Evolution, Morality, and Transformers

Introduction
Recently I saw the movie "Transformers: The Dark of the Moon". I almost made it through the whole thing without a single thought about worldviews, philosophy, or apologetics. But, alas, near the end, something happened that my mind couldn't ignore (I pulled out my phone and immediately started taking notes).

For those who are unfamiliar with the Transformers' basic premise: there exists three species in the universe that are essentially battling for survival and a "leg up" on the others: humans, Autobots, and Decepticons. Typically, the Decepticons are trying to achieve something that would have the implication of destroying the humans and/or Autobots. The Autobots are the more "noble" of the two robotic species that join forces with the humans against the Decepticons. This particular installment had two characters that I will be focusing on here: Optimus Prime and Sential Prime (Primes are the leaders of the Autobots; they tend to be the wiser and more powerful individuals). SPOILER ALERT: the rest of this post contains storyline details that take place in the last minutes of the movie, so if you haven't seen it and plan to (and don't want it ruined), stop reading now.

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".

Book Review: Chosen But Free

Introduction

One of the major debates in Christianity is the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's free will. Many people interpret the two to be at odds. Each side believes that the other side will result in compromising some essential doctrine of the faith. I wish I were immune to such a debate, but I'm not. I have found myself in the middle of it; not debating for one side or the other, but trying to figure out which side to go with. Chosen But Free: A Balanced View of God's Sovereignty and Free Will is Norman Geisler's attempt to reconcile the two doctrines.

Chapter 1: Ideas Do Have Consequences

This is the third edition. The book itself is only 188 pages in ten chapters. But in addition is another 149 pages worth of 14 appendices. The first few chapters are quite short. In chapter one, Geisler explains that ideas have consequences and that big ideas have big consequences. He provides a couple examples of the consequences of taking God's sovereignty or man's free will to a logical extreme.

Making Sense of the Resurrection

Last year Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 published an Essay Series: Is Christianity True? Many apologetics bloggers contributed to the series. My piece was on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Christians around the world celebrate Christ's resurrection the event reconciles us to the Father, let's not forget that if, in fact, this did not happen in history, our faith is useless (1 Cor 15), and anyone who does not believe it has no hope (John 14:6).Here is the greatly abbreviated case for the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, as submitted for the essay series:

The Importance of Defining Terms

Introduction

A few years ago I listened to the podcast "The Word Nerds". This podcast helped me gain an appreciation for the power of the English language. In my conversations with people I have noticed the power of the words themselves. Using the wrong word can cause needless arguments; using a less specific word can cause confusion, and many other effects (I just checked Dictionary.com to make sure I used the right one there) come from using the wrong word.

Validity of the Process of Elimination

I want to take a few minutes to discuss the process of elimination regarding everyday life, science, and philosophy. 

As most of you know, I work in the Information Technology (IT) department at my company. The other day I was doing some troubleshooting for one of our graphic artists. She called me and said that her monitor had started flickering. She stated that she thought that there was something wrong with the monitor and wanted it replaced.  Just to get this on the table now, I was not thrilled with having to replace this specific monitor. It is one of the more expensive ones in the company.

Starting with that thought, I made a list of the possible causes in my head: cables, video card, specific monitor input (it has two), or software on the PC (that could be any range of possibilities). I begin going through some troubleshooting steps to eliminate the possible causes: I reboot the computer; I check (and replace) the cables; I check a different input on the monitor; I try the other output on the video card; check some settings... None of those fixed the problem.

Default Positions, Atheism, and Fulfillment

Atheists claim that atheism is the default position that people take. Many atheists use this to bolster their philosophy of methodological naturalism in the sciences. But many Christians deny that atheism is the default position. I tend to agree with the atheist, but only to a point. All people are born with a sin nature that denies God, and specifically the Christian God. Technically, Christianity expects that the default worldview of any human being will be anti-Christian, and atheism falls into this category. So, atheism is one of the default positions of man when it comes to a worldview.

