#1—Atheists Rightly Point Out How Unloving and Cowardly Christians Are Who Do Not Evangelize

Penn Jillette is a famous comedian, actor, and entertainer, as well as a very outspoken atheist. In 2010, he made a five-minute personal video about a kind gentleman who handed him a Bible after one of his shows. Jillette said: “I believe he knew that I was an atheist. But he was not defensive and he looked me right in the eyes…. He was really kind, and nice, and sane…and talked to me and then gave me this Bible.”²

Although many (perhaps most) atheists do not want to be approached with the Gospel, Jillette went on to say:

I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell, and people could be going to Hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward…how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?³

The fact is, Jillette was simply using logic in drawing this conclusion: If Christians believe what they say they believe about eternal life and eternal death (Matthew 25:46), then they will teach the Gospel to others in a kind, loving, Christ-like manner.⁴

#2—Atheists Correctly Call Out the Hypocrisy of Pretend Christianity, But They Illogically Conclude That Pretend Christianity Justifies a Rejection of the Real Thing

One atheist was reported to have said a few years ago: “We hear an awful lot from conservatives in the Bible Belt and on the TV about how we all should be living. Certainly a culture that teaches the conservative religious values of the Christian right must have clean living written all over it. And lots of ripe fruit from their morally superior lives abounding. It doesn’t. Far from it. People that talk the loudest may be the ones walking the slowest. Joining its history of Biblically correct bigotry and discrimination, it is an area with the highest divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy,” etc.⁵ The fact is, many people who call themselves Christians do not walk in the light of the Lord, but sadly stroll in the devil’s darkness.

Consider one example. In 2014, 86% of Alabamians claimed to be Christians.⁶ In Montgomery, the state’s capital city of about 200,000 people,⁷ the proverbial phrase “you’ll find a church on every corner” rightly portrays this city of over 250 churches.⁸ Sadly, in 2015, this “Christian city” was statistically crowned “the most sexually diseased city in the nation.”⁹

Indeed, atheists should call out such blatant hypocrisy on the part of many “Christians.” In fact, they are doing what Christian parents, preachers, and Bible teachers should be doing continually—warning those who claim to be Christians not to live in sin, including any kind of sexual sin.¹⁰ No doubt, hypocrisy runs wild in “Christian America” today¹¹ in part because (a) so many churches seem more interested in social gatherings and entertainment than preaching on sin and salvation,¹² and (b) most churches appear too politically correct to address specific sinful situations in their midst, which only exacerbates the problems in churches across the country (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:1-13).

Still, for all the disheartening hypocrisy among the religious today, just as a counterfeit $100 bill does not prove that genuine $100 bills do not exist, counterfeit Christianity is not a logical reason to reject authentic Christianity. Neither Cain’s unacceptable religious sacrifice nor his murder of Abel made true worship and service to God illogical. What’s more, neither Judas’s thievery nor his betrayal of Jesus made the religion of Jesus invalid. God condemns hypocrisy (Matthew 5:20), but He gives everyone sufficient evidence to know the Truth and obey it (John 8:32)—to follow the evidence where it leads and to become real, genuine Christians, like Peter and Paul, Philip and Phoebe, and Aquila and Priscilla.

#3—Atheists Correctly Point Out the Illogical, Blind Faith of Many “Christians,” But They Fail to Acknowledge that Atheism (Not Christianity) is Based Upon “Blind Faith”

In his book The End of Faith, atheist Sam Harris addressed beliefs and the importance of evidence and reason. He was especially critical of Christians, saying:

Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.¹³

Sadly, Harris’s words seem to accurately describe many (perhaps most) who profess to be Christians. Rather than being real truth seekers and evidence followers, many are “Christians” because of mere feelings, emotions, preferences, and traditions. Atheists rightly call out such illogical, evidence-less faith. “That’s how I was raised,” or “I just feel it in my heart” are not real reasons to be a Christian (or anything else for that matter). To claim to be a Christian for irrational, mere feel-good reasons is unreasonable, unbiblical, and unChristlike. The fact is, God has always expected man to be reasonable, just as the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus were reasonable (1 Samuel 12:7; John 5:31-47; 10:37-38; Acts 26:22-25; 2 Peter 1:16). [For proof that reason and divine revelation go hand-in-hand, be sure to read Is Christianity Logical? available from Apologetics Press.¹⁴]

While atheists correctly point out the illogical, blind faith of many Christians, the truth is, the evidence actually disproves atheism and supports genuine Christianity.¹⁵ If, as the First Law of Thermodynamics indicates, in nature, matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, then a Universe could not create itself from nothing.¹⁶ Thus, if naturalistic atheism is true (and at one time absolutely nothing existed),¹⁷ then there should be absolutely nothing today. Yet, here we are—an entire Universe, which is perhaps the greatest evidence for the existence of God. Indeed, matter demands a Maker. The existence of intricate, self-replicating life demands an original life Giver.¹⁸ Complex, functional design in nature demands a Designer, not an accidental explosion of a tiny ball of matter.¹⁹ Intelligence in the material realm demands an intelligent Creator (i.e., intelligence does not arise from dust, dirt, rocks, water, or mud, much less from “nothing”). The Bible’s supernatural attributes demand a supernatural Author.²⁰ And the historical, miracle-working, resurrected-from-the-dead Jesus Christ demands a supernatural explanation.²¹

Conclusion

It can be helpful for atheists to point out any flaws in those who claim to be Christians. The truthful, logical criticisms of others combined with humble hearts can lead to necessary repentance and renewed dedication to our Creator, Savior, and Judge (Luke 13:3,5; Acts 2:38; 17:30-31). Let’s just be sure not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” While faithful Christians are still imperfect (1 John 1:5-10; 5:13), and while phony, hypocritical Christians have always been with us, such flaws are in no way a logical argument against the Flawless One (1 Peter 2:21-24), His Word, and the need to be faithful members of His Church.²² In fact, the evidence will lead any honest, good-hearted, seeking soul to this conclusion (Proverbs 8:17; Luke 8:4-15).

Endnotes

¹ Recall how Jesus told the parable of the unjust steward in hopes of His hearers learning an important lesson (Luke 16:1-8)—seemingly that if an unrighteous man is willing to take drastic measures to prepare for his physical future, how much more should the righteous be willing to do in preparation for eternity?

The post 3 Things We Can Learn From Atheists appeared first on Apologetics Press.

I would only tell the truth if it benefited me. And I would lie whenever I felt like I needed to in order to get what Iwanted, as quickly as I could, with as few repercussions as possible.

If I did ever get caught with the proverbial “hand in the cookie jar” (and I was an atheist), I would justifiably do and say whatever I could to get out of trouble. I would lie. I would use false flattery. I would intimidate. I would use physical force. Depending on the occasion, I might even explain that, logically, there is nothing evil or wrong with what I did, because there is no such thing as objective right and wrong, only what someone might subjectively perceive as such. I would explain that just because someone did not want me to “get in the cookie jar” doesn’t mean I couldn’t or shouldn’t. Nor did it mean it would be wrong—only that someone else didn’t want me to do something. But since I wanted to do it, then it was okay for me.

In school (as long as I didn’t think I would get caught), I would cheat as much as I wanted to in order to make the highest grades with the least amount of work. I would flirt and attempt to curry favor with female teachers in hopes of leniency and better grades. I would never help any of my classmates, since I would want to be valedictorian (unless I thought by helping others, I was actually improving my own situation even more somehow—such as by becoming more popular or attracting girls, which might become more important to me than having the highest grades in school). While a teenager, I would fulfill as many of my adolescent desires as possible, as much as possible, in any way possible (as long as the potential repercussions were worth it).

If I were an atheist, my sole motivation for working would be to get rich—to make the most amount of money, with the least amount of work, and to spend the money on the maximum amount of pleasure for myself. I would do or say whatever I needed to do or say to climb the ladder of success. I would not hesitate to lie and take credit for the work of others if I thought it would help me get what I wanted faster (again, with as few repercussions as possible). I would not make decisions based upon what’s best for others, or even what’s best for the company, but only what is best for me now—and perhaps in the future.

If I were an atheistic politician in a heavily “Christian” district or state, I would claim to be a Christian to get elected—after all, to atheism “the end justifies the means.” Since there is still a far greater number of theists in the U.S. than atheists, I would not admit to my atheism, except perhaps to other atheists behind closed doors. (If they, too, were taking atheism to its logical conclusion, they would clearly see my rationale for lying to the American people.) I would say whatever people wanted me to say in public and in private in order to get their votes and monetary support. Since most of the media seem more friendly to atheism and non-religion than to real, New Testament Christianity, I would count on the media to help cover-up some of my lies and inconsistencies. And, if and when one or more of my contradictory statements needed to be addressed publicly, I would basically do what I did as an unbelieving, undisciplined child—I would lie, flatter, distract, play the “poor me” card, or whatever it took to not take responsibility for my obvious lies (unless there was ever a moment that “taking responsibility” happened to be the best course of action for myself).

Again, I wouldn’t tell anyone exactly how I really felt about all of these things—not my parents, my boss, my friends, or my girlfriend. (I probably wouldn’t see the advantage of getting married.) I also wouldn’t tell my kids. (Actually, I probably wouldn’t want any kids since they cost too much money and energy, and if my girlfriend ever got pregnant I might encourage her to “abort the little blob of tissue”—again, if I were an atheist.) I wouldn’t tell anyone that I would be willing to lie, cheat, steal, envy, and even kill at any strategic moment, because I would want people to think that I was actually an authentic, gracious, courageous, honorable, honest, compassionate, respectable man of integrity.

I am not suggesting that all atheists act this way, but I am suggesting that if atheism were taken to its logical conclusion, it would look this way (and even far worse). And if I were really an atheist, I could see no logical reason not to act in accordance with all of my own fleshly desires. To quote Charles Darwin: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.”¹ If I were an atheist, I would merely act like the evolved animal my school textbooks had always told me I was, and that I thought I was—guided by impulses and instincts to have as much good food, sex, money, pleasure, and power as possible (never really concerning myself with the needs of others). Life would always be about me, myself, and I. I would do whatever I wanted to do, since, to quote 20^th-century atheistic philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist.”²

Although renowned atheist Richard Dawkins could never prove that life’s sole purpose is to perpetuate one’s DNA, he is right about one thing: in the world of atheism, “[s]o long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process. Genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about anything.”³ He went on to expound upon the atheistic worldview, noting: “This universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”⁴ Atheism, taken to its ultimate conclusion, makes for a very, very dark world—full of repugnant vices.

Genuine Christianity

By the grace of God, I’m not an atheist; I’m a Christian. And though I have failed miserably in my life to live up to the flawless standard of my perfect, loving, and just Creator and Savior, by His grace and mercy I’m determined to follow His holy Word and His righteous example (1 John 1:6-10): to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:37-40). I’m extremely motivated to be an honest husband, a dedicated dad, a faithful friend, a hard-working employee, and a loving leader because I believe in, and I’m guided by, a power much higher, brighter, and better than myself.

I joyfully live a life of submission to Almighty God:

• Because He created me.
• Because, as the all-knowing God, He knows far more than I do, and thus I should listen to Him and not myself.

I seek to live according to God’s purpose for my life:

• Because He loves me more than anyone else does; even more than my wife and kids, and my parents. (Why not listen to the One who knows me and loves me more than anyone else?)
• And if that’s not motivation enough, consider that eternal life awaits those who embrace God and the salvation that He provides through Jesus Christ, while eternal punishment awaits “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8).

It’s true that many Christians continually live hypocritical lives, illogically engaging in the very acts that Christ condemns (and which the philosophy of atheism, when taken to its logical conclusion, approves). But such foolish, unacceptable, eternally damning hypocrisy⁵ by some so-called Christians doesn’t mean it’s not logical to be real Christians. Genuine followers of Jesus have as their deepest and strongest desire in this life—to live with the Creator and Savior of the world in the next life, and to see as many people as possible (even enemies) choose the same rewarding path, by the grace of God.

Who will you choose to serve in this physical life that we have on Earth? Yourself, or your Creator? How you answer this question will determine where you live forever in the next life (Matthew 7:13-14; cf. Joshua 24:15). [*For information on what the Bible teaches about how to be saved from sin and become a Christian, please read our free e-book Receiving the Gift of Salvation at apologeticspress.org.]

Endnotes

The post If I Were an Atheist… appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Greed/Materialism—“I can make money by believing this viewpoint.”

Jealousy—“If I hold this viewpoint I will be held in higher esteem than others.”

Loyalty—“I believe this viewpoint because my parents did.”

Ambition—“I will advance in my career if I believe this viewpoint.”

Selfishness—“I want to believe this viewpoint because it makes me feel better.”

Sensualism—“I believe this viewpoint because I can indulge myself sexually.”

Ignorance—“I’m not sure why I believe this viewpoint, but I do.”

Bias/Prejudice—“I don’t believe that viewpoint because of who else believes it.”

Indifference—“I hold this viewpoint, but it really doesn’t matter much to me.”

Foolish Pride—“The smart people don’t believe that viewpoint.”

If God exists and the Bible is His Word, then what we believe and why we believe it are crucial and eternally significant.

Intellectuals throughout history have considered themselves superior to others based on their alleged intellectual prowess. The atheistic elite of our day ooze arrogance in their condescending dismissal of those who believe in God. They seek to give the impression that they believe what they believe due solely to a rational, unbiased, sensible analysis of facts that have, in turn, led them to the beliefs that they hold. On the other hand, those who do not consent to their infidelity are depicted as ignorant, biased, and stupid. Consider the frantic judgment leveled by prominent evolutionist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”¹

Despite such high and holy self-righteous declarations, the fact is that the very nature of error is such that a person can continue to embrace it only by means of impure motives. If an honest atheist is willing to examine the facts, he will either cease being an atheist or he will cease being honest. Hence, those who have distinguished themselves for their ongoing vociferous defense of their infidelity most assuredly possess one or more motives deep down in their hearts that enable them to dismiss the actual evidence that disproves their viewpoint.

Interestingly, atheists occasionally divulge their inner motives without particularly intending to do so. For example, in a makeshift “debate” conducted in 2010 on the campus of Caltech between atheists Sam Harris and Michael Shermer on the one hand, and Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the other, Sam Harris made the following observations:

Most of our neighbors believe in…a personal God who hears our prayers and occasionally answers them…. The God that our neighbors believe in is essentially an invisible person. It’s a Creator deity who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primates. Lucky us. And He’s got galaxy upon galaxy to attend to, but he’s especially concerned with what we do, and he’s especially concerned with what we do while naked. He almost certainly disapproves of homosexuality.²

While we humans often constitute a hodge-podge of conflicting motives and inclinations, nevertheless, in our conversations we often unwittingly expose one or more of our hidden motives for believing what we believe. To ridicule Christians for holding to an ethical framework that was authored by the Creator of the Universe (Who created human sexuality) implies that the accuser disagrees with those restrictions on sexual behavior. But notice further that Harris implied something else: his belief in atheism enables him to not be concerned about his sexual behavior. The same motives that infected pagans throughout history in which their heathenism enabled them to be released from sexual inhibitions—from the Moabites³ in 1500 B.C. to the Ephesians⁴ in A.D. 60—are the same for atheists. Unbelief allows a person to be free to engage in whatever sexual activity he desires, whenever and with whomever. The intellectual sophistication and academic elitism that accompanies modern atheism is nothing more than a smokescreen to indulge the flesh. The reason Hollywood hates Christianity is because they want to be able to give full vent to their illicit fleshly appetites without feeling the guilt that comes from flaunting the moral restraints given by the Creator. Christians in Ephesus in the first century fully understood these ulterior motives that underlie one’s belief system. They lived in a city that hosted one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—the Temple of Artemis—dedicated to the goddess with her vulgar adornments.⁵ Paul spoke right to the soul of the population when he penned the following inspired words to the church—an apt evaluation of the unbelief that grips both atheism and much of the religious error of the world:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! (Ephesians 4:17-20, ESV, emp. added).

Endnotes

¹ Richard Dawkins (1989), “Book Review” (of Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey’s Blueprint), The New York Times, section 7, April 9, p. 3, emp. added.

² Sam Harris (2010), “The Future of God Debate: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer vs. Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston,” Nightline Faceoff, ABC News, March 14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E99BdOfxAE; See also Dan Harris and Ely Brown (2010), “‘Nightline’ ‘Face-Off’: Does God Have a Future?” March 23, http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaceOff/nightline-face-off-god-future/story?id=10170505.

