27Apr 2020 by Post

6 Ways Atheism Is A Science-Stopper

Apologetics, Atheism, Bible, Christianity, faith, Faithful Thinkers, God, Intellectual Faith, Luke Nix, Philosophy of Science, science, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Luke Nix Introduction: Science vs. Christianity? It is commonly claimed that Christianity is a science-stopper. What is usually put forth to justify this claim is that many Christians are content to look at nature and say, “God did it,” without looking further to discover how God did whatever “it” happens to be. For many Christians, questions about the origin and function of the natural world end with that answer. However, for many others, while they recognize that God did indeed do something, they seek diligently to discover how God did it. Christianity does not stop science, a lack of curiosity or concern (not necessarily a bad thing if those are not a person’s passion or pursuit) is what could stop science if no Christian exists who possesses that curiosity. Individual Christians can choose…
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22Apr 2020 by Post

Is Earth Just A Pale Blue Dot?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Atheism, atheist, beginning of the universe, Bible, Christianity, Creation, Does God Exists, earth, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, objections, Ryan Leasure, Skeptics, theology, universe
By Ryan Leasure  In his book Pale Blue Dot, the late astronomer Carl Sagan had this to say about the above photograph taken aboard Voyager I: Because of the reflection of sunlight… Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light as if there were some special significance to this small world. But it’s just an accident of geometry and optics… Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Sagan reiterates what is commonly known as the Copernican Principle, or the Principle of…
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30Mar 2020 by Post

Are You Good Without God?

ApologeticsGuy, Atheism, atheist, Bible, Christian Apologetics, evil, God, Good, Good person, Good without God, Mikel del Rosario, Stealing from God, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Mikel Del Rosario While I was driving from Sacramento to the Bay Area, I saw a huge billboard that read, “Are you good without God? Millions Are.” I also noticed a theistic tagger added the words, “Also Lost?” at the end of the message. At first, I wondered if the original question could mean something like, “Do you feel comfortable without a belief in God? Millions feel the same way.” Kind of like if you offer someone a drink, and they say, “No, thanks. I’m good.” But I don’t think that’s what the message is all about. Can’t People be Good Without God? So, then it got me thinking, “Can’t people be good without God?” I mean, couldn’t an atheist do some really good things without God? I guess…
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29Mar 2020 by Post

An Artist Examines Evolution

Albert Einstein, artists, Asa Gray, Atheism, Charles Darwin, Chris Augusta, Christianity, Creativity, Darwinism, David Berlinski, David Gelernter, Eric Metaxas, Evolution, evolutionary theory, Hannah Arendt, Hoover Institution, Intelligent Design, Jonah Goldberg, Jordan Peterson, materialists, Merion West, Michael Flannery, multiverse, Percy Shelley, Peter Robinson, Stephen Meyer, string theory, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, The Return of the God Hypothesis, William Graham
Merion West is an online news source that dubs itself “a journal where all perspectives are welcome.” They tout the fact that they have been rated by Media Bias/Fact Check as a “Least Biased” source.  Generally, their articles seem to have deeper analysis than you will find in much of the mainstream media. For example, recent headlines include, “The Fraught Relationship Between Religion and Epidemiology,” “The Critics of ‘Social Justice,’ from Jonah Goldberg to Jordan Peterson,” and “Hannah Arendt’s Concept of ‘Impotent Bigness.’” They regularly interview newsmakers, and authors often include professors in relevant fields and others well qualified to comment.  Left, Center, or Right Articles are explicitly labeled by viewpoint: left, center, or right. This makes for interesting reading. To date, I haven’t seen much about evolution and intelligent…
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21Mar 2020 by Post

Listen: Kirk Durston on Fantasy Science and Scientism

Atheism, biophysics, Evidence, experimental science, fantasy science, historical sciences, ID The Future, inferential science, Kirk Durston, materialism, mathematics, multiverse, philosophy, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, proteins, testing
On a new episode of ID the Future, Kirk Durston, a biophysicist focused on identifying high-information-density parts of proteins, completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Fantasy science makes inferential leaps so huge that virtually none of it is testable, either by the standards of experimental science or by those of the historical sciences, which reason to the best explanation by process of elimination. One example of fantasy science, according to Durston, is the multiverse. As he argues, that is an imaginative story largely untethered from evidence and testing, but told using math instead of literary devices. Scientism, “atheism dressed up in a lab coat,” can lead to fantasy science of this kind because it commits…
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14Feb 2020 by Post