However, the atheist is claiming that naturalism is the true worldview. The default position in naturalism, though, is not atheism, as they believe. The default worldview of a person is relative to the culture in which the individual grows up. If the person grows up in an atheist home, and chooses anything other than atheism as their worldview, they have denied their default position in favor of another (be it Hindu, Islam, Christianity, or whatever). However, if a person grows up in a Christian home and remains a Christian, they have stuck with their default position.

Right Living or Right Thinking?

This post originally published July '09. It has been updated with new content and links to several related posts. 

I have come across several people who have told me that right practice  is more important than right beliefs. We're all familiar with the phrase "You can talk the 'talk', but can you walk the 'walk'?" These same people interpret this to mean that acting properly is more important than believing properly. I disagree.

Right Living presupposes Right Thinking. How one lives is dependent on how one perceives the world. Perception always precedes action. In order for someone to determine that an action is required (or not), a perception must be made. If a person makes the wrong perception, the wrong action may very well follow. Of course, if the right perception is made, the right action may very well follow also. This is not a definite equation because one still has to make a decision based on, not just one perception but, numerous perceptions; and it may not always be clear which of those perceptions should take precedence over the other(s). To make that determination (action), other perceptions must be invoked.

Good Without God?

This post originally published in March of '09. I have added links to similar posts. 

Its been quite interesting to see how many atheists there are who believe that objective morality exists. Actually, I would say that the majority believe in objective morality. However, objective morality is inconsistent with the atheist worldview; they don't have a foundation for acting in a "moral" way versus an "immoral" way. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral; they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify it. Here's why.

Morality implies "oughtness". How something ought to behave. That implies that you understand that that thing (that ought to behave in a certain way) was designed to behave in the expected way. Example: A watch ought to keep time. It is designed to keep time; therefore, it ought to. If it were not designed to do anything, it ought (is expected) to do nothing.

Who's in Control? Part 2

This post was originally published in Jan 2009:

In Part 1, I proposed a dilemma. Who's in control: Us or God? I showed that both beliefs have biblical support and that believing either way would undermine biblical inerrency. In Part 2, I will provide a possible answer that preserves biblical inerrency, God's sovereignty, and human free will.

I want to start by discussing God's omniscience a bit. The Bible clearly teaches that God knows all things (see Part 1 for references). He also knows our hearts (Ps 44:21; 139:1-4). I would like to propose that, based on this, God knows how every person will react freely to any and all circumstances that may be presented to them before He created them. This is referred to as "middle knowledge". (For more information about the doctrine of God's omniscience, including His middle knowledge, I will refer you to William Lane Craig's podcast Defenders. You will want the episodes on the Doctrine of God.)

Suffering Sucks...or Does It?

This post originally published in Jan 2009. 

Suffering is a topic that comes up quite often. This topic seems to come up for one of two reasons: someone is trying to undermine the belief in the all-powerful, all-loving God of the Bible; or someone is going through a horrible time in their life and are trying to figure out why God is allowing them to suffer so much physical or emotional pain. I'll touch on both of them here.

God made a promise to Israel, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Paul was confident that a similar promise from God now extends to the Body of Christ, “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

Nature vs. Scripture

This post originally published in Jan 2009. I have updated it with more information and links several times since then:

Several years ago, I was having quite a difficult time reconciling my faith with the findings of modern science. The Bible seemed to say one thing, while scientists said the complete opposite (or at least something that wasn't reconcilable). Unfortunately, I was not aware that the problem was that I was trying to reconcile interpretations rather than the raw facts.

People in the Christian community led me to believe that the doctrine of Biblical Inerrency applied to the interpretations, rather than the raw statements of Scripture. Scientists persuaded me believe that their interpretations of the data could not be questioned, rather than the raw data.

Believing these inaccuracies led me to further to believe that my faith was based on emotion, and science was based on reality- the two could not be reconciled. I was in this state of confusion and conflict for quite a few years. Would I give up my Christian faith or believe that everything I observed was really an illusion? If I kept my faith, could I live with the ideas that everything I observed was illusory, and that the God I believed in was either not omniscient or was intentionally deceptive? If I rejected my faith, what purpose do I have, and how could I even ground the idea that what I observed was actually real? I was caught between a life with no purpose and no ground for knowing anything, and another life with purpose given by an untrustworthy God and still no ground for knowing anything. Both were a leap of blind faith and neither sounded very appealing.

