A Rather Fragile Ego

Dr. Dembski's Course at SWBTS

AP410 This is the undegrad course. You have three things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 40% of your grade); (2) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 40% of your grade); (3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).

AP510 This is the masters course. You have four things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 30% of your grade); (2) write a 1,500- to 2,000-word critical review of Francis Collins’s The Language of God -- for instructions, see below (20% of your grade); (3) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 30% of your grade); (4) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 3,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).

AP810 This is the D.Min. course. You have four things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 30% of your grade); (2) write a 1,500- to 2,000-word critical review of Francis Collins’s The Language of God -- for instructions, see below (20% of your grade); (3) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 30% of your grade); (4) develop a Sunday-school lesson plan based on the book Understanding Intelligent Design (worth 20% of your grade).

This is simply pathetic. Many creationists claim that students are indoctrinated with evolution, yet here, we can clearly see what indoctrination is about. Dembski is basing grades on whether the students go and proselytize his theological ideas on "hostile" websites. Are you kidding me? And, does anyone doubt that the "theological significance of intelligent design" better be that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and that when he asks for a critical book review what he means is that he wants them to be critical of Collins? (Note: I'm no fan of Collins, but to basically instruct your students to pan the guy is pretty low.)

Funny thing is that at SWBTS, Dembski is pretty likely to end up having students that are devotees of Answers in Genesis which as an organization is lukewarm to ID. But, the real question is, is Dembski's ego so fragile that he has to force his students to suck up to him like that? I think the answer is, yes.

Reality

I've noticed a certain trend amongst many Xians that debate, and that is to simply disregard anything that contradicts their view and/or assert the opposite and claim that they are right by default. For instance, if one claims the Bible has contradictions, they simply claim it does not and nothing you do can counter that. If you show them the evidence for evolution, they simply claim that what they believe is true because it's true and your evidence doesn't count for anything.

I attribute this to a weird belief that one's beliefs are more important and more compelling than reality or real world data. If real world data conflicts with their beliefs, they simply discard the data. They hold their beliefs up to be the best data that there is. Their beliefs are incontrovertible, they are true no matter what, etc.

Yet, reality does not operate that way. It doesn't matter how hard you believe that you can breathe in space unaided, it ain't gonna happen. It doesn't matter how hard you believe you can fly unaided like a bird, it ain't gonna happen. I think most theists accept these two facts. So, why does the theist believe that this doesn't hold when it comes to their personal god beliefs? That, I don't know. I wish I did. Anyone have any hypotheses?

Can god not be Omnimax?

Can an omnimax god decide not to be omnimax? That's an interesting question, and one that some may try to use to defeat some of the inherent problems with both the Bible and the contradictions that arise from omnimax deities (i.e. contradictions with the different abilities, contradictions with free will, etc.) So, it seems an appropriate question to ask, does it not?

So, let's focus on the main three omnis. They are:

omnipotence - the ability to do literally anything
omniscience - knowledge of everything
omnibenevolence - infinite goodness at all times and places.

First, let's look at omnipotence. Can god choose not to have the ability to do anything at all? This is a tough question. Logically speaking, if god were to give up the ability to do anything, he could always get it back so long as he keeps the power to regain his powers. If he gives that up, he may forever be in a non-omnipotent state, which would mean that god was omnipotent at some time but is not now and has forever given up that ability. I doubt many theists would be happy with that, however. So, I think what we find is that god must either always be omnipotent or would have given up that power forever.

I think we can similarly argue in regards to omniscience. god could use his omnipotent powers to give up knowledge, hence allowing him to now know what Adam and Eve had done in the garden.

Lastly is omnibenevolence. Can god give that up? I think the answer here must be no. If god gives up omnibenevolence or decides not to exercise it so that he can commit evil, then that evil mark stays with him and he can no longer claim omnibenevolence at any point.

If we were to throw in the concept of omnipresence - presence at all places and all times simultaneously - it makes the answers above different as none of them could be given up at any time, or else they are simultaneously given up at all times, which would cause some very serious weird time effects I should think. Suffice it to say that if we were to add the fourth omni in there, god would have no ability to not be omnimax.

A different question would be whether god can choose not to use his omnimax powers. This I'll tackle in a subsequent blog post, as well as the addition of "perfection" and what that means to the god concept. Until then, thoughts?

