happens when a person lacks virtues. Overall, though, Michael and I basically agree on what evil is and that there is no existing thing that is pure evil. For Christians, to exist is to somehow be like God, which is good. Further, following Aquinas, good seeks its perfection. Thus, there is a contradiction with an existing evil. Evil really has no goal or purpose in itself. Thus, an existing thing that is somehow good since it has being (in a sense like God) and that seeks its perfection cannot be pure evil.

At this point, we discussed the problem of evil and what it is exactly.

The Problem of Evil Briefly Stated

There are basically 2 forms of the problem of evil: the deductive form and the inductive form. The deductive form is also called the logical argument from evil and argues that the co-existence of the classical view of God and evil are logically impossible. This is the argument Michael used (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

  1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
  2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
  3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
  4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
  5. Evil exists.
  6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
  7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

This argument makes several assumptions. The most problematic in my view is that God is morally perfect. Many, if not most, Christian theologians take it for granted that God is morally perfect. However, I would argue that God is not the kind of being to be moral. That is not to say he is not good; he is just not morally good. I have written that God is not a moral being. I have also written that God’s goodness does not depend on what he does, but what he is. How does this relate to the problem of evil? If it is indeed the case that God is not a moral being with obligations to man, it makes all the difference in the world. I will not rewrite the articles above on God, morality, and goodness. I will summarize those positions here as they relate to the problem of evil.

As I said in the debate, J. L. Mackie, a notorious atheist of the twentieth century, said that if one gives up a premise in the problem of evil as just laid out, then the problem doesn’t arise (see The Problem of Evil edited by Adams and Adams, page 1). This is exactly what I said we need to do. There are certain assertions/assumptions that have to be made in order for this argument (the problem of evil) to work. I argue that the assertion that God is a morally perfect being is false. If we take that out of the problem, the problem falls.

I am not suggesting this simply to get out of this argument. There are really good reasons for not thinking that God is a moral being, at least in the sense we normally mean when referring to humans being moral. When we say a person is moral, we mean that he behaves well and as he should. In other words, there is a prescribed way in which men are supposed to behave. If they do, they are moral. If they don’t, they are immoral.

I am arguing that God has no prescribed way in which he should behave. There are no obligations imposing on God. God transcends the category of morality like he transcends time and space. Morality is a created category wrapped up in what it means to be a human. Without created beings to live up to some objective standard that God has created him to live up to, there is no moral law.

If this is correct, then God is not a moral being and thus cannot be a morally perfect being. But this is the linchpin of the logical problem of evil as Michael has argued. Once this assertion is removed, as Mackie says, there simply is no logical problem of evil. There is no contradiction with an omnipotent, omniscient being existing alongside of evil. Thus, the problem of evil does not even arise.

All of this is to say that God has no obligation to how he orchestrates the universe. To say that God is morally obligated means that he has to treat his creation in a certain way. This is the basic thrust of the problem of evil. To put it another way, as Michael did at one point, the problem of evil boils down to this: “If God really does exist I would expect the universe to be different/better.” The assumption here is that God should operate the way we think he should. He doesn’t. The inference is that he doesn’t exist.

Again, if we take away the assumption/assertion that God is morally perfect then the problem of evil not only fails, it never gets off the ground. (Please remember we are talking about the academic/philosophical issue of evil and not the emotional/pastoral concern.)

This is not to say God is not good; he is just not morally good. He is metaphysically good and perfect. Given our definition of evil, this just means God lacks nothing. His existence is perfect and cannot be corrupted.

The story of Job illustrates my point that God is not obligated to treat his creatures in any certain way. In the opening chapters of Job God basically dares Satan to attack Job. God maintains to Satan that Job will not curse him (God). Satan agrees. The only caveat is that Satan cannot touch Job. Job’s family (except his wife) is killed, and he loses all of his many possessions. Yet he does not curse God. God gives Satan another chance, but this time Satan can inflict Job with disease; although he cannot kill him. Job is inflicted with sores and physical issues. Still, he does not curse God.

Job’s friends show up and stay with Job, silent, for a week. For many chapters after this Job’s friends argue about what Job did to bring this judgment upon him. They maintain that God would not do this without some (just) cause. Job maintained his innocence and wanted to take God to court and try him for being unjust.

At the end of the book, God shows up. Does he try to explain to Job why he did what he did? Does he offer a theodicy or defense for his actions? No. He basically asks Job where he was when God made all of the wonders of the world. Job cannot answer and repents. In short, God does not try to get off the hook, as it were. Rather he says, “I’m God, and you are not.”

I think this illustrates my point that God does not have to act in any certain way with his people. He is not unjust in dealing with Job the way he did. However, let’s put a human in the place of God and Satan in this story. If a human did to Job what God and Satan did, we would almost certainly say the human would be unjust. However, we would not, presumably, say that God is unjust. Why? Because he’s God. There is no standard by which to judge him. God transcends morality and yet is still perfectly good.

