1. Atheism is irrational
It’s simply irrational to look at anything with the kind of design we find in this world and to assume that no intelligent mind was behind it. I am not suggesting that this solves all problems in discussing the existence of God. I realize apparent flaws in the design raise other important questions. I also realize that moving from belief in a designer to a specific designer is a different matter. And it’s also wrong to assume that affirmation of intelligent design is equivalent with belief in young- earth creationism. It’s not.
Yet if one considers, for example, the design in the human body, it’s enough to compel belief in an intelligent origin. When we study any single part of the human body (eye, ear, hand, etc..) and consider the synchronization of each part with the whole, the design is breathtakingly awesome! No designer? Irrational!
The response is often, “Well, if God is a detailed being, who created God?” But this is like asking, “What does blue smell like?” Blue does not belong to a category of things that smell. The question itself is flawed. Since God is not in the category of created things, asking who created God is irrational. Only what begins to exist is caused to exist.
Prior to his death, a doctor friend of mine often said, “Anyone who knows what I know about the human body and tells you that there is no creator who designed it is lying to you and himself. There is simply no way to know what I know about the human body and deny that there is a Creator who designed it.”
2. Atheism is too simple
“How had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-namely my idea of justice was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
3. Atheism is dishonest
Atheist, Steven Weinberg, suggested that, “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.” The biggest problem with this comment is that there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support it.
Many atheist give the misleading impression that science supports their position. It’s widely popular for atheists to suggest that biological evolution leads one to conclude that the material universe is all there is, was, or ever will be. This is the philosophy of naturalism. Honest scientists know that it’s just outside the scope of science to settle matters of this kind. Questions about ultimate origin, transcendent meaning and ordered morality are just not the business of science.
Evolutionary biology (for all it offers scientifically) cannot be used to address matters related to God’s existence. “There is no God” is a faith-based statement. It’s a kind of religious position. Until we can separate philosophy from science, we will not have an unbiased scientific enterprise and people will keep falling for the unsupported notion that scientific evidence points to an evolutionary process as our creator.
It’s sadly common in the academy for professors and students to experience social coercion to use science as a cover for the philosophy (or religion) of naturalism.
4. Atheism is arrogant
The arrogance of atheism has been established in the first two points. G. K. Chesterton said, “Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.”
Some might accuse those who believe in God of arrogance. The issue comes down not to scientific certainty but reasonable plausibility. The science of studying signs of intelligence provides this plausibility.
“Unlike other worldviews that I had considered, I never felt the God of the Bible was asking me to put on rose-colored glasses. Even the heroes of the Bible were described unsparingly in appalling moral failures—lies, sexual aberrations and murders. I did not have to give up the honesty and realism that I had valued. Cynicism claimed that the world— both inside and outside of our heads—was profoundly broken and bent. I realized that the Christian faith had been saying this for two-thousand years, and Judaism for longer than that” (Dick Keyes, Seeing Through Cynicism).
5. Atheism is unnecessary
The atheist’s problem with belief in God is not an absence of evidence but suppression of it. Many atheists hold their views as much or more on the basis of such wish fulfillment than on the basis of evidence (see: I hope there is no God!).
“As a theory of biological origins and development, intelligent design’s central claim is that only intelligent causes adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable. To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes” (William A. Dembski).
The atheist stands among those “who suppress the truth …. since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither honored him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:19-21)
Steve Cornell
See also:
David B. Hart’s “Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies” is perhaps the best available critique of so-called “new atheism.”
Wisdomforlife 
> Yet if one considers, for example, the design in the human body, it’s enough to compel belief in an intelligent origin. When we study any single part of the human body (eye, ear, hand, etc..) and consider the synchronization of each part with the whole, the design is breathtakingly awesome! No designer? Irrational!
This is wishful thinking; there’s nothing about the design of the body that compels any such thing.
