God's Existence, Science and Faith, Suffering and Evil, Jesus' Resurrection, and Book Reviews

Showing posts with label Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Design. Show all posts

4 Ways Atheism Undermines the Scientific Enterprise

4 Ways atheism undermines the scientific enterprise

Introduction- 4 Ways Atheism Undermines the Scientific Enterprise

Have you ever wondered if atheism is compatible with science? Not many have. In today's culture it is commonly assumed that they are best of buddies. Many people even believe that science has done away with God and provides powerful evidence for the truth of atheism. A couple years ago I posted an article that describes six ways that atheism defeats science as a knowledge discipline, thus anyone who accepts that science can give us knowledge about reality must reject atheism as true. Today I want to discuss the more practical side of science and provide four more ways that science and atheism are incompatible. 

Before I start though, I want to make a couple things clear: First, I am referring to atheism as a claim about reality not merely a belief: the affirmative claim "God does not exist in reality." Second, since I am not merely talking about a belief but a reality (one's beliefs can be false), I affirm that one can certainly believe that God does not exist in reality and still be quite successful as a scientist and do great work. My claim here is very narrow, and it involves the dually claimed realities that God does not exist and that science is not as chaotic as it is about to be described. 

Improbable Planet by Hugh Ross- Audio Book Highlight

Introduction

If you consume a large portion of your material through audio, it is hard to get past a good deal on an excellent audio book. Twice every year ChristianAudio.com runs a sale on most of their collection, and you can usually pick up these great audio resources for $7.49. The time has come for the first sale of 2021 (and beyond), so I will be highlighting some of my favorite audio books. I'll include a few of my favorite quotes from the books, my recommendation from my chapter-by-chapter reviews, links to posts that were inspired by the books, and, of course, I will include links to the audio book deal throughout the article. Today, I am highlighting Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity's Home by Dr. Hugh Ross. 

Improbable Planet by Hugh Ross- My Recommendation


Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity's Home is the highly anticipated "sequel" to Dr. Hugh Ross' book Why The Universe Is The Way It Is. In the first work, Dr. Ross examined several biblical purposes God has for this creation and how these purposes are evidenced in the history of the universe. In this new book, Dr. Ross zooms in from the perspective of the entire universe and multiple purposes to the earth and God's purpose of redemption. Dr. Ross' goal in this volume is to demonstrate how the history of our planet is not merely some naturalistic "just so story" but rather a complex, multi-stage project with an explicit purpose as its end-goal. He intends to marshal the latest scientific discoveries from numerous scientific disciplines to make his case for the design of our planet.

It is an amazing listen. I work with several project managers at my job, and they have shown me representations of the schedules of their various projects. These include the necessary order of numerous steps, deadlines for the steps, the goals of each step, and the final purpose. Many of the steps must be done together and within certain time periods; otherwise, the project will fail. If you have ever mapped out a project or have seen one mapped out, you may be familiar with Gantt charts and how complex they can be. As I was only a couple chapters into this book, I could not help but imagine the incredible complexity behind the project that God planned and executed perfectly to accomplish His purposes. The projects that I have seen at work do not compare to the project that was our planet. If it is reasonable to think that the smaller and less complex projects at work were the product of designers, then it is even more reasonable to understand the project that was our planet is the product of a Designer.

Book Review: The Purpose Driven Life

Can an all-loving and all-powerful God possibly have reasons for allowing all the evil, pain, and suffering in this world? 


The Purpose Driven Life 
(hardbackKindleaudio book) by Rick Warren is a book that I have meant to review for quite some time now. I had heard about it when it first came out in the early 2000s and had heard both raving reviews and scathing critiques. It was not until my pastor at the time did a sermon series on it that it really caught my attention. Over the years I have referred to it here and there in my blog posts, and I believe that the time has come for me to give it a full chapter-by-chapter review from the perspective of a defender of the Christian faith. 

Some people have wondered why I decided to review The Purpose Driven Life considering it is not a book that is focused on the defense of the Christian faith. My reason is quite simple: Rick Warren makes the claim in this book that God has multiple reasons for allowing evil, pain, and suffering in our lives. This claim, if demonstrated to be correct, directly addresses one of the most common and emotionally powerful challenges to God's goodness, His power, and even His existence: the problem of evil, pain, and suffering. 

