My last blog remarked on the fact that Richard Dawkins, one of the world's leading atheists, now believes in the possibility of "intelligent design." Dawkins is quite willing to grant that life may have originated on earth not by evolution nor by some chance combination of chemicals. He knows how infinitesimal are the odds of random chemicals simply mixing together to produce, say, the first cell. Even the simplest cell is more complicated than the most elaborate human inventions, such as the jet airplane or the most advanced computer. Consequently Dawkins told Ben Stein that maybe smart aliens deposited life on earth. I call this the ET explanation. Intelligent design is okay with Dawkins as long as that intelligent design does not involve a supernatural creator.
Some atheists on this blog are not happy with Dawkins' ET explanation. They want to go back to the early twentieth-century view that somehow the chemicals must have assembled together to produce the first cells. And the favorite piece of evidence is the 1953 experiment conducted by Harold Urey and Stanley Miller. Urey and Miller were operating on Darwin's hopeful assumption that perhaps life originated accidentally in some "warm little pond." They mixed together various chemical compounds, including hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water. To their delight they were able to generate organic compounds, including a small tincture of amino acids.
For a decade or so this generated enormous excitement in the scientific community. But then two things happened to take the wind out of the Urey-Miller balloon. First, scientists found that the early conditions on earth were nothing like the ones that Urey and Miller envisioned. For one, there was virtually no oxygen on the earth in its early stages. So even if chemicals somehow came together to produce organic compounds and amino acids, they could not have done so in anything like the way that Urey and Miller showed.
Second, biologists seeking to try and create life in the laboratory discovered that the really difficult thing is not producing amino acids. It is converting those amino acids into proteins. Here is where things get really complicated, and here is where chance really collapses as a reasonable explanation. For the details I direct you to Franklin Harold's scholarly yet accessible The Way of the Cell. Harold notes that as a consequence of the two developments listed above, the Urey-Miller experiments are now largely dismissed as a viable hypothesis of life's origin. And of course knowledgeable atheists like Dawkins and Francis Crick know this, which is why they have fled to the ET explanation--an explanation that would seem to require at least as much faith as believing in divine creation.
If you enjoy seeing atheist arguments exploded in this way--or even if you're an atheist with masochistic tendencies--you may want to attend one of my "God v. Atheism" debates this week. On Monday, April 21 I'll be debating philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong at Dartmouth College. The debate is at 8 pm in Alumni Hall on the Dartmouth campus. On Tuesday, April 22 I'll be debating Dan Barker, head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, at Harvard. The debate is at Memorial Church, 1 Harvard Yard, at 8 pm. Finally on Friday April 25 I debate the controversial philosopher Peter Singer at Biola University. The debate is at Chase Gymnasium on the Biola campus near Los Angeles. You can get tickets at the door or at apologeticsevents.com.
Reader Comments ( Page 60 of 61)
886.
875. tay - I do read your posts. But now I think that you are not only talking to yourself, I do that too, but now you are answering yourself. Y'all have a nice day at the roller rink. Heck go skate with them, and have a blast.
Man_in_Wilderness at 2:44PM on Apr 23rd 2008
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I should have known that this is what I would get.
I don't know if the other poster is genuine or not, but I thought they were, and I couldn't ignore them. So, if I look like a fool for responding, or if you think I'm talking to myself, I don't care.
I wouldn't doubt that you set me up for this.
tay at 8:46PM on Apr 23rd 2008
887. I say, "Things are mutable OVER TIME", trying to demonstrate that the mutabliliy of a thing DEPENDS on time passing by, which make Mike's definition of time circular.
Mike responds, "I, too, had much fun in high school by concatenating dictionary definitions."
Let's never mind that Mike's original comment seems to be trying to describe the universe scientifically (especially in terms of time) then declares that 'eternity' is just not the same thing, concluding with his pathetic analogy of a 'picture of an instance of time' vs. 'a motion picture'.
