Thanks, as a former human physiology college teacher I had long ago placed my undergraduate and graduate school “facts” in a cellar buried deep in my (and everyone else’s) immensely complex brain and renewed the faith of my childhood and marveled that it bloomed so much that when I had the opportunity to retire at the age of 47, I took it and became a Lutheran Pastor. Now in retirement from ministry, I take my 2 vocations and share them with anyone who will listen! What a great life!
I don't know if this falls under teleology or enormity, but what always amazes me is how the scale of the universe greatly exceeds what the human brain is capable of truly understanding, and yet the universe is still comprehensible. Our mental capacity compared to God is like a single molecule compared to the entire universe. But that tiny amount is enough for us to discover amazing wonders because of how the universe is designed.
This was an interesting read, no question… However, it never actually offers five science-based reasons to believe in God. What it offers is five places where the author feels wonder, contingency, or explanatory pressure, and then interprets those feelings and pressures through a theistic lens. It mistakes anthropic selection for purpose, human awe for evidence, unresolved cosmology for theism, and a contested metaphysical argument for a scientific conclusion.
Don’t get me wrong, that is a completely legitimate personal worldview. But it is not the same thing as a scientific inference, because in every case herein the gap between the data and “therefore God” is filled by controversial philosophical assumptions, not physics itself.
None of its five points uniquely favors God over the alternatives, and several of them are standard examples of how not to move from “mystery” to “design.”
While she doesn't often offer the full evidence, some of these are science-based reasons based on statistical probabilities. Most well known, the fine tuning argument is a statistical argument based on the idea that statistical chance of life-supporting physical constants existing without design is nearly 0. Of course, there are many criticisms of that argument, which are all very valid, but the argument is well within the scope of "science-based reasons"
Exactly! While she made a good point, the same logic she used could support the theory that there's a team of scientists from another universe with different rules, orchestrating our world and universe. Or any other made up idea that explains why the world is the way it is and human existence.
While you are right about the possible alternative theories, I don't think that negates the author's argument. This is because the author never defined the God that she is referring to. God could just be an abstract for "purposeful creator". You can then input any possible theory about what that God "is" (God as outlined in a common religion, a consciouss forcefield, scientists in an alternative universe, etc.). Her points seem to be for a purposeful creation, not for a specific form of diety.
Thanks Sarah. I recently finished reading A Short History of Everything V2.0 by Bill Bryson. (late to the party I know) The thing that struck me across all the sciences touched on like cosmology, geology, biology etc was the similar sense of how phenomenally complex & intertwined our universe is, and how utterly improbable that it is that all we are came about by endless random chance.
I once did a research collaboration with a Big Data analyst, and I think a lot of the principles of computing further supports argument for theism over atheism.
Skeptics often claim that "science disprove miracles" because... they never observe it happen naturally? They haven't been able to reproduce the miracles in the lab? But much of scientific work involves manufacturing processes that will never occur naturally (e.g. medicine, engineering, genetic modification, molecular transformations, etc.), while not knowing the variables that will enable the process doesn't prove its impossibility. In fact, researchers achieving things that was previously thought impossible is how we get scientific breakthroughs.
Anyway, a programmer can write code that produces outputs the program itself cannot generate through its normal operations, and as long as the code doesn't violate the established programming language's rules, nothing is impossible. So if we already accept that a Creator made the entire universe from nothing, accepting that He can interfere with nature in small, local scales (i.e. miracles) is actually the less extraordinary proposition.
By contrast, the atheistic framework assumes that everything came to be via gradual self-organization: simple chemicals producing larger molecules with self-replicating and error-correction mechanisms that accumulate complexity to generate function, eventually producing consciousness. In a computer science framework, this is like saying that a hardware can construct its own operating system, which then wrote its own programming language, which then wrote its own application, which then wrote their own user interface.
"Anyway, a programmer can write code that produces outputs the program itself cannot generate through its normal operations"
Sorry, what? What are you talking about?
