So far, this blog has been somewhat skewed toward one side of the argument regarding the existence of God and stance on religion. So here I will approach the topic from a different point of view, answering rebuttal questions as they would be asked in this sort of debate.
One thing I must admit that the scientific point of view does not sufficiently address is how the universe began. In this regard, the religious point of view actually has an answer, so it can be said here that when the scientific point of view simply says "I don't know how it all began," it's sort of like giving up on the argument. Now, there are hundreds of theories as to what could have started the existence of matter as we know it, most of them going back about 13.7 billion years ago to an event that we know as The Big Bang. We have sufficient proof that the Big Bang actually happened, dark matter, redshift, and the outward expansion of all observed moving matter leading back to one point in space expanding outward, however we have no way of measuring or observing anything in time before this event, so to say how the matter actually got there would be nothing more than a theory- one that will probably never be discovered.
I find it interesting to think that religion, having an answer to this question, actually somewhat has a more concrete basis to stand on. Essentially, it all comes down to which side you believed in before this argument, but proof of how the universe was made does not exist so we must first decide what makes the most sense. Atheists claim that "it was just there" and believers of faith claim "God put it there." Neither can be proven really, but here's a different way of looking at it. Think, which answer actually has an answer that makes sense through cause and effect? The secular perspective claims that there was an effect, but no cause- in essence, there was matter, but no reason to believe how it was ever formed. The nonsecular perspective says there was matter and (given a premises that we believe to be true: that God has the power to do anything and that God has been around as long as anything else has if not longer) God put it there. For what purpose? Every religion has a different answer to that question, but I won't go into that because this is a blog and not an entire textbook.
But anyway, my point for saying this is that if you believe in the real scientific method, it really essentially believes in cause and effect. While secularists can know that The Big Bang was the start of matter as we know it, they have no proof to where it came from and no validity in any conclusion about what happened before it. Faith actually supports the scientific theory here, in a very broad sense, that given a certain premises (no matter how much we can prove it or disprove it, we have no data on the universe before The Big Bang so all laws of physics that say God does not exist are null in this argument), there is a cause; God willed there to be a universe... and an effect; a universe popped up.
On an entirely different foot here, I feel like I need to go back to my original point of view now, so get ready. There are explanations that claim to prove that God does not exist, and one that is gaining more popularity in the secular world is this. Many people assume God is an intelligent designer, who created all matter as we know it. Now, how do you as a human process information and data? A Russian will come to America after living in Russia for 40 years, and learn to speak fluently in English, never needing to speak Russian ever again. When a Russian person thinks in their head however, they think in Russian language. They hear a word and associate it with past experiences, with cues based on their senses such as what that word (for instance, a cow) looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells like, what it feels like, even what it tastes like. However, what if they had never even heard the word cow or seen or touched or heard or felt or smelled or tasted one? A deaf person (even since birth) will use imagery to represent things in their mind the way someone who isn't deaf uses sound and language in their mind to make sense of things and make ideas link together to make sense. Basically, you use whatever sense you have to attain an understanding of the world around you. Even a blind, deaf person can feel or taste or smell. Helen Keller had this problem. How did she learn or even come up with an understanding that there was a world around her? She could still handle thought in her head. Now assume you had no senses at all, but all the mental capacity to process any information. You have no eyes, ears, or sensory nerves of any kind. How would you learn what the world was, what language do you think with then? You would have no starting point. Now assume you are God and have unlimited ability to create or destroy, but before there was ever any matter. There would be nothing in existence except for you, so no light to see with, no vibrations in an atmosphere to hear. What language would you think in if you've never needed to speak to anyone? In essence, how is it possible for an intelligent being to exist before matter when all intelligence is entirely dependent on matter and understood concepts about that matter derived from senses? Now if one were to say that God already knew everything that ever happened or will happen, and he knew all concepts that were to be known, that takes away God's ability to design anything. God's creativity would not have existed if everything was predetermined, so in this sense, God would be trapped into one paradigm of thinking forever; he could never change anything. If God is all powerful, how could that be? That is not an intelligent designer, that is more like a huge hard drive of stored information. So what would be the point of information stored if no one could ever have access to that information to observe it? To have access to that would mean that you are now God!
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Second Blog Revision
My original blog topic was vaguely just on the debate on the validity of the existence of God, but I have actually focused my blog so far on Christopher Hitchens’ (a notable anti-theist) perspectives, conclusions, and debate.
