I think this is one of the funniest Christian tirades against atheism I have read in the Internet. The funny thing in this article is that the god-believer who wrote this is trying his very best to look like logical and scientific. According to this article, atheists have to break some “laws” of nature to become logical on its explanations. Well...if that’s the case, then that means atheism itself is illogical. Now that’s what happen if you can’t understand what the meaning of the word “law” in natural law and it seems the author of that Christian site doesn't know what a "law" is in a natural definition.

 

For those who don’t know what is natural law (physical law) is...it is a human description of how the universe consistently behaves. It is generally accepted to be true and universal, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation.

 

Natural laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don’t really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true. Specifically, natural laws must be simple, true, universal, and absolute. They represent the cornerstone of scientific discovery, because if a law ever did not apply, then all science based upon that law would collapse.

 

The term “natural law” began in the 16^th to 17^th century. In those times, scientists still believe that Nature was the handiwork of god. That’s why they called it “law”. Natural law is a descriptive law. Unlike moral law, natural law is non-violable. The important point here is that natural laws are human descriptions, based upon human observation, and are therefore subject to future revision—or even outright rebuttal.

 

God believers often claim that natural law governs the behavior of the universe—that the law of gravity, for example, causes objects to fall earthward, or that the laws of chemistry control molecular interaction and so on. Such a claim—that physical laws govern the physical universe—reflects a fundamental misperception of science among theists.

 

 

Well let see what “laws” does an atheist violates:

 

The Laws of Conservation

 

The Christian author stated: The laws of conservation are basic laws in physics that state which processes can or cannot occur in nature.  Each law maintains the total value of the quantity governed by that law (e.g. matter and energy) remains unchanged during physical processes.  Conservation laws have the broadest possible application of all laws in physics and are considered to be the most fundamental laws in nature.  In 1905, the theory of relativity showed mass was a form of energy and the two laws governing these quantities were combined into a single law conserving the total amount of mass and energy.  This law says neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed.  This fact leads to an inescapable question.

 

 

Then he asked: If matter and energy cannot be created, how did they originate? 

Where did the entire physical universe come from?

 

To create something you must have a raw material, Right? You cannot claim something to be “created” if there’s no raw materials involved. The word “created” is I think the most misinterpret word believers always employ.

 

Now, logically speaking base on the author’s own conclusion (This law says neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed.  This fact leads to an inescapable question.) If mass-energy cannot be created or destroyed, and if the universe is entirely composed of mass-energy, then the law of the conservation of mass-energy may be extrapolated to this startling conclusion: the universe, in one form or another, in one density or another, always existed. There was never a time when the mass-energy comprising our universe did not exist.

 

Again, it is impossible to create matter and energy through natural methods.  However, they do exist, so we find ourselves in a quandary.  It would seem to the unbiased both matter and energy made themselves from nothing or a supernatural creator made them. 

 

So if it’s impossible in natural means, we have to consider a supernatural means, right? Since the believer is now facing a blank wall, he now used the “all reliable” theist’s explanation:  Yep that’s right folks! It’s time to unleashed “supernatural”! This is an example of the “God of the Gaps” explanation. If science can’t explain it, then God did it.

 

Why is it so hard to accept that matter and energy exist even if they weren’t created yet god-believers can accept a non-existing entity and assumed it to be eternal?

 

Now, does our universe show evidence of supernatural design and governance? The plain reply to this question is “no”, the universe shows no evidence at all of miraculous design or supernatural management. The universe can be naturally explained. But here’s the bad news...in a creationist/believers point of view; The Universe does not show any signs of design. Why? Because:

The overall universe is mostly random

• 96 % of matter is dark matter or dark energy, which has little structure.

• Photons in cosmic microwave background random to 1/100,000. Outnumber atoms

 

Both answers violate the law of conservation.  The fact that matter and energy cannot be created is consistent with the claim in Genesis which says God rested from his work and all he created.  This law of science contradicts the notion that matter came from nothing through natural means.  Bible believing theists understand the universe was framed by the Word of God and  what is seen did not come from things that are visible.  God is the one who calls those things that do not exist as though they did.

