A common thread that courses through the writings of modern atheists is the claim that science and reason go hand-in-hand, while belief in God is pure fantasy, unsupported by evidence and contrary to reason. Bertrand Russell wrote, “Religion…will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.” Sam Harris declares that “…religious [...]
A growing number of atheists insist that atheism is not a belief, but a lack of belief. They say it makes no claims, so it has nothing to defend or prove. But what they’re actually describing is called negative atheism, which is distinguished from the common understanding of atheism. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers some [...]
In a recent post I addressed Stephen Hawking’s claim that the multiverse is a better explanation than God for the fine-tuning of our universe. One reader replied, saying, “Lots of people misunderstand Hawking’s point about the multiverse. It doesn’t need to be established as fact, only accepted as a possibility. Once accepted as a possibility, [...]
Is There Really No Evidence of God?
On March 26, 2012 · In C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Evidence, Faith, Logical Fallacies, Naturalism, Presuppositions
“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens A dismissive attitude among atheists is nothing new. Hitchens is echoing men like Bertrand Russell, who echoed others before him. The question is whether this dismissive response to Christian theism is justified. Russell, for example, compared the claim that [...]
In its most basic form, the argument for an intelligent origin of DNA can be summarized as follows: 1: Organized information of language-like complexity can only be originally produced by an intelligent agent. 2: DNA contains organized information of language-like complexity. 3: Therefore, DNA was originally produced by an intelligent agent. This argument is [...]
A skeptic recently challenged me with the following argument: “If Christianity were true, other religions wouldn’t exist. There would be no need for them.” Let’s put this in the form of a syllogism so the premises and conclusion are clearly laid out. 1. If Christianity were true, there would be no other religions. 2. [...]
When People Pretend to Know Things They Don’t
On December 18, 2011 · In Evidence, Fine-tuning, Logical Fallacies, Metaphysics, Multiverse, Science, Stephen Hawking
“We need to get to a time when people are embarrassed to pretend to know things they don’t know.” – Sam Harris, atheist author Harris is referring, of course, to religious people who make claims about God. However, a similar thought crossed my mind while reading Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design, a scientific treatise [...]
Can Monkeys Reproduce Shakespeare?
On November 2, 2011 · In Atheism, DNA, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Natural Selection, Naturalism, Richard Dawkins
Atheists contend that blind, mindless, unguided natural processes have the power to produce complex biological information. In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins tried to advance this argument by presenting us with a familiar analogy. He asked us to imagine a room full of typing monkeys, each of which have been assigned a letter in [...]
“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no [...]
Atheists are working hard to convince us that belief in God is outdated. Science, they claim, has so thoroughly answered our questions that it’s left no room for God as an explanation for anything. They chide believers for engaging in and promoting a fantasy that they argue is not only irrational, but ultimately harmful to [...]
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