What Is "Hope" and Who Has It?

I was reading through the Q&A's on Reasonablefaith.com and came across one in which a reader took issue with William Lane Craig's claim that the atheistic worldview is one without hope. The reader believes that the atheist does have hope. Craig recognized the unique argument then went on to defend his statement. Please read the Q&A here (may require registration, I don't remember) for the complete context of this post.

It appears that the validity of Craig's statement stands on what the hope is in. All hope requires an object of that hope, otherwise it is an empty, meaningless word. If someone tells me that they offer me "hope", my first question is, "okay...hope for what?"

When we're talking about what comes after death, the "hope" that people refer to is the same hope that everyone has- to escape the pain and suffering of this life. Everyone has different forms of this hope, but it boils down to that. Let's look at some of the different "hopes" offered (these are greatly simplified for the purposes of this post, please don't flame me about it):

The atheist's hope is to go immediately into nonexistence after death. That would mean no experience of anything, including pain and suffering and even punishment or reward (more on this specifically in a future post "Atheism And The Escape From Responsibility"). Nothing good is experienced either, as a result of the nonexistence.

The hope offered by many eastern religions is that one will eventually (after many lives) be either absorbed into everything and not experience anything individually or be totally extinguished and not experience anything. Either way, the individual escapes the experience of pain and suffering, however neither is anything good experienced.

The three major theistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) offer hope of living without pain and suffering. The experiences of pain and suffering are gone while only the experiences of good remain. (See my post "Suffering Sucks...or Does It?" (specifically, the audio clip from Hugh Ross) for why pain and suffering are required to even recognize experiences of only good).

I would like to submit that the hope offered by the theistic religions is much more desirable than those of atheism or the eastern religions. Here's why. Life is full of many wonderful experiences and emotions. Life is also full of much painful suffering. I do not know a single person who would not want to leave all the painful stuff behind and only experience the good stuff. That is the hope offered by the theistic religions. But...

...What differentiates these is the method to obtain that hope. In Judaism and Islam the person must earn their hope by their behavior. If they are not more good than bad, they don't have the hope offered by their religion. In Christianity, it is recognized that the standard of "good" can not (can: the ability to; not: the negation of) be obtained by us humans. Jesus Christ offers himself in our place of having to meet the standard of "good"; He even takes it a step further and takes our place for everything bad that we did, so we don't have to endure the punishment. In Christianity, all we have to do is recognize that what Christ has offered to us is the only possible way to obtain the life promised (that does mean swallowing our pride and recognizing that we are not as independent as we would like to be) and accept that offer.

This post is starting to get a little on the longer side, so I want to make a couple quick statements and recognitions of what might be going through your mind.

To keep the flow of the post somewhat smooth, I did not mention explicitly anything about the realities of two competing hopes being able to coexist. I affirm that two realities described by two competing hopes can not coexist (the realities described by the eastern hope and theistic hope cannot both be true). As a theist (Christian specifically), I deny the "truth" offered by the eastern religions.

I recognize that "desirable" does not equal truth. Please read other posts in my blog for other reasons for my theism and how I reconcile different harsh realities of life.

Books
Without a Doubt
A World of Difference

Websites
Reasonable Faith
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

Podcasts
Just Thinking
Let My People Think
Reasonable Faith
Defenders
Without A Doubt
Straight Thinking
Stand to Reason

Right Living or Right Thinking?

I have come across several people who have told me that right practice (orthopraxy) is more important than right beliefs (orthodoxy). We're all familiar with the phrase "You can talk the 'talk', but can you walk the 'walk'?" In terms of "orthodoxy" and "orthopraxy" it is, "You may have orthodoxy, but do you have orthpraxy?" These same people interpret this to mean that orthopraxy is more important that orthodoxy. I disagree.