³ Numbers 25:1-2.

⁴ Acts 19.

⁵ James Edwards (2016), “Archaeology Gives New Reality to Paul’s Ephesus Riot,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 42[4]:28-30, July/August.

The post Why Be An Atheist? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Part 1 of this two-part series appeared in the April issue. Part 2 follows below and continues, without introductory comments, where the first article ended.]

Problem #4: Unscientific

As with inflation theory, the multiverse is untestable and unobservable, making it unscientific. Astrophysicist and Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University Adam Riess and astrophysicist Mario Livio, previously at the Space Telescope Science Institute, stated: “Even just mentioning the multiverse idea…raises the blood pressure of some physicists. The notion seems hard to swallow and harder to test—perhaps signifying the end of the classical scientific method as we know it. Historically this method has required that hypotheses should be directly testable by new experiments or observations.”¹ But observation, direct testing, and experimentation are not possible with the multiverse. Ellis, in apparent frustration, admitted:

Similar claims [about the existence of multiverses—JM] have been made since antiquity by many cultures. What is new is the assertion that the multiverse is a scientific theory, with all that implies about being mathematically rigorous and experimentally testable. I am skeptical about this claim. I do not believe the existence of those other universes has been proved—or ever could be. Proponents of the multiverse, as well as greatly enlarging our conception of physical reality, are implicitly redefining what is meant by “science”…. The various “proofs,” in effect, propose that we should accept a theoretical explanation instead of insisting on observational testing. But such testing has, up until now, been the central requirement of the scientific endeavor, and we abandon it at our peril. If we weaken the requirement of solid data, we weaken the core reason for the success of science over the past centuries.²

Krauss noted that “for many people, multiverses…are indications of how far fundamental physics may appear to be diverging from what is otherwise considered to be sound empirical science.”³ Regarding string theory, inflation, and the multiverse theory, Ellis and Silk insisted, “We agree with theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder: post-empirical science is an oxymoron…. In our view, the issue boils down to clarifying one question: what potential observational or experimental evidence is there that would persuade you that the theory is wrong and lead you to abandoning it? If there is none, it is not a scientific theory.”⁴ Buchanan, writing in New Scientist about the multiverse, bewilderedly said,

[F]antasy is the very word that occurs to many—including some physicists—when they hear some of the ideas popular in cosmology…. [I]nflationary cosmologists have opened the speculative throttle so fully that physicists now talk routinely of such things as an infinitude of parallel universes, or a “multiverse”…. Is this still science? Or has inflationary cosmology veered towards something akin to religion? Some physicists wonder….⁵

By the end of the article, Buchanan’s answer was clear. “In the end, this [i.e., the multiverse—JM] isn’t science so much as philosophy using the language of science.”⁶

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist, faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo. In an article titled, “You Think There’s a Multiverse? Get Real,” he forthrightly argued the following:

[T]he multiverse theory has difficulty making any firm predictions and threatens to take us out of the realm of science. These other universes are unobservable and because chance dictates the random distribution of properties across universes, positing the existence of a multiverse does not let us deduce anything about our universe beyond what we already know. As attractive as the idea may seem, it is basically a sleight of hand, which converts an explanatory failure into an apparent explanatory success…. We started out trying to explain why the universe is so special, and we end up being asked to believe that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes with random properties. This makes me suspect that there is a basic but unexamined assumption about the laws of nature that must be overturned…. [T]he multiverse fails as a scientific hypothesis in spite of the fact that simple versions of inflation made some predictions that have been confirmed. The idea of inflation is plagued by the need to explain how the initial conditions were chosen…. [W]e had to invent the multiverse. And thus with an infinite ensemble of unobservable entities we leave the domain of science behind. In some sense, the multiverse embodies the unreal ensemble of all possible solutions to the laws of physics, imagined as elements of an invented ensemble of bubble universes. But this just trades one imaginary, unreal ensemble for another.⁷

Folger admitted, “The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved…. Does it make sense to talk about other universes if they can never be detected?… [Cambridge University astrophysicist Martin] Rees, an early supporter of Linde’s ideas, agrees that it may never be possible to observe other universes directly.”⁸

Naturalists routinely argue that Creation is “unscientific” and therefore should not be taught in science classrooms. After all, God cannot be directly observed, and Creation and Noah’s Flood cannot be reproduced scientifically. In truth, direct evidence for the truth of the biblical model is available⁹ and abundant indirect evidence exists to substantiate the biblical model as well.¹⁰ However, even if it was the case that Creation is unscientific, multiverse theory and inflation (along with the Big Bang) should, on the same grounds that naturalists use, be deemed unscientific by naturalists and left out of the science classroom. Don’t hold your breath that such rational, consistent thinking will prevail among naturalistic scientists. After all, “If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse,”¹¹ and according to Harvard University evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, naturalistic scientists “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”¹²

Problem #5: Origin of the Multiverse

For the sake of argument, let us concede the existence of the multiverse. Next question: where did the multiverse come from? Ellis noted,

Many physicists who talk about the multiverse…assume a multiverse context for their theories without worrying about how it comes to be—which is what concerns cosmologists…. Scientists proposed the multiverse as a way of resolving deep issues about the nature of existence, but the proposal leaves the ultimate issues unresolved. All the same issues that arise in relation to the universe arise again in relation to the multiverse. If the multiverse exists, did it come into existence through necessity, chance or purpose? That is a metaphysical question that no physical theory can answer for either the universe or the multiverse.¹³

Recall that Finkel wrote concerning the multiverse, “This is all highly speculative, but it’s possible that to give birth to a new universe you first need to take a bunch of matter from an existing universe, crunch it down, and seal it off.”¹⁴ If a Universe had to first be in existence before the new one was born, how did it all get started? And where did the “strings” of string theory come from? The multiverse theory still does not answer the ultimate question.

That ultimate question is precisely what Richard Webb titled a 2016 article in New Scientist: “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” One of the hopes about the multiverse theory is that it could explain why our laws of physics are what they are. As we have highlighted elsewhere, they certainly could not write themselves.¹⁵ In the multiverse, every possible law would be expected to happen in some Universe at some time—and possibly many times throughout eternity. But again, the ultimate question is not answered. Webb highlights that truth: “A popular idea is that all the other possible laws of physics—including no laws—exist elsewhere in a ‘multiverse’ of all possible worlds. In that case, why a multiverse?”¹⁶ Theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and Professor at Arizona State University Paul Davies weighed in as well in an article titled “Taking Science on Faith”:

The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.¹⁷

In 2011, he said, “You still have to explain the multiverse. That still has laws. You need a Universe generating mechanism.”¹⁸ According to Davies, the multiverse theory merely moves the goal post. It does not really answer the ultimate question. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist of the City College of New York, agreed, but went even further: “[I]n string theory, there are other universes out there. There’s a multiverse of universes…. [T]he question is, ‘Where did the multiverse come from?’ You could argue, therefore, that maybe you need a god to create the multiverse, or a creator to create string theory, perhaps.”¹⁹

While there are different versions of the multiverse theory which have been suggested, according to Ellis, “[n]early all cosmologists today” accept the type of multiverse wherein “[e]ach [Universe—JM] has a different initial distribution of matter, but the same laws of physics operate in all.”²⁰ As astronomer Shannon Hall wrote in New Scientist, the other universes of the hypothetical multiverse are “all bound by the same laws of physics” as ours. She reasoned, “At least that’s the assumption: those laws don’t change over the distances we can see, so there is no reason to think they will suddenly transform beyond them.”²¹ Recall again that in the multiverse model, in order to form a new Universe you “need to take a bunch of matter from an existing universe, crunch it down, and seal it off.”²² It stands to reason that if one Universe starts from another, then the same laws would apply to both, which agrees with what Ellis stated. But if that is the case, then the same laws which prohibit matter and energy from creating themselves or existing forever in our Universe²³ hold in those other Universes as well.²⁴ The origin of it all must still be accounted for. If matter and energy in our Universe come from “a neighbouring universe leaking into ours,”²⁵ the matter in that Universe still has to have come from somewhere. In the words of evolutionary biologist of Oxford University Richard Dawkins, “Of course it’s counterintuitive that you can get something from nothing. Of course common sense doesn’t allow you to get something from nothing.”²⁶ Reason still leads to an ultimate Creator of everything.

Problem #6: The Multiverse Admits the Existence of the Supernatural

Recall what Ellis and Silk wrote in 2014 in Nature: “This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done.”²⁷ Ironically, the “difficulties” theoretical physicists have encountered have forced many naturalists to go beyond nature to try to explain. As Smolin said, “We had to invent the multiverse,”²⁸ and according to Parker, it was from our “imagination.”²⁹ The use of our imagination to determine where we came from certainly sounds like today’s “science” is moving ever further into the realm of fiction.

Regardless, notice that according to many physicists, something beyond the current definition of science is needed to explain certain things—i.e., the existence of the unobservable, supernatural realm is demanded by the evidence. Notice how Davies put it: “Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith—namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too.”³⁰

Besides the existence of the laws of physics, what kind of “difficulties” are physicists encountering that are forcing them to conclude that something outside of the Universe exists, and therefore, that they need to “invent” the multiverse to avoid God? Many have articulated well the problem. Read on to see a great lesson by naturalists on the need for a supernatural Designer for the Universe. According to Folger, “The idea that the universe was made just for us—known as the anthropic principle—debuted in 1973.”³¹ Since then, the principle has grown in strength. Consider, for example:

• In a 2011 article, under the heading “Seven Questionable Arguments” for the multiverse, Ellis discusses argument number four:
  

  A remarkable fact about our universe is that physical constants have just the right values needed to allow for complex structures, including living things…. I agree that the multiverse is a possible valid explanation for [fine tuning examples—JM]…; arguably, it is the only scientifically based option we have right now. But we have no hope of testing it observationally.³²

  [Notice that the multiverse is “the only scientifically based option,” and yet “we have no hope of testing it observationally.” Doesn’t that make it not a “scientifically based option”?]

• By 2014, Ellis and Silk went even further:
  

  The multiverse is motivated by a puzzle: why fundamental constants of nature, such as the fine-structure constant that characterizes the strength of electromagnetic interactions between particles and the cosmological constant associated with the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, have values that lie in the small range that allows life to exist…. Some physicists consider that the multiverse has no challenger as an explanation of many otherwise bizarre coincidences. The low value of the cosmological constant—known to be 120 factors of 10 smaller than the value predicted by quantum field theory—is difficult to explain, for instance.³³

• John Rennie, the editor for Scientific American, noted,
  

  The basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet we perceive time to move in one direction only—toward the future. Why?³⁴

• Carroll, along the same lines, noted that
  

  [i]f the observable universe were all that existed, it would be nearly impossible to account for the arrow of time in a natural way.³⁵

• According to Smolin,
  

  Everything we know suggests that the universe is unusual. It is flatter, smoother, larger and emptier than a “typical” universe predicted by the known laws of physics. If we reached into a hat filled with pieces of paper, each with the specifications of a possible universe written on it, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would get a universe anything like ours in one pick—or even a billion. The challenge that cosmologists face is to make sense of this specialness. One approach to this question is inflation—the hypothesis that the early universe went through a phase of exponentially fast expansion. At first, inflation seemed to do the trick. A simple version of the idea gave correct predictions for the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. But a closer look shows that we have just moved the problem further back in time. To make inflation happen at all requires us to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe.³⁶

• Folger quotes Linde in Discover magazine:
  

  “We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,” Linde says. Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea…. Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse…. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non-religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”—the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life…. [Andrei Linde:] “And if we double the mass of the electron, life as we know it will disappear. If we change the strength of the interaction between protons and electrons, life will disappear. Why are there three space dimensions and one time dimension? If we had four space dimensions and one time dimension, then planetary systems would be unstable and our version of life would be impossible. If we had two space dimensions and one time dimension, we would not exist,” he says…. [I]f there is no multiverse, where does that leave physicists? “If there is only one universe,” Carr says, “you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”³⁷

• Stuart Clark and Richard Webb, writing in New Scientist, said,
  

  We can’t explain the numbers that rule the universe…the different strengths of weak, strong and electromagnetic forces, for example, or the masses of the particles it introduces…. Were any of them to have even marginally different values, the universe would look very different. The Higgs boson’s mass, for example, is just about the smallest it can be without the universe’s matter becoming unstable. Similar “fine-tuning” problems bedevil cosmology…. Why is the carbon atom structured so precisely as to allow enough carbon for life to exist in the universe?³⁸

• Greene, commenting on Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University Leonard Susskind’s thinking about the multiverse, said,
  

  Susskind was suggesting that string theory augments this grand cosmological unfolding by adorning each of the universes in the multiverse with a different shape for the extra dimensions. With or without string theory, the multiverse is a highly controversial schema, and deservedly so. It not only recasts the landscape of reality, but shifts the scientific goal posts. Questions once deemed profoundly puzzling—why do nature’s numbers, from particle masses to force strengths to the energy suffusing space, have the particular values they do?—would be answered with a shrug…. Most physicists, string theorists among them, agree that the multiverse is an option of last resort….  Looking back, I’m gratified at how far we’ve come but disappointed that a connection to experiment continues to elude us.³⁹

• Mary-Jane Rubenstein, writing in New Scientist, said,
  

  Here’s the dilemma: if the universe began with a quantum particle blipping into existence, inflating godlessly into space-time and a whole zoo of materials, then why is it so well suited for life? For medieval philosophers, the purported perfection of the universe was the key to proving the existence of God. The universe is so fit for intelligent life that it must be the product of a powerful, benevolent external deity. Or, as popular theology might put it today: all this can’t be an accident. Modern physics has also wrestled with this “fine-tuning problem,” and supplies its own answer. If only one universe exists, then it is strange to find it so hospitable to life, when nearly any other value for the gravitational or cosmological constants would have produced nothing at all. But if there is a “multiverse” of many universes, all with different constants, the problem vanishes: we’re here because we happen to be in one of the universes that works. No miracles, no plan, no creator.⁴⁰

Notice: Physicists cannot help but acknowledge the truth of the Teleological Argument for the existence of God. Design demands a designer, and the Universe has abundant evidence of design (i.e., fine-tuning). The multiverse is a concession by naturalists that we have been right all along: there exists an “unseen realm.” But rather than concede God, naturalists invent the evidence-less, imaginary multiverse. Ironically all the while, the multiverse is itself a supernatural option—albeit, one without any rules concerning how we should behave, making it attractive to many.

Problem #7: Would the Existence of the Multiverse Actually Prove the Existence of God?

According to multiverse theory, “All that can happen, happens” somewhere in the many Universes that make up the multiverse.⁴¹ Ellis explained concerning the multiverse that “[i]n seeking to explain why nature obeys certain laws and not others, some physicists and philosophers have speculated that nature never made any such choice: all conceivable laws apply somewhere. The idea is inspired in part by quantum mechanics, which, as Murray Gell-Mann memorably put it, holds that everything not forbidden is compulsory.”⁴² Sokol agrees: “In the multiverse of eternal inflation, everything that can happen has happened—and will probably happen again.”⁴³ In 2014, Lisa Grossman authored an article in New Scientist titled “Quantum Twist Kills the Multiverse: Goodbye Eternal Multiverse, Hello the End of Everything.” Therein, she explained:

In such an infinite multiverse, everything that has even a slight chance of happening is virtually certain to happen—you just need to wait long enough. Some theorists have pointed out that, taken to its logical conclusion, that includes the spontaneous aggregation of matter so that it creates self-aware, disembodied brains. It’s the same kind of logic that says an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. “It sounds like something a bunch of college sophomores would discuss while high. It doesn’t sound like a real scientific problem,” says Scott Aaronson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.⁴⁴

It’s certainly a ludicrous idea—“pure speculation” in the words of Ellis⁴⁵—but that is what multiverse theory suggests. Buchanan explained: “In the multiverse, every conceivable world exists, and individuals identical to you and I live out parallel lives in places we cannot have access to.”⁴⁶ Gefter said that in the multiverse, “[e]very conceivable value of dark energy or anything else will exist an infinite number of times among the infinite number of universes, and any universal theory of physics valid throughout the multiverse must reproduce all those values.”⁴⁷ Recall that Steinhardt, writing in Nature, criticized the multiverse concept: “Scanning over all possible bubbles in the multiverse, everything that can physically happen does happen an infinite number of times. No experiment can rule out a theory that allows for all possible outcomes.”⁴⁸

Now, that said: if in the multiverse, “all that can happen happens” and “every conceivable world exists”; if “everything that has even a slight chance of happening is virtually certain to happen”; if “anything” “will exist an infinite number of times”; if “everything that can happen has happened—and will probably happen again”; if “everything not forbidden is compulsory”; then why would it not be the case that a God with the characteristics of the one in the Bible would exist in at least one of those Universes? Does the multiverse not demand that God exists? If not, why not? And if a God like the one in the Bible exists, then that God is omnipresent—He is everywhere and every-when (cf. Psalm 139:7-10; Proverbs 15:3; Ecclesiastes 12:4; 1 Timothy 1:16-17). That means that if He exists in another Universe somewhere, He must exist here as well.