 

Woah! Tell me which verse in the Genesis story support the Law of the Conservation of Energy and Matter? Does it have something to do with the talking snake? Oh God rest? Is that the verse? My papaya! Matter and energy cannot be created because God feels tired.  What’s the connection?

 

Oh and one more thing, why do you know that before matter there was nothing? The god-believer’s question “Why is there something, rather than nothing?"—assumes that there is supposed to be nothing: that the "natural" state of the universe is nonexistence. What law of science claims that the universe is not supposed to exist, or that nonexistence is the "natural" condition of the universe? We can only change the question from a scientific perspective – Why shouldn't there be something rather than nothing? Our universe of mass - energy, in one form or another always existed.

 

But I’m just interested. Maybe you can tell me...How a so-called omnipotent being feels enervated? Gosh! Now that’s a contradiction. Oh and how can an immaterial object (such as God’s word) create a material universe? Hmmmm??? Magic? Come on Mr. Believer, you can do better than that.

 

 

 

 

Why couldn't the universe have always existed?

Because nothing that has a beginning and an end could have always existed.

 

 

Today, virtually all scientists accept the Big Bang theory which says the entire universe came into existence at a particular point in time when all of the galaxies, stars and planets were formed.  The Law of Entropy says closed systems go from a state of high energy to low energy and from order to disorder.  All closed systems, including our universe, disintegrate over time as they decay to a lower order of available energy and organization.  Entropy always increases and never decreases in a closed system.  All scientific observations confirm everything continues to move towards a greater state of decay and disorder.  Because the available energy is being used up and there is no source of new energy, the universe could not have always existed.  If the universe has always existed, it would now be uniform in temperature, suffering what is known as heat death.  Heat Death occurs when the universe has reached a state of maximum entropy.  It is a fact that one day our sun and all stars in the universe will burn out.  Electromagnetic radiation will disappear and all matter will lose its vibrational energy.  Because the stars cannot burn forever and because they are still currently burning, they could not have always existed because they would have already burned out by now. 

 

Some believe the law of entropy cannot be applied to the universe because they feel the universe is an open system and not a closed one.  A closed system is defined as a system in which neither matter nor energy can be exchanged with its surroundings.  Matter and energy cannot enter or escape from a closed system. It has boundaries that cannot be crossed.  The definition of the word universe is all matter and energy, including the earth, the galaxies and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole.

 

Some believe the law of entropy cannot be applied to the universe because they feel the universe is an open system and not a closed one.  A closed system is defined as a system in which neither matter nor energy can be exchanged with its surroundings.  Matter and energy cannot enter or escape from a closed system. It has boundaries that cannot be crossed.  The definition of the word universe is all matter and energy, including the earth, the galaxies and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole. 

 

If the universe is "all matter and energy", how could it be an open system?

 

If the universe is everything, how can there be something else out there to provide more matter and energy?

 

Christians always assume that the “Big Bang” is the origin of the universe. It’s not. The Big Bang is just the expansion of energy and matter from a vacuum.

 

OK now let’s talk about if the universe is an open or a close system.

First let us be familiar with the terms: An open universe is a universe that will expand forever because the gravitational pull of all matter and energy contained within is less than the outward force of the Big Bang. A close universe is a universe that will eventually collapse in on itself because the gravitational pull of all matter and energy contained within is greater than the outward force of the Big Bang.

 

Is the universe a close or an open system? Here’s the answer “No one knows”. The new model used by Stephen Hawkins says that the actual critical density of the universe may be “just right” compare to a close or open system. According to Hawkins, current observations still allow three cases scenario: An open, a close and a flat universe.

 

Now since we really don’t know what kind of universe is this, we can’t rule out where energy (and matter) gets its exchange.

 

But say if the universe is an open system, then what has God got to do with it? A friend of mine once asks, “So what about the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics? What does God have to do with it?”

 

Well Christians assume that the Second Law of Thermodynamics proves that everything was created and God is the creator. How? Well since according to the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics, entropy always increases and never decreases in a closed system.  That means everything continues to move towards a greater state of decay and disorder.  Because the available energy is being used up and there is no source of new energy. That means everything has a beginning and VIOLA! God is the beginning.

