A serious challenge to all atheists...

[nkelly]

Hello all,

rather that re-hash the arguments presented on the website below, I’ll just provide a link and ask atheists to have a look.

anointed-one.net/atheism.html

The arguments are based on:-

• The laws of conservation
• The law of biogenesis
• Scientific Method.

I was particularly impressed with the first one! I dare you to refute it!

God bless,
Noel.

 

[PhilVaz]

<< I was particularly impressed with the first one! I dare you to refute it! >>

Ooh, black background. Hurts the eyes.

I’m not an atheist so I won’t answer.

Phil P

 

[Suat]

I dare you to refute it!

I find that serious questions rarely end this way. However, I will read the site and give some opinions (mine).

 

[Suat]

Atheism is a lack of belief mentality which rejects the existence of anything supernatural.

You know that you are in trouble when your first statement is wrong. ‘Lack of belief mentality’ and ‘rejects the existence of’ should not be together in the same sentence.

By default, atheists are also naturalists and evolutionists.

No on both. Atheists are simply those who do not believe in God. Ascribing any other beliefs to them demonstrates a misunderstanding of the word. The evolutionists comment is also mildly disturbing as it shows that the author is quite ignorant of the world around him/her.

While atheism does not break any state or federal laws, it does break several scientific laws.

I do not understand this statement. Science deals with the natural world, not the supernatural one. Whether or not a person believes in the supernatural has no bearing on science.

A scientific law is defined as the observance and recognition of a repeatable process in nature. It is widely accepted as a statement of fact and a universal truth. Scientific laws do not need complex external proofs. They are accepted at face value because they have always been observed to be true. A miracle is an event which is inexplicable by the laws of nature.

A scientific law is a general principle that describes processes and is backed up by observational data and experimental results. These laws can generally be proved to one degree or another and all can be disproved by experimental or observational results that are counter to the law.

A miracle contradicts natural, scientific laws

Ok, I can accept that.

atheists typically scoff at the suggestion that miracles have ever occurred.

I do. If you saw the quality of today’s ‘miracles’, I am sure you would too .

What scientific laws does atheism break?

None? Science does not deal at all with the supernatural. I thought we already went over this.

The laws of conservation are basic laws in physics that state which processes can or cannot occur in nature.

No, this is a very limited (and false) representation of the laws.

This law says neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed.

In a closed system. Creationists always seem to forget this part.

If matter and energy cannot be created, how did they originate?
Where did the entire physical universe come from?

Have you not answered the question already? If matter and energy cannot be created, when why think that they originate? The answer to that question is something that we will always disagree upon, so I will point out something else. Our understanding of science is not complete. Right now, we cannot model what preceded the universe because the laws of physics break down just before the big bang. That includes the laws of conservation. Will there be some point in the future that we understand the new physics involved prior to and just after the big bang? Most likely. Do I think that it is ok to just say ‘god did it’ in the mean time? No.

Today, virtually all scientists accept the Big Bang theory which says the entire universe came into existence at a particular point in time when all of the galaxies, stars and planets were formed.

Is the author purposely trying to mislead the audience with this statement?

If the universe has always existed, it would now be uniform in temperature, suffering what is known as heat death.

The universe has only existed for 13.7 billion years or so.

Everything which has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning; therefore, the universe has a cause.

The universe has a beginning, yes, but does the singularity that spawned the universe have a beginning? Science is currently silent on this matter. If someone wants to believe that it does, then fine, but I see no reason to decide either way.

Since God is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time and is independent and outside of time. He is not limited by the time dimension he created, so he has no beginning in time.

Actually, the universe was spawned from a singularity. Time did not exist before the universe, therefore the singularity is also outside of time and has no beginning. Ergo no God is necessary according to the author’s reasoning.

There is not even one generally accepted scientific theory on the origin of matter and energy.

As I already pointed out, science does not yet have the answers to all the questions, and it never will. If someone wants to believe in a god because of this, then fine, but do not think that it is evidence or proof of a god anymore than the existence of lightening, fire, floods etc were 1000 years ago.

