Exchange 3 with [Mazid the Raider]… dear son,

Scientists don't proselytize? Darwin didn't seek to convince people in his view of the world? What was Thomas Henry Huxley doing then? You mention Bertrand Russell, who was a mathematician. Does he count as a scientist? Wasn't Carl Sagan trying to convince the world of his view of things? Doesn't Steven Hawking have a view he is trying to popularize? Richard Dawkins is making money on his faith in science. Is he a straw man?

Perhaps you are thinking that most scientists are not theistic. When I was studying Physics I mentioned to a classmate that I was a Christian and he was astonished. He asked whether there wasn't an inherent contradiction or at least conflict between the two, but I didn't think so at the time. I still don't.

I read recently about a survey that was done in the early part of the 20th century that asked scientists how many believed in a God who answers prayer. The response at that time was roughly 40 per cent don't, 40 per cent do, and 20 per cent aren't sure. When the survey was replicated recently the response was almost unchanged. Scientists not believe in God? [EDIT: Names removed for privacy purposes. He only listed four.] Do we know more scientists who are believers? Yes, but I will stop with these examples.

I am comforted that you are not waiting for someone to re-grow a hand before you believe in God. And I'm glad that you are not saying that it needs to be proven 100 per cent before you will grant that the evidence is that there is a god. He does not give us certain proof, but He does provide much evidence. One of those is the nature of the universe with respect to certain constants. I understand that there are roughly 15 constants that are so important that if they were not what they are the universe, and this planet with life on it, could not exist. The so-called "answer" to this is to suppose trillions of universes, and ours just happens to have the right combination of those values. Hmmm. On a scale of 0 to 1, how likely does that sound to you? You should remember that even evolutionists have faith. Isn't the current version something called "punctuated equilibrium?" That is an interesting attempt to explain the dearth of links in the fossil record. But what causes the jump from one equilibrium to the next? Seems like a leap of faith to me.

Social evolution is real and important. Because of the experiments in different forms of government over the years we have a system that is pretty good. It doesn't change human nature, but it can provide better conditions than would exist under alternative arrangements. That, however, does not constitute meaning as I am intending. Real meaning is the basis for doing "right" when no one can make us do so. It is the means for sacrificing oneself for the benefit of others when a biological view of survival would argue for saving oneself. C. S. Lewis discussed this in The Abolition of Man, in which he points out that the evolutionary basis for behavior can only explain being fruitful personally, not the prospering of society through difficulties. When challenges to the society arise and some members are called on to sacrifice themselves there must be a higher reason, an authority upon which to call to make the case.

In my first letter to you I gave a list of things that a meaningful life could allow. Two that I mentioned are getting up in the morning and battling through illness. These are not trivial. Hunger is enough to drive the poor man to work, but why does the wealthy man work? And when you get ill, does society call you to exert yourself to overcome it so that we can collectively benefit from your work? If that is the case, then what do we do with those who can never be productive? There are social answers with which we would be very uncomfortable, but if our society is only based on an evolution from animal to higher animal then why should we find it distasteful for the powerful to "eat" the weak?

The social evolution to which you refer cannot perfect society or even provide meaning for it. Our society protects the weak because of Christianity. We are offended when some human rights are violated because we have been a Christian society for two millennia.  Many societies had no problem with human sacrifice, but we did. But that is because we were Christian. Many societies currently view women as inferior to men, but in Western/Christian society women are viewed as equal to men. This is not the product of trial-an-error, with alternative views of women dying out because those groups are not as productive. These are contemporary worldviews based on competing religions that are not compatible. If they are equal in merit then it is simply a matter of power as to which will dominate. Is that what you think?

To wrap up for today, I think the evidence for a god is compelling, and I look forward to discussing that further. And I don't like what I know of non-theistic societies. They have a low view of humanity, unlike Christianity with a view so high that God Himself came down to save us. I think I'm something more than an animal. Aren't you?

That Guy Person Dude Guy wrote:

He is probably referring to 20th-century applications of Marxism (which ended up being updated forms of totalitarianism, somehow). I have read several stories from the Iron Curtain era in Eastern Europe, and it is evident that Communist government officials and their pundits (the ones who actually believed in that system, that is) believed that a lack of existence of God gave them license to do whatever they wished. Of course, we imagine that Karl Marx himself, who advocated atheism in his vision of society, would have in no way approved of his interpreters.

Certainly Marx would not have endorsed the Soviet Union or any other such totalitarian nightmare. Marx' whole ethic was about freeing people from the shackles of capitalism, not freeing them in order to be enslaved in state capitalism.

Lets see, he starts off (first sentence) claiming that I have faith in evolution, that "strong rationalism" is naïve, and that philosophers will laugh at me for it, then he brings out the god of the gaps... THEN he brings out an appeal to improbability, claims Occam would side with theists, does an appeal to personal experience, an argumentum ad commies, now we're all just making excuses because we secretly believe in god but we want to do what we want without limits... Oh, now I'm angry at god for something... and I'm incapable of coming up with my own arguments, so I must have been quoting someone.

Brief reply to exchange #7
1.    Charlie opted out of the conversation when you resorted to language he viewed as intentionally disrespectful. I have noticed some of that in our communications, and I noticed that you took umbrage when I used similar language with you, but I will have more to say about that another time.
2.    Regarding being in the "right" denomination, I admit that I have incomplete information and therefore can only rely on my judgement, and the judgement of people for whom I have great respect. Are members of other denominations going to hell? Surely you recall these conversations, but since you are asking I will answer you. The answer is generally "no" with the proviso that some are just as some from our denomination are likely to be false professors of Christ. Deniers of Christ, as well as false professors, remain in their sin and therefore will go to hell when the righteous and holy God finally judges their works. The point of different denominations is that we do understand some important things differently, and so we have less direct fellowship because we would tend to focus on those things on which we disagree. That is not profitable, so we don't do it. Your further question regarding other "writings" is really a large one. The short answer is that the bible as we know it, the 66 books, is the set of writings that have the best evidence, and have been received by the previous church counsels. They based their decisions on both internal and external evidence, and the study of these things is important and vast. Daniel (that would be your brother, not the prophet) could give you a more detailed description of this. In very great contrast, the writings of Islam and Mormanism are on the same level as the "writings" for Scientology and many other religions. Someone decided to make up a new religion to take advantageof people who were unhappy with their condition in the world. Critical analysis of any of these show that they are not revelation, but merely someone's ideas about how a religion should operate. After that there is the novelty factor that helps people become interested and the history factor that keeps things going. I am curious about your reading of Lewis. I don't think he is a careless as you make him out to be. He is ecumenical within Christianity, but I am pretty sure that is as far as it went.
3.    Regarding which rules in the bible we follow, you are asking another very large question. Some of the commandments are clearly done, as in completed, with the work of Christ on the cross, and I notice you did not mention those. Regarding the other ones we don't feel obligated to follow, the stoning of reprobates for example, the broad answer is that the cultural context of the laws were the point. I could talk further on this but that is the brief answer. Slavery is another issue altogether. The bible does not proscribe slavery. Do you have a problem with the slavery that was commanded in the old testament? That was a merciful slavery, wherein a person who was impoverished could sell himself into slavery to another Israelite, and would remain in that household for six years. In the seventh year the slave went free, provisioned by the household to enable him to make it on his own. If the slave did not want to leave the relationship could be made permanent, but that was all voluntary. Have we decided that voluntary servitude is wrong? The slavery we fought a war over was not of that type. It was chattel slavery, of kidnapped persons. The bible does not condone or permit such slavery.

