(the image seen here is known to cosmologists as "the eye of God"...wow...some beautiful stuff out there and we have just begun searching)
Delusion: a false belief or opinion
I have two questions I'm considering today:
1) Are there any good reasons to believe that belief in God is false (a delusion)?
2) Are there any good reasons to believe that belief in God is true?
The first question is one which I welcome the non-believing community to answer. I'd enjoy hearing what you have to say in response to question #1.
The second question is one which I, as a believer, should be expected to have a response for, as the Bible says, "in season and out of season be prepared to give a response for the hope that is in you."
So here is my first good reason (others will follow) why belief in God is the right choice:
#1 -- God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
Ask yourself, why does the universe exist? Or better, why does anything exist? Typically and historically, but not exclusively, atheists have argued here that the universe is "eternal and uncaused." I believe there are good reasons to doubt this is the case.
A) because the idea of an infinite past seems absurd...infinity may exist in our minds as a concept, however it does not exist in reality.
B) because modern science opposes this view with increasing magnitude...David Hilbert, one of the great mathematicians of the 20th Century said, "the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature, nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea."
Therefore, the number of past events in the universe must be finite. Therefore the universe must be finite. Therefore, there must have been a beginning.
Adding to this, the scientific data from the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics agree. In fact, today we have strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but instead had an absolute beginning approximately some 13 to 15 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event that modern scientists refer to as the "Big Bang."
(Please keep in mind that I am not quoting from the Bible as a source for scientific data in this article, yet some of the concepts coming from science will sound eerily similar to what the Bible says happened--makes me wonder????)
What makes the above "Big Bang" explanation so startling is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing. Yes, even some of the most well respected scientists in the world can be quoted as believing that all matter and energy, even physical space and time, came into being in one cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang. One such scientist, the physicist PCW Davies said, "the coming into being of the universe as discussed in modern science is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming into being of all physical things from nothing."
Although other alternate theories exist, none have commended themselves to the scientific community as more plausible than the above described Big Bang theory.
In 2003, three outstanding and well-respected cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Allen Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, together are said to have proved the above theory and referred to this proof as applying to any universe. Vilenkin writes, "it is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men, and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."
Anthony Kenney of Oxford University writes, "a proponent of the Big Bang theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe come from nothing and by nothing."
But, does such a notion make any sense? Surely not!
In philosophical terms, the out-of-nothing reality comes into a head on collision with the most successful ontological commitment in the history of science, namely the metaphysical principle that out of nothing, nothing comes.
Therefore, we must ask--why does the universe exist?
The only possible response to this question is that there must have been a first cause. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe exists. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
There is so much more to add to this, but in the blogosphere I have already exceeded the average readerships attention span so I'll quit with this one final thought...wow, I'm starting to feel like the Bible was well ahead of its time. Cosmology is just now catching up to what the Bible says in its first four words..."in the beginning God."
16 comments:
sábado 12 de septiembre de 2009
THE AH1N1 AND THE 11TH OF SEPTEMBER
In memory of the people of the United States still remains fresh suffered the fatal attack this nation in the hands of terrorists, and which claimed the lives of thousands of people and many places were destroyed, as are the buildings known as "The Twin Towers, "and was also damaged the Pentagon.
But quite apart from the coverage that was given to this subject from the earthly prespective, there are some questions from a spiritual perspective on What was on September 11?, Was God's punishment on the United States?
Yes, although many evangelical leaders refuse to accept it.
This is a very grim decade for the American nation. Since the disaster that Hurricane Katrina ocacion THEREFORE with loss of thousands of lives, passing on September 11, and now with the AH1N1 influenza pandemic which has already caused hundreds of deaths and putting the United States as one of the countries with the highest rate of deaths in the world, all this suggests that even if God is punishing this nation.
But this punishment could be accentuated now approaching the winter season.
The United States were a nation at a time reflecting the glory of God now seems to be a nation defiled by sin, had been a nation that reflected blessing but now seems to reflect a curse on her, had been a hospitable nation, but now it seems be a nation full of pride. The Bible says that "God resists the proud" (James 4, 6) and the only way to resist a nation pride is punished.
The terror, hunger, and death, seem to be a trilogy of punishing blows that are the pride of this nation, and would be tragic if the U.S. persists in its arrogance, rather than humble themselves before God.
The future of the United States is not in their intelligence services to protect them from future terrorist attacks or political reforms to curb unemployment and hunger, or health systems to protect them from death by influenza AH1N1, but rather in Christian churches they call God tirelessly to stop his punishment.
But if the evangelical denominations are spiritually poor is likely that the future of the United States in the next few years is of a darker hue.
So...your comment above has nothing to do with the post I created.
Also, if you believe Sept 11 and the H1N1 were specifically ordered judgments from God upon the US then you must also believe that the whole earth is experiencing the same judgments since the whole earth is experiencing terrorist attacks and the H1N1.
Furthermore, the terror attacks and the H1N1 are killing more people in other countries than in the US, so on your scale of judgment does this mean we are experiencing less of God's wrath? or are we just lucky?