 

[Suat]

I fail to see the point of reading further. The author has shown multiple times that his/her understanding of science is seriously lacking. In truth, I did skim the rest of the article and found it full of misrepresentations. Actually, that is too polite, outright lies would be more accurate. Very Christian, no?

 

[David_Paul]

Atheists are simply those who do not believe in God.

Considering what the several million strong League of Militant Atheists did in the USSR and other atheists did in China, Mongolia, Cambodia, Tibet, Cuba and Eastern Europe under Soviet occupation, I would say atheisms encompasses more than simply not believing in God.

 

[nkelly]

You know that you are in trouble when your first statement is wrong. ‘Lack of belief mentality’ and ‘rejects the existence of’ should not be together in the same sentence.

Why is it wrong? He’s referring to lack of belief in the supernatural.

No on both. Atheists are simply those who do not believe in God. Ascribing any other beliefs to them demonstrates a misunderstanding of the word. The evolutionists comment is also mildly disturbing as it shows that the author is quite ignorant of the world around him/her.

I don’t understand these comments. Don’t atheists believe that there is nothing supernatural, i.e. that only nature exists? Doesn’t that make him/her a naturalist? And what alternative have you got to evolution?

I do not understand this statement. Science deals with the natural world, not the supernatural one. Whether or not a person believes in the supernatural has no bearing on science.

It makes sense to me!

No, this is a very limited (and false) representation of the laws.

I’ll take your word for it

In a closed system. Creationists always seem to forget this part.

God is not limited by the laws of physics.

Right now, we cannot model what preceded the universe because the laws of physics break down just before the big bang.

That’s a convenient get-out clause. “We don’t know what caused the big bang but the laws of physics were all mixed up then anyway…”

Is the author purposely trying to mislead the audience with this statement?

I see what you mean, he’s not being very precise. H seems to have dramatically compressed time there

The universe has only existed for 13.7 billion years or so.

Agreed, he’s proving that the universe had a beginning at some point. If the universe had always existed you would expect to see a uniform temperature across the universe. And because this is the case, it must have had a beginning a finite time into the past.

Actually, the universe was spawned from a singularity. Time did not exist before the universe, therefore the singularity is also outside of time and has no beginning. Ergo no God is necessary according to the author’s reasoning.

Surely this is all theoretical? You can’t prove that the universe began with a singularity, can you?

OK, lets forget about the link I sent. I’ll try to argue the case for creation out of nothing in my own words.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that “in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state.” This is also commonly referred to as entropy.

First, lets assume the universe had no beginning. You would expect the temperature across the universe to be uniform because the universe would have had an infinite time period in which to reach maximum entrophy. Because we don’t observe this to be the case today, we can conclude that the universe had a beginning.

Now moving on to the first law. Because we know that the universe had a beginning, we have to ask the question, where did all this matter and energy come from? It must have come from nothing. If we say there must have been something before the universe began, we can use the 2nd law to refute this. So we have to conclude that the universe was created out of nothing. Religion tells us that it was God who created the universe. Science will never be able to come up with an answer to this question! Science is limited to observable phenomena and so has closed itself off from the supernatural world. This is a bridge which it cannot cross.

I’m not a physicist so excuse me if I’ve got my facts wrong. Now feel free to pick holes in my argument

Noel.

 

[Suat]

Considering what the several million strong League of Militant Atheists did in the USSR and other atheists did in China, Mongolia, Cambodia, Tibet, Cuba and Eastern Europe under Soviet occupation, I would say atheisms encompasses more than simply not believing in God.

Are you implying that I should have murdered someone by now simply because I am an atheist? That is a very dangerous argument to get into considering the past and present of religion.

I have not killed anyone in yet, I think I deserve a medal

 

[Suat]

I don’t understand these comments. Don’t atheists believe that there is nothing supernatural, i.e. that only nature exists? Doesn’t that make him/her a naturalist? And what alternative have you got to evolution?

