Post by DrGadget on Sept 3, 2008 16:44:39 GMT -5
Atheism is a worldview in which there is no God. Adherents believe that life sprang from natural forces, not an intelligence, and that the cosmos made itself--or at least organized itself out of raw materials that were just there. "New atheists" include Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion; Christopher Hitchens, who wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; and Sam Harris, with The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Their bestselling books are characterized by vitriolic disdain for those who believe in God.
The new atheists do not restrict themselves to passive disbelief. Rather, they actively admonish others to not believe in God, and take strong steps to rid the world of its "contemptible" acknowledgement of any deity, and especially of theism.1 As Dawkins said, "I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself."2
An ironic feature of new atheism is its strong faith in the inferiority of having faith. Before they attack it, new atheists first redefine faith to mean "belief without evidence." Then they limit evidence to that which can be tested through empirical science.3 This is absurd, like requiring an experiment to prove a father's love for his children. Just as we use our senses, logic, and circumstantial evidence to deduce the truth of a father's love, we can discover God through non-empirical means.
New atheists believe that empirical science is the true path to understanding. However, since the very concept of "empiricism"--that science is the only way to "know" something--is not itself a product of any scientific experiment, it distills to a faith after all. Faith is not "belief without evidence," but rather a decision to reckon as true (actual or real) something that is not visible. Empiricism is an idea. Ideas are not visible. New atheists therefore have strong faith, though not in God.4
Many popular philosophies are self-refuting, which means that they do not meet their own standards and thus self-destruct.5 One example of a self-refuting claim is the common statement "all truth is relative." This cannot be. If all truth is relative, then the supposed truth that "all truth is relative" would itself be relative, and therefore not true. Consider the assertion "we cannot ultimately grasp meaning in an absolute way." If that were true, then one would not be able to grasp the meaning of that very statement.
A good way to deal with self-refuting truth claims is to ask honest questions about them. For example, a response to the assertion "all truth is relative" could be to ask, "So, is that relatively true?" Likewise, one who denies that truth is knowable could be questioned with, "How can we then know for sure that truth cannot be surely known?"
Empiricism is also self-refuting, and therefore should not be believed. Its essence could be stated as "experimental science is the only way to know something for sure." We might then ask, "What was the scientific experiment that demonstrated that experimental science is the only way to know something for sure?"
In contrast to the self-refuting doctrines that atheism must hold to, theism is aligned with the reality of a transcendent and necessary Being; not, as new atheists claim, with a fairy tale. Biblical theism begins with the sensible concept, assumed in Genesis, of an infinite Creator who formed a finite creation. Knowledge of our holy God is generally available through our observation of the natural world. This is enough to reveal man’s sin-induced separation from Him.6 However, only the Bible reveals that He has performed the necessary work to reconcile us back to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, and for His glory.7 So based on the evidence of what He has made and done, we can believe in and know Him.
www.icr.org/article/4098/
I am reminded of the ancient beliefs of what the world was. My favorite was the giant tortoise swimming in an endless sea. The Earth was supposedly on the turtle’s back. But then what was holding the sea? The ancient Greeks thought that Atlas was holding up the Earth. But then what was Atlas standing on?
Atlas had to be standing on something to lift up the Earth. Then who was holding it up? And what were they standing on? Eventually you have to reach the thing that holds everything up, but nothing is holding it up. It only makes sense. There has to be something at the bottom of it all, and there’s nothing holding it up. There has to be.
It is intuitive.
The oldest Book of the Bible is the Book of Job. It was written about 250 years after the Great Flood. Before the Greeks envisioned a titan with large shoulders lifting the world, the Bible accurately described God hanging it on nothing at all.
Job 26:7
[7] He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Likewise, the necessity of an infinite God is unavoidable. It is intuitive.
We live in a world of cause and effect. If there is something here, it had to come from somewhere. If I hold a football, someone had to make it. If I hold a rock, someone either picked it up or dug it up from somewhere. It didn’t just appear.
If I see a man wearing a hat, I wouldn’t think to myself that the hat just materialized onto his head. Why would I think that? Someone made the hat. Someone put it on his head. He probably did it himself, but we can’t be sure. However it is a safe bet that it didn’t just poof onto his head by magic. The world doesn’t work that way.
Everything came from something. So then where did the universe come from? You might say the Big Bang. A bunch of energy was in one place and it exploded and the whole universe sprang out of it.
OK then where did that energy come from?
You might say there was a previous universe that collapsed into a ball of energy.
But now where did that universe come from? You see how ridiculous this is becoming? This is like trying to figure out what Atlas was standing on, and who was holding that up. There has to be something at rock bottom. It’s intuitive.
There has to be something that caused the universe, which itself had no cause. This would be the argument of First Cause.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
Someone or something had to start everything. That would be God. Only a God who has no beginning and no end, and also has the power to create something from nothing, could have created the universe.
The universe could not have created itself, if it wasn’t here at the time to create itself.
This is like saying you will invent a time machine. How will you do it? Easy. Ten years from now, just come back in time and give yourself the plans to the time machine. Simple, right? Except you don’t have the time machine yet. It doesn’t exist before it existed. So the plan sorta falls apart right there.
Can the universe create itself? No, because the universe didn’t exist before it existed. So the plan sorta falls apart right there.
God existed before the universe. He was there to create it. This plan doesn’t fall apart.