Your second paragraph seems to hand-wave miracles into existence. You're correct that we can't prove things DON'T exist, but as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
As for the last paragraph: you clearly are more interested in computers than in biology. We have pretty clear fossil records of how MANY species evolved, at least, and DNA evidence shows how basic genes are conserved, so that Saccharomyces cerevisiae (common yeast) has about 23% genes with orthologs/homologs in humans. The percentages go up the further you go up the complexity ladder.
Just because different stuff share similar composition, doesn't mean one evolve from the other. It can simply mean that the more complex beings have similar functions that require shared genes.
"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," I agree.
And because nature is far more complex than anything humans have ever produced, I find the claim that all of it can arise from blind, mindless processes to be the more extraordinary than the miracle claims of the Scriptures.
Although I myself don’t read a book just because someone I disagree with said to read it: “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” might prove interesting. It deals with precisely this issue.
Evolution based on changed environments has been observed on human timescales, in 10 generations or fewer. We’ve seen it in animals, e.g. birds who evolved to a darker color to match the polluted London skies.
So if you realize that a million years is 10,000 human generations, and 10 or 20 times that for animals or plants, and we’re talking about 100’s of millions of years, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Especially since it isn’t a “random mindless process,” as you put it. A trait that gives even a 1% survival advantage will very quickly take over the whole population. We have also observed that.
However, neither of us is going to convince the other. Why not just drop it here?
I actually just addressed this very issue somewhere down this thread.
Bottom line is, from a purely empirical framework, observing that "animals undergo minor feature change (e.g. color, wing/beak shape, etc.) due to environmental pressure" and then concluding that "therefore, all species emerge from single-celled organisms through a similar mechanism" is not a legitimate extrapolation. It's a leap of faith.
A process working in small scale doesn't realistically mean they would work in larger scale with just enough time. In fact, they often don't, and failure in scaling up is where most scientific proof-of-concepts die. We have entire fields of studies to mitigate these failure risks that emerge as the process size increases.
But yes, let's just stick to our own belief systems and agree to disagree.
Do you accept that, when looking at the living world, from viruses, through bacteria, fungi, worms, beetles, lizards, birds, apes etc. That we see an increase in brain complexity and eventually the emergence of different levels of what we would understand as “consciousness”?
I accept that there is a different levels of "consciousness" among different kinds of creatures. That doesn't prove that the simpler creature evolved into the more complex ones over time. It just shows that different levels of consciousness currently exists.
A simple "Hello, World!" JavaScript is never going to gradually evolve into Minecraft on its own.
The Theory of Evolution is a theory, not an established fact or scientific law. It doesn't translate into a fact, but can help to illuminate factual observations, such as small genetic changes in a species over time.
It can certainly try to explain the observed fact, but it's definitely not the only possible explanation for it. Presuming the framework is even needed, it's not actually that convincing.
The computer code analogy doesn’t really work. Java script was designed. Minecraft was designed. They both require human invention in the first place and human intervention for their practical application.
The start of life is concerned with the self-organising nature of chemicals arising from trillions of interactions of trillions of compounds over billions of years and under trillions of condition combinations with no end-point. Computer science it isn’t.
Unless you think that all life was created from scratch (and if you do, you are indulging in circular reasoning) then we do indeed see an early earth with simple life forms. The theory of evolution proposes that useful hereditary traits will be passed on. These can be purely physical or behavioural. This includes brain structure and capabilities of which consciousness is just one. If you accept finch beak adaptation, it is no leap at all to imagine a similar evolution of consciousness. It perfectly explains the spread of consciousness-levels in the creatures of the world today.
The start of life is concerned with the self-organising nature of chemicals arising from trillions of interactions of trillions of compounds over billions of years and under trillions of condition combinations with no end-point. < that cosmological history is an assumption that you have to actually defend rather than treat as a given because the structural evidence is not as strong as many claim it is. The spread of consciousness levels we see today can be explained by gradual evolution through random mutation or intelligent design, and you would have to justify why the former is more believable than the latter.
Given the programmer analogy, the assertion that blind processes can produce the level of information complexity we see today without intelligent guidance is actually the more absurd than simply believing that there is a Creator who designed it.