The design is bad in so many ways (consider the appendix, with the primary responsibility of occasionally blowing up and killing you), the fact there are so many different designs of the eye (why would a perfect designer create so many different, and differently flawed, designs throughout the animal kingdom instead of choosing a single optimum design and using it everywhere), or the fact that body parts are missing from some of the population (the plantaris muscle in the foot and wisdom teeth), the fact humans have obvious useless leftovers from the evolutionary process (the muscles that wiggle the ears), as well as useful removals during the evolutionary process (almost all animals can synthesize their own vitamin C, humans can’t, which is why we die of scurvy), the fact that our breathing tube (trachea) and swallowing tube (esophagus) open side by side, so we can choke by inhaling food, killing some large number of children every year.
Belief in intelligent design requires careful cherry-picking of the facts.
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> 2. Atheism is too simple
You removed a pair of key lines from middle of the paragraph, Lewis also says:
“Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.”
In short:
Yes: Lewis’ idea of justice was, in fact, a “private idea of [his] own” (theists always have a definition of “justice” appropriate to their particular culture and morality, no group of theists have shown any special access to any absolute morality).
Yes: The fact the Universe does not conform to Lewis’ private ideas of justice causes his argument against God’s existence to collapse; we can all agree it’s a bad argument, after all, why should God create a Universe conforming to his particular notions of justice?
No: The fact that an argument against God’s existence turns out to be a lousy argument is not, by itself, an argument for God’s existence.
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> 3. Atheism is dishonest
Atheism is the belief there is no god; people can consider the evidence and conclude god doesn’t exist, but that is a belief, no different from my belief, based on the available evidence, that my cats do not juggle chainsaws when I’m not in the room. I cannot prove god doesn’t exist, and neither can anyone else.
That’s not honest or dishonest: only arguments made supporting atheism or theism can be honest or dishonest.
Science supports atheism only in the sense that science has accumulated an astounding track record at debunking arguments for the existence of god. God doesn’t cause thunderstorms or earthquakes, god didn’t create the Universe 6,000 years ago, and it’s not reasonable that two of every living thing could be found within walking distance of Noah’s house.
I know it’s hard from the other side to see science as dispassionate, but at it’s best, science has no agenda. It goes where it goes, and we learn what we learn. If god created the universe, maybe we can find His fingerprints on it, and it’s the job of science to look.
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“Atheism is the belief there is no god” That in itself is a dishonest statement. Somebody could believe “There is no gold in China” but until they unearth all of China… and prove it to be true, it is dishonest because it shows an intent to believe something that is unproven. It would be more honest to say Atheism is the belief that the laws of physics do not apply to our universe because it appeared from nothing. For a human to state that something does not exist is a statement of all knowing arrogance to which in of itself… is unscientific. Science does not prove anything it only stacks evidence for or against a hypothesis. An Atheist poses the worst of all hypothesis to apply the scientific method to something which is outside the physical realm of testing. The only conclusion a honest scientist would have when such a hypothesis is presented is that the atheist is a fool.
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Aaron, maybe we’re arguing semantics, but I honestly don’t understand your point, can you please try again?
If I say “I believe there are no unicorns”, would you say that’s a “dishonest statement” because I haven’t proven they don’t exist? Would you say I have an “intent to believe something that is unproven”?
Are you differentiating between disbelief in god and disbelief in other things somehow?
I realize Steve started the “atheism is dishonest” label, and to be clear, I don’t understand the point he was trying to make, either.
I’d agree it’s outside the scope of science to state god doesn’t exist, but that comes with a caveat. When believers make truth-statements about the world around us (for example, Steve’s belief the perfection of the human body implies design), then science has a right to a seat at the table, because that is an hypothesis about which we can gather evidence.