You might say there’s no tangible evidence of God. Fair enough, but what is the tangible evidence of a previous universe that collapsed to from the Big Bang? There is none. The tangible evidence is the universe itself. It had to come from somewhere. It came from God creating it out of nothing at all. He ordered it so, and it was done.
The new atheists do not restrict themselves to passive disbelief. Rather, they actively admonish others to not believe in God, and take strong steps to rid the world of its "contemptible" acknowledgement of any deity, and especially of theism.1 As Dawkins said, "I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself."2
An ironic feature of new atheism is its strong faith in the inferiority of having faith. Before they attack it, new atheists first redefine faith to mean "belief without evidence." Then they limit evidence to that which can be tested through empirical science.3 This is absurd, like requiring an experiment to prove a father's love for his children. Just as we use our senses, logic, and circumstantial evidence to deduce the truth of a father's love, we can discover God through non-empirical means.
New atheists believe that empirical science is the true path to understanding. However, since the very concept of "empiricism"--that science is the only way to "know" something--is not itself a product of any scientific experiment, it distills to a faith after all. Faith is not "belief without evidence," but rather a decision to reckon as true (actual or real) something that is not visible. Empiricism is an idea. Ideas are not visible. New atheists therefore have strong faith, though not in God.4
Many popular philosophies are self-refuting, which means that they do not meet their own standards and thus self-destruct.5 One example of a self-refuting claim is the common statement "all truth is relative." This cannot be. If all truth is relative, then the supposed truth that "all truth is relative" would itself be relative, and therefore not true. Consider the assertion "we cannot ultimately grasp meaning in an absolute way." If that were true, then one would not be able to grasp the meaning of that very statement.
A good way to deal with self-refuting truth claims is to ask honest questions about them. For example, a response to the assertion "all truth is relative" could be to ask, "So, is that relatively true?" Likewise, one who denies that truth is knowable could be questioned with, "How can we then know for sure that truth cannot be surely known?"
Empiricism is also self-refuting, and therefore should not be believed. Its essence could be stated as "experimental science is the only way to know something for sure." We might then ask, "What was the scientific experiment that demonstrated that experimental science is the only way to know something for sure?"
In contrast to the self-refuting doctrines that atheism must hold to, theism is aligned with the reality of a transcendent and necessary Being; not, as new atheists claim, with a fairy tale. Biblical theism begins with the sensible concept, assumed in Genesis, of an infinite Creator who formed a finite creation. Knowledge of our holy God is generally available through our observation of the natural world. This is enough to reveal man’s sin-induced separation from Him.6 However, only the Bible reveals that He has performed the necessary work to reconcile us back to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, and for His glory.7 So based on the evidence of what He has made and done, we can believe in and know Him.
www.icr.org/article/4098/
I am reminded of the ancient beliefs of what the world was. My favorite was the giant tortoise swimming in an endless sea. The Earth was supposedly on the turtle’s back. But then what was holding the sea? The ancient Greeks thought that Atlas was holding up the Earth. But then what was Atlas standing on?
Atlas had to be standing on something to lift up the Earth. Then who was holding it up? And what were they standing on? Eventually you have to reach the thing that holds everything up, but nothing is holding it up. It only makes sense. There has to be something at the bottom of it all, and there’s nothing holding it up. There has to be.
It is intuitive.
The oldest Book of the Bible is the Book of Job. It was written about 250 years after the Great Flood. Before the Greeks envisioned a titan with large shoulders lifting the world, the Bible accurately described God hanging it on nothing at all.
Job 26:7
[7] He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Likewise, the necessity of an infinite God is unavoidable. It is intuitive.
We live in a world of cause and effect. If there is something here, it had to come from somewhere. If I hold a football, someone had to make it. If I hold a rock, someone either picked it up or dug it up from somewhere. It didn’t just appear.
If I see a man wearing a hat, I wouldn’t think to myself that the hat just materialized onto his head. Why would I think that? Someone made the hat. Someone put it on his head. He probably did it himself, but we can’t be sure. However it is a safe bet that it didn’t just poof onto his head by magic. The world doesn’t work that way.
Everything came from something. So then where did the universe come from? You might say the Big Bang. A bunch of energy was in one place and it exploded and the whole universe sprang out of it.
OK then where did that energy come from?
You might say there was a previous universe that collapsed into a ball of energy.
But now where did that universe come from? You see how ridiculous this is becoming? This is like trying to figure out what Atlas was standing on, and who was holding that up. There has to be something at rock bottom. It’s intuitive.
There has to be something that caused the universe, which itself had no cause. This would be the argument of First Cause.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
Someone or something had to start everything. That would be God. Only a God who has no beginning and no end, and also has the power to create something from nothing, could have created the universe.
The universe could not have created itself, if it wasn’t here at the time to create itself.
This is like saying you will invent a time machine. How will you do it? Easy. Ten years from now, just come back in time and give yourself the plans to the time machine. Simple, right? Except you don’t have the time machine yet. It doesn’t exist before it existed. So the plan sorta falls apart right there.
Can the universe create itself? No, because the universe didn’t exist before it existed. So the plan sorta falls apart right there.
God existed before the universe. He was there to create it. This plan doesn’t fall apart.
You might say there’s no tangible evidence of God. Fair enough, but what is the tangible evidence of a previous universe that collapsed to from the Big Bang? There is none. The tangible evidence is the universe itself. It had to come from somewhere. It came from God creating it out of nothing at all. He ordered it so, and it was done.