 

So?

 

But does that also violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics? If everything continues to move towards a greater state of decay and disorder then God is also in a state towards a greater state of decay and disorder? If you say that God is not included to the rule...well that doesn’t really explains a lot, does it?

 

The skeptic asks, "If God created the universe, then who created God?"  God is the uncreated creator of the universe, so the question, "Who created God?" is illogical.  A better question would be, "If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn't God need a cause?  And if God doesn't need a cause, why should the universe need a cause?"  Everything which has a beginning has a cause.  The universe has a beginning; therefore, the universe has a cause.  It is important to stress the words "which has a beginning".  The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning.  God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so he does not need a cause.  Einstein's general relativity shows that time is linked to matter and space.  Time itself would have begun along with matter and space at the beginning of the universe.  Since God is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time and is independent and outside of time.  He is not limited by the time dimension he created, so he has no beginning in time.

 

If matter and energy has no cause and the universe is composed by matter and energy, it's a logical conclusion that the universe doesn't have a cause.  The Christian claim that asking if God is created is an illogical question, but does that also follow that saying an uncaused “cause” as created is also an illogical statement.

 

The Christian’s rant created more questions than answers:  Again to be “created” you have to have a raw material. What is the raw material that is used to create matter and energy? Is time created by god? What raw material use to create time?  Does space exist before God created the universe? If not, then what does God occupy when space wasn’t created?  Is there no “expanses” in God’s kingdom? If “expanses” exist in God’s kingdom, then that means space already existed. If so, then time also exist before the universe.  If God is a sentient being, then he has experience time (since time is the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past.) So does God never experience anything before time was created? If God is outside time, then what happened when God moves in his kingdom from one point to another point? (Unless of course God doesn’t have the ability to move – this violates his omnipotent attribute) The movement from point to point requires time and time is interwoven with space, isn’t it? So how can he be outside time?

 

The Law of Biogenesis

 

This law is composed of two parts.  The first part states that living things only come from other living things and not from non-living matter.  Life only comes from life.  The second part of this law states that when living things procreate, their offspring are the same type of organism they are.  This is consistent with the account revealed in Genesis which says all living things reproduce after their own kind.  Sharks only come from other sharks, snakes from other snakes, owls from other owls, orange trees from other orange trees, etc.  Every living organism alive today is a product of and evidence for biogenesis.   Some people feel biogenesis is not a scientific law, but biogenesis is a law because no one has ever documented a single case of non-living matter coming to life in self-replicating form. It is as true today as it has ever been.  On the other hand, abiogenesis has been debunked many times over.  When someone observes the first example of spontaneous generation which includes self-replicating machinery (DNA and RNA), biogenesis will no longer be a law.  Until that time, it remains one. 

 

 

If one stretched out a strand of DNA from the oldest and most basic organism known to man, a bacterium, it would be almost 1,000 times longer than the diameter of the bacterium itself.  Its DNA pattern is about 4 million blocks long.  Where did all of this exquisite information come from?  The components of a bacterium are far more complex than any machine mankind has ever made.  There is absolutely zero scientific evidence of the existence of any organisms between the supposed event of abiogenesis and bacteria.  This is the biggest missing link of all.  There is absolutely no evidence any such organism is alive today or was ever alive in the past.  Some feel it makes total sense no such fossils exist because the creature would have been made up of parts which do not fossilize well.  If this argument was valid, there would not be any fossils of bacteria but there are.

 

 

Replication requires the complex machinery of DNA and RNA which are collectively known as the genome. According to evolution, something like the genome could only achieve its utter complexity through replication, cumulative selection and mutation.

 

How could DNA and RNA evolve from something very rudimentary into their present day intricacy when the organism containing the basic genome would require the more complex, present day DNA and RNA to replicate? 