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Because you do not have the ability to measure, test or detect anything outside of the known universe you do not have the ability of saying HONESTLY that you know what is there. Even with the much simpler statement “there is no gold in China” you could at least scientifically and theoretically unearth all the dirt in China to see if there is any gold. But since it is so unlikely, we can assume that no one person could make that statement HONESTLY. They are being dishonest to make a statement that they have not proven and foolish to make a statement that can not be proven. So… there is no such thing as an HONEST atheist but more likely a very disgruntled agnostic.
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Aaron, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. One can be agnostic (i.e., not know for certain whether gods exist or not) and also be atheist or theist (i.e., evaluate the probability of a god’s existence and make a conclusion). An agnostic atheist is sometimes called a “weak” atheist, while a gnostic atheist is called a “strong” atheist.
Most atheists are agnostic atheists, not gnostic atheists. Agnostic atheists lack belief in gods, rather than claim definitively that none exist.
Here’s a handy cheat-sheet: http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/
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Just because an atheist chooses to define words for an argument in order to prop up his straw man doesn’t help your case.
I think an Agnostic Atheist is merely somebody who comes to expounded conclusion without all the evidence and a gnostic Atheist is only more the foolish in their expounding.
For example… somebody who says “there is no gold in China.. I checked through one ton of dirt and there was no proof of gold” are they any more foolish than somebody who says “there is no gold in China I checked 10 tons of dirt and there was no evidence of gold”?
The simple fact is that there is so very much information that would have to be weighed and can NOT be weighed that to make a statement so conclusive as “there is no God” is foolish.
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Yes there are only two possibilities:
a. Believing in the church aisles holding the bible in the air and yelling ‘thank you Jesus’
OR
b. Concluding that nothing at all exists but the physical.
Hmmmmm. Given those two choices, I refuse to choose – because the best evidence by those who actually do research indicates that both these cosmologies are wrong. If I was like either one of these people who choose a or b, I would be the lowest of human, and lose all self respect. Integral Character is your treasure, the only thing you get to keep. Don’t let institutions of any kind, steal it from you.
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Steve Cornell twists the truth for his own means by leaving out key facts and providing only one side of arguments that have numerous rebuttals with the intention of portraying his own opinions as irrefutable facts. He is an enormously ignorant human being who should be taken out behind the shed and shot.
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Could you be any more vague and bigoted? And yet this enormously ignorant human allows your bigoted opinion to be posted on his blog. What Peter says about Paul says more about Peter than it does about Paul.
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1) I think it’s rather presumptuous to assume there was – it is human will to attribute coincidences to things more than what they are. We are built the way we are, to exist within this world, because the world helped shape us. Why is it that the fact that the human body is so complex makes people think it is rational to assume someone created us – what is rational about this? If we were created by a supreme being, would not the design be much simpler or more efficient? There are flaws with how the human body works – for example, the flight or fight response. It may have been critical for our ancestors, however now I shouldn’t feel this response just before taking a test. There are flaws in our ‘design’ as you call it.
2) It’s too simple? Based on what? This is an opinion and nothing more. Many would argue atheism is in fact, not simple at all. It is a matter of perspective and nothing more – it certainly isn’t fact.
3) Atheism is not dishonest. It is a lack of belief in God/Gods. There may be dishonest atheists, sure, but there are dishonest theists as well. This point proves nothing.
You go on to say:
“Honest scientists know that it’s just outside the scope of science to settle matters of this kind. Questions about ultimate origin, transcendent meaning and ordered morality are just not the business of science. ” How is outside the scope of science to collect evidence and run tests in an attempt to discover our origins? Science questions, tests, and observes everything. That’s what science is. It’s not an aspect of the human personality, it’s a tool and process which humans use. Science doesn’t claim to understand morality or meaning – that is another matter altogether. I don’t understand why theists think that science must be analagous to religion, no atheists are making that claim. Besides, atheists look to more than just science to define ourselves, it’s not like religion where people apply it to all aspects of their lives. Science is a starting point. I have a strong idea that you don’t fully understand evolution or make the mistake of attaching more meaning to it than you should – evolution doesn’t claim to teach origins of life, only how it developed and is so diverse. Evolution also doesn’t make any claims on whether or not God exists directly – it DOES however conflict with biblical teachings and is therefor evidence against it. Science is not a substitute for philosophy or religion, it is completely separate from it.