Right Living (Orthopraxy) presupposes Right Thinking (Orthodoxy). How one lives is dependent on how one perceives the world. Perception always precedes action. In order for someone to determine that an action is required (or not), a perception must be made. If a person makes the wrong perception, the wrong action may very well follow. Of course, if the right perception is made, the right action may very well follow also. This is not a definite equation because one still has to make a decision based on, not just one perception but, numerous perceptions; and it may not always be clear which of those perceptions should take precedence over the other(s). To make that determination (action), other perceptions must be invoked.

Atheism and Morality

Its been quite interesting to see how many atheists there are who believe that objective morality exists. Actually, I would say that the majority believe in objective morality. However, objective morality is inconsistent with the atheist worldview; they don't have a foundation for acting in a "moral" way versus an "immoral" way. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral; they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify it. Here's why.

Morality implies "oughtness". How something ought to behave. That implies that you understand that that thing (that ought to behave in a certain way) was designed to behave in the expected way. Example: A watch ought to keep time. It is designed to keep time; therefore, it ought to. If it were not designed to do anything, it ought (is expected) to do nothing.

Atheism posits that humans and the universe have no design or purpose, period. Therefore, it must be concluded that atheism has no room for moral (among other types of) "oughtness".

Does "oughtness" flow logically from "design" or "expectation"? The atheist might be able to get away from the conclusion above by claiming "oughtness" just implies an expectation. But I would have to question what they base their "expectation" on. If they want to base it on history (rather than design) then, they must determine which parts of history they want to base the expectation on, and I would ask them why they choose those certain parts of history and not others.

Now, some atheists have tried to explain the foundation for their belief in objective morality by pointing to examples in the world. They argue along the lines of "look at society; obviously, murder is wrong" or "obviously, stealing is wrong". They use examples to prove "why". The problem is examples don't prove "why" something is true; they only prove "that" something is true. Atheists still need to provide a reason "why" they ought to act a certain way.

Once again, I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral. I'm saying there is no objective foundation for determining why a certain behavior is moral or immoral in their worldview.

Not only does Christianity explain "why" objective morality exists (it is the very nature of God), but it explains "how" an atheist can be moral, yet believe something completely opposite.

Here's a good article on the subject from Dr. William Lane Craig:
Can We Be Good Without God?

Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air by Greg Koukl is a good book about atheism and morality.

Here's a video from Greg Koukl. He is asked if pain and suffering disprove God's existence.

Who's in Control? Part 2

In Part 1, I proposed a dilemma. Who's in control: Us or God? I showed that both beliefs have biblical support and that believing either way would undermine biblical inerrency. In Part 2, I will provide a possible answer that preserves biblical inerrency, God's sovereignty, and human free will.

I want to start by discussing God's omniscience a bit. The Bible clearly teaches that God knows all things (see Part 1 for references). He also knows our hearts (Ps 44:21; 139:1-4). I would like to propose that, based on this, God knows how every person will react freely to any and all circumstances that may be presented to them before He created them. This is referred to as "middle knowledge". (For more information about the doctrine of God's omniscience, including His middle knowledge, I will refer you to William Lane Craig's podcast Defenders. You will want the episodes on the Doctrine of God.)

How Did It All Begin? Part 1- Is The "Big Bang" Biblical?

If you have not already, please read my post "Nature vs. Scripture" before continuing.

First, let me start by explaining why this is question worth contemplating, then I will answer the question.

For many centuries the main idea about how the universe came into being was that it has always existed. "The universe is eternal. It has no beginning and no ending." The major theistic religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam- in that order) have all stood alone among the many other worldviews as holding that the universe had a beginning in the finite past.

Albert Einstein rocked the boat quite a bit with his theory of special relativity. The math, he calculated, predicted that the universe did have a beginning. He did not believe this, so he introduced what he called the "cosmological constant". This allowed his equations to predict the eternal universe that was the reigning paradigm at the time. Later, Edwin Hubble confirmed Einstein's original equations by observing the expansion of the universe. Einstein was then forced to remove his "cosmological constant" from his equations.

Why did the expansion convince Einstein? Anything that is expanding gets larger with respect to time. If that time is reversed, the object that was expanding now contracts, all the way down to a singular point of beginning.