 

 

The Gene Emergence Project has sponsored an event called The Origin of Life Prize. They are currently offering 1.35 million dollars to anyone who can offer a credible, verifiable and reproducible explanation of the origin of life.  They are by no means a creation science group.  Their advisors include biochemists, molecular biologists, biophysicists, information theorists, artificial life and intelligence experts, exo/astrobiologists, mathematicians and origin-of-life researchers in many related fields.  The Foundation's main purpose is to encourage interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research projects by theoretical biophysicists and origin-of-life researchers with special focus on the origin of genetic information/instructions/message/recipe in living organisms.  They want to know by what mechanism initial genetic code arose in nature.  They are requiring full reign be given to the exploration of spontaneously forming complexity and to inanimate systems of self-organization and replication.

 

There is not even one generally accepted scientific theory on the origin of life.

 

Now he becomes ballistic and challenges everyone that doesn’t believe his religious claims (chuckles). So are DNA and RNA living molecules? Are they living things or are they’re just chemical compounds?

 

So...let’s talk about Biogenesis. First of all, let me make this clear, there is no such a thing called The Law of Biogenesis. Biogenesis is the basis of Creation biology which holds that since life cannot arise spontaneously from non-life, life then has been “created” by a “supernatural” agent (again?) which is the Christian god.

 

Now let’s ride on this Christian explanation for a moment. What are the characteristic of a living being? Well...in grade school biology we learn that a living thing have the following characteristics:

1. Reproduction
2. Metabolism
3. Movement and
4. Growth

 

Now...does the Christian god have all the following characteristics? Huh? No...God doesn’t reproduce, well he can move yet does he digest food? Does he grow? So then...how do you know it’s a living thing? Funny isn’t it?

 

On the issue of biogenesis, the spontaneous generation that Pasteur and others disproved was the idea that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria can appear fully formed. They disproved a form of creationism. There is no law of biogenesis saying that very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules.

 

 

Scientific Method

 

Now since he made a crash on his explanation regarding biogenesis, it’s time to hit the atheists where he thinks it hurts.

 

The scientific method is held in high esteem by most atheists and it is composed of the following parts...

 

1) Careful observation of a phenomenon.

 

2) Formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomenon.

 

3) Experimentation to demonstrate whether the hypothesis is true or false.

 

4) A conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.

 

Nobody has ever observed the creation of matter or energy. 

Nobody has ever observed a molecular cloud collapse or any planet form.

Nobody has ever observed abiogenesis. 

Nobody has ever observed the evolution of any genome. 

Nobody has ever observed any phylum, class, order or family change.         

 

Evolutionists are excellent at Step 2 - Hypothesizing. 

 

The only problem comes on Steps 1, 3 and 4 - Observation, Experimentation and Validation.

 

We read about their theories and the conclusions of the failed experiments they performed in an effort to validate their opinions about a phenomenon that has not only never been proven scientifically but has never even been observed. 

 

The definition of a miracle is an event which is inexplicable by the laws of nature.  The fact is there are zero generally accepted scientific explanations on these issues.  If you want to believe in naturalism it is fine with me but please don't make the erroneous claim that "science" is on your side.     

 

What term is used to describe something you believe to be true but has no empirical evidence?   

 

So he is also ignorant on the term “scientific method”? OK let’s help him:

 

Now, to answer the question "What is the scientific method?" - Very simply, the scientific method is a program for research which comprises four main steps. In practice these steps follow more of a logical order than a chronological one:

 

1. Make observations.

2. Form a testable, unifying hypothesis to explain these observations.

3. Deduce predictions from the hypothesis.

4. Search for confirmations of the predictions;

If the predictions are contradicted by empirical observation, go back to step (2).

 

So does that mean scientific method is caged in the concept observing using naïve empiricism as this Christian believer suggest? Hmmmm...Maybe if you only know grade school science his explanation will pass but most scientific skeptics are beyond that. Research that only involves simple observation, repetition, and measurement is not sufficient to count as science. These three techniques are merely part of the process of making observations.

 

Since the Christian author is quite badly informed in science, he didn’t know that direct observation is not only unnecessary when it comes to scientific observations. Direct observation is in fact usually impossible for things that really matter. For example, the most important discoveries of science can only be inferred via indirect observation, including such things as atoms, electrons, viruses, bacteria, germs, radiowaves, X-rays, ultraviolet light, energy, entropy, enthalpy, solar fusion, genes, protein enzymes, and the DNA double-helix.