Evidential Gaps

A favorite creationist tactic is to deny any and all evidence for any piece of science that contradicts their beliefs. But, some take it even further. They will look at the evidence that does exist, declare that it's not enough, then summarily dismiss all the evidence as non-existent. I hope the following example shows how absurd this line of thinking is.

Suppose person A lives in California and person B lives in New York. Let's say that person A and person B run into each other in CA and person A asks how person B got there. B claims that she drove her car from NY to CA. A then asks for evidence.

B remembers that she kept some of her receipts. She has receipts from gassing up a couple times along the way. She has some receipts from eating meals along the road. But, alas she doesn't have every single receipt, so she can't form an unbroken line. Further, she can't account for the gaps in between receipts - for instance, how did she get to dinner from lunch? She can present her car, but this is not enough for A. A claims that due to some missing receipts and not having enough evidence, none of the receipts, the car, or anything else that B presents count as evidence that B did indeed drive across the country.

Clearly, this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater though. A has taken the evidence that does exist, and thrown it away as if it did not simply because it did not meet A's demands. Without a full explanation down to some nebulous detail, nothing counts at all toward an explanation in A's eyes. Yet, it's absurd to claim that those receipts do not constitute some evidence of the claim made by B, as we can all hopefully see. Never-the-less, we see this attitude from creationists all the time in denying wide swathes of science, whether it be evolution, abiogenesis, the age of the Earth, the age of the universe, or even modern medicine. In short, the creationist would rather deny reality in order to hold onto her preconceptions than to accept reality for what it is and shape her beliefs around it. Yet, it's a bad argument to make, because it only makes the creationist look silly and uninformed.

Interpretations

I've been thinking about Post Modernism and the interpretations of literary works. Can we discern what the author is talking about? I think that in many cases we can, or at least we can make a good guess. In the case of non-fiction works, this should be trivial, as this is the intent - for the author to introduce a point and communicate it. Once we start talking about fictional works, it gets more difficult. We usually can, however, discern an author's intent because it will inevitably be about things that we relate to and/or understand.

OK, so let's look at the category of religious writings. These have to be thought of as a separate category unto themselves, because of the vehement disagreement on whether they are fictional accounts or not. Also, there's an argument over whether these books tell us about things we can comprehend or not? If we deal with the Xian texts (the OT and NT) we find a story that most believers will claim is non-fictional (indeed elements of it are pretty clear in that regard, whether they are correct or not) and about an entity that we can hope to understand.

Can we discern the author's meaning? I would have to say that in many cases we can not. Let's take one example: Genesis 1. We can't look back at the obviously erroneous origin story of Genesis with our modern scientific knowledge and conclude that the author obviously didn't intend to claim what is claimed in the text. It's quite probable that the authors did intend to claim that the universe was formed in 6 literal days as the text indicates.

Other instances might be where the authors tell us about god. Did the authors simply make up those passages or was god dictating? Either way, we really can't claim to know what they are talking about or how to interpret the writings when the authors themselves may very well not know what they were trying to describe (seeing as how god is supposedly indescribable).

All of this - plus the ambiguity and contradictions - puts us at a significant disadvantage when deciphering the Bible. Is someone using an incorrect interpretation when they claim that the Bible denounces all homosexuals? Is it an incorrect interpretation to claim that Xians should wage holy war on other religious followers? Should one not ever murder, not murder other Jews, or murder freely when god commands it? And, the list goes on. There's really not a good foundation for Xians to use to conclude that their interpretation is necessarily right when it comes to the Bible.

As I've talked about before, denying the bad assumptions made by theists does not necessarily mean that the atheist is making her own assumption. This is a rather common error, however, that theists often make. "Well, I assume god and you assume not god, so we're even." No, we are not. I do not need to assume not god in order to point out the holes in your logic and that your assumption is bad. I simply need not to accept your assumption as valid. This does not mean that I'm asserting my own assumption.

