Question from an athiest: How would you respond?

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exoflare

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I saw where an athiest asked this on another forum, although the question was not addressed to me. Replying to the argument that the universe is too orderly and structured to have appeared merely as the result of random chance, he/she asks:

Look at a snowflake. It’s uniform shape probably tells you that it’s not formed from water molecules coming together randomly. Do you think there is a god who created it, and every single snowflake that ever existed?
**The reasoning in the question is definitely off somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is. Please help me LOL :o **
 
exoflare said:
Do you think there is a god who created it, and every single snowflake that ever existed?
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I’m not big on the argument from design, but my initial response is…yes, I do think there is a God who created it (and every single snowflake that ever existed). It would be a pretty sorry God who didn’t.

The “how” is the question. The God I worship seems to prefer instrumental causes within the universe. The crystaline structure of ice is one of those instruments - indeed, without that property of ice, life would never have arisen on Earth. It’s almost like it was…dare I say it…planned to be that way.

God Bless,
RyanL
 
There doesn’t necessarily need to be a god for a snowflake to exist. A snowflake gets its shape from the polar forces in water molecules caused by the position in which the hydrogen and oxygen atoms are set. Water molecules cannot magnetically bind in any other way, you can’t have hydrogen closer to other hydrogens than they are to an oxygen because of the polar forces. The shape of a water molecule cannot have any shape but one unless extra energy was put into it, in which case the bonds and snowflake will break. The point is, it can’t happen any other way, in any universe. People think that a god must have created all the equations and forces that govern our universe when, in fact, once you understand them and the math behind it, you realize it cannot happen any other way, god or not. So the mere structure, shape or function of things, order, is no evidence that a god exists.
 
Hubriss’ response is why I don’t care so much for the design argument. It’s not that it’s invalid (because it is valid), but rather it’s more difficult to show.

Personally, I prefer the Kalam argument - but that’s just me. For your listening pleasure - link. That’s a debate on the existence of God using the Kalam argument.

God Bless,
RyanL
 
I think the thinking is off. Undoubtedly God did create every single snow flake; but that doesn’t mean he sat down with a hammer and a chisel. Creation is an act of will- of thought for God.
 
Randomness can not exist. there isn’t an absence of order in creation. If there was a break down of order, it would be a contradiction. If we try to imagine what chaos would be like, we’d still be imagining it in the context of order. God created all things and therefore they all follow order, from hydrogen bonding to oxygen and those molecules bonding to each other, although they bond and crystalize into different patterns, they are merely eventualities in an ordered process. Order can be seen I suppose as God’s hand, but its all contained in Him. He didn’t make a cosmic machine, turn it on and then leave the room
 
Having had a few debates of this nature, you may want to pin down your definition of God.

Eventually, you may well win the argument. But just because something created our universe does not mean that ‘God’ did it.
And the argument continues in that vein ad nauseum.

I am uncertain where I could have taken the argument from that point. Once the opposition started arguing that there was a mechanism in place somehow that created the universe (and not necessarily God) I conceded to idiocy.
 
exoflare said:
I saw where an athiest asked this on another forum, although the question was not addressed to me. Replying to the argument that the universe is too orderly and structured to have appeared merely as the result of random chance, he/she asks:

Look at a snowflake. It’s uniform shape probably tells you that it’s not formed from water molecules coming together randomly. Do you think there is a god who created it, and every single snowflake that ever existed?
**The reasoning in the question is definitely off somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is. Please help me LOL :o **
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I would just forcibly baptize them and hope that the Spirit takes ahold of them.

😛
 
As G.K. Chesterton is reported to have said: “Atheists believe that there is no God. I believe that there are no atheists.”

You’re making a big wager and an unwarranted one, to put all your money on the argument over a snowflake.

Behind this, intentionally or not, is the statement in the Bible that all of creation is evidence of God and His handiwork.

The argument works well in that direction. It doesn’t work well iln the opposite direction, that you can use science to prove the existence of God.

The existence of God is a matter of faith. Faith is a gift of God, and not everyone has it.

We must be charitable and kind especially to those who have not received this gift. We are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
 
Exoflare,

My vision of God includes His having His finger on every electron, quark, and photon in the universe (plus whatever else is out there). When Jesus said that “all the hairs on your head are numbered” I think He was speaking in terms that His audience would understand; had He said “all the molecules in your body are numbered” His audience would have said “What’s a molecule?”

Is that what you were asking?
  • Liberian
 
Crumpy

*The existence of God is a matter of faith. Faith is a gift of God, and not everyone has it.
*
Everyone has been given the gift. Some have refused it.
 
