atheism

  • hope

    Here's a interesting quote from Greg Koukl: (relevant to many current news stories)

    "The great 20th century atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell wondered how anyone could talk of God when kneeling at the bed of a dying child.  His challenge has powerful rhetorical force.  How can anyone cling to the hope of a benevolent, powerful sovereign in the face of such tragedy?

    "Then Christian philospher William Lane Craig offered this response: 'What is the atheist Bertrand Russell going to say when kneeling at the bed of a dying child? "Too bad"? "Tough luck"? "That's the way it goes"?' No happy ending? No silver lining? Nothing but devastating, senseless evil?

    "They cannot speak of the patience and mercy of God.  They cannot mention the future perfection that awaits all who trust in Christ.  They cannot offer the comfort that a redemptive God is working to cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  They have no "good news" of hope for a broken world."  

     

    In contrast, those of us who know Jesus Christ do have hope....  He is both powerful enough to bring a complete restoration of the world (Revelation 21:3-4), and sympathetic to us during this intermediate period ("Jesus wept." John 11:35).

    Revelation 21:3-4 "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

     

  • Discussion with a scientist friend series, part 2

    (Continuation of the "discussion with a scientist friend series", see  http://tim223.xanga.com/770288549/dialog-with-a-scientist-friend-part-1/  )

     

    Sue: Last week you said that you had several reasons why you believe in an invisible God.  You mentioned one of them: the fact that there is matter/energy and order in the universe.  What are some of your other reasons?

    Tim: Sure.  Another reason that I believe in God stems from the question of how life began.  The Bible says that God created all the plants and animals in various "kinds", or families.  These then gradually experienced genetic variation over the years.  For example, Rottweilers and Chihuahuas would both come from a single "dog" kind created by God in the beginning. On the other hand, the naturalistic explanation for how life began is... well... there actually is no accepted explanation.  There are four or five theories, but scientists are divided about them, and there are major problems with each of them.

    Sue: So you're saying that you believe in God because scientists have not yet figured out how life began?

    Tim: Well, there are these two main explanations for how life began: either God created life, or somehow a living cell formed by chance (called "abiogenesis") and then evolved into all life we see around us today.  After more than a hundred years of investigating different scenarios for how a living cell could have formed by chance, scientists still have no plausible theory.  So I conclude that the Bible's account is more scientifically viable.

    Sue: What are the different scientific theories of abiogenesis that you find hard to believe?

    Tim: It seems to me that there are two basic ways in which naturalists have tried to answer the abiogenesis question.  One is to say that "the origin of life was a very lucky accident", the other is to say "the origin of life was very easy and straightforward and bound to happen sooner or later".  This latter idea is called self-organizing complexity, and suggests that there might be simple scientific principles such that life would be 'guaranteed' to eventually arise.  For example, hurricane cloud formations spontaneously form a complicated-looking spiral shape, but this shape is not designed... it is simply due to Coriolis forces.  The problem is that such spontaneous self-organization has never been seen to happen for cells and cellular components in the lab.  This is because cellular parts are truly complicated and need a complex sequence of precisely arranged proteins and nucleotides to work properly. In contrast, hurricane spirals or rock crystals or other self-organizing patterns have a very simple pattern.  So very few scientists believe that life self-organized anymore.

    Sue: Didn't the Miller-Urey experiment prove that the basic building blocks for cells can arise spontaneously given some lightning in a prebiotic soup?

    Tim: The Miller-Urey experiment showed that very small amounts of amino acids would form, in very carefully controlled conditions where the compounds were continuously removed from the apparatus to prevent them from being broken down.  Actually, only 7 of the 20 amino acids necessary for life were ever found, and of those 7, it was always a racemic mixture, whereas cellular proteins require purely homochiral amino acids. http://creation.com/origin-of-life-the-chirality-problem   So really their experiment showed how improbable it is that even the building blocks for proteins could form by chance chemical conditions (much less the proteins themselves). http://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis

    Sue: Ok, what about the 'RNA-world' hypothesis?  I've heard that it is a popular explanation for abiogenesis.  Also there are 'DNA-first', 'protein-first', and 'metabolism-first' hypotheses.

