Synopsis: an atheistic professor challenges his Philosophy 101 students to deny the existence of God in order to bypass the usually required academic discourse on whether or not He exists. A Christian student refuses the professor and has to defend his faith, upon the lecture podium, in order to prove that God does exist.
If you've seen this movie I'd like to hear your thoughts. I'm atheistic, although brought up in a very religious family. I don't expect to be swayed for or against His existence, and I don't mean this to be another way for the nonreligiously bent folk to lash against the concept of God, but I felt this movie was a large production with a seemingly large audience and therefore it must have struck a chord with individuals in the religious community. How accurate do you think this film was?
I'm a convert away from God, (no?) thanks to Dawkins, Russell, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, and the plethora of typical atheistic academics hounding against religion. Imagine me as someone without belief wanting to be convinced for the legitimacy of God. I'll try to refute you, no doubt, but please keep in mind I do so only because I've become set in my ways with very little contrary opinion and I'd like to challenge my conviction that He doesn't exist.
I promise not to take cheap shots at Christianity or delve into diatribes against your religion, I'm genuinely curious how you perceived this movie.
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Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by jimwalton » Wed Nov 05, 2014 3:16 pm
I'm a conservative evangelical Christian, and I didn't like it at all. I thought it was cheaply done with shallow arguments and too many shoddy plot lines. The student's argument were unconvincing, but they made them look as if they were so brilliant, and the professor was flummoxed. Blah Blah blah. Not good enough. I agree with you that it was a large, bloated production aimed at Christians to applaud it, but it certainly isn't ready for prime time. I was decidedly disappointed.
> How accurate do you think this film was?
Not very. I thought it was poorly done and off the mark.
> The legitimacy of God
I happen to think there are plenty of evidences for the existence of God. Believing in God is a matter of inferring to a reasonable conclusion based on evidence, and not believing in God is a matter of a presuppositional position. My reasoning for the plausibility of the existence of God is based in a number of arguments, outside of supernaturalism, that make sense to me.
I think the cosmological argument makes sense (stated extremely briefly):
1. Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence.
2. If that's so, then there has to be at least one being that is distinct from and pre-existing all such beings that began to exist.
3. Therefore that first being is uncaused, and there is at least one first, uncaused being.
That makes sense to me, because something must have always existed, and science tells us that in the current opinion, matter did not.
Another form of the cosmological argument also makes sense to me:
1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. There is nothing in nature that evidences its own necessity, and so if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is an external cause (God).
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.
Kalam's cosmological argument may be the strongest form of the cosmological argument:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
But there are other logical evidences. To me, the ontological argument also makes sense:
1. If God does not exist, His existence is logically impossible.
2. If God does exist, His existence is logically necessary.
3. Hence either God’s existence is logically impossible or it is logically necessary.
4. If God’s existence is logically impossible, the concept of God is contradictory.
5. The concept of God is not contradictory.
6. Therefore God’s existence is logically necessary.
The teleological argument has some strength to it:
1. Everything that exhibits curious adaptation of means to ends and is such that we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design, in fact was the product of intelligent design.
2. The universe exhibits curious adaptation of means to ends.
3. Therefore the universe is probably the product of intelligent design.
The analogical argument proposed by Plantinga makes sense:
1. The productions of human contrivance are the products of intelligent design.
2. The universe resembles the productions of human contrivance
3. Therefore probably the universe is a product of intelligent design
4. Therefore probably the author of the universe is an intelligent being.
There's also the axiological argument (the existence of morality): (from Zacharias)
1. We all admit that evil exists in the world.
2. If evil exists, one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference
3. If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil.
4. If a moral law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law.
5. The source of a personal, moral law must also be personal and moral
6. Therefore God must exist.
I'm using logical reasoning here. We both know that these arguments don't PROVE the existence of God. What we are after is what is reasonable—reasoning to the best inference given the reality we see around us. And what we see around us is...
A universe that had a beginning
We see a universe and life forms that appear designed
Humans have personality
We observe transcendent, objective moral truths
We observe informational data (we have no example of informational date that does not come from an intelligent cause)
Given what we see, God is a reasonable explanation for it, in my opinion. Put them all together, and the logic of God is actually a stronger argument to explain what we see than the logic of atheism.
> How accurate do you think this film was?
Not very. I thought it was poorly done and off the mark.
> The legitimacy of God
I happen to think there are plenty of evidences for the existence of God. Believing in God is a matter of inferring to a reasonable conclusion based on evidence, and not believing in God is a matter of a presuppositional position. My reasoning for the plausibility of the existence of God is based in a number of arguments, outside of supernaturalism, that make sense to me.
I think the cosmological argument makes sense (stated extremely briefly):
1. Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence.
2. If that's so, then there has to be at least one being that is distinct from and pre-existing all such beings that began to exist.
3. Therefore that first being is uncaused, and there is at least one first, uncaused being.
That makes sense to me, because something must have always existed, and science tells us that in the current opinion, matter did not.
Another form of the cosmological argument also makes sense to me:
1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. There is nothing in nature that evidences its own necessity, and so if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is an external cause (God).
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.
Kalam's cosmological argument may be the strongest form of the cosmological argument:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
But there are other logical evidences. To me, the ontological argument also makes sense:
1. If God does not exist, His existence is logically impossible.
2. If God does exist, His existence is logically necessary.
3. Hence either God’s existence is logically impossible or it is logically necessary.
4. If God’s existence is logically impossible, the concept of God is contradictory.
5. The concept of God is not contradictory.
6. Therefore God’s existence is logically necessary.
The teleological argument has some strength to it:
1. Everything that exhibits curious adaptation of means to ends and is such that we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design, in fact was the product of intelligent design.