Let's now imagine Mike in High School, having fun with words and his implication that I'm doing the same thing.
Let's NOT notice that Mike keeps implying that he has a 'huge brain' compared to my 'little brain'... no, ignore this, but pay particular attention when I don't bother implying anything. I just come right out and say, "Mike(Himself) you are a pompous ass!
Let's try to imagine that Mike is being MORE honest with his snide little 'suggestions' of my lack of intellect.
Close your eyes boys and girls and TRY to picture Mike's smug face and pompous ass while he is slipping in these put-downs.
Now it seems because MIke can be vague about his put-downs, we are to imagine that HE has somehow answered the question.
Oh, yea, you DID just answer with a vague put-down about the circularity of the definition of time... it was a 'high-school' thing that you used to do.
Nothing pompous here, move along!
not-pboyfloyd at 4:29PM on Apr 23rd 2008
888. "Also, isn't it interesting that the cross isn't represented in Christian art until about the 4th century?"
Look up the "Alexamenos Graffito," which dates around the end of the second century. It's a crude drawing, probably by a slave, that depicts a man worshipping another man on a cross (the man on the cross is drawn with the head of an ass), and it is accompanied by the words 'alexamenos sebete theon' (Alexamenos worships god). Scholars believe it was drawn to ridicule the Christian religion, so sure, it's not Christian art, but it does provide us with a visual depiction of the Christian god (ridiculed with the head of an ass) on *a cross*. So this pushes the notion that Jesus was put to death on a cross back to 170 years after his death.
Ryan, and I read your responses to Mike, but I found them to be weak. I think he made the much stronger case. Keep in mind that I'm talking about his arguments, not about his conclusions. I don't give a rat's rear end about a person's conclusions, whether I agree or disagree with them: show me the argument. In this instance, Mike's position was well thought out, nicely articulated, and -- in my opinion -- weakly responded to.
Renzo at 5:09PM on Apr 23rd 2008
889. MIW...
See, I told you that you could have the three days and three nights in your head(showing Matthews prophecy to be right....
... and still be able to declare that Jesus rose on the third day.
It is called compartmentalized thinking.
not-pboyfloyd at 5:02PM on Apr 23rd 2008
890. Linda.... the whole crux timing issue... he was taken into custody right after passover supper... the thursday night? i don't know where the 3pm comes from... It is interesting that it was the timing of Passover (Happy belated passover)b/c he described himself as the passover lamb. I love the symbolism... you probably know more of the customs,etc...
Shannie at 5:38PM on Apr 23rd 2008
891. I was invited (and went) to a sadir dinner when i was knee high to a grasshopper. Pretty cool. It was (to my failing recollection) mostly about the history of the jewish people. It was an enjoyable experience.
a born atheist at 6:12PM on Apr 23rd 2008
892. Renzo; the Alexamenos Graffito is in Rome, where they used roman crosses to crucify people. The artist would have most likely not known that in Palestine, people were crucified on steaks.
"and I read your responses to Mike, but I found them to be weak"
Maybe so, but I still fail to see how the fact that a someone designed a jet engine means that there is a personal and loving "jet engine designer" that watches over all jet engines.
I know the argument is for intelligent design, but since the Universe is not a jet engine, it doesn't hold.