Exchange 8
Mazid - I numbered the paragraphs in your exchange 6, and have replied to each paragraph.
1.    If you think the theory of evolution has better explanatory power of why the universe is as it is then you must do so on the basis of faith. I am convinced that a non-theistic evolution is nonsense, as a technical term, because it is without meaning. For many people a world without meaning is preferable to a world with meaning, because true meaning must have a source and therefore God.
2.    You prefer to keep the word "faith" to refer to religious belief that has no objective basis? That might be accurate in a limited sense, but most words, including faith, have multiple meanings. Do you believe the theory of evolution explains things as they are? Then you do have faith in it. You trust and accept that it is reliable, just as I trust and accept that the bible is reliable, though for different reasons. You are correct to insist on precise definitions, but the definition of faith encompasses belief systems that do not include god, and is therefore appropriate for describing one's belief in evolution.
3.    Insisting on clear evidence of a god, such as regrowing a missing hand was the example you used, is taking the position of strong rationalism. You may claim that it is a gradient, but what does that mean? Would regrowing part of a hand be partly convincing? No, the measure of evidence that you are insisting on is very high, and is higher than evolution could hope to achieve. More interesting, it is a philosophical view that philosophers no longer try to defend, because it assume a standard higher than it can satisfy.
4.    You make an interesting claim in the fourth paragraph. You claim that the greater something is the greater the evidence we should demand before we believe it. I think you have that backwards. Trying to prove the obvious is not very profitable. People at all times in all places have acknowledged that there is a god. The evidence for God is all around you. (There, now I've said it as well. Given the number of things that you seem not to have heard from me I should point out that I spent most of my teen years in denial of the existence of god.) The real disagreements come in when we try to understand what the fact of god means for us. The "there is no god" camp doesn't really want there to be no god, it is just that each person will decide what is right and wrong, what is true or false, what level of evidence is sufficient for accepting someone else's theory, i.e. each person wants to be god.
5.    Regarding the failure of evolutionary theory to explain why there is a world, and why intelligent life exists, I admit that having a purpose is my point. A purpose is the point because in the absence of a purpose we may just as well get as stoned or whatever as possible because life is without meaning. Without a creator, and a judgement at which we will answer for how we lived, there is no significant reason for disciplining oneself and keeping from committing all sorts of evil things on the people around us. In fact, without meaning we can't even have meaningful conversation, nevermind a meaningful life.
6.     Okay.
7.    The point about speciation is that there is no proof of such an amazing event, and for something as important as that we would need extraordinary evidence to accept it. The fact that similar but distinct species exist is not evidence of how they got there or their relationship to one another. Correlation is not causation.
8.    Punctuated equilibrium seems like a cop-out to me. The basic theory that Darwin sought evidence for was that species evolved from other species by means of random genetic mistakes that had the effect of providing alternative life forms that could thrive in the conditions to a degree greater than the parent. For this to work there would have to be a huge number of those random forms, of every species, and there would be an abundant fossil record as evidence. After about 100 embarrasing years of finding virtually nothing to support this someone came up with an "explanation" that there are jumps when huge changes take place leaving almost no record, followed by extended periods of stasis. Perhaps it is a correct explanation of "what" but it is really thin on "how," even while it does fit the lack of fossil evidence of gradual speciation. But lack of fossil evidence really takes the wind out of the gradual evolution sail. Given the importance of these leaps in complexity we would assume there would be good evidence of some driving force, but like trying to find actual evidence of speciation there is nothing that I have heard of.
9.    God is the god of the gaps, and the knowledge as well. Without God, the maker of the universe, where would the scientist be? Where would research come from if there is no expectation that a set of uniform laws govern everything. Is the theory of evolution true? Those could be accurate descriptions of how living things came about on a physical level, but that would not explain why we are here and how we should live. Oh, actually adherants of evolutionary theory do say it tells us how to live: any way we feel like. Lovely. Any thing anyone wants to do is fine because we are only animals anyway. Even the supposed criteria of not hurting anyone else is meaningless without God. Why not hurt other people? They are just animals, too. If nothing matters then nothing matters!
10.    To claim that purpose is human in origin is simply to claim that it is not from a god. The evidence in history is that people in every culture have recognized that there is a god, if not many gods. Your position is begging the question.
11.    The preponderance of evidence is that there is a universe, and within it is a planet with life. There may be more planets in the universe with life, but this is the one we know about. The so-called problems with human design are miniscule in comparison to the complexity. The whole of creation, life in particular and human life especially, is wonderful and amazing. To conclude that it must have come about on its own is hardly a minor claim. We would need very convincing evidence that such a thing was even possible long before we could discuss probability. When you ask questions like why men have nipples I assume you are claiming that since we don't know their purpose they have none. Wow. I hope your studies are helping you understand that you/we don't have the whole world figured out, and that a little humility would be appropriate rather than insisting that because one doesn't understand something then it is pointless.
12.    What has Christianity brought the world? Everything you think good. Hope and confidence, humility and compassion, peace and encouragement, science and technology, laws and systems of redress, education and equal rights… the list goes on. You think the progress of the western world happened apart from Christianity? It did not. The eastern world would still be living a fuedal existence if they didn't notice that the people of the west are prospering and they have taken to immitating us. Sure there are problems, but the good things are bigger.
13.    Again, if you can't understand something does that truly imply that it does not have a reason? You think it is important that the Andromeda galaxy is going to crash into the Milky Way? When will that happen? Will that be before or after the Sun runs out of energy? And about those seething quantum uncertainties, failing to understand does not make it irrational.
14.    The reason I assume you are quoting someone is that many of your statements and questions have been routine topics of conversation in our home. Coming up with them now is fine, if they are just now occurring to you, but you have heard the answers to many of them before, so it seemed odd that they would come up again.
15.    My reference to a teacher was relative to books you are reading, not an instructor of a class you are taking or have taken.