Initially, I had separated this review into multiple posts to keep the individual posts shorter, but it has been requested of me that I publish the whole review as a single post. This review will consist of my usual chapter-by-chapter summary format with my recommendation at the end; however, I have added additional thoughts for each part of the book between the summaries of those respective parts. I will include some of my initial impressions from years ago and reflections on the book's content that have bounced around in my mind from the last several years (including some of the theological critiques).  

🌪 Tornado Simulations, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and God's Existence 🌌

Introduction

For nearly all my life, I've had a fascination with the physical sciences. Meteorology and astronomy were two of them that always caught and kept my attention as a kid. In my teens was when I started to focus more on information technology, and in my twenties I was drawn to defending the truth of the Christian worldview through science, philosophy, and other knowledge disciplines. Living in Oklahoma, the weather is always in the news, and being that I frequent philosophical and scientific sites, popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson comes across my screen once in a while as well. In the last year, a few different articles have shown up from the meteorological, astronomical, and philosophical worlds, which the combination is what caught my attention. Today, I want to take some time to show how technology, being used to simulate natural phenomena, can be used to show that God exists, and I will address a popular naturalistic alternative explanation that was proposed by Tyson (and others). Let's start with the weather and super-computers.

More Than Water Is Required for Life

A New Habitable Zone Discovered

The other day I saw an interesting article posted on PHYS.org entitled "More To Life Than The Habitable Zone." The "Habitable Zone" is the area around a star where a planet may exist with water in all three states. This is crucial for life's existence. In the article the team of scientists studying a particular star for habitable planets recognizes that the zone where water can exist is not the only area that limits where a life-destined planet may be found. The scientists explain that another factor that further limits that "habitable zone" is the amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted from the host star. Similar to the water habitable zone, the UV habitable zone is the area where the UV radiation is within the maximum and minimum bounds that permits life to exist. Both zones are necessary, so the only area where life can exist is the area where the two zones overlap each other. This area is so tiny that the team of scientists conclude that while a large portion of stars (red dwarfs) scientists have been investigating for habitable worlds are not completely off the table, it would be more prudent for scientists to focus efforts on the relatively few stars that more closely match our sun. Such a star would allow, presumably, for a larger overlapping area of the water habitable zone and the UV habitable zone.

Narrowing the Options

Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe describes these two habitable zones in his latest book "Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity's Home." He also describes three other habitable zones that have been discovered. Not only is earth located in the water habitable zone and the UV habitable zone, but zones for photosynthesis, ozone, and tides also exist. This means that not only must the water and UV zones overlap, these other three must overlap as well. The only areas where overlap of all five exists are where a planet must exist around its host star to be a candidate for life.

A quick internet search reveals that red dwarfs make up roughly 70% of the stars in the universe. If the team of astrobiologists are saying that the recognition of just one more habitable zone limits the candidate sites in the universe (practically rules out an entire class of stars) by 70%, then how much more will the recognition of these extra three zones limit the possible locations for life? Even though research is revealing a more precise target for where life can exist (thus focusing expensive research time and resources), the number of physical locations available for life to originate are being dramatically reduced. While the universe is huge and scientists already recognize that the majority of it is not viable for life's existence (nowhere near a star), this team of scientists has ruled out 70% of the space already left.

But that's not all. To further focus our research efforts (but reduce the areas for life), two more (non-location) habitable zones exist: the planet's rotation rate and obliquity. Each of these affect the other five zones in different ways, so while one zone may be widened or move closer to the star, another may be narrowed or move further from the star. When the planet's rotation rate and obliquity are taken into account as well, the actual area where a planet may exist and support life becomes even smaller or disappears completely for even more stars.