Conclusion

In this article, we have intentionally quoted extensively from emeritus distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa George Ellis since he is a well-respected cosmologist among naturalistic scientists and a key player in the multiverse discussion. Ellis thoroughly grasps why the multiverse is being championed. He understands what is at stake for naturalism, but he also understands that the multiverse theory has significant problems. Consider what he said in his critique of the multiverse in Scientific American in 2011:

Proponents of the multiverse make one final argument: that there are no good alternatives. As distasteful as scientists might find the proliferation of parallel worlds, if it is the best explanation, we would be driven to accept it; conversely, if we are to give up the multiverse, we need a viable alternative. This exploration of alternatives depends on what kind of explanation we are prepared to accept. Physicists’ hope has always been that the laws of nature are inevitable—that things are the way they are because there is no other way they might have been—but we have been unable to show this is true. Other options exist, too. The Universe might be pure happenstance—it just turned out that way. Or things might in some sense be meant to be the way they are—purpose or intent somehow underlies existence.⁴⁹

It is significant that Ellis and Silk acknowledge, “In our view, cosmologists should heed mathematician David Hilbert’s warning: although infinity is needed to complete mathematics, it occurs nowhere in the physical Universe.”⁵⁰ The evidence is clear: there must be Something infinite beyond the physical Universe that brought about this Universe and its laws or ordinances. There is zero evidence for a multiverse being that supernatural realm. Indeed, by cosmologists’ own admissions, the multiverse concoction “leapt out of the pages of fiction into scientific journals”; is “hard to swallow”; is a “sleight of hand”; “dodge[s] the whole issue”; is “imaginary”; and is an “oxymoron.” But on the other hand, there is ample evidence that the God of the Bible exists.⁵¹ He wrote the “ordinances of the heavens” and “set their dominion” over the Universe (Job 38:33). By His word, “the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6).

Endnotes

¹ Adam G. Riess and Mario Livio (2016), “The Puzzle of Dark Energy,” Scientific American, 314[3]:42, emp. added.

² George F.R. Ellis (2011), “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” Scientific American, 305[2]:40-43, emp. added.

³ Lawrence M. Krauss (2014), “A Beacon from the Big Bang,” Scientific American, 311[4]:67, emp. added.

⁴ George Ellis and Joe Silk (2014), “Defend the Integrity of Physics,” Nature, 516[7531]:322-323, December, emp. added.

⁵ Mark Buchanan (2014), “When Does Multiverse Speculation Cross into Fantasy?” New Scientist, 221[2952]:46-47, January 18, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129 520-900-when-does-multiverse-speculation-cross-into-fantasy/, emp. added.

⁶ Ibid., p. 47, emp. added.

⁷ Lee Smolin (2015), “You Think There’s a Multiverse? Get Real,” New Scientist, 225[3004]:24-25, January 17, emp. added.

⁸ Tim Folger (2008), “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory,” DiscoverMagazine.com, November 10.

⁹ Kyle Butt (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press), /pdfs/e-books_pdf/ Behold%20the%20Word%20of%20God.pdf; Jeff Miller (2014b), “Bill Nye/Ken Ham Debate: Tying Up Really Loose Ends,” Reason & Revelation, 34[4]:38-59, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1152.

¹⁰ See the following for a discussion of indirect evidence in science: Jeff Miller (2013b), “‘Unlike Naturalists, You Creationists Have a Blind Faith,’” Reason & Revelation, 33[7]:76-83, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1125&article=2164.

¹¹ As quoted in Folger, emp. added.

¹² Richard Lewontin (1997), “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, January 9, p. 31.

¹³ Ellis, pp. 40-43, emp. added.

¹⁴ Michael Finkel (2014), “Our Star, The Sun, Will Die A Quiet Death,” National Geographic, 225[3]:102, March, emp. added.

¹⁵ Jeff Miller (2012), “The Laws of Science—by God,” Reason & Revelation, 32[12]:137-140, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1103&article=2072.

¹⁶ Richard Webb (2016), “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” New Scientist, 231[3089]:32, September 3, emp. added.

¹⁷ Paul Davies (2007), “Taking Science on Faith,” The New York Times, November 24, emp. added, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?_r=0.

¹⁸ “The Creation Question: A Curiosity Conversation” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Ellis, p. 38, emp. added.

²¹ Shannon Hall (2017), “Infinite Frontiers,” New Scientist, 233[3109]:28.

²² Finkel, p. 102, emp. added.

²³ Concerning the eternality of matter/energy, some physicists have acknowledged that even the multiverse could not exist forever [Lisa Grossman (2014), “Quantum Twist Kills the Multiverse,” New Scientist, 222[2969]:9, May 17].

²⁴ Jeff Miller (2013a), “Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Laws of Thermodynamics,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2786&topic=57.

²⁵ Joshua Sokol (2015), “A Brush with a Universe Next Door,” New Scientist, 228[3045]:8, October 31.

^₂₆ Richard Dawkins and George Pell (2012), “Q&A: Religion and Atheism,” ABC Australia, April 9, http;//www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3469101.htm.

²⁷ Ellis and Silk, p. 321, emp. added.

²⁸ Smolin, p. 25.

²⁹ Lawson Parker (2014), “Cosmic Questions,” , 225[4], April, center tearout.

³⁰ Davies.

³¹ Folger, emp. added.

³² Ellis, p. 42, emp. added.

³³ Ellis and Silk, p. 322.

³⁴ John Rennie, Editor’s Note in Sean M. Carroll (2008), “The Cosmic Origins of Time’s Arrow,” Scientific American, 298[6]:48, June.

³⁵ Sean M. Carroll (2008), “The Cosmic Origins of Time’s Arrow,” Scientific American, 298[6]:57, June, emp. added.

³⁶ Smolin, p. 24, emp. added.

³⁷ Folger, emp. added.

³⁸ Stuart Clark and Richard Webb (2016), “Six Principles/Six Problems/Six Solutions,” New Scientist, 231[3092]:33, emp. added.

³⁹ Brian Greene (2015), “Why String Theory Still Offers Hope We Can Unify Physics,” Smithsonian Magazine, January, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/string-theory-about-unravel-180953637/?no-ist, emp. added.

⁴⁰ Mary-Jane Rubenstein (2015), “God vs. the Multiverse,” New Scientist, 228[3052/3053]:64, December 19/26, emp. added.

⁴¹ Ellis, p. 42.

⁴² Ibid., emp. added.

⁴³ Sokol, p. 8, emp. added.

⁴⁴ Grossman, p. 9, emp. added.

⁴⁵ Ellis, p. 42.

⁴⁶ p. 46, emp. added.

⁴⁷ Amanda Gefter (2012), “Bang Goes the Theory,” New Scientist, 214[2871]:34, June 30, emp. added.

⁴⁸ Paul Steinhardt (2014), “Big Bang Blunder Bursts the Multiverse Bubble,” Nature on-line, 510[7503]:9, June 5, http://www.nature.com/news/big-bang-blunder-bursts-the-multiverse-bubble-1.15346.

⁴⁹ Ellis, p. 43, emp. added.

⁵⁰ Ellis and Silk, p. 322, emp. added.

⁵¹ Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (2014), “7 Reasons to Believe in God,” Reason & Revelation, 34[10]:110-119, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1175; Jeff Miller (2015b), “How Can a Person Know Which God Exists?” Reason & Revelation, 35[5]:52-53, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1189&article=2506.

Special thanks to Dr. Mike Houts (AP Auxiliary Scientist and NASA nuclear engineer) for reviewing this article and offering helpful suggestions.

The post 7 Reasons the Multiverse Is Not a Valid Alternative to God [Part 2] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

During the Q&A period, one of the atheists asked a question that I have often received when discussing science with naturalists: “How can faith (belief without evidence) be used to arrive at truth?” These atheists had been told by other theists that belief in God is not about evidence. It is a blind trust, regardless of the evidence—“fideism.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “fideism” as “reliance on faith rather than reason in pursuit of religious truth.”¹ By faith, they mean a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.”² To many in Christendom, biblical faith is such an idea.

Imagine an empty container representing the truth on a subject. A person “pours” evidence into the container, trying to fill it to the brim and arrive at the complete truth on a matter. When it comes to religious faith, however, according to many in Christendom, the container cannot be completely filled. The space that is left at the top of the container, between the evidence and the brim, must be filled in with blind “faith.” So, according to them, belief in God, for instance, rests ultimately, not on the evidence, but irrational faith.

In truth, the Bible does not so define faith. The Greek word for faith used in the New Testament (pistis) is not a mystical word only applicable when discussing religious faith. It is the Grecian word equivalent to the English words “belief” or “trust.”³ When we “believe,” “trust,” or “have faith in” someone, that faith is based on evidence. If a parent, for example, has proven himself to be trustworthy, we believe him. If we do not know a person and have no evidence to substantiate his integrity, to believe in him would be a blind (evidence-less) faith, which would be irrational and unwise. Scripture incessantly makes the point that we should come to a knowledge of the truth based on the evidence that has been provided to us. According to Romans 1:20, so much evidence has been provided to come to the truth of God, that not to come to the right conclusion is “without excuse.” We can know the truth—not merely accept it “on faith”—and it will set us free (John 8:32). We should test or “prove all things” before believing them, only holding to that which is good or right (1 Thessalonians 5:21). As did the “fair-minded” Bereans of Acts 17, God wants us to search for evidence that substantiates a claim before blindly believing it (verse 11). Since many false teachers are in the world, He tells us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits” before believing them (1 John 4:1). Unlike blind faith (i.e., fideism)—which pits itself against reason⁴—Paul believed in establishing truth using reason (Acts 26:25). In fact, Jesus told His audience to not believe Him if He did not substantiate His claims with evidence (John 10:37).

The blind “faith” idea is unbiblical. The biblical portrait of faith would be more like evidence being “poured” into our truth container. The “evidence” rises to the top of the container and begins pouring over the top. Where “faith” comes in is when we look at the truth, verified by evidence, and choose whether or not to believe it. Most do not and will not (Matthew 7:13-14). It is their own choice, but it is not because God has not provided enough evidence to come to the truth. Rather, they have rejected the evidence which is readily available, due to their own personal motives.

As is always the case when I receive the question that the young men asked at the seminar, they are shocked when I respond that I do not agree that faith is “belief without evidence”—that our faith is in fact demanded by the evidence. On this occasion the atheists were shocked five times over, since all of the speakers on the panel nodded in agreement with those words.

Endnotes

¹ “Fideism” (2015), Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fideism, emp. added.

² “Faith” (2017), Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith.

³ William Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker (1979), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), second edition revised, pp. 662-664.

⁴ “Fideism.”

Suggested Resources

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In light of such valid, but depressing, confessions about unbelief, I would simply like to point out two beautiful truths about theism, and specifically biblical theism. First, a person can logically come to know that the God of the Bible exists.⁶ If matter demands a Maker; if life on Earth demands a life Giver; if complex, functional design in the Universe demands a Designer; and if the supernatural attributes of the Bible demand a Supernatural Author; then the evidence demands this verdict: the God of the Bible exists. Second, the Word of God gives mankind the meaning and purpose that he inherently longs for. Please understand, rational Christians do not come to believe in God and in the Bible as His inspired Word simply because we want some objective meaning to our life on Earth. Rather, once we see the evidence for God and His Word and commit our lives to the Lord in obedience to the Gospel of Christ (Romans 6:1-17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9), our admittedly innate but formerly uninformed desire for a “higher meaning” is at that moment made complete by the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25). In fact, God gave His inspired Word so that “the man of God may be complete” (2 Timothy 3:17). No doubt, part of this Divinely given, God-revealed “perfection” or “completeness” is one’s realization that the human life actually has real, objective meaning.

The best atheism can do is to ask people to choose for themselves what the meaning of human life is. But such meaning is entirely subjective. One person could just as easily conclude that the meaning of life is to reduce the population of human beings on Earth by any means possible in order to “save mother Earth,”⁷ as he could decide that the meaning of life is “to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones,”⁸ including having sexual relations with anyone, at anytime, anywhere.⁹ On the other hand, Christianity offers the world real, objective meaning. The Creator of mankind has informed us that we exist on Earth for the purpose of choosing (by the grace of God) where we want to live eternally (Matthew 7:13-14). As we prepare to meet our Maker (Ecclesiastes 12:7), He has instructed us to “[f]ear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

Endnotes

The post God, Atheism, and the True Meaning of Life appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Renowned atheist Carl Sagan began his immensely popular book Cosmos with these words: “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”¹ What do today’s atheists mean when they use the term Cosmos? The modern “scientific” idea is that the Cosmos is completely, entirely, and altogether materialistic, composed of matter and energy, and contains nothing immaterial or “not-matter.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “materialism” as, “The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.”² As it now stands, the ideas of the Cosmos or of “nature” have been redefined to include only physical matter and energy. Evolutionists Hewlett and Peters demand that “to be scientific in our era is to search for solely natural explanations.”³ Physicist Paul Davies correctly stated, “The materialist believes that mental states and operation are nothing but physical states and operations.”⁴ Evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin admitted that evolutionists “have a prior commitment, a commitment to naturalism…. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.”⁵

What are the logical implications of the idea that everything in the Universe consists solely of matter and energy? At first glance, the materialistic idea may not seem very profound or Earth shattering, but a deeper probe into the concept reveals that some of the most fundamental aspects of humanity are at stake. In this article, we focus on one feature of humanity that must be denied if materialism is accepted: human free will. You see, if matter and energy are all that “really” exists, then the notion must be rejected that there is a human will that directs the decision-making process. In short, if you, as a person, have ever made a single real decision; if you have ever freely chosen to do or not do anything, then atheism cannot be true. This is the case because your decision would be the result of something “more than” matter. It could not be explained by a naturalistic “cause and effect” chain of chemical events. If there is a “you” inside your body that freely chooses this or rejects that, then the materialist understanding of the Universe is false.

Modern leaders in the atheistic community admit as much. Sam Harris, recognized in skeptical circles as one of the four leading voices of modern atheism, penned a book titled Free Will. In that short volume, he wrote: “Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making…. We do not have the freedom we think we have.”⁶ He further stated, “I cannot determine my wants…. My mental life is given to me by the cosmos.”⁷ Again, “People feel (or presume) an authorship of their thoughts and actions that is illusory.”⁸ And, “What I will do next, and why, remains, at bottom, a mystery—one that is fully determined by the prior state of the universe and the laws of nature (including the contributions of chance).”⁹ As he begins to summarize his views toward the end of the book, he says, “You will do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise.”¹⁰

Why does Harris demand that free will is non-existent? His commitment to materialism paints him into this corner, which is obvious from his statement: “In improving ourselves and society, we are working directly with the forces of nature, for there is nothing but nature itself to work with.”¹¹ On the second-to-last page he writes, “Am I free to change my mind? Of course not. It can only change me.”¹²

There are striking ironies in the position that Harris and others take as they deny their own free will and their readers’ as well. First, why in the world would these men write books and articles in an attempt to persuade anyone to believe their “no free will” position if the reader cannot decide for himself to change his mind? What is the point of trying to convince a person who believes in free will, if that “belief” is nothing more than the consequence of the cause-and-effect, natural processes that are banging around in his brain? If the reader does not have the ability to choose his or her belief, what is the point of trying to “show” the superiority of the “no-free-will” position? According to Harris and crew, you believe what you believe because of the physics of the Cosmos working in your brain, and how in the world words on a page could change those physics would indeed be a mystery worth uncovering. The fact that modern atheists are writing books to convince people that there is no free will belies the undeniable fact that humans have free will.