Philosophy vs. Science

This above point is one that I could not get Michael to acknowledge. He did not want to stray from his scientific position. (By ‘scientific’ I mean the modern sense of the word to refer to the natural sciences like biology and chemistry. This should be contrasted with the historical sense of a discipline’s conclusions being demonstrated via first principles and logic. In this latter sense, philosophy and theology were considered sciences.) This is unfortunate because the issues of God and evil are inherently philosophical. As I have written, natural science alone cannot demonstrate God’s existence. Thus, to adequately deal with the issues of the discussion we have to delve into philosophy. Michael would have none of it.

Michael’s main point here is that if God is not measurable, then we can’t know he exists. As I pointed out this is a category mistake as God is not a material being. Thus, even if he did exist, we could not measure him–which Michael acknowledged.

Throughout the debate, Michael approached the issue from the point of view of natural science. I approached it from philosophy. In short, the questions of God’s existence and evil cannot be decided by natural science since they are not physical things in the natural world to be studied: God is not a being in nature and evil is a description of the nature of being (a philosophical concept).

Michael offered a lot of red herrings. I will not deal with those here as they are, well, red herrings.

Conclusion

The problem of evil is not a problem concerning God’s existence if God is not a moral being. Further, questions of God’s existence and evil are inherently philosophical. If you are interested in this topic, I recommend Brian Davies’ The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil.

 


J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2v4rTNa

Mikel Del Rosario

Do you have to be absolutely certain about something like “God exists” before you can say that you actually know it? Christians who talk about the evidence for God sometimes get frustrated when skeptics challenge a basic premise like “everything that begins to exist has a cause,” by saying that we haven’t explored the entire universe to know if that’s true. Maybe you’ve heard a friend say you can’t actually know anything about God unless you’re absolutely sure about it.

But saying this is an either-or kind of thing is a false dilemma. In this post, I’ll explain why you don’t have to have 100% certainty before you can know that God is real.

No good reason for either-or-thinking

In Philosophy, saying you have certainty about something means it’s impossible for you to be wrong. So, maybe saying “I exist” is one of the few things that fall into that category. But some skeptics say you can’t really know much about anything at all. Others say your beliefs aren’t justified even if they turn out to be true. For them, we can know almost nothing about God and our world since nobody can be absolutely certain about most things. But the idea that knowing something is the same as being absolutely sure about it turns out to be self-defeating. In fact, even though they say we can’t know much about anything, many seem to think they know enough to correct you if you say you know God is real. [1]

Think about it. The hyper-skeptical view is that you can’t say you know that God exists unless it’s impossible for you to be wrong about it. But is there any good reason to say that knowledge is the same as certainty? No. For example, I know that I’m writing this post on my computer. But it’s possible that I’m just dreaming about it. Still, does the mere fact that it’s possible that I’m dreaming means that I can’t know that I’m using my computer? Of course not.

Skeptics think they know something you don’t when they say you’re wrong

The thing is, skeptics, do claim to know certain things. For example, “Since we can’t go back in time to watch the big bang, we can’t know that the universe had a beginning” or “since we haven’t yet discovered every possible naturalistic option, we can’t know that God caused the universe.” These are actually claims to know something. But how do they know that?

Some skeptics have told me that in order for you to know something, you have to be 100% sure that you know it. But can’t you know something even if you aren’t entirely sure that you know it? Sure you can. For example, imagine that you memorized all the correct answers to the review questions in your textbook for class. Even if you’re not sure what questions will be on the quiz, you have a pretty good guess that some of them will be. Unbeknownst to you, every single one of those questions you studied actually make up the entirety of next week’s quiz.

In this scenario, you would actually know all the answers to the questions on next week’s quiz. You’d know the answers to a quiz you haven’t taken yet—even if you don’t realize that you actually know the answers! Turns out, you don’t have to be 100% sure (or even aware) that you know something in order for you to actually know it.

If the evidence for God’s existence seems compelling to you, there’s no need to be shy or tentative about your beliefs. You don’t have to have 100% certainty before you can know that God is real. [2]

 


Mikel Del Rosario helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2TOqFVg

By Wintery Knight

Here is the video of the debate:

TOPIC: DOES GOD EXIST?

MY NOTES ON THE DEBATE: (WC = William Lane Craig, CH = Christopher Hitchens)

WC opening speech:

Introduction:

WC makes two contentions:

– there are no good arguments for atheism

– there are good arguments for theism

These topics are IRRELEVANT tonight:

– the social impact of Christianity

– the morality of Old Testament passages

– biblical inerrancy

– the debate is whether God (a creator and designer of the universe) exists

  1. cosmological argument

– an actually infinite number of past events is impossible

– number of past events must be finite

– therefore the universe has a beginning

– the beginning of the universe is confirmed by science – the universe began to exist from nothing