But, since this is so hard to understand for some, I thought I would try to create an example to illustrate the point. Let's say that two people are setting up a sting operation where they are going to be listening to a multi-national group of people. Let's pick up the conversation in progress:

Person A - Here's how the plan will go. We'll tap their phones and their meeting room and then we'll have Jane listen in. I assume that Jane will be able to understand any language they choose to use and with her help, we will be able to get the information we need. I guarantee success.
Person B - Um, wait. You assume Jane will be able to understand them?
A - Yes. Why not?
B - Do you know what language they'll be using?
A - No.
B - Do you know what languages Jane understands?
A - No.
B - I'm highly skeptical of your guarantee that this will work.
A - Oh, you're just assuming that Jane can't do it. I assume that she can. What's the difference? You have your assumption, and I have mine. We may as well just go into this operation and believe it will work.

So, in this example, did Person B really assume that Jane can't understand whatever language they use, or did Person B simply point out that the assumption may be faulty (probably is faulty, since most humans don't have the language skills of C3PO)? The analogy breaks down a bit in the theism question, because it's very hard to simply wait and see (although some theists do advocate simply waiting and seeing what happens after death) but I think it's instructive. Questioning or not accepting someone's assumptions do not entail negative assumptions or contrary assumptions are being made. This is of utmost importance in the philosophical debate over god, because theists really are sitting on a bad hand. They are required to make unsupported (read, irrational) assumptions in order to get to their preferred ending point, while the atheist is not under any such obligation.

Response to a Comment

On my recent post on whether assumptions of god are rational a commenter named "mdeltoro" has brought up quite a few questions. I figured that I could not fully answer them all and do the answers justice in a blog comment, so I've promoted the answers to a full blog post. Below is a response to those comments.

mdeltoro's first complaint to my argument is this:

You secularists stake everthing on your ability to observe emperical evidence...But this assumes that the information conveyed to our brains by our senses is an accurate representation of the things "out there" in the world, which our senses are supposed to be observing. This is undemonstrable other than by . . . empirical evidence.

On first blush, one might think that this poses a significant problem, although wouldn't it pose a problem for both atheist and theist alike? Except that it's not an assumption of naturalists to assume that our senses are accurate. We sense that the sun moves around the Earth, but this is not accurate. The idea of using empirical study and the scientific method is to remove the inaccuracies that can come from our senses. And, of course, it's highly pragmatic - simply put, it works. It's not an assumption, but a conclusion that empirical results, once verified and tested over and over, and held provisionally until new data comes along and overturns our conclusions in favor of new, better ones, is simply superior to any method that has yet been devised, especially any religious method.

Next, mdeltoro has argued that it's an assumption to believe that other humans can understand my blog. I argued that this is a demonstrated reality, in that we were having a conversation, which was met with an argument about postmodern literary interpretations:

Many a literature professor would disagree with your notion that this is a "demonstrated reality," as attested by the fact that so often the question has become NOT "What did the author mean?" but "What does this mean TO YOU?"

Yet, this misses the mark by a bit. We can both ask what the author of a piece means and what it means to us, they are not mutually exclusive, nor is this any sort of answer to the demonstrated fact that we are having a conversation via this blog and our meanings (not always fully conveyed, but enough for the purposes of answering this challenge) are being comprehended.

So, now we get to the meat of it:

What I am saying is that, on the basis of your worldview, none of these assumptions can be justified.

Hmmm, let's explore that. So far, none of the supposed assumptions that naturalists hold are actually assumptions. So, let's see where this goes.

In a universe moved along by random chance (which secular evolutionists assure us is THE key to explaining how things came to be as they are), it actually makes just as much sense to affirm as to deny that the sun will not rise tomorrow, that our brains may not have sufficient continuity of process that we really understand each other, or that gravity will shut off tomorrow.

OK, so yeah, in a universe where everything is determined by a roll of the die, it wouldn't make sense. But, that's a strawman representation of the naturalist's position. Do random factors play into how the world works? Of course. Randomly mutating genes of animals provide the change that allows natural selection to select the critters that will propagate their genes, but who said that that is a random process? Answer: no one except creationists.

Let us put the question this way: "Why does the fact that things have 'always' operated in a certain way imply that they will continue to operate in the same way?" How can a secularist answer this question? To say, "We know by empirical observation that things have consistently operated this way in the past" is to (1) assume the basic reliability of our senses (unjustified on a secular worldview, we've already noted) and (2) to beg the question.