I do not disagree with evolution, the author of that link does. This is what I find mildly disturbing, that he/she is attempting to argue for the existence of God though science while also believing that a major branch of science is not correct. That leads me to the conclusion that the author of the link does not understand science. Further reading of his/her work supports this.

There are also some atheists who believe in ghosts and other things which I classify as supernatural. Ergo, they are not purely naturalists.

That’s a convenient get-out clause. “We don’t know what caused the big bang but the laws of physics were all mixed up then anyway…”

Yes, it is quite convenient . I would even venture to say that it is almost as convenient as this:

God is not limited by the laws of physics.

The difference between the two arguments is that I do not think that science will always be ignorant of the physics needed to further our understanding of the pre-big bang questions.

Agreed, he’s proving that the universe had a beginning at some point. If the universe had always existed you would expect to see a uniform temperature across the universe. And because this is the case, it must have had a beginning a finite time into the past.

Our observable universe had a beginning, the big bang. Science is quite on the question of whether or not whatever preceded the observed universe must have had a beginning.

Surely this is all theoretical? You can’t prove that the universe began with a singularity, can you?

Proving anything in science is rather difficult. Instead we put forth theories that explain all observed data and make predictions that can then be tested. Observations have shown that the universe spawned from something of tremendous temperature and density. General relativity predicts that this was due to a gravitational singularity. However, we do not know because our current understanding of physics is not advanced enough.

First, lets assume the universe had no beginning. You would expect the temperature across the universe to be uniform because the universe would have had an infinite time period in which to reach maximum entrophy. Because we don’t observe this to be the case today, we can conclude that the universe had a beginning.

I do not disagree that what we conventionally think of as the universe, i.e. the observed universe, had a beginning. I do disagree that what preceded the observed universe must have a beginning.

where did all this matter and energy come from? It must have come from nothing.

Why this assumption that it came from anywhere? Please try to understand this; modern physics is silent on the question of whether or not the universe (by this I am including whatever preceded the current observed universe) had a beginning. To assume that something before the big bang must have a beginning and must come from something is not a valid assumption. In addition, the point at which all dimensions came into being is the start of time. To talk about a ‘before’ makes no sense, there was no before.

Let us assume that tomorrow there is a major breakthrough in particle physics and we can finally accurately model what happens at extremely high densities. We then have our answers to what preceded the big bang and whether or not a beginning is necessary. If it is found that a beginning is not necessary, will you stop believing in God? Probably not, because you have faith that God exists and you use God to answer questions of ‘why’ not ‘how’. Do you see the problem of using our incomplete knowledge of science to prove that your God exists? In time science will progress enough to explain what we currently cannot. Then if your belief in and evidence for God is based solely upon gaps in the scientific knowledge, then God is no longer necessary.

If we say there must have been something before the universe began, we can use the 2nd law to refute this.

No, we cannot. This statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the beginning of the observed universe.

So we have to conclude that the universe was created out of nothing.

Again, this is an assumption that I cannot see a reason for.

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

I think the following quote from the Song of Bernadette says it all:

“For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

 

[nkelly]

Hello again Suat. To be honest I’m a getting a bit out of my depth here as I have no background in physics or cosmology! But I’ll wade in a bit further…

I do not disagree with evolution, the author of that link does. This is what I find mildly disturbing, that he/she is attempting to argue for the existence of God though science while also believing that a major branch of science is not correct. That leads me to the conclusion that the author of the link does not understand science. Further reading of his/her work supports this.

There are also some atheists who believe in ghosts and other things which I classify as supernatural. Ergo, they are not purely naturalists.

Fair points.

The difference between the two arguments is that I do not think that science will always be ignorant of the physics needed to further our understanding of the pre-big bang questions.

This is the sticking point, isn’t it? I predict science will NEVER discover the origin of our universe. I believe it was created by God. It’s just a matter of faith and trust. Sorry, I’m getting very unscientific now

I do disagree that what preceded the observed universe must have a beginning.

Why? If this were the case, wouldn’t this imply that the 2nd law of thermodynamics isn’t a law at all? How can the laws of physics change? What does science have to say about the laws of physics before the big bang? Nothing?