 

After making a scientific observation (which is very much unlike the believer’s naïve empiricism), we go to step 2. "Testability" is not an either-or concept as what this Christian believer thinks. From a Bayesian perspective and according to Popper's corroboration measure, the best hypothesis available is the one that explains the most facts with the fewest assumptions, the one that makes the most confirmed predictions, and the one that is most open to testing and falsification. So...I think the author of this Christian rant should go back to...should I say grade school science.

 

Faith

 

The bottom line is we live in a universe which completely frustrates any attempt to explain its origin and content by natural processes alone.  The best evidence for the possible existence of a supernatural creator lies in the total lack of any scientific evidence in these key areas.  Can God be scientifically proven?  No, it would be nice but his existence cannot be proven scientifically.  The reason is God is supernatural; he exists outside the natural, scientific world.  While our scientific tools cannot prove God exists, they do provide us with evidence we can use to determine if there is a better explanation for what has taken place besides the existence of a supernatural creator. 

 

It is interesting how atheists reject any notion of the supernatural because of what they perceive to be a lack of evidence when they could use that same objectivity to reject their naturalistic world view.  Most atheists are not even honest enough to apply the same burden of proof for naturalism that they demand of supernaturalism. 

 

The laws of science falsify the notion that this physical, living world came to be through natural means. These laws provide very credible evidence for the possible existence of a supernatural being.  Atheism violates these basic laws of science.  Atheism requires not only a tremendous amount of faith but also a belief in miracles. And not only miracles but natural miracles, an oxymoron.  Both naturalism and supernaturalism require faith and which one you place your faith in is one of the two most important choices you will ever make.

 

Let us remember...You cannot use supernaturalism and religion to explain science because:

• it is guided by natural law;

• it has to be explained by reference to

natural law;

• it is testable against the empirical world;

• its conclusions are tentative, that is, are

not necessarily the final word;

• it is falsifiable.

 

As Eugenie Scott (National Center for Science Education) have said,

“Scientists use only methodological materialism [naturalism] because it is logical, but primarily because it works. We don't need to use supernatural forces to explain nature, and we get farther in our understanding of nature by relying on natural causes.”

 

Supernatural? Does the Christian author know that the word “supernatural” has no meaning? So what is “supernatural? According to the dictionary, supernatural means not natural. Then what is something that is “not natural”? If God is supernatural and supernatural is ontologically meaningless, then what is God then? That makes God without any precise meaning.

 

So does an atheist rely also in faith when it uses naturalism? The answer is “no”. Why? That’s because naturalism can be falsified using science. That’s one point that separate atheism with this Christian rattle. Remember, faith is accepted evidence of things “hoped” for. It’s not about direct or indirect observation; it’s about assuming and wishing for something.

 

Let see...if we will use faith, then leprechauns are real. Right? Oh come on...we can’t see a leprechaun but I have faith on their existence and that in every end of a rainbow is a pot of gold...literally! Don’t you tell me that the word “faith” is exclusively for God use only? Bear in mind that in supernaturalism every weirdo in our active imagination can exist given the most bizarre explanation – sky’s the limit! If it is legitimate to believe without evidence in the existence of the Christian god base on faith, then it is not only legitimate, but obligatory to believe also in goblins, fairies, the Great Pumpkin, the invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, numerous ‘discredited’ gods, and countless other extraordinary entities for which there is no evidence.

 

When a person used faith he is trying to change his outlook of this world. It’s like making this world a little better for the benefit of his imagination. That’s quite different with naturalism. Naturalism is the picture of the world...the universe in its natural state...without the icing and the garnish, while supernaturalism is the hope of creating a fantasy universe; a universe where gods, demons and angels, paradise and hell exist.

