Blog Burnout

I apologize for not posting this earlier, as some of you may have wondered what had happened to me (okay, I know none of you really did) =). In all sincerity, I had every intent of responding to the discussion topics that were raised, but found myself burned out. I suppose anyone who has embarked upon the journey of graduate work can empathize. Therefore, it wasn't because the atheistic worldview delivered a death blow to the theistic perspective, as some of you have presumptuously purported. With papers, research, and exams crying out for my attention, I found that I was spending way too much time on this. I suppose it was inevitable that someone who would write nearly 20 pages on one single post would be burned-out. My procrastination to respond led to my disinterest. For that, I apologize. I must admit that I am torn. I want to continue to discuss some of the topics that were raised, but am exhausted at the thought of how much work I would have to put into it. Nevertheless, I will move past my distaste for ostensible gratuitous debate and will remain open to any discussion you want to have. However, this time, I hope to pace myself=).

The Best Possible Solution Part 2

There is a lot to read here. Please take your time, and let me know your thoughts. My desire is that we could investigate all of the evidence presented, and decide what the best possible explanation is from observable reality. Let us begin.

As we have recently discussed, it appears that the Cambrian Explosion is often used in order to illustrate a flaw in Darwinism. Although I thought I generally knew what it was, what I read shed more clarity on the issue. However, that wasn’t the only issue that seemed to cause many scientists to make a “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.” I understand that some of what I suggest will not be new to many of you. However, contrary to what some have suggested in previous comments, it may be that the evidence presented against Darwinism is much greater than perceived. Consider:

Jonathon Wells, PHD, PHD

Graduated from University of California at Berkley in geology and physics, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, doctorate in Religious Studies from Yale Graduate School, specialized in 19th Century controversies surrounding Darwin, received doctorate in molecular and cell biology from Berkley as a post-doctorate research biologist.

Darwinism: theory that all living creatures are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived long ago.

Neo-Darwinism: Claims that these modifications are the result of natural selection acting on random genetic mutations.

False or Misleading Basic Icons of Evolution:

1) The Miller Experiment

(This experiment, in which Stanley Miller shot electricity through an atmosphere like the one on the primitive earth, created amino acids – the building blocks of life).

“Miller chose hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor, which was consistent with what many scientists thought back then. But scientists don’t believe that anymore. As a geophysicist with the Carnegie Institution said in the 1960s, ‘What is the evidence for a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere on earth? The answer is that there is no evidence for it, but much against it.’ In the 1970s, Belgian biochemist Marcel Florkin was declaring that the concept behind Miller’s theory of the early atmosphere had been abandoned. Leading Origin-of-Life researchers, Klaus Dose and Sidney Fox, confirmed that Miller had used the wrong gas mixture. Science Magazine in 1995 said that experts now dismiss Miller’s Experiment because ‘the early atmosphere looked nothing like Miller-Urey simulation. The best hypothesis now is that there was very little hydrogen in the atmosphere because it would have escaped into space. Instead the atmosphere probably consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor. So my gripe is that textbooks still present the Miller Experiment as though it reflected the earth’s early environment, when most geochemists since the 1960s would say it was totally off.”

Q: What happens if you replay the experiment using an accurate atmosphere?

Wells:

“You do not get amino acid, that’s for sure. Some textbooks fudge by saying, well, even if you use realistic atmosphere, you will still get organic molecules, as if that solves the problem.” Although this sounds promising for life, “That’s what they sound like, but do you know what they are? Formaldehyde! Cyanide! They may be organic molecules, but in my lab at Berkley you couldn't even have a capped bottle of formaldehyde in the room, because the stuff is so toxic. You open the bottle and it fries proteins all over the place, just from the fumes. It kills embryos. The idea that using a realistic atmosphere gets you the first step in the origin of life is just laughable. Now, it’s true that a good organic chemist can turn formaldehyde and cyanide into biological molecules. But to suggest that formaldehyde and cyanide give you the right substrate for the origin of life – well, it’s just a joke. Do you know what you get? Embalming fluid!”

Q: What if someone finally manages to produce amino acids one day from a realistic atmosphere of the early earth – or say, a comet brought them in some way?

Wells:

“That would be the first step in an extremely complicated process. You would have to get the right number of the right kinds of amino acid to link up to create a protein molecule – that would still be along way from a living cell. Then you’d need dozens of protein molecules, again in the right sequence, to create a living cell. The odds against it are astonishing. The gap between nonliving chemicals and even the most primitive living organism is absolutely tremendous. The problem is, you can’t make a living cell. There’s not even any point in trying. No biologist in his right mind would think you can take a test tube with these molecules and turn them into a living cell.

Strobel: “In other words, if you want to create life, on top of the challenge of somehow generating the cellular components out of nonliving chemicals, you would have an even bigger problem of trying to put the ingredients together in the right way.”

Wells:

“The evidence is just not there. One popular theory was that RNA, a close relative of DNA, could have been a molecular cradle from which early cells developed. This RNA world hypothesis was heralded as a great possibility for a while. But nobody could demonstrate how RNA could have formed before living cells were around to make it, or how it could have survived under the conditions on the early earth. You have to build straw man upon straw man to get to the point where RNA is a viable first biomolecule. In short, it was a dead end, as all other theories have been.”

Journalist Gregg Easterbrook, “Science doesn’t have the slightest idea how life began. No generally accepted theory exists, and the steps leading from a barren primordial world to the fragile chemistry of life seem imponderable.”

2) Darwin’s Tree of Life

Wells:

“As an illustration of the fossil record, the Tree of Life is a dismal failure. But it is a good representation of Darwin’s theory. You see, he believed that if a population was exposed to one set of conditions, and another part of the population experienced other conditions, then natural selection could modify the two populations in different ways. Over time, one species could produce several varieties, and if these varieties continued to diverge, they would eventually become separate species – that’s why his drawing was in the pattern of a branching tree.”

Note: A key aspect of his theory was that natural selection would act, in his own words, ‘slowly by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations’ and that ‘no great or sudden modifications’ were possible.

Although Darwin thought the fossil discoveries of the future would prove his theories, “fossil discoveries over the last hundred and fifty years have turned his tree upside down by showing the Cambrian Explosion was even more abrupt and extensive than scientists once thought.”

Cambrian Explosion:

The Cambrian was a geological period suggested to be a little more than 540 million years ago. The Cambrian Explosion, often called the Biological Big Bang, gave rise to the sudden appearance of “most of the major animal phyla that are still alive today, as well as some that are now extinct.”

The Record Shows:

“There were some jellyfish, sponges, and worms prior to the Cambrian, although there’s no evidence to support Darwin’s theory of a long history of gradual divergence. Then at the beginning of the Cambrian – boom! All of a sudden we see representatives of the arthropods, modern representatives of which are insects, crabs, and the like; echinoderms, which include modern starfish and sea urchins; chordates, which include modern vertebrates; and so forth. This is absolutely contrary to Darwin’s Tree of Life. These animals, which are so fundamentally different in their body plans, appear fully developed, all of a sudden, in what paleontologists have called the single most spectacular phenomenon of the fossil record.”

Q: How did these animals come onto the scene?

An analogy for football fans:

“Imagine yourself on one goal line of a football field. That line represents the first fossil, a microscopic, single-celled organism. Now start marching down the field. You pass the 20 yard line, 40 yard line, midfield, and you are approaching the other goal line. All you’ve seen this entire time are these microscopic, single-celled organisms. You come to the 16 yard line on the far end of the field, and now you see these sponges and maybe some jelly fish and worms. Then, in the space of a single stride, all these other forms of animals suddenly appear.”

The reason it turns Darwin’s Theory on its head, from a paleontologist in China: “…because the major groups of animals, instead of coming last, at the top of the tree – come first, when animals make their first appearance. This has uprooted Darwin’s tree.”

Although as a scientist, Wells always has to leave room for new scientific discovery, “The Cambrian explosion is too big to be masked by the flaws in the fossil record. As for Pre-Cambrian fossils being too tiny or soft to be preserved, we have microfossils of bacteria in rocks dating back more than 3 billion years. And there have been soft-bodied organisms from before the Cambrian that have been found in Australia. In fact, scientists have found soft-bodied animals in the Cambrian Explosion itself. Today evolutionists are turning to molecular evidence to try to show there was a common ancestor prior to the Cambrian.”