An Ancient Universe and Evidence for Design

As research continues, the history of our planet is becoming more of a problem for anyone who thinks that life is ubiquitous in the universe. Not only that, the more research continues, the more the history of our planet resembles a complicated project executed for a purpose- a project that includes numerous phases with numerous concurrent and necessary events that, if not started and finished at the proper time, would doom the project to failure. The longer the history of our planet, the longer the project and the more of these complicated phases there are. While many people think that an ancient universe provides naturalists a legitimate reason to deny the need for a Designer, the evidence provided by this ancient universe is revealing the exact opposite: that a Designer is necessary to explain why our planet and its history appear to be designed. The ancient universe is quickly becoming an unstoppable evidential force, declaring the glory of its Creator (Psalm 19:1) and leaving educated unbelievers with even less excuse for rejection (Romans 1).


Dr. Hugh Ross has also posted on this discovery: Inability of Planets Orbiting Red Dwarfs


To Go Deeper, I Recommend These Books:


Book Review: Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity's Home🌍

Book Review: Improbable Planet- How Earth Became Humanity's Home by astrophysicist Hugh Ross

Introduction

Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity's Home is the highly anticipated "sequel" to Dr. Hugh Ross' book Why The Universe Is The Way It Is. In the first work, Dr. Ross examined several biblical purposes God has for this creation and how these purposes are evidenced in the history of the universe. In this new book, Dr. Ross zooms in from the perspective of the entire universe and multiple purposes to the earth and God's purpose of redemption. His goal in this volume is to demonstrate how the history of our planet is not merely some naturalistic "just so story" but rather a complex, multi-stage project with an explicit purpose as its end-goal. He intends to marshal the latest scientific discoveries from numerous scientific disciplines to make his case for the design of our planet. Did he successfully make his case? Let's find out...

Lawrence Krauss, Astrobiology, and God

Lawrence Krauss, Astrobiology, and God

Introduction

The other day Eric Metaxas wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled "Science Increasingly Makes The Case For God." Anti-theist astrophysicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss took notice and wrote a response "No, Astrobiology Has Not Made The Case For God" that attempts to undermine Metaxas' conclusions. Today I will address several of Dr. Krauss' arguments in his piece from scientific, philosophical, and theological perspectives.

Krauss takes issue with the teleological argument- the fine-tuning of environmental conditions and the fundamental constants of the universe for the origin of life. His issue is with the probabilities. He summarizes the argument as multiplying independent probabilities of every necessary event to reach a probability so low that it is indistinguishable from zero, thus chance is eliminated (from the three options of chance, necessity, or design to explain life's existence). Krauss argues that the probabilities of each event that leads to life's origin that are calculated are not independent of one another. His concern is that each event is calculated independent of all necessarily preceding events. Meaning that any event in the chain leading to the origin of life will increase the probability that the next necessary event will take place. Thus the probability is not as small as one may think.

10 Quotes From Dr. Hugh Ross on Why The Universe Is The Way It Is

This is a collection of my favorite quotes from the book Why The Universe Is The Way It Is by astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross. My full review of the book may be read here. For more information about the work of Dr. Ross, please visit Reasons to Believe.

Investigating Reality
"Humans...wonder about everything: tangible and intangible, tiny and huge, near and far, the past and the future as well as the present- the how and why of everything both in this universe and beyond. Human curiosity knows no boundaries, and many individuals will pay any price, even lose their own lives, to satisfy it."

"I'm firmly convinced we can know enough. Not enough to end all questions, but enough to make sense of our lives. We can build a cosmic perspective solid enough to remain firm yet flexible enough to absorb the impact of new discoveries."

Problem of Evil
"Nothing seems to perplex humanity as much as the subject of evil. Some say the existence of evil is a paradox wrapped in an enigma enshrouded in mystery embedded in riddle implanted in a puzzle inside a giant maze."

"From the moment spiritual death (autonomy from God) invaded creation physical death became a blessing, an avenue through which God could temper the outbreak of evil and suffering."

Teleology (Design)
"Astronomers' observations show that in the context of the laws of physics, the Earth, Moon, solar system, Milky Way Galaxy, and Local Group- indeed the entire universe are all perfectly designed to provide a wonderful, bountiful home for humanity."