Reply to Exchanges 7.1 and 8
7.1
1.    I am still sorry that Charlie decided he didn't want to keep up our discussion. I was enjoying it, to a certain extent. I can see how he might take issue with references to "all powerful father-figures" arbitrarily dispensing judgments to his "sock puppets," but I see no reason apologize for this, nor to choose my words with more care. I understand how sensitive an issue this is from the Christian perspective, but I don't feel any more remorse pointing out the absurdity evident to me than a creationist would feel waving a banner with "I don't come from no monkey!" on both sides.
a.    I occasionally refer to god as an Ever-Present (eternal and omnipresent), Overbearing (omnipotent), Know-it-all (omniscient) for humorous effect. These are accurate - though negative - descriptions of the god of the Bible. Yes, it is disrespectful, but I don't believe I have anything to worry about, any more than saying "Beetlejuice" three times, or "Bloody Mary" in a dark bathroom in front of a mirror.
b.    My reference to sock-puppets being judged arbitrarily is deliberate, and understated if anything is amiss. Here's my logical train:
i.    God is omniscient - he knows everything past, present, future, and anon. God created everything, and he knows everything, so obviously, from God's perspective, everything down to the behavior of individual quarks up to supernovae is predestined, known, and set in stone. From our standpoints, it seems like we have free will, but in reality God knows exactly what will happen, and has, in that sense already judged us. As an eternal being outside of time (because time is an integral part of this universe, so nothing in time can exist independently prior to the time), we really are already judged and in our eternal places. Still no sock-puppets, right? Okay, here's the clincher: God designed our decisions in the first place. God designed everything so that the large majority of mankind would be damned to hell, and though we may not see it we are puppets, marionettes mouthing lines towards an end already written. In this view of the world we have just about as much culpability for our deeds as a Lego guy does for punching another Lego guy.
ii.    So, we have the illusion of free will, and we go through our lives making what we think are our decisions, and according to inescapable logic I have been damned to hell from the beginning of time. Why? Because God said so, because God made me for the express purpose of burning in eternal torment for what he made me to do. Did you ever think that Lucifer got a really bum deal? God created him too, right? God made him, put him in the number 2 position in the universe, knowing exactly what he would do because God made him do it.
iii.    Now, just to bring up an important fact, we are told that this god is the epitome of good. This god, who designed a self-damned universe, is the measure by which we supposedly know good. How can that be? How can the same guy who made me go to hell just so that some other people could feel better about not being in hell (isn't that what this is all about?) be the ultimate Measure against which all positive attributes are compared? In the past I was moderately satisfied with the answer that it was Deeply Mysterious: we're just human, how can we know the mind of God? There's another answer, though; an answer that really does the job. We can reconcile these two things by the shocking realization that the whole thing was made up by humans. It is NOT deeply mysterious, it is NOT one of the big questions mankind has to answer: it is STUPID. Trying to figure out what the sky would look like if it never could ever look like itself isn't deep, it's WRONG. Trying to figure out what "x = !x" comes out to isn't possible, because the fundamental question if flawed. And this is why I have no inclination to pull my punches.
2.    This was enough of a reason for me to stay Christian for a while. People I knew and still respect were deeply religious, and so I assumed that they had good reasons to be so even if I didn't take the time to find them for myself. In retrospect, it probably would have been better if I had not relied on an appeal to popularity then any more than I do now. This ties in with my acceptance of the theory of Evolution, but I'll address that in the reply to exchange #8.
3.    My apologies for not bringing up examples that don't support my thesis. Don't get me wrong, the commandments borne out by Jesus' examples are not detrimental to any point I have, even without the valid disputations on the historicity of Jesus. Speaking of which, where in the New Testament is slavery challenged, let alone prohibited? We know what slavery was like in those times, the days of the Roman Empire, which interestingly enough looked a lot like slavery does in more modern times. By the way, yes we are in a different time now, and slavery is nearly universally recognized as the evil it is, but the bible cannot reflect this. The bible is as unchanging as any dogmatic document, unable to reflect changing cultures and technology.
8
1.    In order to avoid having to continue rehashing this same cycle of statement and response we are going to have to agree to a standard of word use.
a.    According to your use of the word "faith" it would be accurate to say that I have "faith" in evolution, but while this is an accurate use of the word, it is only accurate insofar as a 4th of July parade is "homosexual." By your use, the word "faith is interchangeable with the word "trust," which, by further loose word use, accurately describes my acceptance of the theory of evolution. By the same level of use you could say that parades are bright and happy: gay. The word "gay" can be used interchangeably with "homosexual," so in fewer steps I can assert that everything about the traditional celebration of our Independence prefers the company of the same sex.
b.    Now, I think we can both agree that "homosexual" is a lousy word to use in reference to a parade. The problem here is that while your word use was accurate, it was imprecise. In accurate and precise words, faith is not trust is not acceptance of a scientific theory. I don't have faith in the theory of evolution because I don't have complete trust in it, nor is it a religious belief, and there is proof of it.
c.    Now, in regards to the specific (accurate and precise) definition of the word "faith," I have and will continue to use the Merriam Webster definition (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith), choosing 2 or 3 as appropriate. Definition 1 has no bearing on our present conversation.
d.    "Do you believe the theory of evolution explains things as they are? Then you do have faith in it. You trust and accept that it is reliable, just as I trust and accept that the bible is reliable, though for different reasons." Theories are postulated to describe the facts. The theory of Gravity describes the behavior of falling objects because that is where the theory came from, just as the theory of evolution describes the evolution of life because that is what there is proof for (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scientific%20theory for the kind of theory to which I refer). Additionally, nowhere in any of the 6 or so dictionaries I just now scanned for a definition of faith is there anything like your use of the word. "Faith" does not mean "acceptance of the evidence." "Faith" does not apply to science.
2.    (See above)
3.    I don't claim a gradient. If even a single finger was regrown that would be proof of EITHER the incorrectness of several current scientific theories OR proof of an outside influence. There is evidence - a mountain - an overwhelmingly gigantic mountain range - of proof that a severed limb will not spontaneously regrow on a human. Every limb that has failed to regenerate itself is proof that limbs don't regrow. BUT, if one were to do so, (and not in some small village where everyone swears that John over there was an amputee, but now he's got a full four limbs) that would be the proof that something else was going on, or that the preponderance of existing evidence was entirely convincing. For example, one way that the current theory of evolution could be disproven fairly convincingly is for a single fossil to be inexplicably in the wrong spot. A single unfortunate human in the jaws of an equally unfortunate Tyrannosaurus Rex inexplicable to current theories would be all it takes for the current theory of Evolution to kick the bucket. But the thing is, there haven't been any humans found with dinosaurs. Nor have any limbs regrown. This isn't a matter of how convincing the evidence for god's existence is, it's a matter of there not being any evidence for, or any need in nature of, any deity.
4.    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If I claim that I am god, that's pretty far out of the ordinary and you could demand that I show you some lightning bolts or something similar, at which I would of course fail because I'm not god - but lets face it, neither is anyone else.
a.    What you are arguing is that lots and lots of people have believed in god or gods before, so it isn't "profitable" to question their assumptions. Under this criterion, that many people have believed it independently of each other, any assumption made by a large number of people does not bear closer observation. Not questioning basic assumptions such as the existence of a god, or the geocentric universe model, or spontaneous generation, or any one of a plethora of near ubiquitous assumptions made by primitive cultures leaves us exactly there: in a primitive culture.