Second, Harris’ concluding statement brings to light another glaring difficulty in the no-free-will position. He says, “Am I free to change my mind? Of course not. It can only change me.”¹³ Wait just a minute. Who is the “I” or the “me” in the sentence? If there is no free will, and humans are simply the combined total of the physical processes at work in their brains, then there should be nothing more than the “mind” in Harris’ sentence. The fact that he can differentiate between “himself” and his “mind” shows that there is something more at work than determinism. A purely physical entity such as a rock or atom does not have the ability to think in terms of “I” or “me.” In truth, that Harris is conscious of an “I” or of a “self” contradicts his claim that free will does not exist.¹⁴

In addition, it seems humorous and superfluous for people such as Harris to write an “Acknowledgements” section in their books. Why thank people and acknowledge their contributions to your work if they could not have done otherwise? He writes, “I would like to thank my wife and editor, Annaka Harris, for her contributions to Free Will. As is always the case, her insights and recommendations greatly improved the book. I don’t know how she manages to raise our daughter, work on her own projects, and still have time to edit my books—but she does. I am extremely lucky and grateful to have her in my corner.”¹⁵ That’s all well and good, but since she has no free will, she didn’t choose to help Sam. It was thrust upon her by the nature of the Cosmos. Why thank a person who stays with you and helps you due to no choice or decision of her own, but due to an unalterable course of cause-and-effect actions in her brain? Why not thank the computer that “typed the words so faithfully as I hit the key strokes,” or the oxygen that “so generously entered my lungs and allowed my cells to function,” or the light that “so gracefully bounced from the screen (or page) to my eye, allowing me to see”? That Harris thanks his wife and not his computer gets to the point that there is something very different about the two entities. You thank a person because that person helped you (but could have chosen to do otherwise).

On February 12, 1998, William Provine, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the distinguished Cornell University, took to the podium on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He was invited to deliver the keynote address at the second annual Darwin Day, a day dedicated to commemorating the life and teachings of Charles Darwin. In an abstract of that speech on the Darwin Day Web site, Dr. Provine’s introductory comments are recorded in the following words: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”¹⁶ Provine’s ensuing message centered on his fifth statement regarding the lack of human free will.

Several years later, Provine continued to hold to this position. He appeared in the Ben Stein documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in 2008. In his discussion about Darwinian evolution, he said, “It starts by giving up an active deity, then it gives up the hope that there is any life after death. When you give those two up, the rest of it follows fairly easily. You give up the hope that there is an imminent morality. And finally, there’s no human free will. If you believe in evolution, you can’t hope for there being any free will. There’s no hope whatsoever in there being any deep meaning in life. We live, we die, and we’re gone.”¹⁷ The late Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick concurred with Provine. He wrote in his book The Astonishing Hypothesis: “‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”¹⁸

In his million-copy international best-selling book The Selfish Gene, renowned atheistic writer and speaker Richard Dawkins explained the evolutionary ideas that force atheism to deny human free will. He asserted that humans are “survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve selfish molecules known as genes.”¹⁹ Since Dawkins views humans as a compilation of physical genes fighting for survival, he must insist that these genes instinctively strive to live and pass on their information. That being the case, every human action must then be a product of the physical “gene” forces at work in the human body and brain. Human actions cannot be the result of some type of personality or free will according to this notion. In his attempt to flesh out his view more thoroughly and give answers to behaviors that have traditionally been attributed to human free will, he expounds on the selfish gene idea: “This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour.”²⁰ When explaining the relationships that survival machines (humans) have with each other, he stoically quips:

To a survival machine, another survival machine (which is not its own child or another close relative) is part of its environment, like a rock or a river or a lump of food. It is something that gets in the way, or something that can be exploited. It differs from a rock or a river in one important respect; it is inclined to hit back. This is because it too is a machine that holds its immortal genes in trust for the future, and it too will stop at nothing to preserve them.²¹

Dawkins’ ultimate explanation for human behavior is that we do not choose the way we relate to each other, but are driven by our genes to use or exploit other humans to produce the greatest chance to pass on genetic information.

It is often the case that many atheists attempt to distance themselves from the views of Dawkins, Harris, and other free-will-deniers. They contend that, even though they are atheists, they still believe that humans have free will and choose their own behavior. They do this because they know, deep down in their heart of hearts, that they have chosen their behaviors in the past. The problem with their mode of operation, however, is that atheism necessarily implies that free will cannot exist. If humans actually make their own, personal decisions, then something must be at work that is more than nature—which is over and above the natural, physical movement of atoms. There must be a human mind, or soul, or spirit that is supernatural—that controls the movement of the physical body. A person can choose atheism, or he can accept human free will, but not both and still be logically consistent.

Atheist Dan Barker, prolific debater and author, feels the tension between atheism’s denial of free-will and the fact that humans know that they make personal choices. His solution is simply to redefine the term free will. In his debate with Peter Payne, Barker stated: “I happen to think that we have the illusion of freewill…. I’m a strict determinist. We are natural creatures. The material world is all there is. We actually don’t have what we would call libertarian freewill.”²² In his book, godless, Barker stated: “I am a determinist, which means that I don’t think complete libertarian free will exists. Since we don’t know the future…we have the illusion of free will, which to me is what ‘free will’ actually means.” Barker recognizes that humans certainly feel like they make decisions, but his atheism demands that they cannot do so. In order to hang on to his atheism, and allow for “free will,” he changes the definition of free will to “thinking that you are actually making a free will choice when you are not.”²³

Barker is not the only atheist that is forced to turn to this “illusion of free will” idea. Anthony Cashmore, biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, penned an article alleging that human free will does not exist. He wrote: “It is my belief that, as more attention is given to the mechanisms that govern human behavior, it will increasingly be seen that the concept of free will is an illusion.”²⁴ According to Cashmore, you are reading this article because your genes and your environment have forced you to. You are not responsible for your decision to read this article, and based on your alleged evolutionary history and your environment, you could not choose to be doing anything different than what you are doing now. You are literally a slave to your genes and your environment. As Cashmore wrote: “[A]n individual cannot be held responsible for either his genes or his environment. From this simple analysis, surely it follows that individuals cannot logically be held responsible for their behavior.”²⁵

One of the most damaging lines of reasoning against the illusion idea put forth by Barker and Cashmore is the way in which these men attempt to convince their readers of its truth. Cashmore used five-and-a-half pages to argue that our society should disregard the outdated concept that humans are responsible for their behavior. Barker has been in more than 80 moderated debates attempting to bring people over to his view. But if Cashmore and Barker are right, then there is no way we can disregard the concept of free will, due to the simple fact that we did not choose it in the first place. If humans are not responsible for their beliefs or behaviors, then the generally held concept of free will is nothing more than an evolutionary, environmental by-product. According to their line of thinking, if we believe in free will at the present, and act on that belief, we are not responsible for it. If they are right, why in the world would they attempt to urge the scientific community to change its mind about free will, if the community does not have the power to change its mind? Why spend time and effort arguing against free will, if your audience does not have the freedom to choose to accept or reject your reasoning anyway? The fatal flaw of the “no free will” argument is that it demands that the person making the argument has the free will to do so, and it tacitly assumes the parties evaluating the argument have the power to accept or reject it.

If humans are survival machines that cannot make any real choices, then all “persuasive” arguments would be worthless. Those who believe in God are programmed and forced by their genes to do so. Those who believe there is no God are equally products of their bodily physics. If humans don’t change their minds, but, as Harris claims, their minds change them, then why attempt to change believers’ minds, since they don’t really have “minds” and their brains are going to “believe” whatever their genes tell them anyway? Atheists actually have to assume free will in order even to discuss the topic. It’s as if they are saying, “I want you to turn your eyes to look at me so that I can show you that you really can’t see anything.”

Television personality Bill Nye the “Science Guy” found himself in a terrible quandary when asked about human free will. In a video on the subject titled, “Hey Bill Nye, Do Humans Have Free Will?” he stated: “But clearly, I know I have made decisions based on things that happened around me that I wouldn’t have made without being informed by history or what I noticed. I know I have. Now if that turns out not to be true, I’d be very surprised.”²⁶ Near the end of the video, however, he then backtracks and claims that our decisions really are the result of the quantum physics at work in our brains. Then he claims: “At some level there is randomness in what we think, because we are made of chemicals that have randomness.” Then he said, “I mean, I don’t mean to skirt your question.”²⁷ Actually, skirting the question was exactly what he was doing. He has to admit that he makes choices, but his atheistic naturalism forces him to back peddle and attribute those “choices” to chemistry and physics. His video is the epitome of atheism’s failure to deal with the fact of human free will.

In June of 2015, evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne delivered a lecture at the Imagine No Religion convention in Vancouver, Canada. His speech was titled, “You Don’t Have Free Will.” It is one of the clearest examples of the new age atheistic position. Based on his atheistic beliefs, he argues for a purely deterministic world in which human free will is nothing more than physical processing at work, molecules moving to the beat of the laws of physics. Addressing his primarily atheistic audience, he says, “Now many of you don’t accept that. You don’t believe that you are robots made out of meat, which is what I’m going to try to convince you of today.” He takes this position, because if atheism is true, and there is nothing supernatural, then (as he says), “Our behavior is absolutely determined by the laws of physics.”²⁸

Coyne takes serious issue with his fellow atheists who claim to be naturalists and determinists, but who attempt to say that humans do have some kind of free will. He correctly shows that atheistic naturalism cannot permit any type of free will. Those atheists who are trying to accommodate both ideas, according to Coyne, are simply playing “semantic tricks” trying to convince people “that we are still okay even though we are meat robots.”²⁹ Coyne went on to say, “As Anthony Cashmore said, ‘We have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.’” Coyne then added his own words, “We are bowls of sugar, just very complicated ones.” Coyne does an excellent job of proving that atheism demands that human free will cannot exist. What he fails to do, however, is prove that free will does not exist. He claims it. He asserts it. But he cannot prove his false assertion. The reason for that is simply because humans really do have free will.

At one point in his speech, he attempted to deal with the biggest problem that the “no-free-will” idea encounters. He tried to tackle the question of why he would try to persuade anyone to believe his view, since, according to his view, no one can choose any beliefs. His argument was that, just like kicking a dog teaches the dog to avoid harm, presenting the material he was presenting may “teach” a human to adopt his viewpoint, even though humans would just be reacting to his material, not choosing to believe it. So, Coyne says, “Why did I get out of bed this morning? I thought, I hope to persuade people, and that was determined by the laws of physics.” He goes on to say, “Even our very desire to try to change people’s minds. The fact that I’m up here trying to do this is determined by my own, you know, physical constitution and environment. That is the infinite regress and the sort of annoying thing about determinism. It’s turtles all the way down.”

Let’s analyze Coyne’s statement. Who is “annoyed” by this “infinite regress” of physics? Is it Coyne? Why, if he is just doing what his chemistry is forcing him to do, does he get “annoyed” at this? And who, exactly, is it that is getting annoyed at the situation? Is it Coyne’s physical, meat robot self? Obviously, the fact that he is “annoyed” speaks to there being something more to Coyne than molecules in motion.

No Moral Responsibility

Consider the chain of implications. First, if there is no God, then this material world must be all there is. There can be nothing supernatural. Second, if the physical world is all that exists, then all entities that are made of matter must be driven solely by physical laws. Third, since there is nothing supernatural (according to this view), then there can be nothing more-than-matter inside of humans that can choose anything. Free will cannot exist in an atheistic world. But do not stop there. If humans cannot make decisions, then what is the necessary implication of that belief? What would that mean in regard to morality, crime, punishment, etc.? The necessary implication is that humans are not morally responsible for any of their behavior, any more than a rock, squirrel, or turtle is.

In Coyne’s speech, after making one of his points about most of his audience being determinists, he said, “Almost all of you here don’t believe in moral responsibility. Think about that.” He went on to say that because of his belief in determinism, “I don’t consider myself morally responsible, because I don’t have a choice.” Cashmore said the same when he stated, “From this simple analysis, surely it follows that individuals cannot logically be held responsible for their behavior.”³⁰ While the atheists who deny free will attempt to conjure up a world where no moral responsibility brings about a modern utopia, nothing could be further from the truth. The rapist blames his genes. The murderer blames his chemistry. The adulterer points the finger at his environment. The thief “cannot help himself.” The perjurer acted only in response to molecular motion in his brain. The school shooter followed his urge to kill as many students as possible. The suicide bomber could not have chosen otherwise. An environment saturated with such thinking would hardly be described as a utopia.

Along these lines, Coyne said, “Whether or not you are the kind of person who accepts other people’s notions of morality is something that you have no control over. And if you don’t, that’s something you don’t have any control over either.” Let that sink in. If you think it is “morally” acceptable to fly a plane into a building in an attempt to kill as many people as possible, you could not think otherwise and you are not “morally” responsible for doing anything wrong. Truly, the denial of moral responsibility is one of the most fallacious and harmful implications of the false idea of atheism.

If we are to be “scientific” about these matters, we must take what we know to be the case and find the explanation that best fits the facts. If we are honest, each of us knows that we have freely chosen attitudes and behaviors. We know that we could have chosen differently. And we often feel the guilt of having chosen wrong, or the triumphant feeling of having chosen right. In all honesty, you know that you could choose to quit reading this article right now, or you could continue. Your freedom is not an illusion, but is an actuality: a statement of the way things really are, not the way they only seem to be. Since that is the case, we must take the fact—our free will—and find an explanation that best fits the fact. Atheism cannot account for human free will. Atheists who are consistent with their belief are forced to admit this is a logical implication of it. Therefore, if humans have free will, and atheism implies that they do not, then atheism is false. On the other hand, the idea of a supernatural God endowing humans with a mind, consciousness, and soul fits perfectly with the fact of human free will. Thus, the person who is trying to “follow the evidence where it leads” must conclude that human free will proves a supernatural Creator exists.

Why Choose to Believe that We Have No Choice?

As I have studied atheistic books and writings and watched several videos, I’ve tried to put my finger on why atheists do not want to believe they choose. They all admit that humans think we are free to choose, but they insist that we are not really choosing anything. They maintain that there is really no “Sam Harris” upstairs, or Jerry Coyne “in there somewhere.” They insist that “Richard Dawkins” is just another name for the physical molecules that make up a certain body, and that there is no real soul or personality of a non-material nature “in there.” If there really is such a thing as free will (and there is), why would a group of people choose to deny it in spite of the evidence that proves it exists? Why don’t they want to be viewed as free moral agents who deserve praise for their morally correct actions and who deserve blame for their moral failures? An exhaustive list of possible reasons why this is the cause is impossible, but Coyne did give us one very telling idea.

Near the end of Coyne’s speech, he attempted to explain the benefits he sees in adopting the idea that free will does not exist (not to be tedious, but keep in mind that he does not really think you can adopt it; instead, you are forced to accept whatever your chemistry determines). He said that a benefit of denying free will is that you would have a “lack of regret for bad things that happen. It takes away a certain amount of guilt feelings from you. You don’t have to beat yourself up over, ‘I should have done this instead of that.’” There you have it. Humans, from the beginning of Creation, have looked for ways to plead “not guilty” in the face of their own sins. We have attempted to blame everyone else except ourselves for our moral failures. Humans have tried to blame God, their parents, their genes, their society, their spouses, their circumstances, and everything under the Sun for the selfish, sinful choices they have made. The next step with this approach is to say that, since we cannot choose our behavior, then “punishment is not justified for retribution (people get—or should get—what they deserve).”³¹

Notice the reasoning. If I can say that I cannot help myself (I cannot choose differently), then I do not have to feel guilty for the things I do wrong. Furthermore, if I did not choose the immoral actions that I committed, then neither society (nor God) can punish me for doing immoral things. Truly, the Proverbs writer accurately stated many years ago, “Evil men do not understand justice” (Proverbs 28:5). The atheistic position not only rejects the concept of free will, but then jettisons the concept of justice as well. Yet how acutely aware we humans are when injustice has been done to us.

In regard to the current situation, Romans 1 reads almost like a prophecy,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is evident in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools (1:18-22, emp. added).

“I was just a meat robot.” “My selfish genes drove me to….” “The physical properties in my brain forced me to act that way.” “I could not have chosen differently so I’m not morally responsible.” These and other empty excuses will not be accepted by the Maker on the Day of Judgment. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Endnotes

¹ Carl Sagan (1980), Cosmos (New York: Random House), p. 4.

² American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin), fourth edition.

