Website: Studying the Word of God
Authors: Brian K. McPherson and Scott McPherson
Web Address (URL): biblestudying.net
Atheism vs. Theism Discussion Points – Part 3
(Articles from Part 1: Atheism: Introduction and Charges; Charge 1, Deduction and Induction; Charge 2, Question 1; Charge 2, Questions 2 and 3; Charge 2, Summary and Question 4; Footnote 1. Pages 1-14, 37-38, total = 16 pages.)
(Articles from Part 2: Charges 3 and 4, Definitions; Empirical Evidence; Scientists Acting as Mechanisms, Article 1; Scientists Acting as Mechanisms, Article 2; Scientists Acting as Mechanisms, Article 3; Footnote 2 and 3. Pages 15-32 and 39-41, total = 20 pages.)
(Articles from Part 3: Atheism: Occam’s Razor and Conclusions; Proof of Life; Not Theories, Unsubstantiated Hyposthesis 1; Not Theories, Unsubstantiated Hyposthesis 2. Pages 33-36, 42-51, total = 14 pages.)
(Articles from Part 4: Atheism: Not Theories, Unsubstantiated Hyposthesis 3; Not Theories, Unsubstantiated Hyposthesis 4; Scientists: Life on Earth Imported from Outer Space; Atheism’s Circle of Reasons; Is God a White Crow? Pages 52-65, total = 14 pages.)
Discussion Points
Occam’s Razor and Conclusions
1. How do you demonstrate that intelligence is an unnecessary premise?
- You demonstrate that the process can work without intelligence.
- You demonstrate that life can originate without the involvement of intelligence from purely unintelligent causes.
2. Have scientists been able to demonstrate life originating from unintelligent causes without the involvement of intelligence? No.
3. All scientific experiments attempting to produce life from non-living material fall into 3 camps:
- 1) intelligence being required to create an environment that
nature (unintelligence) did not
- 2) intelligence being required to create cell components that nature (unintelligence) did not
- 3) unintelligence (nature) and limited intelligence (scientists) fail to produce life from non-living material (= great intelligence must be required).
4. No one can (go back in time to) empirically observe the actual origination of life on earth or in the universe.
5. Based on the instances provided from the available scientific experimentation we must induce that as a general rule intelligence is required to create life.
- There is no instance of evidence or data to challenge this induction.
6. To suggest that life can originate from unintelligent causes is unscientific since:
- 1) We have no evidence, instances, or scientific data of life being produced by unintelligent causes.
- 2) All of the evidence, instances, and scientific data demonstrates that intelligence is required to produce life.
7. All Atheists and Agnostics have are unsubstantiated hypotheses – NOT scientific theories.
- In order to be a theory a hypothesis must be tested and successfully pass experimentation.
- The hypothesis that life can originate from unintelligent causes has failed experimentation.
- To suggest that life can originate from unintelligent causes is to contradict all of the available scientific data, which shows that unintelligent causes are insufficient to produce life.
- To suggest that life can originate from unintelligent causes can only be a matter of faith (blind faith.)
8. Atheists and Agnostics have offered these experimental results as evidence supporting their hypothesis that life can originate from unintelligent causes, even though they were not successful.
- So, they cannot object to Theists using these unsuccessful attempts to produce life from unintelligent causes as evidence that intelligence is required to produce life.
9. Theism’s view that life originated by intelligent cause(s) is scientific in that it is supported by all of the available scientific evidence.
- Atheism and Agnosticism’s view that life can originate from unintelligent causes is unscientific since it has failed experimentation and flies in the face of all of the available scientific evidence.
10. Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 4 is refuted
- Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 4: Since there is no empirical evidence to suggest or necessitate the existence of a god, the assumption of god's existence is, therefore, extraneous and unnecessary to explain the universe and the origin of life and so, Theism fails the scientific rule known as Occam's Razor and must be rejected.
11. Summary
- We have no direct access to the general rule of how life originated from non-living material.
- We must employ induction to make assertions about the general rule about how life originated.
- We cannot induce a general rule without specific instance demonstrating that induction.