2. The universe exhibits curious adaptation of means to ends.
3. Therefore the universe is probably the product of intelligent design.
The analogical argument proposed by Plantinga makes sense:
1. The productions of human contrivance are the products of intelligent design.
2. The universe resembles the productions of human contrivance
3. Therefore probably the universe is a product of intelligent design
4. Therefore probably the author of the universe is an intelligent being.
There's also the axiological argument (the existence of morality): (from Zacharias)
1. We all admit that evil exists in the world.
2. If evil exists, one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference
3. If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil.
4. If a moral law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law.
5. The source of a personal, moral law must also be personal and moral
6. Therefore God must exist.
I'm using logical reasoning here. We both know that these arguments don't PROVE the existence of God. What we are after is what is reasonable—reasoning to the best inference given the reality we see around us. And what we see around us is...
A universe that had a beginning
We see a universe and life forms that appear designed
Humans have personality
We observe transcendent, objective moral truths
We observe informational data (we have no example of informational date that does not come from an intelligent cause)
Given what we see, God is a reasonable explanation for it, in my opinion. Put them all together, and the logic of God is actually a stronger argument to explain what we see than the logic of atheism.
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Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by Dynamo » Mon Nov 10, 2014 8:37 am
But the thing is, none of these arguments proceed to a conclusion of a rational, caring, conscious God, or the concept of sin, or the concept of eternal damnation, and certainly not the concept of Christ or "revealed" religions.
I agree with all of your arguments insofar as they conclude (and prove) that temporality is NOT an irreducible aspect of being. Temporality is reducible. I do not see how this leads to the connotation "God" as He is commonly conceived (namely, rational, caring, lacking evil, a person)
> "We all admit that evil exists in the world. If evil exists, one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil. If a moral law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law. The source of a personal, moral law must also be personal and moral Therefore God must exist."
I would say that the basis of the personal, moral law is the human being itself. This would explain the vast, VAST disparity throughout history (even in the Old versus the New Testament) between what people consider "good" and "evil."
Moral laws did not exist before humanity, nor will they exist after it is gone. Moral laws belong to and are created (or inherited) by the human being itself. This is why humans have different moral laws and often create their own opinions as to what is and is not moral, and why the concept of what is and is not moral changes over time even within religions.
I agree with all of your arguments insofar as they conclude (and prove) that temporality is NOT an irreducible aspect of being. Temporality is reducible. I do not see how this leads to the connotation "God" as He is commonly conceived (namely, rational, caring, lacking evil, a person)
> "We all admit that evil exists in the world. If evil exists, one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil. If a moral law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law. The source of a personal, moral law must also be personal and moral Therefore God must exist."
I would say that the basis of the personal, moral law is the human being itself. This would explain the vast, VAST disparity throughout history (even in the Old versus the New Testament) between what people consider "good" and "evil."
Moral laws did not exist before humanity, nor will they exist after it is gone. Moral laws belong to and are created (or inherited) by the human being itself. This is why humans have different moral laws and often create their own opinions as to what is and is not moral, and why the concept of what is and is not moral changes over time even within religions.
- Dynamo
Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by jimwalton » Mon Nov 10, 2014 8:52 am
> none of these arguments proceed to a conclusion of a rational, caring, conscious God, or the concept of sin, or the concept of eternal damnation, and certainly not the concept of Christ or "revealed" religions.
You're absolutely right, because that's not what the argument are designed to accomplish. They are arguments to show the logical validity of theism, that theism is a rational, not an absurd, interpretation of what se see, and to show that belief in the existence of God can be a reasonable belief. They open the door to discussions and reasons behind a rational, caring, conscious God, the concept of sin, eternal damnation, and Christianity, but they don't address any of those matters implicitly.
> I would say that the basis of the personal, moral law is the human being itself.
Do you have any evidence of this or is it just an opinion? (Addressing the "evidence" you gave to follow.)
> This would explain the vast, VAST disparity throughout history (even in the Old versus the New Testament) between what people consider "good" and "evil."
There is deep concordance between the moral planes of the Old and New Testaments. Both speak of God in terms of love and judgment, grace and mercy; both speak of God's holiness, human sin, and God's saving actions; both speak of rights and wrongs in terms of God's nature and character, conforming to his attributes to define righteousness.
As far as throughout history, C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, pp. 17-32) comments, "I know that some people say the idea of a law of nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different civilizations in different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man..."
> Moral laws did not exist before humanity, nor will they exist after it is gone.
What evidence do you have for this statement, or is it just an opinion? Your statement that moral laws belong to, or are created for, or are inherited by humans betrays a thought on your part that there is an objective sense of morality not subject to majority vote. (Objective morality is the idea that moral principles are valid, binding, and true independently of whether any of us think, feel, or believe them to be so.) There are moral principles (among others) that all civilizations in all of history share:
Killing for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Lying for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Stealing for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Torturing babies for the mere fun of it is never OK.
There is good reason to believe that morality exists independently of what we human beings think.
You're absolutely right, because that's not what the argument are designed to accomplish. They are arguments to show the logical validity of theism, that theism is a rational, not an absurd, interpretation of what se see, and to show that belief in the existence of God can be a reasonable belief. They open the door to discussions and reasons behind a rational, caring, conscious God, the concept of sin, eternal damnation, and Christianity, but they don't address any of those matters implicitly.
> I would say that the basis of the personal, moral law is the human being itself.