b.    "The evidence for God is all around you." I assume you mean existence, reality, the universe, life, etc. Unfortunately, these don't prove the existence of a god without some mechanism of explanation. "We exist, therefore God did it" is not evidence of anything at all.
c.    I won't say that no person who denies the existence of god doesn't secretly want to claim that they are god. I already jokingly tried to claim godhood for myself once in this discussion, but then by my own reasoning I was forced to abdicate the claim (though the evidence is the same for my godhood and the existence of god). I'm sure, however, that you'll agree that there is such a thing as doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. One example of that would be to deny the existence of a god so you could do whatever you want, or to try to be your own god. Those are terrible reasons to do anything. Similarly, there is a stark difference between denying the existence of god and not believing a god exists. Rejecting your parents' teachings because you are rebelling against your parents is an absurd thing to do. Rationally considering all the alternatives and not being able to honestly believe in something is completely different.
5.    I'm surprised I have to repeat this.
a.    The theory of evolution doesn't fail to explain why there is a world or fail to explain the purpose of the evolution of higher intelligence. Aside from the basic fact that the theory explains the how, not the grand purpose of something (for example, describing the interaction between brain tissues, nervous system and muscle/skeleton system involved in a movement as opposed to explaining to a policeman why you flipped him off in traffic), the question of why only makes sense in context of someone asking why. There is no cosmic purpose, no point to the universe.
b.    So, cosmically speaking it doesn't matter if you get stoned or run off with a young grad student or whatever. It only matters to you, and the people on whom you have an effect (your family - myself included - people you teach, friends, someone you might bump into on the street). In the grand scope of the entire length and breadth and depth and time of the universe virtually nothing ANY of mankind will have any effect. But we don't live in the scope of eternity, we live in the scope of a human life, maybe a few if someone is very influential. So we are taught that we should behave as children, and we learn that there are benefits to behaving as we are told, and detriments to behaving otherwise. And then we leave home, and maybe join the army instead of going to college because it's too expensive, and maybe we get to Language School (this is me, by the way ) and get a credit card and do whatever we want and drink a whole bottle of gin. The point is, that even given the freedom to do whatever we want, most people learn rather quickly that there were some pretty fine reasons to do what we were taught (such as 3 day hang-overs, and an aversion to gin that is finally starting to go away). But as we get older we learn that not everything we were taught could be true at the same time, which is where difficult questions come into play - questions whose answers may be unknown, but can also turn out to be "deeply mysterious" - read (for my purposes today) as "blatantly contradictory".
6.    (Fair enough)
7.    Links to examples of observed speciation:
a.    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
b.    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
c.    http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Observed_speciation
d.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation "Observed examples of each kind of speciation are provided throughout."
e.    http://darwiniana.org/transitionals.htm
f.    http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf054/sf054b06.htm
g.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A The Atheist Nightmare! (there's a reason to include this, honestly)
i.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLqQttJinjo
h.    And, while I'm at it, a recently found transitional fossil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
i.    Not to mention the wealth of information a search for bacterial speciation will yield.
8.    There are a few things about this paragraph.
a.    Evidence for evolution: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01 (going to leave it at one link. I'm not trying to swamp you)
b.    Because theories are altered to reflect reality instead of trying to interpret reality in a different way to suit an unchangeable dogma, the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium is an example of the scientific process working perfectly. Let me repeat that: This is not a cop-out, this is how science works. Notably, not all evolutionary biologists are sold on the idea of punctuated equilibrium, and that is ALSO how science works. If I were to say that I thought you had a blue car, and you said that you did indeed have a car, but it wasn't blue, it would be foolish of me not to say something different next time. Repeating the same thing over and over without proof is not science, it is dogma.
c.    The only thing embarrassing about the preponderance of evidence supporting the theory of evolution and the fact that life evolves is how ignorant so much of the population of one of the worlds' best educated, richest nations is of the evidence.
d.    Punctuated Equilibrium, short and sweet: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Punctueq.html
9.    Gods don't fit in the equation. There is no place in what we know that a god could be hiding, no sliver next to ?, no place in gravitational theory that needs a god to start it, nothing. But, since you bring it up again, I'd like to do another little logical train of thought.
a.    God, as we discussed before, is all-knowing. He knows the actions of everything and everyone every-when and everywhere, including his own. If we knew our own destinies we would be caught in a predeterministic trap: we are already destined to do something, so we have no free will and are therefore completely powerless in any real sense. Does not god fall into this same trap? If he infallibly knows what he is going to do next (and as I write this I hear some very angry thunder coming fairly near - no relation to what I'm saying now, but I thought I'd share), then he is powerless to change what he is going to do. I know this sounds like just another version of "Can god make a stone too heavy for even god to lift?", and in a sense this is the case. They are both impossible to answer because they are both questions posed with absurd and impossible prerequisites. This is not "mysterious," it's just not possible.
b.    Now, another little side trip: as explored earlier, god exists outside time. We know this because to create time he would have to exist independently of time. So, this being outside of time and outside of reality as we know it: How does this being interact with time and space? Have neither properties of time or space, this god is by definition locked outside of time and space for all… time, I suppose. I suppose this explains a few attributes commonly attributed to god: eternal - because he doesn't exist in time, so any amount of time divided by zero is infinity, and unchanging - because changes are measured over time, so the unchangeable attribute is not so much because of his constancy as the fact that he really can't change.
10.    In what way is my position begging the question? Purpose isn't human in origin; it is meaningless unless there is an intelligence to perceive purpose. Purpose does not exist independently.
11.    Male nipples, and other features (ever wonder what the sinuses do? They get infected, or swollen, or they don't. The duodenum, what's that for? Not a whole lot, honestly) are what are known as evolutionary baggage: vestigial features from our evolutionary past that have not gone away because, in general, they don't negatively impact our survival. http://www.livescience.com/animals/top10_vestigial_organs-1.html The point is not that these are useless, but that they didn't used to be useless. There was a point, and the fact that we still have these is indicative of our evolutionary past.
a.    On that note, I would like to talk for a second about arrogance. Given that between a scientific viewpoint and a Christian viewpoint only one will claim that the purpose of all of reality is humans, and given that the only one of those two viewpoints will honestly claim that humanity is separate and above the other animals, and given that only one claims that all humanity is made in the image of a god, I think it's pretty clear which position is more arrogant. If someone claims that the god of all the universe sent his son to die because he likes us humans so much, does that sound like humility?
12.    None of what you listed needed any religion to make it happen. It could have just as easily - and probably more quickly - happened in the absence of holy wars and inquisitions.
13.    I think you misunderstood my question. How do you get from "The world exists" to "God did it"? Where did that jump come from?
14.    I'm afraid my faith sat better with not listening to those conversations as a child. These are questions I am asking myself, and answers that I find.
15.    (see #14)
[/qoute]

