How We Got Here

November 4, 2011

In a conversation recently with an older friend I mentioned that I had been to a Secular Student Alliance Club at a local high school to talk about my faith, and the name of the club begged the question for her, “What is a Secular Student Alliance Club?”  I gave a brief explanation of the club and the kinds of topics that they discuss.  I made the generalization that most of the students in the club don’t hold a theistic position, most are atheist or skeptical.   The friend of mine, responded with a question  “They actually have a club like that in the high school?”  A man listening to our conversation added that they have the right to do that, if a Christian club has the same right to meet.  I agreed with the man and that led to a discussion about the actual statements in the constitution and other ideas like “the separation of church and state” and what it actually meant.  The point I want to focus the rest of the post on what my friend said in wrapping up the conversation.  Being a senior adult, with a “few” years of experience behind her, she asked the rhetorical question,  “How did we get here?”

There are 3 terms that are central keys to the change that American has gone through over the last 50 years.   Secularization, Pluralism, and Privatization.  Each of these ideas have had a large impact of the beliefs, practices, and actions that play out in America.

Secularization is the process of  removing all aspects of God and religion from the public life through avenues like schools, businesses, courthouses, and monuments.  Groups like the ACLU and others make it their number one goal to wipe God out of  all aspects from American culture and history.   In a nation that is predominantly Christian, the few and small groups that are offended by the idea of God can slowly chip away at the Christian foundations that were set early in our countries history.  With God moving out of the picture in American culture this creates a bold new exercise of morality by people who have no ultimate God to answer to.  If God is out of the picture, they can do whatever they want, after all, no one is watching over us.  Secularization pushes the ceiling on how far is too far, by creating an atmosphere of no shame in our world.  With the absence of shame nothing is too far, nothing is taboo.

Pluralism is where you have a wide variety of choices.  “Only in America” as Ravi Zacharias continues “can you find an Indian man selling kosher tacos in a store in Los Angeles”  Ravi goes on to explain that Pluralism in foods, or styles of clothes, and other areas in not bad, bud pluralism with respect to truth and worldviews is dangerous.   When you begin to look at truth as relative, you are taking truth from the objective reality and it becomes watered-down.  In a recent discussion with some high school students they could not grasp the idea that truth is objective and that there can only be one correct worldview.  I also experienced this past summer with some Christians in an apologetics class during camp.   The idea of relative truth has crept into our culture despite the fact that it doesn’t make sense or it falls apart internally.

Privatization is the idea that you can believe what you want to believe so long as you keep it to yourself and don’t bring your beliefs out into the public or life and share them with others.  In America you are free to believe and practice what you wish, but the new atheists and the secularists will go crazy if you dare insist that you actually live by what you believe and speak about your beliefs in a public way, not to mention if you hold a public office and make decisions based on your beliefs.  I have noticed within privatization there is a bias by which many secular thinkers abide.  They tell you that you cannot express your religious views and opinions, but at the same time they can advance their views and opinions without the same scrutiny.  Think about how it affects a person with a worldview who has to constantly separate their personal and public worldviews and how it creates a schizophrenic life.  Imagine that I tell my wife, I love her with all my heart, but why we are out in public I’m not going to acknowledge her, show any affection towards her, or in any way make any decisions based around her.  I hope you see the problems that would cause in my relationship with her.  The same is true of Christians and their relationship with God.  It is insane to think that Christians should keep their faith private.

Desensitization is the key here with these three aspects.  It happens slowly over time, so slow you don’t notice it until you wake up and see how far things have changed and it’s too late.  I like to use the example of a frog in a pot of water when I talk to teens about slowly falling away from their relationship with God.  Imagine you have a frog and a hot-pot of water.  You drop the frog in the water and he will hop right back out as soon as he lands in the water.  If you take the same from and place it in a pot of water and slowly turn the heat up over time the frog will sit in the pot and not jump out.  The frog will eventually die.  The reason being that the frog’s body will match the temperature of the water and not realize that it is too late.  In the same way we need to be aware of the constant changing temperature of the world around us.  Don’t let the little things go by without noticing how they change the environment around us slowly over time.

So what can you do as a Christian?  How can you fight back against the Secularization, Privatization, and Pluralistic world?  Here are a few ideas.  First, do your best to represent God and your Christian values in both private and public.  Your consistency will help yourself and encourage others.  Secondly, get a good grasp on truth and why it matters.  Don’t let the wave of relativism knock you down.  Be ready to defend object moral truths with examples and logical reasons.  Lastly, get involved in a social issue of the day.  It should be something you feel strong about and support from your worldview.  Items like defending traditional marriage, educating people on abortion and supporting groups that hold the Christian worldview.   The worst thing you could do is nothing, being silent when others speak up allows them to get their way without a fight.

