Really, Husker, you ought to have had your b.s. detector up and running when you read the article you've linked here as: A Practical Man's Proof of God.
Quote:If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a beginning. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1). The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning. The idea is that matter has always existed in the form of either matter or energy; and all that has happened is that matter has been changed from form to form, but it has always been. The Humanist Manifesto says, "Matter is self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the atheist's belief.
Just whom, precisely, is referred to as "the Atheist?" I know of no rational person, atheist or otherwise, who contends that there "was no beginning," this is a classic straw man argument. An author posits the existence of someone like "the Atheist," who provides feeble and facile arguments which the author is prepared to refute. Atheists do not deny process or beginning, they simply see no reason to assume a supernatural agency. If it is contended that there is a deity, who is eternal, and created the universe, the atheist asks the very pertinent question: "What is the logical necessity to impose a supernatural being between eternity and the beginning of the universe we know? That universe itself can be eternal." Absent any proof of the existence of the supernatural being, there is no reason to make such an assumption. The scientifically specious underpinning which follows this nonsense is all an attempt to manufacture a scientific refutation of the argument posited by the straw man, that there is no beginning. For an atheist to honestly state that he/she does not know what precedes the singularity is not to provide "proof" of the existence of a supernatural being-and it shows considerably more candor and probity in discourse than the dishonesty implicit in any straw man argument. The author here also plays fast an loose with scientific theory by implying that within a closed system, energy
and matter can be entropically lost. This is bad science, and it is playing with a deck stacked against honest discourse.
Quote:If we know the creation has a beginning, we are faced with another logical question_was the creation caused or was it not caused? The Bible states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Not only does the Bible maintain that there was a cause_a creation_but it also tells us what the cause was. It was God. The atheist tells us that "matter is self-existing and not created." If matter had a beginning and yet was uncaused, one must logically maintain that something would have had to come into existence out of nothing. From empty space with no force, no matter, no energy, and no intelligence, matter would have to become existent. Even if this could happen by some strange new process unknown to science today, there is a logical problem.
Here, the author queers the pitch by describing the universe as "the creation," despite having failed to establish a logical or scientific basis for the contention that the known universe was "created," rather than being an eternally cyclical process of matter and energy exchange. That an atheist will be sufficiently honest to acknowledge that she/he cannot describe the origin of the singularity (the precursor to the "big bang") is not sufficient justification to jump in with a contention of the existence of the supernatural being as creator. One then has to ask who or what created the creator-the answer that the creator is eternal leads us back to the question no christian is willing to answer: "If an eternal supernatural being could have created the universe, what is the necessity for believing in such a being? Could not the universe itself be as simply enternal?" One has simply interposed unnecessarily a superstitious construct, with no logical basis, and certainly no scientific basis. Fancy diagrams and sly arguments based upon the straw man argument posed at the outset do not change that.
Quote: If we know that the creation had a beginning and we know that the beginning was caused, there is one last question for us to answer--what was the cause? The Bible tells us that God was the cause. We are further told that the God who did the causing did so with planning and reason and logic. Romans 1:20 tells us that we can know God is "through the things he has made." The atheist, on the other hand, will try to convince us that we are the product of chance. Julian Huxley once said:
We are as much a product of blind forces as is the falling of a stone to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides. We have just happened, and man was made flesh by a long series of singularly beneficial accidents.
The subject of design has been one that has been explored in many different ways. For most of us, simply looking at our newborn child is enough to rule out chance. Modern-day scientists like Paul Davies and Frederick Hoyle and others are raising elaborate objections to the use of chance in explaining natural phenomena. A principle of modern science has emerged in the 1980s called "the anthropic principle." The basic thrust of the anthropic principle is that chance is simply not a valid mechanism to explain the atom or life. If chance is not valid, we are constrained to reject Huxley's claim and to realize that we are the product of an intelligent God.
We do not in fact know that there was any creation, let alone "the creation" (a linguistic formulation which would have to be accepted as a given in order to argue from this point in this dishonest discursus-this is a lame attempt to slip an
a priori assumption into the discussion), nor has the author established that such a creation occurred. The passage which follows is predicated upon such un-demonstrated assumptions, and therefore is without an initial substantiation. The author then invites the reader to accept the evidence of his/her eyes to affirm the unsubtantiated argument from design, one of the oldest, saddest whores in the theists' stable-were humans with which we are familiar not by chance arisen, then whatever sentience had arisen would have been as able to as disingenuously posit design. But the argument doesn't fly, because it assumes that no other form of sentience is possible-a specious and unsupportable contention-and that there is therefore evidence of design. To contend that modern scientists raise elaborate objections to the principle, but to fail to provide even a syllable of the basis for those objections, is to show an arrogant contempt for the reader-and this is extended throughout the remainder of this passage through the unsupported contention that "chance is simply not a valid mechanism to explain the atom or life." Oh?--and why, pray, is it not a valid mechanism. The silence of the author on that topic is deafening.
Quote:We have seen a practical proof of God's existence in this brief study. A flood of questions arise at this point. Which God are we talking about? Where did God come from? Why did God create us? How did God create us?
All of these and many more are answered in the same way_by looking at the evidence in a practical, common sense way. If you are interested in pursuing these things in more detail, we invite you to contact us. We have books, audio tapes, video tapes, correspondence courses, and booklets available and all can be obtained on loan without cost.
No, we have seen nothing of the kind-no proof at all has been offered, and the ancient and unsupportable
and discredited ontological arguments have simply been dragged out and dusted off, put in a new dress and tarted up, and put out on the street to lure in the intellectually unwary. Such arguments as have been presented by this author are only creditable by those who approach the topic with the desire to believe. The second paragraph brings it all home though-the author has an agenda, and wishes the reader to learn more of the agenda by taking advantage of the media offered. I will, in fairness, give this author credit for not reaching into the pocket of the credulous (at least at the outset), and offering the free loan of the materials. Which is no guarantee that there wouldn't be attempts to fleece the unwary down the road. Even were there not, the acquisition of power over others through the manipulation of their beliefs has always had in human history, an appeal to the would-be demagogue equal to or greater than the appeal of the money the religious grifters have always fleeced from the trusting believers.
I believe you are sincere, Husker, and i respect the restraint and courtesy you display in debate. And i would suggest to you that your good nature and decency are played upon by such tracts as these, which proceed from the straw man to the specious arguments based upon the straw man, finally arriving at the unsubstantiated contention-all to put a veneer of reasonable logical and scientific investigation of the topic, while in fact, shameless ontology is simply camouflaged and put on sale once again.
-well I'm not sure about CI but I know 2 others did. 