Do you have any evidence of this or is it just an opinion? (Addressing the "evidence" you gave to follow.)
> This would explain the vast, VAST disparity throughout history (even in the Old versus the New Testament) between what people consider "good" and "evil."
There is deep concordance between the moral planes of the Old and New Testaments. Both speak of God in terms of love and judgment, grace and mercy; both speak of God's holiness, human sin, and God's saving actions; both speak of rights and wrongs in terms of God's nature and character, conforming to his attributes to define righteousness.
As far as throughout history, C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, pp. 17-32) comments, "I know that some people say the idea of a law of nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different civilizations in different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man..."
> Moral laws did not exist before humanity, nor will they exist after it is gone.
What evidence do you have for this statement, or is it just an opinion? Your statement that moral laws belong to, or are created for, or are inherited by humans betrays a thought on your part that there is an objective sense of morality not subject to majority vote. (Objective morality is the idea that moral principles are valid, binding, and true independently of whether any of us think, feel, or believe them to be so.) There are moral principles (among others) that all civilizations in all of history share:
Killing for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Lying for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Stealing for the mere fun of it is never OK.
Torturing babies for the mere fun of it is never OK.
There is good reason to believe that morality exists independently of what we human beings think.
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Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by I've got kidneys » Tue Nov 11, 2014 8:21 am
> We are having this conversation for a purpose, are we not? You ask the questions you do for a purpose. You wonder about purpose in life; you ponder it because others claim it and you don't see it. Does a rock ponder purpose? No, but you do. You don't think life has any purpose, and your perception is that life is not evolving towards something. And yet there was a purpose in your education, a purpose in your conversations, and you treat life (school, jobs, relationships) as if there is some purpose in all of this.
You don't think life has any purpose, and your perception is that life is not evolving towards something.
When you put it that way, the only purpose I can see in life is to carry on producing life. Providing a more succesful environment for the next generation, that is the only purpose that life has, and it comes from evolution. If the next generation didn't survive, then the genetic information that the parents invested in them would be useless.
That's what life is—just an increasingly complicated system of competing genetic machines. The only purpose is to continue existing as long as possible, Why does that require a God? Would you even consider that a meaningful purpose?
Everything that you list is about the passing on of genetic information, or a side effect of increased intelligence, which is directly related to the passing on of genetic information. Do you think it coincidence that the most intelligent creatures on the planet are also the ones that have expanded by billions in the last few millenia?
> And yet there was a purpose in your education, a purpose in your conversations, and you treat life (school, jobs, relationships) as if there is some purpose in all of this.
A good education leads to a good job, leads to a good stable future which allows for the creation of little baby genetic machines.
> Nature exhibits characteristics of purpose.
But those characteristics can be the fruit of evolution, not just God.
> Even we as scientists ask, "Why does it do that?", as if there's a purpose that is discoverable.
And when we discover the reasons why animals behave the way they do they ALWAYS come from the animals genetic history, and not its spiritual future. This has to show you something.
> That is not to imply that nature is sentient, but that it exhibits qualities of reason, as if there's intent in it all.
And these qualities can be produced by evolution- that does not require God!
>And yet we have no examples of information that does not come from an intelligent source. As you said, it's something we produce.
Genes contain data. From it we extrapolate information. Of course we have no examples of information that doesn't come from an intelligent source, because that doesn't make sense. The raw material of information is data, and data is abundent in the universe. I don't know why you think this is somehow solidifying your point.
You don't think life has any purpose, and your perception is that life is not evolving towards something.
When you put it that way, the only purpose I can see in life is to carry on producing life. Providing a more succesful environment for the next generation, that is the only purpose that life has, and it comes from evolution. If the next generation didn't survive, then the genetic information that the parents invested in them would be useless.
That's what life is—just an increasingly complicated system of competing genetic machines. The only purpose is to continue existing as long as possible, Why does that require a God? Would you even consider that a meaningful purpose?
Everything that you list is about the passing on of genetic information, or a side effect of increased intelligence, which is directly related to the passing on of genetic information. Do you think it coincidence that the most intelligent creatures on the planet are also the ones that have expanded by billions in the last few millenia?
> And yet there was a purpose in your education, a purpose in your conversations, and you treat life (school, jobs, relationships) as if there is some purpose in all of this.
A good education leads to a good job, leads to a good stable future which allows for the creation of little baby genetic machines.
> Nature exhibits characteristics of purpose.
But those characteristics can be the fruit of evolution, not just God.
> Even we as scientists ask, "Why does it do that?", as if there's a purpose that is discoverable.
And when we discover the reasons why animals behave the way they do they ALWAYS come from the animals genetic history, and not its spiritual future. This has to show you something.
> That is not to imply that nature is sentient, but that it exhibits qualities of reason, as if there's intent in it all.
And these qualities can be produced by evolution- that does not require God!
>And yet we have no examples of information that does not come from an intelligent source. As you said, it's something we produce.
Genes contain data. From it we extrapolate information. Of course we have no examples of information that doesn't come from an intelligent source, because that doesn't make sense. The raw material of information is data, and data is abundent in the universe. I don't know why you think this is somehow solidifying your point.
- I've got kidneys
Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by jimwalton » Tue Nov 11, 2014 8:41 am
Your perspective reduces humanity to a mere link in the evolutionary chain, with no point except to reproduce and die. It's such a small and actually hopeless view of life. We have no reason to live except to create more beings with no reason to live either. But I would guess there are many parts of life that raise your consciousness to grander vistas that your world view must deny. The fantastic feelings of love, the soul-touching beauty of certain scenes in nature, the purpose of the quest of science and the magnificence of knowledge about our universe, the meaningfulness of a piece of music, the wonder of a work of art, and the fulfillment of growing in learning. To you all these things are meaningless byproducts on our banal journey from birth, through reproduction, and death. For me, they are glorious examples that life holds more than your theory can speak, and that we are filled with purpose, meaning, and significance, and we know it.
