Confidence for what?

1. Deanery Presentation 1 July 2013 “Darwin Dawkins and God – Gaining Confidence for Faith in Jesus Christ”.

2. Confidence for what? Personal understanding…... “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a good understanding of every good thing we have in Christ”. Philemon 6. Have a go talking to New Atheists to understand more about Christ!

3. Confidence for what? Persuading others……. “Since we know what it is to fear the Lord, we seek to persuade people”. 2 Corinthians 5:11 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against a knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”. 2 Corinthians 10:5

4. Confidence for what? Political engagement…… Some Legislation is opposing Christian faith… Judge Laws – case of Gary McFarlane…. “in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective,' he said. 'Law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.'

5. Darwin, Dawkins and God.

6. Not arguing for moral or intellectual superiority.

7. Not arguing for 6 day Creationism. 6 Day Creationism …………………………………………..Theistic Evolution.

8. Does science (evolution) support atheism?

9. Does science (evolution) support atheism? “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, whenever and wherever they have been or will be invented.” God Delusion p36.

10. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge.

11. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything.

12. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Evolution is science.

13. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Evolution is science. So Evolution can explain everything reliably.

14. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Evolution is science. So Evolution can explain everything reliably. So God is not necessary as an explanation - God is a complex, irrational, unreliable delusion…...

15. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Evolution is science. So Evolution can explain everything reliably. So God is not necessary as an explanation - God is a complex, irrational, unreliable delusion…... …and most scientists agree with me.

16. What is science?Science is the only reliable knowledge? “…the erroneous notion that the existence or non existence of God is beyond the reach of science” God Delusion p46. “…I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other” God Delusion p50.

17. Erwin Schrödinger “Science is very usually branded as being atheistic. After what we have said this is not astonishing. If its world picture does not contain beauty and delight, sorrow, if personality is cut out of it by agreement, how should it contain the most sublime idea that presents itself to the human mind?”. Erwin Schrodinger “My View of the World” (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1964), p93.

18. einstein? “Certain it is that the conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order…….this firm belief , a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God”. Einstein Ideas and Opinions, p255.

19. Science not the only reliable knowledge. Science is the only reliable knowledge = UNTRUE. Reliable Science

20. The Simplest explanation always true?Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Juliane Koepcke – blown by lightning from a plane 10,000 feet up, survived the impact virtually uninjured, strapped to a seat, and walked for 9 days in jungle to safety. All other 91 passengers died. Certainly not the simplest explanation, but historically verifiable – she is still alive!

21. The Simplest explanation always true?Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything.

22. The Simplest explanation always true?Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything.UNTRUE

23. Evolution is Science? “Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed intelligent doubt”. Richard Dawkins – “The Greatest Show on Earth – The Evidence for Evolution” - Bantam Press 2009, p8.

24. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring.

25. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources.

26. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources. • Natural selection of the fittest individuals (like artificial selection).

27. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources. • Natural selection of the fittest individuals. • Particulate inheritance passes fitness on (hybridisation variation). Prediction of particulate inheritance.

28. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources. • Natural selection of the fittest individuals. • Particulate inheritance passes fitness on (hybridisation variation). • Species Change (biogeography)

29. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources. • Natural selection of the fittest individuals. • Particulate inheritance passes variation on. • Species Change • All life changes in this way.

30. Evolution is Science? • Over production of offspring. • Competition for resources. • Natural selection of the fittest individuals. • Particulate inheritance passes fitness on. • Species Change • All life changes in this way. • Maybe life arose by this mechanism. Prediction of vast numbers of transitional fossils or “missing links”.

31. Evolution – Genetics – yes.

32. Fossil Record = biased History.

33. Fossil Record = Biased History. Bone/shell v soft bodied. Aquatic v terrestrial. Cataclysmic v gradual. Buried v Predated. Hard rocks v soft rocks. Surface rocks v deep. Discovery near population. “…on a bad day it is easy to despair of ever really understanding the history of life because the fossils we have to hand are such a small remnant of what once existed”. Michael Benton – Basic Palaeontology

34. Fossil Record = Biased history • Dotted lines here represent hypothetical lineages (i.e. no fossils). • Michael Denton • “Evolution a Theory in Crisis” 1988.

36. Evolution is Historical (interpretation of fossil record) not just science. Evolution is science – yes and no! – untrue.

37. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Untrue. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Untrue. Evolution is science - Partially true. So Evolution can explain everything reliably (true deduction only if premises are true) so untrue. But……..

38. The faith of Evolutionism.

39. The faith of Evolutionism. Love - “It often turns out that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise” in this he included laying down life for friends, dying in war.p6. People - “We are survival machines, but we do not just mean people. It embraces all animals plants bacteria and viruses”. P21

40. The faith of Evolutionism. Memes – units of mental inheritance. Darwins theory - “there is some essence of Darwinism which is present in the head of every individual who understands the theory” p196 God - “Consider the idea of God. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. Probably it arose many times by independent ‘mutation’” p192 Hell - “The idea of hell is self perpetuating because of its own deep psychological impact” p198

41. The faith of Evolutionism. Dawkins – “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt and other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it and you won’t find any justice. The universe has precisely the properties we would expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference”. River out of Eden p133.

42. Faith of Evolutionism Evolutionism means…. There is no love There is no beauty There is no Good or evil There is no justice There is no purpose Because they are illusions. And remember, no other source of knowledge apart from evolution .

43. No atheist, but an evolutionist. 6 million Jews. WW2 50-70 million. “Therefore, here, too, the struggle among themselves arises less from inner aversion than from hunger and love. In both cases, Nature looks on calmly, with satisfaction, in fact. In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species' health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development." Mein Kampf Vol 1 Chapter 11.

44. Faith of Evolutionism Sam Harris “….some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live” Sam Harris “ The end of faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason” New York, Viking Penguin 2006. pp52-53.

45. Does science (evolution) support atheism? Science is the only reliable knowledge. Untrue. Scientific explanation (Ockham’s razor) can be applied to everything. Untrue. Evolution is science. Partially true. So Evolution can explain everything reliably. Untrue. So God is not necessary as an explanation - God is a complex, irrational, unreliable delusion…..for those who have faith in atheism. …..and most scientists agree with me.

46. Great scientists - all atheists? James Leuba 1914 Surveyed Top American Scientists finding that: 41.8 % were theists, 41.5% were atheists and 16.7% were agnostic Similar study done in 1996 by Larson and Witham with broadly similar results - theists 40%, atheists 45%, agnostics 15%. Larson EJ, Witham L. Scientists are still keeping the faith [Commentary]. Nature 1997 Apr 3; 386:435-6

47. Great Scientists – all Atheists? “The leaders of science over the last 100 years, along with some of today’s most influential scientists, have built a philosophically compelling vision of a rational universe that sprang from a divine mind. As it happens, this is the particular view of the world that I now find to be the soundest philosophical explanation of a multitude of phenomena encountered by scientists and lay people alike”. Anthony Flew “There is A God” p91.

48. Great scientists - all atheists? “I am not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library of books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written these books. It does not know how”. Max Jammer “Einstein and Religion” (Princeton , NJ: Princeton University press, 1999) p48.

49. Great scientists – All atheists? “…belief in God can be an entirely rational choice and that the principles of faith are in fact complementary with the principles of science” Francis Collins leader of the Human Genome Project.

50. Darwin or Dawkins? “It seems to be absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist. In my most extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God”. Letter to William Graham 3 July 1881.