As always questions, comments, and discussions are welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Defining Terms: ad hominem

October 31, 2011

Another Fallacy used by people in arguments, debates, and discussions is called ad hominem.

ad hominem – In Latin means “to the people.”  As a debate tactic it is an attempt to draw the discussion away from the facts and evidence of the debate and focus them on the person(s) in the debate or to another person who holds similar views.

Most of the time when a person uses an ad hominem tactic it is because they have run out of facts and evidence to discuss and they turn to they people who are making the arguments.  The best way to stop someone who is using an ad hominem tactic is to call it out and tell them that it is not based on the facts or evidence.

Here are several examples of ad hominem  statements.  See if you can locate how they are drawing the attention away from the facts and putting it on the person.

1. Why should I be a Christian like all those TV preachers who have had affairs and cheated on their wives?

2. Those Christians are so narrow-minded and fundamental, they won’t accept the facts.

3. He is closed-minded and will only accept empirical evidence from science to prove his claim.

4. You are not a biologist or physicist and you do not have the understanding to be able to argue about matters of science.

5.  The Green Bay Packers are not going to win the Superbowl this year because their quarterback’s mom is ugly.

As always questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Defining Terms: Red Herring

October 29, 2011

Another common debate tactic that is often used is called Red Herring.  You may have heard of that term before but don’t know where it came from.  When hunters are training dogs to track the scent of an animal the trainers will rub a Red Herring (a fish) across the trail to try to throw off the dog from following the scent.

In apologetics a Red Herring is a similar technique used by a person to distract or take them off the main point of an argument or from following the evidence to areas that may seem related to the subject, but in fact are not.  A common Red Herring is the use of emotions in an argument.  For example they may repeat old outdated arguments to cause you to get angry or to make you change your focus to the old outdated argument rather than what you planned on talking about.

In his book, Faith, Fact, and Reason Study #2,  Chris Sherrod gives us an example of  a popular Red Herring used by Darwinian evolutionist.  When looking at the fallacies of the theory of evolution Christians will often point out that there is no mechanism for the process of evolution to take place.   Darwinian evolutionists want to make the issue about time.  They say given enough time, anything can evolve, but the truth of the matter is that no matter how long the time period is, nothing will change if there is no mechanism for the change to occur.  Because the age of the earth and universe is open to discussion, it makes an easy Red Herring.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

The Universe is Intelligently Designed

October 28, 2011

Recently we looked at the Teleological Argument in biology in DNA.  As we continue the discussion on the Teleological Argument, I wanted to look at design in the universe.  No matter if you are looking at the solar system or the entire universe you can see design and intelligence.

When you are looking for signs of intelligent design there are 3 key factors that you will need: Contingency, Complexity, and Specification.   If something were designed we would expect to see evidence of contingency.  (Meaning it did not result from a meaningless unintelligent process.)  If something were designed , we would expect to see evidence of complexity. (With many working parts) And if something were designed, we would expect to see evidence of specificity. (A detailed, precise pattern commonly associated with intelligent causes.)  Just as we can see those 3 factors in DNA, we can also see them within the universe.

There are two levels at which you can look at intelligent design in the universe.  First it seems that earth is fine-tuned  for life within the realm of our  solar system.  There are many razor-thin factors that make life on earth possible.   Here are a few examples of what I am referring to.

1. Temperature – The earth is the perfect distance from sun.  If the earth was any closer or further away to the sun, life on earth would be out of the temperature range and not contingent for life.

2. Size – The earth size, rotational speed, atmosphere, and tilt are just right for life to exist on the earth.  If it were slightly different we would not be able to sustain life on earth.

3.  The moon – Without a moon that causes tides aerating oceans and oxygen for fish & plankton sea life would not be able to exist.  The tides also clean the oceans of trash and contaminates.  During the months following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico scientists watched carefully the raw crude oil that was in the water.  After about a year had gone by the ocean had self cleaned itself and life was returning back to normal.   The moon also acts as a shield protecting the earth from various space debris that come close to the earth in the solar system.