In your perspective ("The only purpose is to continue existing as long as possible") the purpose is meaningless. The value of life is not in the mere enduring of it to the bitter end but in that we all have a sense that there's a far deeper purpose to it all.
If all life is is producing more life and creating a more successful environment for the next generation, then we should kill off the sick and the elderly (they're past reproduction anyway). The poor and homeless are decreasing the odds for a more successfully environment as well and should be disposed of. (After all, we really only want the fittest to survive.) Evolution may take us further, but to what end? Just so that we can be further? Big deal. Without purpose, all is meaningless. Without being disparaging but just sadly honest, I feel sorry for you.
According to the Bible, humanity is vested with significance and purpose. There is a reason for beauty, personality, life, love, and good. There's a point to living, and our lives are meaningful. Humanity is noble. To me this is concordant with what we feel and know inside, and what we see around us. It's consistent with life.
In your perspective ("The only purpose is to continue existing as long as possible") the purpose is meaningless. The value of life is not in the mere enduring of it to the bitter end but in that we all have a sense that there's a far deeper purpose to it all.
If all life is is producing more life and creating a more successful environment for the next generation, then we should kill off the sick and the elderly (they're past reproduction anyway). The poor and homeless are decreasing the odds for a more successfully environment as well and should be disposed of. (After all, we really only want the fittest to survive.) Evolution may take us further, but to what end? Just so that we can be further? Big deal. Without purpose, all is meaningless. Without being disparaging but just sadly honest, I feel sorry for you.
According to the Bible, humanity is vested with significance and purpose. There is a reason for beauty, personality, life, love, and good. There's a point to living, and our lives are meaningful. Humanity is noble. To me this is concordant with what we feel and know inside, and what we see around us. It's consistent with life.
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Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by I've got kidneys » Tue Nov 11, 2014 8:53 am
> This needs explanation, and doesn't necessarily point to faulty reasoning in my premises.
Okay, I'll expand. The first point of all of your cosmological arguments begins with the point as follows (or something similar) :
Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence.
We cannot prove how the Universe came into existence so we can only guess by the information we have available to us. The information given to us seems to indicate that you're right. Everything that is created is caused by something—but we have a problem with this. Everything within the universe is made of the same material at the most basic level. So everything that is being "created" in the universe is not really being created—more like reassembled out of matter that already exists within the universe.
The creation of the actual matter is different though. Because within the universe matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So it is an incorrect comparison to compare the "creation" of anything within the universe to the creation of the universe. My point is that you cannot know that the matter itself follows this rule of needing a cause, because the only example of matter being created is the big bang, and as I said at the beginning, we cannot prove how the universe came into existence. So when you say that the universe had to have a cause it's unfounded—why does the universe have to have a cause—because you say so? That isn't a good enough reason for me.
Your premise is faulty because it relies on you being right about something that you cannot ever know that you're right about. Your entire argument hangs on an "if". "If the universe had a cause then that cause had to be super smart—like super clever. Really, it's bananas how clever it must have been."
> Wrong. God is eternal; we are created, therefore we are, by definition, not God. Since we are by definition not God, we are capable of sinning by definition, not by God's choice. It's impossible that God create an uncreated being (back to absurdities and omnipotence). Therefore God was not and is not able to stop sin. God's only choice is to redeem it, which is what he has done. It's not a contradictory idea at all.
Except that the logic follows clearly—the sin of ommision is to not act when you can and ought to act. I'm not just talking about human actions here either, natural disasters wreak havoc on innocent people and God does nothing—watches us save each other as we ought to—but he does nothing to prevent the disaster nor aid the dying.
How is this not a sin? Or are you saying that God is once again incapable of doing these things—stopping a tsunami for example? I'm pretty sure I remember Jesus walking on water and calming a storm though, so it must be within his Godly power, and yet he doesn't. How can this possibly be considered the moral choice? Spoiler alert—it isn't. It's obviously a sin. He ought to act, and is capable but doesnt which fits the defition of the sin, and so God is guilty. BUT he cannot possibly be guilty of a sin because the definition of sin doesn't allow it. There is a very clear contradiction here and if you cannot see it then I don't know what else to say.
> Right, but you haven't put enough evidence or logic on the table to yet be convincing.
How about now?
> contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine.
This is a mistake... You cannot consider the entire planet to be one creature, or machine. It is- as he goes on to say-
"subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human faculties can trace and explain."
Except that we can explain, The reason that life on earth exists so impecibly well adapted is because of evolution, fruits like bananas may appear to be developed with the means to be held by human hands, but that doesn't mean that they are for that purpose. If that were the case then why are there not natural bananas growing on every continent? and why aren't water melons designed to be held?
The things that a lot of people forget is that plants are AS EVOLVED as animals. They are perfectly adapted to exist on earth, and entire species have developed over millions of years a symbiotic relationship with other organisms. Like flowers and insects, the plants now actually rely on insects to pollinate for them. At first glance that may appear as if it was designs. How could such an intricate relationship have formed from chaos?
How can two organisms- a plant and an animal possibly evolve randomly to mesh together so perfectly? The answer is simple- and complicated. because it is random, and also none random.
