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Prepared Remarks for the Dembski-Hitchens Debate

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Below are my prepared remarks from the 18 November 2010 debate at Prestonwood Christian Academy with Christopher Hitchens. The full debate may be viewed here.

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Does a Good God Exist? – A Debate with Christopher Hitchens

William A. Dembski

The Existence of God

Good morning and thanks for this opportunity to debate the existence and goodness of God. I’ll start by addressing God’s existence and then turn to God’s goodness. God’s existence is the weightier question – once that’s settled, God’s goodness follows straightforwardly.

Although I could rehearse standard arguments for God’s existence, I want in this debate to take a different tack. Christopher Hitchens disbelieves in God’s existence. Why? Lack of evidence and evils perpetrated in the name of religion, he says. Yet his book God Is Not Great reveals a more basic reason. Hitchens, as a scientific reductionist, believes science has given us new knowledge that destroys religious faith. What is this new knowledge? According to Hitchens, it is Darwinian evolution.

You may ask what a chapter on evolution is doing in a book defending atheism. At the end of that chapter, Hitchens explains: “We no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious.” Let this sink in. Religion, according to Hitchens, renders biological origins mysterious. But now that Darwin has come and shown how natural selection explains biological origins, all is clear. Fellow atheist Richard Dawkins puts it more memorably: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

It’s no coincidence that Richard Dawkins, the world’s best known atheist, is also an evolutionary biologist. Atheists, like everyone else, need a creation story. Without God in the picture, something like Darwinian evolution has to be true. And so Hitchens, though a humanities guy, lectures his readers on proofs of evolution. Let’s look at a few of these proofs as he gives them.

(1) “Junk DNA.” If Darwin got it right, then our genes are cobbled together over a long evolutionary history, accumulating lots of useless DNA (junk) because it’s easier for natural selection to keep copying such junk rather than edit it out. This sounds plausible, but it is subject to experimental test. In fact, recent findings show that much of this so-called junk DNA regulates gene expression. This is true even of repetitive DNA, the quintessential DNA junk. A forthcoming book titled The Myth of Junk DNA details these findings.

(2) “The Cambrian explosion.” This refers to a narrow slice of the fossil record in which all the main animal body plans appear suddenly without precursors. The Cambrian explosion was a mystery in Darwin’s day and remains a mystery to this day. Paleontologist Peter Ward writes about the Cambrian explosion:

“The seemingly sudden appearance of skeletonized life has been one of the most perplexing puzzles of the fossil record. How is it that animals as complex as trilobites and brachiopods could spring forth so suddenly, completely formed, without a trace of their ancestors in the underlying strata? If ever there was evidence suggesting Divine Creation, surely the Precambrian and Cambrian transition, known from numerous localities across the face of the earth, is it.”

Ward, like Hitchens, is an atheist, so he tries to soften this statement later. But the mystery remains. For more on the Cambrian explosion, see my book The Design of Life.

(3) “The inverted retina.” Vertebrate eyes have nerve cells in front of the light-sensitive retinal cells. This means that light first has to pass through a barrier before being detected. This seems counterintuitive, but there are good functional reasons for it. A visual system needs three things: speed, resolution, and above all sensitivity – if the eye isn’t sensing light, it’s useless. Now, it turns out that light-sensitive cells are the most oxygen-greedy cells, and they get their oxygen from blood. The sensitivity here is truly astounding – some frog eyes can sense the smallest unit of light (the photon). Positioning the nerves in front of the light-sensitive retinal cells ensures maximal blood supply to the retina and thus maximal sensitivity.

But the story gets better. In 2007 it was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that Müller glial cells act as optical fibers conveying light to the retina. As the abstract to this article notes,

“Their parallel array in the retina is reminiscent of fiberoptic plates used for low-distortion image transfer. Thus, Müller cells seem to mediate the image transfer through the vertebrate retina with minimal distortion and low loss. This finding elucidates a fundamental feature of the inverted retina as an optical system and ascribes a new function to glial cells.”

So the vertebrate eye is much more sophisticated than Darwinists, on their low view of design, suspected. And thanks to these Müller glial cells, the eye’s resolution is magnificent.

The problems with Hitchens’ proofs of evolution don’t end here. All his proofs are easily deconstructed (I’m happy to do so during the Q&A – I have his book with me). Hitchens is obsessed with the human eye (the same eye that has allowed him to read and educate himself as an atheist). Observing different types of eyes in nature, he repeats the chestnut that natural selection gradually turned a light-sensitive spot into a full-fledged camera eye. No mention that eyes have to be built in embryological development or that eyes are only as good as their associated neural processing. No details about the genetic changes that would be needed to effect such a transformation.

To really make the case, Hitchens cites Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger’s mathematical model of eye evolution, which he claims shows that eyes could evolve in a geological instant. Let me tell you a secret about mathematical models and computer simulations – unless you tether them to real observable processes, you can use them to prove anything, in which case they prove nothing. The model of Nilsson and Pelger, which Hitchens praises loudly, is of this sort. I can write a computer simulation that evolves Richard Nixon into Christopher Hitchens (that’s a scary thought). Such simulations prove nothing.

I know what you’re all thinking. Since the evidence for evolution is so underwhelming and since Hitchens has hitched his wagon to evolution, shouldn’t he now be ready to abandon evolution and reconsider theism? Yet this is precisely what he will not do. His atheism demands a materialistic form of evolution, and there’s only one going theory of it, namely Darwinism. The alternative, which places us here as the result of design, is for him unthinkable.

In regarding design as unthinkable, Hitchens puts himself in an atheist straitjacket. For the atheist, we must be here as the result of a blind, purposeless evolutionary process – there are no other options. Atheism demands evolution. For the theist, on the other hand, it’s possible that God used an evolutionary process to deposit us here; but it’s also possible that God deposited us here in ways that make his design evident. Either of these are live options for the theist, and the theist can consider them fairly. Atheism, however, cannot live without Darwin.

