Answering Gotquestions.org

[Cousin Ricky]

Oy vey. Here we go again.
 
Is there any conclusive proof of [the Christian] God?
 
1. The Law of Cause and Effect
 

Science has proven that the universe really did have a beginning.

 

No, science has only proven that the universe in its present state had a beginning. Science has not made any determination of what happened before Planck time. And I wish that apologists would stop claiming that science has said things that it has not.
 

Even Richard Dawkins, probably the most prominent proponent for atheism in our time, admitted in a TIME magazine article that “there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

 

How do you know that it’s God? This is just a bald assertion. Dawkins said, essentially, “We don’t know.” This this should not be construed as “I know! I know!”

As for the Kalam cosmological argument (summarized, but not named):

• The only examples we have of anything beginning to exist are quantum mechanical phenomena. (All other “creations” are merely transformed from existing substance.) So far as we can tell, these have no cause. As counter-intuitive as it seems, the only examples we have of things beginning to exist are things that have no apparent cause!
• This is reading into relativity and the big bang things these theories do not claim. We don’t know if the universe began to exist.
• Neither premise 1 nor premise 2 can be verified, therefore this conclusion is unsound.
• First of all, we have not established the cause of the universe, or even if it had a cause. Second, making shit up does not imply that the shit you made up is real. Real science examples are dark matter and dark energy. These entities have been postulated as the causes of observed phenomena, but ask any scientist, and they will tell you they don’t know what they are. “Dark matter” and “dark energy” are simply labels they use until they can learn more.
• See dark matter and dark energy example, above. From something “timeless, existing outside of space” (dubious attributes to begin with!) to “the god of the Bible” is an astronomical leap of logic.

Of course, all cosmological arguments ignore or blow off the obvious fatal flaw: who or what created the creator? Kalam does not solve the problem; all it does is find a different way in which to exempt the god from the laws that apply to everything else.

2. The Law of Teleology

Charles Darwin showed us more than 150 years ago that just because something looks designed doesn’t mean that it was.

The example makes no sense astronomically. Earth doesn’t orbit in a straight line—except in a relativistic sense that obviously does not apply to this argument. Earth orbits in an ellipse. 1/9 of an inch every 18 miles? The author is apparently unaware that the Earth’s distance from the Sun varies by 3 fucking million miles over the course of a year. Freezing to death? Ashes? Has the author ever Googled “Goldilocks zone”?

Besides, with billions of galaxies, each with billions of planetary systems, this entire argument falls apart under the anthropic principle.

Of course, the teleological argument ignores the obvious fatal flaw: who or what designed the designer?

3. The Laws of Probability and Fulfilled Prophecy

This has been debunked all over the Internet, so rather than examine this in detail, I’ll just make the following points:

• Anyone can make up a story that fulfills prophesies that were made long before. These stories are called “the gospels.”
• Most of the prophesies cited in the New Testament were taken out of context, or aren’t even prophesies at all. One out-of-context prophesy is even based on a mistranslation!
• Anyone can point to a “fulfilled” prophesy if the alleged prophesy is vague enough.
• Anyone can point to a fulfilled “prophesy” if the prophesy is made after the event has taken place. The most obvious example is the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, although the apologists will simply claim that the gospels were written earlier that when critical scholarship claims they were.

For more information, one can ask any rabbi why Jews don’t take Christians seriously over fulfilled prophesy.

 

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Edit: Numbering correction of Kalam argument.

[rjn]

 

“there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

 

I can actually accept belief based on this premise, but it remains just that, belief, and there's nothing that says that "God" (meaning something that transcends our cognition) equals a Hebrew tribal God, whose all too human characteristics are not a little suspicious.

[TheLyniezian]

 

 

“there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

 

I can actually accept belief based on this premise, but it remains just that, belief, and there's nothing that says that "God" (meaning something that transcends our cognition) equals a Hebrew tribal God, whose all too human characteristics are not a little suspicious.