The evolution is chaos, but the way that natural selection works is not random. The plants and the insects developed and evolved together in the same environment and some evolved in ways that didn't work ( remember at this point that evolution is a very very slow process). But if they did work then they were able to survive longer in their lives—and as a result were able to pass on more genetic information to the next generation and see that these beneficial traits remained active.
If the evolution wasn't beneficial then they would die younger, because the nature of the competitive world meant that if they weren't the best suited to their environment they would die. So the evolution was random, but because only the beneficial traits survived the process became none random. I hope that helps to clear up how something that appears to have been created with an end in mind can have actually developed from random (and none random) chaos.
> What I'm saying is that if morality exists independently of what we human beings think, then this fact is evidence for the existence of God. I'd have to look back through the discussion, but I don't think I said God is the only possible source of moral law. What I'm saying is that if morality has an objectivity, and is independent of human majority vote, then something besides people has to say people shouldn’t behave this way. That is to say, there must be a foundation of morality that transcends human opinion, and many theists believe God is that foundation.
I suggest that morality doesn't exist without a intelligent and social mind, and by that I do not mean God. I mean any intelligent and social mind. For example, there are apes that live in communities and they punish apes within that community who try to steal from each other, or they punish apes that try to breed (only the alpha can breed in this case). This is an example of moral law being developed in another species independant of humans, and of religion.
Now you would say that this obviously shows that God exists—how could apes come to the conclusion that stealing is wrong? The evolutionary answer would be that these animals (because they are also intelligent) recognise that if they want to live amongst one another then conflict within the group will cause harm. Because of this the same "rules" seem to duplicate, stealing from other animals causes them harm, they reciprocate with more harm, so both parties come away worse. It isn't coincedence that the same rules appear in societies across the world, and even in different species. You can attribute it blindly to God with exactly no evidence, but the science behind evolution is solid- and logical.
> Let's say we have an iPod, and the only option for playing songs is shuffle.
If you've read and understood what I've just said then you'll understand why this comparison doesn't work. The natural world isn't on "shuffle". It's more like a device that naturally kills off the bad songs leaving you with a kick ass playlist.
Okay, I'll expand. The first point of all of your cosmological arguments begins with the point as follows (or something similar) :
Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else already in existence.
We cannot prove how the Universe came into existence so we can only guess by the information we have available to us. The information given to us seems to indicate that you're right. Everything that is created is caused by something—but we have a problem with this. Everything within the universe is made of the same material at the most basic level. So everything that is being "created" in the universe is not really being created—more like reassembled out of matter that already exists within the universe.
The creation of the actual matter is different though. Because within the universe matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So it is an incorrect comparison to compare the "creation" of anything within the universe to the creation of the universe. My point is that you cannot know that the matter itself follows this rule of needing a cause, because the only example of matter being created is the big bang, and as I said at the beginning, we cannot prove how the universe came into existence. So when you say that the universe had to have a cause it's unfounded—why does the universe have to have a cause—because you say so? That isn't a good enough reason for me.
Your premise is faulty because it relies on you being right about something that you cannot ever know that you're right about. Your entire argument hangs on an "if". "If the universe had a cause then that cause had to be super smart—like super clever. Really, it's bananas how clever it must have been."
> Wrong. God is eternal; we are created, therefore we are, by definition, not God. Since we are by definition not God, we are capable of sinning by definition, not by God's choice. It's impossible that God create an uncreated being (back to absurdities and omnipotence). Therefore God was not and is not able to stop sin. God's only choice is to redeem it, which is what he has done. It's not a contradictory idea at all.
Except that the logic follows clearly—the sin of ommision is to not act when you can and ought to act. I'm not just talking about human actions here either, natural disasters wreak havoc on innocent people and God does nothing—watches us save each other as we ought to—but he does nothing to prevent the disaster nor aid the dying.
How is this not a sin? Or are you saying that God is once again incapable of doing these things—stopping a tsunami for example? I'm pretty sure I remember Jesus walking on water and calming a storm though, so it must be within his Godly power, and yet he doesn't. How can this possibly be considered the moral choice? Spoiler alert—it isn't. It's obviously a sin. He ought to act, and is capable but doesnt which fits the defition of the sin, and so God is guilty. BUT he cannot possibly be guilty of a sin because the definition of sin doesn't allow it. There is a very clear contradiction here and if you cannot see it then I don't know what else to say.
> Right, but you haven't put enough evidence or logic on the table to yet be convincing.
How about now?
> contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine.
This is a mistake... You cannot consider the entire planet to be one creature, or machine. It is- as he goes on to say-
"subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human faculties can trace and explain."
Except that we can explain, The reason that life on earth exists so impecibly well adapted is because of evolution, fruits like bananas may appear to be developed with the means to be held by human hands, but that doesn't mean that they are for that purpose. If that were the case then why are there not natural bananas growing on every continent? and why aren't water melons designed to be held?
The things that a lot of people forget is that plants are AS EVOLVED as animals. They are perfectly adapted to exist on earth, and entire species have developed over millions of years a symbiotic relationship with other organisms. Like flowers and insects, the plants now actually rely on insects to pollinate for them. At first glance that may appear as if it was designs. How could such an intricate relationship have formed from chaos?
How can two organisms- a plant and an animal possibly evolve randomly to mesh together so perfectly? The answer is simple- and complicated. because it is random, and also none random.
The evolution is chaos, but the way that natural selection works is not random. The plants and the insects developed and evolved together in the same environment and some evolved in ways that didn't work ( remember at this point that evolution is a very very slow process). But if they did work then they were able to survive longer in their lives—and as a result were able to pass on more genetic information to the next generation and see that these beneficial traits remained active.