However, “You take a molecule that’s basic to life – say ribosomal RNA – and you examine it in a starfish, and ten you study its equivalent in a snail, a worm, and a frog. You’re looking for similarities, and if you make the assumption that they came from a common ancestor, then you can construct a theoretical evolutionary tree. But, there are too many problems with this. If you compare this molecular tree with a tree based on anatomy, you get a different tree. You can examine another molecule and come up with another tree altogether. In fact, if you give one molecule to two different laboratories, you can get two different trees. There’s no consistency, even with dating. Based on this, I think it’s reasonable for me, as a scientist, to say that maybe we should question our assumption that this common ancestor exists.”

Stephen C. Meyer:

“The fossils of the Cambrian Explosion absolutely cannot be explained by Darwinian Theory or even the by concept called ‘punctuated equilibrium,’ which was specifically formulated in an effort to explain away the embarrassing fossil record. When you look at the issue from the perspective of biological information, the best explanation is that an intelligence was responsible for this otherwise inexplicable phenomenon. New developments in embryology and developmental biology are telling us that DNA, as important as it is, is not the whole show. DNA provides some but not all of the information that’s needed to build a new organism with a novel form and function. You see, DNA builds proteins, but proteins have to be assembled into larger structures. There are different kinds of cells, and those cells have to be arranged into organs, and organs have to be arranged into overall body plans. According to Neo-Darwinism, new biological forms are created from mutations in DNA, with natural selection preserving and building on the favorable ones. But if DNA is only the part of the story, then you can mutate it indefinitely and you’ll never build a fundamentally new body architecture. So when you encounter the Cambrian Explosion, with its huge and sudden appearance of radically new body plans, you realize you need lots of new biological information. Some of it would be encoded for DNA – although how that occurs is still an insurmountable problem for Darwinists. But on top of that, WHERE DOES THE NEW INFORMATION COME FROM THAT’S NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO DNA? How does hierarchical arrangements of cells, tissues, organs, and body plans develop? Darwinists don’t have an answer. It’s not even on their radar.”

“The puzzle of the Cambrian Explosion quickly falls into place once the possibility of a purposeful Creator is allowed as one of the explanatory options. Neo-Darwinism predicts a bottom-up pattern in which small differences in form between evolving organisms appear prior to large differences in form and body plan organization. Instead, however, fossils from the Cambrian explosion show a radically different ‘top-down’ pattern. Major differences in form and body plans appear first, with no simpler transitions before them. Later, minor variations arise within the framework of these separate and disparate body plans. This has simply stumped Neo-Darwinists. Not even the punctuated equilibrium idea works, for it can’t account for the ‘top-down’ phenomenon. In fact, punctuated equilibrium predicts a bottom up pattern; it just asserts that the increments of evolutionary change would be larger. If you postulate intelligent design, the ‘top down’ pattern makes sense.”

3) Haeckel’s Embryos

Images depicting embryos of fish, salamander, tortoise, chicken, hog, calf, rabbit, and human side-by-side at three stages of development. This supported Darwin’s assertion that the striking similarities between early embryos is “by far the strongest single class of facts” in favor of his theory that all organisms share a universal ancestor.

To sum up what Wells is about to say, it turns out that these images were faked. “He used the same woodcut to print embryos from different classes because he was so confident of his theory that he didn’t have to draw them separately. In other cases, he doctored the drawings to make them look more similar than they really are. At any rate, his drawings misrepresent the embryos.” This was first discovered in 1860s, when his colleagues accused him of fraud.

“When some biologists exposed this in an article a few years ago, the evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard complained that this was nothing new. He had known about it for 20 years! It was no secret to the experts. Even Gould said textbook writers should be ashamed of the way the drawings had been mindlessly recycled for over a century. At least he was honest enough to call it was it was – ‘the academic equivalent of murder.’

Haeckel only showed a few of the seven vertebrate classes. “He used a salamander to represent amphibians instead of a frog, which looks very different. The ones he cherry-picked happened to look more similar than the ones he omitted. So he stacked the deck by picking representatives that came closer to fitting his idea – and then he went further by faking similarities.”

The most dramatic problem is that, “If you go back to the earlier stages, the embryos look far more different from each other. But he deliberately omits the earlier stages altogether. Remember, embryos are most similar in their early stages, this is evidence of common ancestry. He thought that the early stage showed what the common ancestor looked like – sort of like a fish. But embryologists talk about the developmental hourglass, which refers to the shape of an hourglass, with its width representing the measure of difference. You see, vertebrate embryos start out looking very different in the early cell division stages. The cell divisions in a mammal, for example, are radically different from those in any of the other classes. There’s no possible way you could mix them up. In fact, it’s extremely different within classes. The patterns are all over the place. Then at the midpoint – which is what Haeckel claimed in his drawings was the early stage – the embryos become more similar, though nowhere near as much as Haeckel claimed. Then they become very different again. Of course, some Darwinists try to get around Haeckel’s problems by changing their tune. They use evolutionary theory to try to explain why the differences in the embryos are there. They can get quite elaborate.”

“But that’s doing the same thing that the theory-savers were doing with the Cambrian explosion. What was supposed to be primary evidence for Darwin’s theory – the fossil or embryo evidence – turns out to be false, so they immediately say, well, we know the theory is true, so let’s use the theory to explain why the evidence doesn’t fit. But where’s the evidence for the theory? Why should I accept the theory as being true at all?”


4) Wing, Flipper, Leg, Hand

There obviously are similarities between bone structures in a bat’s wing, a porpoise’s flipper, a horse’s leg, and a human’s hand. These similarities are somehow the “proof” that they all share a common ancestor.

The Developmental Pathway – “If you have 2 different animals with similar features and you trace them back to the embryo, they would come from similar cells and processes. This happens to be mostly untrue. There are some frogs that develop like frogs and other frogs that develop like birds, but they all look pretty much the same when they come out the other end. They’re frogs. So the developmental pathway explanation is false.”

5) Genes

“A more common explanation nowadays is that the homologies come from similar genes. In other words, the reason 2 features are homologous in 2 different animals would be that they’re programmed by similar genes in the embryo. But it turns out this doesn’t work very well, either. We know some cases where you have similar features that come from different genes, but we have lots and lots of cases where we have similar genes that give rise to very different features.”

6) Humans and Apes Sharing 98% of Genes

“If you assume, as Neo-Darwinism does, that we are products of our genes, then you’re saying that the dramatic differences between us and chimpanzees are due to 2 percent of genes. The problem is that the so-called body building genes are in the 98%. The two percent of our genes that are different are really rather trivial genes that have little to do with anatomy. So the supposed similarity of human and chimp DNA is a problem for Neo-Darwinism right there. Second, it’s not surprising that when you look at 2 organisms that are similar anatomically, you often find they’re similar genetically. Not always; there’s a striking discordance with some organisms. But does this prove common ancestry? No. It’s just as compatible with common design as it is with common ancestry. A designer might very well decide to use common building materials to create different organisms, just as builders use the same materials (steel girders, rivets, and so forth) to build different bridges that end up looking very dissimilar from one another.”

Okay, I obviously can’t include everything written here. Just for people who aren’t aware, the archaeopteryx is not a missing link, Java man is a true member of the human family – not a half man/ape.

Evolutionary Biologist F. Clark Howell, “There is no encompassing theory of human evolution. Alas, there never really has been.”

“Every time an icon of evolution is discredited, Darwinists claim with religious zeal that it was never really the whole story in the first place and insist that new findings really do buttress macroevolution. New narratives are created; new stores are told. The theory of evolution, now unsupported by the original icon, is never questioned; instead, it’s used afresh to justify a redesigned model. For instance, in order to explain away fossil gaps, Gould proposed punctuated equilibrium. They suggested that radically new species somehow managed to develop rapidly among isolated populations, conveniently leaving behind no fossils to document the process. When these new creatures rejoined the larger, central populations, this resulted in the preserving of fossils that suggested the sudden appearance of new species. This model has been roundly criticized, and rightly so, for creating far more questions than answers.” - Philip E. Johnson, A Critique on Punctuated Equilibrium from Darwin on Trial

Wells: “I still leave room for some evolutionary processes in limited instances. But saying evolution works in some cases is far form showing that it accounts for everything. The evidence for Darwinism is not only grossly inadequate, it’s systematically distorted.”

Nobel Prize Winner, Arno Penzias regarding the Big Bang, “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the first 5 books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”

Sir Fred Hoyle – “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed around with physics, as well as chemistry, and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”


Biochemistry:

“Time and time again, he found scientists describing complex interlocking biological systems and basically saying, ‘Isn’t it wonderful how natural selection put this together?’ The “how” was always missing.”

The Cell – “An incredible, intricate, Lilliputian world where a typical cell takes 10 million million atoms to build.”

“A single-cell organism as a high-tech factory, complete with artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction…and a capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours.”