– space, time, matter, energy began at the big bang

– the creation of the universe requires a cause

– the cause is uncaused, timeless, spaceless, powerful

– the cause must be beyond space and time because it created space and time

– the cause is not physical because it created all matter and energy

– but there are only two kinds of non-physical cause: abstract objects or minds

– abstract objects don’t cause effects

– therefore must be mind

  1. teleological argument

– fine-tuned constants and ratios

– constants not determined by laws of nature

– also, there are arbitrary quantities

– constants and quantities are in a narrow range of life-permitting values

– an example: if the weak force were different by 1 in 10 to the 100, then no life

– there are 3 explanations: physical law or chance or design

– not due to law: because constants and quantities are independent of the laws

– not due to chance: the odds are too high for chance

– therefore, due to design

– the atheist response is the world ensemble (multiverse)

– but world ensemble has unobservable universes, no evidence that they exist

– and world ensemble contradicts scientific observations we have today

  1. moral argument

– objective moral values are values that exist regardless of what human’s think

– objective values are not personal preferences

– objective values are not evolved standards that cultures have depending on time and place

– objective moral values and duties exist

– objective moral values and duties require a moral lawgiver

  1. argument from resurrection miracle

– resurrection implies miracle

– miracle implies God

– 3 minimal facts pass the historical tests (early attestation, eyewitness testimony, multiple attestation, etc.)

– minimal fact 1: empty tomb

– minimal fact 2: appearances

– minimal fact 3: early belief in the resurrection

– Jewish theology prohibits a dying Messiah – Messiah is not supposed to die

– Jewish theology has a general resurrection of everybody, there is not supposed to be a resurrection of one person

– Jewish theology certainly does not predict a single resurrection of the Messiah after he dies

– therefore, the belief in the resurrection is unlikely to have been invented

– disciples were willing to die for that belief in the resurrection

– naturalistic explanations don’t work for the 3 minimal facts

  1. properly basic belief in God

– religious experience is properly basic

– it’s just like the belief in the external world, grounded in experience

– in the absence of defeaters, those experiences are valid

Conclusion: What CH must do:

– destroy all 5 of WC’s arguments

– erect his own case in its place

CH opening speech:

  1. evolution disproves biological design argument

– evolution disproves Paley’s argument for a watchmaker

  1. God wouldn’t have done it that way

– God wouldn’t have waited that long before the incarnation

– mass extinction and death before Jesus

– God wouldn’t have allowed humans to have almost gone extinct a while back in Africa

– why insist that this wasteful and incompetent history of life is for us, that’s a bad design

– the universe is so vast, why would God need so much space, that’s a bad design

– there is too much destruction in the universe, like exploding stars – that’s a bad design
– the heat death of the universe is a bad design

– too many of the other planets don’t support life, that’s a bad design

– the sun is going to become a red giant and incinerate us, that’s a bad design

  1. Hitchens’ burden of proof

– there is no good reason that supports the existence of God

– all arguments for God can be explained without God

– atheists can’t prove there is no God

– but they can prove there is no good argument for God

  1. Craig’s scientific arguments don’t go far enough, they only prove deism, not theism

– the scientific arguments don’t prove prayer works

– the scientific arguments don’t prove specific moral teachings of Christianity

  1. if the laws of physics are so great then miracles shouldn’t be allowed

– good laws and miracles seem to be in contradiction

  1. extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence

– none of Craig’s evidence was extraordinary

  1. science can change, so Craig can’t use the progress of science

– it’s too early for Craig to use the big bang and fine-tuning

– the big bang and fine-tuning evidences are too new

– they could be overturned by the progress of science

  1. Craig wrote in his book that the internal conviction of God’s existence should trump contradicting evidence

– but then he isn’t forming his view based on evidence

– he refuses to let evidence disprove his view

– but then how can atheists be to blame if they don’t believe

– so evidence is not really relevant to accepting theism

  1. the progress of science has disproved religion

– Christianity taught that earth was center of the universe

– but then cosmology disproved that

Response to the big bang and fine-tuning arguments:

– was there pre-existing material?

– who designed the designer?

WC first rebuttal:

Reiterates his 2 basic contentions

CH agrees that there is no good argument for atheism

– then all you’ve got is agnosticism

– because CH did not claim to know there is no God

– and he gave no arguments that there is no God

CH’s evolution argument

– irrelevant to Christianity

– Genesis 1 allows for evolution to have occurred

– Christianity is not committed to young earth creationism

– the origin of biological diversity is not central to Christianity

– St. Augustine in 300 AD said days can be long, special potencies unfold over time

– also, there are scientific reasons to doubt evolution

– cites barrow and Tipler, and they say:

– each of 10 steps in evolution is very improbable

– chances are so low; it would be a miracle if evolution occurred

CH’s argument that God is wasteful

– efficiency is only important to people with limited time or limited resources

– therefore God doesn’t need to be efficient

CH’s argument that God waits too long to send Jesus

– population was not that high before Jesus

– Jesus appears just before the exponential explosion of population

– conditions were stable – roman empire, peace, literacy, law, etc.