The eastern world would still be living a fuedal existence if they didn't notice that the people of the west are prospering and they have taken to immitating us. Sure there are problems, but the good things are bigger.

Exchange 11
Dad and (I guess) Mark,
Part 1
I’m not certain I follow your reasoning. Are you saying that it is acceptable to not understand why reality and religious beliefs are fundamentally contradictory, or are you saying that looking for reasons why they contradict each other is trying to make yourself a god, and therefore sacrilegious? The alternatives you present are to either willingly believe that testable, confirmable reality is the one who got it wrong and the ones who got it right were tribal leaders over two thousand years ago, or that the god who created everything and everyone is deliberately trying to trick people, and that it’s their fault they think it’s unfair. Is it a failure on my part that I think a god who would plan a creation in which children are born with horrible terminal diseases is not fair? Any moral person should be ashamed and embarrassed to follow a god who would do that.

Now, on the off chance that there is some idea of refuge from the shame that comes from follow a god who could have created malaria and flesh eating amoebae and then blamed us for thinking that this is a bit of a raw deal in the “Fall of Man” defense, that we somehow brought all of this on ourselves when a single woman pilfered a couple pieces of fruit, the question remains: who orchestrated the entire thing? Who created not only the rule about the tree but also the tree itself, designed Adam and Eve to be susceptible to temptation, created Lucifer and designed him to be a rebel, and predetermined everything to happen exactly the way it supposedly did? Is it still a failure on my part to find the idea that somehow this is justifiable to any extent morally inexcusable?

Disbelief in gods is simple. It doesn’t come from science disproving gods (which it doesn’t) or contradicting religious texts (which it very much does), but from applying all the moral concepts we have equally in all situations. In the terms of Exchange 10, I’m not trying to elevate myself – or the whole of humanity – to the level of god, I’m applying the same moral standards to the gods that we apply to ourselves – bringing gods down to our own level. By definition God should be more moral than we are, but we find that he isn’t even as moral as we are. If what we are told to believe is true then this cannot be, so we must not have been told true things. I’m not saying that your god is a liar; I’m saying that he never existed, and somewhere along the line some human made something up and passed it along as fact. That these fabrications still persist is a tribute to a completely human desire for more, not the stamp of the divine.

So, if the Christian god is not real, then do any others hold any more water? The short version is “No, they don’t.” The slightly longer version includes the fact that the very same tests of morality at which the god of the bible failed also eliminates any god who isn’t sadistic (sadistic gods fail because there is also good things in the world – not simply less-bad things).

Part 2
Mark, there is one point in particular on your list which I think should be cleared up before we can really continue. Language is certainly colored by history and intention, and has virtually unlimited flexibility, but in order to have any type of meaningful communication we must agree on a set of unassailable, precise, accurate meanings and concepts. Without these rules (which, with your indulgence, I will presume to assume are the rules and definitions of the English language) we may as well not attempt any sort of communication whatsoever – if I said “tater tots” to mean absolutely anything I wanted – from “a diesel locomotive” to “look out, there’s an orangutan with abnormally large ears and a spider’s mandibles aiming a crossbow at the Prime Minister’s crochet project” I may as well not have said anything at all [this is meant to be amusing, not mocking. I realized after I wrote it that it may have seemed condescending, but that is not my intention.] That is obviously an absurdly extreme example, but the point is salient: if we can’t agree to use a specific definition for crucial words such as “faith” then there doesn’t seem to be any point in our discourse.

The lack of “meaning,” some great overarching point to our existence, is a little disturbing at first, but it is a fact of reality just like death. The only point our lives have is the impact we have on the world while we live, and the only measure of that existence is human. It doesn’t bother me very much that people think their lives have some “meaning” until their behavior negatively impacts others. For example, someone who believes they have been abducted by aliens can be harmlessly tolerated, but if they decide that the aliens want them to collect money by lying to other people it suddenly stops being harmless.

It seems, from what you said, that E.F. Schumacher attempts to draw a false divide between “know-how” people and “know-why” people. It seems like a logical distinction until you apply that divide to other things: people who understand how to make a piano and people who know why to make a piano, people who know how to perform dental surgery and people who know why dental surgery is performed, people who know how to make a beautiful painting and people who know why a painting is beautiful. Did you notice something important there? It is extremely difficult to separate the “know-how” and the “know-why.” The closer you look at the “know-how” the bigger it gets, and the closer you look a the “know-why” category the smaller it gets – oddly enough the “why” keeps getting chopped into pieces, the largest of which always disappears into the “how” section. In fact, this is true at all scales; when you honestly ask “why” you can only answer with “how.”

Let us break it down a little. Ask yourself something difficult in a “how” sense, like why you like a certain painting. Your answer will most likely begin with the word “because,” or some synonym, the origin of which is “by cause,” as in “cause and effect.” The answer to “why” becomes a “what” and a “how” very quickly. But if we continue, I like a painting because the color, or shape, or theme appeals to me. Why might a color appeal to me? Probably because I might associate it with a feeling or event, which in turn had its own cause. We can follow that back as far as you’d like, every cause has another cause until it all flows back to… an ultimate cause – a god? That’s the question, isn’t it?... but what caused the god? Christians are discouraged from asking, because supposedly this god has to be the Ultimate cause, without beginning or end and therefore independent of causality. Following a different direction we go all the way back to the Big Bang, which we have a fair idea of how the circumstances just before the Big Bang caused it, but we don’t really have any way of figuring what caused those circumstances. Scientists may not like it and may try to postulate ideas and even test possibilities, but in the practice of science there is no great problem with saying “I don’t know what – we may never know – but something came before.”
One thing I noticed in particular that you said (aside from that whole “Their great learning has driven them mad!” thing – was that a joke or did I laugh aloud at sincerity? I apologize if it’s the latter, but it is funny.) :

“The foundation of physical sciences was the metaphysical sciences. It was only because there was meaning to the world that studying it could be useful. Now, those in the sciences want a divorce.”

This seems quite backwards. It was only because there was use in studying the world that such a study had any meaning. Metaphysical “science” comes from the leisure of a society with at least the beginning of developed physical sciences – unless you would like to postulate hungry families of early humans wondering whether there was any grand purpose in finding food rather than trying to come up with better ways to get that food, or deciding “why” bother getting warm instead of figuring out how to use that wonderful fire stuff. Attributing physical reality to non-physical non-reality is virtually the definition of madness.

I don’t like to flatly contradict, but argumentum ad pupulum (argument from popularity) is exactly what you used. Citing the many people in history, scientist or otherwise, who have believed or do believe that the human race is naturally evil and needs to be punished in any way that seems good to the god who designed the whole system is an appeal to popularity.

Your final paragraph contains so much that is fractally wrong that if I were to address each and every point it would take another two pages, so I will summarize.

1.    Science is a human endeavor built from human ideas about the world – EVERY thing a human does is a human endeavor. Attempting to insert the “divine” into human life is still a human endeavor, all made of human ideas – perhaps wrong ideas, but human in origin none the less.

2.    The only people who claim that science tries to offer eternal verities are people who have eternal verities of their own they are trying to peddle.

3.    Yeah, why should we listen to scientists? Certainly it has nothing to do with scientific advances, or medical advances, or psychological understanding made possible by scientific inquiry, so maybe it’s because:

4.    Scientist have no answers at all!... unless you start counting things like “is this safe to eat,” “is there evidence of heaven,” “where do humans come from,” “what is existence made of,” “why do [noun] [verb],” “what makes [noun] [adjective or verb]?” I’m sure you could come up with nouns and verbs and adjectives to screw that up, but the point is that there are answers to these many of these questions that can only be provided through scientific inquiry.

5.    “Pathetic” is what we use to describe the practice of denying reality by pointing to a bundle of letters and tribal documents dating (on average) well over 3000 years old. “Pathetic” is what we call astrology, or Chinese “energy medicine,” or superstitions about dark colored pets and throwing salt over shoulders or angering tribal deities.

6.    The most recent era of human history where the known world was completely dominated by religion is known as the Dark Ages. This is your “light?” To plunge the world in a second Dark Age, mocking science to the weak while the wealthy reap its benefits and the poor fall into line in hopes of an eternal reward that won’t come to people commit even thought crimes? You’ll have to forgive me if I not only decline, but also work against such a thing to the best of my ability.