Hitchens needs evolution to be true. His treatment of it is therefore calm and deferential (albeit mistaken). By contrast, his treatment of theology and biblical studies is boorish and obtuse. For instance, Hitchens dismisses Israel’s time in Egypt and Sinai as myths lacking all archeological evidence. Yet that evidence is readily available. Take, for instance, James Hoffmeier’s books on the topic, published by that flaming fundamentalist publisher … Oxford University Press. Or consider Hitchens’ view of Jesus. There is, according to him, “little or no evidence for the life of Jesus.” Come again? It’s one thing to deny the miracles attributed to Jesus. But to say, as Hitchens does, that Jesus is “not a historical figure” is contrarian silliness.

For all his talk about freedom of inquiry and Enlightenment rationality, Hitchens exhibits a very selective concern for truth. What seems to matter most to him is not whether a claim is true but whether it makes a good stick to beat religion. Deny that Jesus was real? If it helps advance the atheist agenda, go for it, especially since it’s easy to get away with in an age of theological illiteracy.

Whenever Hitchens invokes science against religion, one gets the impression that a juggernaut is rushing forward, crushing everything in its path. Science advances, religion retreats. This is wishful thinking. The fact is, as any historian of science understands, science is not a cumulative enterprise, so reversals, retractions, and revolutions play as much a role in science as insights, illuminations, and intellectual breakthroughs. Thus, new scientific advances, far from undercutting religion, can in fact overturn antitheistic conclusions derived from prior scientific mistakes.

Chemical evolution is a case in point. Chemical evolution attempts to describe how non-living chemicals arranged themselves into first life. Atheism requires that chemicals have this ability. Darwin attempted to strengthen the atheists’ hand by arguing that first life was so simple that it required no designer. Darwin’s argument (made in a letter to Joseph Hooker) has since shown itself to be a failed argument from ignorance. Precisely because of what Darwin didn’t know about the complexity of the cell, microscopy being quite limited in the mid 1800s, he thought the cell was so simple that it could easily self-assemble from ordinary non-living matter.

The revolution in molecular biology of the last fifty years has given the lie to this misconception. We now know that every cell (and all life is composed of cells) is a vastly complicated assembly of interconnected technologies that argue for intelligent design. We need to be engineers to understand what’s inside the cell, and the level of engineering we find there far exceeds anything humans have invented. If you want to see what I’m talking about, call up YouTube on your PDA and punch in “inner life of the cell.”

I just mentioned what for Hitchens is a dirty word – “intelligent design.” For Hitchens, intelligent design, or ID, is just rebranded creationism. It is religion and not science. But in fact, intelligent design covers a broad range of special sciences, including forensic science, archeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or SETI). Intelligent design, by definition, is the study of patterns in nature best explained as the product of intelligence. It is a basic feature of human rationality to identify the products of intelligence and distinguish them from the products of natural forces. Many special sciences capitalize on this distinction.

In 1998, I published a statistical monograph with Cambridge University Press titled The Design Inference. In it I laid out a probabilistic method for drawing this distinction between design and accident. Essentially, this method triangulates on design by identifying independently given patterns, known as specifications, that are complex in the sense of being hard to reproduce by chance. Accordingly, the method identifies what has come to be called specified complexity. In The Design Inference I showed how this method applies outside biology. In subsequent work, when my colleagues and I started applying this method of design detection specifically to biology, we found that Darwinian evolution came up short and that ample evidence supported design. For a nice summary, see Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell.

Just as getting from Darwinian evolution to atheism is not a big stretch, so getting from design in biology to theism is not a big stretch. Are we therefore ready to agree that God exists now that we’ve seen Hitchens’ proofs of evolution fail, the intelligent design alternative succeeds, that his critiques of theology are self-serving? By itself, my argument establishes a designer behind the universe (a Kantian architect, if you will). For the purposes of this debate, however, I think we’re ready to close escrow.

Note that the full positive case for God’s existence can and should be fleshed out. Typically, such a case flows from critical reflection on the big questions of life: Why is there something rather than nothing? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why should we take morality seriously? Why is the world comprehensible to our minds? Why does mathematics, presumably a human invention, have such a precise purchase on physical reality? Each of these questions can, in my view, be answered better within a theistic than atheistic worldview. And if time permitted, I would address them. But for now let’s leave it here.

The Goodness of God

Last time up, I argued that God exists. The next order of business is to establish God’s goodness. It’s here that Hitchens mounts his loudest attack against religious people and against God himself. His motto in such attacks is heads-I-win-tails-you-lose. Thus, if religious people behave badly, that counts against God. On the other hand, if they behave well, that means nothing because non-religious people can also behave well.

In establishing God’s goodness, let’s therefore first level the playing field. The sixth century Christian philosopher Boethius helps us here. In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” Boethius contrasts the problem that evil poses for  theism with the problem that good poses for atheism. The problem of good does not receive nearly as much attention as the problem evil, but it is the more basic problem. That’s because evil always presupposes a good that has been subverted. All our words for evil make this plain: the New Testament word for sin (Greek hamartia) presupposes a target that’s been missed; deviation presupposes a way (Latin via) from which we’ve departed; injustice presupposes justice; etc.

So let’s ask, who’s got the worse problem, the theist or the atheist? Start with the theist. God is the source of all being and purpose. Given God’s existence, what sense does it make to deny God’s goodness? None. Indeed, denying God’s goodness is logically and rationally incoherent – it’s absurd. To see this, consider what it would mean to assert that God is not good. Presumably this would mean that God violated some moral standard. Whose moral standard? One devised by Christopher Hitchens? God owes Hitchens nothing.

To say that God is not good must therefore mean that God has violated an objective moral standard. But since God is the source of all being and purpose, any such objective moral standard cannot reside outside God. If it did, how could it be objective, much less command God’s obedience? Such a standard must therefore derive from God himself. But in that case, how can God violate it? God is the standard.