³ Martinez Hewlett and Ted Peters (2006), “Theology, Religion, and Intelligent Design,” in Not in Our Classrooms, ed. Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch (Boston, MA: Beacon Press), p. 75, emp. added.

⁴ Paul Davies (1983), God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster), p. 82.

⁵ Richard Lewontin (1997), “Billions and Billions of Demons,” in The New York Review of Books, 44[1]:31, January 9.

⁶ Sam Harris (2012), Free Will (New York: Free Press), p. 5, italics in orig.

⁷ Ibid., p. 19.

⁸ Ibid., p. 24.

⁹ Ibid., p. 40.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 44.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 63.

¹² Ibid., p. 65, italics in orig.

¹³ Ibid., italics in orig.

¹⁴ For an extended discussion of consciousness and Creation, see Bert Thompson and Brad Harrub  (2004), “The Origin of Consciousness: Part 2,” Reason & Revelation, 24[2]:9-15, https://goo.gl/M9Drix.

¹⁵ Harris, p. 67.

¹⁶ William Provine (1998), “Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life,” http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin/DarwinDayProvineAddress.htm, emp. added.

¹⁷ Ben Stein and Kevin Miller (2008), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Premise Media), emp. added.

¹⁸ Francis Crick (1994), The Astonishing Hypothesis (London: Simon and Schuster), p. 3.

¹⁹ Richard Dawkins (2006), The Selfish Gene (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press), 30^th Anniversary edition, p. xxi.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 2.

²¹ Ibid., p. 66.

²² Dan Barker and Peter Payne (2005), “Does Ethics Require God?” http://www.ffrf.org/about/bybarker/ethics_debate.php.

²³ Dan Barker (2008),godless (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press), p. 128.

²⁴ Anthony Cashmore (2010), “The Lucretian Swerve: The Biological Basis of Human Behavior and the Criminal Justice System,” PNAS, 107:10, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/02/04/0915161107.full.pdf+html.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Bill Nye (2016), Big Think, “Hey Bill Nye, Do Humans Have Free Will?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITdMa2bCaVc.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Jerry Coyne (2015), “You Don’t Have Free Will,” Imagine No Religion Convention, Vancouver, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca7i-D4ddaw.

²⁹ Ibid. All other quotes from Coyne’s speech have the same bibliographic information unless otherwise noted.

³⁰ Cashmore.

³¹ Coyne.

Suggested Resources

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Interestingly, Dr. Tyson recently made some outlandish comments at the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History about the nature of the Universe. According to Tyson, “the likelihood of the universe being a simulation ‘may be very high.’”³ News organizations reported that Tyson indicated “it’s not too hard to imagine that some other creature out there is far smarter than us” (emp. added).⁴ Perhaps we’re just “some sort of alien simulation.”⁵ Tyson went so far as to say, “[I]t is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just the creation of some other entity for their entertainment. I’m saying, the day we learn that it is true, I will be the only one in the room saying, I’m not surprised.”⁶

Isn’t it baffling what evolutionary agnostics and atheists will believe and what they won’t (or don’t) believe? Dr. Tyson is a very educated scientist who seems to have no problem imagining that god-like aliens made our Universe for their pleasure despite the complete lack of evidence for such a belief. Yet, at the same time, Tyson refuses to believe in God because he does not believe there is enough evidence to come to the conclusion that God actually created the Universe for His own glory (Psalm 19:1-4; Isaiah 43:7) and to be inhabited by His human creatures (Isaiah 45:18), who are made in His image (Genesis 1:26-27).

One thing that Dr. Tyson did allude to that everyone should freely admit based upon the evidence: “[I]t is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just the creation of some other entity” (emp. added). In truth, Creation makes sense.⁷ “For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4, emp. added). “The heavens declare the glory” of the eternal, omnipotent Creator (Psalm 19:1), not some supposed alien civilization (who, in turn, would need an explanation for their existence if they really did exist).⁸ Sadly, men such as Dr. Tyson seem so open to the idea of “super” aliens, yet not to The Supernatural Creator, Who will judge our actions or lack thereof at the end of time (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

Endnotes

¹  See Michael Brooks (2006), “In Place of God,” New Scientist, 192[2578]:8-11. See also Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (2007), “Militant Atheism,” Reason & Revelation, 27[1]:1-5, /APContent.aspx?category=12&article=2051&topic=296.

²  “Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic?” (2012), Big Think, April 25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos.

³  Kevin Loria (2016), “Neil deGrasse Tyson Thinks There’s a ‘Very High’ Chance the Universe is just a Simulation,” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.sg/neil-degrasse-tyson-thinks-the-universe-might-be-a-simulation-2016-4/#.VypZthVrjq0.

⁴  Ibid.

⁵  Michael Lazar (2016), “Could the Universe Be a Simulation? Nel deGrasse Tyson Thinks It Might,” Huffington Post, May 1, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-lazar/could-the-universe-be-a-s_b_9816034.html.

⁶  Ibid.

⁷  Eric Lyons (2010), “Science, Common Sense, and Genesis 1:1,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=3758&topic=93.

⁸  Cf. Bert Thompson (2004), “Is There Intelligent Life in Outer Space?” Apologetics Press, /apcontent.aspx?category=9 &article=1129.

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If such is the case, however, then how did nature get here to begin with? In nature, matter and energy do not appear from nothing (so says the First Law of Thermodynamics).¹ In nature, nothing always comes from nothing and something always comes from something. So from whence came the first “something”? That is, where did nature itself come from? According to some of the world’s foremost atheistic evolutionists, something came from nothing. Atheistic cosmologist Stephen Hawking stated on national television in 2011, “Nothing caused the Big Bang.”² In the book The Grand Design that Dr. Hawking co-authored, he and Leonard Mlodinow asserted: “Bodies such as stars and black holes cannot just appear out of nothing. But a whole universe can.”³ So, although it is not natural for something to come from nothing, many atheists assume that it did “in the beginning.”

And what about the first life form? From whence did it arrive? According to atheistic evolution, life was not created supernaturally by a supernatural Creator, rather life came from non-life; it spontaneously generated “naturally.” But does life ever come from non-life naturally? Never. As evolutionist Martin Moe observed, “[A] century of sensational discoveries in the biological sciences has taught us that life arises only from life.”⁴ It would take a miracle for life to come from non-life, yet atheists contend that no God exists to work in such a supernatural manner. So how did the first life get here? Atheists (who have “refused to have God in their knowledge”—Romans 1:28, ASV), contend that it must have arisen naturally, yet it did so in a way that breaks the natural Law of Biogenesis.⁵

Atheism can continue to deny the existence of a supernatural Creator, but it does so in the only way possible—illogically and self-contradictorily. Rather than irrationally endowing nature with the ability to act supernaturally while alleging nothing supernatural exists, the reasonable person should conclude that what happened supernaturally must be the effect of a supernatural Being at work.

In truth, both Heaven and Earth reveal that “the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Rather, the supernatural “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Endnotes

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An atheist firmly believes that God does not exist. An agnostic says it is impossible to know whether God exists. A skeptic doubts that God exists. An infidel doesn’t believe in God, and doesn’t want anyone else to believe in God either.

But why do some people not believe in God? First, a person may have grown up with parents who didn’t believe in God. They never went to Sunday school or worship, never read the Bible, and never taught their children to do these things. Therefore, the child—like the parents—doesn’t believe in God.

Second, a person may have gone to college and was taught that evolution is true and that God isn’t needed since “nature” can account for everything. When this happens, belief in evolution takes the place of belief in God.

Third, some people are too stubborn or have too much pride. They don’t want to obey God, but instead want to “do their own thing.” If they believe in God, they can’t do whatever they choose anymore. So, they simply decide not to believe in God.

Fourth, some people want to live a sinful life. They want to be able to lust, cheat, steal, lie, and commit sexual sins without God telling them they shouldn’t. Therefore, they choose not to believe in God so they can do certain things without feeling guilty.

Fifth, some people overreact to evil, pain, and suffering in the world. They think that if God existed, He wouldn’t permit such things to occur. In their minds, since bad things do happen, God must not exist.

There are other reasons why people don’t believe in God. But if you study this issue of Discovery carefully, you will see why none of these excuses is a good reason not to believe in God. We never should get “too smart” for our own good so that we think we can live our lives how we want. God does exist, and one day even those who have refused to believe in Him will have to admit that they were wrong (read Romans 14:11).

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It is a scary thing to admit that he is right, from a naturalistic perspective—the worldview that he holds. His thinking is a logical outgrowth of naturalism. If naturalism is correct, we are the end result of evolution, where the ultimate law of the Universe is “survival of the fittest”: might makes right; the strong survive. If naturalism is correct, it would make sense that one should do whatever is necessary to encourage the survival of the species, including helping nature eliminate the unfit (cf. Lyons, 2008). Why would one spend time, energy, and resources helping someone who is a significant “drain” on society? Why would one try to keep those around that are loaded with harmful mutations, syndromes, and disorders? From a naturalistic perspective, such behavior would be fighting against progress and evolution. It would be “immoral.”

The day after the public backlash from his comments, Dawkins attempted to calm the furor he generated by further clarifying his thinking on his website. He said,

For what it’s worth, my own choice would be to abort the Down fetus and, assuming you want a baby at all, try again. Given a free choice of having an early abortion or deliberately bringing a Down child into the world, I think the moral and sensible choice would be to abort…. I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare…. In any case, you would probably be condemning yourself as a mother (or yourselves as a couple) to a lifetime of caring for an adult with the needs of a child…. [W]hat I was saying simply follows logically from the ordinary pro-choice stance that most of us, I presume, espouse (2014, emp. added).

What a selfish and scary society in which to live—reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Imagine being deemed unfit because of the effort others must exert to help you. Imagine being deemed “unfit” because of your ailments or aches and pains, your age, your race, your financial situation, your I.Q., your level of education, your psychological state, or worse, your beliefs. Who would have the right to be the fitness police? Who would be deemed the fitness judge? Dawkins? How is he qualified to deem what is moral and what isn’t, considering the fact that there is no such thing as “immorality” if naturalism is true (cf. Lyons, 2011)? [NOTE: See Butt, 2008 for a thorough discussion of other disconcerting implications of naturalism.]

If naturalists had their way in determining laws based on their standards of morality, progress would be hampered. As our growing understanding of genetics allows us to anticipate disorders that will likely arise in an individual, people that would even be deemed valuable by naturalists in the future if they were allowed to live would inevitably be wiped out. Famous atheist, theoretical physicist and cosmologist of Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking, was diagnosed, decades ago, with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), is permanently in a wheelchair, must communicate through a computer system operated by his cheek, and must “have around-the-clock care” (Harmon, 2012). Ironically, he would have likely been killed off long before he became the famous naturalistic thinker and influence that he is now. Truly, the fact that people with such conditions have proven themselves to be of benefit to society is a strong argument against abortion of the “unfit.”

Eerily, the United States might not be as far from a society in which Dawkins’ thinking has free reign as we might think. According to a 2012 Gallup poll, 15% of Americans believe we owe our origins to naturalistic evolution (Newport). That figure translates to about one in every seven Americans who you meet on the street being naturalists. If those individuals follow out the logic of their worldview, they will be forced to think the same way Dawkins does about the “unfit.” This implication of the naturalistic mindset and the millions that are affirming naturalism highlights the paramount need for Christians to be prepared to defend the truth from the dangerous doctrine of naturalism. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” [NOTE: See Miller, 2013 for a scientific refutation of naturalism.]

REFERENCES

Butt, Kyle (2008), “The Bitter Fruits of Atheism (Part I),” Reason & Revelation, 28[7]:49-55, July, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=603.

Dawkins, Richard (2014), “Abortion & Down Syndrome: An Apology for Letting Slip the Dogs of Twitterwar,” Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, August 21, https://richarddawkins.net/2014/08/abortion-down-syndrome-an-apology-for-letting-slip-the-dogs-of-twitterwar/.

Harmon, Katherine (2012), “How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with ALS?” Scientific American, January 7, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-hawking-als/.

Hawkins, Kathleen (2014), “Richard Dawkins: ‘Immoral’ Not to Abort Down’s Foetuses,” BBC News Ouch, August 21, http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-ouch-28879659.

Lyons, Eric (2008), “Save the Planet…Abort a Child!?” R&R Resources, 7[2]:8-R, February, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/28_2/0802.pdf.

Lyons, Eric (2011), “The Moral Argument for the Existence of God,” Reason & Revelation, 31[9]:86-95, September, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/31_9/1109.pdf.

Miller, Jeff (2013), Science vs. Evolution (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Newport, Frank (2012), “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins,” GALLUP Politics, June 1, http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx.

The post Dawkins Calls Evil Good and Good Evil appeared first on Apologetics Press.

You may wonder how anyone could ever be an atheist. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handwork” (Psalm 19:1). God’s “invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). The design of the Universe and everything in it (including humans, animals, and plants) bear witness to an intelligent Designer. How could anyone ever say that God, the grand Designer, does not exist?

In truth, no one can logically defend the statement, “I know that there is no God.” Why? Because humans do not know everything. We do not know every fact that there is to know. For a person to “know” there is no God, he would have to know everything; otherwise the one thing he does not know could be the fact that God exists. So, in reality, though people may say, “There is no God,” they could never prove such a statement.

Still, why is it that millions of people on Earth disbelieve in their Creator? Why do they doubt His existence? There are many reasons for disbelief. In fact, if you polled 100 atheists and asked them why they do not believe in God, you would get a variety of answers.

Some people do not believe in God because their parents don’t believe in God. Many children simply believe what their parents say without really thinking for themselves. But believing something only because your parents believe it is not reasonable. Some parents may teach their children that two plus two is five, or that Abraham Lincoln was the first President of the United States (rather than the 16th), or that murder is a good thing. But such teachings are wrong. Likewise, atheism is wrong. God exists even if parents say otherwise.

Some people disbelieve in God, not because their parents and mentors have taught them that God does not exist. Rather, they do not believe in God because they have never heard the positive, powerful proofs of God’s existence. Young people who never wonder how everything in the Universe got here, or how human intelligence demands that a greater Intelligence (God) must exist, may grow up to become atheists. For this reason, Christians need to be ready and willing to give people sound arguments for God’s existence—arguments such as design demands a Designer.

Many people are atheists because they believe “all smart people are atheists.” If intelligent teachers say that God does not exist, then God must not exist, right? Wrong! First, not all “smart” teachers or scientists are atheists. Many thousands, perhaps millions, of brilliant scientists around the world are theists, not atheists. Second, a person should never accept something as true just because others do. Even if everyone on Earth were atheists, that still is no excuse to be an atheist. Truth is truth regardless of who or how many disbelieve it. Third, the Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Some atheists may be highly trained and educated, but if they do not believe in the Creator of the Universe, they are foolish, not smart.

A number of people choose to be atheists because they want to be their own boss. That is, they do not want to accept the idea that they may be accountable to a higher Being. Whereas Christians live life on Earth in view of the fact that they must act according to God’s will, many atheists like the idea of not having to answer to a higher power. They do as they please. If there is no God, then there is nothing really wrong with any actions such as cursing, lying, and cheating. The fact is, however, everyone is subject to the Creator, whether they want to believe it or not.

These are only a few of the reasons why people become atheists. Others choose to reject God because of pride, or because of the suffering they see in the world, or because they know insincere Christians who act as if there is no God (though they profess to believe in Him). Yet, when all is said and done, there has never been and never will be a good reason to reject God. No one can reasonably be an atheist, but anyone can sensibly choose to believe in God and become a Christian (Revelation 22:17; John 3:16; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38).

The post Why are Some People Atheists? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

But what if a person believes the false idea of atheism? According to atheism, people were not created in God’s image. In fact, according to atheism, humans are just another kind of animal that arose by accident over millions of years. Since atheists cannot say that God created humans with certain rights, the idea of atheism has led to some very bad things. For instance, some people in the past believed that certain groups of humans were not as highly evolved as other groups. Some atheists and evolutionists believed that the Aborigines in Australia were not “totally” human. They believed the Aborigines could be treated like animals and killed. This never would have happened if these people had understood the truth that all humans—Aborigines, Caucasians, Asians, Africans, and all others—are created by God and deserve equal treatment.

