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About Me
- Dawg
- Born again Christian committed to sharing the good news of the Gospel to a lost and dying world.
Blogs I have to read
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Freedom3 years ago
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My First Custom Tract10 years ago
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A Quote from Ravi Zacharias11 years ago
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9 comments:
Wayne,
I clicked on the video, but it says "no longer available".
Yes, indeed...we are all guilty.
Thanks be to God we have a Savior in our Lord Jesus!
Praise the Lord.
I think: 'Why me?' All the time.
I mean- I blend, I am not cool, I can't do much right, I am terriabe at most things and not good at anything. Really, I pretty much suck. (and I hate the word suck)
That just means God gets to work in my weaknesses A LOT.
Still...'Why me?"
I want to see so many people come to the Lord.
It isn't even funny.
Wayne,
Just wondering about the sidebar that reads; "Atheist: Someone who believes that nothing made everything. A scientific impossibility"
Do you believe this statement to be true?
I'm not quite sure what the statement has to do with Darwin either (he references the Creator quite a few times in 'Origin of Species', you know?).
Just wondering...
Any thoughts? Wayne?
Hello?
ExPatMatt
Sorry - I need to find a way to have blogger direct me to folks who have posted on older posts...anyone know how that's done?
Matt - if you are an atheist, and the statement is wrong, please help me understand.
It has been my experience when witnessing to atheists, that yes, all that I have talked to will say that nothing became everything.
That takes more faith than I have...
Hey Wayne,
No worries, I know it's hard to keep track of the comments on old postings!
Yes, I am an atheist and no, I do not believe that 'nothing became everything'. Nor do I believe that 'nothing MADE everything' or any other variation of that phrase.
My answer is simple: I don't know.
Most atheists that I know (and I know a fair few) will say the same - they don't know. What they will do is say that physicists, the people who actually study the origins of the universe, have several hypotheses about how the universe came to be as it is and will generally defer to the better knowledge of these scientists than make an uneducated and unsubstantiated guess.
So, yes, the banner is wrong for the following reasons.
*Darwin was a biologist and never spoke about the origins of the universe.
*Darwin was not an atheist and credited the splendor of life to the Creator.
*The definition of an atheist is someone without a belief in God/gods, they are not defined by their thoughts on the origin of the universe.
*The banner says 'nothing MADE everything'. This assumes an act of creation by the 'nothing' as if it were an intelligent agent - no atheists thinks this.
*Currently, some physicists may think that 'nothing became everything' but they do not speak for all atheists or even all physicists.
*Lastly, why is it a 'scientific impossibility' for this event to occur and what calculations has Ray Comfort done to demonstrate this impossibility? None, he's making it up.
I hope you can see how this banner comes across as highly dishonest and, well, kinda pointless. It does not reflect well on you to have it attached to your blog.
If you disagree with any of the points I have raised, let me know.
Regards,
Matt
Matt -
Thanks for your answer -
You said - "Currently, some physicists may think that 'nothing became everything' but they do not speak for all atheists or even all physicists."
I have taken down the banner after considering that it may offend you and other atheists who may come to this site.
There are some things I will concede and some things I will be unmovable on....
"The definition of an atheist is someone without a belief in God/gods, they are not defined by their thoughts on the origin of the universe."
I have not found this to be the case here in North Georgia when I speak to self-identified atheists.
The atheists I run into will flat out tell me "there is no God".
They make an absolute statement.
They never say firstly (although I get them to change later) that they do not 'believe' there is no God. They say 'there is' no God.
So, to be fair I ask them if they have absolute knowledge. Of course they always answer no, they do not have absolute knowledge.
So I then ask; if you do not have absolute knowledge, is there a chance that of all the information you don't know or have not come across yet, that there may be a possiblilty that there is a God?
They have to admit yes, that there is a possibility that there is a God. Which then would make them an agnostic, not an atheist.
"Lastly, why is it a 'scientific impossibility' for this event to occur and what calculations has Ray Comfort done to demonstrate this impossibility? None, he's making it up."
Matt - you cannot, with logic, argue that everything came from nothing. There has to be a first cause.
Some of your other points I cannot challenge because I have to do some research...like,
*Darwin was not an atheist and credited the splendor of life to the Creator.
Thanks
Wayne,
Thanks for the considered response and I apologise for the length of my comment in advance.
Just to let you know; I am not offended by the banner - I just think it's ridiculous and wrong and was wondering what your reasoning was behind putting it on your site?
With regard to your experience of atheists, I think you have to remember that the only thing that all atheists have in common is that they lack a belief in God/gods.
Other than that, they might say 'there is no God', 'there might be a God, but I've never experienced Him', 'there might be a god, but I don't know which one it would be' or any other opinion on the existence of deities.
Even if they express an absolute opinion on the matter (which is, of course, a ridiculous claim to make), they are still not theists and therefore a-theists.
You said that the concession that;
"They have to admit yes, that there is a possibility that there is a God. Which then would make them an agnostic, not an atheist."
I think this is incorrect. The gnostic/agnostic stance is one of knowledge. The theist/atheist stance is one of belief.
Even if you don't know for sure if there's a God (agnostic), you still lack a belief in that God and are therefore an atheist.
[there are some people, I'm sure you wouldn't consider them True Christians, who are 'agnostic theists' - they don't know for sure that there's a God, but they believe in Him anyway]
You have to also understand that many people don't really care about all this theology 'rubbish' and have, kind of, disregarded the God Question out of hand without really considering it.
These people are different from the atheists who have discussed religion with theists and come to a conclusion about the existence of gods; that's where I would put myself.
I am an agnostic atheist. I do not believe in God/gods, but I also appreciate that I don't have absolute knowledge and so am open to being shown differently if sufficient evidence is presented....
Which brings us on to...
"Matt - you cannot, with logic, argue that everything came from nothing. There has to be a first cause. "
The traditional response is that, logically, whatever that cause was, it had to have a cause too; thus the infinite regress.
As I understand it, you posit that a god, specifically the God of the Bible, is that First Cause and doesn't require a cause of His own as He is 'outside of time'.
This is called 'special pleading' and is only backed up by a belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God (the God whose existence you're trying to prove via logic) and so ends up as a circular argument without any real, logical basis.
As I said before, I do not know how our universe began. It could have been the product of an intelligent being, but I've seen nothing to indicate that this is the case so my position is - I don't know.
New Banner (accompanied by a picture of Stephen Hawking)
Atheist: Someone who isn't sure what caused the universe to come into existence but is willing to look at the evidence.
I'll leave you with the last sentence from Origin of Species;
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Beautiful, eh?
Regards,
Matt
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