Michael J. Behe, PHD

Degree in Chemistry with honors from Drexel University and a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Served on the Molecular Biochemistry Review Panel of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation.

The Darwin Test:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

THE IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX:

Behe:

“You see, a system or a device is irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish the task of the system, and if you were to remove one of the components, the system would no longer function. An irreducibly complex system is highly unlikely to be built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because the system has to be fully present in order for it to function.

“The illustration I liked to use is a mousetrap. You can see the interdependence of the parts yourself. If you take away any of these parts, then it’s not like the mousetrap becomes half as efficient as it used to be or it only catches half of the many mice. Instead, it doesn’t catch ANY mice. It’s broken. It doesn’t work at all. So the mousetrap does a good job of illustrating how irreducibly complex biological systems defy a Darwinian explanation. Evolution can’t produce an irreducibly complex biological machine suddenly, all at once, because it’s much too complicated. The odds against that would be prohibitive. And you can’t produce it by successive, slight modification of a precursor system, because any precursor system would be missing a part and consequently couldn’t function. There would be no reason for it to exist. And natural selection chooses systems that ARE ALREADY WORKING.”

“If the simple device like the mousetrap requires design, what about the finely tuned machines of the cellular word? If evolution can’t adequately explain them, then scientists should be free to consider other alternatives.”

“Some components of biochemical machines can have other functions. But the issue remains – can you use numerous, slight, successive modifications to get from those other functions to where we are? The question for evolution is not whether you can take a mousetrap and use its parts for something else; it’s whether you can start with something else and make it into a mousetrap. The problem for evolutionists is to start with less complex system and build a more complex system. Even if every component could theoretically have useful function prior to its assembly into the mousetrap, you’d still have the problem of how the mousetrap became assembled.”

2 examples of Irreducible Complexity:

Flagellum:

Biological machine for propelling cells – the bacterial flagellum. The flagellum has a propeller made out of a protein called flagellin. The whole system works really well – the flagellum’s propeller can spin at ten thousand revolutions per minute.

“Not only that, but the propeller can stop spinning within a quarter turn and instantly start spinning in the other way at 10,000 rpms. Howard Berge of Harvard University called it the most efficient motor in the universe. It’s way beyond anything we can make, especially when you consider its size. Genetic studies have shown that between 30 and 35 proteins are needed to create a functional flagellum. I haven’t even begun to describe all of its complexities; we don’t even know the roles of all its proteins. But at a minimum you need at least three parts. Eliminate one of those parts and you don’t get a flagellum that only spins at five thousand rpms; you get a flagellum that simply doesn’t work at all. So it’s irreducibly complex – and a huge stumbling block to Darwinian theory.”

“The best that Darwinists have been able to muster is to say that the flagellum has components that look like the components of other systems that don’t’ have as many parts, so maybe somehow this other system had something to do with flagellum. Nobody knows where this subsystem came from in the first place, or how or why the subsystem may have turned into a flagellum. So, no, there’s no reasoned explanation anyone has been able to offer.”

Blood Clotting:

If your blood hadn’t clotted in the right place and in the right amount and at the right time, you would have bled to death. As it turns out, the system of blood clotting involves a highly choreographed cascade of 10 steps that use about 20 different molecular components. Without the whole system in place, it doesn’t work. To create a perfectly balanced blood-clotting system, clusters of protein components have to be inserted all at once. That rules out a gradualistic Darwinian approach and fits the hypothesis of an intelligent designer.”

Q: What about Gene Duplication? Why wouldn’t that work with blood clotting?

Behe:

“Sure, gene duplication happens. But what the fans of gene duplication rarely recognize is that when you get a duplication gene, you don’t get a new protein with new properties. You got the same protein as before. And that’s a problem. Darwinists don’t provide the details of how this can actually happen in the real world. But that’s not all. How can blood clotting develop over time, step by step, when in the meantime the animal has no effective way to stop from bleeding to death whenever it’s cut? And when you’ve only got part of a system in place, the system doesn’t work, so you’ve got the components sitting around doing nothing – and NATURAL SELECTION ONLY WORKS IF THERE IS SOMETHING USEFUL RIGHT NOW, not in the future.”

“In science we’re supposed to do experiments to show something is true. Nobody has ever done experiments to show how blood-clotting could have developed. Nobody has been able to show how a duplicated gene can develop some new function where it starts to make a new and irreducibly complex pathway.”

Once again, I can’t include all of the information for practical purposes. Just know that any hypothesis whatsoever, organizing on its own, whether it be take away parts, add parts, has not only been highly suspect, but cannot be provided without human intelligence involved somehow.

DNA:

Stephen C. Meyer, PHD

Director and Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Doctorate at Cambridge University, where he analyzed methodological issues in origin-of-life biology. For his Masters degree, also from Cambridge, he studied the history of molecular biology and evolutionary theory.

According to Bernd-Olaf Kuppers, “The problem of the origin of life is clearly basically equivalent to the problem of the origin of biological information.”

DNA: Repository for a digital code containing the instructions for telling the cell’s machinery how to build proteins.

Meyer on Prebiotic Soup: The chemicals that supposedly existed on the primitive Earth prior to life

“Even if they were right in order to create a living cell, you would also need information for how to arrange them in a very specific configuration in order to perform biological functions. Ever since the 1950s and 1960s, biologists have recognized that the cell’s critical functions are usually performed by proteins, and proteins are the product of assembly instructions stored in DNA.”

FROM DNA TO DESIGN:

“The origin of information in DNA – which is necessary for life to begin – is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than any other types of naturalistic causes that scientists typically use to explain biological phenomena. DNA is like a library. The organism accesses the information that it needs from DNA so it can build some of its critical components. To build one protein, you typically need 1,200 to 2,000 letters or bases – which is a lot of information.”

“This issue has caused ALL naturalistic accounts of the origin of life to break down, because it’s the critical and foundational question. If you can’t explain where information comes from, you haven’t explained life, because it’s the information that makes the molecules into something that actually functions. It is HIGHLY intuitive to think that there was Intelligence behind it.”

EVIDENCE FOR PREBIOTIC SOUP?

Q: Does evidence for prebiotic soup exist?

Meyer:

“If this prebioti soup had really existed, it would have been rich in amino acids. Therefore, there would have been a lot of nitrogen, because amino acids are nitrogenous. So when we examine the earliest sediments of the Earth, we should find large deposits of nitrogen-rich minerals. Those deposits have never been located. In fact, Jim Brooks wrote in 1985 that ‘the nitrogen content of early organic matter is relatively low – just .015 percent. From this we can be reasonably certain that there never was any substantial amount of ‘primitive soup’ on Earth when pre-Cambrian sediments were formed; if such a soup ever existed it was only for a brief period of time.”

Michael Denton, “Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely NO positive evidence for its existence.”

WHAT ABOUT RANDOM CHANCE:

Meyer:

“Virtually all of origin-of-life experts have utterly rejected the approach. Even so, the idea is still very much alive at the popular level. For many college students who speculate about these things, chance is still the hero. They think if you let amino acids randomly interact over millions of years, life is somehow going to emerge. But there is no merit to this. Even a simple protein molecule, or the gene to build that molecule, is so rich in information that the entire time since the Big Bang would not give you, as my colleague Bill Dembski likes to say, the probabilistic resources you would need to generate that molecule by chance.”

WHAT ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION:

Meyer:

“Darwinists admit that natural selection requires a self-replicating organism to work. Organisms reproduce, their offspring have variations, the ones that are better adapted to their environment survive better, and so those adaptations are preserved and passed on to the next generation. However, to have reproduction, there has to be cell division. And that PRESUPPOSES THE EXISTENCE OF INFORMATION-RICH DNA and proteins. But that’s the problem – those are the very things they’re trying to explain! In other words, you’ve got to have a self-replicating organism for Darwinian evolution to take place, but you can’t have a self-replicating organism until you have the information necessary in DNA, which is what you’re trying to explain in the first place.”

Q: What if replication first began in a much simpler way and then natural selection was able to take over? Some use RNA as their genetic material. RNA molecules are simpler than DNA, and they can also store information and even replicate it.

Meyer:

“The RNA molecule would need information to function, just as DNA would, and so we’re right back to the same problem of where the information came from. Also, for a single strand RNA to replicate, there must be an identical RNA molecule close by. To have a reasonable chance of having two identical RNA molecules of the right length would require a library of ten billion billion billion billion billion billion RNA molecules – and that effectively rules out any chance of origin of a primitive replicating system.”

In other words, you have to build straw man upon straw man.