This most recent summer, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer (he is an avid smoker and a known alcoholic: in most of his interviews he has a scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other). Because of his presence in atheist culture, Hitchens’ illness has sparked much controversy. Many followers of various faiths see his disease as God’s way of punishing him for his career built on blasphemizing God. He is after all, the author who wrote “god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” One particular interesting idea being passed around (his wife and children are frequently targeted and harassed for their father’s skeptical beliefs) is the common belief that god chose to give Hitchens cancer of the esophagus (the tube in the throat leading from the back of the mouth or pharynx down to the stomach) as a way of targeting where or what he used to speak out against religion. I thought this was interesting because with the exception of burping, the esophagus plays no role in speech. Parallel to the esophagus is the trachea, the windpipe leading down from the pharynx to the lungs. The pharynx separates at a point called the epiglottis, which is a flap that covers either the trachea while swallowing or the esophagus while breathing or speaking. The vocal cords are located at the top of the trachea. My point here is describe how the believers disregard fact (the science and anatomy behind their claims) to try and create a truth in their own minds in favor of their beliefs. Essentially, people are making up ideas and calling them facts, claiming that their idea is undeniably correct because it has to do with God’s will, and God’s will is absolute. This is, in Hitchens’ opinion, the focal point in the religious argument at which the logical fallacy is made.
By that, I mean Hitchens says that the reason why avid believers create false conclusions is because they base those conclusions on false premises. It is true that some of the stories told in the bible help people through trying times. In the short run, they have some being of infinite power that wants them to complete their test of faith and they will undeniably live in paradise for eternity. The problem is that these believers are not helped in the long run because later they will not look inside themselves for the power to achieve, but rather an idea that can leave them at any time. If one were to look at the bible (or any religious scripture) with a scientist’s scrutiny for proof, one would notice it is full of false premises, and any belief in any faith is basically a foundation of values which someone thousands of years ago wrote that everyone should follow or go to Hell forever.
So, because Hitchens does not believe in god, he will allegedly go to Hell after he dies. This article is Hitchens’ own perspective of how so many people are “praying for him.” When bringing up the idea of his full recovery, Hitchens wondered if that would be seen by the religious followers praying for him as those prayers being answered. Clearly, this would be an amazing thing for Hitchens and his family, given his bleak prognosis, but in his own words, “That would somehow be irritating.”
I fixed this blog mostly with changes in wording to help put sentences together in a way that made more sense. Hitchens’ personal lifestyle and choice for drug use is his own fault, so to say that God GAVE him cancer is making an assumption (an assumption that God gives people cancer as a way of punishing them) based on personal bias disregarding any scientific reason that Hitchens could have done this to himself. I also wanted to include in the blog how Hitchens family is being attacked. I felt that this was important to note that followers of a belief that are supposed to treat everyone like neighbors and family members are harassing the troubled family members of a cancer patient. That just seems unchristian to me.
I also added some conclusive sentences at the end of a couple paragraphs to paraphrase them a little more. I felt the idea sounded stronger that way.
Lastly, I included in the middle of paragraph 3 a description of how Religion can ultimately harm people. I feel like this is one of the main reasons I personally choose not to believe in God, and although this is somewhat of an assumption on my part, I am basing it on what I see around me all the time; “recovered” drunks, addicts, and criminals all standing outside public places trying to recruit members for their religion because at one point, they felt it gave them the strength to overcome a physical real world problem of theirs. Not many people look into these stories and conclude that these men and women who “found Jesus and saw the error in their ways” actually just didn’t possess the confidence in themselves to do what was best for them until an almighty power was introduced to them, giving them the hope to do what they couldn’t do themselves. This may sound like a good thing, but I feel that we should all be this confident in ourselves without the need for a religion. True will and conscience is stronger than that derived from a book.
First Blog Revision
This debate was put together so that members of an audience could ask two notable sides of the debate on the existence of God; William Lane Craig (Christian) and Christopher Hitchens (Anti-Theist), to explain a few topics that prove one way or the other that their side is the more correct answer to the question: “Does God exist?” During one particular segment, Craig brings up the idea that Jesus came to Earth at the perfect time, that the bulk of all history’s human population came immediately after Christ spread Christianity. He claims that 2 percent of all humans whom have ever existed lived prior to Christ’s life because virtually all time after 1 AD was when historians agree that there has been a rapid, consistent world population boom. He says that God knew this would be the best time to harvest his faith in the people because the ideas would spread more quickly at the start of a boom than any other religion ever has before.
His logic however, is flawed. One cannot say that Christ’s presence at that time was at the base of a major population boom. In fact, it is proven that 93% of all the world’s population throughout history lived during and after the Industrial Revolution, over one and a half millennia AFTER Christ. In that regard, God’s timing for placing Christ on Earth was NOT “perfect.” This means that there was a period of growth in population size between the first coming of Christ and the Industrial Revolution where only 5% of the world’s population over time would have learned of Christianity. By Craig’s logic, the real “perfect” time would have been right before the Industrial Revolution. Hitchens states that Christ could not have come at that time because historical records were too accurate and scientific at that point to “allow for such nonsense” to have been recorded as history.
After one segment when Craig says that his beliefs do not PROVE God’s existence (rather, they just present “the most probably hypothesis” out there), Hitchens counters with a quote directly from Craig’s book, saying that should a conflict arise between a theory based on faith and a theory based on anything else, the former would take precedence over the other. This clearly outlines Craig’s bias, that his theories are founded on unproven premises.