I'm not trying to be slighting to you...just trying to express some perspective here. It appears to me that yes, God does exercise His judgment upon man and HE has established spiritual laws which govern us just as powerfully as physical laws...however, the biblical record seems to indicate that when God's judgment comes it is clear and recognizable to many...i.e. Elijah on Mt. Carmel, Sodom & Gomorrah, Annanias & Sapphira, etc...
It is also clear that the harshest judgment of all He saved for His very Son, Jesus. He put upon Him the whole weight of the sins of humanity from the beginning of human existence till the end of time.
Because of God's immeasurable grace I find it hard to make the argument you are making above. Yes, God does exercise judgment but because of Jesus I am not to live in fear of it.
Do you think some good Christians lost their lives on 9/11? I certainly do...that seems to run counter to your argument as well...remember, God would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah if only 5 people would have repented and turned to Him.
No...when God's judgment comes to America it will be much worse than a few airplanes piloted by terrorists crashing into buildings...and there will be little doubt where it comes from.
peace
(next time...focus your comments on the subject presented in the blog...much appreciated)
Ryan said: ”Are there any good reasons to believe that belief in God is false (a delusion)?”
Yes. The lack of objective, verifiable, falsifiable evidence for the god of Abraham (or any others) is foremost. While the concept of God cannot be tested directly, the truth claims that the myriad religions offer ARE testable, have been tested, and all are statistically identical to the results if there were no god present and active.
Ryan said: ”Are there any good reasons to believe that belief in God is true?”
Yes. End of life. The human animal is very possibly the only creature able to contemplate their own death and the process of dying can be supremely frightening and often painful. Belief in God can affect this both positively and negatively. If one is confident of a blissful afterlife, God can be a comforting touchstone to help the dying person…a light at the end of the tunnel. On the other hand, if one is confident in the existence of God but less confident about how that god will judge them, that belief can make end-of-life orders of magnitude more frightening. The non-believer need only worry about the discreet process of physical death. Were your question ‘Are there any good reasons WHY people believe in God?’, well, I could go on and on.
Ryan said: ”atheists have argued here that the universe is "eternal and uncaused."
I don’t know that anyone is saying that the universe is ‘eternal and uncaused’. We have pretty good understanding of how the universe expanded and coalesced back to a brief moment after the Big Bang. Everyone I know in my camp says that we don’t know what happened prior to the big bang. This is notwithstanding the physicists that have posited ideas of based on the energy/matter duality or multiverses. These are speculative theories and probably will not be confirmed or refuted before our extinction. The non-believer says ‘I don’t know’ and continues to look for answers. The believer says ‘God did it!..Nothing more to do here!’ Your argument though is a false dichotomy besides. Just because there is SOME-thing can only go so far as to argue the case for SOME actor. You are still light years away from supporting the idea of the god of the bible.
Continued.....
Ryan said: ”because the idea of an infinite past seems absurd...”
Then we can say that an infinitely powerful god that always was and always will be is similarly absurd.
Ryan said: ”today we have strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but instead had an absolute beginning approximately some 13 to 15 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event that modern scientists refer to as the "Big Bang."
I am glad to see that you are not a young-earth creationist. You are right; our best knowledge makes the universe something a little over 13 billion years old. But, again, we don’t know what happened prior to the Big Bang. For all we know that was a transitory state from our previous collapsed universe. We don’t know and that is perfectly fine that we don’t…we don’t need to make up answers.
Ryan said: ”What makes the above "Big Bang" explanation so startling is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing. “
As alluded to previously; some physicists posit that, because of the energy/matter duality (e=mc2 or energy is another form of matter), that the net sum of our universe is zero even today. The theory says that what we observe in our universe is ‘nothing’ separated in its two parts. Of course that is not intellectually satisfying to the lay-person or even myself, but the duality is true (or we couldn’t make nuclear bombs) and hence gives the argument some basis in scientific fact. Yet it solves nothing in this discussion because it still begs the question of what split ‘nothing’ in to energy and matter?
Ryan said: ”Although other alternate theories exist, none have commended themselves to the scientific community as more plausible than the above described Big Bang theory.”
True. Edwin Hubble’s Big Bang theory is pretty well universally recognized as fact since every bit of empirical evidence shows all matter in the universe is flying away from a single point. That is the beauty of self correcting science…other theories just go away when the evidence does not support them.
Ryan said: ” together are said to have proved the above theory and referred to this proof as applying to any universe.”
I don’t trust anyone that says they know anything from prior to the Big Bang.
Ryan said: ” The only possible response to this question is that there must have been a first cause.”
Arguably true, and it is the cautious intellectual that looks for the answer without resorting to “God did it.”…the ultimate squasher of inquiry.
FVThinker--sorry I've been away from our dialogue for a while...looking forward to getting back to it soon!
I, too, would enjoy continuing our discussion.