WHAT ABOUT CHEMICAL AFFINITIES AND SELF-ORDERING?

Meyer:

“Salt crystals are a good illustration. Chemical forces of attraction cause sodium ions, Na+, to bond with chloride ions, Cl-, in order to form highly ordered patterns within a crystal of salt. You get a nice sequence of Na and Cl repeating over and over again. So, yes, there are lots of cases in chemistry where bonding affinities of different elements will explain the origin of their molecular structure. Kenyon and others hoped this would be the case for proteins and DNA. As scientists did experiments, they found that amino acids didn’t demonstrate these bonding affinities. Nothing that correlates to any of the known patterns of sequencing that we find in functional proteins.”

“What would happen if we could explain the sequencing in DNA and proteins as a result of self-organization properties? Wouldn’t we end up with something like a crystal of salt, where there’s merely a repetitive sequence? Consider the information in DNA, which is spelled out by the chemical alphabet (A,C,G,T). Imagine every time you had an A, it would automatically attract a G. You’d just have a repetitive sequence: A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G. Would that give you a gene that could produce a protein? Absolutely not. Self-organization wouldn’t yield a genetic message, only a repetitive mantra. To convey information, you need irregularity in sequencing. Open any book, you won’t see the word “the” repeating over and over and over. Instead, you have an irregular sequencing of letters. They convey information because they conform to a certain known independent pattern – that is, the rules of vocabulary and grammar. That’s what enables us to communicate – and that’s what needs to be explained in DNA. The four letters of its alphabet are so irregular while at the same time conforming to a functional requirement – that is, the correct arrangement of amino acids to create a working protein. Information requires variability, irregularity, and unpredictability – which is what information theorists call complexity – self-organization gives you repetitive, redundant structure, which is known as simple order. And complexity and order are categorical opposites.”

Dean Kenyon repudiated the conclusions of his own book, saying “we have not the slightest chance of chemical evolutionary origin for even the simplest of cells,” and that intelligent design, “made a great deal of sense, as it very closely matched the multiple discoveries in molecular biology.”

Intuition tells us that where there is information, there is Intelligence.

“When archeologists discovered the Rosetta stone, they didn’t think its inscriptions were the product of random chance or self-organizational processes. Obviously, the sequential arrangements of symbols was conveying information, and it was a reasonable assumption that intelligence created it. The same principle is true for DNA.”

“Naturalism cannot answer the fundamental problem of how to get from matter and energy to biological function without the infusion of information from an intelligence. Information transcends matter and energy. Information is the hallmark of a mind.”

Okay, there is a lot more, but I’m going to offer one more perspective.

KALAK COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT:

Nobel-Prize Winner Steven Weinberg:

“In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar on Earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle.”

William Lane Craig, PHD, THD

A member of nine professional societies, including the American Philosophical Association, the Science and Religion Forum, and a research professor at the Talbot School of Theology.

The argument goes as such:

Premise 1 – Whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause
Premise 2 – The Universe had a beginning
Conclusion – The Universe has a cause

I’m assuming that an objection that some of you may make here is in Premise 1. You may be tempted to ask, “Who caused God to come into existence?” Notice it doesn’t say that whatever exists – it says whatever BEGINS to exist. Christians posit that God never had a beginning. The question of God’s origin does not work when understanding Atemporal Eternality. Most people commonly define “Eternal” as endless time. However, another definition is TIMELESS. He is without time. There is no sense in asking what was “before God” – for there was no “before.” That is why Christianity has always suggested that God created time. The immediate question then is, how can one create without time? Gregory made an excellent point in a comment he made that essentially stated that we don’t have the language to describe such early phenomenon. This would make more sense for those of you who are familiar with theological language and anthropomorphism. If not, I would like to suggest that anyone hoping to raise a question about "who was before God" read more about the topic. Also, this shouldn’t be very difficult to accept. As Craig states (while reflecting on previous atheistic assumptions about the universe), “How can they possibly maintain that the universe can be eternal and uncaused, yet God cannot be timeless and uncaused?”

I’m assuming that none of you will combat Premise 1 and 2 – for 1 is intuitive, even David Hume asserted, "never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might ARISE without a cause." Premise 2 is nearly accepted by all scientists. Therefore, the Universe has a Cause. The question now is, what is that cause?

HOW CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF A FINITE UNIVERSE FROM A TIMELESS CAUSE?

Craig:

“The cause of the universe is a personal agent who has freedom of will.”

Now, there are several objections that were raised, that Craig dismisses quite satisfactorily. If you have a specific one you want to discuss, we can most certainly do that.

Stephen C. Meyer:

“The cause of the Universe must transcend matter, space, and time. Naturalism, by definition, denies the existence of any entity beyond the closed system of nature.” Therefore, what is the best possible solution?

“There is a form of practical reasoning that we use in life all the time. It says if we want to explain a phenomenon or event, we consider a whole range of hypotheses and infer to the one which, IF TRUE, would provide the best explanation. In other words, we do an exhaustive analysis of the possible explanations and keep adding information until only one explanation is left that can explain the whole range of data. The way you discriminate against between the competing hypotheses is to look at their explanatory power. This is what detectives do. This is what lawyers do in a court of law. Scientists use this approach. This model can enable us to achieve a high degree of practical certainty.”

ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE:

Premise: Scientists may not currently be able to find any explanation for how life began, but that doesn’t necessarily point toward a supernatural conclusion.

Meyer:

This is NOT an argument from ignorance. We’re not inferring design just because the naturalistic evolutionary theories all fail to explain information. We infer design because all those theories fail AND WE KNOW of another causal entity that is capable of producing information – namely, INTELLIGENCE.”

MIT’s Phillip Morrison:

“There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rationally way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause….This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.”

Craig:

“Because the cause of the universe transcends time and space, it cannot be a physical reality. Instead it must be nonphysical or immaterial. Well, there are only two types of things that can be timeless and immaterial. One would be abstract objects – like numbers or mathematical entities. However, abstract objects can’t cause anything to happen. The second kind of immaterial reality would be a MIND. A MIND can be a cause, and so it makes sense that the universe is the product of an unembodied mind that brought it into existence.”

FALSIFIABILITY:

Intelligent Design is not falsifiable. A theory cannot truly be scientific unless there are potential ways to prove it false through experiments of other means.

Behe:

“Yes, I know – but what’s really ironic is that intelligent design is routinely called unfalsifiable by the very people who are busy trying to falsify it! My claim is that there is NO unintelligent process that could produce the bacteria flagellum. To falsify that claim, all you would have to do would be to find one unintelligent process that could produce that system. On the other hand, Darwinists claim that SOME unintelligent process could produce the flagellum. To falsify that, you’d have to show that the system could not possibly have been created by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes. That’s impossible to do. So which claim is falsifiable? I’d say the claim for Intelligent Design.”

Darwinian Hypocrisy:

What about Darwinists who say, “Maybe it’s merely too early for us to come up with a road map of how these gradual changes developed. Someday we’ll better understand the flagellum, so have patience – in the end, science is going to figure it out.

Behe:

“You know, Darwinists always accuse folks in the Intelligent Design movement of making an argument from ignorance. Well, that’s a pure argument from ignorance! They're saying, ‘We have no idea how this could have happened, but let’s assume evolution somehow did it.’ You’ve heard the God-of-all-gaps – inserting God when you don’t have another explanation? Well this is evolution-of-the-gaps. Some scientists merely insert evolution when they don’t understand something.”

Collins:

“Let’s say you found some dinosaur bones. You would naturally consider them to be very strong evidence that dinosaurs lived in the past. Why? Because even though nobody has seen dinosaurs, we do have the experience of other animals leaving behind fossilized remains. So the dinosaur explanation is the natural extrapolation from our common experience. It makes sense.”

“Let’s say there was a dinosaur skeptic, however. He was trying to rationalize away the bones you found. Let’s suppose he claimed he could explain the bones by proposing that a dinosaur bone producing field simply caused them to materialize out of thin air. You’d say, ‘Wait a second – there are no known laws of physics that would allow that field to conjure up bones out of nothing. The skeptic would then say – ‘Aha, we just haven’t discovered these laws yet. We simply haven’t detected these fields yet. Give us more and I’m sure we will. My guess is that nothing would deter you from inferring that dinosaurs existed, because this would be a NATURAL EXTRAPOLATION from what you ALREADY KNOW. On the other hand, the skeptic needs to invent a whole new set of physical laws and a whole new set of mechanisms that are NOT a natural extrapolation from anything we know or have experienced.”

Therefore, of observable realities, the MIND is the natural extrapolation.