4. Water – Without water life would not exist.  When NASA sends spacecraft to other places within our solar system they look for the presence of water or ice.  Water covers about 70% of the surface of the earth.   In connection with the temperature and atmosphere the water cycle would not be possible and would not make plant and animal life possible on the land.

5. Oxygen – Oxygen is the most plentiful element on the earth.  It makes up about 90% of the earths total weight.   (In water and the atmosphere)  Oxygen is not only needed for animal life to breathe but in the upper atmosphere paired with a 3rd Oxygen molecule we have Ozone.  The Ozone layer helps protect the earth from harmful radiation from the sun.  You are probably familiar with oxygen and carbon-dioxide cycle, where plant life breathes in CO2 and give off O2.  Animal life breathes in O2 and breathes out CO2.  The earth had to be perfectly balanced between plant and animal life in order for both to survive.  This principle is called the Anthropic Principal.

6. Gravity – Gravity is the unexplained force in nature.  It is present all over the universe.  It controls the rotation of the planets around the sun and the rotation of the moons around the planets.  On a larger scale, it controls the movement of all the galaxies in the universe.  If Gravity was slightly different the sun would burn to fast and we not have a sun to heat the earth.

7. Lighting – Lightning happens on average about 100,000 times a day around the planet.  All plants need nitrogen as food to grow and when lightning strikes the earth it takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the soil.

8. Jupiter – Jupiter is the earth’s shield.  Because it is the largest planet in our solar system it acts similar to the moon as a shield protecting us from  comets, space debris, asteroids that may come in a path with the earth.  The large gravity of  Jupiter acts like a magnet and pulls these things towards Jupiter.

9. Galaxies – In order for life to be possible we must be in the right type of galaxy with the appropriate types of stars and heavenly bodies.  No only the right type of galaxy, but also the right place within the galaxy.

What happens when you try to assign a probability to all these factors.  Roger Penrose, professor at Oxford, says it is an impossibility because the number of digits would be greater than the total number of elementary particles in the know universe.  The level of precision dwarfs our human comprehension.

One objection to the idea that the solar system is fine-tuned and intelligently designed is that it only appears to be at the surface, but that evolution can explain for the illusion of design.  In other words, it only looks intelligently design, but in reality it is only how things have come to be.  Darwinian evolutionist say that just because we exist in the universe doesn’t mean that we are special and valued.They contend that if the tape of evolution were rewound through time that it is possible that something else may have evolved differently and they two would question there existence.  Too bad we don’t have access to that evolutionary tape.

Think about this example from apologist, Sean McDowell.  Imagine you purchase tickets to a football game.  Upon arrival at the stadium you find your seat and sit down to watch the game.  After talking for a while with your neighbors you slowly discover that everyone in your seat section is sitting in alphabetic order, and greater still after more investigation you learn that everyone in the whole stadium is seated alphabetically.  The uniqueness of this grand scheme demands an explanation.  Who did this?  Someone was playing with the computer perhaps?  Philosopher John Leslie uses a firing squad illustration.  Imagine you were standing before a firing squad of 50 gunmen.  The order is given to fire, but for some reason you are still alive and not shot.  Your survival demands an explanation and so does fine-tuning.

Another objection by atheist, Richard Dawkins who admits that there is no present natural explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, but claims that hardly accounts for God.  Dawkins argues that accepting the design argument leads to “Who designed the designer?”  The problem with this argument is this, can science only accept things if they can explain them?  Or if they have explanations?  Science must come to a point that they accept what evidence they do have and deny the request for further proof.   For example; an archaeologist who finds a ancient object that looks like a arrow head or a tool for digging.  Even if she/he cannot explain the origin or the identity of the designer.  If the evidence for design is compelling she could not dismiss the design hypothesis.

Critics also argue that if the laws of physics were different then some other non-carbon based life form could have existed.  Besides being entirely speculative, many of the fine-tuning instances and arguments are not based or rely on being carbon-based.

This brings us to the second level at which you can look at intelligent design in the universe.  Why are the laws of physics defined as what they are?  Why is the expansion rate of the universe (the cosmological constant) what it is?  What about the 4 fundamental forces of nature?  (Gravity, Electromagnetic force, The strong and weak nuclear force)   Just as we see in DNA in life that there had to be a programmer to put in the code for life, where did the code for the laws of physics come from?