After re-reading the above in anticipation of your returning to the dialog, it occurred to me that there is a common misconception about what the 'Big Bang' [BB] actually defines. The BB only describes a theorized cataclysmic event that spewed energy and matter (and anti-matter) which eventually coalesced to form the universe that we know and love today. If we run the clock backwards to get closer and closer to the BB, we can only reliably describe what happened to just the briefest moment after the BB. Prior to that, we don't know what existed and what state it was in. Science does not say that the universe 'sprang from nothing' but rather a [relatively] small point that we cannot adequately describe with our current knowledge. We don't know what was there and it is perfectly fine that we don't know. Such unknowns are the catalyst for research and finding real answers.
As an aside: There is a similar misconception about evolution by natural selection (ENS) and that Darwin and his successors say that life sprang from non-life. Like the BB, science only describes what happened after the seminal event. In the case of ENS, it only describes how the DIVERSITY of life came about once the first self-replicating entity came about. How that first self-replicating entity came about is, for sure, an important question, but ENS is not concerned with that.
Knock knock
Ryan,
I have posted an essay about religion and evolution on by blog at:
http://fvthinker.blogspot.com/2009/11/yes-religion-is-anti-science-it-all.html
I'm interested in learning more about ENS...are you at all interested in learning some theology?
I appreciate your last post about ENS and its limitations and I've heard you say elsewhere that "we may never know how it all got started." Speaking theologically I tend to disagree...I believe we will all know in time.
To give some brief context to our discussion I want to say that over 95% of what the Bible has to say has nothing to do with science or scientific theory. Without doing a detailed study I think estimating 5% that may cross into the sphere of science is liberal. It may be much closer to 1%...nevertheless, as you may well have assumed already I do believe the Bible is true, therefore it is important to me that I understand all of it to be true and not just 99% or 95% of it.
So, I'm glad to debate the issues with you, even if it only encompasses a small portion of the narrative to which I adhere.
Peace today!
Sorry for the late response…I spent most of the week in Texas tending to a sick Uncle.
Re: learning more theology…
I am ALWAYS interested in learning more about most anything. If one is closed to learning, then one is closed to intellect. In matters of theology, though, I am only interested in very narrow aspects. The only things that are pertinent to me in this area are those aspects that demonstrate the likely truth or likely error of the biblical (or any religious) narrative. I don't think you would disagree that we need compelling reasons to believe that a religious narrative is factually true (or at least likely to be true) before we can submit to believing it. I have been discussing this at length for several years now and in no more than six weeks before the apologists began repeating themselves...seemingly having exhausted their rhetorical capital. It is my sense that the best arguments have already been offered and I am not hopeful that you would offer anything that I haven’t already heard. Once likely truth is established, then we can discuss the the teachings therein.
You said: “Speaking theologically I tend to disagree...I believe we will all know in time.”
I support your right to believe what you want, but of course I feel it is just that…mere belief. Moreover, if my worldview is more accurate, we will not know even after death as the death of the brain is the death of the mind and therefore there would be no consciousness to perceive anything past death. You may believe what you want, but I am not sure that such a statement offers anything in the way of intellectual discourse.
You said: “95% of what the Bible has to say has nothing to do with science or scientific theory.”
I do not disagree. Where the bible fails in its science is just one portion (1-5% ?) of the arguments against biblical veracity.
I wasn't expecting to have to be the first one to start on theology...
First point: Myriad ancient mythologies seem assembled from the same toolbox of god characteristics. Miracles, crucifixions, resurrections, raising the dead, curing the sick (often by the same means), December 25th (the ancient solstice), gifts, three kings, bright stars, etc etc etc.. It has been [cleverly] described that Jesus was unique and new from other gods just as the first Honda Accord was a new and unique car. How does theology posit that Jesus was real while all the pre-biblical deities were false even when there is nothing really different between them?
I knew there were similarities between Jesus and pagan gods, but the more I researched it, the more damning the similarities became. It is difficult (impossible) to find unbiased sources in this area. I demanded that the source at least quote the ancient sources describing the pagan gods. The best source I found was: http://www.pocm.info .
I hold no hope of us finding a mutually agreeable source for this aspect of a discussion (should you elect to participate), but http://www.pocm.info at least cites source material...the only I found.
No response? Have you given up on me? I really am looking for a thoughtful explanation to the pagan/Christian similarities. To date, I have heard but two...
1) The similarities are false/non-existent...though nobody has demonstrated so and all the information available seems to corroborate the similarities.
2) The devil created the false history of pre-Christian gods to make it look like Jesus was not anything new.
There was one discussion I had where the retort was a derivation on point 1. They said [no lie] if you take away all the ways that they are the same, then they are different. I have to presume that in all of your theological training (I presume your doctorate is in divinity), this topic must have been covered. What were you told?
Hey...sorry for the delay...this is a terribly busy season for me...CHRISTmas and all...I'll try to spend some time on the blog this week...peace
For what it is worth, National Geographic has been running a series on Jesus/Christianity/Bible. I just saw an installment called "Rivals of Jesus" that touches on a sampling other purported deities.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3126202689810625112#
Not to badger you or anything; I am genuinely interested in how divinity school addresses all the similarities between the Christian narrative and so many other pagan narratives.
If you prefer a more private venue, you can reach me at fvthinker[no~spam]@gmail.com. (remove the obvious junk in my address)
Best regards,
Mike
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