 

 

This is possibly the only thing that legitimately stops me from becoming a 100% atheist as opposed to a borderline agnostic. That, and the fact there are supposedly respected scientists who claim that it is hypothetically possible the universe is one big computer simulation so as to solve the problems wih those physical laws that are simply beyond comprehension, or some such. But this "God", if it existed, would be simply some detached intelligence which created the universe, is not knowable or provable, and is redundant as a concept unless it makes its presence known.

[bornagainathiest]

1. Proof of God: The Law of Cause and Effect. This law of science states that every cause has its effect and every effect has its cause. This law is the basis of all science. As such, this law bears a relationship to the origin of the heavens and the earth. In fact, scientists agree that the universe has not existed forever, that it had a beginning at some point in time.

The theory of relativity, which is almost universally accepted among scientists, has certain implications for this Law of Cause and Effect. One is that the universe, defined as time, space, matter, and physical energy had a beginning, that it is not eternal. And it is through Einstein’s equations that scientists can trace the development of the universe back to its very origin, back to what is called the “singularity event” when it actually came into being. Science has proven that the universe really did have a beginning. This means that if the universe had a starting point in history, then it obviously began to exist, and it must have a cause for its existence. 

Therefore, if the universe needs a cause for its coming into being, then that cause must be beyond the universe—which is time, space, matter, and physical energy. That cause must be something similar to what Christians call “God.” Even Richard Dawkins, probably the most prominent proponent for atheism in our time, admitted in a TIME magazine article that “there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

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Cause-and-effect, huh?

 

Don't these Gotquestions "experts" realize that cause-and-effect breaks down at the singularity?  So tracing the development of the universe back to this singularity solves nothing and doesn't prove anything.  Also, this singularity is the end result of tracing the universe's development back thru time using only the equations of General Relativity.   Which tells only half the story.  What about the other half?  What about Quantum Mechanics?  Any proper description of the universe's origin and development must factor in both GR and QM.  Catch is, these two scientific paradigms do not talk to each other.  It's widely acknowledged by cosmologists and theoretical physicists that until they can be made to do so, our understanding of the universe's origin is incomplete.  Which is why String theory has been touted as the solution that'll seamlessly weld GR and QM into one unified whole.  

 

The two elephants in the room are these.

String theory has so far zero evidence to support it.  It looks great on paper.  But not one iota of hard evidence to vindicate String theory has ever been discovered.  Many hopes were pinned on the LHC finding this evidence.  But so far... zip!  The second elephant is what the Gotquestions "experts" must surely know (and aren't saying) these things?  Surely they must know about GR and QM not working together?  Surely they must know that describing the origin of the universe using only GR is telling only half the story?  Surely they must know that cause-and-effect break down at the singularity?

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Yes!  Of course they know.

But why should they let a few inconvenient details spoil their outreach ministry for Jesus?  What does it matter if they bring unsuspecting folks into the kingdom by telling them half-truths?  By avoiding the awkward parts, where their argument fails?  By deliberately not revealing a full and honest declaration of the facts?  

 

Surely it's ok for the Gotquestions people to win souls for Christ by being a teeny-weeny bit economical with the truth?  

 

[sdelsolray]

Nothing new here.  The Gotquestions.org is an all-to-typical creationist website, full of lies, misrepresentations and disingenuousness.  It invites no discourse, challenges or comments on its "answers" (which are just a series of mere assertions).  Only "Bible question(s)" are allowed from readers, which are then screened by the creationist whores running the site:

 

 

 

"To submit your Bible question(s), please enter your email address and question(s) in the form below and then click on the "Submit Your Question" button."

 

Reference (emphasis added):  Click on the "Ask a Question" link on the right side of the main page to see the above quote.

[sdelsolray]

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The second elephant is what the Gotquestions "experts" must surely know (and aren't saying) these things?  Surely they must know about GR and QM not working together?  Surely they must know that describing the origin of the universe using only GR is telling only half the story?  Surely they must know that cause-and-effect break down at the singularity?

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Yes!  Of course they know.