Ryan Anderson at 9:13PM on Apr 23rd 2008
893. Father John, I question your sincerity. I doubt that you are in fact a priest. If you were, you'd certainly know that the bible tells us to be ready to defend our beliefs (1 Peter and Acts). Not only that, but many of writings of the early church fathers were apologetical in nature (remember Contra Celsus?), and this tradition has continued right up to the present day (Newman, Chesterton, Lewis, Swinburne, Mcgrath, Plantinga, et al). Surely, a man who claims to be a priest cannot be this ignorant. And as far as your claiming not to know of 'any' Christians who were converted by the arguments of atheists, well, this just shows that you don't pay very close attention to what the atheists are saying. Most admit that they were raised as Christians, but began to question their faith in college, after studying philosophy and science. (I personally don't think that science can logically lead on away from faith in god, and that any such move is flawed, but philosophy -- and history -- certainly can). Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker are prominent examples of former Christians who were persuaded by atheist arguments. Also, there's a 'conversion corner' over at Dawkins.net which displays the stories of those who have turned to atheism after having read Dawkins' books. In short, I find it extremely hard to believe that a priest would have such a problem with a man like D'souza doing his best to defend the intellectual grounds of Christianity against the vicious and often highly misleading attacks of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Onfray, Ehrman and Grayling (Dennett's attacks are not so much misleading and viscious, so I didn't include him here). I notice that you never have anything but nice things to say about atheists, and bad things to say about Christians. I suspect that you're actually a regular posing as a priest, but I have no dispositive evidence of this, so it remains, for the time being, merely a suspicion.
Renzo at 9:43PM on Apr 23rd 2008
894. "Renzo; the Alexamenos Graffito is in Rome, where they used roman crosses to crucify people."
I'm aware of this, but it doesn't change the fact that we have a depiction of Christ on a cross much earlier than the fourth century (I've heard dates for the Graffito ranging from the late first century to the early third century, with most falling in the second century). Is it possible that this depiction is a result of the fact that someone living in Rome would've been more familiar with the use of a cross? Sure. But it's also possible that 'artist' was depicting Christ on a cross because that is what Christians in Rome had been taught by the early missionaries. We can't settle the issue either way, but it does at least provide evidence that Jesus was thought by some to have been crucified on a cross 200 years before you claimed. But when you tie this to other evidence: the evolution of the primary meaning of the greek word 'stauros' from 'stake' in Homer to 'cross' by the first centry; the references to a cross by the early second century authors Justin Martyr, Clement and Irenaeus, who report teaching the traditions of Christianity they have received from the apostles; we have archaelogical evidence that confirms the notion that crosses were used in Jerusalem in the first century (see "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv’at ha-Mivtar"); and so on. So it would appear that the weight of the evidence is with the cross, but as I said, it's not overwhelming. But it is certainly quite reasonable, given the evidence alone, to conclude that it is more likely than not that Jesus was executed on a cross.
Renzo at 9:47PM on Apr 23rd 2008
895. Renzo; Giv’at ha-Mivtar is less than conclusive. And that would be about all of the physical evidence of ancient crucifixion, so I wouldn't say there is much weight to it.
Ryan Anderson at 10:02PM on Apr 23rd 2008
896.
MIW - you're kind of a jerk.
tay, sorry you're getting accused like that. I don't post a lot, but I post enough that all the regulars would recognize my normal name if I wanted to reveal it.
Oh, and today didn't turn out so good after all, although it had nothing to do with me. My daughter fell skating and fractured a bone in her wrist.
Spring Break became a little too literal for us today. Not to mention the skating outing turned out more expensive than we planned. :(
psychodelic day today at 10:07PM on Apr 23rd 2008
897.
psychodelic day today
No worries. I already knew MIW was a jerk. I'm not going to let him get to me.
I'm sorry today didn't turn out the way you planned. I did the same thing the first time I went ice skating(in Arizona, of all places). Hopefully the rest of Spring Break will be better for you and your daughter.
Take care, no more broken bones!
tay at 11:19PM on Apr 23rd 2008
898. tay- post 891 I was saying that in a light hearted way. I certainly did not set you up for anything. I just thought you were joking around and going back and forth. And I thought you were taking the kids skating. Sorry if I offended you.
Man_in_Wilderness at 12:02AM on Apr 24th 2008
899. Please explain, how was that being a jerk?
Man_in_Wilderness at 12:03AM on Apr 24th 2008
900. psychodelic day and tay - my sincere apologies, I thought y'all were one in the same. I was being nice, if y'all were the same. TY very much.
Man_in_Wilderness at 12:11AM on Apr 24th 2008