Pow! There Goes An Atheist 1.3 Down

Discussion what atheism is?

Atheist: I do not have to give any  justification that your God does not exist. It is  you, faith-headed people who bear the burden of proof.

Christian: Why do you think atheist are not to shoulder the burden of proof?

Confused

Atheist: Because atheism is the absence of belief – there is no evidence or reason to accept claims for a god. Atheism is not a belief in no gods, atheism is a rejection of beliefs in gods.

Christian: So you mean atheism is not “a belief that there is no God”, but simply “no belief there is a God”?

Atheist: Yes.  One can not give evidence for a non-belief in unicorns, fairy creatures or a God/gods. 🙂

Christian: Is this not a re-definition of the term “atheism”, a way to avoid the burden of proof?

Atheist: What do you mean?

Christian: Well, in that re-definition, atheism is not a view but mere psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all.

Atheist: I am not following your reasoning!

Christian: If atheism is a “no belief in God”, then it not a view. Babies, mental handicaps, and animals(assuming they do not have a belief in God) are then atheists.

Atheist: But that is what atheism is? We are only expressing non-belief, nothing more, nothing-less.

Christian: That is untrue.  Atheism does not merely mean no believe in God, but a belief there is no God. It  involves both “not believing that there is a God” and “believing that there is no God.”

Atheist: No! Atheism involves only  not believing there is a God, full stop.

Christian: Re-defining words to avoid the burden of proof would not work, because if that is all atheism involves, then it  stops to be a view.

Atheist: So what, if it not a view?

Christian: So I think you’re still required to give a justification in order to know that God does not exist.  Atheism is more than a non-belief there is God. You hold a view that involves a belief that there is no God.

Atheist: I still do not agree!

Christian: I know!But you and I my friend, still need to answer the question, Is there a God or not?

N.B: Christian view has a good philosophical and historical grounds that  There is God. See The Existence of God on your upper right 🙂

Book To Read: There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew

There’s Propably No God?

Atheist Campaign

Reading this slogan, I could not help but notice the desperation in the New atheists worldview.

1. There is Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life

In Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ(1968), Friedrich Nietzsche’s understood the implication of the death of God  to societies’ moral landscape . He argued Morality “has truth only if God is the truth – it stands or falls with faith in God”(p.70). To Nietzche, If God did not exist, then moral facts did not exist neither.

Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson agrees that “ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes in order to get us to cooperate”(The evolution of ethics, New Scientist 17 p.108-28,1989)

If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. If this is true, should I stop worrying and start enjoying my life?  No! I am to start worrying because the death of God unleashes a morally dangerous society, where murder, rape, stealing, e.t.c would not really be wrong(just pitiless indifference).

This Godless society were “some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.” If God does not exist then ” The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is , at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”, borrowing words from Richard Dawkins. Is this society which New atheist want us  to stop worrying and start enjoying my life?

If God does not exist, I ought start worrying.

Albert Einstein

2. Boy! Oh Boy! Albert Einstein Quote

When I read Einstein’s quote used to promote a poor slogan, I could not help but notice a cheap scores tactics namely  ” we are with the good guys”(Religion-bad-vs-Science-good), false dilemma.

What would Einstein say if he was alive to the New Atheists quoting him? Well in his time, he said:

“In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.”

(Prinz Hubertus zu Lowenstein, Towards the Further Shore: An Autobiography (Victor Gollancz, London, 1968), p. 156.)

Or,

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”

G. S. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930), quoted by D. Brian, Einstein: A Life , p. 186.)

Baruch Spinoza

Einstein believed in an infinite, necessary and uncaused, indivisible God. The God whom Baruch Spinoza(1632-1677) believed.

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

Cable reply to Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein’s (Institutional Synagogue in New York) question to Einstein, “Do you believe in God?”

Albert did not believe(rejected) in personal God as Christians do, due to the problem of evil and suffering. But folks, using Einstein to promote Atheism is simply “desperation”.

N.B: Objective morality hangs or falls on Existence of God. Many atheists get it wrong thinking that objective moral depend on faith in God.

Faith in God is not necessary for one to be moral.