God’s goodness follows as a matter of definition once God’s existence is taken for granted. This may seem like a cheat, but it’s not. The problem of evil still confronts theists, though not as a logical or philosophical problem, but instead as a psychological and existential one. The problem of evil can therefore be reformulated as the following argument:

Premise 1: Since God is good, he wants to destroy evil.

Premise 2: Since God is all-powerful, he can destroy evil.

Premise 3: Evil is not yet destroyed.

Conclusion: Therefore God will eventually destroy evil.

As time-bound creatures, our problem here is with the word “eventually.” We want to see evil destroyed right now. And because we don’t see it destroyed right now, and thus experience the suffering that evil invariably inflicts, we are tempted to doubt God’s existence and goodness. Our challenge, therefore, is to continue trusting God until evil is destroyed. Hitchens’ long litany of evils, especially those committed in the name of religion, is designed to derail our trust in God’s goodness by getting us to think that if God were really good, he would have taken care of evil by now.

God’s goodness in face of the world’s evil is, as Boethius noted, a problem. It’s not an insuperable problem, but neither is it a trivial one. By contrast, the problem of good in the face of God’s non-existence (the other half of Boethius’s paradox) is, I submit, insuperable. 

The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: nature, which is nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. As nineteenth century freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll used to say, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments. There are consequences.” More recently, Richard Dawkins made the same point: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

Values, on the atheist view, are subjective and contingent. They reflect inclinations to behave and feel in certain ways given the conditions of survival and reproduction under which our ancestors evolved and the social conditions under which we’ve been reared. Hitchens speaks of moral values as being innate and waxes indignant when they are violated.  But on atheist principles, what is the force of morality and what justifies such indignation?

Hitchens, for instance, is incensed with religious communities that practice female genital mutilation. So am I.  But without an objective moral standard, which atheism cannot deliver, Hitchens himself is at bottom a complicated piece of matter that evolutionary and social conditioning have inclined to react in certain ways to certain behaviors – in particular, he reacts quite negatively to female genital mutilation.

The religious communities that engage in this practice, however, are quite content to continue it. Moreover, on atheistic principles, they have the better argument, for they are surviving and reproducing quite nicely, indeed, outreproducing the secular West. On atheist principles, morality is, as Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson note, “an illusion fobbed off by our genes to get us to cooperate.” This statement by Ruse and Wilson is very widely quoted, but too often the punch line gets omitted, which is this: “[Morality] is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference.”

That’s the kicker. Christopher Hitchens is morally earnest. So is the female genital mutilation community. Try to convince either that they’re wrong, and get into the fight of your life. But their passionate moral convictions, on atheist principles, merely show that they’ve fooled themselves into thinking that morality is objective and thus universally binding. No, on atheist principles, all that’s going on is one group of material objects (Enlightenment rationalists like Christopher Hitchens) inclined to one set of behaviors, and another group of material objects (female genital mutilators) inclined to another set of behaviors.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that atheists can’t act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it’s as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong. So the atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when in fact none exists.

But perhaps such cheating is inconsequential. The American pragmatist philosopher C. S. Peirce held that for a difference to be a difference it has to make a difference. Christopher Hitchens claims that atheists can behave just as morally as theists (in fact, he claims they will behave better than theists because religion poisons everything). At the end of his book, he therefore poses the following question: “Name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever. I have since asked this question at every stop and haven’t had a reply yet.”  

But Hitchens has posed the wrong question. Since God exists and has created us, we all have moral knowledge built into us by God and thus are capable of performing the same ethical actions. Hitchens’ question therefore answers itself. A far more interesting question would have been this: “Given a moral action, what is the profile of those who engage or refrain from engaging in it, and do religious as well as anti-religious factors play a significant role?”

Consider eugenics, euthanasia, and abortion. Those who oppose these actions are largely people of faith. They see humanity as made in God’s image and therefore human life as sacred. Accordingly, it would be a profanation for them to engage in eugenics, euthanasia, or abortion. Conversely, those who embrace these actions are largely anti-religious secularists. They see humans as evolved mammals, pieces of complicated matter in motion, with no transcendent value. Obviously, then, theism and atheism have profoundly different moral consequences. Here is a difference that makes a difference. At the heart of this difference is the existence and goodness of God.

Conclusion

In Alexander Schmemann’s critique of secularism, he remarked, “It is not the immorality of the crimes of man that reveal him as a fallen being; it is his ‘positive ideal’—religious or secular—and his satisfaction with this ideal.” A common criminal knows that he is a criminal and doesn’t try to rationalize his crimes or cast himself as a benefactor of humanity. But an ideologue, who knows what’s best for humanity and cannot find satisfaction until everyone is on board with his “positive ideal” – with his ideology – such a man can rationalize anything and is truly dangerous.

Schmemann’s insight captures what’s right and what’s wrong with Christopher Hitchens’ case against religion. Religion can be a problem, yes. Religious people, confident that theirs is the only way to build a better world, have felt it their moral duty to coerce, torture, and kill others. Hitchens sees this clearly. But secularism can be as guilty as religion in this respect. Secularists, confident that theirs is the only way to build a better world, have likewise felt it their moral duty to coerce, torture, and kill others.

Nevertheless, Hitchens refuses to admit any parity between religious and secular evil. Recount atrocities committed by religious people, and Hitchens is delighted – yet another nail in the coffin of religion. But mention a person, community, or movement whose atrocities flow from their secular ideals, and Hitchens changes the subject. And to what subject does he change it? Why to religion, of course.

For instance, mention Stalin and the millions he killed, and Hitchens will tell you how Stalin started out as a seminarian for the Orthodox priesthood and how Russian Orthodox believers presently make icons of Stalin (complete with halo). Mention the Nazis, the holocaust, and Hitler (Hitler, by the way, likened Christianity to small pox), and Hitchens will regale you with how many SS were churchgoers. Mention North Korea and its crazy communist dictators, and Hitchens will inform you that North Korea is the closest thing he can imagine to the Christian heaven, complete with a holy trinity comprising Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un.