 

But can science prove the existence of a god. The answer is “No”...But science can be use to look for the probability of the existence of a god. According to philosopher Larry Laudan, Creation science is testable and falsifiable. So, since the god-concept is included with Creation science, then that means god is also testable and falsifiable. Supernatural claims are not immune to scientific scrutiny. So that means supernatural claims can be tested. Suppose we tested the host (you know, the bread and wine that is used in Roman Catholic mass every Sunday). Catholic believes that the bread and the wine actually change into the flesh and blood of Christ every time the priest performs the Holy Eucharist. Well...we can ask for sample of it before and after the ceremony to see it there really such a transformation. The science of forensic archaeologists can ask for DNA evidence that show that Jesus really did lack a biological father – but who will provide such specimen?  Science can ask for evidences of such claims. Is it true or is it a delusion? But the question remains, “will those who believe in a supernatural Christian God accept any finding that will falsify its existence?” As the late Carl Sagan has said, “Extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidences.”

 

Science doesn’t thrive in fantasy. Knowledge is not nurtured in myths and superstition. Supernatural is ontologically bankrupt. It’s not a clarification. Answers derived on faith are not answers; they are nothing but short-cuts quotes to satisfy a stagnant, idle mind.

 

Here’s a tip for those Christians who wants to step on science’s turf to discredit atheism. Please review your grade school books on science and mathematics.

 

 

Until next time.

John the Atheist

Believers always presume they have the all the answers to every question. So being as “smart asses” like they always have been, they seem to think that they have an authority especially in the questions of origin.

 

Do religions such as Christianity have the answer, or are they also facing a wall when it comes to the question of origin?

 

An egotistical Christian stated that the question of origin was solved by the Bible...well he said that this was what he and other Christians like him believe. What? What he believe? Oh my papaya! So It just a matter of what you believe huh? He just “believes” what was written in the Genesis narrative.

 

To believe in something doesn’t necessary follow that it is true. I can believe that the Arroyo Government is not as corrupt as what the opposition wanted it to appear to be. I can believe that every state policy here in the Philippines is being dictated by the Americans. I can believe that Born-Again Christians is really a CIA operative plan to suppress a country’s development by choking its people with Bible garbage.  But that is just a statement of belief.

 

When a person believes in something, he’s just accepting something as either true or false. Yet mere belief can be challenged. When Claudius Ptolemy “believes” that Earth is in the center of the solar system, it was challenged centuries later. We can’t blame Ptolemy for being naïve. Remember, back in his time, a lot of people believe in astrology. No one on those times challenge the claims of astrology, maybe except for a few. For example, in the Essays of Idleness, written in 1332 by Tsurezuregusa of Kenko questioned Japan’s belief on the Red Tongue Day and on astrology in general.

 

In Ptolemy time, we can’t distinguish the difference between astrology and astronomy.

 

Beyond the time of Ptolemy, the writers of the Jewish Tanack seem to be more badly informed. Those authors were really not too interested on planetary motions or even if there is life on other planets. For them, the Earth is the center of the universe. They believe that planet Earth is the foot stool of the god. This planet is god’s perfect creation. If you will read their creation story, you will notice that god created Earth first before the Sun, the moon stars and the other planets. Genesis 1:1 talks about the creation of earth (land) and the heavens (the atmospheric heaven “shamayim”). There is no concept of outer space in ancient Hebrew. They believe that outside planet earth is a very large reservoir of water. Notice that the Hebrew word for heavens is shamayin, which contains the word “water” or “mayim”. Genesis 1:2 is very clear about that.

 

The ancient Hebrews also believes that Earth is divided by “day” and “night” (Genesis 1:3-6).  The never know anything about Earth’s rotation around the Sun which causes day and night. They also don’t know that when night comes in Palestine, it is morning somewhere in the Pacific.  Also the Hebrew writers seem to be very ignorant in the issue concerning what light is. Today we now know that light is not something that can be separated from darkness. Light is an electromagnetic radiation from an energy source like the sun or stars, and darkness is merely the absence of light.

 

Since they believe that outside planet Earth is a large reservoir of water, they think that God placed a solid vault (a firmament or “raquiya”) between the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other (Genesis 1:6). In this solid vault, God created the Sun to govern the day and the moon and the stars to govern the night. So the heavenly bodies were placed in the dome. The ancient Hebrew believes that all those “heavenly bodies” revolve around this solid dome...like a lighted menagerie that rotates above a baby’s crib. Here, planet Earth is secured in a foundation of pillars (Job 26:11 and Psalms 104:5). In that solid firmament are trap doors or flood gates that released the rain (Gen. 7:11). The ancient Hebrews doesn’t know anything about the water cycle and that clouds came from water vapor. That is ancient Hebrew cosmology.