I'm confused here. Isn't it a good indicator of how things work that they seem to be consistent? In no way do I have to assume the reliability of my senses or beg the question to conclude that it is highly likely that the sun will continue its pattern of rising in the morning (or more properly that the Earth will continue to rotate in such a way that my senses tell me the sun is rising). Does this mean it will? No, it does not, but it would take a major catastrophe (in which case we'd all be dead) or a violation of the working models that we have of the universe...which leads me to mdeltoro's next argument.

I've argued that if one believes in a god that can and does perform miracles, then one can not conclude that the sun will necessarily rise tomorrow, that natural laws will not be violated, etc. We know that this god (if the Bible is correct) has made the sun stand still in the sky, which would be a violation of physics. Believing in a god that can do and does do these things at any time means that one can not be confident that miracles will not occur and can't assume an orderly universe. mdeltoro's response to me follows:

I know this is a sacred cow of secular science, but it is simply neither historically nor logically demonstrable. Theistic and Christian scientists have made and continue to make valuable scientific discoveries, because they are seeking to discover the universe and the laws which God created.

So, I'm failing to see what "historical" demonstration would look like, nor how it is relevant. Logically, it's pretty sound. If you believe that an entity exists that can violate physical law, then how can you believe those laws are inviolate? And, as an aside, this has nothing to do with whether scientists who are Xians can do science. Of course they can. The problem for mdeltoro is that in order to do science they must check their religion at the door.

From a logical point of view, affirming that God can and has done miracles is not the same as affirming that He does them willy-nilly or does them all the time.

This is true, and it's a good point, but it doesn't address my point, which is that if this god exists, then the potential exists at any and all times for the laws to simply change or be violated at the will of this deity.

If the purpose of Christian scientists is to discover the laws God made that normally govern His universe, no harm is done in affirming that God can and at times has acted outside those laws.

And, here's the crux - this is the problem that arises. All data is called into question once one assumes a god that can change anything and everything on a whim. How can we be certain of the data that leads us to a conclusion, when it might be an anomaly of this god's whim?

None of this, of course, refutes the fact that the god assumption is irrational and that using this assumption and then arguing to a conclusion does not make the conclusion rational. In fact, I think this actually supports my arguments. In order to perform science, we have to check our religious assumptions at the door. We have to ignore the religious conclusion that any or all of our data could be faulty due to god's interference. We have to ignore that a god such as the one in the Bible could very well change physical laws at any time and make anything happen, regardless of what we've previously observed (i.e. the sun may not rise tomorrow morning and yet we would not be dead).

Not a Xian Nation

In today's United States, it seems that politicians are falling all over themselves to out god everyone else in order to remain elected...since this is a Xian nation and all, right? Well, all one has to do to put that misperception to rest is to look at the historical documents of this nation, like the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli.

ARTICLE 11.

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

Rational Assumptions

How often have you heard the following sort of argument - "Given my assumptions, it's perfectly rational to believe in Xianity (or insert any religion here as YMMV)."

But, is that really true? I mean, using this as a guideline, anything could be considered rational if one uncritically accepts certain assumptions.

I simply have to have the right assumptions, like that unicorns exist, and they are invisible because they are magical creatures and can do things like that. I'll also assume that they don't love us, and would like to see us enslaved. I'll also assume that they have an unhealthy obsession with humping other animals and are big fans of genetic manipulation, yet lack the ability to use test tubes (due to having hooves instead of opposable thumbs) so they have to use eugenics instead of manipulating genes.

Given these assumptions, it's rational to believe that invisible alien unicorns are secretly infiltrating petting zoos all across the nation and having sex with the animals in a secret eugenics-type program in order to breed animals that will rise up and overthrow their tyrannical human overlords and install the unicorns as leaders of this bountiful planet.

The problem, of course, is that uncritically accepting assumptions that are unsupported is not rational. So, the acceptance of irrational assumptions puts the final conclusion also in the irrational category. Therefore, it simply is not rational to believe in god, especially due to the irrational assumptions that are required in order to do so.

Heaven-O?

Recently, PZ Myers linked to an article about a Texas town that had adopted "Heaveno" as a substitute greeting for "Hello." I don't think he realized that the article was from 1997.

But, I got to wondering whatever happened to that. So, I did some digging.