"Many conditions necessary for human existence and beneficial to quality of life are also time critical. The fact that these features...all converge simultaneously at the moment human beings arrive on the planet defies realistic probability. One favorable time window's alignment with even one other window might be considered an astounding coincidence. But the lineup of so many independent time windows with the brief human moment on the cosmic calendar speaks powerfully of purpose."

"The optimization of cosmic darkness and of Earth's location within the dark universe that sacrifices neither the material needs of human beings nor their capacity to gain knowledge about the universe reflects masterful engineering at a level far beyond human capability-  and even imagination. It testifies of a supernatural, superintelligent, superpowerful, fully deliberate Creator."

"If the universe were any smaller or larger, younger or older, brighter or darker, more or less efficient as a radiator, and if human observers were located where most stars and planets reside, the view would be so blocked as to give few (if any) clues about what lies beyond."

"This degree of fine-tuning is so great that it's as if right after the universe's beginning someone could have destroyed the possibility of life within it by subtracting a single dime's mass from the whole of the observable universe or adding a single dime's mass to it."

"Innumerable conditions must be exquisitely optimized for the support of humanity and of civilization. Many of them are highly time variable. Evidence showing that a wide variety of independent conditions all reached optimality during the identical narrow epoch when human beings appeared on the cosmic and terrestrial scene testifies of supernatural design and purpose rather than mere coincidence."

More quotes from Dr. Ross may be found here:
13 Quotes From Hugh Ross on Biblical Inerrancy, Interpretation, and Authority

Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Design

Dragons, Dinosaurs, and the Bible? Introduction

As many of my frequent readers are aware, I believe that dealing with debates within the Church is important to the apologetic endeavor (see Internal Debates and Apologetics). Today, I want to address an argument for a view within the Church that is often used to support Christianity, but may be used to falsify Christianity, if the argument being used to support it is actually sound. So, I believe that it is important to address it.

Are Dragons Dinosaurs?

It is often claimed by young-earth creationists (YECs) that the existence of myths, drawings, carvings, and other depictions of similar creatures necessarily* require prior experience with dinosaurs to explain their existence. This is often used as a defeater argument against naturalistic theories of human origins and against Christians who believe that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted (anyone who believes that the universe is approximately 14 billion years old would fall into this category). In this post, I will show how the argument is undermined by giving explanations for the evidence from both a naturalistic and supernatural perspective. I will also show the apologetic and theological dangers in continuing to use this argument in this form.


Natural Explanations of Dragons


First, let me begin by showing a naturalistic explanation that can accommodate this evidence. I want to start with this response because Christianity is not limited to only supernatural mechanisms, it can also appeal to natural mechanisms.

Anyone who wishes to offer a natural explanation (Christian or naturalist) for the depictions may agree with the YEC that some level of prior experience is indicated by the myths and the drawings. However, the experience could easily be with reptiles such as alligators, crocodiles, snakes, and/or komodo dragons. These experiences combined with the imagination can easily produce myths and drawings that take "artistic liberty."

This explanation alone is enough to undermine the argument and force the less-extreme version of it*. However, a YEC may wish to deny that this is viable. In that case, a Christian would need to appeal to an explanation within Christianity, in general, that could accommodate the evidence to avoid the defeater.

A Supernatural Explanations


Visions of Dinosaurs?

To address the YEC who does not accept natural explanations, I wish to appeal directly to the Christian worldview. Specifically the existence of visions and the Image of God. Not everything that God inspires or does gets recorded (John 21:25). That does not exclude visions taking place without being recorded as scripture (and for good reason- see Using Visions to Prove Christianity to address challenges regarding the creators of the myths or drawings being pagan). While visions from God were a source of knowledge about the furture, there is nothing preventing God from using them to give information about the past also. God could certainly have used visions communicate previously existing creatures without the person having physical contact with them.

Imagination and Creativity via the Image of God

While visions could provide an explanation of depictions direction from God, The Imago Dei (Image of God, endowed to us by God) that all humans possess, gives us a certain level of imagination and creativity. Since many of the features that make humans uniquely like God ("in His Image"), some of that creativity can be analogous to God's creativity independent of knowledge of God's creative acts (an example is the popular intelligent design comparison of the bacterial flagellum with a motor- the latter created before discovery of the former). Because of that independence of creativity, it is logical to believe that humans could imagine creatures like dinosaurs without prior experience with God's actual creation and even without the necessity of a vision. Notice that this one is actually related to the second natural explanation, but with a mechanism: the Imago Dei.