 

Yet they believe it. Today we may scoff at the idea. The Roman Catholic Church even says that 18 chapters of Genesis are myth.  But as I have said, it is a belief.

 

Belief is a natural activity of living things. Some even say that animals also “believe” on something. Belief is use as a survival tool. Without the existence of any sentient beings, belief doesn’t exist.

 

Human tend to believe on things. We believe that time exist, that we are capable of doing the most impossible of tasks and so on. There is even a “freedom of belief”. Yet belief is really a language game. Belief must be coherent to be understood or appreciated. But belief is not the truth. Belief is your representation to the world. That’s why belief doesn’t require immediate sensory data to be able to feed valuable information to the brain. Let see...maybe you’re familiar with sushi huh? Sushi is raw fish, right? If you believe that eating raw fish is gross then automatically you’re disgusted with sushi and sashimi, even if you had never even tried eating one. Biases seem to be part and parcel of belief.

 

Going back to Ptolemy, earlier we said that Ptolemy believed on a geocentric universe. This is because on Ptolemy’s time this is the most natural idea in the world. Even the Christian world who has been reading the Bible agrees with this.  When a Polish Catholic cleric named Nicholas Copernicus challenged Ptolemy’s Earth-centered system, the Christian church resisted. In 1616 the Roman Catholic placed Copernicus work on the list of forbidden books to be corrected where it remained until 1835. Martin Luther describes Copernicus as an upstart astrologer and called him a fool who wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy.

 

Yet even Copernicus’ model was challenge. It was in the sixteenth and seventeenth century when ecclesiastical pronouncements were considered as more reliable than scientific matters. Here devotions to divine revelations and arcane theological matters seem to be more intellectual than rational inquiry and scientific method. Yet amidst such condition, Johannes Kepler revolutionized astronomy when he discovered the elliptical orbital movements of planets. Kepler was a deeply religious man, striving for years to prove his theory of “Divine Geometry” in which the planets moved in perfect circles around the sun. Finally, Kepler was forced to abandon his theory, because the observed motion of the planets contradicted the theory’s predictions. Contrary to Christians belief or what they want to believe, Kepler got his inspiration of an elliptical planetary orbit not from the Christian God and the Bible but from a Greek pagan named Apollonius of Perga which matched Tycho Brahe’s observation. According to Kepler, the universe is not perfect (unlike what Christian apologists claim) so since the universe in imperfect, then planetary orbits is not a perfect circle as Copernicus thought. Because of this, Kepler was excommunicated by the Lutheran Church. Three-hundred years later, “modern” creationism maintains that the solar system obeys Divine Geometry!

 

So that’s the trouble with belief, sometimes it seem to refuse change and revisions.

 

Let us go on...

This overconfident Christian asked, “What do atheists believe to be the origin of life and everything? Do atheists believe in the Big Bang and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as the origin?

 

As I have always stated on all the articles I wrote concerning this subject, the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution is not about life origin and the beginning. The Big Bang may be the origin of our present universe, but not “the universe” per se. So far, the Hindu religion is the only religion that held the idea that the universe undergoes an infinite number of death and rebirth. According to them, the universe is but the dream of a god who, after a hundred Brahma years, dissolves himself to a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him – until, after another Brahma century, he stir and recomposed and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream.

 

In India, there is this bronze statue of one of the god Shiva’s incarnation. The Natajara, the Dance King has four hands. In the upper right hand are the drums whose sound is the sound of creation and on the left hand is a tongue of flame which represents destruction...a profound image that picture each cycle of creation and destruction. The Big Bang is not the creation of the universe but merely the end of the previous cycle, the destruction of the last incarnation of the cosmos. In an oscillirating universe, the Cosmos has no beginning and no end and we are just in the midst of an infinite cycle of cosmic deaths and rebirths.

