This is a continuation of my response to the Christian apologetics book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek. Read part 1 here.

Fine Tuning Argument (the Anthropic Principle)

Geisler and Turek (I’ll refer to the book as GT) make the typical fine-tuning argument.

If the gravitational force were altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent, our sun would not exist, and, therefore, neither would we. Talk about precision! (p. 102)

Science is working on lots of puzzles, and it tends to resolve them. Let’s give it time.

As for the part about we being a result of the universe, if we reran the Big Bang to get another universe with the same fundamental constants, humans wouldn’t exist. A universe with humans is like being dealt a particular hand of cards, and if the deck were reshuffled and dealt again, we’d get a different hand. We care that we exist, but nature doesn’t. The only interesting question is whether life (or intelligent life) would exist in a different universe.

The most effective arguments from the Christian side are obtuse ones like this fine-tuning argument, and that shows the weakness of their position. Instead of obvious evidence for God (we’re told God deeply wants us to know him, so why isn’t his existence indisputable?), Christians must point to some oddity within nature as a clue. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, God has (for these apologists) devolved into “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Maybe God is telling you he doesn’t exist.

GT next rambles on about the fine tuning of the Earth’s conditions, but I wonder, what fine tuning? Over the Earth’s 4.6 billion-year life, conditions have changed dramatically. For example, the oxygen level in the atmosphere is now 21%, but it’s varied wildly over the last 600 million years. Initially 0%, it has risen to over 30% for two long periods. The temperature has also changed, and the Snowball Earth hypothesis speculates that most or all of the water on earth may have been frozen in one or more periods before 650 million years ago. If life can continue through these chaotic conditions, perhaps it’s a lot more robust than we imagine.

The Multiverse hypothesis—that our universe is just one of uncountably many other universes governed by different constants—is a corollary of well-established science (cosmic inflation) and nicely rebuts the challenge of fine tuning. To avoid repeating additional responses I’ve made before, I’ll just provide links: Sean M. Carroll’s response to fine tuning, some other innovative responses, and my response to a previous Frank Turek argument for fine tuning.

Problem of Divine Hiddenness

GT parrots the free-will argument given by C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters:

The Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of [God’s] scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. (p. 31)

Oh, please. God is forbidden from making his presence known because then we’d know for sure that he exists? Adam, Eve, Abraham, Moses, and the others in the Old Testament had direct experience of God, and they didn’t complain. The disciples not only saw Jesus but watched him do miracles, and their free will wasn’t violated. A stranger doesn’t impose on my free will when he comes into my sight. This childish argument is what you’d fall back on if there were no god.

This is Stupid Argument #19a, “God’s making himself plainly known would impose on your free will.”

The Road Runner Tactic

This is GT’s name for the trick of exposing a self-refuting statement, of turning a sweeping generalization back on itself. For example, if someone said, “There is no truth,” GT would ask in response, “Is that statement true?” to show that the statement refutes itself (p. 38). Or to “All truth is relative,” ask, “Is that a relative truth?”

If we supposed that GT encourages us to use precise language, this observation about self-refuting statements is helpful, but that’s not their goal. GT is more interested in sidestepping tough questions. Many of these self-refuting statements are simply poorly worded and can be easily salvaged into an incisive challenge. For example:

Bob the Atheist: “There is no absolute truth.”

Christian apologist: “That sounds like a pretty absolute statement to me, smart guy—you’ve undercut your own statement!”

Bob the Atheist: “Okay, fair point. Let me rephrase: I see no evidence for absolute moral truth. If you claim otherwise, provide the evidence.”

And then the conversation proceeds beyond this little roadblock. More.

Awe

We’re all subject to powerful feelings like awe, and GT imagine this as a point in their favor.

A recitation of [some scientific theory] certainly wouldn’t have expressed the awe the astronauts were experiencing [when they saw the Earth rise over the Moon]. (p. 111)

And analyzing love or courage or selflessness through brain chemistry or quantum mechanics might also be a bland explanation, but it could still be correct. Scientific theories don’t give awe, but science certainly does. Let’s remember that we got to the moon using science! The Bible’s insight about the moon is to describe it as “the lesser light to govern the night.” Uh huh—awe inspiring.