In terms of Information:

“Based on evidence, scientists assess each hypothesis on the basis of its ability to explain the evidence at hand. Typically the criterion is whether the explanation has causal power, which is the ability to produce the effect in question. In this case, the effect in question is information. On the basis of what we DO KNOW, only one causal power can produce the informational coding necessary – A MIND.”

Michael Shermer, editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, when scoffing at faith:

“The whole point of faith is to believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of science.”

Now, based on everything we discussed, I don’t see how anyone can posit, with any intellectual honesty, that the best possible solution is Darwinism or some form of Naturalism. We haven’t even talked about Anthropic Fine-Tuning, Consciousness, or Astronomy which places the probability in dramatic favor of Intelligent Design as the best possible solution.

In order for me to believe in Darwinism and its underlying premise of naturalism, I would have to believe that:

1) Nothing produces everything
2) Non-life produces life
3) Randomness produces fine-tuning
4) Chaos produces information
5) Unconsciousness produces consciousness
6) Non-reason produces reason

When considering the problems with Darwinism and the lack of evidence, the origin of information, the uncaused, immaterial, timeless First Cause – are we still going to say that Darwinism or some Naturalistic explanation is the best possible solution?

Based on all the evidence, out of 2 explanations – I find only one observed entity is capable – A Mind. This fits in with the origin of information and certainly registers with what Christians have posited is the Nature of God – Uncaused, timeless, Intelligence.

He said, “Let there be light.”

Once again, the words of Noble-Winning Prize Physicist, Steven Weinberg:

“In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar on Earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle.” Within the tiniest split second, the temperature hit a hundred thousand degrees Centigrade. “This is so much hotter than in the center of even the hottest star, so hot, in fact, that none of the components in ordinary matter, molecules, or atoms, or even the nuclei of atoms, could have held together.” The matter rushing apart, he explained, consisted of such elementary particles as negatively charged electrons, positively charged positrons, and neutrinos, which lack both electrical charge and mass. Interestingly, there were also photons: “The Universe,” he said, “was filled with light.”

The Best Possible Explanation Part 1

Several of the comments that flooded my inbox are issues that I anxiously want to address - such as, ethics, scripture, the human mind/consciousness, archeology, and historical reliability. (By the way, I never denied Alexander’s existence, nor suggested that the surviving texts, being written 500 years after his death, were evidence of such. It was only to illustrate a point about reliability of texts based on dating. Surviving texts regarding the details of Alexander’s life is from secondary sources written 500 years later. Surviving texts regarding Jesus Christ can be dated within 30 years of His death. We can certainly discuss this more, as well as archeology, in a future post, as I find them most fascinating).

Thank you all for providing such provocative material for us to flirt with in this arena of ideas. I appreciate the creative contribution from the several different disciplines presented here. Since we have embraced this theme of introducing our disciplines, I am a student with a Bachelors of Arts in Theology and am currently pursuing my Masters of Arts in Theology. I have an exam this Wednesday, hence the decision to not return to Blogworld until Thursday. However, every time I walked by my laptop, I would find a new comment in my inbox that screamed, “Read me!” As you may have presumed, I conceded.

A prevalent theme in the comments posted regarding science could be essentially stated, “You don’t know what you are talking about – do the research.” I can look at that statement and say, “Rightfully so.” I began to think, “I know there are scientists who have rejected macroevolution for a reason.” It would seem implausible to believe that their only reason for doing so would be for religious reasons. I don’t want to play a motive game. For regardless of what their motive may be, they will be laughed at if their claims lack validity. Therefore, instead of searching through Internet sources that lack credibility and scholarship, I decided to go to a source I knew would have intellectual credibility – Lee Strobel’s Case for a Creator. And may the rolling of eyes begin………………NOW!

Okay, please hear me out on this one. As someone had suggested in an earlier comment, Lee Strobel, Yale Graduate and once award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, interviewed scientists of various fields in order to gain their perspective on whether Darwinism is the best possible solution. The ideas that I quote are not Lee Strobel’s; rather, it is from different scientists, each of whom I will quote. Having been besought to investigate, I must say that I found the experience to be most rewarding. No wonder you science guys/gals love this stuff. Fortunately, these scientists explained different ideas in ways that someone, whose forte isn’t science, can understand. I hope that the people in the same position as I, who do not always understand scientific jargon, find this beneficial as well.

Our friend Zarathustra made an excellent suggestion that I would ask each of us to employ. If we are going to make certain claims that we expect others to deem indubitable, it would be helpful if we provided credible sources. Now, I’m not suggesting that you include a Bibliography with every comment. I am only suggesting that by providing a credible source, you can only further your position - unless of course, you could care less of the matter. Now, please know that the ideas that I write are from scientists. If you don’t agree with something suggested, please do not respond with a comment about how you found the person quoted to be strange, funny, or ugly. If we disagree with a perspective, I can only ask that we do so based on the validity of the claim, while offering an explanation, and not as much on our knowledge of the person being quoted. Having completed my reading, though I don’t consider it an exhaustive investigation by any stretch of the imagination, I have come to a conclusion:

Either these men have devastatingly misinterpreted facts, or Macroevolution is on the brink of extinction; thus, no longer the best possible explanation.

As perviously mentiond, science is certainly not my forte. Therefore, I do not write this in an attempt to debate as much as I do to understand. I respect the different genius presented in this arena and would greatly appreciate your thoughts. By the way - Gregory, you are certainly a very special individual for being as bright as you are at such a young age. Oh and Tommy, it’s good to hear from you again=). Within the next few hours, I will be trying to compile different ideas presented in this book. Although I obviously will not be able to cover everything that is suggested, I will include information that is pertinent to our discussion.

May the discussion regarding “the Best Possible Solution” begin! Well, in a few hours anway=). Stay tuned….

"Can You Give Me Convincing Evidence That There Is a God?

I apologize that after today, I will not be interacting with anyone in Blogworld until Thursday of next week. Unfortunately, I have fallen behind in work and need to desperately catch up. Since I have been working so long on this post, I have not had the time to address other comments in other posts. For that, I apologize. I will try to address those things when I return next week.

I am writing this post in response to a friend, who asked,

“Can you give me convincing evidence that there is a God?”

First, I will not oversimplify this topic by deeming it to be an easy task; nor will I ever suggest that faith is not required by the theist. Having said that, allow me to humbly attempt to answer this question.

From my discussion with Atheists, it appears that the following reasons have been underneath most of the critiques against Theism. This is by no means suggesting that this is all an Atheist has to say in the discussion or that all Atheists feel this way. Having said that, the reasons are:

1) Lack of Evidence in Theism and the Claim that Theism is Unscientific
2) Improbability/Unlikelihood of Theism
3) There is No Need for God or Any Transcendent Objectivity

1) Lack of Evidence in Theism and the Claim that Theism is Unscientific:

It appears that some level of faith will always be required no matter what worldview we choose to espouse. Some Naturalists will take this to an extreme and suggest, “Anything that can’t be empirically verified cannot be considered True Belief.” However, that belief in and of itself cannot be empirically verified. An element of faith would be required in order to believe the assumption itself, which cannot be empirically verified as true.

Then I have met Naturalists who say, “Theists place their faith in lack of evidence.”

The truth is, not one evolutionist has explained to me how they have been able to work through evolution’s controversies, “The Cambrian Explosion, The Missing Link,” and the fact that over millions of years and species, there is no evidence that a bat and a whale share the same ancestor.

Also, when discussing the origin of all things, some atheists may posit that a Creator is unscientific, and therefore, should not be seriously espoused. Most scientists will agree that the Universe had an origin. When asking atheists, “What is the origin of the Universe,” they will suggest that it was the “Big Bang.” If you ask them what preceded the “Big Bang,” they will likely suggest “A Solid Singularity.” When asking what a “Singularity” is, they say the point at which all the laws of physics break down. Therefore, technically, the starting point of the Atheist is just as unscientific, lacking evidence.

Apologist Ravi Zacharias asserts,

“However you section physical reality, you take the physical universe as you see it, however you slice it down to its minutest form, the fact of the matter is, you end up with a physical entity or quantity that does not have the reason for its existence in itself. Ultimately, the physical universe reduced in any form cannot explain its own origin. It must find its explanation outside of itself. Which means the first explanation of a Universe as we see it has to have something that is non-physical as its first cause, creating somewhat of a haunted universe unaware of its origin.”