A series of endless mechanical or physical processes with no discernable design goal or end-point would never develop the mechanism to differentiate between and correct error from non-error, which is the only way any increase of complexity can occur. You don't get a Beethoven-level symphony by banging your fingers randomly on a piano, and never will.
Actual emergence of increasing consciousness level has never actually been observed in nature - drawing that inference from finch beak adaptation is an extrapolation of an unwarranted magnitude that it's essentially non-sequitur. Having an app that allows for internal variation because there is domesticated randomness coded in the architecture - e.g. random monster spawn rates in Minecraft - is not an evidence that the simple "Hello World" script would be capable of transforming into something as complex as Minecraft without a programmer working on it.
For me it was studying evolution. When I reached the supposed evolution of whales back in the 1970's, the utter ridiculousness of the theory made it clear to me that some kind of God had to be behind it all.
"Laws of nature that don’t randomly change with time or place": seems weird to say. Like obviously! Laws of nature, as such, don't randomly change with time or place. Seems analytic, definitional. So (how) is this a scientific argument? (For theism?)
There's zero reason to assume a priori that the laws of nature wouldn't be specific to time in place in naturalism. This is especially true if you hold to the multiverse hypothesis.
Point of clarification: Who are you assuming is assuming a priori "that the laws of nature... (etc.)"?? And why do you make that assumption about whomever that is?
What a fantastic article. I agree with 99% of your thoughts here. I agree with every logical step you take, except for the conclusion. Because after reading this article, all I could think was: "wow, they sure made a great case for agnosticism".
"And you can’t solve the problem by kicking the can down an infinite road of causes; eventually you need something eternal and self-existing." So what created the deity, and what created that, and what created that...? You just kicked the can down an infinite road of causes.
Its not that hard to understand why you think this way. Every day brings with it the realization that time is running out. You are no different than the Egyptians,Babylonians, Sumerians, Jews.... You are vastly more educated, more learned, but none the less destined to the same fate. No amount of knowledge or wealth can save you from this fate.
Can you prove that a supreme being or incredible force built the universe, a god perpetrated this incredible feat, in it's infinite glory. The answer is NO.You cannot, it is your personal belief. In the same way I cannot say that there is NO god, because I have no way prove that there is no god. It would be very very narcissistic of me to make such a claim.
Many have come before you and i dare say many many more will come after you, stating, professing, hoping and wishing the exact same things to be true.
Empirically proving or not proving God may be impossible. How 'bout reasonability? What is more reasonable based on the evidence available to us? God or no God?
No God. As I mentioned, I cannot prove that there is no God, nor do I wish to prove that there is no God. The question or the challenge is one of your own making. You say there is a God I say prove it. I will be waiting for that event. Assumptions and Reasonability wont cut it when it comes to the Supernatural.
Sometimes I wish I could prove God, but then, if I could, I think I would even be suspicious. How does a finite creature prove an infinite being that isn't an object but existence itself? I'm with you, I don't wish to prove there is a God because I would be afraid this God may be more in my image than I in his. However, I'm left with questions of how I got here, purpose, meaning, what is flourishing, etc? I find the theistic view answers them more reasonably than a non-theistic view. One example, origin - is it more reasonable to believe life started from nothing or from something? I happen to appeal to science on this and hold to the cause and effect principle. What are your thoughts?
Origin? What Origin, Whose Origin, the Origin of the Universe, Origin of man, and his religions. For yourself and billions of people of the world, the theistic view answers the question of the existence of God. Part of the reasoning that is used by believers, something that you may have noticed and witnessed is that belief in God gives purpose to their lives, im using your words here. You have drifted from scientific evidence and the domain of science to religion. Both are mutually incompatible.
Not a problem with that, only a narcissist like yourself would write what you did, especially after reading the back and forth with Chris. But hell that's Ok. Chris understood, you on the other hand.......
A great summary, I would add math to the list because as Wigner and Einstein both commented, the real mystery is how the world can be comprehensible.
This is my favorite sentence from your essay:
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that it’s the handiwork of a God who is even more luxuriously, extravagantly, eye-poppingly beautiful.
