More Than Conquerors

hatefulatheist:

(Posting this as a picture because it’s just easier than editing a submission.)

Thank you for the message. To jump directly to your question, the direct answer is I don’t know. No one really knows. That is something that, as of yet, has no good scientific explanation. Really our understanding has grown in great amounts in the last 100 years. Less than 100 years ago the popular idea was that the universe was timeless and had always existed. We’re getting more and more understanding all the time but we can always seek to push back our understanding. No matter what answer we have we can always ask “What about before that?” and it pushes us in to an infinite regress.

We are left with two options. The universe is either infinite and always has and always will exist, or it is finite and had a starting point. Either answer is pretty amazing to think of. Either answer opens up many other follow up questions we’d love to have the answer to. We’re continuing to seek out those answers and we’re continuing to push our understanding. It’s really amazing to consider just how much we are able to know.

If you don’t mind me interjecting for a second, I have just a few comments.

We really aren’t left with two options, but only one, which is that the universe had a definite starting point. Many secular scientists in times past espoused the Steady State theory, the theory that the universe has always existed, but with recent cosmological discoveries it has become irrefutable that the universe had a definite point of origin. It seems the Bible did get something right.

It’s true that secular scientists would love to have the answers to these questions. But frankly I don’t think they ever will. What existed before the universe - which by definition is all that exists - will never, in my humble opinion, be reached by science. Let’s put it this way. Through scientific discoveries we know that something existed prior to the existence of the universe, which caused the universe to come into being. What was that something? You, the atheist, would say it was something natural because supernatural things don’t exist. Christians like me would say that it was an eternal Creator. But neither one of us really knows. Let’s keep in mind, however, that there’s no reason at all to think that it was something natural, because as far as we know, everything that is natural is contained within the universe. This is one of the reasons I think that the preexisting cause was supernatural.

The words people use when discussing these ideas will often reflect the point of view they hold. When you say that these things had to be “created” you’re imply that there had to be a creator in order to make it possible. That is not necessarily the case. There is absolutely no reason to believe it had to be created. So how did it get there? I don’t know, but anyone that will say they have an answer is only speculating.

Must stop you again. There IS a reason to believe it had to be created, which is the scientifically observed order and silent obedience of the universe to unseen laws. No matter how plausible someone will make evolution, abiogenesis, or the Big Bang theory seem, I refuse to believe that a chaotic explosion of matter is capable of giving rise to the intricacy that no one can deny exists in the natural order. The biggest problem with atheism is how things got started in the first place. Once you start with the perfect, ordered universe with its mathematical patterns and physical precision already in existence, sure, you can hypothesize things like evolution and abiogenesis to support your secular worldview. But how that perfect ordered universe with its mathematical patterns and physical precision was formed in the first place… I don’t think science will ever convince me of a Godless explanation for that.

One aspect of the discussion that always bothers me is how religious people will attempt to be half-way scientific. People should either put trust in science and the scientific method, or not. There are so many people that go in to it half way. There are people that will look at science and say yes this makes sense, this is logical, this is a good explanation but then entirely deter from that when considering things that don’t currently have a complete scientific explanation. They will completely sell out the proof, foundation, and reasoning they used to understand the other information.

But surely you can appreciate that science is not omnipotent. I am fine with being semi-scientific because there are so many things that you have to be semi-scientific about. Take your cherished “reason and rationality,” for example. Science has no explanation for why circular reasoning is invalid, or why evidence-based reasoning is superior to superstition. These are entirely nonscientific, abstract concepts that I dare say you take on faith. And yet science depends so much on these rules. So you see that a completely scientific worldview is self-defeating. And what about such things as the value of love, compassion, and caring, or the universal human right to life that all of society excepting sociopaths believes in? What about the dictates of morality and the abstract rules of calculus and mathematics? Explain these things to me in purely naturalistic, scientific terms if you can, and you will be the first one to have done so.

The explanation your religion teacher provided is not an uncommon one. It’s one I’ve heard many times, yet when ever I’ve asked for someone to explain how they can possibly know this and why this entity is just automatically outside of the limitation imposed on all other things you get a vague pseudo answer that basically boils down to “I don’t know, just is”. It’s illogical and irrational. It’s ridiculous to use proper thought process to arrive at one piece of information and totally diverge from it in order to arrive at another.

The answer to every mystery we have ever had is never ever “magic”. There are explanation and there are reasons. To put forward that the legitimate answer to a very deep mystery is “magic” is simply silly and irrational. It’s a juvenile mentality that does not provide anything of substance for the conversation. It is something automatically beyond testing, beyond reason, and beyond understanding which makes it both a horrible answer and an unverifiable one.

Saying that the universe is the result of design - which is what Creationism says - and saying it is the result of magic are two very different statements. This distinction is very very important because in an intellectual sense, saying that something is the result of design is a much more neutral and defensible statement than saying that it is the result of magic. It’s also a distinction even you as an atheist make readily about everyday things. Imagine if you were to, commenting on a beautiful Van Goh work, say that the artistry was masterful and brilliant, and then have me walk along and tell you that you are believing in magic because we as the rational, scientific ones must somehow prove how the painting emerged through chance.

In a dialectical, analytical sense, Creationism doesn’t even make any claims about God, Yahweh, or the Eden Story; although Creationism is often used as a supporting doctrine for these things, and rightly so, Creationism technically only makes the claim that the cosmos and the natural order are the result of design and not accident. And this is no author-of-the-gaps argument. There are some things that logically point to other things, things about which to say “that’s a premature conclusion” is absurd. The theory of cosmological design is one of those things. There is no alternative theory for the precision of the universe which is tenable. For by definition, every other alternative theory than “the universe is the result of design” is made by somehow saying “the universe is not the result of design,” implying necessarily that the natural order is the result of coincidence and chance, which is self-evidently silly, and will be self-evidently silly even a thousand years from now with exponential growth in scientific knowledge. There is no scientific way to duck past the sheer improbability of what you are saying.

I do appreciate the message and I hope you don’t feel I’m being too harsh in my criticism. If you trust science, trust in science. If you’re not going to, don’t attempt to make your religion and science coalesce because they simply can’t. I’ve had the discussion many times but there will always be some aspects that religion and science simply can’t come together on. A choice needs to be made, truth or fantasy, logic or mysticism, reason or mystery, science or religion. Personally, I’ll take science every single time.

And would you classify your belief in metaphysical, supernatural laws of reasoning and mathematics as fantasy and mysticism?

What really separates your belief in those and other abstract things such as compassion and caring from my belief in God? Any scientific evidence for the existence of “human rights” or “the value of love”?