The Alpha-Centaury Connection: Could Atheists and Intelligent Design Folks Agree on This?

This who sent by Messier 13 to contact aliens. Image courtesy of Arne Nordmann, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

The problem with intelligent design advocates is that they leave out a God or don’t tell who created life.

Thus, John Zmirak tries to solve the problem – by inventing that extra-terrestrials could have invented live. Here on earth.

"Atheists have a problem. When they look at life on earth, every last trace of it — from single cells rife with complex microstructures, to the eagle’s eye and biologist’s brain — looks like the product of design.

“Stephen C. Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, recounts that Darwin admitted the apparent evidence for design. He wanted to find an alternate explanation.

And as Meyer explains in his rich, well-argued book, it was computer scientists who first raised the serious question: Is it really possible that random changes in DNA code would generate new structures and species? Because that never, never, never happens with computer code.”

Zmirak tells of Charles Darwin and his daughter, who took away Darwin’s initial faith in God, prompting him to posit an explanation, of natural selection doing the things God does:

Atheists speak of materialism. That materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

“How about we stipulate this? All the evidence piling up that random mutations couldn’t possibly have planted and grown the Tree of Life does not point to the God of the Christians and the Jews.
Instead, it points to the design of some higher, alien species. Say, a race of brilliant beings who live in Alpha Centauri, who have learned how to travel by wormholes. No, there’s no evidence for that, but there’s equally little evidence for the “Multiverse.” That’s a favorite fiction of atheists eager to escape the religious implications of the Big Bang. But that didn’t stop Stephen Hawking from touting it.”

The problem with this, is that we can’t be sure if extra-terrestrials dwell on Alpha Centauri. And a second problem is that just getting rid of the evidence here will just posit that natural causes in effect caused intelligent life to turn up here.

Source:

Zmirak, John. 2019, At Last, Common Ground for Atheists and Intelligent Design Advocates.The Stream (22 February).

Atheists Are Not as Rational as Some Like to Think

Some astronaults were religious.



Joel Kontinen

In the Conversation, Lois Lee says that atheists are not as rational as some like to think:

“Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as ‘I don’t believe in God, I believe in science’to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because you believe in evidence-based, scientific research – which is subject to strict checks and procedures – doesn’t mean that your mind works in the same way.”

“The problem that any rational thinker needs to tackle, though, is that the science increasingly shows that atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are just as susceptible as the next person to ‘group-think’ and other non-rational forms of cognition.”

The science only stuff might sound odd. Actually, Christian scientists brought the science to the people.

And then individual atheists are less rational than others.

Source:

Lee, Lois. 2018. Why atheists are not as rational as some like to think. . The Conversation (27 September).

Richard Dawkins Gets Banned for Offending Muslims

Dawkins got banned from a Berkeley event. Image courtesy of Shane Pope, CC BY 2.0.





Joel Kontinen

In recent years, Richard Dawkins and other militant atheists have done everything to silence Darwin sceptics.

This was well documented in Ben Stein’s film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The attempted censorship has become so severe that it prompted Discovery Institute to bestow the Censor of the Year award to the individual who has blatantly attempted to silence dissidents in origins issue. Past recipients include Jerry Coyne and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Dawkins has also done much to denigrate Christianity and keep pro-theistic views out of academic settings.

Now, it seems his strategy has backfired. At Berkeley, a local progressive radio station, KPFA, sponsored an event in which Dawkins was supposed to speak about his new collection of essays.

The event was scheduled to take place in a church on 9th August, but when KPFA heard about Dawkins’ tweets about Islam, they cancelled the event.

It seems that while progressives welcome the denigration of Biblical Christianity, they will not tolerate any criticism of Islam, regardless of how justified it might be.

Source:


Klinghoffer, David. 2017. Dawkins Banned in Berkeley. Evolution News & Science Today (21 July).

Does Evolution Kill the Idea of Self?

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).




Joel Kontinen

Science, scientism and reason are popular words that many people understand precisely the way they want to.

Sceptics have re-defined science. It used to be a search for the best explanation, but somewhere along the way Darwinists hijacked the word, making it the search for the best naturalistic explanation.

This has had far-reaching consequences. Some have embraced thinking that hails from the teaching of Eastern philosophers and they question the very reality of our existence.

Elon Musk, for instance, believes we might be living in a computer simulation.

Many other sceptics think we are insignificant. This is what Bill Nye, the 2010 Humanist of the Year, believes about humans:

“I'm insignificant. ... I am just another speck of sand. And the earth really in the cosmic scheme of things is another speck. And the sun an unremarkable star. ... And the galaxy is a speck. I'm a speck on a speck orbiting a speck among other specks among still other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck.”

