Could there be strong links between rise of science as some have postulated that with the rise of Protestantism we have seen increase and support for the science in the orderly world that is governed by the God who is the creator of all the laws and the material world. Issues like beginning of time and universe are in agreement with the Biblical teaching, first cause is therefore required and can be justifiably used to show that Christianity is reasonable and is therefore logical proposition. DNA and complexity is a strong argument that shows that Dr Dawkins ” Mountain improbable” is in fact really improbable and shows that Dr Dawkins will often uses sneaky arguments that invoke design but refute the designer.
Leading atheist and acclaimed journalist, Christopher Hitchens, goes head to head with Christian apologist and Oxford Professor, John Lennox in March 2009 at Birmingham, Alabama’s Samford University to debate the question “Is God Great?”
Hitchens, who made his opinion clear on this topic in 2007 with his book “God is not Great,” maintains not only that God fails to be great, but denies his existence entirely. Professor Lennox, a convinced Christian and scientist, respectfully disagrees. This event features a unique blend of both planned remarks and fast-paced dialogue that tackles these issues in a refreshing and informative light. It is sure to offer insights to all.
John Lennox is Professor in Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. Prof. Lennox has debated atheists ranging from Victor Stenger to Richard Dawkins and is the author of “God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?”
Christopher Hitchens is a British-American bestselling author, journalist, and literary critic who has served as a columnist for several prominent publications, some of which include Vanity Fair, The Nation, and The Atlantic. He is one of the world’s most influential and outspoken atheists.
This is taken from the 1998 debate between Dr William Craig (Christian) and Dr Peter Atkins (Atheist). Issue of faith is often overlooked when claiming that science is demonstrably eliminating God hypothesis from our modern lives. Fact that some of the science is based on faith itself, and continues its reliance upon previous “facts” taken from the existent sciences that will and have changed (as history of science will confirm for us) should be considered, when assertions are being made that science has rightly excluded God from our “enlightened” world dominated by self-declared “Bright’s”.
Book review; God’s undertaker, has science buried God? By John C Lenox.
If you enjoy everything British you will like this book, like Prof Alister McGrath he is originally from Northern Ireland and like McGrath holds two doctorates, one in Mathematics and second in as a philosopher of science. He is well spoken measured in his statements and full of references to support his statements. It is written as a short but to the point book on number of issues facing modern anti theists and atheists when dealing with major arguments when confronting Theism. He is clear and stern in his criticism of many modern scientist who are also evangelists of atheism ideology. His points that in order for one to claim atheistic position will necessitate reasonable evidence based on facts rather than faith they place in their presuppositions that have never been tested.
I highly recommend this book it covers number of subjects things like the fact that today we are facing a war of the worldviews in our debates and it is not scientific data that is supposedly dominating much of the debates by many atheists (note that not all atheists are like this) this is often not taken into account when analysing issues at hand.
Dr Lennox is looking at the issue of information and being qualified in mathematics this places him well in assessing the theory of design. He point out that even though most people will go cold as soon as you mention word Intelligent Design, when properly addressed this issue could and should help us understand better complexity we find in nature. He deals with number of issues raised by the famous Scottish philosopher David Hume and tackles him head on showing that frequently much of what he said has been taken out of context. He gives credit to Hume and accepts that lack of scientific data could reasonably justify his position stated so long ago. But he also points out that not only the universe but nature itself still proclaims the glory of God.
I would only add one word of caution, it will require some thinking and will demand your full attention. Many points could easily be missed if you are not paying attention. Don’t approach this book with preconceptions, try to read it in the way that you would listen to any new idea and you will find that much of what is said is not contradictory to what we find in scientific world today but expanded and explained in the way that could explain many reasonable faiths that exist amongst Christian intellectuals in this country.
This is very enjoyable book that deals with the problems of scientific pretensions amongst New Atheists. These unjustified claims served as facts tend to be too bold and frequently overstated and deliberately twisted “facts” by those who call themselves bright’s. David Berlinski chooses to treat them with ridicule and dishes out plenty of subtle put downs. Book is extremely enjoyable; if you are one of these people who like to read comments on other people’s blogs you will find this book very interesting. It is written in a way that anyone with even a limited knowledge of science could grasp and understand David’s reasons behind his desire to show their ignorance. He demonstrates how incorrect and illogical reasoning is often used when modern anti theists are attempting to make their arguments sound plausible.