CH’s argument that Craig’s scientific arguments only prove deism, not theism

– deism a type of theism, so those scientific arguments work

– all that deism denies is a miraculous intervention

CH’s argument that Craig has a burden of proof

– theism doesn’t need to be proven with certainty

– must only prove a best explanation of the evidence

CH’s citation of Craig’s book saying that evidence should not overrule experience

– there is a difference between knowing and showing Christianity is true

– knowing is by religious experience which is a properly basic belief

– showing is done through evidence, and there the evidence does matter

CH’s rebuttal to the big bang

– there was no pre-existent material

– space and time and matter came into being at the big bang

– the cause must be non-physical and eternal

– cause of the universe outside of time means = cause of the universe did not begin to exist

– this is the state of science today

CH’s rebuttal to the fine-tuning

– CH says scientists are uncertain about the fine-tuning

– Craig cites Martin Rees, an atheist, astronomer royal, to substantiate the fine-tuning
– the fine-tuning is necessary for  minimal requirements for life of any kind

– the progress of science is not going to dethrone the fine-tuning

CH’s argument about heat death of the universe

– duration of design is irrelevant to whether something was designed

– cars are designed, yet they break down

– design need not be optimal to be designed

– CH is saying why create if we all eventually go extinct

– but life doesn’t end in the grave on Christianity

CH’s rebuttal to the moral argument

– CH says no objective moral values

– but CH uses them to argue against God and Christians

– but CH has no foundation for a standard that applies to God and Christians

CH’s rebuttal to the resurrection argument

– empty tomb and appearances are virtually certain

– these are minimal facts, well evidenced using standard historical criteria

– best explanation of these minimal facts is the resurrection

CH’s rebuttal to a religious experience

– prop basic belief is rational in the absence of defeaters

– so long as Craig has no psychological deficiency, experience is admissible

CH first rebuttal:

it’s not agnosticism

– if there are no good arguments for theism

– then there is no reason for belief in God

– that is atheism

– everything can be explained without God

God wouldn’t have done it that way

– homo sapiens is 100K years old

– for 98K years, they had no communication from God

– lots of people died in childbirth

– disease and volcanos are a mystery to them

– life expectancy is very low

– they die terrible deaths

– their teeth are badly designed

– their genitalia are badly designed

– why solve the problem of sin by allowing a man to be tortured to death

– that’s a stupid, cruel, bumbling plan

lots of people haven’t even heard of Jesus

– many of them die without knowing about him

– they cannot be held responsible if they do not know about Jesus

the early success of Christianity doesn’t prove Christianity is true

– because then it applies to Mormonism and Islam, they’re growing fast

objective morality

– belief in a supreme dictator doesn’t improve moral behavior

– I can do moral actions that you can do

– I can repeat moral positions that you can say

religious people are immoral

– genital mutilation

– suicide bombing

moral behavior doesn’t need God

– we need to act moral for social cohesion

– it evolved for our survival

– that’s why people act morally

– it’s degrading to humans, and servile, to require God for morality

free will

– I believe in free will

– I don’t know why, because I can’t ground free will on atheism

– a bossy God seems to reduce free will because then we are accountable to God

WC cross-examination of CH:

WC why call yourself an atheist when you have no reasons?

CH because absence of belief is atheism

WC but agnosticism, atheism, verificationism all don’t hold that belief, which one are you?

CH I think God does not exist

WC ok give me an argument for the claim you just made to know God does not exist

CH I have no argument, but I don’t believe in God because it depresses me to think he might be real

WC would you agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

CH no I don’t agree

WC moral argument: it’s not epistemology it’s the ontology – have you got a foundation for moral values and duties?

CH I do not, it’s just evolution, an evolved standard based on social cohesion

CH cross-examination of WC:

CH you said that the historical reports of Jesus doing exorcisms are generally accepted – do you believe in devils?

WC I commit to nothing, what I am saying their historical consensus on the reports that Jesus did exorcisms

CH what about the devils going into the pigs, do you believe that?

WC yes I do, but the main point I’m making is that the historical reports show that Jesus acted with divine authority

CH do you believe in the virgin birth?

WC yes, but that’s not historically provable using the minimal facts methods, and I did not use the virgin birth in my arguments tonight, because it doesn’t pass the historical tests to be a minimal fact

CH do you believe that all the graves opened and dead people all came out?

WC not sure if the author intended that part as apocalyptic imagery or as literal, I have no opinion on it, have not studied it

CH do exorcisms prove son of God?

WC no, I am only saying that the historical reports show that Jesus exercised authority and put himself in the place of God

CH are any religions false? name one that’s false

WC Islam

CH so some religions are wicked right?

WC yes

CH if a baby were born in Saudi Arabia would it be better if it were an atheist or a Muslim?

WC I have no opinion on that

CH are any Christian denominations wrong?

