Since I say that demonstrable evidence is required before a claim can be rationally accepted, it’s only fair that when someone offers what they believe to be evidence, I should take some time to examine it. Well I was given this link to a lecture by one Dr. J.P. Moreland creatively entitled “The Evidence for Christianity” so that’s what I did, I examined it. Right off the bat though, it’s “evidence” for the existence of a god, not for Christianity. Perhaps he has another lecture connecting the dots, but I really don’t care to see it after this.
Like most evidence from believers, it’s just a load of unsubstantiated assertions and logically fallacious arguments, with your standard emotional appeals for good measure, naturally. I should say that some arguments were logical, but unfortunately sprang forth from unsubstantiated or demonstrably false premises like a failure to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics. That seems to get the best of them, so no shame there, Doc. What is shameful is the bullshit he started off with before even getting to his presentation of evidence. His opening contained these notably false assertions:
1) “[Atheists] have made it a goal to stomp out supernatural religions in the United States”.
No group that I’m aware of, atheist or otherwise, is actively working to eliminate religious freedom in the US. Ironically it’s Christian groups who are doing that by denying religious freedoms for Muslims and instilling a de facto religious test for public offices (some states still have laws barring atheists from being elected despite such laws being blatantly unconstitutional). Now in the US rights can be curbed, especially when they impose on others. Naturally a religion which practices cannibalism would be denied some freedoms to exercise their beliefs. Some States are finally revoking parents’ rights to deny their children life saving medical care because they’d rather pray (which lead to the untimely death of Madeline Neumann).
2) ‘[Atheists] are ridding our schools of god’
First, it’s historically been the religious who’ve objected to religion in public schools because the religion being preached wasn’t THEIR religion, and that’s why we have an Establishment Clause, so that one religion cannot lord itself over others, imposing its will by mandate of the government. Public schools are government facilities and as such cannot appear to endorse any one religion or for that matter religion over non-religion; therefore, you can have private, individual prayer but not school directed prayer.
3) “Don’t think America can’t go secular”
Unclear what he means by America, but if he’s referring to the government, it is and always has been secular. We’re the first nation with a secular constitution.
4) “[God] loves the [American] institutions because they were founded, by and large, on a Christian worldview.”
This is blatantly false. The founding fathers were a mix of beliefs, with a healthy dose of Deists. Furthermore, it was made very clear in the Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, that the US is not a Christian nation.
Well after that, the evidence round must be good, right? Let’s begin…
1) Citing the Christian bible as evidence not only doesn’t carry weight with a non-believer, but is circular reasoning (ie – the bible is true because it’s the word of god and we know there’s a god because of the bible).
2) Romans asserts that the world is a creation when there’s nothing to suggest such a belief. Of course if you start with the presupposition that the world and the universe were created, then you’ll naturally believe there must be a creator (ie – Watchmaker’s fallacy).
3) “The universe began to exist and something supernatural had to create it.”
Again, no reason to believe the universe was (consciously) created, and there is nothing to suggest if the universe was the result of some action or if it’s always been. Furthermore, there’s nothing to suggest that there is such a thing as “the supernatural” (of course we first need a definitive definition).
4) “We now know we live in an unusual universe.”
That’s simply nonsensical since we only know of one universe, therefore we can’t say it’s unusual. Unusual compared to what? How many universes do we know exist?
5) “We now know that the universe of space, time and matter began at some point in the past.”
No we don’t. That’s simply false. We know that our universe once was very dense before exploding but we don’t know anything about the exact moment of that explosion nor anything that may have come before that.
6) “The 2nd law of thermodynamics…”
Oy vie, if I had $1 for every religious person who cited the 2LoTD without understanding it! Anyway, the universe doesn’t “run out of gas”, it means the energy in the universe will be equally distributed in a state of maximum entropy. Btw, it doesn’t discount evolution either since the Earth is an open system (he didn’t go there, but most religious people use the 2LoTD for that reason so I thought I’d throw that in).
6b) “If the universe has always been here, then it should have used up all its fuel an infinite time ago.”
It’s funny he simultaneously considers the universe a closed system yet speaks of its energy being burned up. Where would it go? Again, misunderstanding the 2LoTD.
7) “Until you get a point where the entire universe of space time and matter sprung into existence.”
The universe is indeed expanding but appears to be dense enough that rather than experiencing heat death (the continued expansion to entropy), it could snap back to a singularity again and such a cycle may have always been repeated; therefore no, it didn’t necessarily spring into existence. To use his balloon analogy, if it stretches, it snaps back, and would continue to do so if the balloon was all there.
8 ) “Since the natural world began to exist, then something supernatural, something outside the natural world had to cause it.”
As already explained, we don’t know if the universe always has been or not but if it wasn’t then on what grounds can we say that anything non-universe is not made of the same matter and energy as the universe? Yes, this cause would be outside of the universe but outside of the “natural world”, in other words not made of matter and energy? Why? This stinks of equivocation, attempting to make natural world and universe synonymous as a way to sneak in the word supernatural. Typical religious shenanigans, I’m afraid.
9) “I don’t have time…”
Yeah, I bet you don’t. Considering everything so far has been false, why not heap on a scoop of personal, conscious cause? I mean, you have like 15 minutes left.
10) “The origin of biological information.”
Oh brother, the complexity argument! Still, kudos for twisting the SETI program. That’s a novel one. Look, he started off by addressing the problem that kids go to college and when they come back, they tend to abandon religion. Using an argument like the complexity argument, one that will take that kid a minute to google and see the refutation of it (if he or she doesn’t already know it) won’t get it done any better than exhibiting ignorance of the 2LoTD. It failed in Dover and it fails the test of logic as it’s essentially an argument from ignorance. Anyway, dna is not a stream of information. It’s yet another thing by which we can categorize and know things. Now maybe if someone found an organism with a dna strand that actually was a stream of information, like an act from Hamlet, then you could begin to make the SETI analogy.
11) “Moral absolutes exist, and are best explained by a moral law giver.”
It’s certainly not clear that moral absolutes exist but even so, a moral law giver, especially a supernatural entity, is most certainly NOT the best explanation. Both parts of that statement are unsubstantiated assertions. As that was his last “evidence”, I stopped watching.
So that’s my response to the believer. I wonder what they’ll say?