Fred Hoyle was an atheistic cosmologist that supported the idea of the universe being eternal, back in the 60's. On a radio show he described the model, proposed by Einstein's equations and observationally verified by Hubble, as a "big bang". It was used as a disparaging term, that caught on since then. Hubble despised this theory because he knew that if the universe was expanding, then something had to exist to initiate the expansion, thus the universe has a beginning. Hoyle did not like this idea because he also knew that this provided compelling evidence for the existence of a Beginner (God).

"Big Bang" theory:

...requires a beginning and, by implication, a Beginner.
...states that at the beginning of the universe, time itself began. Which implies that the Beginner must exist outside of time.
...states that the universe, literally, came from nothing.
...predicts the universe is expanding
...requires extremely fine-tuned values for numerous laws and relationships in the universe

The Bible states (not comprehensive):

God existed before the universe and created the universe. Genesis 1:1; John 1:1
God created the universe from the unseen. Hebrews 11:3
God stretches out the heavens. Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; Zechariah 12:1

What's really ironic about the title "Big Bang" is that this term conjures up the idea of a chaotic explosion. In the last couple decades astronomers have discovered that the expansion of the universe has been extremely fine tuned. They have also discovered that numerous other factors in the universe (including the physical laws themselves) have been extremely fine tuned. The levels of fine tuning that has been discovered have such a remote possibility of taking place naturalistically as to be mathematically indistinguishable from zero. The only other explanation is that a Super Intellect designed the universe in a precise way for some reason.

Considering this evidence, I believe that "Big Bang" cosmology is compatible with the Bible. Further more, the possibility that the Biblical authors stood alone, for centuries, in describing the universe exactly as modern scientists have found it to be is astronomically minute. This provides extra support for the idea that the Bible was inspired by, not only a divine entity, but the One who created the universe and knows everything about it.

Here's an episode of Dr. William Lane Craig's podcast Reasonable Faith that discusses the issue: The Big Bang


For further investigation, I recommend:

DVDs:
Journey Toward Creation (Netflix or Blockbuster Online Rentals)
Cosmic Fingerprints
Why Is the Big Bang Evidence That God Created the Universe
Can The Biblical Account of Creation be Reconciled with Scientific Evidence Today?

Online Videos:
Reasons to Believe Q&A Videos

Podcasts:
Science News Flash
I Didn't Know That
Why The Universe Is The Way It Is
More Than a Theory

Websites:
Reasons to Believe "The Bible and Science" Web Page
Big Bang for Beginners
Lee Strobel.com
Ankerberg Theological Research Institute

Books:
Creation as Science- Dr. Hugh Ross
Creator and The Cosmos- Dr. Hugh Ross
Case for a Creator- Lee Strobel
Why the Universe Is The Way It Is- Dr. Hugh Ross

In Part 2, I will begin to discuss the equation of "Big Bang" with "Evolution". Does acceptance of the "Big Bang" require or, at least, imply acceptance of Evolution?

Suffering Sucks...or Does It?

Suffering is a topic that comes up quite often. This topic seems to come up for one of two reasons: someone is trying to undermine the belief in the all-powerful, all-loving God of the Bible; or someone is going through a horrible time in their life and are trying to figure out why God is allowing them to suffer so much physical or emotional pain. I'll touch on both of them here.

God made a promise to Israel, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Paul was confident that the promise from God now extends to the Body of Christ, “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

Nature vs. Scripture

Several years ago, I was having quite a difficult time reconciling my faith with the findings of modern science. The Bible seemed to say one thing, while scientists said the complete opposite (or at least something that wasn't reconcilable). Unfortunately, I was not aware that the problem was that I was trying to reconcile interpretations rather than the raw facts.

People in the Christian community led me to believe that the doctrine of Biblical Inerrency applied to the interpretations, rather than the raw statements of Scripture. Scientists persuaded me believe that their interpretations of the data could not be questioned, rather than the raw data.

Believing these inaccuracies led me to further to believe that my faith was based on emotion, and science was based on reality- the two could not be reconciled. I was in this state of confusion and conflict for quite a few years.