If the evolution wasn't beneficial then they would die younger, because the nature of the competitive world meant that if they weren't the best suited to their environment they would die. So the evolution was random, but because only the beneficial traits survived the process became none random. I hope that helps to clear up how something that appears to have been created with an end in mind can have actually developed from random (and none random) chaos.
> What I'm saying is that if morality exists independently of what we human beings think, then this fact is evidence for the existence of God. I'd have to look back through the discussion, but I don't think I said God is the only possible source of moral law. What I'm saying is that if morality has an objectivity, and is independent of human majority vote, then something besides people has to say people shouldn’t behave this way. That is to say, there must be a foundation of morality that transcends human opinion, and many theists believe God is that foundation.
I suggest that morality doesn't exist without a intelligent and social mind, and by that I do not mean God. I mean any intelligent and social mind. For example, there are apes that live in communities and they punish apes within that community who try to steal from each other, or they punish apes that try to breed (only the alpha can breed in this case). This is an example of moral law being developed in another species independant of humans, and of religion.
Now you would say that this obviously shows that God exists—how could apes come to the conclusion that stealing is wrong? The evolutionary answer would be that these animals (because they are also intelligent) recognise that if they want to live amongst one another then conflict within the group will cause harm. Because of this the same "rules" seem to duplicate, stealing from other animals causes them harm, they reciprocate with more harm, so both parties come away worse. It isn't coincedence that the same rules appear in societies across the world, and even in different species. You can attribute it blindly to God with exactly no evidence, but the science behind evolution is solid- and logical.
> Let's say we have an iPod, and the only option for playing songs is shuffle.
If you've read and understood what I've just said then you'll understand why this comparison doesn't work. The natural world isn't on "shuffle". It's more like a device that naturally kills off the bad songs leaving you with a kick ass playlist.
- I've got kidneys
Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by jimwalton » Tue Nov 11, 2014 9:53 am
My premise is not only perfectly understandable but irrefutable. No matter how we look at it, in science and in our entire existence, we know of nothing that began to exist that was not caused to exist by something else already in existence. There is not a single example as far as we know, and so the logic is sound and not BS as you accused, nor irrational.
As to the Big Bang, it is the consensus of scientists that the universe began to exist at a particular moment in time, that before the Bang there was a non-dimensional singularity.
> Everything within the universe is made of the same material at the most basic level. So everything that is being "created" in the universe is not really being created- more like reassembled out of matter that already exists within the universe.
Just because it is of the same material doesn't speak at all to the causal mechanism that brought it about. Scientists agree that before the Big Bang matter did not exist.
> Because within the universe matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So it is an incorrect comparison to compare the "creation" of anything within the universe to the creation of the universe.
The law of thermodynamics describes how the world works when, or provided that, the world is a closed (isolated) system, subject to no outside causal influence. Thus Sears and Zemanski’s standard text University Physics: "This is the principle of conservation of linear momentum: When no resultant external force acts on a system, the total momentum of the system remains constant in magnitude and direction" (italics theirs). They add that "the internal energy of an isolated system remains constant. This is the most general statement of the principle of conservation of energy." These principles, therefore, apply to isolated or closed systems. If so, however, there is nothing in them to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a particle. If he did so, obviously, energy would not be conserved in the system in question; but equally obviously, that system would not be closed, in which case the principle of conservation of energy would not apply to it.
> My point is that you cannot know that the matter itself follows this rule of needing a cause- because the only example of matter being created is the big bang, and as I said at the beginning, we cannot prove how the universe came into existence.
We can't prove how the universe came into existence, but it does follow that anything that had a beginning was cause to begin by something else. Current scientific understanding is that matter certainly did have a cause.
> natural disasters wreak havoc on innocent people and God does nothing
This is a completely different conversation, and I'm not sure we have room for it. Briefly I'll say that for God to continually mess with the cause-and-effect continuum that creates our weather and environmental systems is to wreak absolute havoc on life as we know it, and ultimately, (if I had time to walk you through the logic of it) negates science as we know it. It's an untenable solution to the dilemma. There is no clear contradiction here, as you assume. Actually, his constant interference to guarantee no natural disasters would be more disruptive and disastrous than letting the world function as he does. If you want to pursue this further, it's a different discussion.
> The reason that life on earth exists so impecibly well adapted is because of evolution
This is quite a faith statement. You attribute great qualities to random processes. From a naturalistic perspective, all change comes about by accident. "Purpose" has no place in a system that is purely chemical and governed by physics. Things just happen. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don't. The earth just has to by chance be in the right position, at the right angle, spinning at the right speed to create a certain wind, and lightning has to strike just at the right point and the right time when amino acids are near each other... All scientists will admit that it's not reasonable, but they'll say it happened to happen, and here we are!
The theistic perspective, however, makes more sense. As Plantinga says:
1. Science requires regularity, predictability, and constancy; it requires that our world conform to laws of nature. From the point of view of naturalists, the fact that our world displays the sort of regularity and lawlike behavior necessary for science is a bit of enormous cosmic luck, a not-to-be-expected bit of serendipity. But regularity and lawlikeness obviously fit well with the thought that God is a rational person who has created our world and instituted the laws of nature.
2. Not only must our world in fact manifest regularity and law-like behavior: for science to flourish, scientists and others must *believe* that it does. Whitehead: "There can be no living science unless there is a wide-spread instinctive conviction in the existence of an order of things." Such a conviction fits well with the theistic doctrine of the image of God.