Why this assumption that it came from anywhere?

The only other alternative that I can think of is that matter/energy has always existed. This can’t be the case without breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Do you see the problem of using our incomplete knowledge of science to prove that your God exists?

Yes. I know I can’t prove that God exists. I’m trying to show that the universe must have had a beginning and that nothing existed before the big-bang. My thinking is that if the universe had no beginning we would surely observe as steady state of entrophy today, wouldn’t we? But we don’t…

In time science will progress enough to explain what we currently cannot. Then if your belief in and evidence for God is based solely upon gaps in the scientific knowledge, then God is no longer necessary.

I don’t think science will ever answer the question of the origin of the universe and my belief in God doesn’t have anything to do with science.

No, we cannot. This statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the beginning of the observed universe.

Why? Because the laws of physics are not constant?

This is a tough debate I admit. Do you have a background in physics or some such?

Another prediction I have is that science will never understand the fundamental nature of matter. From what I know of particle physics, which is very little, scientists are discovering new (often very short-lived) particles as the energy levels in particle colliders is increased. My question is what does this prove? There’s a limit to the amount of energy we can produce so we don’t know what lies beyond our energy limit so we’ll never know what matter is really composed of. But I digress

Noel.

 

[nkelly]

All,

I’m slowly realising that this debate is going nowhere because science can always stick it’s head in the sand and say “our science is incomplete but we hope to have a more complete picture soon”. I think science has come to a dead-end. It’s time the scientists admitted defeat and said “OK God you win. We really haven’t got a clue about the fundamental questions of nature! It’s a fool’s errand! I’m off to join a monastery…”

God bless!
Noel.

 

[Mirdath]

I’m slowly realising that this debate is going nowhere because science can always stick it’s head in the sand and say “our science is incomplete but we hope to have a more complete picture soon”. I think science has come to a dead-end. It’s time the scientists admitted defeat and said “OK God you win. We really haven’t got a clue about the fundamental questions of nature! It’s a fool’s errand! I’m off to join a monastery…”

To be fair, it’s also going nowhere because religion can always stick its head in the sand and say ‘hey guys, God did it, and all the theories you can come up with won’t get anywhere near the whole picture’. That’s a full-stop dead end, not ‘okay, we’ll keep looking’. And by the way, many fundamental questions of nature have been answered by science. Probably best to agree to disagree and move on

 

[Jake_Ellison]

To be fair, it’s also going nowhere because religion can always stick its head in the sand and say ‘hey guys, God did it, and all the theories you can come up with won’t get anywhere near the whole picture’. That’s a full-stop dead end, not ‘okay, we’ll keep looking’. And by the way, many fundamental questions of nature have been answered by science. Probably best to agree to disagree and move on

Agreed but, science can also say, we have filled holes once occupied by religion and religion has had to scamper off to find another hole to fill.

 

[Suat]

I’m slowly realising that this debate is going nowhere because science can always stick it’s head in the sand and say “our science is incomplete but we hope to have a more complete picture soon”. I think science has come to a dead-end. It’s time the scientists admitted defeat and said “OK God you win. We really haven’t got a clue about the fundamental questions of nature! It’s a fool’s errand! I’m off to join a monastery…”

Did you know that the proton was discovered in 1918? The neutron was only discovered in 1930. These comprise everything that we see or feel or smell around us, and they are not even the fundamental building blocks, just combinations of those. And yet, we have only known of their existence for 100 years. Do you know how significant this is? How far science has progressed in those 100 years?

To say that science is sticking its head in the sand is very naïve. In the last 100 years we have made almost unfathomable progress in our understanding of the universe. There isstill an infinite amount of questions left unanswered, but people are working daily at those problems. Scientists are out there observing, experimenting, trying to find explanations. They are willing to say “I do not know, but let us try to find out”. You seem to be content to stick to “God did it”. I would find that very depressing. Let science answer ‘hows’ and religion can deal with the ‘whys’ for existence.