Exploring Why Richard Dawkins Is Chickening Out

 An atheist blog founder of Debunking Christianity, author of “Why I Became An Atheist” and former Christian minister John W. Loftus reviewed William Lane Craig Vs Christopher debate, under the title William Lane Craig “Won by a Landslide” Against Hitchens as follows:

That’s what Roger Sharp said on Facebook after watching the debate in person. [Full disclosure, Sharp is a Christian]. This is exactly what I had predicted. Christian professor Doug Geivett weighed in on the debate where he said: Craig “was thoroughly prepared for every aspect of the debate and never faltered in his response to objections by Hitchens,” and that Hitchens’s arguments “were largely unfocused, sometimes disconnected, and often irrelevant.” Over at Common Sense Atheism (which is a great source for Craig debates) is an atheist review of the debate where we read: “Frankly Craig spanked Hitchens like a foolish child.” For more info visit here.

Dawkins, Haris, Dennett

What does this have to do with Richard Dawkins?

Everything! Pro. Dawkins knows that William Lane Craig is prepared for every aspect of the debate and as a matter of fact, Dawkins has yet to respond to Bills’ critique of The God Delusion,(see the  first chapter of, God Is Good, God Is Great, Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible)

One can understand why Dawkins is Chickening Out, when he/she reads how William Lane Craig shattered his objections.

A good example can be seen when Craig shattered one of the popular Dawkinian objection “Who Design the Designer?” which is countless repeated in New Atheists’ books.

Dawkins’ Objection To Teleological Argument:

But of course any God capable of intelligently designing as complex as the DNA/protein replicating machinery must have been at least as complex and organized as that machine itself. Far more so if we suppose him additionally capable of such advanced functions as listening to prayers and forgiving sins. To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like “God was always there,” and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well say that “DNA was always there,” or “Life was always there,” and be done with it. (Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Longman, 1986, p. 141.)

Echoed By an atheist apologist and philosopher Daniel C. Dennett:

“Since, as Dawkins notes, the hypothesis that [organized, complex] mind plays such a role in the universe could not possibly be explanatory, we should ask: With what other hypotheses is the architecture of the universe consistent?”(Dennett, Atheism and Evolution; The Cambridge Companion to Atheism; The Cambridge University Press;2007, p143.)

And again by Christopher Hitchens:

the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator. Religion and theology… have consistently failed to overcome this objection(Hitchens, God is not Great, Hachette Book Group; 2007, p71.)

William Lane Craig shattering the Objection:

Are There Contradictions in Bible?

Are there contradictions in the Bible, and if so, how do you explain them?

Mike Licona’s Risen Jesus Site

God is Sovereign

God is Sovereign

 

    “Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
(Isaiah 46:8-10 ESV)

Picture: Blogmatics.wordpress.com

So What is What!

DNA

Defining Terms:

Macro-evolution – Refers to the emergence of major innovations or the unguided development of new structures(like wings) new organs(like lungs), and body plans(like the origin of insects and birds). It includes changes above the species level.

Micro-evolution – Refers to minor variations that occur in populations over time. Examples include variation in moth coloration and finch beaks, and the emergence of different breeds of dogs.

Darwinism – The belief that undirected mechanistic processes(primary random mutation and natural selection) can account for all the diverse and complex living organisms that exist. Insists that there is no long range plan or purpose in the history of life(ie.,that changes happen without intent)

Creationism –  the theory that God’s creation occurred directly and not through Darwinian mechanism of evolution. Young earth creationist believe that all the earth is no more than 10,000 years old, and that all biological life forms were created in six calendar days and have remained  relatively stable throughout their existence, while Old earth creationist claiming it to be more than 5 billion years.

Intelligent Design – The belief that earth and biological life owe their existence to a purposeful, intelligent creator.

Doubting Evolution

 

“Scientific journals now document many scientific problems and criticisms of evolutionary theory and students need to know about these as well. … Many of the scientific criticisms of which I speak are well known by scientists in various disciplines, including the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, in which I have done my work.”

− Philip S. Skell,

Member National Academy of Sciences, Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University

Cited: There Is Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. “It deserves to be heard“