WC Calvinism is wrong about some things, but they are still Christians, I could be wrong about some things, I do the best I can, studying theology, so I’m not wrong

WC second rebuttal

Response to CH arguments:

no reasons for atheism

– no reasons to believe that God does not exist

– CH withholds belief in God

why wait so long before contacting humans with Jesus

– population matters, not time – Jesus waited until there was about to be a population explosion

– there is a natural revelation (Romans 1) for those who lived before Christ

what about those who never heard

– (Acts 17:22-31) God chooses the time and place of each person who is born to optimize their opportunity to know him based on how they will respond to evidence (this is called middle knowledge)

– those who haven’t heard will be judged based on general revelation

WC re-assess the state of his five arguments:

cosmological argument

– heat death of the universe won’t happen on Christianity

moral argument

– if no objective moral standard, can’t judge other cultures as wrong

– no transcendent objective standard to be able to judge slavery as wrong

name an action argument

– e.g. – tithing

– the greatest command – love the Lord your God your God with everything you’ve got

– atheists can’t do that, and that is the biggest commandment to follow

moral obligations

– there are no objective moral obligations for anyone on atheism

– on atheism, you feel obligated because of genetics and social pressure

– on atheism, we’re animals, and animals don’t have moral obligations

resurrection
– the belief in the resurrection of 1 man, the Messiah is totally unexpected on Judaism

– they would not have made this up, it was unexpected

religious experience

– experience is valid in the absence of defeaters

CH second rebuttal:

faith and reason

– Tertullian says faith is better when it’s against reason

it’s easy to start a rumor with faith-based people

– Mother Teresa: to be canonized she needs to have done a miracle

– so there was a faked miracle report

– but everybody believes the fake miracle report!

– this proves that religious rumors are easy to start

– the resurrection could have started as a similar rumor by people wanting to believe it

name an action

– tithing is a religious action, I don’t have to do that

moral argument

– I can be as moral as you can without God

– I can say that other cultures are wrong, there I just said it

– without God, people would still be good, so God isn’t needed

religious people did bad things in history

– this church did a bad thing here

– that church did a bad thing there

– therefore God doesn’t exist

religion is the outcome of man’s struggle with a natural phenomenon

– that is why there are so many religions

WC concluding speech

no arguments for atheism presented

What CH has said during the debate:

– God bad, Mother Teresa bad, religion bad

atheism is a worldview

– it claims to know the truth

– therefore it is exclusive of other views

what does theism explain

– theism explains a broad range of experiences

– origin of the universe, CH has dropped the point

– fine-tuning, CH has dropped the point

– moral, CH says that humans are no different from animals – but an evolved standard is illusory, there are no actual moral values and standards, it’s just a genetic predisposition to act in a certain way – that’s not prescriptive morality

– resurrection, CH has dropped the point

– experience, Craig tells his testimony and urges the audience to give it a shot

CH concluding speech

HITCHENS YIELDS HIS ENTIRE CONCLUDING SPEECH!

A question & answer Period followed the end of the formal debate

Further study

Check out my analysis of the 11 arguments Hitchens made in his opening speech in his debate with Frank Turek.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2NGJ7Jn

By Luke Nix

The Creator Revealed

In 2018 University of Oklahoma particle physicist Dr. Michael G. Strauss released his latest book. In this short non-technical volume, he introduces the reader to the astrophysical discoveries that reveal the characteristics of the Creator of the universe, hence the title “The Creator Revealed.” He strongly emphasizes the claim of Romans 1:20 that the Creator’s attributes are “clearly seen” in the creation, even by those who wish to deny the Creator’s existence. I gave the book a full chapter-by-chapter review available here, but today I want to highlight fifteen of my favorite quotes from the book.

The Christian and the Life of the Mind

“I think that when we as Christians do not fully investigate the truth of something because we are concerned that it might confront our beliefs, we forget one of the very basic characteristics of the God we serve, namely that he is a God of truth.”

“How can we, as Christians, stand firm when our faith is challenged intellectually? We can do this by learning to love the Lord our God with all our minds; by asking tough questions about God and the Bible and finding good, reasonable answers to those questions; by learning how to properly interpret the Bible in its context and according to its culture…and by understanding that all truth discovered by humans will ultimately reveal the creator of all truth.”

“I have found that the more one studies nature, the more one can see that it reveals God’s personality, to such an extent that many of the writings of even nonreligious scientists clearly declare God’s power and majesty.”

“When we find truth in nature or we find truth in scripture, we see God’s character revealed.”

Does The Big Bang Reveal God’s Invisible Attributes?

The Creator Revealead Quotes 1“If the big bang was God’s method of creation yet we as Christians deny its veracity, then we are building an unnecessary wall between us and other people who accept the big bang but don’t yet know God.”

“Most people already have heard of the big bang and agree with scientists that it accurately describes the origin of the universe. What most people don’t know is that the big bang also reveals the characteristics of the creator, the God of the Bible.”

“The evidence that the big bang was God’s method of creation is compelling for many reasons. For instance, it reveals the very nature of God, just as Romans 1:20 says creation should. It doesn’t just reveal God’s character to those who already believe in him or to those who only look superficially at nature; it reveals the very nature of his character to those who study the universe in depth. It drives people to realize that the creator is a transcendent designer who cares for humanity. It leaves them truly without excuse because they have rejected the creator, not for the record of creation.”