Exchange 12 It appears that my points were not very clear because you seem to have misunderstood both of them. The first one was not a reference to the problem of evil in a world created by a good God, a topic on which much has been written, but rather that any god that we can truly understand apart from that which he intentionally reveals cannot be much of a god. If I can understand something fully then I must be greater, on a higher order of existence, than the thing I understand. When people claim to understand fully (or fully enough) the counsels, plans and motives of God they are claiming to be greater than God. In that case, who is god? I think that as a logical proposition it must be that the creator is greater than the creation. In the question of who is god I think it is obvious that God must be greater than His creatures, even if they are created in His likeness. Are there things about God that we cannot understand? Of course there are. (Recall our discussions years ago about original sin. It is the desire to be god, one attribute of which is to have complete knowledge.)

Regarding the problem of evil in the world, or suffering, I admit that it has been a difficult matter for many people to face. One way it is put is that either God is not good because there is much pain and evil behavior in the world, or He is not God, i.e. not powerful enough to stop such things. There are two answers I can give to this. The first is fairly short: suffering related to the behavior, actions and choices of people shows that our choices and actions have consequences. If there were no negative outcomes then we would not have information to lead us to make good choices. All choices would be good in a world where there were no bad results. An analogy that may illustrate this is being in business. If you make good decisions you earn profits, if you consistently make bad decisions you lose money and go out of business. Bad choices in human behavior and motives result in suffering, both temporal and eternal. The fact of earthly judgment for crimes is based on the innate sense of right and wrong people have from God. The fact that earthly justice is imperfect is a reminder that there is a final judgment in which all wrongs, including motives which only God can know, will be addressed.

The second answer is somewhat longer, and could literally go on for volumes (because volumes have been written on the topic), but I will be brief. The claim that any evil (of the child born with a terminal disease variety, for example) in the world shows that God is not good (e.g. “Any moral person should be ashamed and embarrassed to follow a god who would do that.&rdquo is incomplete and therefore incorrect. The implicit claim is that if I cannot see any reason for it then it must have no reason. This is related to the topic I sketched out above, and is a claim to complete knowledge that is clearly indefensible. One thing it fails to take into account is that along with the suffering can come greater good than in its absence. For example, the compassion that is aroused when facing suffering not brought about by human choice is great, and a source of much good in a world corrupted by sin.

God pointed out the futility of our reasoning along these lines many years ago when he gave Paul insight into the problems people confront in coming to faith. We want to stay in control, as far as possible, but when we are moved to conversion it is usually anything but our control to which we submit. “Shall the clay say to the potter ‘Why have you made me thus?’” is part of the answer, but we have the encouragement also of “I believe, help thou my unbelief!” as a reminder that God does listen and respond to us. I am not ashamed to believe, trust in and follow a God who has made this incredible universe in which I live, nor am I ashamed to say that any moral code that claims to be superior to the God who made me is silly. Truth is from God; true morals are from God; true knowledge is from God. There is no truth that denies God. Many people have rebelled against God over the years, and set up their own so-called reality in opposition to the truth, but such people are intentionally closing their eyes and minds to the evidence around them. To claim that the “scientific” evidence shows that there is no god is part of that silliness. Science is not capable of demonstrating through testable, confirmable reality that there is no god. Do you want to make the case that it can? You have claimed that such are in conflict, I claim they are compatible. It is not by means of extreme compartmentalization that I was able to study physics on Saturday and go to church to worship the God of creation on Sunday. It was very sensible.

Now, on to the second point I was trying to make. You claimed I had it backward when I said that studying the world is only useful because it is meaningful. No, I had it right. The reason science exists is because people were convinced that it was God who made the heavens and earth, and it was man’s duty to search out the details. To assert otherwise is simply to show that you don’t know what you are talking about, because that is the historical record. I was not making an argument from authority when I pointed out that scientists were Christian in previous generations, I was pointing out the history of scientific investigation in brief. The great Asian civilizations, although they knew and did much, did not develop science capable of delving into reality like the Christian West because they either thought there was no god (Buddhism, e.g.) or there were so many gods that there was no uniform set of laws that could be studied and known (Hinduism). Do you want to make the case that Eastern science went further than Western science? Or would you like to try to demonstrate that Western science was not based on a Christian worldview? You will surely fail in either of these.

Regarding the fixity of words, you are barking up the wrong tree again. Your straw-man of either fixed single meaning or no meaning at all should have been left out. Words have meaning, which is why we can communicate, but there are shades of meaning, and there are multiple valid definitions for most words. Daniel’s point on the conventionality of meanings is correct. Furthermore, it is a correct usage of the word “faith” to attribute it to those who believe there is no creator. That is a worldview that is accepted on the basis of incomplete evidence, and is reinforced by seeking information that is compatible with it and rejecting information that undermines it. You want the word “faith” to only apply to beliefs in a supernatural god? Tough; the definition is not yours to control.

You lost me with your attempt to show that “why” becomes “how” if you look closely enough. I was thinking about it as I was painting the house yesterday, and couldn’t make it work for that task. The house needs painting not because I know how to do it but to protect it from the weather. There was a funeral in the cemetery, and there was nothing going on there that I could “honestly” say the why was really answered with how it was done. In fact, the more things I think of the less sense this makes. I do many things, and none of them are done simply because I know how to do them. If I didn’t know how I would have to hire someone else, so it is not the how that is the issue. The “why” questions for my activities are really about purpose and function. I want to protect our house from the weather so that it will continue to function well as a protection from the weather for me. There is a point to my actions quite distinct from the mechanics of the actions. Science describes the mechanics of the creation, but has nothing to say about its point. It is the meta-physics that speak to the central issues. Following lengthy cause-and-effect relationships still does not get to the reasons for the creation any more than following the steps to prepare and paint my house explains why I do it, but neither does it preclude reasons. Scientists are not trained or qualified to speak authoritatively on those issues, and would appear wiser is they stopped showing their ignorance.

Back to the question of whether science is the daughter (I put it as spouse, with the divorce comment) of religion or vice versa, I think it is pretty clear that there was no such thing as extensive and systematic investigation into the mechanics of the world without a view that such would be fruitful. Consider the alternative. If your basic assumption is that there is no order or system to the world, what would prompt you to investigate and postulate order? You cannot claim that the simply observed order was the basis for science because, as I noted above, Asian civilizations had access to those things without seeking the basis for the things observed. Even the ancient world of Greece and Rome could only go so far. The issue here is that you can’t really re-write history. Modern historians are doing their best to re-interpret it for us, but when you read the founders of modern science you are left with the clear record that they were seeking to understand the things God had hidden in creation. So again, you don’t like it? Tough.

You may choose to shake your fist at God; many people do. Or you may choose to believe. I encourage the later. In fact God calls you to decide this day whom you will serve. You may choose to serve yourself, as in to argue that you are qualified to judge the claims of any so-called “god,” or you may choose to serve the only god who has truly revealed Himself as both creator and sustainer of the world and men. The Christian god, the God of the bible, is the one who has explained the problem of sin, and has shed both tears and blood to deal with that problem on our behalf. You have stated that He could have avoided the whole mess if He wanted, and that is true. But that doesn’t mean that it is pointless. It also doesn’t mean that the suffering in the world, that which we see and experience, is pointless. He has suffered more than we. That is what was going on at the cross. It was not an afterthought as if God had to come up with “plan B.”