In the “Mathematical Glory” of the Universe, Physicist Discovered the “Truly Divine”

A Brief History of Time, Anthropic Principle, Atheism, divine, John Horgan, mathematics, multiverse theory, physicist, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, Scientific American, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Meyer, Sunday School, The Return of the God Hypothesis
How did this slip through? John Horgan with Scientific American interviewed a physicist colleague, Christopher Search. The physicist is appealingly direct in rejecting the atheism associated with Stephen Hawking and other venerated names in the field. More than that, he says it was physics that brought him to a recognition of the “truly divine” in the universe: Over the years my view of physics has evolved significantly. I no longer believe that physics offers all of the answers. It can’t explain why the universe exists or why we are even here. It does though paint a very beautiful and intricate picture of the how the universe works. I actually feel sorry for people that do not understand the laws of physics in their full mathematical glory because they are missing…
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12Feb 2020 by Post

Richard Dawkins’ Warnings Of A Godless Society

Apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, Faithful Thinkers, God, Godless Society, Luke Nix, Richard Dawkins, State, theism, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Luke Nix Introduction It was brought to my attention a few weeks ago that the notorious atheist Richard Dawkins may be changing his tune regarding the necessity of belief in God in human society (click or tap text to see the article). I do recall hearing winds of this change a couple of years ago when he seemed to make a distinction between the religions of Islam (threatening) and Christianity (benign). It seems that Dawkins recognizes that without the belief that people will be held responsible to a higher power, those people who are in power (the State) will push society further and further into harmful and devastating behaviors, but he recognizes the dangers of certain theistic religions. Dawkins seems concerned that without the (false on his view) belief that the Christian…
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20Jan 2020 by Post

Natural-ly There Is A Problem With Evil

Alex McElroy, Apologetics, Atheism, atheist, Christianity, responding to the problem of evil, the problem of evil, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Alex McElroy One of the most difficult issues to reconcile in life is the presence of evil. This is the case whether one has a theistic, agnostic or atheistic worldview. The existence of evil is undeniable both in our witness and experience but is evil objective in nature or merely an apparition. Even atheist J.L. Mackie recognized a dilemma. In one book, he writes, “There are no objective values.”[1] Elsewhere, he writes, “We might well argue…that objective, intrinsically prescriptive features, supervenient upon natural ones, constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, without an all-powerful god to create them.”[2] This poses a problem for the naturalist or the atheist because whatever evil does exist…
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18Jan 2020 by Post

Putting God on Trial

Al Serrato, Apologetics, Atheism, atheist, Christianity, evil, God, responding to the problem of evil, Skeptics, Suffering, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Al Serrato “I can’t believe in a God who would allow so much evil and suffering in the world.” Have you encountered this challenge? Most anyone who has tried to defend the Christian worldview surely has. The person bringing this challenge will often claim to be atheist, but when you dig in a bit this challenger is more often someone who knows there is a creator but who is deeply offended by the world, and angry at the God who set all this – the carnage, the anguish, the pain – in motion. In my last post, I restated the traditional Christian response to this problem of evil.  God did not create the evil that surrounds us because evil is not a thing.  Evil is a departure- a deviation-…
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12Dec 2019 by Post

New Atheism: A Shipwreck of Fools

aquinas, Arc Digital, Asherah poles, Atheism, autopsy, bacteria, book deals, child sacrifice, Christopher Hitchens, computer program, creation myth, Edward Feser, evolutionary theory, Faith & Science, First Amendment, Five Ways, Gaia, genetic information, John Haldane, Lawrence Krauss, Ludwig Wittgenstein, meat machines, New Atheists, Nobel Prize, paganism, plagiarism, religion, Richard Dawkins, Valley of Hinnom
New Atheism is dead. It was conceptually dead from birth, but now it’s stopped twitching. Ben Sixsmith at Arc Digital has a good article with a lot of insight into its demise. From  “New Atheism: An Autopsy”: To be sure, New Atheists could be very, very bad at arguing that God does not exist. There was, for example, Lawrence Krauss writing a book about how something can come from nothing while attributing material qualities to the latter. There was Richard Dawkins trying to refute the famous “Five Ways” of Aquinas without even attempting to understand their terms. (“Whereof one cannot speak,” groaned Wittgenstein, “Thereof one must remain silent.”) There was Christopher Hitchens striding into philosophy like an elephant onto an ice skating rink and saying: “…the postulate of a designer…
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