Genesis gives the uninformed speculations of a primitive desert tribe from 3000 years ago. If you want awe, use science. Try this experiment: go outside on a clear night. Hold out your hand, arm extended, and look at the nail of your little finger. That fingernail covers roughly 18 million galaxies, and each galaxy has roughly 100 billion stars. Imagine how many planets are behind your fingernail. Imagine how many of those might be inhabited by intelligent beings! Look at how vast the sky is compared to that one tiny patch.

And how does the Bible treat this inconceivable vastness? With a single word in Hebrew that is translated, “[God] also made the stars” (Gen. 1:16). Yawn. I get my awe from science, not from the Bible.

Science gives you the vastness of the universe, the energy of a supernova, the bizarreness of quantum physics, and the complexity of the human body. The writers of the Bible were constrained by their imagination, and there is so much out there that they couldn’t begin to imagine.

Continued in part 4.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/31/15.)

Image from Gisela Giardino, CC license
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This is a continuation of my response to the Christian apologetics book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek. Read part 1 here.

For more, I recommend an excellent and thorough critique by fellow Patheos atheist Jeffery Jay Lowder.

Let’s move on to some vaguely science-y arguments in I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.

Cosmological Argument

Geisler and Turek (GT) uses the familiar form of this argument:

1. Everything that had a beginning had a cause
2. The universe had a beginning
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause (page 75)

Why the “that had a beginning” caveat? The phrase is obviously added to avoid the challenge, “But if the universe had a cause (let’s call it ‘God’), what caused God?” What that premise is trying to say is, “Everything had a beginning . . . except God.” That’s a remarkable claim, and we need evidence before we accept that God had no beginning.

GT labels premise 1 the “Law of Causality,” but a fancy label doesn’t make it right. Who says it is? Indeed, the popular Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics says that it’s wrong: at the quantum level, events don’t always have causes. For example, when an electron, neutrino, or photon comes out of a decaying atomic nucleus, that event had no cause.

Even if “Everything that had a beginning had a cause” were always true, we’re talking about two different kinds of “begins to exist.” In our world, everything that begins comes from something else. The oak tree comes, not only from the acorn, but from sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients. Even quantum particles, virtual or otherwise, come from the matter or energy that was there before. But GT is talking about the universe, which they think came from absolutely nothing. Science knows of no examples of such a thing happening, and we’ve entered the realm of science fiction. Or religion.

Another problem is that cause implies time. X wasn’t there, then the cause happened, and now X is there. But how does this make sense when there is no time before the Big Bang?

Here are a few more points:

• This is just a deist argument. If I found it convincing, I’d still be far from Christianity.
• Physicist Sean Carroll has responded to William Lane Craig’s attempt at this argument (my summary of that debate).
• I write more about Christians’ attempts to defend against the rebuttal, “If God caused the universe, what caused God?” here.
• I critique the Kalam Cosmological Argument here and here.
• Christian philosophers like Craig often introduce pop philosophy (that is, common sense that’s labeled “philosophy”) into the conversation. This doesn’t help.

Thermodynamics

You know the witticism about knowing just enough to be dangerous? That’s GT within science. I just wish their readership were skeptical enough to catch their negligence. Or deception.

If a wind-up clock is running down, then someone must have wound it up. (p. 77)

Why someone? Why not something? GT’s agenda is showing. Childish naiveté is appealing when it comes from a child; here it’s just tiresome.

Since we know of no other supernatural explanations for natural things, we won’t be starting now.

And most cosmologists accept the idea of a zero-energy universe in which the positive energy in things like matter is balanced by the negative energy in gravity. No, this appeal to thermodynamics fails. The universe isn’t running down; from a net energy standpoint, it’s doing nothing, and no scientific laws are violated.

Science and Genesis

GT handwaves about the “overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang and its consistency with the biblical account in Genesis” (p. 84).

Yes, the evidence for the Big Bang is overwhelming, but there are no clues to it in the six-day creation account in Genesis. Where in Genesis do you find the idea of a singularity? Inflation? Quantum physics? The unification of the four fundamental forces? 13.8 billion years?