You are a bright man, but that does not mean that you cannot believe in a god that is greater than you. Rather it should mean that you would only trust and serve a very great god. That is the God to whom I am calling you. That is the God we worship and serve. He is great enough to be worshiped by people who are brilliant, and good enough to be worshipped by the lowly. He provides for us all, though in large part through the means of our effort. He has given us dominion over His creation as a stewardship. Our assigned tasks are to fill the earth and make it a garden. I think that assignment actually applies to the whole universe, such that we may legitimately go to other planets and improve them also. Yes, I think that we are improving the earth, though not evenly or everywhere, and despite the loud claims to the contrary. I expect that you will become a productive scientist in due time, and I look forward to seeing your efforts in this stewardship. Many participate without signing on to the meaning of it all, but I hope for more than that for you.

The great Asian civilizations, although they knew and did much, did not develop science capable of delving into reality like the Christian West because they either thought there was no god (Buddhism, e.g.) or there were so many gods that there was no uniform set of laws that could be studied and known (Hinduism).

Do you want to make the case that Eastern science went further than Western science? Or would you like to try to demonstrate that Western science was not based on a Christian worldview? You will surely fail in either of these.

Great responses, Mazid. Very thorough yet to the point.

It boggles my mind on why theists think that without religion there is no point to humanitarian actions. Well, that says a lot about religion...according to that idea, people are humanitarian because they have to be and are told to be, not for any compelling reason.

The reasons for humanitarian actions is a completely separate concept from faith in magical things. When people try to mesh the two it gets very sticky and obviously fallacious.

Well, yes, a creator is greater than the creation, and the creation can never fully comprehend the creator. Further, the creature can only understand the creator to the extent that the creator reveals himself to his creation. To posit the opposite is to claim something logically impossible. If you start with the assumption that you can understand God then you reduce him to something you can understand.

Gravity did not create you, and gravity is not a person.  My criticism is that to claim to understand a person is to put them at least on your own level, and the further claim to judge and condemn someone is to be above them. That is what you have been doing with your purported analysis. You are looking for things where you think God has been inconsistent, and you jump to the conclusion that He is either lying or He is playing with us, and in either case He couldn’t be the person He claims to be. That is not to understand gravity, but to judge a person, and you really are not in a position to judge Him. Yes, we are called to use our reason to further our understanding of God and His works, but the desire to elevate oneself above God is idolatry. That was the temptation to which Adam and Eve succumbed, and it is typical of humans to this day.

Your description of how much energy it would take to stop the sun, i.e. stop the earth from spinning, in interesting. The most amusing thing is your conclusion that God couldn’t muster the energy to accomplish the feat! Should I comment further? What sort of God do you think I am serving? You don’t like the historical record so you conclude it is wrong. Well that’s convenient. Since you don’t know anyone who could apply that much energy to a task then certainly God couldn’t do it either.

Regarding who suffered more, Jesus or the guy on the cross next to him, the defining issue is upon whom the wrath of God was poured for the sins of all the elect. The other guy suffered for his own sins, and nothing more. Now, you may not want to recognize a difference, but there is. Jesus as God was united with the Father in a way that we cannot fully understand, it being beyond our capacity to experience. When the Father rejected the Son in judgment of the sins of the elect it was a greater punishment than anything that could be done to a purely human person.

I don’t believe that I have said things are fine in the world. Rather, I contend, the effect of Christianity in the world has been beneficial. The results of sin are evident all around us. The corruption of law, for example, is “natural” but not good. Sure, people seek something to eat before they consider their maker, but that doesn’t mean their maker doesn’t exist. Nor does the corruption in the world mean that it was not created good. Neither does the sin and corruption in the world mean that previous generations have failed to be about the gardening with which God tasked us. Weeds grow, and if we don’t pull them faster than they grow then they will take over the work that had already been done. That simple truth should be sufficient encouragement for us to be busy about making the world better.

The links you provided in you last letter were interesting. That continent of trash thing is awful! I had thought that it was from ships, but that is not what the article said. The extinction thing is not as bad as that writer claims, at least according to some sources. I read that the actual number of extinctions known to have occurred is somewhat under 300, and that the claims of vastly higher numbers coming soon were made up. On habitat destruction I notice that they conclude with what sounds like a small number (252) species of birds that are threatened. Not to be ignored, but that doesn’t sound particularly alarming. I think we are making great progress on the water pollution problem. The percentage of the worlds water that is safe (or can be readily made safe) for human use has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. We continue to find chemicals in water and in creatures that live in the water, but these tend to be at such small levels as to be unimportant in practical terms. Again, not to be ignored but not alarming either. Regarding air pollution, the biggest improvement in indoor air quality has come by replacing solid fuels such as wood and coal with cleaner fuels like oil, gas and electricity. If more developing countries had access to these better fuels then human health would improve. It is good to make progress. It is good to labor in hope.

Our fundamental disconnect seems to stem from our individual impression of the null hypothesis. My null hypothesis in investigating potential evidence of a god – or any supernatural being/circumstance/occurrence, etc – is that until there is some reason to think something might be real, the default assumption has to be that it doesn’t exist. In this way it isn’t science that is corrosive to belief in the supernatural, but the scientific method. On the other hand, your null hypothesis is to believe in the existence of a god as long as there isn’t concrete proof of the absence of a god.

Given this basic stance, when I look at contradictions in the bible I don’t claim that this god or gods to which it refers are inconsistent or contradictory, I maintain that the contradictions inherent in the descriptions make it impossible for the described entity to exist in reality. It could be argued – and has, for that matter – that god would have to exist outside time and reality as we know it, but so does the Flying Spaghetti Monster (which is exactly the point of the FSM, to be available for such comparisons). To postulate additional dimensions of time and reality as needed to support an otherwise improbable hypothesis is a waste of time. This is a large part of why I’m so skeptical about String Theory (so capitalized because it isn’t an actual theory – it’s just called Theory as part of the title) – advocates postulate half a dozen extra dimensions to make things work. Without the assumption that the bible is true before I begin reading, little things jump out as obvious legend: talking animals, miracles and adventures of heroes, and the impossible halting of the sun (as opposed to say, stopping the earth’s rotation, which the author obviously didn’t know about).

One quick question before I go on – exactly what historical record are you saying I reject because I don’t like it? The bible has never shown to have more historical accuracy than the Iliad or Beowulf.
So Jesus is supposed to have suffered more than the guy next to him because he didn’t deserve what he got? On that same reasoning, a man who is executed for false reasons suffers more than a guilty man, or a child getting a spanking for something he didn’t do is in more pain than the one who gets a whack for tying his brother’s bike in a tree. Have you ever heard of this? At any rate, he “dined at his father’s table” that night, didn’t he? So how is what he went worse than dying and going to hell for eternity?