The idea of atheism also leads to an incorrect view about unborn babies. According to many atheists, unborn babies are not really people, and they should not be guaranteed the right to life. In fact, one atheist named Sam Harris said that he views unborn babies like he views rabbits. Because of his atheistic views, he believes and teaches that it is fine to kill unborn babies, just like people kill some types of animals. Another atheist named Peter Singer believes that if a child is born with certain physical or mental handicaps, it would be alright to kill that child, even after the baby is born. These men believe it is right to kill babies because they do not believe that all humans are created in God’s image. Yet knowing that God did create humans, we can see that men like Sam Harris and Peter Singer are wrong. All humans, even unborn babies and those with handicaps, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

Also, since atheists believe that people are just complex animals, many atheists believe we can watch animals and learn how to behave. They believe that since we see animals killing their babies, fighting each other, or stealing food from other animals, then it would be right for humans to do the same things. But this idea is wrong. Humans are not merely complex animals. People are
special creations designed by God. Humans cannot say that stealing is right just because some animals steal food from other animals. Humans are different from animals. We do not learn what is right or wrong from watching animals. We learn what is right and wrong from listening to our Creator’s teaching found in the Bible.

In the year 1880, a man named George Walser started a town that he named Liberal, Missouri. This town was going to be different from other towns. Liberal was different because it was founded on the idea of atheism.Walser did not want anyone who believed in God or the Bible or heaven or hell to be a part of his town. He wanted to show the world that a group of atheists could live together in peace and could be productive citizens. Walser’s town failed miserably. A believer in God named Clark Braden visited Liberal and wrote about all the disgusting things that were happening there. He reported that many of the people got drunk often. He mentioned that many of the men, women, and children of Liberal used bad language and curse words, and the children did not obey their parents. Braden wrote about other terrible things that were going on in Liberal. Soon after Braden’s report, people began to learn the truth about Liberal, Missouri. The town was a complete failure. No society based on atheism can be productive or good.

In Psalm 14:1, the Bible says: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good.” God has always known that if people reject Him, they become corrupt and live sinful lives. Only a belief in God can help people understand what actions are truly right and truly wrong.

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But this idea is false. It’s a convenient way for people to excuse themselves from responsibility for their actions. When Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32), He showed that we must be right about certain matters. True, we do not know everything. But we can know some things—those things that God expects us to know. We can know truth! And we can know that God exists and that He created the Universe.

But if we can know the truth about God’s existence, why are there so many atheists? Why do so many people not embrace God’s truth about Christ and Christianity? Answer: Because most people want to live the way they choose—without God’s restrictions upon them (read Jeremiah 6:16-17). But there is no excuse for anyone to be an atheist, an evolutionist, or to reject God and live life as if He does not exist. Why? “[B]ecause what may be known of God is manifest in them [plain to them], for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).

 God has given everyone on Earth plenty of evidence to know that He exists and that He created the World. That evidence is seen in the marvelous creation all around us. And it is seen in the only book on Earth that shows itself to have been written by God—the Bible. On the Day of Judgment, no human will be able to claim that God did not give us enough evidence to know He exists.

The post No Excuses appeared first on Apologetics Press.

For example, the empirical evidence indicates that the First Law of Thermodynamics is a natural law that governs, and has always governed, the Universe. “[M]atter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed” in nature (Jastrow, 1977, p. 32). One thermodynamics textbook, Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, says, “Many different experiments have been conducted on the first law, and every one thus far has verified it either directly or indirectly. The first law has never been disproved” (Borgnakke and Sonntag, 2009, p. 116). So, it would be unnatural (i.e., supernatural) for matter or energy to create itself. But the naturalist believes that that very thing happened in order for the Universe to exist. He believes in the miraculous. [NOTE: See Miller, 2013a for more on naturalism and the Laws of Thermodynamics.]

Another example: the laws of nature exist. Renowned naturalist, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking, said:

[T]he Universe is a machine governed by principles or laws—laws that can be understood by the human mind. I believe that the discovery of these laws has been humankind’s greatest achievement…. But what’s really important is that these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable, are universal. They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a planet and everything else in the Universe. Unlike laws made by humans, the laws of nature cannot ever be broken. That’s why they are so powerful (“Curiosity…,” 2011, emp. added).

The laws of nature exist and are crucial in science. The empirical evidence, however, indicates that laws of nature do not write themselves. In a roundtable discussion on the Discovery Channel responding to Hawking’s presentation alleging that the Universe could create itself, naturalist and theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist of Arizona State University, Paul Davies, noted Hawking’s sidestep of the question of how the laws of nature could write themselves into existence. He said, “You need to know where those laws come from. That’s where the mystery lies—the laws” (“The Creation Question…,” 2011). It is a mystery to the naturalist answering how the laws of nature exist since the evidence indicates that they do not write themselves. So again, it would be unnatural (i.e., supernatural) for a law of science to write itself. But the naturalist must believe that that very thing happened in order for the Universe to exist. He believes in the miraculous. [NOTE: See Miller, 2012 for more on naturalism and the laws of science.]

Ironically, honest evolutionists have long admitted that naturalism seems to require miracles. Concerning abiogenesis (i.e., life coming from non-life in nature), the late, famous evolutionist Robert Jastrow said:

At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life on the earth. Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited; either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding, or it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of the planet. The first theory places the question of the origin of life beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. It is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science. The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief (1977, pp. 62-63, emp. added).

Sir Francis Crick, who co-discovered the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule, conceded, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going” (1981, p. 88, emp. added). In his classic text, The Immense Journey, the late evolutionary anthropologist, Loren Eiseley, said the following regarding the idea of spontaneous generation:

With the failure of these many efforts, science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past (1957, pp. 201-202, emp. added).

Bottom line: naturalists must believe in unnatural occurrences to explain the Universe. They believe in miracles. Question: doesn’t that make them supernaturalists, just like us—only without any evidence for their blind belief? While the Christian can point to, for example, the supernatural characteristics of the Bible (cf. Butt, 2007) and the classical arguments for the existence of God (cf. Lyons and Butt, 2014) as evidence for his beliefs, the naturalist must blindly and irrationally believe in natural miracles without a miracle worker. All the while, he diverts attention from the inadequacies of naturalism by claiming supernaturalists are the irrational ones. If it is the case that naturalism is actually just another form of supernaturalism, why are “naturalistic” theories exclusively being taught in schools in science classrooms? Should they not be removed from the classroom also, if all religious models are being removed due to their being supernatural models? In truth, if there is solid evidence for the Creation model, whether or not the model is supernatural, it makes sense that it should be left on the table of scientific discussion.

REFERENCES

Borgnakke, Claus and Richard E. Sonntag (2009), Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (Asia: John Wiley and Sons), seventh edition.

Butt, Kyle (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

“The Creation Question: A Curiosity Conversation” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7.

Crick, Francis (1981), Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (New York: Simon and Schuster).

“Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7.

Eiseley, Loren (1957), The Immense Journey (New York: Random House).

Jastrow, Robert (1977), Until the Sun Dies (New York: W.W. Norton).

Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2014), “7 Reasons to Believe in God,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=5045.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms(2003), pub. M.D. Licker (New York: McGraw-Hill), sixth edition.

Miller, Jeff (2012), “The Laws of Science—by God,” Apologetics Press, https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=4545&topic=93.

Miller, Jeff (2013a), “Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Laws of Thermodynamics,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2786&topic=93.

Miller, Jeff (2013b), Science vs. Evolution (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Morris, Henry M. (1990), Men of Science Men of God: Great Scientists Who Believed in the Bible (El Cajon, CA: Master Books), third printing.

Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998), National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).

The post There’s No Such Thing as a Naturalist appeared first on Apologetics Press.

For the sake of argument, we will assume for a moment that it is true that God created us with a desire to sin. First, if we grant that He created us with a “desire to sin,” is it not also true that He simultaneously created us with an ability to choose not to sin? In other words, He did not create us so that we had to sin. He clearly gave us freewill—the freedom to make our own decisions. Every capable human proves on a daily basis that he does, in fact, have the freedom to do or not to do various activities. We are not mindless robots that act solely on instinct. You can choose to read this sentence or not. No matter how intense a particular temptation is, it has been proven to be able to be resisted by man. Now, if God wanted us to sin, and had the power to cause us to sin, why would He create us with the ability to choose not to do so? That would not make sense. Ironically, at the very beginning of time, God directly stated that it is not He Who wants sin to rule over us. Sin has a “desire” to do so, but He created us with the ability to “rule over it” (Genesis 4:7).

 Further, even if God did create us with a “desire to sin,” is it not also strange that He would give us a way of being cleansed or forgiven from that evil we desire to engage in? If He wanted us to fail, why would He do such a thing? The gift of forgiveness in the biblical model is a blatant inconsistency with such an idea, and serves as a formal proof that God does not want us to sin. Even more curiously, if He wanted us to sin, why would the system for forgiveness that He instituted entail His own agonizing death? Such a selfless act is not something a God would do who wanted us to sin and go to hell. Such behavior is, however, something a merciful God would do—a God Who wanted to give us independence and freedom of choice, and still give us a way to be forgiven when we make the wrong decisions.

That said, it simply is not accurate to say that God created Man with an inherent desire to do evil. If anything, since He gave us a conscience and inherent sense of justice or fairness, He created us with a pull or pressure to not do certain things. Every human being on the planet understands that there are some things that are fair, and some things that are not fair, and an unseared conscience pressures us to do the right thing by others.

Further, while we sometimes might desire to do evil, is it not also true that at other times we have a desire to do good? One could just as easily and equally ask the question, “Did God create us with a desire to do right?” Even the most hardened atheist or agnostic (e.g., Bart Ehrman²) admits that he wants (i.e., is tempted) to do good and does so (i.e., “succumbs” to that temptation) through various philanthropic activities. If God created us with a desire to sin, it must also be conceded that He created us with a desire to do good as well.

How can this apparent contradiction be explained? Is it not likely that God did not in fact create us with the desire to sin? We desire both activities at times because we have discovered that they both can make us feel good in different ways. That said, it is fair and consistent to conclude that God created us with that desire—i.e., the desire to feel good (i.e., to be happy, appreciate pleasure, to desire enjoyment and satisfaction), not purely the desire to do evil. For example, we were created to want to eat—to feel good from doing so—but not with the desire to be cannibals. Perhaps it would be better to describe it this way: God created us with the capacity to experience and appreciate feeling good. When we feel good, we naturally want to continue having that feeling. Those things with which we choose to fill the “feel good tank” up are our decisions as individuals with free will. Those decisions are no doubt influenced by many factors (e.g., experience, pride, our parents and teachers [Proverbs 22:6; 19:27], our friends [1 Corinthians 15:33; Proverbs 13:20], Satan [2 Corinthians 2:11], etc.), but the bad influences or evil desires are never from God. James 1:13-14 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” We desire to do evil things because of the momentary pleasures or good feelings they can give, not because God wants us to do evil. The wise individual will recognize that not all pleasures should be engaged in at will. He will choose to endure temporary affliction if it is necessary to do right, rather than enjoying “the passing pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25).

But why would He not create an environment where we have no interaction with others and cannot be deleteriously influenced by them? In such an environment, we would lose the blessings we receive from interacting with others as well (e.g., conversation, companionship, physical affection, kind words, medical attention, technological advancement, gifts, etc.). There is a reason why solitary confinement is used as a serious punishment within the prison system. Isolation and loneliness are unhealthy. “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Interaction with others, and the blessings we can have from those interactions, are gifts from God. We live on a planet with over seven billion others. Since we all live together, our free will inevitably affects those around us, for good or ill. If we could not affect others with our decisions, then we simultaneously would cease to have the free will to affect those people for good or ill. Only through creating an environment where all humans were forced to obey God could the temptation to disobey God be eliminated. But in such an environment, God would cease to be a loving God Who grants us freedom. He would be a dictator, forcing everyone to obey Him as mindless automatons.

But why would God give us the capacity to experience feeling good at all? If it makes us do evil, how is that a good thing? There is no doubt that God’s choice to allow us pleasure is a blessing to us, in spite of its dangers. Who would honestly argue that a life completely devoid of having pleasurable feelings or feeling good would be a good (i.e., pleasurable) one? The very idea is self-contradictory. For the same reason we long to make our children happy and give them joy in life, God created us to be able to experience the same. One would not expect an unloving God, One Who wanted humans to sin, to also create us to be able to experience pleasure and joy. Such a decision, however, would be perfectly in harmony with a loving, gracious God Who cares for us and wishes to bless us with happiness, in spite of the bad decisions we and others around us often make. So notice that the desire to feel good is not inherently evil. In fact, the Creator’s decision to instill in us the desire to feel good and to experience pleasure is actually a blessing, not a curse, as long as He gave us, along with the capacity for appreciating pleasure, the ability to distinguish the good kind of pleasure from the bad, either through instruction or creating an environment where we can learn from experience.

Is it not true that a loving parent wishes to maximize happiness or joy for his child? This includes giving that child an environment where he can have a certain degree of freedom and independence. He is not chained to his bed his whole life, but is given rules (i.e., advice), warnings about what will happen if the child chooses bad pleasures, and the freedom to decide whether or not to obey or disobey those rules. He can decide to believe his parents,that they know what will make him happy, or believe that his way will have a better result. A child might reason that he would be happier if he ignored his parents’ warnings, and touched the stove anyway. For a moment, the child experiences the pleasure we often feel from engaging our free will, and as he feels good from the freedom he pridefully believes that he has proven his parents wrong. A moment later, when he is burned, he discovers why his parents made the rule in the first place, and learns to trust (i.e., have faith in) them. But what about when he touches the stove and nothing happens because the stove is off? In such cases, a loving parent’s discipline is given in order to make sure the child does not happen to touch the stove the next time—when it is on. Though the child does not yet understand why the rule has been given in the first place (since nothing happened when he touched the stove the first time), he learns to obey his parents anyway, and in time, learns to trust their wisdom through the verification of that wisdom in numerous other rules and warnings. But why does the parent go through this procedure? Clearly, to maximize happiness for the child in the long run.

God has done the same for us. First, God created an environment conducive to learning right and wrong. Notice that the created order has a system of punishment worked into it to help us distinguish certain things on our own. For example, pleasure can generally be gained from sexual activity in any form, but that does not mean that all forms are going to maximize our happiness. So God communicated certain ways we should engage in such activity in order to maximize happiness. He also designed a natural system whereby when we deviate from His rules about sexual activity, pain and sorrow will come in some way (even if we do not always recognize that our behavior is the cause of it). While we have the freedom to reject God’s will, He still encourages us to do right through a system of punishment worked into the created order (e.g., venereal diseases; physical danger from a lack of sobriety or reckless, imprudent behavior; potential for drug overdoses; diseases and cancers that come from certain sins; depression; family strife; loneliness; etc.). Also in the created order are constant admonitions helping us to behave correctly (e.g., through pressure from our conscience to behave in certain ways, through lessons gained from our observations of others, as well as through the direct admonition given to us by others who have made bad decisions). Does the creation of such an environment sound more like the work of a God Who wants us to sin or not to sin? Does such a system prove that the Creator apparently wants to encourage us to obey Him, while also giving us independence and the freedom to disobey Him if we choose?

Second, as a loving parent would be expected to do, God was sure to give us direct instruction to warn us about the differences between good and bad pleasures. The Bible is clear in communicating explicitly that our happiness is a major motivation behind the rules that God gave us (e.g., Psalm 19:7-8). The rules in the Bible were not selected randomly merely to control humans, in the same way a loving parent’s rules are not so selected. The great Sermon on the Mount is begun with the Beatitudes—the Son of God’s rules of thumb for being happy (i.e., “blessed”) in life. In Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Moses reminds the Israelites that God’s rules were for their good. In Deuteronomy 6:24 he says that God’s laws are “for our good always, that He might preserve us alive.” God’s commandments are often about more than how to get to heaven. They affect our lives here and now. In Proverbs 29:18 Solomon warns his son that eliminating God’s rules (i.e., His “revelation”) from a society will certainly allow total, unbridled freedom in the behavior of that society (i.e., people will “cast off restraint”) and that conscience-free behavior will be thought to be the way to happiness. That total freedom, however, contrary to what we might think, will not bring people happiness. Solomon warns, “Happy is he who keeps [God’s] law.”