Dr Berlinski is an agnostic, but this is exactly what makes his arguments that much more reasonable. He is not advocating religion, what he is doing is using his substantial knowledge of Mathematics, Biology and Philosophy (He holds two PhD’s) to show how irrational modern day aggressive atheist are. He is profound in his understanding of the subject and thoughtful in his approach to the topic of religion and is well loved writer.
I have read this book in 5 days as I have two young children that need entertaining, but with anyone with time to spare these 226 pages will feel very short / quick. The only thing I found disappointing about this book is that, like with any other great book it ended way to soon. It will leave you wanting more, I would not be surprised that once you finish this book like me you will be going back to Amazon looking for more great books by the great David Berlinski.
…David Berlinski is a distinguished academic mathematician and philosopher, who was also a post-doctoral fellow in molecular biology at Columbia University.
By Dr Gary R. Habermas
Originally published in Bibliotheca Sacra 146:584 Oct-Dec (1989): 437-450.
p. 437
Idealism was the dominant philosophy in the Western world in the early 20th century, a holdover from its prominence in the previous century. Stressing the metaphysical reality of mind or spirit and the epistemological centrality of ideas, idealism stood in stark contrast to naturalism, which took its position as the dominant school of thought in the middle of this century. Naturalistic convictions often included the supreme reality of matter, the belief that nature could potentially explain all phenomena, and faith in the empirical, scientific method as the chief means of discovering facts. Such beliefs continue to exercise control on many areas of study.
One interesting facet of the history of ideas is the possibility that either new data or new ways of interpreting the data will encourage new paradigm (or world view) shifts in thinking.1 Many trends indicate that just such a major shift may now be taking place. Just as idealism gave way to naturalism earlier this century, naturalism may now be losing its position of supremacy as a world view.
Physicists Puthoff and Targ, after research at Stanford Research Institute, published Mind-Reach, whose first chapter, “When the Paranormal Becomes Normal,” appropriately asks, “Where will you be standing when the paradigm shifts?”2 The authors consider that a shift in thinking may be occurring.
1. Of special interest is Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). The present article uses the term “paradigm” to denote a world view, or an interpretive model for explaining reality.
2. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, Mind-Reach (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1978).
This text was sent to me recently by a friend and I thought it to be very relevant even though I may not used same words to share same points.
Same notion is true that our culture has given up on its roots and frequently this is costing us dearly. Our society has been looking down for far too long on bad things that church was responsible for. But at the cost that is just too high, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water and that is the sad part. Most of us desire to go to good old time where we felt more secure, our children could play in the streets and we did not worry about their safety.
Sense of community is almost completely lost, and values that are used today are all based on self preservation rather than community. The only things we share today is fear and sorrow for the lost innocence. I hope that you will find these interesting and even helpful in choosing what is important to you, and what you should concentrate your efforts on.
Kind regards
Defend the Word
Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein
I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! !
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.
It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’
In light of recent events…. Terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay..
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
(From a speech delivered at Discovery Institute’s God & Culture Conference, August 10,1996)
How do we see? In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail, and its sophisticated features astounded everyone who was familiar with them. Scientists of the time correctly observed that if a person were so unfortunate as to be missing one of the eye’s many integrated features, such as the lens, or iris, or ocular muscles, the inevitable result would be a severe loss of vision or outright blindness. So it was concluded that the eye could only function if it were nearly intact.
Charles Darwin knew about the eye too. In the Origin of Species, Darwin dealt with many objections to his theory of evolution by natural selection. He discussed the problem of the eye in a section of the book appropriately entitled “Organs of extreme perfection and complication.” Somehow, for evolution to be believable, Darwin had to convince the public that complex organs could be formed gradually, in a step-by-step process.