4) Atheism is arrogant? Really? It’s more arrogant to believe that the entire universe and world was created specifically for us, and that an all-powerful being is not only interested in us but loves us. What is it about atheism that is arrogant? You did a very poor job of explaining that. Or is it just that anyone who claims to know something you don’t agree with is arrogant in your eyes? I should hope not.
5) You have some very serious misconceptions about atheists. I strongly suggest reading my post titled The Thing About Atheism, there’s even a link to it on my about page. I have no problem with God, I can’t have anger or be upset with something that I don’t even think exists. I’m not an atheist on priniciple, in fact if I were simply believing whatever I want to, I’d just choose something else. But that’s not why I’m an atheist – I seek the truth, and the truth has brought me to my views. It’s a nice idea to me, I want there to be a God and a possible afterlife, but I see no good reason to actually think these things exist, and so I don’t. The truth doesn’t care about how it makes me feel, so I didn’t come to what I believe based on how it makes me feel.
You wanna talk about suppressing truth? Why is it that Galileo spent the majority of his life on house arrest, as ordered by the church, because he suggested that the earth rotates around the sun and not the other way around?
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Your effort to dismiss the issue of design is weak. I also acknowledge the issue of flaws but that raises another important worldview subject. How do we account for good and evil; life and death? Why must we die?
When you say, “Science is not a substitute for philosophy or religion, it is completely separate from it.” it makes me believe that you have not had much exposure to the reigning narrative of philosophical naturalism as a litmus test for scientists in the academy. I am actually concerned with the popular misuses/abuses of biological evolution that turn it into a philosophy or religion.
What do you mean by, “I seek the truth”?
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I don’t have to choose religion or naturalism, science is a component of my views but it isn’t all of them. I’m fine with not having the answers to every question – and I see no reason to fill the gaps in knowledge with God or anything else I see no evidence for. That doesn’t mean I won’t still look for the answers, but I will never assert something as truth before I’m certain, I’ll say I don’t know first.
Even if there are misuses of evolution – that doesn’t make it untrue. There are misuses for a lot of things that we know to be true. I don’t know anyone who views it as a religion. What are they worshiping here? How are they living evolutionary theory as a philosophy?
I seek the truth – I’m only interested in knowing what’s accurate. What else could that mean?
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> How do we account for good and evil; life and death? Why must we die?
Those things are expected within, and predicted by, an evolutionary, naturalistic world-view. Of course there is “good” and “evil”, and the definition of “good” and “evil” constantly changes from culture to culture, how could it be otherwise? Of course we die, there’s been no evolutionary advantage to a longer human life span.
It’s in theism where those things become unexpected and confusing: “God loves us all more than we can understand the word ‘love’, but there’s evil in the world.” Why? “Mysterious ways.” “God heals the sick, but never, ever an amputee.” Why? “Mysterious ways.” “God hates abortion, but designed humanity so 20% of all first trimester pregnancies spontaneously miscarry.” Why? “Mysterious ways.” “God is perfectly just, but if you’re born in Africa, you’ll die of starvation by age 5, never hear the Gospel, and ultimately be tortured in hell forever.” Why? “Mysterious ways.”
From a theistic view, “mysterious ways” has to do a lot of heavy lifting.
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If there is no personal Creator, our existence is most certainly a cosmic accident. We exist by chance, not by design or purpose. And, if this is an accurate accounting for our existence, several facts follow:
1. Notions of ultimate meaning are based on wishful thinking and irrational fantasy.
2. There is no ultimate morality; no right or wrong; no transcendent morality. On this version of reality, morals are simply matters of personal or societal opinion. The so-called problem of evil cannot be addressed and cannot (on rational grounds) really be called a problem .