First, I found an informative website that shows (besides the cheesy graphics) the background behind the greeting (gets it wrong), the resolution that was adopted, a proclamation to the guy who started the whole idea there, and the proposal that started it all. Still, there was nothing in there about what happened after the adoption of "Heaveno." I had to make some calls.

A call to the mayor's office went unanswered. When I got through to the County Clerk's office, the woman I spoke to stated that no one actually says it. A call to the County Parks and Recreation department was met with the same information. I next called the library, thinking that they might be able to shed some light, and I spoke to a nice man who told me that it was no more than a passing fad. At the time, some people did say it, but not for very long, and it never really caught on. Now, he informed me, no one says it.

(As a humorous aside, I said, "I suppose old habits die hard." His reply was that they don't like change down in Texas.)

The nice man at the library suggested I call the Kingsville, TX Chamber of Commerce. So, I did. Alas, there was no additional information to be found there. I think I have to conclude that "Heaveno" really was just a fad, and the citizens rightly have thrown it onto the dustbin of bad ideas.

I do want to state that everyone I talked to was very nice, very helpful, and very open and willing to speak to me. They sound like wonderful people down there and I'm glad that they don't say "Heaveno."

Intellectual Fulfillment

Most people know Dawkins' famous quote where he says, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Most don't know the full quote, however.

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

There's a very important point in there that often gets overlooked, and that is that "god isn't a good explanation." Yet, this is not what most people claim. The claim that one runs into more often than not is that before Darwin (and even after Darwin) religion has had a good answer to such "why" questions as, "Why are we here?" Religion also supposedly helps us to answer questions about our origins. Rubbish.

In fact, I don't think Dawkins goes far enough here, implying that "goddidit" was an answer before Hume showed how inadequate it was. "goddidit" has never been an answer for anything. In response to how we got here (origins) claiming that some magic entity simply did it is no response at all. It's a guess, and a bad one. Similarly, answering the why are we here question with "Because god made it so," is no better than simply saying, "Because." The only purpose of such "answers" is to placate people who are not inquisitive enough to insist that magic is not a sufficient answer.

So, this leaves me wondering, when will theists have a chance to be intellectually fulfilled?

Why "A-theism?"

So, some theists think they are really clever when they use the following argument:

"Atheism is stupid/weird/wrong/etc. because you're only defining yourself by what you aren't, and you wouldn't have to do that if there weren't a god."

Or, some variant on that. So, let me say right now, it's not clever nor is it witty or original.

Let's look at a different example, shall we? Books that are written about real subjects or real events (books that describe reality, like science texts, etc.) are called "non-fiction." Why would we define books about reality by what they aren't, books that are made up? You wouldn't have to do that if those made up books weren't really about real stuff, would you?

The sad fact is that theism is a real phenomena, there are people who believe in gods and the supernatural. It's a quirk of our culture and our language that we identify those that don't hold such superstitions to be a-theistic, just as we hold that books that aren't made up are non-fictional. The terms and usage only show that theists exist, not that god exists.

god Tingles

The ulnar nerve is the nerve that runs from your elbow to your hand. If you hold your arm out so that your thumb is pointing up, it runs from just behind your elbow to your pinkie and ring finger, along the bottom of your arm. If you bruise this nerve, you can cause some very weird sensations. I know, because I recently did just that. It causes your hand to tingle (mostly located in the pinkie and ring finer and the part of the palm just underneath those fingers). Even though the damage has occurred to my elbow, my brain interprets it as if it were coming from my hand. Pushing on the nerve can have the same effect.

This got me to thinking, that if I were a superstitious person, could I be convinced that I'm feeling some sort of presence from god? Could I think that god is somehow touching me? I've done no damage to my hand, yet I feel this tingle that won't subside. What if it happened to a different nerve and I felt the tingle elsewhere?

If I had knowledge of these nerve points, could I induce these feelings in other people and tell them that it is the hand of god touching them? Yes, I bet I could, and I bet that some people already do this, whether they are aware of the biological explanation or not. This is most likely part of the arsenal of some faith healers out there or others who claim to be able to bring god into your body (or whatever else they claim). And, this succeeds because gullible people are too uninformed about the processes of the body and all too willing to believe that god really is touching them. It's rather sad, actually, that with just a little bit of education, we could shield these gullible people from the charlatans that would take advantage of their beliefs for a quick buck or to push their agenda.