Darwinian evolutionists are trying to answer the intelligent design argument with the idea of the Multiverse or the Grand Design, which has been popularized by Stephen Hawking in his latest book entitled The Grand Design.  Using the standard model in physics and other theories, like string theory, they are attempting to take our universes laws of physics and show that it is basically nothing special in a realm where multiple universes exist.  Is your head hurting yet?  I will spend more time explaining this in a upcoming post.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions are welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Conversations with High School Students

October 27, 2011

Yesterday I went to a local high school in the area to hangout with some students after school.  These students are your typical students in some aspects but not in all aspects.  These 60+ students are members of the Secular Student Alliance Club at Parkview High.  These students meet every other week to discuss topics ranging from the existence of God , to the possibility of morals without God to other issues like animal rights and other social issues.  If you are new to apologetics and are not familiar with the term “Secular” it just means activities and attitudes that do not have a religious or spiritual basis.  The students members hold a variety of different beliefs or positions.  Some are atheist,  some are agnostic,  many of them are might label themselves as skeptical or searching, and there was a Christian in the group also.

I meet them about a year ago through Michael, one of the students in my student ministry, at the church where I am student pastor.  Michael had been going to the Secular Student Alliance Club each week to talk and share his Christian beliefs with the students and to jump in to the debates and discussions they had each week.  I really admire Michael for doing this, I don’t think I would have done that at his age if our school had a SSA Club like they do.  (We had to fight to even have the right to a Christian Club when I went to South Gwinnett High School 20 years ago.)  The SSA club invited me to speak a few times last school year thanks to the invite from Michael.  After Michael has graduated and gone to college I have stay in contact with the students and we talk weekly through Facebook about different subjects.

Let me first break some common misconceptions about the students in the SSA club.  They are nice, polite, smart, and funny.   Just like the average teen.  Many of them are active in community doing things to take care of environment.  A few weeks ago they held a can drive to collect food items for a local food bank in the area.  There are certain feelings that are associated or arise when you mention the word “atheist” or “skeptic”, or even “Christian” for that matter.  I think these feelings come from a past where perception was different.  Any time I have gone to talk with them I have always felt at ease and comfortable with talking to them.

Part of the reason I wanted to write this blog was to help you break down those areas of misconception and also to get a feel of what is like to have conversations with students like these or anyone else for that matter.  Yesterday I went to the meeting not really knowing what I might talk about.  I usually have an outline and prepared talk, but yesterday I just felt like being very low-key and open to where the conversation may go.  I had been in some intense discussions recently online with some of them and I really felt it was important to just be a good listener this time.  I admit, I think I have become addicted to the feeling of being in the moment with apologetic discussions.  Not knowing what questions may come up and not having all the answers, I know the best thing I can do is offer up a quick prayer for help and rely on the Holy Spirit to help me give an answer that is Biblical and is easy to understand.

As the meeting started they allowed me to open with a small discussion about some things that I have noticed through the online conversations as misunderstandings about the Christian worldview.  I talked about Blind faith vs. a Biblical Faith.  Biblical faith is based on evidence just as scientists make thesis and hypothesis based on evidence in science.   From there the conversation morphed into the different types of knowledge that we can obtain.

After I finished talking I opened it up for anybody ask questions.  They asked some really good questions that I could tell that they really wanted to know the answer to.  Some were easy to answer, some questions I had to ask a question in return to get some clarification over, and some I had to pause and think a bit before responding.  We were discussing free will, and one student asked a good question, that caught me off guard, one I had never heard before.  A student asked me if God took part of Mary’s free will when He chose her to be the mother of Jesus and to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  After a brief pause, and another silent prayer for some help from God I thought and went back to the story.  We know from the text that Mary was already a follower of Jehovah God and like most Christians today, we want God’s will to be our own will.  I made a personal reference to my life to back up the thought.  The other Christian in the room, the student,  chimed in and said that Mary still had a choice of whether to keep the baby or to accept God’s desire for her life.   In the text it says that she had been chosen by God, but it didn’t say that she was already pregnant yet.   That was an insightful question.  We ended the meeting talking about Homosexuality a bit and then finished talking about worldviews and how that there can only be one right worldview.  They can’t all be right.