Changing the subject in this way, however, doesn’t change the fact that secularism can be just as ideologically driven as religion. The irony is that Hitchens’ own atheist crusade is itself ideologically driven. The subtitle of Hitchens’ book reads How Religion Poisons Everything. Gripped by the idea that religion poisons everything, he cannot allow that religious people, precisely because of their religion, might do good. Hitchens takes this idea to ridiculous extremes in his attack on Mother Teresa. In his 1994 BBC documentary Hell’s Angel, in his 1995 book The Missionary Position, and briefly in God Is Not Great, Hitchens portrays her as a self-serving hypocrite.

In the audience today is my good friend Mary Poplin, a professor at Claremont. She was in Calcutta with Mother Teresa when Hitchens came out with his book against her. Recently, Poplin published Finding Calcutta, in which she recounts her time with Mother Teresa. Poplin writes:

“Hitchens also accused Mother [Teresa] of receiving the best in health care when it was not available to the poor. However, I took an offer to her from a colleague’s brother, who was involved in developing a new pacemaker, to replace her old pacemaker with the new and improved one. She said she could not accept it, but she would accept it for the poor. She [also] refused another medical offer … When I called and repeated these offers upon her becoming more ill a few months after I left, she again refused and asked for prayers instead. My impression is that she mostly received good health care when she was too ill to fight it.”