Religion is Useless

I've talked about this before, but some things need to be repeated until they sink...

I keep hearing about how science is one way of knowing about the world, while religion is another way of knowing about the world. That's a load of BS. Religion is a way of making stuff up and guessing one knows about the world, while pretending to have knowledge that one does not possess. Point of fact: we, as humans, have never learned one fact about the world through religion/prayer/revelation/etc. Not one.

Now, I'm not saying that theologians have not learned things. Sure, some theologians have learned about human behavior. But, they did not do these things by engaging in religion, but instead by engaging in scientific principles of observation and testing! We learn by doing science, not by praying, revelation, and any by making up some religious tenet (which is how they are all made anyway).

Theists, prove me wrong. Name one verifiable thing that we learned through religion. I've asked this countless times of various theists and have never gotten an answer, yet those theists always maintain that religion is a way of knowing about the world. So, my counter-question is why would anyone make that claim if they can't even give one example of something that we have learned from religion or something that we know from religion?

Impervious to Reason

Go to just about any blog that deal with religion vs. non-religion or theism vs. atheism, and you are bound to see debate among the participants. Often we see claims that defy rationality, are suspect logically, etc, and they tend to come mostly from one side of the debate - the theistic side. Take the comments that many theists make that are critical of evolution (or "evilution" if you will) or comments where they claim to have secret knowledge of the wants and attributes of god, as if they have a secret connection to god who is telling them how much he really does hate "fags" and Muslims (in the case of some Xians at least...YMMV).

Why is this? I have an idea that it may be because many theists are taught at a young age to accept certain beliefs as true. This creates an impression that is hard to shake (as evidenced by at least one person who comments on this very site, who believes in god and Jesus, but think that they are completely vile and evil). Once one accepts that something is true, no matter what, then one can and will shape all things to fit that preconception, thus blocking out facts and evidence that does not accord with what the person already claims to know.

Should we be teaching our children these things? Famously, Richard Dawkins has taken a stand against it, saying that we should not label our children as religious or force-feed them into a specific religion, but should instead teach them about many religious and irreligious ideas and allow them to make up their own minds. He's not the only one who has advocated this, but as one of the religious right's favorite targets, he's been roundly criticized for this notion (usually by taking his argument out of context and claiming that he's advocating that which he is not).

For my part, I believe that the childhood indoctrination (and that's exactly what it is) that occurs is wrong. I believe that children have rights, and have the right to not be lied to by being told that one is privy to knowledge that one simply does not have. Children have a right not to be forced into a religion that is chosen for them simply by virtue of being born to a certain set of parents, and I believe that the numbers bear this out. The amount of people who reject evolution is staggeringly high in this country, while we see much lower totals in Europe - a region that is much more secular, and much more open about religious diversity. This is disturbing in that the indoctrinating that is happening is hampering our populace and our children and negatively impacting our country. As we fall behind other countries in scientific literacy, our place among the leaders of the world is sure to become more and more tenuous. This is a very real problem, and its effects are already being felt.


(Note: I am not saying that atheists never made illogical or bad arguments, only that they do it with a much lower frequency and that atheist arguments are more likely to be reality and/or factually based - or at least in accordance with reality and fact. Again, the evolution example speaks to this.)

Like a Brick Through a Window

If any of you reading this are familiar with previous commenters on this blog, you may remember someone by the name of "Bud," who has commented here in the past. Bud recently left a new comment after a long lay-off on my god vs. the Unicorns post. It wasn't extremely long, but as with many creationist comments, it is like a brick through a window in that it creates a huge mess and take a lot more words to clean up all the misperceptions and errors in it. So, I've taken the liberty of making a post out of a point by point response to Bud's brick through the window. It's not anything we haven't all seen before, and warning it's long.

you ask for some evidence of God and His creation, well i would like to examine the evidence for evolution first, if that is ok.

I suppose so, but I hope you aren't going to make a god of the gaps argument...

now we have to consider that there is only 2 possible explanations for the existence of the universe:

it created itself
it was created.

