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 61 of 61)
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mac at 12:15AM on Apr 24th 2008
902.
Renzo - I believe you are right, Father John is not a Christian, or he is what we call a camouflage Christian. Looks like the world, acts like the world, and even smells like the world. Blends right in.
BTW - great post
Man_in_Wilderness at 12:16AM on Apr 24th 2008
903. Jesus is not historical and that is well documented. At least the Jesus of the synoptic gospels. Jesus is yehoshua ben pandira who lived about 100 years before the myhtical jesus. you can look it up.
Eric at 11:22AM on Apr 24th 2008
904. Even Atheists such as Richard Dawkins is forced to unite with the superstitious regarding visiting aliens in order to avoid the scientific evidence of intelligent design inherent within this physical world. You can hear his comment on the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." These Atheists merely demonstrate that they have used Darwinism to advance science-FICTION novels because the very complex proteins they have imagined which had to form by chance DO NOT formulate naturally nor is there any evidence for such processes within any topographical level of the earth’s crust. Let’s let the facts speak for themselves and let’s not speak for the lack of facts.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com
FORMER ATHEIST at 6:55PM on Apr 24th 2008
905. Entropy!
How can evolution and entropy... get along?
Michelle at 6:39PM on Apr 24th 2008
906. 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"
Renzo,
You will find depictions of crosses and stakes before Jesus' crucifixion. To tie a depiction of a cross to Christianity does not give credence that the cross is a christen symbol. In fact, the cross was embedded the in the culture of the pre-Christians peoples in Mesopotamia long before Jesus was hung on it. One example is of Attis, a well known deity who nails himself to a pine-tree, and bled to death on the spot. This mythology on suicide can be seen condemned in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 "Cursed is he who hangs upon a tree."
This death and resurrection cult was found in every ancient temple of pagan culture (different story, same ideology) It was played out in temples with statues of gods representing the motion of the sun through the constellations, including the "sun" hanging on the southern cross, which signified the death and rebirth of vegetation. This cosmic theater was popular even in Roman times so "death of a god on the cross" was a common symbology and the artists depiction of the Alexanmenos sebete theon can also be applied to these cults.
CONSTANTINE was a worshipper of APOLLO, the Sun god. Constantine is the man that chose the Pagan Cross of Tammuz to represent the first Christian Church. It has been found on the vestments of Greek gods and goddesses, but also on the Tunic of Athena, Horus, Adonis.......
goddess1prevail at 3:31AM on Apr 25th 2008
907. By their own admissions many reject God's account of creation as recorded in the book of Genesis, therefore I can only conclude that someone who rejects God's Word is in unbelief of God's Word. With this in mind I don't know what else to call someone in unbelief except for an unbeliever. Perhaps some would feel more comfortable if I called them agnostics, yet by definition an agnostic is still an unbeliever so we're back to square one.
In fact I think many are confused about what a Christian actually is. Consider that the demons in hell believe in the Creator and tremble. Are we to be satisfied with a demonic faith?
It doesn't take anything akin to saving faith to say, "Gee, you know the world is really complex and amazing and I think there must be a creator behind all of this". This is called natural revelation and is seen by all men everywhere. In fact in conjunction with his own conscience placed by God inside of him the natural revelation is constantly pointing an accusing finger at the unrepentant sinner and screaming GUILTY! GUILTY!! GUILTY!!!
Atheists stand over against natural revelation and attempt to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, yet the atheist and the unregenerate (i.e. not born-again) creationist stand on equal ground with respect to their unbelief and eternal condemnation lest they bend the knee to the Christian God as He has revealed Himself in the Holy Bible.
I utterly reject statements to the effect that "Measurable, observable physical evidence is the best attempt at countering the truth claims of evolutionary theory”. At the heart of this matter is depraved, sinful man's wholesale rejection of God; not anything like a lack of "evidence" for or against God. The evidence for God is overwhelming and indisputable, yet wicked men simply reject the evidence because they hate God and love their sin. In place of God they set up secular-humanistic, natural-materialistic idol gods in a vain effort to salve their seared consciences.