Visions and Image of God in Use by the YEC

YECs often appeal to a perfect understanding of the concept of death when God gave Adam and Eve the command to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil- they claim that prior experience with death was not a prerequisite for understanding what death is. This could be accomplished via either the Imago Dei or God instilling it in Adam and Eve independent of the Imago Dei. Many Christians understand that humans and dinosaurs did not exist together, yet humans demonstrated that something like dinosaurs were in their minds, so the claim about Adam and Eve and the concept of death being in their minds is analogous. Because the problem is analogous, the solution can be also. So, just as Adam and Eve could have had an understanding of death without experience of it, they could have some "understanding" of dinosaurs without experiencing dinosaurs. It would be inconsistent for the YEC to allow themselves to use a mechanism that they deny another Christian.

More Than Three Options for Explanation

The three of these explanations (experience with animals, visions from God, and the Image of God) may also work in any combination to produce the myths and the drawings. These offer ample logical and reasonable possibilities (six in total) to undermine the claim that the myths and drawings of dinosaur-like creatures undermines Christians' view that man and dinosaurs did not coexist.

If the natural and supernatural explanations are not granted by the YEC, then they run the extremely high risk of being understood as over-stating their conclusions, being ignorant of alternative explanations, arguing against a strawman, and completely misunderstanding the opposing view; thus not being taken seriously in conversation.

A Short Intermission

Up to this point I've only offered evidence to support the idea that both naturalism and old-earth Christian views are compatible with the evidence- thus undermining the use of the term "necessarily" in the argument (see Introduction). This ultimately causes the argument to lose its potency and usefulness in settling this internal debate. That may leave a YEC with a neutral attitude towards this argument- they may still choose to use it or not. However, I now wish to address such neutrality and demonstrate an absurdity and a couple real dangers in continuing to use this argument. I will begin with the absurdity.

Is Fiction Real?

The form of the argument that I am arguing against in this post states that the myths and drawings necessarily indicate prior experience. If we are to say that myths and drawings of dinosaur-like creatures prove that the people who came up with them had experience with them, then we really have to question the existence of fiction. If we are to remain consistent in our reasoning, we would have to conclude that other myths or "fictional" stories could only exist if the writer had the experiences that they wrote.

Of course, the thought that X-Men, Transformers, and Batman all exist in reality is absurd. Because of this independent test that confirms absurdity of the reasoning by the arrival at an absurd conclusion, the YEC should recognize the absurdity of using the same reasoning with different content. Now, I do want to recognize that art can be evidence of prior experience, but it does not necessarily prove prior experience.

Undermining the Teleological Argument

The necessity of prior experience, though, not only gives us an absurd conclusion, but it also has dangerous consequences for the evidential case for the Creator. If prior experience is required before any creative work can take place (be it creation of stories or artwork), then humans do not actually design anything (including fictional stories, by the way)- nothing created by humans is designed. But that design by humans is vital for the teleological argument. The argument compares what we see in nature to human designs and concludes that those structures in nature are also the product of design. However, if humans cannot and do not actually design anything, then there is nothing to compare the structures in nature to to conclude that they are also designed.

Biological design is a popular evidence used by YECs for a Creator via the teleological argument. If prior experience with something exclusively explains man's creations, then the teleological argument is fallacious and should not be used by the YEC. So, they have to choose: either hold to the necessity of prior experience to explain the myths and drawings of dinosaur-like creatures or give up one of their most powerful scientific evidences for the Creator.

The teleological argument also serves as an argument against naturalistic mechanisms for life's origin and history. If this argument is undermined, then not only does the YEC lose a positive argument for the Christian God, but they also lose a negative argument against naturalistic worldviews. Both of these are awfully high prices to pay to maintain the argument that myths and drawings could only be explained by humans having prior experience with such creatures.