3. Death is both the irreversible cessation of organismic functioning and the irreversible loss of personhood. There is no hope of anything outside of this life.
Apart from the existence of a Creator, we exist by chance in a deterministic universe governed by raw natural selection. If, on the other hand, there is a Creator, a personal God who made us male and female in His own image, then at least three truths follow:
1. Life has value, meaning and dignity beyond the limitation of human opinion.
2. Personal identity, human freedom and responsibility become genuine markers of our existence. We have been endowed by our Creator with these qualities.
3. The transcendent (which we intuitively recognize) elevates us out of the despair of human relativism and the limitations of human inquiry.
Statement of life:
In the beginning, when time itself began, God made the universe out of nothing. Among the planets, he created earth, its land and seas and all its creatures. As the climax of his creative activity, he made humans, male and female, in his own image. The godlikeness of humankind emerges as the story unfolds: men and women are rational and moral beings (able to understand and respond to God’s commands), responsible beings (exercising dominion over nature), social beings (with a capacity to love and be loved), and spiritual beings (finding their highest fulfillment in knowing and worshipping their Creator). Indeed, the Creator and his human creatures are depicted as walking and talking together in the garden. All this was the godlikeness which gave Adam and Eve their unique worth and dignity.
Three statements of truths in relation to belief in God:
I believe in God as the creator of a good world (accounting for the goodness, beauty in the world) Genesis 1:1 ff
I believe in God as the creator of humans in His image and likeness—male and female (accounting for the marital structure of society) Genesis 1:26-28.
I believe in the fall of humanity and the resulting curse on the earth (accounting for the moral structure—“you shall”/”you shall not” and all the suffering and sorrow that plagues the planet) Genesis 2, 3, 4; Romans 5:12.
Final thought:
“If a being like God exists, all of this astonishing fine-tuning, interrelated complexity, and so on isn’t shocking in the least. If no God-like being exists, then shock is thoroughly warranted. We can look at lots of other arguments—not just one—to reinforce and broaden our understanding of what may be behind our/the universe’s existence, human dignity and worth, the trustworthiness of our minds/reason, the existence of moral duties, the existence of beauty, and so on. Of course, much depends on our openness to considering whether something beyond our senses exists. The Big Bang offers one such clue that it does!” (Paul Copan)
Is it possible that people resist belief in God primarily because it threatens their desire for autonomy and self-sufficiency? Perhaps atheists would be more honest if they joined philosopher, Thomas Nagel in saying, ”I hope there is no God.”
Steve Cornell
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Thanks, Steve, that was a good post, and I would pretty much agree with your summary points.
Obviously, I disagree with you there is a god. I think the evidence does not point to a god, and if god exists, I think the evidence points to god not being involved with us on any personal level.
When you say “fine-tuning”, “interrelated complexity”, “intelligent design”, the problem is that all of the evidence so far indicates god isn’t required for any of them. The evidence we have so far doesn’t point to god: the best that can be said is the lack of evidence implies god, which leads to god-of-the-gaps and other weaker arguments. When Copan says “human dignity”, “trustworthiness of our minds/reason”, “moral duties” and “beauty”, it’s even weaker: there’s no human dignity or moral duty demonstrably rooted in the Bible, Quran or theism; our minds are not trustworthy, and “beauty” can be reasonably explained by evolution.
I think you’re closer to the mark than Copan.
Finally, when you ask if people resist belief in god because it threatens their autonomy or self-sufficiency, when you say atheists are dishonest, you’re belittling your opponents in order to invalidate their arguments. You imply atheists are immature, unwilling to accept the guidance of god, little children sticking their fingers in their ears so they can’t hear their parents.
That might be comforting to theists, but it’s not useful or necessarily true.
It’s not useful because atheist motivations have nothing to do with the truth or falsity of their arguments. God exists or doesn’t exist, entirely separate from any motivations atheists might have.