You might respond that Genesis isn’t supposed to be a science textbook, and that’s fine. But someone who says this shouldn’t try to jump on the science bandwagon now.

Here’s how GT could make their case. Give an unbiased person a copy of the six-day creation story in Genesis, and ask for a one-page summary of the main scientific points with no theology. Now get the same thing from a science perspective—say from middle school textbooks that cover cosmology, geology, and evolution. Compare the two summaries. You still think they would be consistent? Could you derive the science summary from the Creation summary?

The Cause of the Universe revealed!

GT wants to find properties in the Big Bang that they can match up to with properties of the Christian god.

The First Cause must be self-existent, timeless, nonspatial, and immaterial (since the First Cause created time, space and matter, the First Cause must be outside of time, space, and matter). (p. 93)

Their agenda is clear when they pick and choose bits of science like chocolates. They rely on science to get the Big Bang but then jettison science when it’s inconvenient and swap in Christianity. Science says, “We don’t know” when appropriate, and that’s a perfectly good answer when, in fact, we don’t know.

Science doesn’t imagine any being behind the Big Bang; there simply isn’t any evidence pointing there. But that doesn’t stop GT from loving and groundless speculation in that direction. They’ve already named it First Cause, so they’re halfway to God: it must also be “unimaginably powerful,” “supremely intelligent,” and “personal” (personal, because he chose to create the universe). And when you squint at the Bible, you find those properties an exact match for (drum roll!) the Christian god!

In light of the evidence, we are left with only two options: either no one created something out of nothing, or else someone created something out of nothing. Which view is more reasonable? . . . The most reasonable view is God. (p. 94)

What kind of proof is that? No one creates a crystal. At a higher level, no one creates a whirlpool. Higher still, no one creates a solar system. We have no examples of a supernatural being creating anything and myriad examples of nature creating things. Why imagine a supernatural being creating the universe?

And who says that what came before the universe (if that’s even a well-constructed idea) was nothing? Let’s leave the nice scientists alone and let them do their work. If any discipline will tell us more about the origin of the universe, it will be science. Religion has taught us nothing verifiable about reality.

Continued in part 3.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/27/15.)

Image credit: NASA

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I’d like to respond to the Christian apologetics book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek. Though published in 2004, it continues to be popular (it’s #10 on Amazon’s Christian Apologetics list) and needs a rebuttal.

What does “faith” mean?

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the word “faith” in the title. Atheists will charge that it means belief poorly grounded in evidence or even in contradiction to the evidence. To rehabilitate their poor relationship with evidence, many Christian apologists today argue the opposite. For example, Christian podcaster Jim Wallace said it’s “trusting the best inference from the evidence.” Presbyterian leader A. A. Hodge said, “Faith must have adequate evidence, else it is mere superstition.”

But the very title of Geisler and Turek’s book admits the opposite. They “don’t have enough faith to be an atheist,” and faith has returned to our old, familiar definition: belief poorly grounded on evidence. In the Introduction, the authors make this clear: “The less evidence you have for your position, the more faith you need to believe it (and vice versa). Faith covers a gap in knowledge” (p. 26).

(I explore the ways Christians play games with the definition of “faith” here and critique faith as a way to know things here.)

Characteristics of atheists (it’s not pretty)

I’ll refer to the book as GT (Geisler and Turek). Page numbers refer to the 2004 Crossway paperback edition.

GT is certain that many or most atheists are really theists. Atheists already have enough evidence—they just willfully refuse to accept it.

[For many nonbelievers] it’s not that they don’t have evidence to believe, it’s that they don’t want to believe. (page 30)

Many non-Christians . . . take a “blind leap of faith” that their non-Christian beliefs are true simply because they want them to be true. (p. 30)

What we have here is a will problem—some people, despite the evidence, simply don’t want to admit there’s a Designer. (p. 112)

Someone who has sufficient evidence but refuses to accept it? What you’re describing is not an atheist.