Why do I have to consider that, considering that it's a false dichotomy? There are other options out there, including that this universe is an off-shoot of another universe (many worlds hypothesis) that arose from purely natural means (natural to the other universe and maybe ours), that the universe was always there but that we didn't have a representation for time (remember, the laws of physics break down at the singularity), etc. So, I'm sorry, but your assertion doesn't hold weight, and this has nothing to do with evolution.

scientists, like richard dawkins, admit at one time there was nothing.

There is not a single cosmological model of the origin of the universe that starts with "nothing." Please get your facts straight.

for just one protein to be created (assuming there is something to create it from, since the odds are approximately 1 x 10 to the 40,000th power against it. ( btw 1 x 10 to the 50th power is the longest odds ever observed.)

Yeah, those are long odds, and not at all a realistic interpretation of the latest scientific findings. This is a common error among creationists, however. The odds you cite are estimated, ballpark odds for an event that no one is claiming happened, namely the formation of complex molecules ex nihilo. In reality, what happened was the formation of easier molecules (we happen to know that amino acids can and do self-assemble from the Miller/Urey experiments and the subsequent experiments done based on the original) and that these building blocks then formed into proteins and cells. So, yeah, the odds of a cell simply spontaneously forming from nothing are pretty astronomical, but no one actually posits that that is what happened. Oh, and this still isn't evolution you're talking about.

every cellular mutation causes a loss of information stored in the DNA.

This is trivially false. For example, suppose a point mutation causes a T to change to a G in the genetic code. Would you say that's a loss of information? Now suppose that the G mutates back to a T. Is that a further loss in the information? Yet, this is what you are arguing. It's nonsense. Not only that, but you are relying on conflating definitions of "information." Please also see here:

Mutations and Information

skipping millions of necessary and impossible mutations, we come to humans.

So, you are finally going to talk about evolution?

the eyes alone would have taken over 250 million years to form, according to scientists.

This is actually false, as new studies have shown that eyes have evolved multiple times in shorter timeframes, but even if it were, so what? Life has been around for 4.5 bn years, give or take.

not to mention the nose, legs, arms, mind, and reproductive organs.

I fail to see what your point is. Evolution is a process that has been ongoing for billions of years, thus giving ample time for all the emergent features we see today to have evolved. Are you perhaps arguing that it took X number of years for one feature and Y for another, and so on, and that if you add up all those numbers it is an obscenely large number? This would not make sense, however, as all features are all evolving at the same time.

here is another problem, how did this undirected mutation get the direction to create the extremely complex reproductive system of both genders without guidance?

"Guidance" comes from natural selection. When undirected mutations occur, those that are beneficial are selected and outpace those that are not. This is elementary. Also, sexual selection has been around for a long time. And, it's obvious why it would be a good idea. There much bacteria in your body that can lead to illness and death that you constantly have to fight off. Given a set of genes from 2 parents, the bacteria that they pass you are not accustomed to your genetic makeup and give you a head start in the arms race that is taking place inside your body.

the "self creation" theory is proven by scientists who understand the laws of science, to be impossible.

I would say that your strawman version of what you think scientists say is pretty far fetched.

this takes more faith to believe than i am capable of, so i will stick to the belief that there must be a creator.

I'm so disappointed since you went the route of god of the gaps after all. You didn't present any positive evidence for your god, you simply asserted that evolution couldn't a done it, so god musta done it. This may have worked had you accurately presented a true dichotomy, but you didn't. In fact, you made quite a few false dichotomies in there that I simply haven't pointed out, like the implicit assertion that it's either evolution or god.

note: the idea of the universe being eternal is discounted because it would require no molecular movement, creating a virtual heat death.

Note: the laws of physics break down at the singularity level so we can't really say what was there "before" time, which is a bit meaningless anyway, since "before" time can't be measured by any means that we currently have.

please note that i may a little flippant, but, out of respect, i am not being sarcastic.

Please note that I am also not being disrespectful in pointing out your errors and misperceptions. But, I do suggest that you actually look some of this stuff up in a credible source.

god vs. the Unicorns

Two times recently I've seen Xians whining about not being taken seriously, because atheists compare belief in god to belief in unicorns or the FSM or Santa Claus, or leprechauns. "You're not taking us seriously enough," they whine. They also whine that belief in god is reasonable while belief in those others things is not.