One of the students I have been talking with for the last several weeks was asking a lot of questions about the Bible and I asked him if he had a Bible.  He did not have one so I asked if  I could give him one.  He agreed and took it from me.   I am looking forward to going back soon, if not to talk, but perhaps only to listen and sit in on their discussions and learn what kinds of things that they deal with and question.  One thing that I can say about this group oh high school students is that they really want to know what they believe and why.  They are looking for truth and answers for life and I applaud their thirst for knowledge and truth.  I would wish that many Christians would also have the same type of fire that these high school students do.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Classification of Knowledge

October 26, 2011

If you have had apologetic conversation with others that disagree with your Christian worldview you may have come across a someone who rejects your  Christian worldview solely on the premise that your knowledge is not empirical knowledge.  Empirical knowledge is knowledge that comes  through experience with the 5 senses or the scientific method.  Perhaps it is the strongest level of knowledge, but it is not the only type of knowledge.  In fact, it makes up a very small percentage of a persons total  knowledge in whole.  Before you disagree with my last sentence, think about all you know and how you came to “know it” especially in the realm of science and biology.  You most likely have read several books on the subject rather than done the empirical experiments and experienced it yourself.   Empirical knowledge is not absolute either, there is no way to be able to claim total absolute knowledge unless we had total transcendence in life.

What are the different classifications (types) of knowledge that we have at our disposal?  Below are some of the different classifications and some examples of knowledge.  I want to note that these are my classifications, ones that I have seen in use by people and in the general ways that most people use the terms today.  I am not attempting to give a breakdown of proper Epistemology.

Ideological – This relates to knowledge that is a priori (before experience) that usually comes as concepts or ideas from the human mind and is philosophical.  Reason is often the center of ideology.

Empirical –   This relates to knowledge that is a posteriori (after experience) through the 5 senses or the scientific method.  An example might be that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

Experiential – This relates to knowledge gained through the 5 senses.  It does not have to be in a scientific method.  It can relate to an individual or a group of people.  i.e. personal experience or say human experience.  An example might be that it gets colder at night when the sun is not up.

Logical – This type of knowledge is often used with in  philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science.  It often looks at the arguments that are being made and looks for fallacies in what is inferred by statements to determine truth.  An example of logical knowledge would be that a woman is either pregnant or not pregnant, because she cannot be both at the same time.

Rational – This type of knowledge is a combination of Ideology and Empirical knowledge in that knowledge can be rationalized by past prior empirical knowledge or experience.   An example might be that if I had wings I might be able to fly like a bird.

Historical –  This type of knowledge is a combination of some of the types of knowledge listed above.  It can no longer  be proven through the scientific method or through repeat experience.  It may be based on physical evidence that we have knowledge of by writings, audio and video recordings, or other people’s experience.  An example might be that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.

These types of knowledge above are often used in debates and discussions between different worldviews.   The Christian worldview is unique in that it can be a part of all these different types of areas of knowledge and does not fall apart unlike some of the other worldviews when you attempt to debate in one of these areas of knowledge above.  Over time I will cover the specifics of that statement.

Occasionally I have found that when a religious discussion gets to the point of not accepting knowledge outside of empirical knowledge it is because they do not want to deal with the other logical and rational explanations that are being brought forth in an argument.  This is a flawed approach to knowledge that is impossible to live out in life.   If you feel like this is being used on you to avoid responding to your statements, here is how you can show them that there statement is flawed.

When someone says that “Empirical knowledge is only knowledge that counts as knowledge” ask them for the empirical evidence that backs up their statement of belief about empirical knowledge.  There is none.  Therefore you don’t have to accept their statement of belief about empirical knowledge.  Ask, them, “If you don’t have any empirical evidence, then why should I believe you?”  They make a deadly flaw by stepping outside of empiricism trading on reason and philosophy while claiming only empiricism.

Many people put their guard up during a discussion, and will not be intellectually honest with you about what they accept as knowledge.  If you have built a relationship with the person, you can listen to them make statements that don’t agree with their own ideology about knowledge.  You should take advantage of the opportunity to ask them to explain themselves or to clarify what they just said against their own understanding related to knowledge.  For example, Your friend says that they believe that Green Bay is going to when the Super Bowl this year.  You can ask them what empirical knowledge that they have to assure then of that statement.

As always questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Defining Terms: Specified Complexity

October 24, 2011

In my post about the Teleological Argument I used the term specified complexity.   I wanted to define it and give several examples of what is specified complexity and how can be used to show that design implies a designer.  It is one of the two main arguments for Intelligent Design (ID) the other being Irreducible Complexity, which I will discuss in an upcoming post.

Specified Complexity  – Specified complexity is a property which can be observed in living things.  Specified complexity is present in a configuration when it can be described by a pattern that displays a large amount of independently specified information and is also complex.