But why should they let a few inconvenient details spoil their outreach ministry for Jesus?  What does it matter if they bring unsuspecting folks into the kingdom by telling them half-truths?  By avoiding the awkward parts, where their argument fails?  By deliberately not revealing a full and honest declaration of the facts?  

 

Surely it's ok for the Gotquestions people to win souls for Christ by being a teeny-weeny bit economical with the truth?  

 

 

 

Well, these "experts" may not know.  Over the years I've noticed that many creationists truly do not understand scientific theories, the scientific method and many other things.  Those that are truly ignorant and merely repeating something they "learned" from some other (either clueless of lying) creationist cannot technically be called a liar I suppose, but given the consistent and pervasive misinformation these folks promote, I believe the presumption should be they should know better and are therefor deemed lying, instead of they don't know better and are just ignorant chumps.  Either way, the infantile and shallow misinformation continues and nearly all have no interest whatsoever in correcting their understanding of reality.

[bornagainathiest]

 

...

The second elephant is what the Gotquestions "experts" must surely know (and aren't saying) these things?  Surely they must know about GR and QM not working together?  Surely they must know that describing the origin of the universe using only GR is telling only half the story?  Surely they must know that cause-and-effect break down at the singularity?

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.

.

Yes!  Of course they know.

But why should they let a few inconvenient details spoil their outreach ministry for Jesus?  What does it matter if they bring unsuspecting folks into the kingdom by telling them half-truths?  By avoiding the awkward parts, where their argument fails?  By deliberately not revealing a full and honest declaration of the facts?  

 

Surely it's ok for the Gotquestions people to win souls for Christ by being a teeny-weeny bit economical with the truth?  

 

 

 

Well, these "experts" may not know.  Over the years I've noticed that many creationists truly do not understand scientific theories, the scientific method and many other things.  Those that are truly ignorant and merely repeating something they "learned" from some other (either clueless of lying) creationist cannot technically be called a liar I suppose, but given the consistent and pervasive misinformation these folks promote, I believe the presumption should be they should know better and are therefor deemed lying, instead of they don't know better and are just ignorant chumps.  Either way, the infantile and shallow misinformation continues and nearly all have no interest whatsoever in correcting their understanding of reality.

 

 

Agree, sdelsolray.

 

And to demonstrate your point (that these 'experts' don't really understand much about science) there's this gem from the linked Gotquestions page.

 

"Science has proven that the universe really did have a beginning."

 

No.  The sciences involved in investigating the universe have not done that.

 

The remit of these sciences (cosmology, astrophysics and high energy particle physics) is to provide the best current explanation of what is observed.  Nothing more.

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(Hark!  Is that the sound of Justus getting ready to spring to the attack, brandishing that Thomas Paine quote?)

[Cousin Ricky]

(Hark!  Is that the sound of Justus getting ready to spring to the attack, brandishing that Thomas Paine quote?)

 

As far as I'm concerned, all founding fathers quotes are apocryphal until I have a source other than a Christian apologist. (This skepticism is not faith-based; it is based on experience.)

 

Not that arguments from authority necessarily carry any weight around here.

[rjn]

 

 

 

“there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

 

I can actually accept belief based on this premise, but it remains just that, belief, and there's nothing that says that "God" (meaning something that transcends our cognition) equals a Hebrew tribal God, whose all too human characteristics are not a little suspicious.

 

 

This is possibly the only thing that legitimately stops me from becoming a 100% atheist as opposed to a borderline agnostic. That, and the fact there are supposedly respected scientists who claim that it is hypothetically possible the universe is one big computer simulation so as to solve the problems wih those physical laws that are simply beyond comprehension, or some such. But this "God", if it existed, would be simply some detached intelligence which created the universe, is not knowable or provable, and is redundant as a concept unless it makes its presence known.

 

 

Same here man, so... ditto. However, where your view of "God" is rather deistic, my view of any possible "God" would be more in the pan(en)theistic vein. For this reason, when I was more theistically inclined, I was drawn to Dharma-based religions. As I saw it (and to a certain degree, still do) the point of spirituality was to live as harmoniously as possible, and in that way connect the divine, which was integral in everything.