Undermining Christianity

Continuing on the thought of undermining the teleological argument, if design necessarily requires prior experience, then even God has not designed anything- He would have to have prior experience with something in order for Him to be "creative". If this is the case, then the Christian god is not God; whatever came prior to him would be his inspiration. And whatever came prior to that being was its inspiration, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum. Not only would the Christian god not be God, but the idea of God would be incoherent and impossible due to the infinite regression of the need for prior experience.

This final issue, though, is not a necessary conclusion of the argument being critiqued. It only applies if the YEC wishes to maintain that all creativity necessitates prior experience. I'm sure that all YECs would drop that in a heartbeat when presented with this implication, even if they wished to maintain the argument up to and including the undermining of the teleological argument. I include this only to show that a YEC may begin by holding this rigid version of this already extreme view, and pointing out how it undermines Christianity is the first step to get them to adjust their view or, at least, use of the argument. The critiques in this post are presented in order of impact on the Christian worldview, but in practice will most likely be presented in the reverse order to someone offering such an argument.

What About The Cumulative Case?

Before I conclude this post, I want to address a possible response that a YEC may give to me, specifically appealing to one of my apologetic approaches when defending the truth of Christianity. It is often said that no single argument can establish a certain proof of God's existence or the truth of Christianity. The arguments individually do have some unknowns and issues that do need to be worked through because, by nature, we are not omniscient. Because of this, the arguments need to be taken together to produce a cumulative case for a single coherent worldview- Christianity. A YEC may use similar reasoning. They may wish to use this argument as part of a cumulative case for the YEC version of Christianity.

My response is two-fold: first the last critique that I offered is a deal-breaker right off the bat. You can't use an argument to affirm a worldview if it ultimately undermines it simultaneously. But, again, that only applies to that rigid view that is not likely to be held for very long after it is understood.

The response that will apply to anyone who offers this as a way to salvage the argument is this: the argument critiqued here necessarily undermines one of the other arguments that is part of your cumulative case: the teleological argument. If you wish to maintain the critiqued argument, you are trading a powerful component of your cumulative case for a weak one (based on the critiques offered in the first section). This argument would not be able to repair the damage the cumulative case took by losing the teleological argument. If the YEC still wishes to make such a trade, I wish them lots of luck (since they can no longer argue against the luck of naturalistic evolution via biological design).

Conclusion

The argument for necessity of prior experience with dinosaurs is what leads to all these issues. However, if the YEC wishes to avoid these issues, they must grant that prior experience is merely one possible explanation. That would make their view merely compatible with the evidence. If a YEC wants to claim that this evidence is exclusively explained by their view, they need to be able to explain why they reject, at minimum, the explanations offered by the other worldviews (presented first in this post), and justify the rejection of the teleological argument. The evidence of myths and drawings of dinosaur-like creatures is still compatible with young-earth creationism, and may be used as supporting evidence for the view, but not against others. So, it is my contention that YECs reject the use of this argument against opposing views.


*Due to prior experience when addressing the internal debate of YEC vs. OEC, I feel the need to include this four--part disclaimer: 

  1. There is a less extreme view of the myths and drawings that does not claim that they are evidence against the other views, but that the YEC view can make sense of them. The less extreme view is not the one I am addressing in this post, because it is not commonly presented since it cannot be used to defeat the other views. 
  2. My focus in this article is the stronger view that the myths and drawings necessarily require prior experience. Since the lesser extreme view does exist among YECs, this post should not be understood as a critique of the YEC view on its own, but as a critique against using the specific argument that I am addressing. 
  3. I will be showing how the stronger view necessarily leads to heresy. This is NOT to be understood as my saying that a person who uses this argument is a heretic. Obviously, if they understood where their argument led, then they would not be using it. Also, people may still choose to use the argument and not be a heretic because they deny the logical conclusion of the argument.
  4. Please do not accuse me of misrepresenting the view, arguing against the YEC view, or calling anyone a heretic. None of those are the purpose of this post. 