So, what evidence do they have for this? Really, it all boils down to an argument from popularity. You see, more people believe in god, have said they felt god, etc. than leprechauns, unicorns, etc. so that somehow proves that a) belief in god is rational, b) belief in god is at least worth looking into while belief in those other things isn't, or other such trivially stupid assertions.

So, for your edification, theists, here is what you need to give us to show that belief in your god really is more warranted than belief in any other fanciful notion: evidence. It's that simple. And, no, your cousin's testimony that she felt god within her doesn't count, because it's too easy to have been falsified or wishful thinking on her part. And, no, your holy books don't count because they were written by men, not god, no matter how much they may exclaim that their words come from god. What we need is real, tangible evidence that unequivocally leads to the god that you have in mind. Saying, "Well, the universe was created, so my god wins," also doesn't cut it, and not only because saying that would be not even wrong.

I predict, however, that all we will ever see is more whining, as apologists have yet to pray hard enough to produce any evidence for their gods. Oh, but I'm sure we'll see many more proclamations about the overwhelming evidence that they may someday get around to presenting.

Make No Mistake

I've previously talked about god lying to us through his retelling of the creation of the universe, but I'd like to expand on that. Any instance of an error in the Bible is evidence that god is lying to you (provided that god exists and wrote the Bible, as some believe).

How can I make such a broad and sweeping statement? It's actually rather easy. god is providing information to us through the Bible. If that information is incorrect, then god is providing false information. Now, god could be mistaken, but then that would violate the tenet that god is infallible and perfect, so any "mistake" in the Bible must have been intentional. Therefore, all mistakes in the Bible are intentional mistatements by god, hence they are lies. Given the large number of Biblical mistakes, this means that god lies quite a bit.

Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor:

"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything."

This is one of the various translations for Occam's famous saying. The more familiar phrasing that one usually sees is that the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation. What it means is that one should eliminate as many assumptions as possible in order to reach the best explanation. If two competing hypotheses are trying to explain the same phenomenon, and both work equally well, the one that has the least assumptions behind it would be preferred. Also, the one that adds the least amount of entities would be preferred, and adding complexity to the problem is not preferred.

It's ironic, then, that Occam was a friar, because his very simple argument is not at all beneficial to theism. Some theists claim that Occam's Razor is supportive of their faith, that evolution and science are complex and that positing a god is the more simple route, and therefore preferred. This is a gross misunderstanding of the idea, however, in that positing a new layer that is more complex than any other is not the preferred explanation for anything, and god is the most complex, unnecessary layer that one can add. (Note, I've also seen theists claim that goddidit seems like the simplest explanation to them, so therefore they use Occam's Razor to affirm their belief, but this falls into the same problem as above, and also adds an extra layer of subjective assumptions and hence is an even worse formulation.)

In the Beginning...

Science is something that we, as humans, would have a hard time living without. Science has the power to verify truths (to the best extent possible) and show us what our universe is like. Science has the power to negate positive claims made by theists as well, as many theists are well aware. Because of this, there is a lot of effort made by theists to show how science is compatible with their holy books - especially Xians trying to show how science is compatible with the Bible. One of these arguments goes like so:

1. Genesis says that god created the universe.
2. The big bang shows that the universe was created out of nothing.
3. Therefore science supports the Bible.

This is a horrible argument, however.

I have no qualms with number 1, except for one thing. Genesis goes on to explain how god created the universe, in time scales, order of creation, etc. It gets a lot of things horribly wrong. It's disingenuous of the Xian to take one piece of the passage out and claim that science supports the Bible while brushing the rest of the passage under the rug, hoping that no one will notice.

Number 2 is where the problems really exist, however. The big bang theory actually states that the matter and energy that are our universe came into the forms that we now recognize over a long period of time that started at time t=0. OK, that's a long-winded way to say that the big bang theory does not state that our universe was created or poofed into existence from nothing. What we call our universe came into existence when time came to exist, since we measure time by the speed of light (roughly), and before that time would have no meaning to us, but this does not mean that we know what was there prior to the universe. It's a stretch and a half to conclude that this somehow supports "goddidit" in any way, shape, or form. In short, this is simply not a credible argument, no matter how badly the Xian wishes to shoehorn science into her holy book.