    Tim: Right. The 'RNA-world' hypothesis is that somehow an RNA molecule formed which had the ability to catalyze the formation of copies of itself.  Once this "self-replication" process began, eventually mutations began to occur and the "fitter" molecules (more resistant to degradation) survived, and over time it turned into a living cell.  Unfortunately, the lab experiments for this have only shown RNA molecules which can catalyze already-existing pieces of itself (e.g. it can catalyze the polymerization of a 15-base-pair fragment of itself and a 17-base-pair fragment of itself into the full 32-base-pair molecule, as long as the fragments are purely homochiral)... such molecules are not able to build themselves up gradually. Likewise the DNA-first hypothesis has seen even less laboratory evidence for successful self-polymerization (no more than 4 or 5 base-pairs have ever been seen to spontaneously self-polymerize) or self-replication, or spontaneously generating a working DNA/RNA system.  Both DNA and RNA need special chaperone and handler proteins when they are in solution together, otherwise they will stick to each other and prevent creation of a working translation system.  http://crev.info/2011/08/110802-cell_chaperones/  A single DNA gene would be unlikely to have been formed by chance, but even an assumed "simplest-possible cell" would need at least 387 protein-coding and 43 RNA-coding genes. http://creation.com/how-simple-can-life-be The protein-first hypothesis is equally unlikely, for at least three reasons.  First, the peptide bonds are thermodynamically unfavorable, and thus do not spontaneously occur.  Second, even if a protein was to spontaneously polymerize, only a very small percentage of random amino acid sequences produce stable folded proteins (for example, a short 150-aa protein has only a 10^-75 chance of folding stably).  Third, even if a protein happens to form and stably fold, it is even less likely that the sequence happens to form the correct shape for the appropriate biological function needed (probability on the order of 10^-164, according to Stephen Meyer, "Signature in the Cell", page 217). http://tim223.xanga.com/753422666/god---imaginary-friend/?nextdate=1522396684&direction=n#1522396684 http://creation.com/loopholes-in-the-evolutionary-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-summary The metabolism-first hypothesis suggests that a steady system of chemical reactions developed first, and gradually over time this system began to become more complicated, until eventually DNA and RNA arose in the process (since the energy gradient was already there).  While chemical reaction systems can certainly arise, any gradual change in the reactions is not able to accurately preserve the 'information' of the reaction chain... it is unable to pass-along the information accurately to future metabolic reaction systems.  So this approach doesn't work either.  Some kind of information-carrying molecules are needed. http://crev.info/2010/01/metabolismfirst_origin_of_life_won146t_work/

    Sue: Why does the first cell have to arise fully formed, by "random chance"?  Couldn't it have first formed in a simplified version, and then gradually evolved to become more complex, like the cells we see today?

    Tim: Well, for 'evolution' to occur, there is a lot that is necessary inside this first 'proto-cell'.  It would need to have a way of accurately passing along its genetic information to its progeny, and methods of acquiring nutrients, inter-cellular communication, and especially mechanisms for replicating itself.  Although many scientists hope that someday a 'proto-cell' like you're describing will be shown in the lab, the scientific knowledge we currently have suggests that it will never happen.  Constructs are either too simple to live and reproduce, or too complicated to have been formed by chance... there doesn't seem to be anything in between.

    Sue: But given enough time, just about anything could happen!   I mean, even if it took a billion years, and a billion galaxies, there is so much time and so many opportunities for life to have arisen, that it's just bound to have happened.  Actually, the very fact that we're here talking about it proves that it did happen!

    Tim: Actually, no, that would be circular reasoning, to say that the first life "must have arisen by chance, otherwise we wouldn't be here talking about it."  I could say just the same thing about God creating life.

    Sue: Alright, but given enough time, surely it could have happened somewhere in the universe.

    Tim: Let's do a thought-experiment for a moment.  If you found a note on the lab bench saying "Hi Sue", and I told you that I thought it had been produced by random natural processes, how would you respond?  Let's say I proposed that the air-conditioning fan happening to blow a pencil off the shelf onto a nearby piece of paper, and then blew the paper onto your bench.

    Sue: I would say that's a silly hypothesis.  Of course it must have been written by a human.

    Tim: Why?

    Sue: Well, whenever I've found written notes in the past, they've always been written by humans.

    Tim: But what if I told you that this note was really from a random non-intelligent source, and I said to you "even though it sounds improbable, consider how much time has elapsed in the universe, and how many galaxies there are... so surely it is possible that in at least one location and time, exactly this random event has occurred..."?