Although Craig clearly lost a few points of critical logic, he was able to come up with questions to which Hitchens did not know how to answer. To answer some of Craig’s questions, Hitchens had to base his arguments on his own established idea that God doesn’t exist, therefore, the audience favored Craig in the end. It just goes to prove, although the theist side of this argument makes loops of contradiction and unsteady interpretation around itself, once a follower of faith hides behind a curtain of personal uncertainty, the absolute answer that they do now know but someone else does (namely God, or his extension in Jesus), they can attain the common support.
In our world where atheism and anti-theism is becoming more prevalent, there may eventually be a time when the theist point of view will no longer dominate the debate based on followers.
I made these changes because most of them I felt helped clarify my points in a way of summing them up better. My previous wording was a little confusing given that this metaphysical topic is already so deep. If you notice, most of the revisions are made toward the end of a paragraph, where the idea is concluded better. In particular, I felt that it was necessary to put the population example into better perspective. It was a big part of the blog and together, the numbers of population size did not make much sense the way I was putting everything. There were statistics I left out before to save space and have the words flow faster. I realize this was not important, but rather it was causing the blog to slow down a bit.
Monday, October 25, 2010
My original blog topic was vaguely just on the debate on the validity of the existence of God, but I have actually focused all my blogs so far on Christopher Hitchens’ (a notable anti-theist) perspectives, findings, conclusions, and debates.
This most recent summer, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer (he has smoked most of his life). Because of his presence in atheist culture, Hitchens’ illness has sparked much controversy. Many followers of various faiths see his disease as God’s way of punishing him for his career built on blasphemizing God. He is after all, the author who wrote “god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” One particular interesting facet of this belief is the common idea that god chose to give Hitchens cancer of the esophagus (the tube in the throat leading from the back of the mouth or pharynx down to the stomach) as a way of targeting where or what he used to speak out against religion. I thought this was interesting because with the exception of burping, the esophagus plays no role in speech. Parallel to the esophagus is the trachea, the windpipe leading down from the pharynx to the lungs. The pharynx separates at a point called the epiglottis, which is a flap that covers either the trachea while swallowing or the esophagus while speaking. The vocal cords are located at the top of the trachea. My point here is to put forth an example of how the believers disregard fact (the science and anatomy behind their claims) to try and create a truth in their own minds in favor of their beliefs. This is, in Hitchens’ opinion, the focal point in the religious argument at which the logical fallacy is made.
By that, I mean Hitchens says that the reason why avid believers create false conclusions is because they base those conclusions on false premises. Assuming that the bible (or any religious scripture) is full of false premises, any belief in any faith is basically a foundation of values which someone thousands of years ago wrote that everyone should follow or go to Hell forever.
So, because Hitchens does not believe in god, he will allegedly go to Hell after he dies. This article is Hitchens’ own perspective of how so many people are “praying for him.” When bringing up the idea of his full recovery, Hitchens wondered if that would be seen by the religious followers “praying for him” as those prayers being answered. In his own words, “That would somehow be irritating.”
Writing for: Youtube, imitating no particular blogger
Does God exist?: Debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens
During the debate, member s of the audience asked William Lane Craig (Christian) and Christopher Hitchens (Anti-Theist) to explain a few debatable topics about what proves or disproves the existence of God. During one particular segment, Craig brings up the idea that Jesus came to Earth at the perfect time, that the bulk of all history’s human population came immediately after Christ spread Christianity. He claims that 2 percent of all humans whom have ever existed lived prior to Christ’s life for the past several thousand years, and the other 87% after, when God knew would be the best time to harvest his faith in the people because the ideas would grow rapidly.
His logic however, is flawed. One cannot say that Christ’s presence at that time was at the base of a major population boom. In fact, it is proven that 93% of all the world’s population throughout history lived during and after the Industrial Revolution, over one and a half millennia AFTER Christ. In that regard, God’s timing for placing Christ on Earth was NOT perfect.
After one segment when Craig says that his beliefs do not PROVE God’s existence (rather, they just present “the most probably hypothesis” out there), Hitchens counters with a quote directly from Craig’s book, saying that should a conflict arise between a theory based on faith and a theory based on anything else, the former would take precedence over the other.
Although Craig clearly lost a few points of critical logic, he was able to come up with questions to which Hitchens did not know how to answer. To answer some of Craig’s questions, Hitchens had to base his arguments on his own established idea that God doesn’t exist, therefore, the audience favored Craig in the end. It just goes to prove, although the theist side of this argument makes loops of contradiction and unsteady interpretation around itself, once a follower of faith hides behind a curtain of personal uncertainty but FAITH that the answers reside in someone else (namely God, or his extension in Jesus), they can attain the common support.
In our world where atheism and anti-theism is becoming more prevalent, there may eventually be a time when the theist point of view will no longer dominate the debate based on followers.
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