3. Theism enables us to understand the necessity or inevitableness or inviolability of natural law: this necessity is to be explained and understood in terms of the difference between divine power and the power of finite creatures. Again, from the point of view of the naturalist, the character of these laws is something of an enigma. What is this alleged necessity they display, weaker than logical necessity, but necessity nonetheless? What, if anything, explains that fact that these laws govern what happens? What reason if any is there for expecting them to continue to govern these phenomena? Theism provides a natural answer to these questions; naturalism stands mute before them.
Naturalism claims that life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of processed described by the ordinary laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. But it's just as possible, and actually more rational, to believe that a designer caused the design, that the process was not all random but had input from an intelligent guide, and that intelligence, information, and personality came from an intelligent, informational, personal source. It makes more sense that the mind came from an intelligent source than that it arose accidentally from purely incogitative matter.
> but the science behind evolution is solid- and logical.
For science to be successful, the world must display a high degree of regularity and predictability (back to your natural disasters question). We couldn't drive our cars if roads could suddenly turn to oceans, or metal to goop. Intentional action requires a high degree of stability, predictability, and regularity. And of course the predictability in question has to be predictable by us. For intentional action to be possible, it must be the case that we, given our cognitive faculties, can often or usually predict what will happen next. Science also requires cognitive faculties to learn it and understand it. It’s an essential part of theistic religion—at any rate Christian theistic religion—to think of God as providentially governing the world in such a way as to provide that kind of stability and regularity. Without natural laws, science would be impossible. Science also requires that we can discover those laws. Again, theism makes it reasonable that we can understand what these laws are like.
You claim, as do others, that modern science has exposed theism as poppycock and superstition, but this is an error. First of all, there is nothing in naturalism that requires or proves that God doesn't exist. God could easily have orchestrated the evolutionary process, and a scientist wouldn't be able to tell. On the other hand, naturalists such as yourself claim that the course of evolution is not directed, guided, or orchestrate; it displays no purpose, it is blind and unforeseen, and it has no goals (it can't).
Let's examine this a little: we have memories, intuitions, and perceptions. It's how we learn about our physical environment and reason our way to deductive connections. But if these attributes are not reliable (significantly better than 50%), all knowledge comes under doubt. Suppose you are a naturalist: you think there is no such person as God, and that we and our cognitive faculties have been cobbled together by natural selection. Can you then sensibly think that our cognitive faculties are for the most part reliable?
I say you can't. The probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. If naturalism and evolution are both truth, our cognitive faculties don't have a high chance of being reliable. Nietzsche said, "Only if we assume a God who is morally our like can 'truth' and the search for truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the conditions of life." Thomas Nagel: "If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results." Barry Stroud: "There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true." Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. … Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
In other words, the primary function of our cognitive faculties is not discovering truth, but contributing to survival. Evolution says that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances, and doesn't guarantee true beliefs. Our beliefs *might* be true, but there is no particular reason to think they *would* be: natural selection isn't interested in truth, but in appropriate behavior.
Darwin himself expresses serious doubts along these lines: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" Materialists believe that rising in the evolutionary scale eventuates in content properties. The question is this: What is the likelihood, given evolution and naturalism, that the content thus arising is in fact true? What is the likelihood, given naturalism, that our cognitive faculties are reliable, thereby producing mostly true beliefs? Therefore, even the belief in naturalism and evolution is not only suspect, but defeated. And if naturalism and evolution and evolution are self-defeating, they can't be rationally accepted. Theism is the more rational conclusion.
As to the Big Bang, it is the consensus of scientists that the universe began to exist at a particular moment in time, that before the Bang there was a non-dimensional singularity.
> Everything within the universe is made of the same material at the most basic level. So everything that is being "created" in the universe is not really being created- more like reassembled out of matter that already exists within the universe.
Just because it is of the same material doesn't speak at all to the causal mechanism that brought it about. Scientists agree that before the Big Bang matter did not exist.
> Because within the universe matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So it is an incorrect comparison to compare the "creation" of anything within the universe to the creation of the universe.
The law of thermodynamics describes how the world works when, or provided that, the world is a closed (isolated) system, subject to no outside causal influence. Thus Sears and Zemanski’s standard text University Physics: "This is the principle of conservation of linear momentum: When no resultant external force acts on a system, the total momentum of the system remains constant in magnitude and direction" (italics theirs). They add that "the internal energy of an isolated system remains constant. This is the most general statement of the principle of conservation of energy." These principles, therefore, apply to isolated or closed systems. If so, however, there is nothing in them to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a particle. If he did so, obviously, energy would not be conserved in the system in question; but equally obviously, that system would not be closed, in which case the principle of conservation of energy would not apply to it.
> My point is that you cannot know that the matter itself follows this rule of needing a cause- because the only example of matter being created is the big bang, and as I said at the beginning, we cannot prove how the universe came into existence.
We can't prove how the universe came into existence, but it does follow that anything that had a beginning was cause to begin by something else. Current scientific understanding is that matter certainly did have a cause.
> natural disasters wreak havoc on innocent people and God does nothing
This is a completely different conversation, and I'm not sure we have room for it. Briefly I'll say that for God to continually mess with the cause-and-effect continuum that creates our weather and environmental systems is to wreak absolute havoc on life as we know it, and ultimately, (if I had time to walk you through the logic of it) negates science as we know it. It's an untenable solution to the dilemma. There is no clear contradiction here, as you assume. Actually, his constant interference to guarantee no natural disasters would be more disruptive and disastrous than letting the world function as he does. If you want to pursue this further, it's a different discussion.