- We have no specific instances of life originating from unintelligent causes (or even from causes with limited intelligence).
- We cannot induce the general rule that life originated (originates) from unintelligent causes.
- The only available specific instances indicate that life originates from intelligent causes.
- The only general rule we can induce about the origin of life is that it requires intelligence.
12. The Atheist and Agnostic claim that all aspects of the universe are caused by unintelligent causes is disproved since the origin of life requires intelligence.
- The First Cause is intelligent.
- Theism is substantiated and scientific.
- Atheism and Agnosticism are disproved and unscientific because the scientific evidence requires and indicates the existence of an intelligent First Cause (God).
13. Overall Conclusions – In conclusion we have demonstrated the following eight points:
1) Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 1 is not a legitimate reason to reject Theism since all origins theories (including atheistic origins theories) inherently rely upon induction.
2) Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 2 is also false since Theism does not require or rely upon circular reasoning whereby Theists start by assuming the existence of God. Instead we have shown that Theism is based upon 3 atheistic logical assumptions and the available empirical, scientific evidence.
3) Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 3 is false because all the available empirical evidence necessitates the conclusion that as a general rule, life must result from intelligent agency.
4) Atheistic/Agnostic Charge No. 4 is false. Occam's Razor cannot be used to disqualify the theistic claim that the First Cause is intelligent since the empirical evidence NECESSITATES the conclusion that life results from an intelligent agent.
5) Atheism and Agnosticism must be rejected as unscientific and invalid for three reasons.
- a) Neither can be supported by any scientific, empirical evidence (because no such evidence exists).
- b) All of the available scientific, empirical evidence contradicts their claims that unintelligent causes can produce life, by demonstrating that intelligent agents are necessary to produce life.
- c) Since the empirical evidence necessitates the conclusion that the origin of life is the result of an intelligent agent, we must conclude that the First Cause is intelligent. Thus, since the First Cause must be intelligent, Atheism and Agnosticism are false.
6) Since Theism has been shown to be scientifically acceptable, while Atheism and Agnosticism must be rejected as unscientific, Theism is the only empirically supportable, scientifically acceptable theory for the origin of life.
7) The empirical evidence offered by science demands the acceptance of God's existence. Or put simply, with no other available acceptable theory to consider based upon the empirical evidence science tells us that God must exist.
8) For Atheists and Agnostics to continue to assert that life can be produced by unintelligent causes would therefore not constitute science, but unsubstantiated, unempirical, "religious" faith. (Based on Conclusions 1-7.)
14. In conclusion, we have demonstrated the empirical evidence necessitates the conclusion that our universe was caused by an eternal, uncaused, intelligent agent exists outside our universe. The term that Theists use for the eternal, uncaused, intelligent First Cause that exists outside of our universe is God.
Proof of Life
15. 10 quotations demonstrating that modern scientists, Atheists, and Agnostics typically point to these ongoing experiments as evidence supporting their hypothesis that life can come from unintelligent forces despite their relative success or failure and the inherent involvement of intelligent agents.
1) A significant step toward understanding the origin of life may have been made by a group of MIT researchers. Led by Professor Julius Rebek, Jr. of the Department of Chemistry, they have created an extraordinary self- replicating molecular system that they say might be regarded as a "primitive sign of life." -- MIT article
- NOTE: The results of these MIT experiments are being heralded as "a significant step" "regarded as a primitive sign of life." Thus, the experiment is being viewed as evidence that life can come from unintelligent causes.
2) The researchers say in their paper, "At best, this can be regarded as a primitive sign of life; at the very least, the system offers a bridge between the information of nucleic acids and the synthesis of amide bonds. It should be possible to design systems capable of peptide [protein] synthesis on a nucleic acid backbone and thereby provide models for events that occurred some time ago." - MIT article
- NOTE: Once again, this MIT experiment is being regarded as "a primitive sign of life" or as "a bridge" to the origination of life.