It’s not true — speaking for myself, I would welcome god’s existence with a great deal of relief. Life can be scary, death doesn’t sound like fun, and an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent being that loved each of us, individually, forever? Who wouldn’t want that? If god shows up tomorrow, count me in.
Steve, we don’t believe in god because we see no evidence for god and we find god’s many and contradictory revelations unconvincing. Fingers in the ears? I’m listening just as hard as I can, and the silence is deafening.
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I certainly do not speak for Steve, but I would like to ask, have you considered what evidence a creator would need to leave other than the creation? If you want an anomaly as evidence, what could that look like that you would not immediately catalog it as normal?
I have considered this. An atheist is somebody who is not open to the communication of the Creator because of their arrogance in their own knowledge of the known universe. Now… if an atheist finally admits that they are actually an agnostic then they are at least being honest. BUT… If an agnostic refuses to acknowledge that something can not come from nothing the communication between the something that DID create everything will never EVER be recognized. You are not an atheist… you are an ignorant stubborn agnostic with your fingers in your ears.
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Aaron: you’re using the words atheist and agnostic as if they’re mutually exclusive, and they’re not. I think that’s why you and I are talking past each other.
I think what’s most significant to me is that for the past several centuries, anomaly after anomaly has been shown, usually irrefutably, to be the result of naturalistic processes, no god required. The remaining anomalies (for example, the Big Bang) are suspect as a result — if we’ve not yet found anything supernatural, why anticipate the things we don’t understand will be supernatural in nature?
Your question, “What would be a convincing anomaly” is fair, but regardless of my answer, there’s an equally useful question: Why does God choose not to give us one? In other words, why does God decline to announce his presence?
God has done so before: Jesus shows Thomas his physical wounds for Thomas to touch, God provides Gideon the “dew on the wool or grass” proof, the Bible is littered with miraculous interventions. If the Bible is true, then God has repeatedly provided unambiguous proof of his existence by intervening in public ways in people’s lives.
So why does God not simply rearrange the stars into a message to humanity every Christmas Eve? Wouldn’t that be a simple solution to our problem?
If you want to say God doesn’t work like that… well, the obvious rebuttal is he has worked like that in the past, intervening miraculously for centuries. What is different about our age, that he would choose to hide himself?
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I think that the anomalies you wish for are there. They tend to be too big for you to recognize. I’ll give you a list.
Israel
The time we keep. it literally points to God’s greatest anomaly ever.
Life – as in dirt actually having independence and choices…. although temporary.
The Holy Bible. More copies have been produced and read than any other book. You can give it the credit it deserves or you can deny it… but it is what it is.
THE STARS IN THE SKY DO SPEAK TO USE EVERY CHRISTMAS EVE. THEY TELL US WHEN IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE… without them you’ll have to reference that clock on the wall again.
What you seem to want is for God to submit to your wishes. One thing you lack that all of the anomalies you listed required was Faith in the one that can give you the anomaly.
I love it when atheists reply with a refute of history as that its just a big church conspiracy… well, they are right… its one big giant conspiracy. Unfortunately for atheist’s its God’s conspiracy. Raising your fist to the heavens is foolish.
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Completely agree with original article.
However, a question like “Well, if God is a detailed being, who created God?” is rather important, and you have not answered that. You have said that “God is not in the category of created things” but you have not explained exactly why that is.
We can believe this by faith. But for those who don’t have faith, there are still some good explanations. (But I can understand that dealing with the philosophy of non-infinite causal chains and the First Cause was probably not the point of this particular blog post.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument#Argument
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Atheism is not “irrational” because the world appears to have been devised by an intelligence. I one wanted to accept the premise that there is evidence to support design, one could easily believe in extraordinarily powerful space aliens who created the world. That view is atheistic and at the same time acknowledges intelligent design.
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Reblogged this on Wisdomforlife.
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