Thanks, as a former human physiology college teacher I had long ago placed my undergraduate and graduate school “facts” in a cellar buried deep in my (and everyone else’s) immensely complex brain and renewed the faith of my childhood and marveled that it bloomed so much that when I had the opportunity to retire at the age of 47, I took it and became a Lutheran Pastor. Now in retirement from ministry, I take my 2 vocations and share them with anyone who will listen! What a great life!
I don't know if this falls under teleology or enormity, but what always amazes me is how the scale of the universe greatly exceeds what the human brain is capable of truly understanding, and yet the universe is still comprehensible. Our mental capacity compared to God is like a single molecule compared to the entire universe. But that tiny amount is enough for us to discover amazing wonders because of how the universe is designed.
This was an interesting read, no question… However, it never actually offers five science-based reasons to believe in God. What it offers is five places where the author feels wonder, contingency, or explanatory pressure, and then interprets those feelings and pressures through a theistic lens. It mistakes anthropic selection for purpose, human awe for evidence, unresolved cosmology for theism, and a contested metaphysical argument for a scientific conclusion.
Don’t get me wrong, that is a completely legitimate personal worldview. But it is not the same thing as a scientific inference, because in every case herein the gap between the data and “therefore God” is filled by controversial philosophical assumptions, not physics itself.
None of its five points uniquely favors God over the alternatives, and several of them are standard examples of how not to move from “mystery” to “design.”
While she doesn't often offer the full evidence, some of these are science-based reasons based on statistical probabilities. Most well known, the fine tuning argument is a statistical argument based on the idea that statistical chance of life-supporting physical constants existing without design is nearly 0. Of course, there are many criticisms of that argument, which are all very valid, but the argument is well within the scope of "science-based reasons"
Exactly! While she made a good point, the same logic she used could support the theory that there's a team of scientists from another universe with different rules, orchestrating our world and universe. Or any other made up idea that explains why the world is the way it is and human existence.
While you are right about the possible alternative theories, I don't think that negates the author's argument. This is because the author never defined the God that she is referring to. God could just be an abstract for "purposeful creator". You can then input any possible theory about what that God "is" (God as outlined in a common religion, a consciouss forcefield, scientists in an alternative universe, etc.). Her points seem to be for a purposeful creation, not for a specific form of diety.
Thanks Sarah. I recently finished reading A Short History of Everything V2.0 by Bill Bryson. (late to the party I know) The thing that struck me across all the sciences touched on like cosmology, geology, biology etc was the similar sense of how phenomenally complex & intertwined our universe is, and how utterly improbable that it is that all we are came about by endless random chance.
If we were not meant to look up at the stars then why did God make them so beautiful?
I once did a research collaboration with a Big Data analyst, and I think a lot of the principles of computing further supports argument for theism over atheism.
Skeptics often claim that "science disprove miracles" because... they never observe it happen naturally? They haven't been able to reproduce the miracles in the lab? But much of scientific work involves manufacturing processes that will never occur naturally (e.g. medicine, engineering, genetic modification, molecular transformations, etc.), while not knowing the variables that will enable the process doesn't prove its impossibility. In fact, researchers achieving things that was previously thought impossible is how we get scientific breakthroughs.
Anyway, a programmer can write code that produces outputs the program itself cannot generate through its normal operations, and as long as the code doesn't violate the established programming language's rules, nothing is impossible. So if we already accept that a Creator made the entire universe from nothing, accepting that He can interfere with nature in small, local scales (i.e. miracles) is actually the less extraordinary proposition.
By contrast, the atheistic framework assumes that everything came to be via gradual self-organization: simple chemicals producing larger molecules with self-replicating and error-correction mechanisms that accumulate complexity to generate function, eventually producing consciousness. In a computer science framework, this is like saying that a hardware can construct its own operating system, which then wrote its own programming language, which then wrote its own application, which then wrote their own user interface.
"Anyway, a programmer can write code that produces outputs the program itself cannot generate through its normal operations"
Sorry, what? What are you talking about?