He argues that even scientists have an agenda:

By admitting God, Darwinists would be admitting that they are not the highest authority when it comes to truth. Currently, in this technologically advanced world, scientists are viewed by the public as the revered authority figures—the new priests who make a better life possible and who comprise the sole source of objective truth. (p. 162)

(What I’m sure they mean is evolution, not Darwinism, but they insist on speaking childishly to those at the children’s table. The Vridar blog has a helpful summary of why “Darwinism” is incorrect.)

So biologists can’t admit that God exists, not because of evidence, but because they’d be forced give up their authority? Religion has never taught us anything new about reality. Even if all scientists became Christian, science rather than theology would still be how we’d understand the world.

GT drops a final turd as they wrestle with the evidence necessary to believe:

God has provided enough evidence in this life to convince anyone willing to believe, yet he has also left some ambiguity so as not to compel the unwilling. (p. 31)

But Romans 1:20 says there’s no ambiguity: “God’s invisible qualities . . . have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” You’d better confer with your Bible to get your story straight.

GT imagines that God plays games about evidence for his existence. Maybe God doesn’t want it too easy so that everyone gets it, and heaven gets crowded. Maybe he wants to keep out the riffraff so heaven remains an exclusive gated community.

This becomes the free-will argument: God won’t force you to believe, because that would be an imposition. This means that being forced to accept the existence of the stranger on the street is not an imposition, but being forced to know the existence of the coolest guy in the universe would be a burden, so it’d be unfair to impose that on you. Or something.

GT provides no evidence but simply makes a sweeping claim, a claim that could be made by any believer. He could just as easily say that Allah or Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster has given you plenty of evidence, so don’t tell me otherwise.

Hedonism

But why would atheists reject clear evidence for God? GT has uncovered the selfish reasons:

By ruling out the supernatural, Darwinists can avoid the possibility that anything is morally prohibited. (p. 163)

So atheists are just hedonists with no concern about the consequences of their actions?

If the atheists are right, then we might as well lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want because this life is all there is, and there are no consequences in eternity. (p. 68)

Wow—what planet are these guys from? How many atheists think that it’s fine to lie, cheat, and steal? Are the prisons filled with atheists? Do atheists not answer to the rest of society, let alone their family and friends? Do atheists not have consciences?

Since you’ll agree, after a moment’s reflection, that atheists are indeed moral, maybe you should drop the “atheists have no morals” claim and wonder where they get their morals from. I predict it’s the same place where you do.

Atheism does indeed mean that “there are no consequence in eternity,” but (dang it!) there are consequences right here and now, which is just one of the reasons I don’t murder people.

[Instead of teaching Islam] wouldn’t it be better to teach [kids] the religious truth that God wants them to love their neighbors? (p. 68)

GT is probably thinking of verses like Leviticus 19:18, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself,” but “neighbor” meant fellow Jew in this case. In a few cases, neighborly affection was demanded for non-Jews living in Israel. But we can’t twist either interpretation to mean everyone in the world, which is the modern interpretation that GT would like to impose.

When it comes to non-Jewish neighbors, God thinks of slavery or genocide more often than love.

GT talks about biology a lot (more later), but here is the connection between what atheists think and morality.

By means of a one-sided biology curriculum, we teach kids that there’s really no difference between any human being and a pig. After all, if we’re merely the product of blind naturalistic forces—if no deity created us with any special significance—then we are nothing more than pigs with big brains. (p. 68)

Being scientifically accurate is such a pain. Who’s got time for the research? But since you won’t do it, I will: pigs and humans share a common ancestor from 94 million years ago. No, we’re not descended from pigs, and humans aren’t pigs with big brains.

If the clumsily made point is that evolution explains everything with no need for a designer to grant some sort of transcendental moral value, then yes, that’s true. Humans are no more special in a nonexistent god’s mind than pigs are.

I see no problem with that. Morality works just fine with no god—look up the word and tell me what part assumes a god. (But while we’re going off on tangents, I do see a problem with your moral equivalence between a single fertilized human egg cell and a newborn baby. In fact, there’s a spectrum of personhood.)

And presumably “one-sided biology curriculum” is their cute way of saying “rule that says that you need to teach science (and just science) in the science classroom.” Creationism isn’t science—deal with it.