Consciousness and free will are hard dilemmas for Darwinists and so is the existence of the self.

Recently, Robert Lawrence Kuhn wrote an article on Live Science in which the difficulties brought by Alzheimer's to his 100-year old mother prompted him to take a critical look at selfhood.

He seems to think that while the self might be real, it is material, located in the brain.

While sceptics might invoke reason for this choice, ignoring all but the material dimension is not very reasonable.

As British writer G. K. Chesterton put it, atheists have a doctrine against the supernatural. This eventually leads to the destruction of reason.

The Bible takes an entirely different approach. We are made in God’s image and as such we are accountable to Him for all our deeds, choices and misdeeds.

And He freely offers us pardon, friendship and eternal life through faith in Jesus.


Source:

Kuhn, Robert Lawrence. 2016. Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion? Live Science (7 September).

G. K. Chesterton: Atheists Have a Doctrine Against the Supernatural

G. K. Chesterton. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen

In his book Orthodoxy, British author G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) wrote on the illogical thinking of sceptics:

“Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.”

Chesterton was right. The only reason for not believing in the supernatural is to reject the supernatural. The apostle Paul wrote:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20, NIV).

Source:

Chesterton, G. K. 1986. Orthodoxy. In Collected Works. Volume 1. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Free Thinkers as Thought Police

Free Thinkers have assumed the role of Orwellian thought police. In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four Big Brother keeps watch so that no one will think unauthorised thoughts.




Joel Kontinen

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has approached tourist boards in the UK, urging them to cease promoting the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in Somerset.

Early this year, the BHA sponsored a conspicuous bus campaign in London with ads doubting the existence of God. Now, when a zoo farm wants to promote the existence of God, the humanists, who would describe themselves as free thinkers, are assuming the basic Orwellian model of not tolerating any dissenting views.

The Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm opened to the public in 1999. It houses a hundred animals and attracts approximately 120, 000 visitors each year. Noah’s Ark does not hide its belief in a creator God.

However, Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm promotes a much longer time frame of earth history than traditional creationism but it seems that the very idea of doubting Darwinism causes problems for dissenters. Recently, Ben Stein himself was expelled from New York Times.

Miranda Stevenson, director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, says, ''I find it extraordinary that an organisation that I thought promotes free thinking appears to want censorship.”

Perhaps free thinkers ought to change the name of their ideology.

Source:

Telegraph. 2009. Noah's Ark Zoo in creationist row. (27 August) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6100222/Noahs-Ark-Zoo-in-creationist-row.html

Why Do Atheists Use Theological Arguments?

These thumbs are good for holding bamboo. Image from Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

A few days ago, a UK-based atheist, whom we might call Ben, took issue with some of my recent posts, including this and this. Ben’s thesis was built on two premises: (a) evolution is a fact, and (b) all who doubt evolution do so for religious reasons.

What makes Ben’s feedback interesting is that he uses theological arguments. Of course, we should not be too surprised since evolutionists from Darwin through Gould to Dawkins used, and are still using, theological arguments to defend evolution. Recently, New Scientist also joined in singing in this wonderful choir.

Ben stated, for instance, “The concept of intelligent design in general does not account for the many examples of astoundingly poor design we see in nature” and “human eyes have their wiring ‘in front’ of the light catching cells, leading to slightly poorer vision and the ‘blind spot’.”

Now, “astounding poor design” seems to be a highly speculative view. Although we live in a fallen world, most Pandas seem to be able to handle bamboo with their “poorly designed” thumb. Why would scientists so often try to emulate nature, if there weren’t anything to learn from gecko feet and other marvels of creation?

The human eye is actually far better than any camera. Richard Dawkins popularised the view that the human eyes is poorly designed but eye experts have repeatedly shown this to be false.

But the question remains: why do atheists use theological arguments in defence of evolution? They are breaking the very rules they have set. As Richard Lewontin put it, scientists often choose to make up “unsubstantiated just-so stories” because they “have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism… Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

“Poor design” is an argument that breaks this rule.

It seems that atheistic Darwinist are trying to both have their cake and eat it, without leaving anything for others.

Sources:

Catchpoole, David and Jonathan Sarfati. 2006. Creation Ministries International. Excellent Eye
Better than any camera—the eye’s response to light.

Lewinton, Richard. 1997. Billions and billions of demons. The New York Review of Books, p. 31, (9 January 1997).