2) The Improbability and Unlikelihood of Theism:

Many atheists will suggest that the existence of a God and/or miracles is highly unlikely, and therefore, should not be espoused. However, I find some of atheism’s explanations to be highly unlikely. Consider the following:

I can see how Nature may produce patterns, but have difficulty seeing how it can produce information, namely, DNA. When affirming atheism, we would essentially be asserting:

Matter + Chance + Time = Information

Ravi Zacharias has illustrated it as such:

“If I walk onto a planet and see pebbles arranged in the shape of a pyramid, I may conclude that the atmospheric conditions have brought this aesthetic design about and be satisfied. But, if I were to walk onto the same planet and see a Macdonald’s Big Mac wrapper that says “Extra Cheese,” or “Fat Free,” somehow you will not conclude that atmospheric conditions have brought this about. There is intelligibility, there is information, and there is complexity.”

“If you walk onto a planet and see the wrapper of a Macdonald’s hamburger and see letters of an alphabet, you immediately know there is information there. Logic tells us that where we see information, we assume that prior to information is a mind. You don’t just think that Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” came together or that the dictionary developed because of an explosion in a printing press. There is sequence to the whole thing. If you take the composition of the enzyme, which is the building block of the gene, which is the building block of the cell., the possibility of the human enzyme coming together by random chance, said a professor of mathematics in Cardiff in Wales, the possibility is 1 in 10 to the power of 40,000 – more than the number of atoms in this Universe. The possibility is virtually zero.” (From a talk by Ravi Zacharias)

John Polkinghorne, famed Professor of Quantum Theory at Cambridge who would come to believe in God, states it this way,

“When you look just at that exactitude, so precise, and the margin of error being so small – it is the equivalent of taking aim at a 1 square inch object, 20 billion light years away, and hitting it bulls-eye.”

Lee Strobel, Journalist and author of Case for Creator, stated it this way –

“Now, whenever we see a written message, we know it has an intelligent source. If we see a book, if we see a newspaper, if we see a computer code, we know that kind of information has an intelligent source. It's logical to say that the kind of chemical alphabet that spells out the assembly directions in DNA also has an intelligent source. So if you're walking down a beach and you see ripples in the sand, you can logically conclude that was done by the action of the waves. But if you walk down the beach and you see "John Loves Mary" written in the sand with a heart around it and an arrow through it, you wouldn't presume the action of the waves created that information. Why? Because nature can produce patterns but it can't produce information. DNA is the most efficient information storage system in the universe. One teaspoon of pure DNA can hold all of the assembly instructions for every protein in all of the 1,000 million species of animals that have ever existed in the planet and have room left over for all the information of every book ever published.”

I have made those statements in order to illustrate how when it comes to the “unlikelihood of beliefs,” it may be argued that there is nothing more unlikely than the belief that suggests the universe happened by random.

3) There is No Need For God or Any Transcendent Objectivity:

This may be the understatement of the century, but some of you may have noticed that I often discuss morality. The reason that I do this is because I don’t think that we can consistently say that this is a livable world without objective moral values. To say that our “moral values” originate from our need to survive seems to be a vast oversimplification that doesn’t acknowledge the complexity of the human experience. Consider:

“How do we arrive to a moral definition of what is right sexually? The atheist ultimately reduces his or her definition of goodness to survival. Don’t hurt anyone, or if two consenting adults choose to do so, it is alright. But the reality is, we face temptation sexually, issues of abortion, issues of marriage, of warfare, of telling the truth, in the courtroom about honesty and what lawyers should defend - to make a simplistic answer like “so long as two adults don’t hurt anyone or kill anyone in the process,” is just a single strand of reality, when reality has much more to it. Sooner or later the atheist will make a judgment upon someone else, which they have not given themselves the rational basis to make the judgment.” (Talk by Ravi Zacharias) Someone may protest here with:

“Even if I believe in subjective values, you can’t prove that your values are any better than mine! For how can you prove what “good” is, since it cannot be defined in some scientific way?”

Although most civilizations agree on what is “good,” (the theist, of course, believing that it is written on our hearts) the point was not to prove that one’s morals are better; but rather that the atheist has not given themselves a rational basis, a standard, by which to make the judgment. If there is any objectivity at all in their values, even the claim that the desire to live is good in and of itself, they can't account for what the origin of that desire is.

Someone may say:

“I can believe it is naturally in us, therefore, on the same ground as the theist.” However, there is a vital difference. Theists will say we have a “moral law” that tells us how we ought to act. It is more than just an instinct – it is an instinct that is objectively valuable to follow. From an atheistic perspective, there is no reason for doing something outside of the fact that it is natural. Thus, there is still no basis to really provide a valid critique against someone’s actions if they choose not to follow their natural instinct. Consider what someone on this blog has stated:

An atheist, who would later affirm that there is some objectivity, made this statement on this blog, regarding Hitler:

"The basis of why I call his actions atrocious is simply this: He killed innocent people. Killing innocent people is wrong."

A theist responded with:

“I am sorry if I am wrong, but you said morals are subjective which means your values are defined by your views on the world. Since it is subjective, your rules only apply to you. Therefore, you cannot criticize someone such as Hitler because his values told him what he did was right. Now you may say killing is wrong, but once again that is your value system which is different from the next person. We can't get caught in circular logic.

Someone like Stalin could easily say that his morals have evolved above yours. There is no measuring stick, no standard, nothing objective.

Since your values are subjective, they hold true only for you because maybe someone else's morality has yet to evolve or maybe evolved beyond yours. However, to a Christian, law is objective. There is only one set of unchanging law that they must all abide by. Now many people go against this and do evil but that is by their own choice. We know it is evil because we have a measuring stick. Whereas an atheist has no measuring stick. What is evil today, could become good tomorrow. You say that your value system is always changing(evolving). Therefore to me it seems as if there is only one thing you can be certain of, it is that there is nothing you can be certain of.”

For those who think this idea of subjective morality is an exaggeration, here the words of Adolf Hitler, suggested to be influenced by Nietzsche’s ideas that there are no objective values. In a speech given to the Hitler youth in Nuremberg, Hitler says:

“I desire to create a generation without conscience, imperious, relentless, and cruel.”

There is no way to object to such an ideology without imposing some objective value - that life itself is worth cherishing.

C.S. Lewis writes,

“From propositions about fact no practical conclusion can ever be drawn. “This will preserve society” cannot lead to “do this” except by the mediation that “society ought to be preserved.” “This will cost you your life” cannot lead directly to “do not do this” - it can only lead to it through felt desire or an acknowledged duty of self-preservation. The Innovator is trying to get a conclusion in the imperative mood out of premises in the indicative mood; and though he continues trying to all eternity, he cannot succeed, for the thing is impossible.”

James Hunter in “The Death of Character,” says:

“We say we want a renewal of character in our day, but we do not really know what to ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character without conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.”

That is why in an attempt to avoid objective values, some have suggested that there is no such thing as “good or evil.” They say it is all really an illusion we have created for ourselves. But do you see what this means?

How can something so disgusting, like the acts of Hitler, be an illusion? All we have to do is see one brutal murder and you will know evil isn’t illusory. If we say evil is illusory, then good acts must be illusory as well, making this world nothing more than a repetition of meaningless acts. Loving a child is no more meaningful than hating a child if it is all subjective or illusory. If good and evil acts are illusory - then our world is nothing more than a repetition of meaningless acts.

When someone suggested that history has no purpose and said that evil isn’t real, Ravi Zacharias tried to illustrate how we deal with the fact of evil, the face evil, and the feeling of evil. When asking that person if Ravi could take a live baby and mangle that baby with a sword before his eyes, the atheist said, “I may not like it, but I can’t call it evil.” Ravi replied, “Even you, while trying to deny the fact of evil, and the face of evil, you cannot deny the feeling of evil.” So the fact of the matter is that atheists end up living beyond their means.

If applied consistently, from a worldview that says there is no objectivity, I have nothing more than an opinion to someone who may rape my wife and kidnap my child. In a worldview that says evil is an illusion and not real, I can only say, “I don’t like what you did, but I can’t call it an evil fact.” To me, this worldview seems to be one that denies the reality of our experience and would make this world unlivable.

What may hold me to my faith more than anything else is the fact that I believe there is intrinsic value to our actions. What holds me to my faith is when I consider the depravity of human morality, namely my own. I can’t see how the guilt that human beings experience in life is nothing more than subjective or illusory. Where there is guilt, our only hope is mercy and redemption. When comparing our goodness to the holiness of God, one may see how even in our best day, we cannot compare to Him. That is why no one apart from Christ can be saved. It is only by God’s gift of grace through faith. If we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts, we will be saved.

I have attempted to illustrate how we cannot escape from the fact that we must eventually exhibit an element of faith if we are to ever believe anything – even the criterion for what true belief is.

