Answering Common Atheist Objections

1. Answering Common Atheist Objections

2. Some General Objections to God’s Existence

3. “I Only Believe in What I Can See” • The statement “I believe in only what I can see” cannot be seen itself. • The underlying assumption that “what is real is visible” is not visible. • A self-defeating statement affirms and denies its own basic meaning. • This position is, therefore, self-defeating.

4. “Only Scientific Truths Exist” • This view is self defeating. • Again, a self-defeating statement affirms and denies its own basic meaning. • Question: “Is the claim, ‘only scientific truths exist’ a scientific statement?”

5. Defending the Cosmological Argument

6. Is the Universe Oscillating? • There is not enough mass in the universe to cause it to stop expanding and then to make it collapse. • The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics would prevent an infinite number of “bounces” because the universe would lose energy with each bounce.

7. Is the Universe Oscillating? • There would not even be enough energy left in the universe to generate a bounce if the universe did collapse. • There is no known “bounce” mechanism.

8. Quantum Vacuum Fluctuation? • The quantum vacuum consists of a sea of fluctuating energy. • Particles arise from fluctuations in this energy sea.

9. Quantum Fluctuation: • The quantum vacuum and the energy inside the vacuum allegedly cause the particles. • Where does the quantum vacuum itself come from?

10. Stephen Hawking’s “Imaginary Time”? • Hawking tries to disprove what most scientists call the singularity—the point in which the space-time universe began by applying “imaginary time” to the universe. • “Imaginary Time” is time measured using imaginary numbers. • Imaginary numbers are “multiples of the square root of –1.”

11. Stephen Hawking’s “Imaginary Time”? • Hawking plugs imaginary numbers into equations about the universe. • However, when mathematicians and scientists plug real numbers back into the equation, the reality of the singularity returns.

12. Hawking Admits: • “When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities. • The poor astronaut who falls into a black hole will still come to a sticky end; only if he lived in imaginary time would he encounter no singularities.”—A Brief History of Time: The Updated and Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition (1988, 1996), p. 144.

13. Hawking Also Admits: • “In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.” —A Brief History of Time: The Updated and Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition (1988, 1996), p. 144.

14. Does Quantum Uncertainty Disprove Causality? • If the uncertainty principle disproved the law of causality, then the uncertainty principle would be self-defeating. • Quantum physics is a part of science and science rests on the law of causality’s validity.

15. Does Quantum Uncertainty Disprove Causality? • The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not prove that the movement of electrons is uncaused. • It only describes our inability to predict their location and speed at any given time.

16. Does Quantum Uncertainty Disprove Causality? • The mere fact that we can’t predict something doesn’t mean that something has no cause. • This rests upon only one of many different interpretations of quantum mechanics.

17. Does Quantum Uncertainty Disprove Causality? • In fact, quantum scientists acknowledge that we might not be able to predict the simultaneous speed and location of electrons because our very attempts at observing them are the cause of their unpredictable movements!

18. “Who Made God?” • The causality principle does not say that everything needs a cause. • Rather, it says anything that has a beginning must have had a cause. • An infinite being, such as God, does not have a beginning. • An infinite being must have always existed and is, therefore, uncaused.

19. Defending the Design Argument

20. “We Live in a Multiverse”

21. Scientists Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez Write: • “Short of invoking a supernatural explanation, which would be by definition outside the scope of science, a number of physicists and cosmologists began in the 1970s to try solving the puzzle by hypothesizing that our universe is just one of many existing universes, each with its own laws….

22. Jenkins and Perez Continue: • …According to this ‘anthropic’ reasoning, we might just occupy the rare universe where the right conditions happen to have come together to make life possible.”—“Looking for Life in the Multiverse,” Scientific American, January 2010, page 42

23. Christian Philosopher Norman Geisler Responds to this Reasoning: • “If positing a supernatural cause of the universe goes beyond the realm of science, then so does naturalistic evolution when it insists there is no such supernatural cause, for that too is a statement that goes beyond the natural world.”—Norman Geisler, Creation & the Courts, 259

24. Multiple Universes? • There is no evidence of their existence. • Humans could never observe the other universes. • Where did the other universes come from?

25. Multiple Universes? • No universe could bring another universe into existence, because these hypothetical universes are believed to be causally unconnected.

26. Multiple Universes? • “It is crazy to postulate a trillion (causally unconnected) universes to explain the features of one universe, when postulating one entity (God) will do the job.”—Richard Swinburne, “Design Defended,” Think (Spring 2004): 17.

27. “The fact that it is logically possible that there are multiple universes with their own laws of nature does not show that such universes do exist. There is currently no evidence in support of a multiverse. It remains a speculative idea.”—Antony Flew, There is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, 119.

28. Researchers Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez Write: • “Our work did not address the most serious fine-tuning problem in theoretical physics: the smallness of the ‘cosmological constant…’

29. Researchers Alejandro and Gilad Perez Continue: • …thanks to which our universe neither recollapsed into nothingness a fraction of a second after the big bang, nor was ripped part by an exponentially accelerating expansion.—“Looking for Life in the Multiverse,” Scientific American, January 2010, page 44.

30. Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez Also Write: • “We may never find any direct evidence of the existence of other universes, and we certainly will never get to visit one. But we may need to learn more about them if we want to understand what is our true place in the multiverse—or whatever is out there.”—“Looking for Life in the Multiverse,” Scientific American, January 2010, page 49.

31. “Who Is the Designer?” Who is the designer?

32. “There are Many Poor Designs in Nature” • Not all designs must be optimal. • Some cars are more optimally designed than others. • Apparent “bad” designs turn out to be “good” designs as scientists learn more. • Stephen Jay Gould and other evolutionists used to declare that the Panda’s thumb was poorly designed.

33. The Panda’s Thumb—a Good Design • “The radial sesamoid bone and the accessory carpal bone form a double pincer-like apparatus in the medial and lateral sides of the hand, respectively, enabling the panda to manipulate objects with great dexterity.”—”Role of the Giant Panda’s ‘Pseudo-Thumb’,” Nature (January 28, 1999).

34. “The Design Argument Commits the ‘God-of-the-Gaps’ Fallacy” • The design argument is based on what we know—not what we don’t know. • For example, we know that intelligent causes produce information. • Therefore, when scientists observe information in DNA, they are justified in inferring an intelligent agent generated that information.

35. “The Design Argument Commits the ‘God-of-the-Gaps’ Fallacy” • We also know that intelligent beings construct motors and biochemists have detected molecular motors inside cells—motors which surpass humans’ design abilities.

36. “The Design Argument Commits the ‘God-of-the-Gaps’ Fallacy” •  ”A common function of these diverse enzymes is the transformation of chemical energy into mechanical motion and vice versa, often performed at nearly 100% efficiency.”—Biophysicist Aleksei Aksimentiev, University of Illinois

37. Recommend Resources • Dembski, William A. The Design Revolution. Downer’s Grove: IVP Books, 2004. • Flew, Antony. There Is a God. New York: HarperOne, 2007. • Geisler, Norman. Creation & the Courts. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007. • Zweerink, Jeffrey A. Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse?, which is available at reasons.org.