300 species extinct sounds absurdly low – do you have a link to the source? Similarly, 252 threatened species refer to species registered by the US under the Endangered Species act, not a comprehensive list of species in danger of extinction. We don’t even have a complete list of species on earth, let alone anything close to complete knowledge of how many are in danger. Where did you find a claim that there is more potable water available than 50 years ago? Does that refer to improvements in our ability to find and purify the water, or is there more fresh water now than 50 years ago? As for air pollution, I would say yes – the air is much better than it would be without adaptations and cleaner burning fuels. Even the efforts to stop using as many CFCs to protect the ozone layer has had the effect of drastically slowing the growth of the Antarctic ozone holes – but the more I read about the situation the more apparent it is that even relatively small changes in atmospheric concentrations of chemicals that can catalyze reactions that free up chlorine to break down ozone have enormous effects, making the ozone hole one of the single most sensitive phenomena in the environment.

Exchange 16

Yes, our starting points are certainly different. I was long convinced, at least on an intellectual level, that evolution was a sufficient explanation for life in the world. The problem came when I tried to live. If my life has no meaning, if no one’s life has meaning, then this effort and trouble is just too much. Why bother? Why not just end it all? It is even worse if you experience real hardship, something we don’t have much of in the U.S.  Some people do, and most of us will go through the difficulty of aging and eventually dying, but these modern times have been very good to us in providing a level of affluence, comfort and healthcare that was barely dreamed of a few generations ago. However, when you try to understand how we got here, and what it means for each of us, the purely physical explanation is unconvincing. There must be more to it than that. The quest then is to know the author rather than to learn whether there was one. Books don’t write themselves.

So actually, no, I am not accepting that there is a god until I have proof that there is none. Such proof could not exist. My starting point is that there must be a god or there would not be me or you or the rest of it. Science, treating with the particulars of the creation, is the servant of philosophy, and it is the greater issues of universals that are fundamental. I find it amazing that people try to assert an eternal universe approach to explaining why stuff exists. If the universe has always existed then why hasn’t entropy finished off the sun and our planet? Is there some other physical law that undoes entropy? To look at the things of the world and conclude that the mechanical relationships of the universe are everything, therefore, is itself meaningless. Surely you wouldn’t expect to move beyond the provinces of science with the scientific method, would you? Why do some scientists feel they need to insist there is no design in nature? Has someone refuted Palley? Many hate what he said, but I think their attempts to prove him wrong have the opposite effect. The more we know the more amazing it is and impossible to occur by itself. Is evolution creating DNA? Wow! Even postulating eternity does not provide the means to obtain that level of design by accident. Many mathematicians laugh at such ideas. Von Neumann did, I understand.

Let’s recall how the scientific method works. A hypothesis is formulated as a trial explanation of observed data. At some point a working theory is developed, along with a strategy to test the theory by sampling data and comparing to the predictions of the theory. A theory with good predictive power is not rejected, and is refined and used. If the theory turns out to be a perfect predictor then it is elevated to the status of a law; there aren’t many of those. Have I got this right? So the next time someone tells you that evolution is a fact, look back and see where that fits in the scientific method. I am telling you that God is a fact. Doesn’t that fit the evolutionists’ use of the scientific method? So again, no, it is not science that has anything to say about God.

Now about your opinion of the Bible I must say the view expressed in your criticisms is shocking. I am referring to your claim that the Bible is not historically accurate. You may have heard the quip before that while you are entitled to your own opinion you are most definitely not entitled to your own facts. The facts of the historical accuracy of the Bible are overwhelming. Would you like to cite your experts who claim the contrary? Most of the work of scholars who claim the Bible is unreliable is itself polemic rather than careful research. The Higher Critics, for example, rejected traditional authorship of epistles if the style was different, as if one writer would never change writing/speaking style. That is so superficial that only someone who wanted to believe it would. The historical accuracy of the Bible is as good as any history known.

Your criticism of punishment seems to intentionally miss the point. Jesus suffered more because he was taking the punishment of all the elect, not merely because he didn’t deserve it. That is one of those things that are less clear, and hence easier to misunderstand or misinterpret. If you want to understand than you have to start by asking God for His Spirit to help you. The Westminster Confession of Faith, along with the shorter and larger catechisms are very good instruction. If you don’t want to understand then keep looking for apparent inconsistencies to complain about.

 

Other stuff

Well I can’t find a particular reference for the under 300 species number exactly, but the first one here has a list of 700, and the second and third (the third doesn’t seem to go anywhere so I included the whole thing) look like they add up to 300. In either case, the documented number is way smaller than the alarming reports imply. An article in the newspaper on October 13, 2008, based on a press release by the IUCN, notes that 76 mammals have gone extinct since 1500 A.D. That, combined with the information that follows this paragraph does not make it sound like extinctions are occurring more rapidly. It sounds like we are doing a good job of learning what there is and protecting those species that are at risk of being lost.

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/latenews/extinct.html  accessed October 12, 2008

http://www.dbc.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec01/b65lec01.htm  accessed October 12, 2008

"Fewer species are becoming extinct" - "THE rate of animal extinctions has fallen to its lowest level since the mid-19th century, a United Nations report on the diversity of life has found.

But it claimed that human influence has removed up to 200 times as many species as would be expected to disappear naturally.

The World Atlas of Biodiversity, produced by the UN Environment Programme, said that 20 known species of birds, mammals and fish became extinct in the last third of the 20th century.

That is a decrease from the more than 40 known extinctions in the last third of the 19th century, and is equal to the rate of extinction in the early 16th century, when many species were killed after the discovery of the New World." (The Times)

 

My comment about fresh water was about how many people have access to potable water, not about any physical change in the makeup of the planet. One change is that desalination is becoming common in arid regions that have coastland. Regarding the ozone layer and the hole that was going to destroy the world, I thought that further study revealed that it is a natural recurring phenomenon. I will look around for the source of that, because I’m not certain that my understanding of this is accurate. Were there other chemicals shown to cause this after the banning of CFC’s? I don’t recall any big change after the banning of a specific refrigerant. Isn’t ozone being generated continuously by lightning? Is it a greenhouse gas? If so, to be consistent with the anthropogenic catastrophic warming theory wouldn’t it be better to reduce it? Here’s a link to the blogger of whom you think rather little, I believe: http://junkscience.com/Ozone/ozone_seasonal.html

I think people who constantly claim there is an emergency are not helping anything. There was an interesting op-ed piece I read the other day that pointed out the problem with alarmist claims regarding the climate. If things are always worse than we expected then what does our method actually do for us? If we are always wrong then our scientific method is useless. If our methods are good then the errors will sometimes be in our favor rather than worse than predicted. An example is the group of scientists who were predicting an ice-free North Pole this summer. The fact that much (thousands of square miles) of the one season old ice did not melt should have been good news, but did those guys make any press releases about this good news? No. Hear any good news about the snows on Kilimanjaro? That poster child of global warming is not cooperating. What about the increasing snow pack and sea ice extent in Antarctica? No, we hear rather that the peninsula is warming at an “unprecedented” rate. Wow. Actually that warming is probably over now, but when will we know that something has changed? Have you heard any press releases saying that the human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is small? No, it is claimed that humans are the source of this “pollutant.” Do we hear about negative climate feedbacks? No, it is only the positive ones that make the news. Climate science isn’t alone in over-selling the sizzle. Health science has long ignored information that was contrary to the received wisdom. These days all bad things are linked to obesity, it seems. The cultural bias against fat makes it difficult to be objective, but that is what a scientist is supposed to do.