1 Peter 3:15 commands us to always be ready to give an answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in us. It doesn't say to only answer the easy questions. Indeed, the more difficult the question, the more urgent should our answers be. This is the reason I blog. It's true I devote much of my blog to the creation/evolution debate but that's because I believe evolution is the greatest challenge to the Faith in our time. Even so, I'm always on the look out for other criticisms of the Bible and of Christianity.
In my quest to answer the best arguments against Christianity, I came across a forum with a thread titled, A Library of the Best 40 Atheist Arguments Against God. Woohoo!! The mother-load. If I'm looking to answer the most challenging arguments against Christianity, here are the 40 best ones. At least, that's what the list's author said but as I began reading them, I didn't think the list lived up to its name. Or maybe I'm being too critical and there really aren't any good arguments for atheism. Hmm.Anyway, in a list of the “best” arguments atheists use against God, what is the first argument – presumably, the “best of the best”? According to the list's author:
The fundamental argument for atheism is that there is no evidence or proof for God. There is no solid or tangible evidence for God nor a logical argument for God. The existence of God is taken on faith and not by evidence.
You can see why I was disappointed in the list. Is the best argument for atheism really that Christians don't have a good argument for God? Let's look at some of the many facets of this flawed reasoning.
First, there's a little hypocrisy going on. When I write about creation or evolution, I sometimes criticize the evidence for evolution. At those times, some evolutionists cry foul saying that criticizing the evidence for evolution is not evidence for creation. That's a valid point. Of course, I often write about evidence for creation (see the label on the tag cloud to the left) but if all I ever had were criticisms of evolution, that's a very weak argument for creation. Now the shoe is on the other foot. When making an argument for atheism, the unbeliever's first resort is to criticize the evidence for God. Yes, it's a very weak argument! And it's their best argument?
There are a few other facets to this weak argument. Implicit in this quote is that unbelief should be the default position of any thinking person. Atheists proudly portray themselves as skeptics who cautiously (but still “open-mindedly”) examine the evidence and go wherever it leads. //RKBentley sarcastically rolls his eyes// This author seems to make exactly that same point: until convincing evidence or some logical argument is made for God, our starting belief should be atheism.
In the past, I've used the analogy of finding a log cabin in the woods. Even if you don't know who built the cabin, you would start with the assumption that the cabin had a builder. You wouldn't start with the assumption that the cabin is just the accidental arrangement of trees that fell into the shape of a cabin. Atheists are welcome to look for some “scientific” evidence to explain the origin of matter, time, and space but I could save them time and tell them that no scientific explanation exists. Their “skeptical” starting point is about as reasonable as insisting a log cabin has no builder.
Notice, too, that the author employs the common tactic used by evolutionists of redefining faith to mean blind faith. That is, he claims we believe in God without having any evidence for God. How predictable. In my opinion, it is the atheist who exercises blind faith by believing in a purposeless, natural, uncaused origin of the universe (which I call poofism) when such a belief flies in the face of everything we know scientifically.
I've talked about evidence for God many times before. Besides the existence of matter, space, and time, I could talk about the existence of absolute morality or the apparent design in nature or the historicity of Jesus or any number of other things... but what does it matter? It's the position of this atheist – probably most atheists – that they will sit cross-armed and unbelieving without offering any good reason why. They have no evidence for atheism. Their best argument is that they have no argument!
https://unsplash.com/@usmanyousaf
Well, I'd assume that the log cabin had a builder, because I've seen builders construct houses of various types. We have direct experience in the causes of log cabins, and we know that the causes are still operating in the world today.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have observations of universes being made in the same way, or of animals being made from the dust of the Earth. There's no obvious reason that we should extrapolate directly from the log cabin to the universe that contains it, and posit a super-Abe Lincoln chopping down galactic-cluster sized trees to assemble into a universe.
We do, by the way, have considerable evidence for the Big Bang, in the form of the distribution of galactic redshifts, the relative cosmic abundances of hydrogen and helium, and the cosmic microwave background. The last of these is, sort of, an observation of the origin of the universe via an expansion from an initial extremely hot, dense, small state. The CMB, like the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium (ca. 3 to 1) and the redshifts, is predicted by the Big Bang models; as far as I know nothing similar is predicted by Genesis 1.
Steven J,
DeleteYes. We've seen that cabins have been built. Always. As a matter of fact, every event that we've ever observed in the entire history of human experience has a cause. ALWAYS. That's sort of the point of the analogy. According to secular beliefs, time, space, and energy just popped into existence without a cause. Or worse, they believe the universe is self-caused. That flies in the face of everything we've learned about reality.
My point remains the same. The most reasonable explanation is that the universe – which must include everything natural – was caused by something outside of itself, something super-natural by definition. I should say, rather, caused by “someone” super-natural. I call Him, God.
God bless!!
RKBentley
Atheism is a religion for the intellectually lazy and dishonest. At The Question Evolution Project, we are badgered by atheopaths saying, "Prove to me scientifically that your god exists, and leave the Bible out of it so we can discuss it on neutral ground!"
ReplyDeleteNo.
They're not neutral, and a Christian shouldn't be. By agreeing to his terms (who says atheists get to make all the rules in discussions?), we just admitted that the Bible is not true, just answered the fool according to his folly so he is wise in his own eyes, just conceded defeat.
Prove scientifically that God exists? No, again. These jaspers don't know logic and philosophy. God is a spirit, so demanding scientific proof for his existence is the logical fallacy of the category error.
Our Page on Fakebook is attacked by those who claim to "lack belief", which is an absurd position to take. They sit back and demand proof of God, the Bible, creation science, and so on. Well, we do have evidence. Then they won't read it! "No, I want it in a peer-reviewed legitimate scientific journal!" Oh, you're using the genetic fallacy now, Skippy? Creationists do have peer-reviewed scientific journals, but those are rejected because they're not secular; creationists are not scientists because atheism, and creationists are not scientists because evolution. (The atheopaths that troll on teh interwebs consistently demonstrate that that would not understand something in a journal publication anyway.) Then they sit back with their arms folded (I'm borrowing from RKB) and ridicule, even lying that we don't present evidence. It's there, but they reject it. Viciously circular.
By the way, I replied some time ago to the message that you sent me on my Cowboy Page, but don't know if you saw it. Also, I've shared some of these on there. This one should go up in a few hours.
— Cowboy Bob Sorensen
Cowboy Bob,
DeleteThanks for visiting and for your comments.
Atheists and evolutionists are notorious for wanting to redefine terms. As I said above, they want to redefine “faith” to mean “blind faith.” And as you have pointed out here, they want to redefine “atheist” to mean, “to lack a belief in God.” Then my question to them is, what do you call someone who believes there is no God? That sounds like an atheist to me. They're just playing semantics so they can essentially claim there is no God without having to prove a universal negative.
I did see your DM on Facebook but I didn't want to reply because I didn't want to seem like one of those car warranty people. LOL. That was a great line, by the way! Thanks for sharing my posts on your page and helping me get the Word out.
Keep up the good work, brother! God bless!!
RKBentley