Comments
The concept of Good and Evil is not just restricted to humans. The following questions equally apply to a theist and an atheist. Conceding for a moment that a Creator of life exists, we must further examine the Creator's intent with respect to good and evil. 1. What is the reason to create carnivores and herbivores? Why should carnivores cruelly attack otherwise innocent herbivores? 2. To extend the above question, can there be a genuine theistic argument on origins of life by an any individual who is a non-vegetarian? Are we not doing evil to innocent animals? The answer to the first question can be modelled by the concept of reincarnation. The answer to the second question is based on lifestyle and personal choice. But being a vegetarian cannot be considered as evil. Good gets its value only when there is evil. If we were to be created by a superior entity, it then follows that our capacity to understand is much limited. What is obvious though, is that the purpose of life is to realize it.R. Sreenivasan
December 5, 2010
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>>This is the better version of #87 Heinrich @84 – "For those claiming that the only way to an objective reality is through a god, then saying which god is surely a first order argument" Yes, it is first order for those who believe in objective reality. But not for the atheist who denies the basic notion of a creator to the universe, let alone the objective reality. And that is exactly why I said for an atheist the first order question is “is there a creator?”. So logically the “which God” question becomes a 2nd order for the atheist. Let me draw an important distinction here; the questions of “is life designed”, “is there a creator to the universe”, and “which god” each requires a separate long discussion on its own right with regard to the topics of biology, cosmology, philosophy and theology. You are frog-leaping from one question to another thinking that an absence of answer from the opponent to one of these questions would spell defeat for his/her arguments regarding the other two questions. But this is not how it works. And let’s be honest, when you ask “which god is it” is that for the purpose of knowledge or confusion? Or do you expect a lack of convincing answer from the opponent that would make you believe that you “won” the argument and somehow proven that there is no creator to the universe? Heinrich – "For me, there’s not much difference between Genesis and the other creation myths: they’re all just mythologies & stories" But you missed my main point, I was arguing for an objective scientific case for the existence of a creator to the universe. I did not make a mention of Genesis. All I said is that only God of the Abrahamic faiths holds scientific credibility, and if all they had is myths and stories I don’t think we would be finding intellectuals and scientists today presenting a compelling scientific case for God. Anyways, let me repeat my old paragraph from #76: “Now back to the question of the creator. If we put all subjective theories and ignorant beliefs aside and by looking at it objectively, the existence of God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, the information that runs the show in cells, the origin of nanotechnology in cells that left Darwinists speechless, and many other objective empirical observations that inevitably point to one conclusion: God.” To which you replied as such: Heinrich - "I guess it’s clear that I’m not convinced by this: for example the origin of life stories in Genesis don’t match what science tells us" They don’t match with what part of science exactly? Darwinism? Are we talking about the theory that failed to explain the origin of life, or of any complex molecular machine, through the speculated & undirected natural causes of RM + NS? And I fail to understand you logic here, how is your subjective disagreement with Genesis supposed to refute the objective evidence from the fine-tuning of the universe, the nanotechnology in cells, and the massive information content that runs the show in biology? I dare say that these are all objectively observed facts that strongly appeal to our intellectual honesty to conclude that the universe has a creator. Heinrich – "it may be that evidence can be found to show that a god is needed to explain the universe, but why should this be the Abrahamic god?" I commend you for showing some open mind to the possibility of God needed to explain the universe. But if the Abrahamic God doesn’t suit you, would you then be more comfortable with Zeus, Osiris, Shiva or a statue of some pagan deity in your living room?Shogun
December 3, 2010
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I'm sorry but I notice that Heinrich's quotes were missing from the previous post. So I will repost it again.Shogun
December 3, 2010
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Heinrich @84 - Yes, it is first order for those who believe in objective reality. But not for the atheist who denies the basic notion of a creator to the universe, let alone the objective reality. And that is exactly why I said for an atheist the first order question is "is there a creator?". So logically the "which God" question becomes a 2nd order for the atheist. Let me draw an important distinction here; the questions of "is life designed", "is there a creator to the universe", and "which god" each requires a separate long discussion on its own right with regard to the topics of biology, cosmology, philosophy and theology. You are frog-leaping from one question to another thinking that an absence of answer from the opponent to one of these questions would spell defeat for his/her arguments regarding the other two questions. But this is not how it works. And let's be honest, when you ask "which god is it" is that for the purpose of knowledge or confusion? Or do you expect a lack of convincing answer from the opponent that would make you believe that you "won" the argument and somehow proven that there is no creator to the universe? Heinrich - But you missed my main point, I was arguing for an objective scientific case for the existence of a creator to the universe. I did not make a mention of Genesis. All I said is that only God of the Abrahamic faiths holds scientific credibility, and if all they had is myths and stories I don't think we would be finding intellectuals and scientists today presenting a compelling scientific case for God. Anyways, let me repeat my old paragraph from #76: "Now back to the question of the creator. If we put all subjective theories and ignorant beliefs aside and by looking at it objectively, the existence of God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, the information that runs the show in cells, the origin of nanotechnology in cells that left Darwinists speechless, and many other objective empirical observations that inevitably point to one conclusion: God." To which you replied as such: They don't match with what part of science exactly? Darwinism? Are we talking about the theory that failed to explain the origin of life, or of any complex molecular machine, through the speculated & undirected natural causes of RM + NS? And I fail to understand you logic here, how is your subjective disagreement with Genesis supposed to refute the objective evidence from the fine-tuning of the universe, the nanotechnology in cells, and the massive information content that runs the show in biology? I dare say that these are all objectively observed facts that strongly appeal to our intellectual honesty to conclude that the universe has a creator. Heinrich - I commend you for showing some open mind to the possibility of God needed to explain the universe. But if the Abrahamic God doesn't suit you, would you then be more comfortable with Zeus, Osiris, Shiva or a statue of some pagan deity in your living room?Shogun
December 3, 2010
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LarTanner. As tribune already pointed out, the concepts of irreducible complexity and specified information point to design. Both concepts are rife in cells. In addition, ID brings a quantifiable approach to understanding design, as well as another quantifiable approach for analyzing the adequacy of RM + NS in producing new functions, which is what Darwinists failed to demonstrate. Let me remind you again, it is not Creationists who referred to the universal rules as laws, or biological systems as designs. It is not Creationist who came up with the term "information" to describe DNA, nor did they come up with "molecular machines" to describe what we see in cells. It was scientists who came up with such word because they are INTUITIVE not subjective as you would like us to believe. The problem is that you think that we are fooled into thinking that what we see in living things is "design", and hence we are "deluded & biased" when we call it "technology". But you fail to realize that irreducible complexity & specified information are observable empirical facts. In other words, inferring design is based on positive evidence based on what we know, not your typical "God of the gaps". But Darwinists stubbornly reject this based on purely ideological motives. Faced with this evidence for design, what do the Darwinists have to say regarding irreducible complexity? All they did is that they invented (not discovered) the concept of co-option which adds more theoretical package to Darwinism but is not an empirical evidence in & of itself. It is just an expansion to their story-telling skills. They somehow think that simply mentioning co-option would "magically" solve the problem of irreducible complexity. By the way, all the fuzz you're making about the word "technology" is trivial. Whether we call it "technology" or "random creation" or whatever you will, such word games do not solve the main problem facing Darwinism. Let me repeat it again: Over 150 years after Darwin and his theory still failed to yield an adequate explanation for a single complex organ or molecular machine through the alleged processes of RM + NS. For example, when it comes to proteins, it is a known fact (and another successful ID prediction) that the ratio of functional to non-functional arrangements is astronomically small. So you could have DNA mutating indefinitely searching for "islands of function" in an astronomical sea. And somehow we are supposed to believe that mutations could come up with all the new body plans in such a brief time period as in the Cambrian explosion!! I think that those who blindly believe in the "creative" powers of mutations are the ones who are truly deluded, not those who refer to molecular machines as technology.Shogun
