Wednesday, June 6, 2012

The "Does God Exist?" advertisement on all the FTB sites today

"Is there a God? Click to find six reasons that God exists."

I've seen this ad on all my favorite atheist blog sites lately. It was bugging me, and I was trying to ignore it, but after several days I just had to click on it to see what these "reasons" were. Jesus Fictional Christ, this is annoying. Here is what you are missing out on:

1. Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.

2. Does God exist? The universe had a start - what caused it?

3. Does God exist? The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?

4. Does God exist? The DNA code informs, programs a cell's behavior.

5. Does God exist? We know God exists because he pursues us. He is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him.

6. Does God exist? Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God revealing himself to us.

 Ok, so actually, you're not missing out on anything here. This is pathetic, a bunch of softballed . Although I imagine you already know the refutations to all of these, I'm going to refute them anyway because I need the practice.

1. Creationism? An intelligent designer? Really? Don't you have anything better? Oh, wait, maybe...

1. a. The size of the earth is perfect.

1. b. Water.

1.c. The human brain.

1. d. The eye.

1. a. Sigh. If things were different, things would be different, is that it? "The Earth is located the right distance from the sun". Yeah, the right distance which changes by over a million miles every year. Right.

1. b. Without water we couldn't survive. Yeah, so? Without sunlight we couldn't survive, what's your point? That is your point? Nevermind.

1. c. You know for as complex as the human brain is, it still manages to cling to some really stupid arguments.

1. d. "Yet evolution alone does not fully explain the initial source of the eye or the brain -- the start of living organisms from nonliving matter." It doesn't? Are you sure? Because, having read several accounts about the eye and how it's evolved in several different ways, I think you might not be right...

So really, creationism is their opening volley. Not good.

2. The universe started and therefore someone or something had to start it? How do you know that it started? Why can't the universe be eternal? If "something" started the universe where exactly did that something come from? Wouldn't, by your own logic, something else have to have caused that first cause? And that regresses ad infinitum. Sorry, Philosophy 101 has you beat there.

3. The universe operates by uniform laws; how is that proof of anything other than that reality is consistently observable? This is another "if things were different" argument and it's as full of fail as the first one.

4. DNA is complex computer code that must have had a designer. Two words: junk DNA. What, did the incredibly perfect creator corrupt his files a few times before the save went through?

5. If god "is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him" then clearly you'll very easily be able to give me rock solid proof of this, right? No, you say because you "used to be an atheist" that is proof of god? I'm sorry, that's not proof. That's probably not even true. If you were an atheist, I sure would like to think you would have been better at it than this.

6. "Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God revealing himself to us." Says you. Jesus said he was god? Really? Because I remember Jesus consistently saying in all four Gospels, "I am the son of man." You can twist that however you like, but it doesn't change what your own holy book says. But you know what? Maybe he was the son of god. Maybe he did ascend into heaven. Just call him back and have him perform a miracle and I'll believe you.

In short, this is pathetic. Creationism/intelligent design is provably wrong unless you account for the perfect creator making mistakes and doing really dumb things, "if things were different" is laughable in all it's various forms, the universe had to start fails when even weak logic is applied,  and if god and Jesus are your proof then there has to be evidence of their existence and you are lacking that evidence.

So don't waste your time on those ads. I knew it would be bad, but it's really bad. Think of this me taking one for the team.

3 comments:

  1. “Why can't the universe be eternal?”

    Because the material infinite does not exist. There is no material infinite regression of cause.

    How can you not know this?

    Big Bang cosmology shows that everything material came into being ex nihilo.

    If you think that matter / energy has always existed, even as a tiny, dense, speck, ask yourself, where did this speck (with a mass of the entire universe) exist prior to space, time and the laws of physics that govern that matter coming into being?

    You're down to two options, son:
    . Either matter has always existed (but both science and philosophy show that it does not and cannot) or
    . The immaterial Cause of matter has always existed.

    This is not a false dichotomy. These are the options. If you can think of another option feel free to post it here.

    If you understood the concept of eternal (no beginning or end) at all, and it seems you don't you could have avoided asking the incoherent questions:
    . So when did this eternal Being (the first cause) begin to exist
    . So what caused this eternal Being to begin to exist.

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  2. Rather than dismiss you out of hand, I decided to research your statement that "Big Bang cosmology shows that everything material came into being ex nihilo." It took one Google search on that sentence and less than two minutes to find a refutation of your claim. But I didn't stop there, I kept reading. There wasn't just one refutation to your claim, but many. Unfortunately for you, the refutations of your claim vary from weak to excellent.

    So rather than being down to two options, son, I find that your assertion is actually incorrect. Stating "these are the options" does not make it so. Big Bang cosmology does not show that everything material came into being ex nihilo. The Kalam Cosmological Argument, which you are using, is easily refuted.

    On a completely different not, apologies for the truly ugly format of this post. It looked way better when I was typing it.

    ReplyDelete