    Sue: Ha ha.  So you're saying that my objection about the first cell falls into the same category?

    Tim: Yes... You're correct that we need to consider not only the "unlikelihood" of an unlikely event happening, but also the "probablilistic resources" available.  If there were a billion fans blowing a billion pencils onto a billion pieces of paper, in a huge building right next door, it might be more plausible.  But with just one fan, it is not plausible.  In this case, the probabilistic resources are still smaller than the unlikelihood.  Along the same lines, various mathematicians have suggested "upper bounds" to rule out impossibly improbable events.  For example, Dembski suggested that if the number of elementary particles in the universe (~10^80) could interact with each other continuously as fast as possible (the Planck time, 10^-43 seconds) for the amount of time since the (alleged) Big Bang (10^16 seconds ago), this would give a limit of 10^139 maximum possible interactions.  Thus, any event or chance molecule formation which was less probable than 10^-139 should be considered impossible.  The formation of even one functional protein by chance is less likely than that.  So we ought not to believe that it formed by chance.

    Sue: So that leads you to believe that God created life?

    Tim: Yes, it is another piece of evidence...  Scientifically-speaking, there is no plausible theory for how the first cell could have arisen.  On the other hand, the Bible explains that God created all kinds of life, in the beginning.  Just like you should legitimately conclude that a person wrote a note on your bench, we should conclude that our origins are not random... we are from God.  As the Bible says, "We are His people, the sheep of His pastures."

    Sue: But I can't believe that, because it's not scientific.  It's not scientific to say that "God created life".  God is invisible.  He is not measureable or observable.

    Tim: If you found a penciled note on your desk, would it be 'scientific' to conclude that it was written by an intelligent person rather than formed by blind random chance processes?

    Sue: That's different, because humans are observable.

    Tim: How would you define "scientific"?

    Sue: The study of physical, observable objects through repeatable, empirically-verifiable experimentation.

    Tim: So you're saying that you can't believe in God, because he is not scientific... by which you mean, not currently observable...?

    Sue: Yes.

    Tim: It turns out that God has made Himself observable, through certain historical interactions. But also, why should you assume that if you can't observe God, that means He doesn't exist?  That's like saying, "I didn't see anybody write that note on my bench; therefore I believe it must have had a chance origin."

    Sue: No, it's different in principle.  The author of the hypothetical note on my bench would be visible, so I can believe in him or her.  But God is invisible.

    Tim: I'm not following your logic.  I agree with you that we should not believe in things that we have no evidence for.  But what if there is evidence that an invisible, unobservable God does exist?  For example, the presence of life on earth, which all of our naturalistic scientific theories can't explain?  Not to mention the existence of matter/energy and order, that we discussed last time... and several other reasons to believe in God which I can share in the future.  Why should God's being "unscientific" (invisible) force us to conclude that He doesn't exist?  Isn't it possible that a Being could exist who might not be accessible to our scientific methods?

    Sue: Well, I prefer to only believe in things that I can see and verify scientifically, repeatedly, in the lab.

    Tim: Like abiogenesis?

    Sue: Even though it hasn't yet been shown in the lab, in principle it could be, some day.  So I would rather believe in abiogenesis than in God, because I prefer to stick with the visible world.  Besides, I think that you are committing a "God-of-the-gaps" fallacy by believing that since we haven't yet figured out exactly how random physical processes could create the first cell, therefore God did it.

    Tim: Have you considered that you might be committing a "chance-of-the-gaps" fallacy in the same way?  It sounds to me like you are saying, "No matter how improbable, I will continue to believe that somehow, time and chance produced the first living cell."  This is essentially assigning infinite powers to 'Chance', to do anything and everything.

    Sue: Ha ha.  Well, ok, I'm committing the chance-of-the-gaps fallacy, and you're committing the God-of-the-gaps fallacy.  Is there any way to break out of our presuppositional lockdown?  Also, I am running out of time here, but maybe we can continue this discussion in the future.

    Tim: Sure... there are three more main reasons why I believe in God, which I'd be glad to share more about in the future: (1) evolution can't explain the origin of genetic information, (2) Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from the dead, and (3) the existence of objective morality.  I think that the history surrounding Jesus in particular is able to break us out of our 'presuppositional lockdown'... because in Jesus, the invisible God made Himself known in tangible human flesh...   Until next time then!

     

    To be continued...

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