Great! We need to give him the honor of thinking that through as a pioneer! Thanks for the research.
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I do that sort of thing. Like I have explained. I am predisposed to reject all proofs for the existence of God and regularly help atheists tear them down. Another reason is that I consider atheism to be a perfectly rational alternative and that only stands if all proofs for the existence of God are objectively invalid. However, I cannot say that I do not sympathize with those who find your request a little strange, since this is pretty much a believer’s website.
Also… as it is, your request is too big. To respond to an entire website requires website sized response. You need to be more specific and point to a particular argument. But just to show you that I am not brushing you off, I will pick something and demonstrate.
So… I go to the pamphlets and the first one is “A practical man’s proof of God.”
First it lays out evidence that the universe has a beginning. But this is scientific fact with loads of evidence and so it is not reasonable to dispute this claim.
Second it addresses the question of the cause of this beginning. It may be that some atheist had the idea of claiming that the universe is self-existing, and although this is absurd on the face of it, perhaps they were trying to throw similar claims about God back in the face of theists. To that extent the objection is valid, because every talk about the origins of the universe has to start with something. The theists usually start with God and the atheist/naturalists usually start with natural law. An example is the way Hawking starts with quantum physics and proposes that the universe began with a quantum fluctuation. If you claim that theists can justify their belief as God being the beginning with this concept of self-existence, the naturalists can do them one better by showing that many of the laws of nature can be derived by symmetry breaking from simpler natural laws which can then be claimed to be self-existing – why not?
Then the pamphlet claims there is a contradiction between the conservation laws and the fact that the universe has a beginning. The are a couple problems with this. The first problem with this is that these conservation laws are not quite so absolute. The conservation of energy depends on time. The related uncertainty principle states that the uncertainty of energy is inversely proportional to the period of time involved and thus over very short periods of time large amounts of energy can appear (or be borrowed) out of nothing as long as it disappears again (or is paid back) with that short period of time. Then the idea is that the positive energy which appeared in the universe is balanced out by the negative energy of space-time expansion.
The other problem is that the universe began in a singularity where most of these laws of nature break down. However, perhaps that is the point which this pamphlet is making that these laws are not absolute. (if so my respect for the education and intelligence of the maker of this pamphlet has definitely gone up a notch)
Next there is the claim that if the beginning (i.e. big bang) is the origin of space and time then the cause must be outside space and time. This sounds like a very good argument to me, so I will not object to that one. And indeed the next thing it does is acknowledge that there have been plenty of proposals by naturalists for causes outside space and time, though I think Hawking’s suggestion from quantum physics that the event is a quantum fluctuation is also worth mentioning. But all it says about these proposals is that they are un-testable and thus we can agree that they are essentially no different than the suggestion that God is the cause.
In the next paragraph it says the next question is whether intelligence ought to be a property of this cause. But no argument is actually stated here, only a vague reference to using statistics and several books which talk about this. In other words, in my judgement, the maker of this pamphlet is very intelligent and educated indeed and is thus rather careful to make no arguments which are objectively invalid. But isn’t it rather significant that the result is that they haven’t actually made any argument at all? Instead, I believe that what this really smart person is doing, is leaving all the invalid portions of the argument for someone else to make – and that really makes me laugh!
Believe that @Truth_Seeker is doing a great job of asking for devil’s advocate opinions; and @beaglelady also has a good point that even if our arguments are terrible, that doesn’t really need to shake our conviction of God or his character. @mitchellmckain is helping with the 50/50 principle of arguing to question and make convictions better. I’m going to read this better. Thanks.
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I can too. I believe those people are the true Church. Not a brick and mortar building full of bickering and nonsense.
Thanks for getting down to brass tacks. May I ask why you think it is silly? I am no biologist, but I do have a hard time figuring out how many lifeforms can evolve to be so specialised before dying out due to that which they are specialised to work with, being incomplete or non-existent at the time.
Honestly, he sometimes comes across as full-blown I.D, but the thing is that he still makes sense.
That certainly seems to be his view, yes.
Oh good, I always liked this one.
That’s a bit of a shame. I wish there was more to it.
To be fair to him, he does admit that he is ‘small potatoes’. He does book reviews on many authors more educated than he is, this is where I found most of my own arguments and reasons to believe. Being a messenger isn’t so bad.
I appreciate your contributions to this thread, mitchellmckain. I am glad you didn’t just brush me off.
This is what I’m after. As hard as it can be, I enjoy other sides to the argument. When I first began seeking, I would switch between theist and atheist materials. It can be… Frustrating. To say the least. And is perhaps why my mind is always so torn and insecure. John actually told me to avoid doing that as he knew it would keep me in a state of stagnation in regards to following Christ. I don’t see how I can though. The simple thought of ‘what if I am wrong?’ drives me quite mad…
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@Truth_Seeker, I sympathize with that. I am from a very evangelical background, where it’s thought if we weren’t able to get the right belief, we would go to Hell. In fact, as a teen, I agonized about that so much that I was constantly worried for about a year or two that I had committed the unforgiveable sin. But God’s not like that, thank God!