A simple way of explaining it would be through a Shakespearean sonnet. William Dembski who is a Christian apologist put’s it this way; “A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.”  While it might be possible for a bunch of monkeys typing on a computer keyboard to type out a bunch of random letters, you would never assume that they would type out a bunch of words that formed a sentence, a sentence that made sense that also fit into a rhythmic pattern, and composed a larger poem that was understandable to read from start to finish.  The obvious choice is that it was designed that way.

Scientific atheists say that specified complexity is just an illusion of the eye, that it is really “just what occurs” within the transmittal of information in evolution.   They try to down play the idea of specified complexity by claiming that the complexity was already there in the previous DNA and just a copy of what has evolved over billions of years.   Richard Dawkins even tried a computer generated experiment with a type of evolutionary algorithm to try to show that a random program could churn out the following target sequence, a putative instance of specified complexity using 28 letters and spaces.

Beginning Sequence: WDL*MNLT*DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO*P
Target Sequence: METHINKS*IT*IS*LIKE*A*WEASEL

(1) WDL*MNLT*DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO*P

(2) WDLTMNLT*DTJBSWIRZREZLMQCO*P

(10) MDLDMNLS*ITJISWHRZREZ*MECS*P

(20) MELDINLS*IT*ISWPRKE*Z*WECSEL .

(30) METHINGS*IT*ISWLIKE*B*WECSEL

(40) METHINKS*IT*IS*LIKE*I*WEASEL

(43) METHINKS*IT*IS*LIKE*A*WEASEL

Starting with the beginning sequence above Dawkins claimed success only after 43 times through the program.  A few of intermediate sequences can be seen above as well.  So you can follow the transformation of the sequence from start to finish.  Well, sounds like Dawkins silenced the (ID) creationists with his experiment right?  Wrong, what Dawkins actually did was show the indisputable fact that intelligence has a role in specified complexity.  Here is what we mean, who or what told the computer to try to reach the Target sequence above, where to put spaces between words, how to rearrange words in a sentence?  Dawkins did.  The computer simulation would not have been possible had not Dawkins give the basic algorithm for the computer to use to create the target sequence.   If you ask a scientific atheist where that evolutionary algorithm comes from, don’t expect an answer.

Now consider DNA that makes up our genetic code.  DNA is so much more complex than a Shakespearean sonnet or a 28 length sequence of letters.  Mapping the entire human genome would be the equivalent of 3-4 volumes of encyclopedias.  There are over 3.1 billion bits of information in the human genome.   The question is where did all this information come from?  It far more complex than any computer program that we have created.  Lastly, who programmed all this code into the human genome?  Darwinian evolution has no answers, but it looks more and more that intelligence was involved in the process.

As always questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

The Teleological Argument

October 22, 2011

The Teleological Argument or the Argument to Design is another argument attempting proof of God’s existence based upon the premise that the universe is designed, and therefore needs a designer:  God.  The argument has also been called Intelligent Design (ID) by the newer generation of Christian apologists.

The beginning ideas of a argument for design began around 400- 300 b.c. with thinkers like Socrates and Aristotle.  The first Teleological arguments had its classical Christian roots back in the 3rd and 4th century with Thomas Aquinas in his greatest work Summa Theologica.

In the early 19th century William Paley illustrated a watch maker analogy that is still used today as an example.  A summary of his analogy is as follows: Think about the complexity of a pocket watch.  All the tiny gears, and parts that are inside it that are perfectly sized and fit together to form a watch that tells time accurately.  It is a complex machine that was designed by a designer.  Would you imagine placing all the individual parts to the pocket watch in a bag and shaking them up randomly and then one day as you are shaking them up they fall into place and fit together to form a perfectly working pocket watch.

Any time you see specified complexity and intelligibility in the physical word you automatically assume a designer was behind it.  While it is of course possible, over a billions of years that after shaking a bag full of watch parts that they could fall into place and form a perfectly working pocket watch, your first instinct would be that someone designed it to be that way.   Apologist Ravi Zacharias uses the following illustration:  Imagine you go into space and visit a planet that you have never been to before.  Upon arrival you see a note on the planet that says “Hello John.  I’ve been waiting for you, what took you so long?”  You would never in a million years assume that letter appeared by random chance.

Over the last half century the Teleological Argument has been often misrepresented by some theists with examples that have not stood the advancement of science.  This comes from assumptions from theists that try to explain unanswered scientific questions in biology.  Those of us who hold a theistic worldview need to be careful when we try to say that something cannot be explained any more, and therefore God must have designed it.  Advancements on science can make theists look ignorant or weaken the Teleological Argument.