 

In the issue of the Theory of Evolution, evolution is also not about the origin of life on planet Earth.  The cause of this misunderstanding is when people seem to define the word evolution outside the scientific community.  Evolution, by definition, is a gradual accumulation of functional adaptations. Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual.

 

In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change – not origin. So a well-informed atheist will not state the theory of evolution as the origin of life on Earth.

 

Not all religions believe that a god is required in order for a universe or any thing to exist. Jainism believes that the doctrine that the world and the universe were created is ill-advice and should be rejected. Entertaining the thought of an immaterial being created a material universe seems to be too silly. The Chinese story started with an egg and in Philippine mythology, the gods didn’t create humans, they just came out inside a bamboo shoot. Northeastern Siberian mythology even say that a female raven, not a god created the first human.

 

In Buddhism for example, well we know that Buddhism is a sort of atheistic. They say that the question of beginnings are meaningless questions which reflected gross misunderstanding on the part of the questioner and which in any case had no relevance to one’s spiritual development.

 

So what do atheists believe to be the origin of life on Earth? Well...believe it or not but an atheist can also believe anything. An atheist can believe in a more naturalistic non-mystical explanation of the beginning of life. If you believe that living things are collections of molecules, like everything else, then it’s really not so hard to explain. 3.85 billion years ago molecules like amino acid began to have the ability to replicate itself (like what polymers can do), it created DNA. DNA was covered by a thin membrane and a nucleus was form. The formation of a nucleus started the formation of organelles. These organelles soon form mitochondrion. Mitochondria manipulate oxygen in a way that liberates energy from foodstuffs. They reproduce at a different time from their host cell. They look like bacteria, divide like bacteria, and sometimes respond to antibiotics in the way bacteria do. From that point...maybe you now know the rest of the story. Evolution will take care of the rest.

 

There is also the belief that a meteorite brought life in this planet. The Murchison meteorite was found to be 4.5 billion years old, and it was studded with amino acids—seventy-four types in all, eight of which are involved in the formation of earthly proteins. This is called panspermia.

 

An atheist can also philosophize on the issue regarding the origin of life in a mystical yet non-theistic view like Buddhism. Some will say that life doesn’t begin from anything. Life like energy is neither created nor can be destroyed. It will only shift from one form to another. Yet other atheists can believe that aliens from a highly civilized planet created humans...something that sounded like what Zachria Sitchin is trying to promote. Or they can believe that we are all a product of cosmic coincidence. According to the anthropic coincidence (Carter 1974; Barrow and Tipler 1986) a slightly weaker weak force and we would have a universe that is 100 percent helium. This is not nice because hydrogen will not form, which will be bad news for the formation of stars and life. As Carl Sagan has said, we are all star stuff.

 

An atheist can also believe that human beings emerge from a bamboo, created by female ravens or to any creation story that doesn’t need a god or gods. But most rational atheists will just tell you that to answer the question of the beginning of life on Earth is purely speculative. A simple answer of “I don’t know” is sufficient than pretending that you know the answer but will reply “God did it”.

 

Remember, the Christian asked the atheists. An atheist is a person that doesn’t believe that god-concept exists. Therefore, any explanation that doesn’t require a god is atheistic.

 

But I would like to ask, do god-believers have already answered the question of origin? Does this arrogant Christian who boldly claimed that the Bible have already answered the question of origin really responded the query? All he said was ‘God did it”. The apparent fallacy in this “answer” is that it blindly presumes the conclusion that it sets out to prove. If you begin your case by assuming (1) that God exists, (2) that He is the God of the Christian Bible, (3) that He is omnipotent and omniscient, (4) that He created the universe, Earth, mankind, (5) and that all of His actions are purposeful, then of course your consequent, “logically-deduced” conclusions will identically ape these premises, which you have already believed uncritically by blind faith. Bear in mind that to answer a question saying that “god did it” is really not an answer. As Richard Dawkins and J.Coyne have said, “Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not - it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generally what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds are you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical reply about having always existed, or being outside nature. This, of course, explains nothing.”

 

So the Christian challenge to atheists to state how everything began was already unraveled. Unfortunately the challenges posted by atheists against Christian believers are still unresolved.

 

Until next time,

John the Atheist