Frank Turek’s next train wreck

I’ll be following up with more posts rebutting the statements in this book, but let me touch on another of Frank Turek’s books, Stealing from God. It’s an expanded version of his CRIMES argument, an acronym for Cosmos, Reason, Information, Morality, Evil, and Science. He attempts to argue that these categories are strong evidence for the Christian position. I’ve got a lot to say in response.

Continued in part 2.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/25/15.)

Image from imgur

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The word “laconic” means concise. The word comes from Laconia, the region of Greece of which Sparta was the capital. There’s a famous story that illustrates the Spartans’ reputation for using few words.

Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, was in the process of conquering Greece in the fourth century BCE, and he sent a message to Sparta asking if he should come as friend or enemy.

They replied, Neither.

Philip then sent the message, “If once I enter into your territories, I will destroy you all, never to rise again.”

The laconic reply: If.

Christian use of “If”

Christians can also make daring use of this word, but it’s a different kind of daring. Here are some examples where they conjure up the supernatural with an If.

If God exists, it makes not only a tremendous difference for mankind in general, but it could make a life-changing difference for you as well. —William Lane Craig

If Jesus was literally God incarnate, and if it is by his death alone that men can be saved, and by their response to him alone that they can appropriate that salvation, then the only doorway to eternal life is Christian faith. —John Hick

If Jesus rose from the grave, that’s the most important event in history. It proves Jesus is who He said He was, that Christianity is true, that you will be resurrected and brought before God to account for your crimes against Him. —Alan Shlemon

If God had the power necessary to create everything from nothing [that is, create the universe], he could probably pull off the miracles described in the New Testament. —J. Warner Wallace

(Sometimes the if is assumed. For example, the atheist raises the Problem of Evil, and the apologist replies, “[If we first assume God,] Who are you to question God?”)

Perhaps you can see the problem. Yes, if that amazing and unevidenced claim about God or Jesus is true, then your conclusion holds, but why would you think it would? It’s like saying, “If Santa exists, I’ll get lots of presents” or “If friendly aliens are among us, they’ll give us lots of cool technology” or “If I can speak to the dead, I will gain great wisdom.” The conclusion might logically follow, but why accept the ridiculous if premise? No reason is given.

In Christians’ Alice-in-Wonderland logic, the premise is the conclusion. The four quoted examples above simplify to “If God exists, then God exists.” The Christian apologist could cut to the chase, declare that God or Jesus exists, claim victory over the atheist, and be done with it, but then of course they admit the sleight of hand. The second half of the “If God exists . . .” statement is window dressing compared to the fundamental claim that God exists. The conclusion was buried in the premise all along.

This is the Hypothetical God Fallacy. It’s a fallacy because no one interested in the truth starts with a conclusion (God exists) and then arranges the facts to support that conclusion. That’s backwards; it’s circular reasoning. Rather, the truth seeker starts with the facts and then follows them to their conclusion. Christians don’t get an exemption, and they must do it the hard way, like any scientist or historian, showing the evidence that leads unavoidably to the conclusion.

Conclusion

The Spartans could make “If” say volumes, and neither Philip nor his successor Alexander attempted to capture Sparta. Their gutsy reply was backed up with a deservedly formidable reputation.

By contrast, Christians’ “If” is, at best, an attempt to change the conversation. “Let’s consider Jesus World—wouldn’t you like this imaginary world to exist?” Maybe I would, but that’s not the point. And at worst, Christians are claiming to have actually made an argument for the God claim, but of course “If God exists” does nothing of the kind.

When I read, “If God exists,” it might as well say, “If magic exists” or “If unicorns exist.” Magic and unicorns don’t exist—at least, you’ve given us no reason to believe they do—so what follows must be hypothetical. And gods don’t exist—certainly not as far as you’ve convinced us—so what follows can only be speculation about a world that isn’t ours and is therefore irrelevant and uninteresting.

Who would’ve thought that one word could be so dangerous?

Related posts:

• Argument for God from Differential Equations
• The Most Popular Logical Fallacy in Christian Discourse

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Image from Gabriel Matula, CC license
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