For example Darwin was intrigued by the complexity of the human eye.  After studying the eye, Darwin saw no way that the eye could have evolved given the fact that in order for the eye to function properly it would need all the separate parts (pupal, retina, lens, optic nerve, etc. ) working together.  In other words, why would the eye start to evolve if there was no benefit of sight yet.  Christians were quick to jump on this type of example and say that the irreducible complexity of the eye, among other examples, was proof that God was the only was possible designer of these complex systems.   Recent scientific discoveries have given us answers that we thought were not answerable.   I will revisit the subject of irreducible complexity in a separate post and  go into more details.

There are however, better areas to use the Teleological argument in besides biology.  They are much more solid in the defense of a intelligent designer.  We will look at the Teleological Argument within the universe,  within  DNA, and within the laws of the universe  in sub-sequential posts over the next few posts.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions are welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Is Humanity Determined or Do We Have Free Will?

October 21, 2011

DominosAs the title above asks  the question, is humanity determined or do we have free will?    The question might seem rather silly, and you may think you know the answer very quickly.  But, it is a very important question to answer, because Determinism is a natural outflow of Darwinian evolution.  We will look at the definitions and then discuss whether naturalists are actually living by what they believe.  By naturalist, I mean someone who holds a philosophical viewpoint according to which everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.  In naturalism there are no God or gods, no miracles, hidden forces that drive the universe, no souls or spirits, no inspired scripture or prophecies.   Just physical stuff that operates according to physical laws.

Determinism – The teaching that every event in the universe is caused and controlled by natural law.  Everything we say, do, and think has been predetermined by evolution and encoded into our DNA.

Free Will – The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion

Are we Really Free?  Think about it, can we choose to hold the door open for someone, can we choose to love someone, can we make decisions based on intellect, reason,  and emotion?  I have found that in my discussions with naturalists that they want to claim that everything is determined, but only to a certain extent.  They claim that they can rise up above their predetermined selves and become free.   This is not how determinism works though, it’s either all or nothing with determinism.  Let me illustrate my statement with an example used by Greg Koukl of why it is either all or nothing.

It’s like a series of dominoes falling. When any particular thing happens in the physical universe we ask ourselves what was the domino before it that caused it? And what was the domino before that? You can chart that. This just points out that all physical systems are deterministic. Every single action is determined, brought by a prior physical action. Science is the discipline that is meant to discover those prior physical conditions so that if we recreate the prior physical conditions, if we set up the dominoes in the exact same way, they are going to fall in exactly the same way every single time.

Picture in your mind two lines of dominoes that are falling. And at the end of the line of dominoes is not another domino, but there is actually a human being, a person standing there right next to a cliff. What happens when the last domino falls and lands on our poor unsuspecting person at the end of the line of dominoes? Well, low and behold, just as every domino has fallen up until then, the last domino strikes the human being and he falls too, right over the cliff. Now, here is my question. Given that scenario, did that person jump off the cliff? The answer is no, of course not. He was pushed. What was he pushed by? A falling domino, a big one, adequate to shove him over the cliff.

Now, what if the person who fell over the cliff actually thought he jumped on his own. perhaps because he didn’t see the dominoes. Would he have done just as he thought? The answer is, of course no. The guy thought he jumped over the precipice but it was really a domino that pushed him.

On the physicalist view of the universe, everything is dominoes, whether you see them or not. Whether they are outside or inside, everything is dominoes. Sometimes we think we are jumping, but the fact is we are not. Instead, he fell because of prior physical conditions that were sufficient to cause the effect of us jumping one way or another. We are always pushed if there are only physical causes in the universe.

Determinism makes everything in life neither true or false, but just as the way things are determined to be.  The next time you get into a conversation with a person who believes in determinism, just simple remind them that according to their view, they are no more right in their belief of determinism as you are in your belief in free will and they are just wasting your time because after all, things are just as they were determined to think, say, and do.

Think about how we operate in life.  We do not live our lives by the rules of determinism, even the naturalists.  We have an internal barometer that helps us discern right from wrong and we make decisions based on that.  Our court system, like all others, is based on the premise that we are accountable for our actions.  Have you ever known anyone to be pronounced innocent based on the plea of determinism.  “Your honor and jury, I am innocent because it was my DNA that made me do it…”  Anyone who believes in determinism but doesn’t live their life like they belief is just being intellectually dishonest.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions welcome.

