Tough Questions Answered

I’d like to add, though, that all in all, that’s a much, much better entry than many apologists would make, to be honest. I may not agree with the spin you give the words, and I may not think you fleshed it out nearly enough, but that’s not a bad entry at all.

The following post was written in response to “What If There Is No God?”

http://holyerthanthou.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/toying-with-atheism/

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks

probabilityzero,
Thank you for your comments. The great atheist writers that I’ve read (e.g., Nietszche and Sartre) saw the ultimate consequences of their beliefs. These consequences, however, greatly saddened many of them (especially Sartre). Even though he knew that the non-existence of God entailed these things, he didn’t like that kind of a world. Nietszche predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest yet because he saw that non-belief in God would finally allow mankind to unleash its desires without fear of cosmic justice.

I believe that a world without God is unliveable. Although there are some atheists that are good and decent people, I truly believe that without God the world would fall into moral anarchy, as evidenced by the 20th century’s misadventures with totalitarian and atheistic regimes.

Nevertheless, if it is true that God doesn’t exist, so be it.

“Many hardened atheists honestly answer that it wouldn’t matter what evidence they’re shown. They will not believe. Period.”

All I can answer to that is, nope, not the ones I know. Most people who’ve really thought about this would say that they won’t believe short of something important happening.

On the contrary, I’ve been told by Christians, once or twice, that they would not change their beliefs even if they were conclusively proved wrong, which seems pretty ridiculous to me. In both cases they were pretty reasonable people, and to be honest, that bothers me.

I agree that people don’t make entirely rational decisions, and in fact I did say that even scientists don’t base their every decision on rational thought and evidence; for many things, it’s much quicker and more pleasant to make largely emotional decisions. In fact, a society is made up of human beings who aren’t entirely rational, so it is quite necessary to have emotion. When asking important questions about the objective nature of the Universe and existence itself, though, I think we should make, as much as possible, purely rational decisions, as it involves a Universe that does appear to be entirely rational (in fact, our idea of rational thought is based on the way the Universe works, that is, at a very basic level, on cause and effect) and that we should encourage others to do so. If it were that many people could be swayed to atheism through emotional arguments, (some definitely can be, but not too many) I’d say that we should discourage them from that, and I know of many people who agree.

As for what it would take me to believe, well, to be honest, the Biblical God is pretty much out of the question by now. He’d virtually have to manifest directly and clearly to me. For something as broad as a creator, though, well, it would still take quite a lot for me to find that the most likely proposition, but there’s a lot of simple things that could push me that way. If the idea of abiogenesis was found to be virtually impossible (for example, if further study of amino acids showed that they purely and simply can not eventually form life beyond simple replicators, which are arguably not life at all) or other discoveries made a view of a Universe without a creator considerably more unlikely, I would definitely consider it, well, more likely. So much doesn’t match between religious gospels and reality, though, that I’d be hard-pressed to find those to be likely at all, short of a supreme being coming up to me and telling me that the books are true. I’d appreciate if he explained why deeper observations of history and, more generally, facts, tend to drive us away from a need for his existence.

“One last thing. If God came and spoke to you, wouldn’t the best explanation be that you were hallucinating or suffering from a mental illness? Why would such a visit convince you God exists?

He has already spoken to many people throughout the history of the world, and those people actually wrote down what he said (in the Bible).

But I’m guessing you think those people were mentally unstable, or deceptive, or gullible, so why would a visit from God today be any different?”

Addressing that part first, because it’s the simplest. People in the Bible have not written about God talking to them, they have written about people who had been in the presence of people to whom God supposedly spoke, the whole thing rendered into written form some time after the fact, at a time when people knew little about the world. Had I been born then, I’d almost certainly have believed. This was a time when few could write or read, and relying on authority was simply the only reliable way to survive.

To put it simply, I don’t believe they were any more deluded or insane than the Greeks who believed that Poseidon hindered Jason and the Argonauts, or that Theseus slew the Minotaur, or than the Norsemen who believed Beowulf had saved a kingdom from the monstrous Grendel and his (apparently more monstrous) mother. I believe the accounts have been fictionalized. Certainly such things have been written, but does Homer’s epic convince you that there were Cyclopses and that the Golden Fleece existed? In the same way, I don’t think there was a God. I know that people have written about it and believed it, but I fail to see how it’s superior to the stories of the Greeks or Norse, or the epics of King Arthur, or what have you. All of them mention historical places, times and occasionally events, and all of them claim to be factual accounts. Note also that there are points in the Bible at which no one should have been present to hear and recount what was being said or done… and yet it’s narrated.