“Modern science and the big bang can be tremendous evangelistic tools when we realize that they reveal the character of God.”

“When we understand how the big bang reveals the person and character of God, we see him more clearly, and this shows his glory, majesty, and wonder.”

Why Do Scientists Accept The Big Bang?

The Creator Revealead Quotes 2“Based on the evidence from both observations and theoretical calculations, the scientific community eventually, and maybe reluctantly, has accepted the idea that the universe appears to have begun about fourteen billion years ago–because there is no other explanation that fits the evidence.”

“The evidence for the beginning of the universe in the big bang has become so powerful and so convincing that scientists have accepted it as true even though the philosophical and theological implications may be repugnant to some.”

“There are some Christians who say that most scientists today have misunderstood the facts of nature. They say that the facts clearly point to a universe created just a few thousand years ago. But such a belief is inconsistent with what Romans 1:20 implies. Paul says that the evidence left by the creator should be clearly visible so that all, even the scientists studying the universe, are without excuse if they fail to see it… [T]his is exactly the case with the big bang.”

“It doesn’t matter when the universe was created, whether it was six thousand years ago or fourteen billion years ago, to the naturalist who doesn’t believe in God, both ideas are equally repugnant.”

“It should not surprise you that the big bang reveals characteristics of the creator that (1) are clearly evident, (2) are apparent even to those who do not accept any kind of deity, and (3) correspond to attributes ascribed to God in the rest of the Bible. After all, that is exactly what Paul [in Romans 1:20] said the evidence should do.”

“An accurate understanding of the big bang and its implications can change lives. Truth has a way of doing that.”

The Creator Revealead Quotes 3

 


Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2R7yRJU

By Jacobus Erasmus

In 2016, Jeffery Jay Lowder[1] debated Frank Turek on the topic Naturalism vs theism. See here:

In early 2017, I wrote two articles in which I assess Lowder’s opening statement (see here and here). It was brought to my attention that Lowder recently made some comments to my assessment (see the comment section here).

Lowder’s Comments to My Assessment of His Debate with Turek

I do not usually respond to comments on blogs because (1) it takes too much of my time and (2) I think that my responses will not change many minds. Nevertheless, occasionally it seems worthwhile to make such a response. I wish to take the opportunity in this post to make some remarks about Lowder’s comments in order to remind us how to engage with those that disagree with us. Let me begin by making some general remarks about how (I think) we should engage with an opponent.[2]

First, we should occasionally remind our opponent that we are not criticizing them but a specific view or argument. This implies that we should not attack our opponent personally, that is to say, we should not criticize their personal attributes, such as character, appearance, intelligence, or moral standards. Of course, nor should we physically attack our opponent, nor throw stuff at them, nor give them a wedgie[3] (you get the point). However, it is important to (now and then) make it clear to our opponent that we are not criticizing them even if they attack us personally.

Second, we should occasionally remind our opponent that we value them. As Christians, we believe that every person is created in God’s image and, thus, has tremendous value and worth (Genesis 1:26). This implies that we should treat our opponent with respect and in such a way that they can see we value them. We should not, of course, treat our opponent as if they are less valuable than us; for example, do not talk to your opponent as if they were an earthworm, or blob, or ogre. Furthermore, we should occasionally tell our opponent that we value them as this act shows that we value them. Doing so would also give our opponent an ‘awww-how-nice-of-you’ feeling. I, for one, would feel very warm in my heart if my opponent told me that they value me (I might even give them a hug, but a man hugs, of course).[4]

Moreover, if we truly value our opponent, then we will defend them when relevant. For example, if somebody attacks Lowder personally, and if I am aware of it or in the vicinity, I will defend Lowder. I will be very angry with Lowder’s attacker and I might even give them a wedgie. So, Lowder, if you are reading this, please know that I value you!

Finally, we should occasionally ask our opponent to be patient with us. We all make mistakes and no one is perfect. Thus, it will be beneficial if we remind ourselves that we are not an inerrant, unique snowflake that the world revolves around. And then, once we are humbled, we should ask our opponent to please be patient with us as we interact with them because we might make a blunder here and there. If we do this, then perhaps our opponent will have more respect towards us.

Now, with those general remarks out of the way, let us look at Lowder’s comments. On Sunday, December 30, 2018, 11:04 PM,[5] a person with the username (or real name?) Bogdan Taranu[6] made the following comment to Lowder’s post:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this but Jacobus Erasmus over at Free Thinking Ministries critiqued the case for Naturalism you made during your debate with Turek in a two-part analysis. This was back in 2017. The relevant links are at the end of this comment.