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Posted by John Weldon

Indoctrination Unavoidable?

October 18, 2011

Several weeks ago in a post about worldviews, I mentioned a statement by atheist, Richard Dawkins about indoctrination.  I would like to address the statement Dawkins made and deal with the subject of indoctrination.  In the ninth chapter of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, Dawkins makes the following statement:

“Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence almost everyone has the same religion as their
parents?  And it always just happens to be the right religion.  Religions run in families.
If we’d been brought up in ancient Greece we would all be worshiping Zeus and
Apollo.  If we had been born Vikings we would be worshiping Wotan and Thor.   How
does this come about? Through childhood indoctrination.”

First, let’s define indoctrination before we discuss the quote by Dawkins.

Indoctrination – The act of teaching a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view.

I would first like to concede that indoctrination does take place, in fact, I would like to add, that it occurs everywhere, through everyone, in varying levels.  Because of the way we can know something and not know something, we are limited in a semi-transcendent view of knowledge.  There is really no way to “get out of the box” as Ravi Zacharias puts it, in a transcendent way, and know everything about everything in life.  We can know things on a subjective level and we can compare them to a uniform experience that we have in our life and culture.  The varying levels of indoctrination that may take place can range from the highest and strictest of worldviews to the smallest and most trivial examples of allowing an opposing team’s uncle call the balls and strikes in a little league baseball game.

As a parent of three children, I want my children to own their own faith and not have the faith of their parents.  As they get older I will encourage them to do the work that I have done in my own searching, including all sides.   But that doesn’t mean that I am not going to teach them what I have found to be good, reliable trustworthy truth now.    I will help them, answer questions, give them resources to help them make their own decisions as they are ready.

Not everyone does their homework.   It has been apparent to me that not everyone that believes a particular worldview, including Christianity, knows what they believe and why they believe or at least can articulated it in a meaningful and understanding way.  On the surface level many worldviews can look and make sense, but in truth and reality, there can only be one worldview that is correct.  As you dig a little deeper you will no doubt encounter difficulties as you look for coherence in the worldviews that are incorrect.   For many people, the statement, ignorance is bliss, is true to life.  As I have stated before I will be digging deeper and looking at each of the major worldviews in the future posts.

Christianity stands out among other worldviews.   I would like to point out that many worldviews are very closed-minded to allowing opposing views to influence their captors.    Jehovah’s Witnesses will cut you off if you show any signs of doubt or begin to look outside the ideology they teach.  They have been even known to excommunicate their own family members if they reject the teachings.    This is nothing however to the Islamic world where if you leave your Islamic faith, could mean death if you are caught.  As I type this, there is a pastor in Iran who is in prison, in fear of his life because he left the Islamic faith for Christianity.  There is also the certainty of ridicule that will come from scientific atheism that if you renounce your atheism and still maintain your scientific beliefs.

Compare those to the words of Paul in the Bible as he challenged the Thessalonians “Test everything, hold onto the good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and then in Acts, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)   You will find no where in the Bible that it tells us to just believe and not examine the evidence.   One of my favorite verses, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)  Each of these scriptures shows the open, unafraid mindset of the Christian worldview.

So what are we to make of Dawkins’s comment that “almost everyone has the same religion as their parents… Religions run in families.”  Two things to consider.  First, for the worldview that is most coherent, and dare I say correct, people will examine it and stay with what they find to be true.  Secondly, I would challenge Dawkins’ assertion that almost everyone  has the same religion of their parents.  Consider what is taking place today in China and other countries like Russia and the former Soviet Union.   In 1966  through the leadership of the atheistic communist party in China, all books, Bibles, and any references to religion were burned and destroyed, its leaders declaring God is dead.   Today in China, Christianity is the fastest growing worldview than all others.  Nearly 100 million strong.  When there is a vacuum of truth, it is a most welcome breath of fresh air.

The last point I want to make with indoctrination is that there seems to be a conflict with the view of naturalistic determinism, of which Dawkins and many other of the new atheists claim to support.  If we can be indoctrinated by things outside ourselves like the Bible, religious parents, reruns of old TBN shows, etc., then we are  not locked into genetic determinism through our DNA.  If everything we believe and know is because of genetic determinism then we cannot be indoctrinated.

As always, questions, comments, and discussions are welcome.  I will take a closer look at determinism and free will in my next post.

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Posted by John Weldon

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