Over the past couple of weeks an especially determined atheist has been writing me, offering me $1000 if I can make God appear to Him in such a way that he can see and touch Him. The atheist just finished reading my book What's So Great About Christianity and it disturbed him, because it challenged his assumptions. Still, he demands unquestionable empirical confirmation. If I can only make God show his face, my correspondent sarcastically suggests, he would be happy to join the ranks of the believers.
In some ancient religions, where gods were considered to be made of the same material substance as other matter, this would be a reasonable (or at least a meaningful) challenge. But all the great religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, regard God as an immaterial spirit. If the atheist is willing to consider the possibility that such a God exists--as all open-minded atheists must do--then the question becomes: how can we know of the existence of immaterial things?
Scientists believe in immaterial things. How about gravity? I should write back my betting friend, offering him $1000 if he can make gravity appear to me in such a way that I can see and touch it. But of course he would indignantly reply that gravity is a force, and the existence of forces cannot be verified through direct sensory experience. Rather, their existence must be inferred through their effects. We know that something is making objects plummet to the earth. We know that something is causing the light from the sun in certain cases to bend. That something we call gravity.
Or consider dark matter and dark energy. I haven't seen them, and I bet you haven't either. In fact, no one has. The reason they are called "dark" is because they don't emit light. So how can we reasonably believe in such invisible, immaterial things? The existence of dark matter is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter. The existence of dark energy is inferred from the accelerated rate at which galaxies are flying away from each other. Scientists reason that something is holding galaxies together, and something else is causing them (and space itself) to fly apart. These somethings we call dark matter and dark energy. Interestingly scientists believe that dark matter and dark energy make up more than 90 percent of all the matter in the universe.
Applying the same mode of reasoning, I would argue that some immaterial force caused the universe to come into existence. Here is the proof: a) All material things that have a beginning must have a cause, b) We know from the Big Bang theory that the universe (not just matter but space and time itself) had a beginning, c) Therefore the universe has a cause.
Now that cause can be natural or supernatural, but we can rule out a natural cause since the universe encompasses all of nature. It is simply ridiculous to say that nature, which once did not exist, somehow caused itself to come into existence. Some people like to talk about "multiple universes" or even an infinity of universes but they have to admit that they are just making those up: there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that any universe exists except our own. Much of this kind of talk seems to be a desperate way of trying to get around the idea of God. It's faith-based atheism.
It's must more reasonable--and, invoking Occam's razor, much more intellectually parsimonious--to believe that the universe came into existence because of a non-natural or (as theists would say) supernatural cause. That cause we call God.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 33)
16. Actually Dinesh makes a valid arguement here, especially concerning Dark Matter. Not to mention that if God were to be presented empirically, it would be dismissed as fabricated. I think there is a little too much personification going on here, as in creating a God that would think and reason and feel as a human would (Greeks did that). Of course, you could argue that if we're made in God's image...then that must be true. Assuming the Bible is right, which it probably isn't.
In response to K's post about why didn't God made 5 trillion angels....who's to say that didn't happen? Perhaps we are angels in physical form. Perhaps we are here to experience a temporary life, since death is what gives life it's purpose. Maybe we have to live and learn here, in order to appreciate what is to come.
Who's to know? Everyone who does can't tell us, and even if they did, who'd believe somebody who talks to angels? Right?
Strados at 11:27AM on Jan 28th 2008
17. "He owes us nothing,we owe him the very air we breathe."
Then you should give it back, brian.
BTW, Dinesh, there IS a supposed physical manifestation of God, according to the Trinity. We gets folks on here who claim to have met Jesus in the flesh, even have picnics with him.
Mokele-Mobembe at 11:30AM on Jan 28th 2008
18. Thanks Ryan for stating the errs in his comments. why is all the little things happening "all around you" because of god. i would like to take some credit for my achievments as well as my failures.
mick at 11:56AM on Jan 28th 2008
19. DD's usual sophistry -- assume something unverifiable ("All material things that have a beginning must have a cause"), and prove whatever you want ("God exists").
DD: "It is simply ridiculous to say that nature, which once did not exist, somehow caused itself to come into existence."
It's just as ridiculous to say that "God did it"...
Joe Bob at 11:43AM on Jan 28th 2008
20. I should write back my betting friend, offering him $!000 if he can make gravity appear to me in such a way that I can see and touch it.
Well, I think if he pushed you off a cliff you'd see and feel gravity pretty quickly. Of course, he might not be able to collect his winnings.
The Exterminator at 12:19PM on Jan 28th 2008
21. Dark matter and dark energy are nothing more than stopgaps. What they really mean is 'we don't know.' Thay serve the same purpose as a zero, a place holder until such time as we get the data necessary to allow us to answer the question.