He succeeded brilliantly. Cleverly, Darwin didn’t try to discover a real pathway that evolution might have used to make the eye. Instead, he pointed to modern animals with different kinds of eyes, ranging from the simple to the complex, and suggested that the evolution of the human eye might have involved similar organs as intermediates.
Here is a paraphrase of Darwin’s argument. Although humans have complex camera-type eyes, many animals get by with less. Some tiny creatures have just a simple group of pigmented cells, or not much more than a light sensitive spot. That simple arrangement can hardly be said to confer vision, but it can sense light and dark, and so it meets the creature’s needs. The light-sensing organ of some starfishes is somewhat more sophisticated. Their eye is located in a depressed region. This allows the animal to sense which direction the light is coming from, since the curvature of the depression blocks off light from some directions. If the curvature becomes more pronounced, the directional sense of the eye improves. But more curvature lessens the amount of light that enters the eye, decreasing its sensitivity. The sensitivity can be increased by placement of gelatinous material in the cavity to act as a lens. Some modern animals have eyes with such crude lenses. Gradual improvements in the lens could then provide an image of increasing sharpness, as the requirements of the animal’s environment dictated.
Using reasoning like this, Darwin convinced many of his readers that an evolutionary pathway leads from the simplest light sensitive spot to the sophisticated camera-eye of man. But the question remains, how did vision begin? Darwin persuaded much of the world that a modern eye evolved gradually from a simpler structure, but he did not even try to explain where his starting point for the simple light sensitive spot came from. On the contrary, Darwin dismissed the question of the eye’s ultimate origin:
How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated. He had an excellent reason for declining the question: it was completely beyond nineteenth century science. How the eye works; that is, what happens when a photon of light first hits the retina simply could not be answered at that time. As a matter of fact, no question about the underlying mechanisms of life could be answered. How did animal muscles cause movement? How did photosynthesis work? How was energy extracted from food? How did the body fight infection? No one knew.
Part one of the Dawkin’s Delusion lecture and Q/A session delivered by Dr. William Lane Craig that coincided with the 2007 “Does God Exist?” debate at UBC.
Fingerprints of God. Frank Turek looks at the Anthropic Principle and numerous cosmological evidences for a Creator God. Go to www.CrossExamined.org for more compelling stuff!
Intelligent Design. Frank Turek examines Information Theory, DNA, the Cell, and other evidence for Intelligent Design. Visit www.CrossExamined.org for more on Frank Turek and his awesome presentations at university campuses.
Evidence for God. Frank Turek looks at the Big Bang and the observational evidence pointing to the creation of the universe from nothing. Please visit www.CrossExamined.org for more!
Cultural relativism, or what is true for you may not be true for me, is often used to explain why we should agree to disagree, theory of relativity is often misquoted in order to justify lack of readiness to look at the implications of what is being said. It looks to me that today the “only truth” some people are prepared to accept is that we can’t know the truth, and they would usually say it that the only absolute truth we know is that there is no absolute truth. Problem with this argument is that is self-defeating as it uses assertion that will have to be derived from the observation of truth or false propositions. All one needs to ask is are you absolutely sure about that? Hope this challenges your thinking and changes your attitude to the information that we all process.
In his June 28, 2009 sermon, pastor Greg Boyd uses the story of Jesus and the blind beggar in Luke 8:34-43 to caution that, sometimes, followers of Jesus can become the obstacles to the growth of His Kingdom.
[“DTW, please read this entire entry before jumping to conclusions mid way through the post and responding to each point as if they existed in isolation. It’s important.”]
Defend the Word: Can I first thank you for your hard work, you have obviously put some significant effort into compiling this information. For those who want to go through all the points in your post they will just have to refer to the post above. I will attempt the best I can to give you my reasons why some of the things you said may be leading you to the wrong conclusion.
“when I attempt to point out and say “you have time, plus chance and random matter equals evolution you say no, no”.”