A child might think that having no rules about running out in the street will make him happy, but in truth, happiness in the long run comes from (1) having those rules, and (2) obeying his parents’ rules. We may not always agree at the moment with what He says will make us happy, just as a child does not always agree with his parents; but, as with a child, we are oftentimes simply not in a position to know in the long run what will be best for us and the people around us. A child would love to make those decisions on his own, and develop his own system of right and wrong. He thinks that he can do so effectively—just as adults sometimes think we know better than God what will make us happy. But the bottom line is that the parents know a lot more about what will bring lasting happiness, and so the parent teaches, makes rules, and enforces them—as does God. The difference is that humans are imperfect in designing and enforcing rules, because like a child, we also do not know everything we need to know to do it perfectly. Parents disciplined “us as seemed best to them” (Hebrews 12:10), but biblical rules were made by the omniscient Mind Who created the human mind. Who could possibly know better what will bring the human mind happiness than He Who created it?

Did God create us inherently to desire to do evil? No. God created us with the capacity to experience pleasure and happiness and the desire to pursue it. He created us to be able to enjoy pleasure and feel good, through our eyes, ears, tongues, noses, and nerves, as well as in our very souls. He created an environment where we can choose to fill our pleasure tanks in different ways—right and wrong ways—as a parent does with a child, and then He gave us valuable instruction about which are the best choices. By creating such a free environment, pain, suffering, and evil are inevitable, since humans will oftentimes reject God’s rules and admonitions. But with such inevitably bad decisions, He made sure to provide a means by which we can be forgiven, and eventually, live with Him in an environment free from all evil.

endnotes

The post Did God Create Us with a Desire to Sin? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

What’s the Significance to the Creationist of Finding Water on Mars?

A:

If naturalistic evolution were true, it would be inconceivable that extra-terrestrial life would not exist. So evolutionists are seemingly frantic in their search for such life. In September of 2013, the journal Science reported results from the Mars rover Curiosity’s exploration of the planet (Grotzinger, 2013). Fascinatingly, water was found in the Martian soil. What does this mean for creationists? Does it prove evolution?

NOVA, funded by the National Science Foundation, said in 2005, “If life is common, then we should be able to find signs of it beyond our own little planet. Unfortunately, the evidence has been elusive” (“Ingredients for Life”). Life has not been discovered anywhere in the Universe apart from Earth, but evolutionary scientists have long hoped at least to find indirect evidences of currently or previously existing life, even if they cannot find life itself (cf. Miller, 2012).

One example of indirect evidence for extra-terrestrial life that has been glaringly absent is evidence for the existence of liquid water in space. Chris McKay of NASA’s Ames Research Center explained in 2005:

The most important requirement for life is liquid water, and that’s the defining requirement for life in terms of our solar system. There’s plenty of energy. There’s plenty of carbon. There’s plenty of other elements on all the planets in our solar system. What’s rare, and which, as far as we know, only occurs now on Earth is liquid water (“Ingredients for Life”).

While one of Jupiter’s moons (Europa) is already known to be covered with ice, a key ingredient for life is liquid water. It seems that now there is evidence that liquid water does exist in space. Soil tests taken from the Curiosity rover indicate that Mars’ soil has 2% water by weight (Landau, 2013). To evolutionists, this is a significant find, since it eliminates one of the barriers preventing evolution from being true. According to NOVA, “Mars might be too cold and dry to harbor life today, but if water was once there, then perhaps life was too” (2005).

Keep in mind that the existence of water in space in no way provides positive proof of extra-terrestrial life or of evolution, in the same way that finding carbon in space provides no proof of extra-terrestrial life or evolution. (Does finding sugar in the kitchen prove that someone made cookies with it?) To the creationist, water and organic substances are merely materials that God created in the Universe on days one and four of the Creation week that serve His purposes for the Universe. The existence of water on Mars provides no more assistance in proving evolution than the existence of dirt. They are both merely products that God placed here. Notice these admissions by one of the reporters covering the Mars story:

Curiosity is not capable of detecting life directly; it wouldn’t confirm either modern life or ancient fossil organisms. It can, however, determine if the ancient environment was habitable—which the rover told us it was—and look for organic compounds. Finding those compounds wouldn’t prove the existence of life, either, because they can come from other sources. But the appearance of organic molecules would suggest that the environment is good at preserving them…. [S]o far, Curiosity has not directly detected organics in the soil (Landau, emp. added).

So nothing has been proven concerning extra-terrestrial life by the rover study. Once again, speculation and wishful thinking still rule the day for evolutionists. Scientists are still trying to figure out if life could exist in outer space—much less that it does or did. Bottom line: while finding liquid water may mark off one of the barriers facing evolution, it is not positive proof of life. It’s just one more step towards the starting line—not the finish line. In reality, evolution still isn’t even in the race with creation.

REFERENCES

Grotzinger, John P. (2013), “Analysis of Surface Materials by the Curiosity Mars Rover,” Science, 341[6153]:1475.

“Ingredients for Life” (2005), NOVA, December 17, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/education/evolution/ingredient-life-water.html.

Landau, Elizabeth (2013), “Water Discovered in Martian Soil,” CNN Tech, October 7, http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/tech/innovation/mars-water/.

Miller, Jeff (2012), “Space: The Womb of Life?” Reason & Revelation, 32[6]:62-64, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/32_6/1206_V01.pdf.

The post Water on Mars? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Part 1 of this two-part series appeared in the January issue. Part 2 follows below and continues, without introductory comments, where the first article ended.]

In answer to the question, “Can new information originate through mutations?” Gitt responded, “This idea is central in representations of evolution, but mutations can only cause changes in existing information. There can be no increase in information, and in general the results are injurious. New blueprints for new functions or new organs cannot arise; mutations cannot be the source of new (creative) information” (Gitt, 2007, Ch. 11, emp. added, parenthetical item in orig.). Meyer explains,
“[N]atural selection can ‘select’ only what random mutations first produce. And for the evolutionary process to produce new forms of life, random mutations must first have produced new genetic information for building novel proteins” (2009, Ch. 9). And  again, that simply does not happen.

[M]utations of the kind that macroevolution doesn’t need (namely, viable genetic mutations in DNA expressed late in development) do occur, but those that it does need (namely, beneficial body plan mutations expressed early in development) apparently don’t occur. According to Darwin (1859, p. 108) natural selection cannot act until favorable variations arise in a population. Yet there is no evidence from developmental genetics that the kind of variations required by neo-Darwinism—namely, favorable body plan mutations—ever occur…. [M]utations in DNA alone cannot account for the morphological changes required to build a new body plan (Meyer, 2004, emp. added).

Mutation simply “does not constitute an adequate causal explanation of the origination of biological form in the higher taxonomic groups” (Meyer, 2004).

Meyer summarized the problem for neo-Darwinism:

Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, namely, within the genetic text. Yet major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans (2004, italics in orig., emp. added).

In the words of Sanford:

[E]ven when ignoring deleterious mutations, mutation/selection cannot create a single gene within the human evolutionary timescale. When deleterious mutations are factored back in, we see that mutation/selection cannot create a single gene, ever. This is overwhelming evidence against the Primary Axiom.In my opinion this constitutes what is essentially a formal proof that the Primary Axiom is false (2008, p. 139, emp. and italics in orig.).

Michael Behe, biochemist and Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University, points out that some microorganisms have been shown to be able to rapidly adapt to new environments. However, in doing so, those organisms never develop new internal functions. According to Behe, their adaptations amount, not to innovation, but merely fine-tuning (2007).

So in the words of Gould, mutations do not “produce major new raw material.” They simply change something that already exists. They alter what is already present. They are variations within types of already existing genes. They might cause a fly to have extra wings, a fish to have extra eyes, or a person to have an extra toe; but mutations cannot create a new kind of creature. A mutation would not cause a wing to appear on a creature unless the creature already had wings in its genetic code. If a fish does not already have antlers in its genes, it is not going to grow them. If a dog does not have webbed duck feet or feathers in its genes, neither it nor its descendants are going to grow them. If a person does not have tank treads in his genes, he will never be able to roll over to his neighbor’s house, regardless of how long he (or his progeny) lives and mutates. Neo-Darwinian evolution simply cannot happen. Sanford lamented:

Very regrettably, evolutionists have treated two very different phenomenon, adaptation to environments and evolution of higher life forms, as if they were the same thing. We do not need to be geniuses to see that these are different issues. Adaptation can routinely be accomplished by loss of information or even developmental degeneration (loss of organs). However, development of higher life forms (representing more specified complexity) always requires a large increase in information (p. 202, italics in orig.).

And Darwinian evolution cannot provide it.

Information: If It’s Not a Product of Naturalistic Processes, Then…

East German scientist J. Peil wrote, “Information is neither a physical nor a chemical principle like energy and matter, even though the latter are required as carriers” (as quoted in Gitt, 2007, Ch. 3). The late American mathematician Norbert Wiener, previously professor of mathematics at M.I.T., graduate of Harvard University, and considered to be the originator of the field of cybernetics, long ago said, “Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day” (1965, p. 132). What does that truth imply about information?

In the words of Gitt, in what he calls “Theorem 1,” “[t]he fundamental quantity information is a non-material (mental) entity. It is not a property of matter, so that purely material processes are fundamentally precluded as sources of information” (Ch. 3, emp. added). He further explains, “Information is always based on the will of a sender who issues the information…. Information only arises through an intentional, volitional act” (Ch. 3). “[I]t is clear that the information present in living organisms requires an intelligent source…. Any model for the origin of life (and of information) based solely on physical and/or chemical processes, is inherently false” (Ch. 4, parenthetical item in orig.). Gitt proposes Theorem 29 as a summary of that truth: “Every piece of creative information represents some mental effort and can be traced to a personal idea-giver who exercised his own free will, and who is endowed with an intelligent mind” (Ch. 8). In other words, “[n]ew information can only originate in a creative thought process” (Ch. 8).

What about the findings from computerized evolutionary algorithms and ribozyme-engineering experiments? Don’t they prove neo-Darwinian evolution could happen? Meyer responds:

[M]inds can produce biologically relevant structures and forms of information, but without mind or intelligence little, if any, information arises…. [I]ntelligent agents can produce information. And since all evolutionary algorithms require preexisting sources of information provided by designing minds, they show the power—if not the necessity—of intelligent design….

[R]ibozyme-engineering experiments demonstrate the power—if not, again, the need for—intelligence to produce information—in this case, the information necessary to enhance the function of RNA enzymes…. Undirected materialistic causes have not demonstrated the capacity to generate significant amounts of specified information. At the same time, conscious intelligence has repeatedly shown itself capable of producing such information. It follows that mind—conscious, rational, intelligent agency—what philosophers call “agent causation,” now stands as the only cause known to be capable of generating large amounts of specified information starting from a nonliving state (2009, Ch. 15).

Radiologist Henry Quastler, who pioneered the use of isotopes to study cell kinetics and “was one of the first to apply Information Theory to biology” (Ducoff, 2007), long ago stated, “[C]reation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity” (Quastler, 1964, p. 16). If this be the case—if all the evidence points to an intelligent Designer for the origin of information—why reject the evidence? “Whatever information is—whether thought or an elaborate arrangement of matter—one thing seems clear. What humans recognize as information certainly originates from thought—from conscious or intelligent activity” (Meyer, 2009, Ch. 1, italics in orig.).

But Still…Couldn’t it Happen?

Even if genetic mutation could sporadically provide new information, there are other, even more significant issues. Meyer explains, “[A]ny minimally complex protocell resembling cells we have today would have required not only genetic information, but a sizable preexisting suite of proteins for processing that information” (2009, Ch. 9). And what’s more,

scientists investigating the origin of life must now explain the origin of at least three key features of life. First, they must explain the origin of the system for storing and encoding digital information in the cell, DNA’s capacity to store digitally encoded information. Second, they must explain the origin of the large amount of specified complexity or functionally specified information in DNA. Third, they must explain the origin of the integrated complexity—the functional interdependence of parts—of the cell’s information-processing system (2009, Ch. 5).

Sanford points out further how Darwinian evolution would still not be possible with sporadic instances of new information:

I believe the “going down” aspect of the genome is subject to concrete analysis. Such analysis persuasively argues that net information must be declining. If this is true [and the primary focus of his book illustrates that it is—JM], then even if it could be shown that there were specific cases where new information might be synthesized via mutation/selection, it would still be meaningless since such new information would promptly then begin to degenerate again. The net direction would still be down, and complex genomes could never have arisen spontaneously. If the genome is actually degenerating, it is…bad news for evolutionary theory. If mutation/selection cannot preserve the information already within the genome, it is difficult to imagine how it could have created all that information in the first place! We cannot rationally speak of genome-building when there is a net loss of information every generation! Halting degeneration is just a small prerequisite step before the much more difficult question of information-building can reasonably be opened for discussion (pp. 105-106, italics in orig.).

Wells argues that

even if scientists eventually observe the origin of a new species by natural selection, the observation would not mean that natural selection can also explain the origin of significantly new organs or body plans. But the fact that scientists have not observed even the first step in macroevolution means that “evolution’s smoking gun” is still missing. Despite the lack of direct evidence for speciation [i.e., the origin of new species—JM] by natural selection, Darwin’s followers still assume that he was essentially correct and regard changes within existing species as evidence for their theory (2011, p. 13, emp. added).

Once again, speculation and conjecture without supporting evidence rule the day in evolutionary circles and textbooks. All the while, mounds of evidence exist which indicate that new information is not possible through genetic mutation. So neo-Darwinian evolution is not possible.

Genetic Entropy:
The Unavoidable Trend

Mutations are, by definition, “errors”—mistakes in the replication of DNA (cf. Ayala, 1978, 239[3]:56-69). There are three possible kinds of mutations: bad, good, and neutral (i.e., those that have no net effect on a species one way or the other)—none of which add new raw material or information to the genome. Evolution hinges on the idea that beneficial mutations must be the trend, since evolution requires a progression in species (and those mutations must simultaneously add new raw material in order to evolve a new species).

However, in truth, the scientific evidence indicates that this trend is not the case. Renowned geneticist of Stanford University, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, head of the International Human Genome Diversity Project, said, “Genetic mutations are spontaneous, chance changes, which are rarely beneficial, and more often have no effect or a deleterious one” (2000, p. 176, emp. added). Prominent evolutionary taxonomist, Ernst Mayr (professor emeritus of Harvard), wrote, “[T]he occurrence of beneficial mutations is rather rare” (2001, p. 98, emp. added). In fact, it has long been realized that, after eliminating the neutral mutations from the discussion, 99% of the remaining mutations are said to be actually harmful—not beneficial (Crow, 1997; Cartwright, 2000, p. 98; Winchester, 1951, p. 228; Martin, 1953, 41:100; Ayala, 1968, 162:1436; Morris, 1984, p. 203; Klotz, 1985, p. 181). This was recognized as long ago as 1950, when Nobel laureate and geneticist, Hermann J. Muller said, “The great majority of mutations, certainly well over 99%, are harmful in some way” (1950, 38:35, emp. added). Famous evolutionary geneticist of Rockefeller University, Theodosius Dobzhansky, admitted that beneficial mutations make up less than 1% of all mutations (as quoted in Davidheiser, 1969, p. 209).

Several decades of further research did not help matters. The late evolutionary geneticist of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst Lynn Margulis, and her co-author, science writer Dorion Sagan, referenced Muller’s historic work, emphasizing that “as was pointed out very early by Hermann J. Muller (1890-1967), the Nobel prizewinner who showed X-rays to be mutagenic in fruit flies, 99.9 percent of the mutations are [still—JM] deleterious. Even professional evolutionary biologists are hard put to find mutations, experimentally induced or spontaneous, that lead in a positive way to evolutionary change” (2002, pp. 11-12, emp. added). According to theoretical evolutionary geneticist Philip Gerrish of the University of New Mexico and Richard Lenski, experimental evolutionary biologist of Michigan State University, it seems that the best estimates for beneficial mutations are now “roughly one in a million” (1998, 102/103:132). That’s one ten-thousandth of one percent. Thomas Bataillon, evolutionary biologist of Aarhus University’s Bioinformatics Research Centre, and Santiago Elena, molecular and evolutionary geneticist of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Plant Biology in Spain, argue that the rate of beneficial mutations is so low that it cannot even be measured (Bataillon, 2000; Elena, et al., 1998). Behe even argues, based on a thorough examination of relevant evolutionary experiments over the last few decades, that those mutations which are considered to be “beneficial” for an organism still typically involved a loss of function (i.e., a loss of genetic information)—not a gain. In the summary of his 2010 article in the Quarterly Review of Biology, he says, “The results of decades of experi-mental [sic] laboratory evolution studies strongly suggest that, at the molecular level, loss-of-FCT [i.e., loss of function—JM] and diminishing modification-of-function adaptive mutations predominate” (2010, p. 441). In truth, this circumstance should be expected, since mutations are, by definition, deviations from what would have occurred in the replication of DNA, if everything worked in the way that it should.