Will at 12:00PM on Jan 28th 2008
22. Cognitive
In the torah passages written by priests place god on a spiritual realm
Passages written by those who preserved oral tradition wrote of god as walking and talking alongside with man. He also dwelled on the mountains and enjoyed sacrifices offered to him.
goddess1prevail at 12:04PM on Jan 28th 2008
23. The "Big Bang" is *not* the 'beginning' of the universe per se. We've only got decent models up to the first few femtoseconds *after* the Big Bang - that's just how far back we've been able to push our understanding so far. Once, we couldn't explain where mountains came from, then we found plate tectonics. Then we got a pretty decent idea how the Earth formed, then the solar system, then galaxies, and so forth.
People have always wanted to invoke God where current science hasn't reached yet. See, e.g., here: http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/PerimeterOfIgnorance.php
Besides which, we have never, ever, seen mass/energy be created or destroyed. Ever. So why do people assume the direct opposite, that it must have been created at some point, despite all our experience and experiments to the contrary?
Ray Ingles at 12:10PM on Jan 28th 2008
24. DoubleD, if you were placed on surface of the planet Jupiter, you would definately be able to feel gravity.
JefFlyingV at 12:10PM on Jan 28th 2008
25. @ 2. JC Himself.
"I believe in evolution. My dad made it.". I do too. Great job, BTW.
@ 3. AndrewV
So, if either theory is sound to you why pick the one the one that excludes God?
@ 11.K "Do you think that in an infinite and ageless universe, we are the only intelligent life god decided to create in 2000 years? How long was god 'lonely' until he decided to create us? If he wanted companions why didn't he just make 5 trillion angels?"
No, I don't think we are. I don't know and I can say that you don't know either. Anyway, even if they are, this does not excludes God from the game. Nonsense. And about the Angels, well, you don't know that too. How many angels there are?
@ 12, Chris. Sorry, good try, but "gravitron" is, at the moment, as good as parallel universe. IF (and this is a huge if) they exist, you can not observe them. Faith-based atheism...
@13 Ryan Anderson. Again, gravity is not observable, Its effects are. Movement and weight (or lack of it) are observable, gravity, not. A little In the same way your actions are observable but not your thoughts. I can risk to say something about your thoughts by observing your actions, but I cannot observe your thoughts in any way. Even If I attach sensors to your brain and check your brainwaves, I can only monitor the waves, the nice pictures on the computer, but not the thoughts. The only person who can do that is yourself. Nice try, but gravity is beyond observation.
Galakto at 12:10PM on Jan 28th 2008
26. The key difference between gods and the forces and entities studied by science is that the former are *defined* to be unknowable, forever beyond human ken. What's the difference between a god performing miracles and a powerful alien doing things humans can't? The alien is, at least in principle, comprehensible by humans.
The problem with declaring something 'unknowable' it that it's always premature. You can't know something's unknowable. All you can do is try to understand things. If you succeed, then they were knowable. If you fail, though, perhaps you or someone else will succeed later, once the right insight comes along.
Lots of things - lightning, cellular reproduction, the movements of the planets - have been declared to be unknowable, only to fall to later investigation. The only reason for assuming something to be forever unknowable is if you don't *want* to understand it.
Ray Ingles at 12:16PM on Jan 28th 2008
27. 23. @ 2. JC Himself.
"I believe in evolution. My dad made it.". I do too. Great job, BTW.
---
Why thank you. I'd pass on the word, if only He existed as a personality and not a force.
On following my actions and words and not those of the church and of vain men written in an old book, not such a great job, BTW.
Jesus Christ Himself at 12:29PM on Jan 28th 2008
28. Tautology-Definition
“An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.”
Remember in Philosophy 101 classes were students were warned to avoid tautological arguments? Apparently, DD was absent that day. Here is his “proof” that the universe has a cause.
“I would argue that some immaterial force caused the universe to come into existence. Here is the proof: a) All material things that have a beginning must have a cause, b) We know from the Big Bang theory that the universe (not just matter but space and time itself) had a beginning, c) Therefore the universe has a cause.”
What does “cause” even mean in this instance? If it is used here to mean “happen, or beginning” then DD’s statements reduce to “things that have happened, happened” or “things that begun have a beginning”. If he intends “cause” to mean “purpose”, then his first statement “All material things that have a beginning must have a cause” is not prima facie true.
Ok, skip the whacko quasi-logic DD and I’ll stipulate that the universe has a physical cause. How do you get from that statement and your apparent acceptance of a “Big Bang-like” event to your dismissal of evolutionary science, etc? Talk about a leap of logic!
Also, I agree with other posters on this site who say that God was thought to be material being albeit a “superbeing”, contrary to the ravings of DD in this current article. Who’s that cat with the white beard and flowing robes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel holding his hand out to Adam? That scene was painted with the approval and support of the Church. How does God intercede in the material world if He is not material as well? What about Man being created in God’s image? What is an “image” if not a physical representation? (and, yes, I know there are many out there who will provide their own definitions of the word “image” rather than read it literally as it was intended.)
John Galt
John Galt at 12:29PM on Jan 28th 2008
29. what an idiotic argument - I have to paste some of this forward. I can't believe this guy gets paid for this. I'll parenthize my comments.