November 28, 2010
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LarTanner -- One reason I and others focus on language is that too often ID proponents refer to “the evidence” but don’t actually have any evidence. The evidence will be the “technologies of the cell” which are evidence of the “technologies of the cell”–and, hence, we get nowhere. Then you haven't followed the issue. ID at its simplest is that designed objects have quantifiable traits and that if an object has these traits we can infer the object is designed. Since biological objects have these traits we can infer they are designed. Behe's best known argument as to a quantifiable trait of designed objects is irreducible complexity - namely that if an object loses a single part that should cause it to be unable to function, design would be proved since such a part could not have occurred via gradual series of random events i.e. evolutionary path. Dembski's best known argument is complex specified information -- which is that if an item contains specific information of a particular complexity, it can't be anything but designed. See, didn't even use the word "technology". BTW, neither Dembski nor Behe's claim is dogmatic and both are subject to falsification. The only thing to point out is that you have referred several times to “the evidence.” The problem with drawing emotionally driven conclusions is that one finds oneself making assumptions on what he thought he read rather than what was actually before him. :-) I've used the phrase "the evidence" just one in Post 82 in what was basically an allusion to the definition of bias. In fact I use the word "evidence" in only two other posts -- 17 & 68 -- and, again, neither is a reference to ID.tribune7
November 28, 2010
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tribune7 @75 -
You start with the recognition that truth is objective and existence (the universe) has a point and you work back from there.
That reminds me of Deep Thought, who started from 'I think, therefore I am', and had got as far as deducing the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone plugged in his memory. More seriously, I'm intrigued to see how you make this inference. I'm sceptical that you can do it without making more assumptions (e.g. about the point of the universe). Shogun @76 - For those claiming that the only way to an objective reality is through a god, then saying which god is surely a first order argument.
Also ask yourself, did the followers of Zeus, Osiris, Thor, Shiva or any other pagan/mythical deity (ancient or modern) have followers that presented a compelling scientific case for their existence, as is the case in Abrahamic religions? NO they didn’t, all they had is a collection of mythologies & stories.
For me, there's not much difference between Genesis and the other creation myths: they're all just mythologies & stories.
Now back to the question of the creator. If we put all subjective theories and ignorant beliefs aside and by looking at it objectively, the existence of God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, the information that runs the show in cells, the origin of nanotechnology in cells that left Darwinists speechless, and many other objective empirical observations that inevitably point to one conclusion: God.
I guess it's clear that I'm not convinced by this: for example the origin of life stories in Genesis don't match what science tells us. it may be that evidence can be found to show that a god is needed to explain the universe, but why should this be the Abrahamic god? More importantly, the scientific evidence says nothing about an objective morality. I agree that there is a lot of common ground between the mainstream Abrahamic religions (but don't tell certain strands of the Religious Right in the US: they'll blow a gasket if they find out they have a lot in common with Islam). But there are still important differences (e.g. on the status of women, or on whether killing is permissible). And that's before we get onto how they conduct themselves in practice!Heinrich
November 28, 2010
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tribune7, You seem very comfortable making these armchair psychological profiles of the (big, bad) atheist. And I see you cannot resist but go back to that security blanket of "you're emotion-driven." The only thing to point out is that you have referred several times to "the evidence." One reason I and others focus on language is that too often ID proponents refer to "the evidence" but don't actually have any evidence. The evidence will be the "technologies of the cell" which are evidence of the "technologies of the cell"--and, hence, we get nowhere. It all convinces me that ID is more the science of advertising than the science of actual living things. Thanks for the discussion.LarTanner
November 28, 2010
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LarTanner -- Bias can be driven by several things other than emotion; OK Lar, IOW bias can be emotion. So I'll be more clear. The bias that drives the atheist is emotion. Or do you want to make the claim that the bias that drives the atheist is experiential-based ignorance? It some cases that might actually be true. Anthony Flew comes to mind. In the case of Hitchens and PZ Myers and others of that type, however, it is emotion. Regardless, bias is the tendency to come to conclusions despite the evidence. This means it is irrational, which means regardless of whatever bias motivates the atheist it is an indication of delusion in their thinking. Don’t tell me it’s not a critical term because that’s a lie. And that is seriously emotionally driven statement.tribune7
November 28, 2010
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tribune7 (#78), The problem is that you are wrong, not that you are being unclear. You say this:
Would it be clearer if I had said “bias is an emotionally driven type of reasoning”?
This is an incorrect statement, or rather an incomplete statement. Bias can be driven by several things other than emotion; bias can result from factors apart from emotion. For example, in a survey, one can take too small or too homogeneous a sample. For another example, one can inadvertently adopt an anthropic bias. Your repeated insistence on tethering bias to emotion is itself a bias. I have to laugh when I read you saying that the term "technology" is not so important as I suggest. Well, let's look again at what Dembski says:
We now know that every cell (and all life is composed of cells) is a vastly complicated assembly of interconnected technologies that argue for intelligent design. We need to be engineers to understand what’s inside the cell, and the level of engineering we find there far exceeds anything humans have invented. If you want to see what I’m talking about, call up YouTube on your PDA and punch in “inner life of the cell.”
The word "technologies" is essential in the argument that Dembski is making. It conveys the ideas of complexity, systematization, and intent. Don't tell me it's not a critical term because that's a lie. What's more, it's an objectionable term because if we are trying to determine whether design is inherent in a cell or cellular structure, then the word "technology" poisons the discussion by smuggling in the design idea in advance. Shogun (#80): Your apology fails completely, I'm afraid. How did you come up with this?
We can recognize design when we see it. Even Darwinists admit there is design in living things but they just BELIEVE it to be an “illusion”.
No, we cannot recognize design when we see it, at least not in all cases. Whether design is actual or apparent is one of the central questions that ID is supposed to be addressing. To my knowledge, that question is far from being answered (and perhaps answerable). This statement of yours is childish:
Your objection to the word “technology” actually demonstrates a typical materialistic disdain towards the use of words that have theological package to them, no matter how intuitive they may be.
My objection to the term is that it is a biased term and an intellectual shortcut. I did not realize the word "technology" had a "theological package." That's a new one. Frankly, I don't care about the theology. But I do care about words and word use. People try to fool others with words, and the use of "technology" by ID is a case in point. So, yes, you are correct that my objection has an ideological dimension, and that ideology is one that values the effort to use words honestly and with neutral intent as we try to figure out the facts. You apparently have a different ideology in mind, evidently one in which you "know" the truth in advance and so use words and select "facts" that seem to support that truth.LarTanner