Hubriss said:
There doesn’t necessarily need to be a god for a snowflake to exist. A snowflake gets its shape from the polar forces in water molecules caused by the position in which the hydrogen and oxygen atoms are set. Water molecules cannot magnetically bind in any other way, you can’t have hydrogen closer to other hydrogens than they are to an oxygen because of the polar forces. The shape of a water molecule cannot have any shape but one unless extra energy was put into it, in which case the bonds and snowflake will break. The point is, it can’t happen any other way, in any universe. People think that a god must have created all the equations and forces that govern our universe when, in fact, once you understand them and the math behind it, you realize it cannot happen any other way, god or not. So the mere structure, shape or function of things, order, is no evidence that a god exists.
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Nope, I don’t think hydrogen bonding is based on magnetic attraction. Magnetism results from spinning of a charged particle (e.g. the Earth’s core, electrons, and protons for NMR (see ) It is a weak form of Coulumbic attraction i.e. opposite charges attract (but its able to give water high surface tension, and forces one to use a thermal cycler in polymerase chain reaction.
 
To ribozyme, the post right above.

What are you talking about? In water molecules, the two hydrogens have a positive charge and the oxygen atom has a negative charge. Opposite charges attract. Hydrogen atoms in the molecule do not form covalent bonds with other positively charged hydrogens. It is based on magnetic attraction, that’s what I said.**
 
He didn’t make a cosmic machine, turn it on and then leave the room
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If a god did create the universe, there is no thing that says otherwise. Like vz71 said, this force that created everything does not necessarily fit your idea of “God.” There is no reason otherwise for us to think that we were created, and whatever created us left the picture. The only “evidense” could be a miracle but there is no good account of such a thing.
 
Hubriss said:
The only “evidense” could be a miracle but there is no good account of such a thing.
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Um…besides the Resurrection (which has several “good accounts”), I would point to October 1917, when 70,000 people (believers, non-believers, scientists and reporters alike) witnessed the sun dance in the sky over Fatima, Portugal. The New York Times thought it was credible enough to report it.

I’m sure you’ll say it was swamp gas or something…or perhaps it’s a plot…or perhaps it was yet another “mass hallucination”. Heaven knows it couldn’t have been a miracle…

God Bless,
RyanL
 
exoflare said:
I saw where an athiest asked this on another forum, although the question was not addressed to me. Replying to the argument that the universe is too orderly and structured to have appeared merely as the result of random chance, he/she asks:

Look at a snowflake. Its uniform shape probably tells you that it’s not formed from water molecules coming together randomly. Do you think there is a god who created it, and every single snowflake that ever existed?

**The reasoning in the question is definitely off somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is. Please help me LOL :o **
Click to expand...

ISTM that the atheist is making an argument for the existence of a designer.​

Nothing whatever could exist, if God did not create & sustain it - this applies with equal force to atoms, apes, & archangels, and to every thing else: actual, possible, realised, and hypothetical. No snowflakes are exempt from this: God is absolute Sovereign Lord of all His creatures, in every respect. ##
 
Hubriss said:
To ribozyme, the post right above.

What are you talking about? In water molecules, the two hydrogens have a positive charge and the oxygen atom has a negative charge. Opposite charges attract. Hydrogen atoms in the molecule do not form covalent bonds with other positively charged hydrogens. It is based on magnetic attraction, that’s what I said.**

No, it is simply based on the charges of the electronegative oxygen atom and the electron poor hydrogen atom in water. But protons and electrons do have spin, but I do not think they generate a magnetic field significant in hydrogen bonding. Charged particles are capable of attracting without spin on the particles. But I might be wrong as I do not know much about physics, as I know the most about biochemistry.
Click to expand...
 
Hubriss said:
If a god did create the universe, there is no thing that says otherwise. Like vz71 said, this force that created everything does not necessarily fit your idea of “God.” There is no reason otherwise for us to think that we were created, and whatever created us left the picture. The only “evidense” could be a miracle but there is no good account of such a thing.
Click to expand...
Allow me to chime in again…

You want miracles?
  • There is the resurrection of Christ.
  • How about the everyday miracle that is you?
  • I know it sounds weak, but I have often considered it more an act of faith to believe chance brought my DNA together as well as built my personality and my life experience to make me who I am then to believe that there is a devine creator in control of it all.
  • There are a number of miracles listed throughout the old and new testament.
  • How about Stigmata? There are many with this gift(?) and science cannot explain it.
  • Various saints and all of the documented miracles associated with them.
    There are miracles al around us. It takes one with an especially hard set of blinders put on not to see them.
    As I believe I stated earlier, it is more an act of faith to believe in coincidence then to believe in God.
 
I think that snowflakes are part of an order that come from God. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that order is always the product of intelligence: if we see ordere in reality, and we understand we havent producted it, it necessary comes from another intelligence.
🙂
 
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