[“Then let me explain with an example closer to home. You have a daughter. She was created from nothing. Well, not quite nothing; there was a biological process involved. A single sperm fertilized an egg. That fertilizing sperm was one of many millions ejaculated into a time and place that was just right, that contained all the necessary pre-conditions for fertilization to take place and then occurred to allow fertilization to take place. The ‘chances’ of that single sperm to be the fertilizing agent was perhaps one in 50 million. Highly unlikely. Almost impossible. Yet it happened. Is this a miracle? Well, from a probability standpoint, each and every fertilization and implantation and development step leading to a successful childbirth seems so unlikely that it is often confused with being evidence for the miraculous. As parents, we often feel this sense that human life itself is both fragile and miraculous, which is perfectly understandable… especially when we understand mathematically how unlikely the entire fertilization to birth process is to yield a healthy newborn. But is it a supernatural event? Does human progeny give us evidence for a supernatural design agent? I don’t think so because we have a perfectly reasonable biological understanding of all the processes involved and our understanding requires no supernatural agent. Although fertilization seems so unlikely, it does not mean fertilization is a random process. It occurs every minute of every day all over the globe, so much so that this highly unlikely event is actually common place because of the numbers of occurrences involved.”]
Defend the Word: I have several friends who are Doctors of Medicine and one of them is a research fellow (The title of research fellow is used to denote a research position at a university or similar institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act as independent investigator, or under the supervision of a principal investigator. In contrast to a research assistant or research officer, the position of research fellow, normally requires a doctoral degree or equivalent work.) What I find interesting is that they all Believe in Creation story, so these are not only Doctors with PhD’s but they are also involved with some Post Doctoral studies. Their reluctance to get involved with the research on the subject of Evolution is usually explained by the fact that they would be ridiculed and they are not prepared to risk their careers. But on the question of Creation they all state that their scientific background is not stopping them from believing in creation story. This is one of the main reasons why we have limited work on the “process of creationism” if I can call it that. So saying that one is more scientific then the other can be explained with the fact that one is far more controlling and dominant I am sure that someone who so lovely puts his side of the argument (I mean you) you would be aware of the definition of Paradigm shift that always existed on almost all subjects in the history of Science. I therefore consider it to be inappropriate to dismiss one side simply because majority of people say something different. Though we could go through this topic separately I consider it important that we understand how our minds work.
And now more directly on your topic of human reproduction and chances, let me redefine the statistics here, I know that this is what Prof Dawkins often uses to explain “unlikely” and translate it into every day event. However few things are missing here.
1.) We know that when man and woman get together this will result in birth of children. This is statistically very probably.
2.) Statistics are also somewhat muddied here by the fact that there are especially when you remember that in fully developed male we are talking about between 40 to 600 million seeds going out at any one time. This is why doctors often talk about this in the form of race. We also know that according to the period that woman will have or the closer to the ovulation period with frequency of intimacy is increased this will then likely determine the sex of the baby. Suddenly stats are saying more about wonderful process that gives us more less even spread of both sexes rather than anything else. Can this be used to say that maybe this is how God planned things to happen so that every woman had her man, I don’t know but certainly makes good sense to me.
Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry
How do we see? In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail, and its sophisticated features astounded everyone who was familiar with them. Scientists of the time correctly observed that if a person were so unfortunate as to be missing one of the eye’s many integrated features, such as the lens, or iris, or ocular muscles, the inevitable result would be a severe loss of vision or outright blindness. So it was concluded that the eye could only function if it were nearly intact.
Here is a paraphrase of Darwin’s argument. Although humans have complex camera-type eyes, many animals get by with less. Some tiny creatures have just a simple group of pigmented cells, or not much more than a light sensitive spot. That simple arrangement can hardly be said to confer vision, but it can sense light and dark, and so it meets the creature’s needs. The light-sensing organ of some starfishes is somewhat more sophisticated. Their eye is located in a depressed region. This allows the animal to sense which direction the light is coming from, since the curvature of the depression blocks off light from some directions. If the curvature becomes more pronounced, the directional sense of the eye improves. But more curvature lessens the amount of light that enters the eye, decreasing its sensitivity. The sensitivity can be increased by placement of gelatinous material in the cavity to act as a lens. Some modern animals have eyes with such crude lenses. Gradual improvements in the lens could then provide an image of increasing sharpness, as the requirements of the animal’s environment dictated.