The part I found most interesting is about your claim that Naturalism is intrinsically more probable than Theism. Basically, there are two types of modesty: linguistic and ontological. The former is about the number of claims a hypothesis asserts, while the latter is about the number of entities a hypothesis asserts (a hypothesis is more modest than another if the former asserts the existence of fewer entities – objects, events, properties – than the latter). Linguistic modesty seems to allow one to rig the process of inference to the best explanation.” More to the point linguistic modesty allows us to „define our hypotheses such that they make as many assertions as we want, and then we can choose as the most modest the hypothesis that makes the least number of claims”. This means the theist can say that Theism asserts only that “God exists” while holding that Naturalism asserts several things – thus making Theism more modest than Naturalism.

I would like to know what you think about the above criticism…

Lowder then posted several comments in response to Bogdan. Let us look at them piece by piece. Lowder says,

I’m flattered he found the opening statement worthy of a detailed reply.

Here is a good lesson for all of us: If someone writes a detailed response to your argument, that does not necessarily mean that your argument is, or that they think it is, worthy of a detailed response. In many cases, it is not the argument per se but, rather, the splash or effect generated by the argument that justifies one writing a response to the argument. Consider, for example, some of Richard Dawkins’ objections to theism. His objections are so bad that I (as well as several other scholars) feel embarrassed for Dawkins.[7] His objections are not worthy of a detailed reply. Nevertheless, the influence of his arguments does seem to justify the responses that scholars have offered since many laypersons get moved by the emotional tone of Dawkins and fail to see his reasoning errors.

However, Lowder’s opening statement is worthy of a detailed reply. Lowder is no Dawkins. Indeed, I wish that Lowder had Dawkins’ prominence as Lowder is far more reasonable than Dawkins.

Lowder continues,

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I disagree with him on virtually every point, but more important is the fact that I don’t consider his point about “linguistic modesty” to be an accurate or even charitable representation of my argument.

When we say that someone does not offer a charitable interpretation of an argument, we usually (and should) mean that they have not offered a lenient or tolerant interpretation of the argument. For example, suppose that some sentence is ambiguous and could be read in either a strong, reasonable sense or in a weak, unreasonable sense. A charitable interpretation would be to understand the sentence in the strong, reasonable sense. Lowder, then, is accusing me of not being charitable or accurate in representing his argument. Fair enough. But why, exactly, am I being uncharitable? Lowder continues,

In fact, my points about coherence and modesty show that naturalism (as I have defined it) and supernaturalism (as I have defined it), are equally ontologically modest, whereas theism (as I have defined it) is ontologically less modest than naturalism.

This does not explain how, exactly, I am being uncharitable. We are not talking about how Lowder defines naturalismsupernaturalism, and theism but, rather, with his definition of ‘intrinsic probability’ and ‘modesty’ as these are the definitions he relies on to argue that naturalism is more intrinsically probable than theism. Now, in his opening statement, Lowder explains that the ‘intrinsic probability of a hypothesis is determined entirely by its modesty and coherence’. And what does he mean by ‘modesty’?

Intrinsic probability is determined by modesty, coherence, and nothing else. By “modesty,” I mean a measure of how much the hypothesis asserts. The more a hypothesis claims, the more ways there are for it to be false and so, before we start looking at the evidence, the less likely it is to be true.

Now, I interpret the above quote as talking about linguistic modest, which refers to the number of claims (or propositions) a hypothesis asserts. Am I being uncharitable here? I do not think so. I cannot see how else to interpret the quote.

Lowder continues in his recent comments,

I think he’s barking up the wrong tree.

Is this not a cute saying? Barking up the wrong tree! Nice. Let us see if I can use this saying somewhere later in this post. He continues,

If I were trying to defend theism (or Christian theism) against my opening statement, I would concede the first contention (from my opening statement), but try to minimize the impact of the point about intrinsic probability by arguing that theism is not significantly less intrinsically probable than supernaturalism and/or argue that the evidence favoring theism over naturalism “swamps” its intrinsic improbability.

I sure hope that Lowder would one day be defending Christian theism. We could surely use someone as articulate as him on our side! Lowder, please, please, come over to our side. Lowder continues,

I stand by what I wrote: I don’t think Erasmus has accurately or even charitably represented my view. Here is one of many examples. He writes: “Since naturalism is the view that physical reality is all that exists…” Except that is precisely NOT how I defined naturalism in my opening statement. I understand that many naturalists do define naturalism in that way, which is why I spent precious speaking time in my opening statement to offer nuanced definitions of my terms. And in every speech after my opening statement, I made it very clear that I was NOT defending the view that physical reality is all that exists.

Uhh, so there is a section in my post in which I use the term ‘naturalism’ slightly different to how Lowder defined the term. Why did I do this? I am not sure. After re-reading my post, I think I just made a mistake. The important point, however, is that the meaning of my paragraph does not change when I use Lowder’s definition. My paragraph would then read as follows:

“Since naturalism is the view that the physical exists and, if the mental exists, the physical explains why the mental exists, most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes.”

Indeed, we can even leave that part of the sentence out, as it does not seem to be relevant to my argument:

“Most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes.”