3) The synthesis of urea by Friedrich W‰hler in 1828 is usually hailed as the first proof that a special "vital force" is not needed for organic syntheses. - American Scientist article
- NOTE: Here is a reference to a historic experiment demonstrating the track record that scientists have of viewing these experiments as proof of life coming from unintelligent causes, or as this article states, "a special vital force is not needed for organic synthesis."
4) The first hints that this might be so came from the laboratory, before evidence for it was found in space, through the historic experiments of Stanley Miller, now recalled in science textbooks. In the early 1950s, Miller was a graduate student in the University of Chicago laboratory of Harold Urey, the discoverer of heavy hydrogen and an authority on planet formation. He undertook experiments designed to find out how lightning--reproduced by repeated electric discharges--might have affected the primitive earth atmosphere, which Urey believed to be a mixture of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water vapor. The result exceeded Miller's wildest hopes and propelled him instantly into the firmament of celebrities. In just a few days, more than 15 percent of the methane carbon subjected to electrical discharges in the laboratory had been converted to a variety of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and other potential biological constituents. Although the primitive atmosphere is no longer believed to be as rich in hydrogen as once thought by Urey, the discovery that the Murchison meteorite contains the same amino acids obtained by Miller, and even in the same relative proportions, suggests strongly that his results are relevant. - American Scientist article
- NOTE: Despite the admitted inaccuracy of the assumed experimental conditions, the Stanley Miller experiment is still widely regarded by many in the scientific community as evidence that basic unintelligent phenomenon can produce life.
5) Besides amino acids and other organic acids, experiments in abiotic chemistry have yielded sugars, as well as purine and pyrimidine bases, some of which are components of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, and other biologically significant substances, although often under more contrived conditions and in lower yields than one would expect for a prebiotic process. - American Scientist article
- NOTE: Despite the fact that the experimental conditions were highly contrived (unnatural) and the results were too low to fit hypothetical expectations, these past experiments are still regarded as evidence that life can arise from unintelligent forces.
6) That view changed when in the late 1970s, Sydney Altman at Yale University and Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado at Boulder independently discovered RNA molecules that in fact could catalytically excise portions of themselves or of other RNA molecules. The chicken-or-egg conundrum of the origin of life seemed to fall away. - American Scientist article
- NOTE: These two independent experiments are hailed as evidence that the chicken and egg dilemma has been solved, thus explaining how life could have evolved from unintelligent forces.
7) The development of RNA replication must have been the second stage in the evolution of the RNA world. The problem is not as simple as might appear at first glance. Attempts at engineering--with considerably more foresight and technical support than the prebiotic world could have enjoyed--an RNA molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication have failed so far. With the advent of RNA replication, Darwinian evolution was possible for the first time. - American Scientist article
- NOTE: Despite the fact that experimental attempts to recreate RNA replication have failed, these failed experiments are still heralded as evidence that Darwinian evolution is possible "for the first time."
8) Under conditions something like those on the early Earth, he can create something like a cell: an enzyme-carrying bubble that draws in nutrients from its surroundings and crafts them into genetic material. Call it a quasi cell-- and say that Deamer has created quasi life. - Discover article
- NOTE: Though the cell that the scientist created was only a "quasi-cell," this experiment is still claimed as evidence that life can come from unintelligent forces.
9) The researchers thus showed that primordial liposomes forming in tide pools could have performed some essential cellular tricks. - Discover article
- NOTE: This experiment of membrane-like liposomes performing "some essential cellular tricks" is implied to provide evidence that life can come from unintelligent forces.
10) Joyce and Breaker, however, have the expertise necessary to take the quasi cell another step toward life. Over the past five years, they have perfected a method for making RNA evolve. Simply stated, they put loose RNA strands in a beaker and give them a job to do, such as cutting DNA; the ones that do the best are rewarded with offspring. The researchers place the selected RNA in a bath of loose nucleotides and enzymes and allow it to produce millions of copies of itself. They use this process to evolve the RNA by making the copying process slightly imperfect. Some variants do the designated task better than their ancestors, and they in turn are rewarded with progeny. - Discover article
- NOTE: This experiment involving the evolution of RNA is also heralded as "another step toward life," again implying that the experiment provides evidence that life can come from unintelligent forces.