But all the great religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, regard God as an immaterial spirit. (he'll get argument here as god appears to man in elohist scripture and he makes man in his image, not that I care much, but it's inaccurate.)
If the atheist is willing to consider the possibility that such a God exists--as all open-minded atheists must do (first, one's mind doesn't have to be so open his brains fall out, and next, it is a fallacy to group people who are disinterested in religion together, much less make some sort of common demand as to what 'their' behavior 'must' be.
I'm personally unconvinced by any argument I've ever heard supporting religion, and I'm really not interested in hearing any more were it not for the invasion of government by dominionism - human language is not equipped to deal with omnipotence logically)--then the question becomes: how can we know of the existence of immaterial things?
(the answer is the provence of most scientific endeavors. they are measured and expressed in terms of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biochemistry in a manner that is independently verifiable and reproducable. Gravity, for example can certainly be felt and its mitigation is immediately effective on numerous senses including kinesthetics. Moreover, it can be explained and calculated by science from newton on, and is accounted for via general relativity.)
Or consider dark matter and dark energy. I haven't seen either, and I bet you haven't either. In fact, no one has. The reason they are called "dark" is because they don't emit light. So how can we reasonably believe in such invisible, immaterial things? (This is a bet he's lost. If you look at the aol header for the disintegration of the spy satellite, you'll see a link to a photograph of dark matter. This man is still debating the status of science from decades if not centuries ago - there'll be more of this later.)
The existence of dark matter is [inferred] from its gravitational effects on visible matter. The existence of dark energy is [inferred] from the accelerated rate at which galaxies are flying away from each other. Scientists [reason] that something is holding galaxies together, and something else is causing them (and space itself) to fly apart. These somethings we call dark matter and dark energy. Interestingly scientists [believe] that dark matter and dark energy make up more than 90 percent of all the matter in the universe.
(I bracketed some flag words that he's building a straw man, viz. that science is based on inference, reasoning and belief. The reality is that this is the science of astrophysics, and these things are mathematically expressed in terms of physics and mathematics that is very well known and measurement that is similarly rigourous. He's trying to portray science as metaphoric so he can approach it while abandoning the rigor that generated specifics he generalizes about in the last statement. Look where it's going!)
Applying the same mode of reasoning, I would argue that some immaterial force caused the universe to come into existence.
(It is at this point that the entire scheme is out of the bag - he permits a leap into metaphor by using the 'same mode of reasoning'.
First, 'mode' if not a musical term means fashion, or statistically, most popular. He probably means 'method' but he certainly knows his METHOD is metaphoric and NOT scientific so he tries to get away with using a term improperly to reframe everything metaphorically.
However, astropysics does not deal in metaphor unless it's to explain to a layman like this guy - it's an extremely rigorous discipline.
The 'method' of reasoning is scientific. Arguing against it would demand similar rigor, not metaphors. It's phase two of the straw man tactic.)
Here is the proof: a) All material things that have a beginning must have a cause, b) We know from the Big Bang theory that the universe (not just matter but space and time itself) had a beginning, c) Therefore the universe has a cause.
(I omitted his statement, but if the proof is crap, the statement can't hold. Keep in mind, he's off into metaphor land, but his grasp of science is from forty or fifty years ago.
First, science has understood for a long time now that just because humans percieive time as a straight line of existence with a beginning and end, the universe is under no such obligation. Investigation of quantum mechanics certainly modifies the concept of both time and dimension by ignoring both. Obviously more is going on, as modern science is currently finding out. Maybe this fellow will too, some day.
The idea that the 'big bang' was a 'beginning' is not by any means canonical. Pre-existing mathematics and physics can work through the event and arrive at a clearer picture via what's referred to as m-theory. Also, the concept of multidimensional time is being seriously studied, and is also supported by rigorous mathematics. To conclude that the 'big bang' is the beginning of anything is to commit a false step based on a misunderstanding of 21st century astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. These are areas that have much to teach laymen, but it is absurd to believe that a layman could argue against established or cutting edge science armed only with homemade and extremely inaccurate metaphors.)
Some people like to talk about "multiple universes" or even an infinity of universes but they have to admit that they are just making those up: there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that any universe exists except our own
(this is just wishful thinking. If he wants to attack the mathematics of Ed Witten and the other m-theorists, he'll have to actually do it, not posture. If his argument hadn't already been derailed, it would hit the fence again here - hastily formed metaphors based on wishful thinking and dissembly meant to distract, or the work of the best and brightest in mathematics, physics, particle physics and cosmology which has no foreordained conclusion hemming them in.
If this is his 'debate technique' it wouldn't have cut it in my day.
Clif Kuplen at 12:31PM on Jan 28th 2008
30. Galakto; OK, the effects of gravity are observable and gravity itself is measurable.
Also, your thoughts ARE observable as electronic pulses if you have the right equipment.
Either way, neither god, nor the "effects of god" are observable or measurable.
Ryan Anderson at 2:06PM on Jan 28th 2008