I think Lowder is barking up the wrong tree (huh, I used the saying. Lowder, you have to give me credit for this at least). He is focusing on my definition of naturalism when he should be focusing on the central point or argument that I am making. Lowder continues,

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine why Erasmus has failed to show that theism is more modest than naturalism.

But I am the reader, and I cannot see where I went wrong here? He continues,

Here’s another example of where I think Erasmus is being quite uncharitable. He writes: “Indeed, it seems to me that theism wins here. Since naturalism is the view that physical reality is all that exists, most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes. Either way, this version of naturalism asserts the existence of an infinite number of events or universes.” This is doubly uncharitable. First, he’s attempting to measure the intrinsic probability of one hypothesis, naturalism, by measuring the intrinsic probability of that hypothesis conjoined with an auxiliary hypothesis–his (i) or (ii). But that’s an apples to apples-plus-oranges comparison.

Lowder sure likes to use the word ‘uncharitable’. However, once again, I cannot see how I am being uncharitable. I think it is clear in my paragraph that I am talking about some versions of naturalism, not conjoined hypotheses. I have spoken to naturalists who claim that physical reality is all that exists, and when asked what they mean by ‘physical reality’, they refer to an infinite (or at least very large) multiverse. Others define physical reality as an infinitely old universe. These are single hypotheses or versions of naturalism. Moreover, as Lowder acknowledges, a hypothesis can have multiple claims. Thus, I am referring to versions of naturalism that make these claims; they are not hypotheses conjoined with auxiliary hypotheses.

He continues,

Naturalism, as I’ve defined it, isn’t committed to either (i) or (ii). If a naturalist subscribes to either (i) or (ii), then that would be the result of some factor which is extrinsic to the content of naturalism. For example, a scientist, who could be a theist or a naturalist, might posit a multiverse in order to explain such puzzling phenomena as the so-called “cold spot” … But, if they do, they’re appealing to a posteriori information which is by definition irrelevant to intrinsic probability.

Lowder’s bare-bones-super-skinny-desperate-for-flesh definition of naturalism, of course, might not be committed to either (i) or (ii) depending on what he means by ‘physical reality’. However, I was discussing more substantial and (as I see it) common versions of naturalism. As I see it, as soon as a naturalist posits a multiverse or an infinitely old universe, that forms part of their naturalism because it alters their understanding of ‘physical reality’. So, for example, if Lowder believes in a multiverse, then he will understand ‘physical reality’ to include a multiverse and his view of naturalism will affirm a multiverse. Well, this is how I see things anyway. You are free to see things differently.

I will end here. Lowder does make a few more remarks (I believe that what I have already said applies to most of his other remarks) and he might make further comments after this writing (I wrote this early on the 03 January 2018). This was enjoyable and pleasant. I enjoy reading about Lowder’s ideas, and I hope he will be more active on his blog in the future.

Notes

[1] Don’t you just like the name ‘Lowder’? I would not mind having that name. It rolls nicely off the tongue. But I can think of some awkward situations that the name can get you into. For example, since it sounds like ‘louder’, can you imagine someone who is struggling to hear you ask, ‘Please talk louder’?

[2] I readily admit that I have not always followed the advice I present here. I have made mistakes. But I am trying. Moreover, please feel free to disagree with some (or all!) of my remarks. I am simply explaining how I see things.

[3] Definition of wedgie: ‘The condition of having one’s clothing stuck between the buttocks, often from having had one’s pants or underwear pulled up as a prank’ (https://www.wordnik.com/words/wedgie).

[4] What is a ‘man hug’? It is a type of hug that has several characteristics that distinguish it from a normal hug: (1) The hug is performed by a man. (2) While performing the hug, the man tenses or flexes his arm, shoulder, and chest muscles as to not come across as squishy. (3) The hug is performed for a very short duration, usually under one second.

[5] Yes, you should be impressed by my precision.

[6] Let us just agree that the name ‘Bogdan Taranu’ is unusual for us Westerners.

[7] When I say that I feel ‘embarrassed for Dawkins’ I do not mean this in a derogatory or demeaning or belittling sense. Rather, I mean that I truly feel embarrassed or sympathy for him. Let me try to clarify this somewhat. When I watch a Mr. Bean or Johnny English movie, I feel embarrassed for the main character because they do things in the story that I would be too embarrassed to do, and part of me wishes that the character would not have behaved in such a silly manner. It is this same feeling I have towards Dawkins. When I see Dawkins I see Mr. Bean. In fact, I have a suspicion that Dawkins is Mr. Bean undercover.

 


Jacobus Erasmus (Kobus) Dr. Jacobus Erasmus is the author of the book “The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment”. He is currently a researcher at North-West University, South Africa and a computer programmer. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from North-West University and was awarded the Merit Prize in 2015 by the university’s School of Philosophy for superior performance for his doctoral dissertation. Dr. Erasmus also holds an Honours Degree in IT. His main research interests include Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and Metaphysics. www.JacobusErasmus.com

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2FqYof7