Based on some atheistic objections:

Regarding Lack of Evidence - I have attempted to illustrate how the atheist will eventually find themselves in the same place in that their beliefs also lack scientific evidence.

Regarding Improbability of Theism - I have attempted to illustrate that there is nothing more improbable or unlikely than the atheistic assertion that we are here by random chance.

Regarding the claim that God or Objectivity is Unnecessary - I have attempted to illustrate that such a world is unlivable and contrary to the human experience.

Your question was: “Can you give me convincing evidence that there is a God?”

It has been said that there are 4 fundamental questions in life: Origin, Meaning, Morality, and Destiny. I believe that Christian theism provides the best explanation that is the most compelling, satisfying, and consistent with the human experience.

To Our Friendly Ghost and Spring...

I certainly appreciate your comments, as we think through some of these ideas together. Below you will find my responses. I had broken my points up into separate posts, assuming that it would be easier to address comments. However, I really did not anticipate multiple visitors. Now, instead of replying to two people through 20 different links, I have decided we could engage back and forth from two posts - one for Ghost, and one for Spring - though others are welcome in the discussion. Once again, I appreciate your interest in my blog.

Also, because I am behind in terms of work I need to get done, I will attempt to respond to any comments you leave, once a day, most likely at night. Thank you for your patience.

Now, may the intellectual stimulation begin!

To Spring...

To Spring:

I have numbered some of the topics I hope you will address.

“I assure you people dont need God imprinted on their hearts to be good.”
Can you define what is “good” and how you arrived at that conclusion? Are things good based on utility? In other words, is it good to be kind only so far as kindness brings results? Or, is it intrinsically good to be kind?

Regarding Evolution:

“Its extremely clear from your last post that you do not understand it, as you have difficulty understanding self-sacrifice. Also, besides other factors, evolution has not failed if the individual has been reproductively successful before they gave themselves to the situation.”

I’ve always thought that I’ve had adequate knowledge regarding evolution in order to reject what it suggests about Morality. However, I am open to the idea that I certainly do not know enough. By virtue of the fact that you have recognized this epistemic deficiency in me, I’m assuming that you have the knowledge that I am lacking. Therefore, please enlighten me on the following:

1) You asserted that I have difficulty understanding self-sacrifice. Please help me understand then. I see self-sacrifice as an act that has no selfish motivation, one in which is not concerned about perpetuating self, but rather, the other. Explain to me then how this utilitarian perspective, that “the greatest good for the greatest number” of the species, somehow trumped the idea of self-survival, making the desire for self-survival subservient to the desire to preserve a species.

2) In a situation where a primitive mind has the option of saving himself, or another primitive mind at the risk of his own life, what would happen to his primary instinct of self-survival, if he chooses the latter? If every instinct in us from my apparent misinterpretation of evolution is survival of self, why on earth would I feel any obligation whatsoever to perpetuate the society? Here you may say, “Primitive Agents understand that looking out for everyone else is what is in their own best interest. Therefore, we help others because it primarily helps us.” This somehow doesn’t seem satisfying considering that in a moment where “common sense,” as you purported, would suggest that we should clearly save ourselves; we somehow suppress that desire in order to save someone else. In other words, our primary objective for why we initially wanted to work with others somehow disappears.

Let’s consider some implications of what this would mean:

3) From an evolutionary standpoint, selfishness or cowardice cannot be condemned. If hunters agree that in their selfish attempt to survive, they need each other, how can they oppose someone who decides to act for himself in a time of crisis, say war? As all the hunters are fighting, if one of them decides to run away from battle in order to save himself, while stealing all the other fellow hunter’s food, how can that person be condemned – for they are acting in the same way that all the other hunters are primarily acting – out of selfishness, or the need to survive? Therefore, if the other hunters objected to the selfishness of the hunter who ran away, wouldn’t it be emotively driven and an invalid critique?

4) You say that evolution is a success if one has “reproduced.” That may be true for the process. However, that is a claim you can make in retrospect. Reproduction, once again unless I’m mistaken, does not appear to be at the heart of the Agent involved – it is survival of the fittest.

“It has no meaning other than changes over time.”

5) You are right. From a naturalistic perspective, things only have meaning insofar as we attribute meaning to it. Therefore, someone is by no means obligated to respect the rights of others or perpetuate society – for that would be imposing a humanly determined subjective opinion upon them. There is no meaning in love, or in honesty. These things help us insofar as they produce results for us. Therefore, if honesty does not produce the best result for me, I am by no means, from a naturalistic perspective, obligated to be honest.

“Complex neurological abilities give the first ability to even understand morals, let alone to hold and build on them. While evolution has favored those changes which have allowed us to hold such neurological complexity, it stops there in terms of being some sort of moral explaination.”

6) Although this may very well be due to my lack of understanding regarding evolution, would you mind unpacking how “complex neurological abilities give the first cause the ability to understand morals,” implying that morals are something that can be observable/understandable with the senses? Please elaborate on how science arrived at this conclusion, and then how this process works.

Also, since I’m being enlightened, and I really don’t mean that sarcastically, could you explain from an evolutionary standpoint:

7) How an amoral impersonal first cause, through a “non-moral” process, becomes moral and personal, while still claim that there is no transcendent moral objective law?

8) Oh, and one more thing – there is often the assumption that the theist places faith in lack of evidence. Now, please tell me how you, as an evolutionist, have worked through controversies to evolution, such as, “the Cambrian Explosion, the Missing Link,” and the fact that through millions of years and countless species, there is not even one piece of evidence that proves that a bat and a whale share the same ancestor? I ask because, considering my possible misperception that there is lack of evidence, it appears that there is an element of faith fundamentally required by the evolutionist as well.

To Ghost...

Okay, it appears that at the heart of your question is this idea of slavery and inspiration of Scripture. As I have suggested in my initial post, an element of faith will be required by those suggesting that Scripture is inspired. There is no way in which science can measure inspiration; and therefore, some faith is required.

Your question was whether or not God advocated slavery by not explicitly telling Moses it was wrong or even telling him how to handle slaves. In my posts, I brought up the issue of divorce. In Moses’ instruction to the people, we have no indication that God is displeased with divorce. In fact, it appears that God, by virtue of giving regulations on how someone should go about obtaining divorce, is indifferent to it. However, what you deem as a contradiction in Malachi, that suggests that God hates divorce, is what I see as a clarification. What is also a clarification for me is Jesus’ statement explaining how God hated divorce and how Moses permitted it out of the hardness of people’s hearts – an indication we do not see within the law itself.

In the context of everything I have written in my post, I have attempted to illustrate how the Bible is not like the Quran, written by one person who is aware that his work will be the guide to life and truth. The Bible is much more unique in that we have 66 books, 40 authors, who wrote over a span of centuries, unaware that their books would be compiled into “The Bible,” agreeing on 95% of content, and without contradiction on the foundational principles of Christianity. If you study historical texts directly, you can see why this is truly remarkable. Since the authors were unaware that they would be providing “the Bible,” we can understand why they don’t feel a need to provide an exhaustive explanation about the personality of God. You might as well assume that in 5 books, an account of thousands of years can be adequately provided. Therefore, since not everything is explicitly described in the Bible, there is this idea that we have to be good interpreters of the text. Now, that brings up another question you asked, essentially stated,

“What makes your interpretation right and how can you prove it?”

When conversing with another person who believes in the inspiration of scripture, the only way I can prove that my interpretation is correct is by illustrating how my perspective is consistent with what the text says overall. Sometimes their perspective won’t be as consistent and other times it will be. That is precisely why there are many different denominations in Christianity. It isn’t some sort of new discovery that Christians conflict on different issues of interpretation. However, we will all agree on the matter that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life – that we are saved by God’s gift of grace alone through faith.

Other possible questions:

“Why was slavery acceptable then, if they had God’s heart in theirs?”

We know that God has revealed Himself, the exemplification of goodness, to our hearts; yet, we have the decision of whether or not we will concede to that revelation. This may be why all worldviews and philosophies will claim that something is indeed wrong with human beings, that we don’t do what we know we “ought” to do.

“Have morals evolved since slavery and oppression of women are now abhorrent?”

Absolutely not. Just because people have, by the work of His Spirit in the world after Christ, rejected the idea of slavery, it doesn’t mean that slavery was never wrong before this. You might as well suggest that sexually abusing a baby is only wrong insofar as the general consensus of the society claims it is. Though someone may claim “invincible ignorance” and say that they did not know any better, it doesn’t mean that the act in and of itself of raping a child isn’t morally reprehensible. However, I can make that claim – because I believe morals are objective. You deny objectivity and assert that even your response to Hitler’s “evil,” as if there was such a thing, is no more subjective than your taste in food.