Your second paragraph seems to hand-wave miracles into existence. You're correct that we can't prove things DON'T exist, but as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
As for the last paragraph: you clearly are more interested in computers than in biology. We have pretty clear fossil records of how MANY species evolved, at least, and DNA evidence shows how basic genes are conserved, so that Saccharomyces cerevisiae (common yeast) has about 23% genes with orthologs/homologs in humans. The percentages go up the further you go up the complexity ladder.
Just because different stuff share similar composition, doesn't mean one evolve from the other. It can simply mean that the more complex beings have similar functions that require shared genes.
"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," I agree.
And because nature is far more complex than anything humans have ever produced, I find the claim that all of it can arise from blind, mindless processes to be the more extraordinary than the miracle claims of the Scriptures.
Although I myself don’t read a book just because someone I disagree with said to read it: “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” might prove interesting. It deals with precisely this issue.
Evolution based on changed environments has been observed on human timescales, in 10 generations or fewer. We’ve seen it in animals, e.g. birds who evolved to a darker color to match the polluted London skies.
So if you realize that a million years is 10,000 human generations, and 10 or 20 times that for animals or plants, and we’re talking about 100’s of millions of years, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Especially since it isn’t a “random mindless process,” as you put it. A trait that gives even a 1% survival advantage will very quickly take over the whole population. We have also observed that.
However, neither of us is going to convince the other. Why not just drop it here?
I actually just addressed this very issue somewhere down this thread.
Bottom line is, from a purely empirical framework, observing that "animals undergo minor feature change (e.g. color, wing/beak shape, etc.) due to environmental pressure" and then concluding that "therefore, all species emerge from single-celled organisms through a similar mechanism" is not a legitimate extrapolation. It's a leap of faith.
A process working in small scale doesn't realistically mean they would work in larger scale with just enough time. In fact, they often don't, and failure in scaling up is where most scientific proof-of-concepts die. We have entire fields of studies to mitigate these failure risks that emerge as the process size increases.
But yes, let's just stick to our own belief systems and agree to disagree.
Do you accept that, when looking at the living world, from viruses, through bacteria, fungi, worms, beetles, lizards, birds, apes etc. That we see an increase in brain complexity and eventually the emergence of different levels of what we would understand as “consciousness”?
I accept that there is a different levels of "consciousness" among different kinds of creatures. That doesn't prove that the simpler creature evolved into the more complex ones over time. It just shows that different levels of consciousness currently exists.
A simple "Hello, World!" JavaScript is never going to gradually evolve into Minecraft on its own.
The Theory of Evolution is a theory, not an established fact or scientific law. It doesn't translate into a fact, but can help to illuminate factual observations, such as small genetic changes in a species over time.
It can certainly try to explain the observed fact, but it's definitely not the only possible explanation for it. Presuming the framework is even needed, it's not actually that convincing.
The computer code analogy doesn’t really work. Java script was designed. Minecraft was designed. They both require human invention in the first place and human intervention for their practical application.
The start of life is concerned with the self-organising nature of chemicals arising from trillions of interactions of trillions of compounds over billions of years and under trillions of condition combinations with no end-point. Computer science it isn’t.
Unless you think that all life was created from scratch (and if you do, you are indulging in circular reasoning) then we do indeed see an early earth with simple life forms. The theory of evolution proposes that useful hereditary traits will be passed on. These can be purely physical or behavioural. This includes brain structure and capabilities of which consciousness is just one. If you accept finch beak adaptation, it is no leap at all to imagine a similar evolution of consciousness. It perfectly explains the spread of consciousness-levels in the creatures of the world today.
The start of life is concerned with the self-organising nature of chemicals arising from trillions of interactions of trillions of compounds over billions of years and under trillions of condition combinations with no end-point. < that cosmological history is an assumption that you have to actually defend rather than treat as a given because the structural evidence is not as strong as many claim it is. The spread of consciousness levels we see today can be explained by gradual evolution through random mutation or intelligent design, and you would have to justify why the former is more believable than the latter.
Given the programmer analogy, the assertion that blind processes can produce the level of information complexity we see today without intelligent guidance is actually the more absurd than simply believing that there is a Creator who designed it.