Our Compulsion to Repair A Deformed Body

Buying a New Car
For anyone who has been in the US market for a new car, you are likely familiar with the term "lemon". Anytime that a new car is purchased, the dealer must allow the buyer a "grace period" of so many days (depending on the state) that allows them to test out everything on the vehicle. If anything is not as the manufacturer says it is supposed to be, the car may be returned as a "lemon" for a full refund without questions or obligations. I'm not sure exactly what happens to the car from this point, except that what is wrong is repaired, and it is then sold again (hopefully not with a "New" sticker).

Compelled to Fix Deformities?
The fact that the car can be returned and repaired requires the initial concept that the vehicle had a design, before it was produced. The vehicle is compared to that design and any deviance must be repaired before sell. This leads to an interesting observation about a behavior of the human species. If someone is born with physical "abnormalities" or psychological "issues", we try to "fix" them, so they reflect a prior standard. But if naturalism is true, they are already in the original state (there is nothing to repair, no need for therapy or surgery to "repair"), they are their own standard...unless we admit that there is a standard by which to compare and repair towards. Since, according to naturalism, evolution is constantly changing the original state, there is no unchanging, objective state. Yet, we treat mental disorders and operate on cleft palates. Why do we do so if there is nothing to repair? The answer to that question can be one of three options (or all), and all three of them are founded in God: design, human intrinsic worth, and beauty.

Paperclips and Design

Quite often intelligent design (ID) gets the accusation of being a "God-of-the-gaps" argument. The charge is that people cannot find a natural explanation for what they see in nature, so they immediately attribute it to God. Since nature may be able to explain a phenomenon, such quick conclusions are obviously intellectually lazy and should be recognized as such. A while back I wrote a post addressing the charge of being too quick to come to that conclusion. But this time, I want to focus on the idea that support for intelligent design comes primarily in the form of a process-of-elimination argument.

Even though such an argument does hold value, the conclusion is more reliable when another, more "positive", argument is presented. This argument takes the form of an analogy. It examines what we already accept as being designed by an intelligent agent (humans), and concludes that something of equal or more specified complexity is also designed by an intelligent agent. Allow me to provide an example.

🦃Thanksgiving, Evolution, and Design

Thanksgiving In America

Thanksgiving is a holiday that I see has lost a lot of its meaning in American society. I remember being taught that Thanksgiving was a time to stop and thank God for everything that he has bestowed upon us (be it material goods, health, understanding or anything- even suffering).

It seems quite difficult to do such a thing when America has abandoned belief in a personal God who affects our lives or has abandoned belief in God completely. I would hope that I would be able to see people at least showing gratitude to each other for something, but I don't even see that anymore. Instead, I see people calling it "Turkey Day", almost in an effort to remove the idea of being thankful to anyone for anything- which is a direct logical conclusion of America's narcissistic materialism ("its all about me").

Multiverse and Rationality

Something that I was thinking about the other day: some people are familiar with Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. Basically it states that because people believe false things that help survivability (such as "god", from the naturalist's perspective), evolution does not favor minds that recognize truth, but minds that recognize how to survive- if a belief just happens to be true, it is pure coincidence.

However, I was contemplating the multiverse (or multiple worlds) hypothesis, and it seems that this only compounds the problem. For those uninitiated, multiverse theory states that our universe is not the only universe there is. There are many other universes that do exist; however, our instruments cannot detect them because they are outside our universe. This theory comes in several flavors, but the one I am talking about is the one that is capable of explaining the fine-tuning and design in the universe, along with being an alternative to God as the "banger" that the cosmological argument requires. In order to account for the fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe, some naturalists posit that there are an infinite (or near infinite) number of universes, each possessing different constants of physics. Ours just happens to be the one that is amenable to advanced life, and that is why we exist to observe the "fine-tuning".

Purpose, Design and Evil


It is really amazing how closely purpose and design are related, and their further relation to the problem of evil. Before someone can design some device, they must have a purpose- they don't just start throwing stuff together and find a purpose for it later. Likewise, end-users look at devices and see specific purposes for them. The sane end-user would not conclude that the useful device was not designed. Granted, some devices take on purposes different from the original; however, the device still has purpose, otherwise it would not be in the market.