I’ve been grateful recently for books that reminded me that God has compassion on us as a father; he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust (like Psalm 103). Greg Boyd in “The Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty” changed my approach here. He pointed out that God wants us to use our intellect. He’s glad when we ask questions. He doesn’t value people for the ability to quash all their questions.
George Macdonald is another who convinced me of God’s goodness. He wrote many books that illustrated his belief that Jesus was sent to tell us about the Father, and that he is just like him. Having grown up in a strict Calvinist background, he rejected Jonathan Edwards’ “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” and believed that God punishes to correct, not to get revenge. Experimental Theology: George MacDonald: Justice, Hell and Atonement
After reading Macdonald, I understood that God values our hearts–that we are asking questions and seeking truth. He knows that we can’t know everything. I think that He even can accept an atheist more than a hypocritical, worldly Christian.
Brian Zahnd (Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God), Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled), Pete Enns (Sin of Certainty), and Randal Rauser (randalrauser.com) are similar.
@Mervin_Bitikofer may have other comments on this, too. Your comments are welcome. I still am not totally comfortable with everything, but I feel on better footing when I realize that God judges like my own godly parents would–like Jesus–knowing our hearts.
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Dung would break down even without dung beetles. Earth has these natural cycles whereby organic things decay (leaves, animals, dung, etc.) and return nutrients to the soil, to be taken up again by other organisms.
Specialization: It happens over time, not all at once. . Many plants and their pollinators co-evolved specialized adaptations that aid pollination.
And there is no guarantee that things are going to remain the same. Over 95% of organisms that have ever lived have become extinct.
And God is still there; he didn’t go anywhere. He doesn’t become less important after we have figured out how stuff works.
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I really resonate with all that from Macdonald. When God declares to us that “vengeance is not yours … it is mine; I will repay…” I think many of those in the psalmist’s time (and still today) absorb these words with glee at the hoped-for retributions to be visited on all their/our enemies (and always with the standing offer to be God’s instruments and agents to help bring that about). But when one has re-read this through Christologically-acclimated eyes, the situation resembles more that of a wise father gently removing a dangerous loaded gun from a young toddler’s hands, saying “I’ll be keeping this safely out of your reach; it is not a toy for you” - not because the father intends to commence now in hurting others with the weapon, but precisely the opposite in fact.
I have begun spending some time looking into what are considered key passages in support of substitutionary atonement - there are a few. And it is interesting to spend time in scriptures “wearing” the different mindsets to see which clothing fits better with the warp and woof of scripture. My impression is that those who would read everything through substitutionary atonement eyes have the more ill-fitting clothing that requires a bit more theological contortion (to justify separating God’s mercy from his justice and pitting those things against each other leading to a “divided God”.) One can certainly find O.T. references to sacrificial systems that make it a well-worn groove of thought for the minds so trained. But my sense so far is that it leads to more scriptural discomfiture overall than the alternative. Trying that alternative on, and reading scriptures through those eyes (in which punishment and suffering are for redemptive purposes, not vindictive ones) is almost like a palpable breath of relief as one revisits nearly the whole of scripture through different eyes. More passages that hitherto had to be force-fit into the rigid tradition (or maybe even set aside entirely) now settle into their place of belonging. Yes, there now remain a couple passages that still make some waves the other way now (maybe just one - I’ve not done any formal study on all this so my impressions here can be dismissed as premature by those so-inclined), but those passages seem rather isolated and to let a rigid traditionally accrued reading of them be set against the over-all testimony of the whole of scripture is to let the tail wag the dog in my way of thinking. I prefer to set my understanding of a couple of proof-texts aside for the moment as being in need of further understanding, rather than to recast the whole of scriptures to fit a doctrinal tradition built on such shaky ground.
I’m still reading MacDonald’s other sermons, though, and still taking in more of his thoughts. He was obviously very steeped in scripture not just for propositional instruction (which he tosses aside as such when compared with the opportunity to live in the bride-groom’s presence). He sees scriptures as a delivery vehicle (and values them no less for it) toward a true end: to live for, and follow Christ; …only then will any lingering wrong-headed opinions take care of themselves.
One can almost hear MacDonald rebuking us: “why are you still talking about me, and arguing about ideas when you have the blessed Christ in view beckoning you?”
Sorry, @Truth_Seeker; this may have been quite the rabbit-trail for this thread. But I never lose a chance to “talk some MacDonald” with Randy who put me on to one of his key sermons.
[edited for clarity]
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Just finished reading the link… Wow, what an awful smear attempt!
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Yeah. I hope it’s clear that I posted it to show the history and reaction of Creationists, not because I agree with the assessment. The criticisms will sound all too familiar to most people here. In my limited experience with a couple churches, Church of Christ as a denomination tends to be pretty accepting of science. I guess the fact that Clayton operates under the authority of his local church’s board is testament to that, even though there are objections. They haven’t managed to get him kicked out after all these years, which speaks to a kind of tolerance, even though the opposition is disheartening.
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Crystal.
Kicked out of the Church… Boggles my mind that this happens.
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