A series of endless mechanical or physical processes with no discernable design goal or end-point would never develop the mechanism to differentiate between and correct error from non-error, which is the only way any increase of complexity can occur. You don't get a Beethoven-level symphony by banging your fingers randomly on a piano, and never will.
Actual emergence of increasing consciousness level has never actually been observed in nature - drawing that inference from finch beak adaptation is an extrapolation of an unwarranted magnitude that it's essentially non-sequitur. Having an app that allows for internal variation because there is domesticated randomness coded in the architecture - e.g. random monster spawn rates in Minecraft - is not an evidence that the simple "Hello World" script would be capable of transforming into something as complex as Minecraft without a programmer working on it.
For me it was studying evolution. When I reached the supposed evolution of whales back in the 1970's, the utter ridiculousness of the theory made it clear to me that some kind of God had to be behind it all.
"Laws of nature that don’t randomly change with time or place": seems weird to say. Like obviously! Laws of nature, as such, don't randomly change with time or place. Seems analytic, definitional. So (how) is this a scientific argument? (For theism?)
There's zero reason to assume a priori that the laws of nature wouldn't be specific to time in place in naturalism. This is especially true if you hold to the multiverse hypothesis.
How do you define naturalism?
Point of clarification: Who are you assuming is assuming a priori "that the laws of nature... (etc.)"?? And why do you make that assumption about whomever that is?
I'm really sorry to have to tell you but among professional philosophers none of these are considered good arguments.
What a fantastic article. I agree with 99% of your thoughts here. I agree with every logical step you take, except for the conclusion. Because after reading this article, all I could think was: "wow, they sure made a great case for agnosticism".
"And you can’t solve the problem by kicking the can down an infinite road of causes; eventually you need something eternal and self-existing." So what created the deity, and what created that, and what created that...? You just kicked the can down an infinite road of causes.
Simulation theorists would make the same observations.
Beautiful! God bless you. - Love, Dr. G
Its not that hard to understand why you think this way. Every day brings with it the realization that time is running out. You are no different than the Egyptians,Babylonians, Sumerians, Jews.... You are vastly more educated, more learned, but none the less destined to the same fate. No amount of knowledge or wealth can save you from this fate.
Can you prove that a supreme being or incredible force built the universe, a god perpetrated this incredible feat, in it's infinite glory. The answer is NO.You cannot, it is your personal belief. In the same way I cannot say that there is NO god, because I have no way prove that there is no god. It would be very very narcissistic of me to make such a claim.
Many have come before you and i dare say many many more will come after you, stating, professing, hoping and wishing the exact same things to be true.
Empirically proving or not proving God may be impossible. How 'bout reasonability? What is more reasonable based on the evidence available to us? God or no God?
No God. As I mentioned, I cannot prove that there is no God, nor do I wish to prove that there is no God. The question or the challenge is one of your own making. You say there is a God I say prove it. I will be waiting for that event. Assumptions and Reasonability wont cut it when it comes to the Supernatural.
Sometimes I wish I could prove God, but then, if I could, I think I would even be suspicious. How does a finite creature prove an infinite being that isn't an object but existence itself? I'm with you, I don't wish to prove there is a God because I would be afraid this God may be more in my image than I in his. However, I'm left with questions of how I got here, purpose, meaning, what is flourishing, etc? I find the theistic view answers them more reasonably than a non-theistic view. One example, origin - is it more reasonable to believe life started from nothing or from something? I happen to appeal to science on this and hold to the cause and effect principle. What are your thoughts?
Origin? What Origin, Whose Origin, the Origin of the Universe, Origin of man, and his religions. For yourself and billions of people of the world, the theistic view answers the question of the existence of God. Part of the reasoning that is used by believers, something that you may have noticed and witnessed is that belief in God gives purpose to their lives, im using your words here. You have drifted from scientific evidence and the domain of science to religion. Both are mutually incompatible.
Have you read summa theologica?
Proclaiming the existence of God is not narcissism.
Written for the everyday narcissist......
So you haven't read it. Or even know what it is. Thanks for clarifying.
Not a problem with that, only a narcissist like yourself would write what you did, especially after reading the back and forth with Chris. But hell that's Ok. Chris understood, you on the other hand.......