Now, (drumroll) some objections of my own:

I have numbered issues I would like you to address. Your words are in quotes.

“if one person dies saving many then surely that promotes survival on a species level ….so the idea of saving others came to be - at the risk of own injury or life”

I’ll quote something I wrote to “Spring.” I would like to hear your thoughts.

1) “You asserted that I have difficulty understanding self-sacrifice. Please help me understand then. I see self-sacrifice as an act that has no selfish motivation, one in which is not concerned about perpetuating self, but rather, the other. Explain to me then how this utilitarian perspective, that “the greatest good for the greatest number” of the species, somehow trumped the idea of self-survival, making self-survival subservient to the desire to preserve a species. In a situation where a primitive mind has the option of saving himself, or another primitive mind at the risk of his own life, what would happen to his primary instinct of self-survival, if he chooses the latter? If every instinct in us from my apparent misinterpretation of evolution is survival of self, why on earth would I feel any obligation whatsoever to perpetuate the society? Here you may say, “Primitive Agents understand that looking out for everyone else is what is in their own best interest. Therefore, we help others because it primarily helps us.” This somehow doesn’t seem satisfying considering that in a moment where “common sense,” as you purported, would suggest that we should clearly save ourselves; we somehow suppress that desire in order to save someone else. In other words, our primary objective for why we initially wanted to work with others somehow disappears.”

“Why do we have to be objective when we say Hitler was an evil bastard? His actions resulted in innocent people dying and freedom oppressed. Hating him (and his actions) seem purely subjective to me.”

2) The reason we would need an objective standard is for the simple fact that you cannot call a line “crooked” unless you have an understanding of what a “straight” line looks like. For you to assume that Hitler is “evil,” you would be suggesting that you have arrived to that conclusion based on a standard. If this standard is one that is evolving, or subjective, then your critique really holds no value. In fact, I can slice a baby in half and you wouldn’t be able to call it evil – rather, just a bad idea that, in all actuality, is rooted in subjectivity.

3) Also , if there is no measure by which you can call something objectively evil, why use slavery as a critique against the Bible? If slavery is not “objective evil,” what is your critique?

4) Aren’t you imposing your relative evolving subjective morals onto another society, implicitly suggesting that your moral values are better? What is the standard by which you could implicitly assume that? If we talk about function and utility, then slavery certainly produced results for those who had them. They were by no means obligated to consider any other group outside of their own, from you perspective. Any value you give to cherishing human life in general is purely subjective, from your perspective – for there are no objective values. For even in abhorring Hitler’s actions you assert, “Hating him (and his actions) seem purely subjective to me.” In other words, merely an opinion.

“Yet today we consider slavery an abomination.Do you disagree with this?”

5) No, I agree that it has always been an abomination. However, you find it to be an abomination only to our context – since we have evolving morals that hold no objective weight. In fact, tomorrow, it may be found as acceptable, given our society may conclude that.

Regarding whether or not we have to agree that society is worth preserving, you said:
“we don't have to agree - society takes care of itself.”

6) You are looking at society as if it is a being in and of itself. Society is really a group of individuals. How can consent among individuals that make up the society, regarding its preservation, be invalid, or unnecessary?

Regarding whether or not we critique Hitler’s Morale or Method:

“A little of both. More so the method imho - if he managed to get the resuts he desired without the atrocities commited, it might have been an acceptable result. His aims call for the methods, however. So he fails morally.”

7) Naturalists would say that throughout evolution, we have arrived at what is good or bad based upon what has produced the best results for us. In other words, our end (results that we were seeking), justifies the means (good or bad). In fact, you state that you have no problem with Hitler’s end, (“for it might have been an acceptable result”). All of a sudden, you have a problem with his means. Doesn’t his end justify his means? Or is there some sort of absolute “rule book,” let’s call it “objective moral law,” that tells us how to play? What is the basis from which you can make an assessment about his morals, or what you deem, “atrocious?”

When asked if there is a difference between fighting the biological instinct of taking care of children and choosing not to urinate?

“yes we can. Obviously. :P”

8) First, it isn’t obvious for the atheist. The reason I say that is, from the theistic perspective, objective morality can be understood by looking within. Atheistic morals, however, is purely subjective. It isn’t intuitive - for nothing has meaning unless we attribute meaning to it.

“And surely you can see that a baby has higher "qualities" than urine”

9) Yes, I can clearly see that. In fact, I believe that is objectively true. You believe it is subjectively true, a mere opinion.

“How do you then bring urine to be on the same level as conceiving??”

10) I actually can’t put them on the same level. However, in a worldview that suggests that there are no absolute values, how can you assert that urine is not as valuable? It’s much like what I mentioned in another post. If we are nothing more than matter that came as a result of an explosion, why is there any more meaning in our questions, than a jabbering of a chimp? In other words, how can we objectively suggest that there is any more meaning in “conceiving” than there is in excreting wastes, namely, “urinating?” Let us not presuppose any objective values in our answer.

“We transcend standards by our abilty to reason and think logically.”

11) This is where we will definitely part ways. Instead of believing that reason and logic transcend standards, I believe our “standards” must transcend our reason and logic. For example, logic would tell me that in a situation where I know I can get away with cheating, I would be justified. However, my logic is transcended here by a standard of how I know I morally “ought” to act.

“It is clear that morals change. How can it then be absolute?? We abhore killing people yet support wars under certain conditions. You have in now way or form proven any of your assertions.”

12) Actually you haven’t shown how morals change, given that I asserted the only reasons we practiced behaviors that always were reprehensible is because we have suppressed knowledge of what was “always objectively true.” It was rebellion, in some sense. Now, regarding “abhorring killing of people yet supporting wars” – not all wars are justified. One may assume that we hate killing because we value life. However, we may be willing to kill in order to preserve it as well – (defending a loved one in danger). Think of this in a way where I have the choice to only save one of 2 people. Although my decision at that moment may seem subjective, the fact that I see either one worth saving at all, instead of walking away in indifference, is an objective value.

“It can be showed that omnicience negates freewill.”

13) I’m curious as to how you can logically demonstrate this. God is all knowing of our freely chosen actions. If you would freely choose otherwise, God would know that. His knowledge doesn't determine our free actions - for what God knows is how we will freely choose. I think you may have a misunderstanding regarding this topic because you may see God as a temporal being, and not eternal. If you want to discuss atemporal eternality and the perspective of God, we can do that.

“As to God compelling us, the idea of hell is supposed to be pretty compelling.”

14) Consequences do not negate our freedom. Though they stand as a reason for acting in a certain way, it does not compel anyone’s will in the sense that they are not responsible for our actions. A lack of free will is when you are not the ultimate cause of your decision.

I certainly appreciate your participation in the discussion. I anxiously await your thoughts.

For the Record...

Christians believe in an absolute good. We know what is good, not because we read it in some text alone, rather it is because it is written on our hearts. We believe God didn't reveal "what is good" as much as He revealed Himself - the exemplification and personification of goodness. Now, the atheist, however, cannot from a naturalistic perspective affirm an absolute moral law. If so, I have provided the following questions to find out how they can. Please, enlighten me.

10 Questions for the Atheist

When you make the statement that Beings, whether human or Divine, are evil, against what value judgment are you making that claim? Is what is good and evil absolute for all times and all peoples, or relative to time, culture, and opinion? In order for your critique against figures in the Bible to valid, you must believe that what is good and evil is absolute. We'll start with number 1.

1) How did you obtain this moral law?

#2

If it was the result of an explosion apart from Intelligence, how is it being imposed upon evolving creatures?

#3

Was the moral law part of the debris from an explosion?

#4

From an evolutionary standpoint, why is there any more meaning in our morals than the jabbering of a chimp? After all, we are nothing more than the result of an unintelligent natural explosion. There is no more meaning in the explosion that caused our existence than there is when I pass gas.

#5

From an evolutionary standpoint, things have meaning insofar as we attribute meaning to it. Therefore, how did we get this absolute meaningful moral law from debris or an explosion?

#6

If self-survival has always been our evolutionary instinct, where did we get this idea that it is noble to self-sacrifice, and lay down our lives for others? After we die, we will no longer be involved – so why should we care?

#7

Many suggest that what is right or wrong is the result of what “works” or produces the best results for society. First, why do we even have to agree that society is worth preserving? Isn't it survival of the fittest? Second, if everything is result-driven, what if someone like Hitler desires different results? Can we oppose him on a moral level? He was looking for results. Therefore, are we against his morale or method?