So mutations do not provide the progressive, beneficial trend required by evolution, but rather, reveal a digressive trend. Mutations, by and large, are deleterious, not beneficial to the genome. That is what the scientific evidence indicates—an avalanche of harmful mutations sweeping all species on the planet down the slope of deterioration, decay, and digression. This trend is in keeping with the Second Law of Thermodynamics—entropy is inevitable (see Sanford, 2008 for a decisive treatise on the truth of genetic entropy). The genome will inevitably deteriorate, not evolve. This trend is also supported by information theory (Gitt, 2007).

“Error catastrophe” is the term used to describe what happens when natural selection cannot adequately counter the loss of information that occurs due to deleterious mutations—a situation we are currently facing. During the final phase of degeneration, “mutational meltdown” occurs (Bernardes, 1996)—the “rapid collapse of the population and sudden extinction” of the species (Sanford, p. 220). Kevin Higgins and Michael Lynch, evolutionary biologists of Indiana University and the University of Oregon, respectively, argue that extinction is currently a significant risk for many mammals and other animals because of the existing state of deterioration in the genome due to mutations. “Under synchronous environmental fluctuations, the acceleration of extinction caused by mutation accumulation is striking…. [F]or a large globally dispersing metapopulation with mutation accumulation, the extinction time is just slightly longer than 100 generations” (2001, p. 2932). There is no doubt that genetic entropy is the trend, not genetic organization.

Behe argues, “[N]ot only does Darwinism not have answers for how information got into the genome, it doesn’t even have answers for how it could remain there” (as quoted in Sanford, 2008, back cover, emp. added). Genetic entropy prohibits it. No wonder Sanford wrote, “Degeneration is the precise antithesis of evolutionary theory. Therefore the reality of Genetic Entropy is positively fatal to Darwinism” (p. 206, italics in orig., emp. added). Expounding on that idea, he said:

If the genome must degenerate, then the Primary Axiom is wrong. It is not just implausible. It is not just unlikely. It is absolutely dead wrong. It is not just a false axiom. It is an unsupported and discredited hypothesis, and can be confidently rejected. Mutation/selection cannot stop the loss of genomic information, let alone create the genome! Why is this? It is because selection occurs on the level of the whole organism. It cannot stop the loss of information (which is immeasurably complex) due to mutation, and is happening on the molecular level. It is like trying to fix a computer with a hammer (p. 147, italics and emp. in orig.).

Due to entropy, the genetic trend is downward. But evolution demands an upward trend—not good for Darwinian evolution.

Notice again, however, that while deterioration destroys evolutionary theory, the trend towards deterioration is in keeping with the Creation model, which argues that the genome was originally pristine in the Garden before sin entered the world, initiating the decay process (Romans 5:12; Psalm 102:25-27). The natural trend all around us is clearly that living creatures are being swept down the proverbial mountainside in an avalanche of entropy. Yet evolutionary theory irrationally postulates that the trend for the mindless, accidental evolution of species has actually been up the mountain-side against an oppressive wall of tumbling snow.

Mutations: Not the Evolutionary Mechanism

No wonder, like Gould and Hayward, Margulis and Sagan strongly expressed their disagreement with the idea that genetic mutations could be the mechanism for evolution, as neo-Darwinism contends. They said, “[R]andom mutation, a small part of the evolutionary saga, has been dogmatically overemphasized” (2002, p. 15). “Many ways to induce mutations are known but none lead to new organisms. Mutation accumulation does not lead to new species or even to new organs or new tissues…. We show here that the major source of inherited variation is not random mutation” (pp. 11-12, emp. added). Evolutionist Pierre-Paul Grassé, who was the chair of evolution at the Sorbonne in Paris for over 30 years, said, “No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution” (1977, p. 103, emp. added). Nobel laureate, Sir Ernst Chain, who is credited with having purified penicillin in such a way that it could be used as an antibiotic, said years ago, “To postulate…that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations…seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts” (1970, p. 25, emp. added). As we have seen, such profound statements are still relevant today.

Indeed, due to the nature of genetics, mutations simply do not provide a mechanism for Darwinian evolution to occur. In the words of Sanford, “The demise of the Primary Axiom leaves evolutionary theory without any viable mechanism. Without any naturalistic mechanism, evolution is not significantly different from any faith-based religion” (2008, p. 206; cf. Houts, 2007). [NOTE: “Faith” is used by Sanford here to describe those who believe in God without evidence—an idea which the Bible does not support (cf. John 8:32; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:1; Miller, 2013).] Neo-Darwinism has no mechanism for progressing towards new species, and the origin of the genetic code remains a mystery for naturalists. Evolutionist Douglas Hofstadter, physicist and Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University in Bloomington once said:

There are various theories on the origin of life. They all run aground on this most central of all central questions: “How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules) originate?” For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe rather than with an answer (1980, p. 548, emp. added).

Writing in Nature, evolutionist John Maddox said, “[I]t is disappointing that the origin of the genetic code is still as obscure as the origin of life itself” (1994, 367:111, emp. added). The unfortunate truth is that so many, both theists and atheists alike, have been steamrolled into believing Darwinian religion by the naturalist crowd. Evolution has been foisted upon the minds of children and touted as scientific fact for decades, when all the while, upon closer examination of the evidence, evolution is found to be baseless in its attempt to explain the origin of species. All along, an explanation for the origin of the kinds of creatures we see on Earth has been available that does not contradict the scientific evidence.

The Bible and Genetics

In the words of famous atheist, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking, “[T]he Universe is a machine governed by principles or laws—laws that can be understood by the human mind…. But what’s really important is that these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable, are universal. They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a planet and everything else in the Universe” (“Curiosity…,” 2011, emp. added). As with everything else in the law-abiding Universe, reproduction behaves in accordance with governing laws. Life produces according to its kind.

REFERENCES

Ayala, Francisco (1968), “Genotype, Environment, and Population Numbers,” Science, 162:1436.

Ayala, Francisco (1978), “The Mechanisms of Evolution,” Scientific American, 239[3]:56-59, September.

Bataillon, T. (2000), “Estimation of Spontaneous Genome-wide Mutation Rate Parameters: Whither Beneficial Mutations?” Heredity, 84:497-501.

Behe, Michael (2007), The Edge of Evolution (New York: Free Press).

Behe, M.J. (2010), “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations, and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution,’” The Quarterly Review of Biology, 85[4]:419-445.

Bernardes, A.T. (1996), “Mutation Load and the Extinction of Large Populations,” Physica ACTA, 230:156-173.

Cartwright, John (2000), Evolution and Human Behavior (London: Macmillan).

Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca (2000), Genes, Peoples, and Languages (New York: North Point Press).

Chain, Ernst (1970), Social Responsibility and the Scientist in Modern Western Society (London: Council of Christians and Jews).

Crow, J.F. (1997), “The High Spontaneous Mutation Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 94:8380-8386.

“Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7.

Darwin, Charles (1859), On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray).

Davidheiser, Bolton (1969), Evolution and Christian Faith (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed).

Ducoff, Howard (2007), “University of Illinois Biophysics: The First Half-Century,” Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, http://biophysics.illinois.edu/program/history.html.

Elena, S.F., L. Ekunwe, N. Hajela, S.A. Oden, and R.E. Lenski (1998), “Distribution of Fitness Effects Caused by Random Insertion Mutations in Escherichia Coli,” Genetica, 102-103[1-6]:349-358.

Gerrish, Philip J. and Richard E. Lenski (1998), “The Fate of Competing Beneficial Mutations in an Asexual Population,” Genetica, 102/103:127-144.

Gitt, Werner (2007), In the Beginning was Information (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), Kindle file.

Grassé, Pierre-Paul (1977), The Evolution of Living Organisms (New York: Academic Press).

Higgins, Kevin and Michael Lynch (2001), “Metapopulation Extinction Caused by Mutation Accumulation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98[5]:2928-2933.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1980), Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Vintage Books).

Houts, Michael G. (2007), “Evolution is Religion—Not Science [Part I],” Reason & Revelation, 27[11]:81-87, November, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/27_11/0711.pdf.

Klotz, John (1985), Studies in Creation (St. Louis, MO: Concordia).

Maddox, John (1994), “The Genesis Code by Numbers,” Nature, 367:111, January 13.

Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan (2002), Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (New York: Basic Books).

Martin, C.P. (1953), “A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution,” American Scientist,41[1]:100-106, January.

Mayr, Ernst (2001), What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books).

Meyer, Stephen C. (2004), “Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117[2]:213-239, http://www.discovery.org/a/2177.

Meyer, Stephen C. (2009), Signature in the Cell (New York: Harper Collins), Kindle file.

Miller, Jeff (2013), “Unlike Naturalists, You Creationists Have a Blind Faith,” Reason & Revelation, 33[7]:76-83, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1125&article=2164.

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Muller, Hermann J. (1950), “Radiation Damage to the Genetic Material,” American Scientist, 38[1]:33-50,126, January.

Quastler, Henry (1964), The Emergence of Biological Organization (New Haven, CT: Yale University).

Sanford, J.C. (2008), Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome (Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications), Kindle file.

Wells, Jonathan (2011), The Myth of Junk DNA (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press).

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Winchester, A.M. (1951), Genetics (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin).

The post God and the Laws of Science: Genetics vs. Evolution [Part 2] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

While it may be true that extra-terrestrial energy could cause pockets of order from disorder on the Earth, it does not follow that atheistic evolution could happen. As we have shown elsewhere, regardless of the extra-terrestrial energy reaching Earth, the evidence confirms that life does not come from non-life (Miller, 2012a), laws of science do not write themselves (Miller, 2012b), matter and energy do not last forever or spontaneously generate (Miller, 2013), and information is not added to the genome through mutations (cf. this issue of R&R). Without an explanation for how evolution can cross these barriers, evolution is tantamount to witchcraft.

Furthermore, while energy can sometimes bring about pockets of order from disorder, energy alone is not what is required. It must be the right kind of energy to do so. While the Sun can be an excellent source of useful energy, it can also be a dangerous source of serious damage—causing deaths, deserts, and damaged property. In order to explain how the order of the Earth’s species could come about from disorder through evolution, one would have to prove that extra-terrestrial energy sources would be capable of doing such a thing—a major task to say the least, especially when there is no observable evidence that macroevolution could even happen regardless.

Ultimately, the question is irrelevant, since regardless of the extra-terrestrial energy that is reaching Earth and its potential ability to create localized order, it is clear that it is not countering the entropy that is rapidly building in the genome (see the discussion of genetic entropy in the current issue). Deleterious mutations are leading to mutational meltdown, generation by generation, regardless of the Sun or any other external source of energy. Evolution requires genomic progress, not deterioration, and extra-terrestrial energy is not solving the problem for evolutionary theory.

No wonder Paul Davies lamented, “It seems that order has arisen out of chaos, in apparent defiance of the second law of thermodynamics…. Does this then suggest that some sort of gigantic cosmic miracle has occurred against all imaginable betting odds?” (1978, p. 507). Davies recognizes that evolution would require a miracle since it flies in the face of a natural law—the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that the Universe is moving irreversibly towards a state of higher disorder and chaos (Miller, 2013). But since he does not believe in a miracle Worker, it is irrational for him to contend that evolution could “miraculously” happen in spite of entropy. His conclusion should be, “Maybe naturalistic evolution is not true.” Instead, he concludes that magic—a spontaneous miracle—might have happened without a miracle Worker. Naturalistic evolution is a blind, irrational faith.

REFERENCES

Davies, Paul (1978), “Chance or Choice: Is the Universe an Accident?” New Scientist, 80[1129]:506-508, November.

Miller, Jeff (2012a), “The Law of Biogenesis,” Reason & Revelation, 32[1]:2-11, January, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1018&article=1722.

Miller, Jeff (2012b), “The Laws of Science—by God,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4545.

Miller, Jeff (2013), “Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Laws of Thermodynamics,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article= 2786.

The post “Can’t Order Come from Disorder Due to the Sun?” appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Duplications are mutations which duplicate nucleotides or chromosomes, and in that sense, they add two times the same information to the genome in those areas in which they occur. Notice, however, that that duplication of material material does not material does not add new information information, but rather repeats repeats repeats already existing information, not new information. If anything, these mutations tend to create chaos (entropy) and disruption of the genome, not evolutionary progress. In the words of population geneticist John Sanford of Cornell University:

It is widely recognized that duplication, whether within a written text or within the living genome, destroys information. Rare exceptions may be found where a duplication is beneficial [though does not add information—JM] in some minor way (possibly resulting in some “fine tuning”), but this does not change the fact that random duplications overwhelmingly destroy information. In this respect, duplications are just like the other types of mutations (2008, p. 194, emp. added).

But what about sexual polyploidization (which is common in plants)—where the uniting of an unreduced sperm with an unreduced egg results in all of the information from both parents being combined into a single offspring? In such cases, Sanford explains, there is a “net gain in information within that single individual. But there is no more total information within the population. The information within the two parents was simply pooled” (p. 195). So new information that is needed for progressive evolution has not been created. Inter-kind or macroevolution has not occurred.

Symbiogenesis theory results in a similar effect. Some evolutionists believe that two separate, symbiotic organisms (e.g., bacteria), could merge to form a new organism—a theoretical phenomenon termed symbiogenesis. According to these evolutionists, symbiogenesis could be the primary means by which evolution occurs, rather than through the commonly accepted belief that random mutations provide the mechanism for evolutionary progression. Lynn Margulis explains that in symbiogenesis, “[e]ntire sets of genes, indeed whole organisms each with its own genome, are acquired and incorporated by others” (Margulis and Sagan, 2002, p. 12). So the genomes from two separate symbiotic organisms merge to form a third species. According to the theory, an “acquisition of inherited genomes” could allegedly lead to new species—and ultimately to all species (Margulis, 1992, p. 39).

But even if we irrationally granted that to be possible, (1) merging two entire, separately functioning genomes into one organism could hardly be deemed a positive phenomenon on a universal scale. Rather, it would be catastrophic. Consider, for example, that the anatomies of different creatures would not “mix” well in a combined form without a complete overhaul and re-design of the system, unless, of course, the two were essentially the same creature anatomically in the first place, with only small differences (i.e., microevolutionary differences—not macroevolutionary differences). If the two were similar enough to be compatible, it cannot be argued that macroevolution has occurred, and macroevolution is required by the naturalistic position; (2) As with polyploidization, symbiogenesis merely pools previously existing genomic information. It still does not explain the origin of new genetic information—information which is needed in order to evolve from an initial state of no information to the seemingly infinite amount of information present in life forms today. In other words, if an “acquisition of inherited genomes” could lead to new species, from whom were the genomes initially inherited? A genome-less organism? How could a genome be inherited from an organism without one? Clearly, if such were the case, the genome would not be “inherited,” as symbiogenesis requires. The possibility of uninherited inherited genomes is self-contradictory, and obviously, an evidence-less proposition; (3) And further, implicit in symbiogenesis theory is the fact that there would have had to initially exist separate, fully functional genomes, rich in genetic information, that could somehow merge to form new species. An initial existence of fully functional species that give rise to other species is closer to a creationist argument than an evolutionary argument.

Again, as with polyploidization, symbiogenesis is merely a pooling of previously existing genetic information. It is far from being the creation of new genetic information. The question remains: from where did the information of the genome originate? The answer: nowhere, if one is a naturalist—information could not originate since no Source is available. And yet the information had to come from somewhere. Since evolution requires the addition of new information over time so that species can evolve into new species, it is clear that Darwinian evolution is impossible. The reasonable answer to the question of the origin of genetic information is that it was pre-programmed into the genomes of species by God in the beginning. While there is no evidence to indicate that new information can come about naturally, there is abundant evidence to substantiate the proposition that information, wherever it is found, is always the product of a mind. Why not stand with the evidence? God exists. Creation is true.

REFERENCES

Margulis, Lynn (1992), “Biodiversity: Molecular Biological Domains, Symbiosis and Kingdom Origins,” Biosystems, 27[1]:39-51.

Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan (2002), Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (New York: Basic Books).

Sanford, J.C. (2008), Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome (Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications), Kindle file.

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