November 28, 2010
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LarTanner, I just wanted to comment on your objection to the use of the term "technology". Describing the complex & amazing molecular machines in cells as nanotechnology is more intuitive than it is subjective. We can recognize design when we see it. Even Darwinists admit there is design in living things but they just BELIEVE it to be an "illusion". But it is part of human rationality to recognize signs of intelligence & design, and their detection methods are being used for detecting intelligence in SETI research and other fields. But when it comes to biology, we have to discard our intuitive interpretation of biological designs just so we do not upset Darwinism!! By the way, even if we drop the word "technology", that will not reduce the formidable challenge that molecular machines pose to Darwinism. Over 150 years after Darwin and his theory still failed to yield an adequate explanation for a single complex organ or molecular machine through the alleged processes of RM + NS. Your objection to the word "technology" actually demonstrates a typical materialistic disdain towards the use of words that have theological package to them, no matter how intuitive they may be. For example, throughout the ages scientists intuitively recognized the rules and principles that govern the universe as laws, the blueprint of cells to be information, the structures of biological systems to be design, and the workhorse of cells to be molecular machines. But, recently materialists want us to drop such words because a law implies a law-giver, a design implies a designer, a molecular machine implies an engineer, and information implies intelligence. In other word, this opposition to the usage of such words is more counter-intuitive and ideological than it is scientific.Shogun
November 27, 2010
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Sorry Graham, I lost this thread originally. Anyway, I've just seen your response: "cut a heathen and he bleeds". Not good enough I'm afraid Graham. In a meaningless universe what does it matter if the entire history of mankind suffers endlessly or not at all. In the end, it is all for nothing anyway. So, if you're bringing that worldview to the discussion, you need to explain why suffering (or anything) really matters in the first place.Chris Doyle
November 27, 2010
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LarTanner, way back in post 48 I said "bias is emotion" which is not the same as saying it is "an emotion". Would it be clearer if I had said "bias is an emotionally driven type of reasoning"? :-) And the word "technology" is not at all critical. "Intelligence" yes, and "design" of course, but "technology" would be most likely used, if used at all, to make an off-hand analogy well after the discussion got underway. And even then the analogy is more likely going to be to something not generally considered technological such as a sentence or paragraph.tribune7
November 27, 2010
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tribune7 (#57)
Bias is certainly emotion i.e something guided by feelings rather than reason. The appropriate definition from Merriam Webster is particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
I see the point you are trying to make, but it doesn't work. Even if bias is "guided" by emotions, it is not itself an emotion. It is, primarily, a flaw of reasoning, a failure to account for significant information. Now, why were we discussing it? Oh yes, because you want to define atheists as fundamentally emotion-driven in their atheism. Look, to close off this discussion, perhaps we can agree on a few things: (1) I don't think your argument is as self-evident as you seem to think. I'm happy you brought in, at last, a specific to use as evidence of your claim--that specific being the entirety of a chapter in Hitchens's book--but I think you need a few more examples before the argument can be considered strong at all. (2) The argument "they are so EMOTIONAL"--the argument you are making--seems to be like the claims of "I don't like their tone" or "They use straw men arguments, for they are not criticizing my religion" or "They are not sophisticated in philosophy or theology." That is, I find this tactic to be evasive, dismissive, and anti-intellectual. I am not saying you are any of these things, only that I despise this kind of argument for wasting mind-share. (3) The word "technology" is critical in ID, no? I realize that Dembski and other ID proponents use lots of words, but as I have tried to ask--and no one has answered me--the word "technology" carries quite a bit of semantic freight. It's a word that represents almost the entire worldview of ID. By seeing life as a "technology" ID promotes the idea that life has been purposely and systematically built--"technology," in other words, is a biased and prejudicial word. I've merely asked for the backing behind the use of the word. The silence in response to this request has signified volumes.LarTanner
November 27, 2010
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Heinrich, The question of "which god" is a 2nd order question. As an atheist you first have to put religion aside and then ask yourself objectively "is there a creator?", instead of looking at some ignorant interpretations of religion/scripture that might seem like a "turn off" to you, and then prematurely concluding that there is no God just because you disliked how some superstitious groups practice genital mutilations for instance. And if you want, you can look at religions this way: which one is the closest to science? For example, intellectual and scientific members of the Abrahamic religions present a storng compelling case for God, the one and only God whom they may refer to as Allah or Yehwah. And I don't see that "very different" interpretations among them. At their heart, the Abrahamic religions share the same God and have significantly more common ground than there are differences. I encourage you to look at examples of moderate dialog among members of these religions rather than watching extremists bashing each other. Also ask yourself, did the followers of Zeus, Osiris, Thor, Shiva or any other pagan/mythical deity (ancient or modern) have followers that presented a compelling scientific case for their existence, as is the case in Abrahamic religions? NO they didn't, all they had is a collection of mythologies & stories. Now back to the question of the creator. If we put all subjective theories and ignorant beliefs aside and by looking at it objectively, the existence of God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, the information that runs the show in cells, the origin of nanotechnology in cells that left Darwinists speechless, and many other objective empirical observations that inevitably point to one conclusion: God. On the other hand, the atheist rejects the obvious implications of such facts in favor of rather subjective hypothetical explanations: abiogenesis, "creative" mutations, multiverse...etc. All of which are subjective, hypothetical, and flawed theories that lack a solid empirical evidence and are driven by the "ABG" logic (Anything But God).Shogun
November 26, 2010
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Heinrich --Ah, but which God? Or even, which interpretation of the same God? You are looking at this wrong. It's not an interpretation of God or theology but an observation of reality. You start with the recognition that truth is objective and existence (the universe) has a point and you work back from there. Once you do that the "which God" question becomes more clear.tribune7
November 26, 2010
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markf @39 Thanks for the reply. I will try to look into the matter a bit more later. The difficulty is, of course, to spot if the authors borrow something from a religious text, or derive an "ought" from an "is".Alex73
November 26, 2010
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I understand that not everybody accepts God as their moral anchor. But I was not talking about any personal moral anchor, my focus was on an transcendent OBJECTIVE moral anchor which is the best solution to settle the majority of humanity’s moral issues and is impossible to achieve without accepting God.
Ah, but which God? Or even, which interpretation of the same God? If one God exists (or one pantheon), and we can be sure which is the real God, then the answer is easy. But if not, how does one objectively decide which God to follow? Even amongst the Abrahamic religions, there are many interpretations of this one God and what He wants. Indeed, this is true even amongst the different religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam all have groups with very different views on what their God thinks they should do.Heinrich
November 26, 2010
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zeroseven Regarding the NT, it has provisions regarding the conduct of slaves and when it is ok to beat them. You don’t consider slavery violent? Christianity didn't have any secular power in NT times and slavery was a long-extant Roman, Jewish and everybody else institution. But where does it give allowance to beat slaves? Even Wiki concludes the NT to have a basically anti-slavery tilt.tribune7