Perhaps some who “heard God” were insane. It seems obvious to me that some people who said they did “hear God” and went on to do horrors in His name were simply lying. (or perhaps didn’t notice that the little voice in their head said whatever they wanted it to say…) Ultimately, though, if I heard God, I wouldn’t conclude I was insane, I would conclude that I could be. If it were a clear message (and not some kind of inane order) and I appeared not to have any problems according to a specialist, then no, I wouldn’t think it’s likely that I’m insane. However, I would expect a God to be honest and relatively clear. In any case, I don’t see that as a genuine possibility. In the event that it happened, though, I’d definitely have to look into it.

As for abiogenesis, you’re not being very reasonable. That “no known means exists” isn’t particularly telling. The same was the case with virtually everything for thousands of years, and fifty years (!!!!!!) isn’t much. The atomic models, the Big Bang idea and the particulars of electricity all took considerably longer to reach their current form, to name a few. The number of theories isn’t impressive if you consider the way science works and the sheer number of possibilities involved in the beginning of life. The Big Bang theory is not actually a theory, but a cosmological model representing many possibilities all derived from a common basic set of generally recognized observations. There are also several theories on the specifics of the Big Bang, the smallest particles making up atoms, the nature of gravity, and so forth. That is where the debate is. Science must look at every plausible possibility. Because there are many and we don’t immediately have the means to narrow it down doesn’t mean we have to discount them all, let alone surrended to a particular hypothesis.

Along that line of thought, why Christian creationism? Your intelligent design pretty clearly involves a creator based on the gospels. What drives you to believe that those accounts are true, and why, if I am to disagree with mainstream science, should I pick that particular possibility?

“If even one theory were compelling, it would have gained traction by now.” A couple of them have much more “traction” than the rest, and suffer from little (none, as far as I can tell, but I won’t pretend I’ve searched in depth just for this comment) to no contrary evidence. Do read the Wikipedia article you pointed me to.

“Complex, specified information only originates in minds.”

Quite contrary, it appears to be necessary for the formation of a mind. I am to assume I’m not the first to ask, if a mind is necessary for the creation of other living minds, where did the first one come from? The bits and pieces, the component parts of this complex information does exist in nature. In order to form life, it had to align properly. That’s oversimplifying, but essentially that’s it. Am I to assume that an uncreated “first mind”, that makes no sense a priori, must exist because I have trouble finding out how these bits aligned? It’s plausible that they naturally did. In fact, several of the different theories of abiogenesis rest on the different ways those bits could have come together right.

Flew is very explicitly a deist and absolutely not a Christian, and his position can hardly be refuted because it rests essentially on things we don’t know, as opposed to things we know. He’s a very smart man, definitely, and he might just be right. And?

You might need to define exactly how many scientists is “many” scientists, and what era you’re talking about, here, though. Certainly a number of them believe in a first cause, but “many”? Very certainly not most. I would almost dare say nowhere near most.

“Addressing that part first, because it’s the simplest. People in the Bible have not written about God talking to them, they have written about people who had been in the presence of people to whom God supposedly spoke, the whole thing rendered into written form some time after the fact, at a time when people knew little about the world. Had I been born then, I’d almost certainly have believed. This was a time when few could write or read, and relying on authority was simply the only reliable way to survive.”

I’m afraid these statements are factually incorrect, which leads me, with all due respect, to wonder if you have ever read the Bible or are familiar with higher criticism. Virtually every scholar on the planet admits that the apostle Paul wrote several of the books that claim him as author. He was an eyewitness and he wrote shortly after the events allegedly occurred. Again, there is just little debate about this. Paul several times claims that he was instructed by the Spirit of God. Luke also wrote about Paul’s vision of Christ on the road to Damascus. Again, virtually every scholar admits that Paul really thought he saw this vision. Likewise, Peter and John also claimed that God spoke to them, and very few doubt their authorship of their respective NT books.

In the Old Testament, virtually every single book is full of accounts of God speaking to people. Again, the most critical scholars admit several of these books (not all) were written by the prophets themselves. You have person after person after person in the Bible claiming God spoke to them, and even the most critical scholars admit some of these accounts were written by the prophets themselves.