Since the fall in the garden men have, by nature, stopped their ears and ran screaming away from God as fast as they can because of their depraved, wicked, unregenerate and invariably sinful natures.
Nothing like evidence for the existence of God is a cure for unbelief. Instead the Eternal Gospel is the singular solution to culture and unbelief, even the type of unbelief that's masked as intellectualism and science.
Therefore the worldlings can have their worldly wisdom so-called. They can confer diplomas and bestow titles upon one another and call each other "Doctor", and "Professor" until they turn blue in the face and turn back into the dust from whence they came; but God Almighty has seen fit to make the wisdom of this world foolishness by the preaching of the cross.
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty - 1 Corinthians 1:27
Each and every time professing Christians seek after the world's approval and esteem it results in apostasy, heresy, rank idolatry and finally unbelief...every time! Compromise with the world has always been the evil key that unlocks the door to the sad and predictable demise of God's people in every age.
Am I anti-evolution? Am I anti-intellectualism? Am I anti-consensus? Am I being divisive? Some would say so, and I would accept that I am guilty as charged, but I would of course choose a more positive frame of reference for my position -- I'm pro-Gospel.
Joseph at 8:17AM on Apr 25th 2008
908. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Since the explosion on atheistic rhetoric in the last couple of years, and then with the more recent movement towards creationism, I now feel, more than ever, the same as I did before:
Agnostic
Dinesh, both you and Dawkins are flawed.My response to you both is simple: Humans can't comprehend certain things.
Here is a simple Philosophy for both believers and non-believers:
It's really OK to not have the answers to some things. It's really OK to say "I don't know, I can't know".
Do I have answers for you? No. Answers may exist, but we either haven't yet found them, or are unable to comprehend them.
Dinesh, to "believe" in something because there is no alternative explanation is foolish and you should know better. If there is a God, would he want you to believe in him based on this rationale? I wouldn't think so. Here is a question to answer. Instead of "How did life come about" let's ask "Why did life come about"
I'd like to hear the theistic reason for this. Why did god create life? Well it would appear he created life to judge us, condemn those who don't follow his rules to eternal damnation on those that do to paradise. What was his purpose in all of this? Then eventually, destroy all existence with the sun becomes a red giant (so much for your fine tuned universe theory - although 5 billion years away, this is proven. This will be the end of any life still existent on earth. Although, astronomers believe life will end for certain in about 1 billion anyways when the sun makes our surface so hot that all water boils away. God created this star, right? So he must have wanted humanity to end at some point. Why? And what happens after that?)
Anyways, my point is, religion doesn't have the answer to that. Atheists don't have an explanation. I don't. You don't.
So tell me again, what's wrong with saying "I don't know"?
Brian at 10:56AM on Apr 25th 2008
909. It appears to me that believers of all faiths are missing the point. Why is it so hard to accept that Man does not have all the answers? To anything. We learn more and more each day about the world in the areas of medicine, technology, science and so forth. Religion gave answers to many truths in these fields only to be found incorrect through scientific discovery. We all accept that, I don't know many people who don't go to the doctor when they are sick. So to hold on to this notion that we don't know the exact origin of life now so religion must be the answer, is foreign to me. Answers will come it is only a matter of time and history has proven that. Religion provides less answers everyday for all of us. When the origin of life is discovered what will be the crutch holding up religion then?
Secular American at 10:42AM on Apr 26th 2008
910. The argument of an extra-terrestrial origin for life merely pushes the difficulty back a step, since one would have to explain the origin of the extra-terrestrials. Intelligence and life are really indivisible in their essence. That is why God is called "The Living," since Divine Reality is the origin both of intelligence and of life.
The fundamental argument against atheism will always be that relative reality presupposes absolute Reality. The unconditionally Real is a necessary axiom, in fact the primordially necessary axiom. Absoluteness implies infinitude, hence totality and eternity.
Jim at 7:32PM on Apr 27th 2008