> The reason that life on earth exists so impecibly well adapted is because of evolution
This is quite a faith statement. You attribute great qualities to random processes. From a naturalistic perspective, all change comes about by accident. "Purpose" has no place in a system that is purely chemical and governed by physics. Things just happen. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don't. The earth just has to by chance be in the right position, at the right angle, spinning at the right speed to create a certain wind, and lightning has to strike just at the right point and the right time when amino acids are near each other... All scientists will admit that it's not reasonable, but they'll say it happened to happen, and here we are!
The theistic perspective, however, makes more sense. As Plantinga says:
1. Science requires regularity, predictability, and constancy; it requires that our world conform to laws of nature. From the point of view of naturalists, the fact that our world displays the sort of regularity and lawlike behavior necessary for science is a bit of enormous cosmic luck, a not-to-be-expected bit of serendipity. But regularity and lawlikeness obviously fit well with the thought that God is a rational person who has created our world and instituted the laws of nature.
2. Not only must our world in fact manifest regularity and law-like behavior: for science to flourish, scientists and others must *believe* that it does. Whitehead: "There can be no living science unless there is a wide-spread instinctive conviction in the existence of an order of things." Such a conviction fits well with the theistic doctrine of the image of God.
3. Theism enables us to understand the necessity or inevitableness or inviolability of natural law: this necessity is to be explained and understood in terms of the difference between divine power and the power of finite creatures. Again, from the point of view of the naturalist, the character of these laws is something of an enigma. What is this alleged necessity they display, weaker than logical necessity, but necessity nonetheless? What, if anything, explains that fact that these laws govern what happens? What reason if any is there for expecting them to continue to govern these phenomena? Theism provides a natural answer to these questions; naturalism stands mute before them.
Naturalism claims that life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of processed described by the ordinary laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. But it's just as possible, and actually more rational, to believe that a designer caused the design, that the process was not all random but had input from an intelligent guide, and that intelligence, information, and personality came from an intelligent, informational, personal source. It makes more sense that the mind came from an intelligent source than that it arose accidentally from purely incogitative matter.
> but the science behind evolution is solid- and logical.
For science to be successful, the world must display a high degree of regularity and predictability (back to your natural disasters question). We couldn't drive our cars if roads could suddenly turn to oceans, or metal to goop. Intentional action requires a high degree of stability, predictability, and regularity. And of course the predictability in question has to be predictable by us. For intentional action to be possible, it must be the case that we, given our cognitive faculties, can often or usually predict what will happen next. Science also requires cognitive faculties to learn it and understand it. It’s an essential part of theistic religion—at any rate Christian theistic religion—to think of God as providentially governing the world in such a way as to provide that kind of stability and regularity. Without natural laws, science would be impossible. Science also requires that we can discover those laws. Again, theism makes it reasonable that we can understand what these laws are like.
You claim, as do others, that modern science has exposed theism as poppycock and superstition, but this is an error. First of all, there is nothing in naturalism that requires or proves that God doesn't exist. God could easily have orchestrated the evolutionary process, and a scientist wouldn't be able to tell. On the other hand, naturalists such as yourself claim that the course of evolution is not directed, guided, or orchestrate; it displays no purpose, it is blind and unforeseen, and it has no goals (it can't).
Let's examine this a little: we have memories, intuitions, and perceptions. It's how we learn about our physical environment and reason our way to deductive connections. But if these attributes are not reliable (significantly better than 50%), all knowledge comes under doubt. Suppose you are a naturalist: you think there is no such person as God, and that we and our cognitive faculties have been cobbled together by natural selection. Can you then sensibly think that our cognitive faculties are for the most part reliable?
I say you can't. The probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. If naturalism and evolution are both truth, our cognitive faculties don't have a high chance of being reliable. Nietzsche said, "Only if we assume a God who is morally our like can 'truth' and the search for truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the conditions of life." Thomas Nagel: "If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results." Barry Stroud: "There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true." Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. … Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
In other words, the primary function of our cognitive faculties is not discovering truth, but contributing to survival. Evolution says that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances, and doesn't guarantee true beliefs. Our beliefs *might* be true, but there is no particular reason to think they *would* be: natural selection isn't interested in truth, but in appropriate behavior.
Darwin himself expresses serious doubts along these lines: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" Materialists believe that rising in the evolutionary scale eventuates in content properties. The question is this: What is the likelihood, given evolution and naturalism, that the content thus arising is in fact true? What is the likelihood, given naturalism, that our cognitive faculties are reliable, thereby producing mostly true beliefs? Therefore, even the belief in naturalism and evolution is not only suspect, but defeated. And if naturalism and evolution and evolution are self-defeating, they can't be rationally accepted. Theism is the more rational conclusion.
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Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by Dynamo » Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:50 am
So, considering all of that, how on earth could it be possible to say that a moral law "existed" 10 million years ago, before any human ever walked this earth? That would be such a difficult claim that I believe it has the burden of explicit evidence. The conclusion that laws which only concern human action do not exist where human action is nonexistent seems self evident to me.
- Dynamo
Re: God Is Not Dead, the movie
by jimwalton » Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:53 am
The Bible teaches that morality is grounded in the character and nature of God, and as such it is implicit in the universe. Before human beings, God is righteous, true, good, and everything else moral. There is no explicit evidence of such, except that humans are aware of a moral objectivity that transcends each individual. Human action can't exist where human action is non-existent, but morality can exist outside of humanity if such morality is inherent in the character of God, and that's what the Bible teaches.
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