November 25, 2010
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zeroseven, I understand that not everybody accepts God as their moral anchor. But I was not talking about any personal moral anchor, my focus was on an transcendent OBJECTIVE moral anchor which is the best solution to settle the majority of humanity's moral issues and is impossible to achieve without accepting God. I also know that you are not trying to impose your moral standards on others or judge theirs by reference to yours. But by claiming that the Bible exhorts violence you're committing the error of viewing the moral standards of Christianity within your own subjective moral window. The majority of Christians do not view the Bible as inciting violence or immorality. On the contrary, they see at as a source of teaching humanity goodness, love, and care. By the way, I'm not Christian. But I can see that the majority of atheists accusations towards holly scriptures are biased and unfair. In other words they only read the scripture to prove their own points against it, not to try to fully understand it. This is why they pick and choose which parts that seem violent and immoral, and emphasize them for the purpose of bashing the entire religion. This is why I described the atheist approach to religion as a narrow tunnel vision that misses the main point about religion, or in other words, misses the big picture. Yes there are parts in scriptures (Bible, Quran, Torah) that an atheist may interpret as violent. But the context of such verses needs to be fully understood before such a premature judgment is made. The scriptures primarily promote peace, justice, and freedom. But they also recognize that there are circumstances that require the use of force or banishment to establish discipline or to fight a war for a righteous purpose for the betterment of humanity. And it just happened that the atheist viewing the scripture, has a subjective moral reference that might be more pacifistic. But just because the atheist's moral standard is more pacifistic and more tolerant to the problems recognized as sins by scripture, does not mean that his subjective moral standard is right, or is better than that of the scriptures.Shogun
November 25, 2010
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Tribune7, that's ok, it happens when one is moderated. My point is not that all God wants is for people to be violent. Or that people who don't follow the bible are less violent (although I actually do think an argument can be made for that). I was simply pointing out that there are passages in the bible that exhort people to violence. Regarding the NT, it has provisions regarding the conduct of slaves and when it is ok to beat them. You don't consider slavery violent? Shogun, I agree with most of what you say, except I don't see it as necessary to have God as the moral anchor. There are certainly differences in morality and I don't impose mine on others (although I may argue for them). But yes, because we have the same blood and share a common bond as a species, there are certain things we all (other than sociopaths and other disordered people) ascribe to. These are things that arise within us as individuals and members of communities and ultimately as members of the same species.zeroseven
November 25, 2010
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zeroseven, It all goes back to the problem of objective vs subjective morality, and how it is absurd to judge an objective source of morality by reference to a subjective source. I think Clive already done a nice job explaining this. But suppose what's in the Bible is not objective moral basis, that means it is a subjective basis that commands violence under some circumstances as you say. But as a neutral observer I would be confused by now, should I follow your subjective morality or the "subjective" morality of the Bible? And which one is better? Or should I make up my own version and claim that you're both wrong? So Why is your version better than theirs? What if their version is misunderstood by yours? And Clive has already pointed out that you are only getting a glimpse of the story and not the big picture. Especially since it is common for most atheists to approach religion with a narrow "tunnel vision". My point is that it is absurd and problematic to judge one subjective source by another subjective source. If subjective morality is all there is, then naturally you should expect differences and tolerate that. Otherwise what gives you the authority to claim that the moral basis of other people is wrong while looking at them from your own moral window. Yes it is true we all bleed the same blood and most of us have a shared sense of good and bad, and that is all the more reason for humanity to subscribe to one unifying objective moral basis and solve all these issues, which is impossible to achieve without a belief in God as our transcendent moral anchor.Shogun
November 25, 2010
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zeroseven, I'm sorry I missed you're post 53. If you read the Bible and conclude that what God wants is for us to act violently to our neighbor all that can be said is that a blind, emotional desire to disbelieve in our Creator has led you to come to a delusional conclusion as to what the Book says and what God wants. And regarding Hitchens' conclusion that religion leads to violence for which he cites as evidence Old Testament commands for slaughter, he strangely discounts the contemporaneous behavior of the neighbors of the children of Israel who did not accept Yahweh. Were they who did not have the Bible less violent than the Hebrews? No. Were they more so? Well, they famously burned their children to death to appease graven idols. And unlike the Jews, the Babylonians, Persians, Hitties, Egyptians & Greeks actually did make attempts to conquer the known world putting in practice the same types of slaughter to which Hitchens cites as an example as to how religion leads to violence. Of course, those peoples did not have the Bible. Hitchens, btw, also cites the New Testament as an inspiration for violence, and not a command to violence can be found in it.tribune7
November 25, 2010
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zeroseven @53 -
Heinrich – what do you mean by your question about happiness? Do you think that is the only worthwhile emotion? The only worthwhile state of being?
I was responding to allanius' comment that what drives atheists is unhappiness. Clearly if Lars and I (and other atheists) aren't unhappy, allanius' argument breaks down.Heinrich
November 25, 2010
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Hello Berceuse, I am traveling so I only have a keyboard the size of a credit card in which to type. It doesn't make for long-winded comments. In any case, Mark Frank deserves more respect than I sometimes give him. There is no doubt he is an intelligent and gifted person, I just find his low notes rather thoughtless. The village atheist schtick is outdated in a modern world. - - - - - Happy Thanksgiving to AllUpright BiPed
November 24, 2010
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Chris Doyle: Cut a heathen and he bleeds, just like you.Graham
November 24, 2010
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By the way, it would be great if I could get taken off the moderation list now.zeroseven
November 24, 2010
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NZer: Please point me to one example where either Dawkins or Hitchens say their lives have no meaning. (And I don't mean a reference to the universe having no meaning or being pitiless and uncaring). Clive; I'm not saying God is evil or good. That would be a strange thing to say as I don't believe such a thing as God exists. I am saying that passages in the bible exhort followers to violence in God's name. This simply to show that a belief in God can lead one to commit violence, which was the point I was making to Tribune7.zeroseven
November 24, 2010
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Graham some choose to be bitter about suffering, some choose to grow through the suffering. The suffering that each of us must bear in this life to some extent or other: No Arms No Legs No Worries http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYk-UwqFKA Bowen on World News “A friend told me that I’ve seen too much, but I’m realizing that I might not see enough. Everything I’ve watched happen in this hospital, all the pain I’ve felt, is deepening my faith, strengthening my marriage, and molding my character. As I lovingly stared into Bowen’s eyes just before midnight, my face only inches from his chest, I thought, ‘This love is an awesome mess.’ I know I’m not the first person to think or to say something like that. Many great works of art have titles that are reminiscent of those words. I believe it’s because tension is the place where the worst of life and the best of true hope meet to unveil our eyes to God’s artistic work of redemption. What a mighty and creatively loving God we serve. He allows us to know great pain, so that we can know the greater pleasure of trading it in for purpose.” http://bowensheart.com/bornagain77
November 24, 2010
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... and why do Dawkins / Hitchens care so much about sorting out the world's problems if at rock bottom there is no ultimate meaning...? There is probably no meaning, so go forth and enjoy your life...NZer
November 24, 2010
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