Your assertion that reading and writing was rare is also not true. Compared to today’s literacy rates, yes, but we have examples of extensive writing going all the way back to 3000 BC. Archaeology completely refutes the idea that people of the ancient world were all illiterate. They were not. You should pick up some books about ancient Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. You’ll be amazed at how prolifically they wrote! Plato wrote a lot of stuff and he lived between 428 and 348 BC. The biblical texts were written from about 1400 BC to AD 100. And even if many people were illiterate, it doesn’t matter because historians have shown that their oral traditions were very strong and they were able to accurately transmit oral histories for hundreds of years with little modification.

Additionally, your comparison of the Bible to other mythical stories is unfair. There are large sections of the Bible that are clearly intended to be true and accurate historical narrative. The authors go out of their way to claim they are writing history. Witness John in 1 John:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.”
1 Jn 1:1-3.

Does it sound like he’s confused about real history and myths?

Archaeology has confirmed much of what they wrote about. Historical facts recorded in Luke, Acts, and John, to name a few, have been confirmed and found to be accurate. For example, read C. J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, C. H. Gempf, ed.; and A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament.

Another example of NT writing will illustrate the point further. Does this passage below sound like Luke is writing mythology? If so, he was a dope because anyone could have checked out the numerous historical facts he listed (and they have been checked out and found to be accurate):

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.”
Lk 3:1-2.

Your argument that the books of the Bible are all third-hand accounts written a long time after the alleged events, and are thus all fictional, just does not stand up at all. I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and say that all of the biblical writers were out and out liars or were totally deceived. That’s quite a bit different from your present position, which is basically “they were all ignorant primitives who didn’t know the difference between myths and reality.” I just don’t think it works.

With regard to abiogenesis, the trends are what I’m referring to. They’ve moved from great confidence in the 1950′s (read all the press releases proclaiming a solution to the origin of life!) to no confidence in 2008. The situation keeps getting worse for them, and not better. I wish them the best of luck. I really do, but I think their approaches to the problem are fatally flawed. Let’s just say that if you understand the current situation in this research field, it takes a lot of faith to believe they’re going to crack this puzzle with their current approaches.

“Along that line of thought, why Christian creationism? Your intelligent design pretty clearly involves a creator based on the gospels. What drives you to believe that those accounts are true, and why, if I am to disagree with mainstream science, should I pick that particular possibility?”

I am not arguing for the creator being the Christian God at this point. Science, by itself, can never lead specifically to the Christian God, but it can lead in the direction of a Creator, and that’s progress!

“It’s plausible that they naturally did. In fact, several of the different theories of abiogenesis rest on the different ways those bits could have come together right.”

Fine, show me how. It’s easy to explain how MacBeth was the result of an intelligent mind, namely that of Shakespeare. So tell me how something orders of magnitude more complex and more specified, such as a simple amoeba, was the result of random natural processes. If materialists could just answer this question, the intelligent design folks would close up shop and go home.

Good night for now! Thanks for your patience and your attempt to understand my arguments. You have clearly thought a lot about these issues, and that is a great thing.

I’ll admit to never having fully read the Bible, and getting a lot of stuff wrong in that comment. My argument wasn’t totally out of the blue, though, so I’ll be off looking for sources and reading and be back with that.

I did screw up my literacy rates there. I know education was relatively widespread in the great civilisations of Biblical times. Somehow I got messed up and was thinking of the Dark Ages, when the literacy was widespread only among the clergy, and Christianity eventually took lasting hold. That was long after the NT and much longer after the OT, though. My bad.

Oh, and I can’t deny that the Bible goes to greater lengths than many writings of the time to be historically accurate, (though the Old Testament claims entirely ludicrous ages for many people) my argument wasn’t that they’d been caught in by some kind of complete fabrication, but that they were accounts of events which had happened, for the most part, a decade or more before the writing (I do mean a decade, not much longer than that. I do think I’ve seen a case made for one of the Gospels having been written fifty or so years after the events it relates), and which may have been, intentionally or not, embellished in the style of the fiction of the era. I’m not saying the Bible has no historical validity, but that the supernatural aspects aren’t more believable than those of any other legends. Roman emperors were often rendered as quasi-divine by historians, for that matter, and one (I should remember his name, but I forget) was claimed by a historian to have performed miracles, and this was an official record. My point is, though people of the time may have been rigorous (and as I said, some OT dates are, to say the least, very questionable), they weren’t nearly as sceptical about as we are about the supernatural. To the people of the era, lightning, rain, earthquakes and droughts were largely supernatural, and wise men of the time were no exception to that lack of modern knowledge.

But yes, I’ll be looking things up for my next comment.