A Challenge for the Atheist

[Bad Writer]

A christian friend of mine sent me a list of these questions. How would you guys respond to each?

I know you're supposed to ask the mods for permission to post this kind of stuff before you've established yourself here, but I'll bite since it seems harmless enough.

1. Are you absolutely sure there is no God? If not, then is it not possible that there is a God? And if it is possible that God exists, then can you think of any reason that would keep you from wanting to look at the evidence?

The answer to this question is different for every atheist. For starters, I can't even begin to answer this question because you haven't first defined what this god of yours is. If you're talking about Yahweh, I'm absolutely certain he doesn't exist because the Bible has been demonstrated to be false. Now, if there's something else out there, I'm open to the notion IF there's evidence. There is never a good reason to dismiss actual evidence.

2. Would you agree that intelligently designed things call for an intelligent designer of them? If so, then would you agree that evidence for intelligent design in the universe would be evidence for a designer of the universe?

You have to first prove it was designed. We can prove that things such as furniture, computers, and highways are created through some type of intelligent design. Conversely we can show how rivers, mountains and galaxies can form naturally without any designer necessary.

3. Would you agree that nothing cannot produce something? If so, then if the universe did not exist but then came to exist, wouldn’t this be evidence of a cause beyond the universe?

No one knows what came before the universe, so this is always going to be a moot point. Positing anything as fact in this case is intellectual dishonesty. For instance, saying "godidit" holds just as much weight as saying the Silver Surfer sneezed it into existence.

4. Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes—such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind—that does not mean it doesn’t exist?

We can see all those things: mind, gravity, magnetism, and wind. We see them when their principles are demonstrated. I'm sorry, what's your question?

5. Would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean He doesn’t exist?

Do you see in the last question where I showed you how your examples-- mind, gravity, magnetism and wind--can be demonstrated? Please demonstrate your god to us and then we can talk about its existence too.

6. In the light of the big bang evidence for the origin of the universe, is it more reasonable to believe that no one created something out of nothing or someone created something out of nothing?

The farthest back we can go in the history of our universe is the Big Bang. Postulating anything beyond that, whether it was nothing or the cause of a giant monarch butterfly flapping its wings in another dimension is not something we can say for certain without having to lie.

7. Would you agree that something presently exists? If something presently exists, and something cannot come from nothing, then would you also agree that something must have always existed?

Something presently exists, yes. I don't know that something must have always existed (and, logically, neither can you) because we don't know what the conditions of the universe pre- big bang were.

8. If it takes an intelligent being to produce an encyclopedia, then would it not also take an intelligent being to produce the equivalent of 1000 sets of an encyclopedia full of information in the first one-celled animal? (Even atheists such as Richard Dawkins acknowledges that “amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: WW. Norton and Co., 1996), 116.)

No, it wouldn't. Cut down a tree and you can know all about it by observing its rings. Your best friend comes to see you, and you know just what he/she is thinking by the expression on his/her face. There's a lifetime of information to be garnered in a single day by just staring into the cosmos. I don't see how the information gathered from the study of an amoeba's DNA has anything to do with the same kind of information written in an encyclopedia. Nice strawman argument though.

9. If an effect cannot be greater than its cause (since you can’t give what you do not have to give), then does it not make more sense that mind produced matter than that matter produced mind, as atheists say?

We have evidence that matter produces mind. That's why we say it. Remove parts of the brain from a person's body, and their mind will change. Remove it completely and the mind is gone. Elementary, my dear Watson.

10. Is there anything wrong anywhere? If so, how can we know unless there is a moral law?

There's a moral law because we, as a species, need one. If we didn't, we'd all die out. We make this moral law, though it tends to take on different flavors depending on one's upbringing, culture, or rationality.

11. If every law needs a lawgiver, does it not make sense to say a moral law needs a Moral Lawgiver?

Yep. We make our laws and agree on them as a society so that we can live in harmony with one another. That's why random people don't come up to you and sexually force themselves on you nor take potshots at you with an AK-47 just for kicks. Why, who do you think made such laws?

12. Would you agree that if it took intelligence to make a model universe in a science lab, then it took super-intelligence to make the real universe?

No. We have no way of knowing how the real universe came about, though, in a lab, we can test our hypotheses.

13. Would you agree that it takes a cause to make a small glass ball found in the woods? And would you agree that making the ball larger does not eliminate the need for a cause? If so, then doesn’t the biggest ball of all (the whole universe) need a cause?

I'll agree that a small pile of shit in the woods has a cause. A larger pile has a greater cause. Sometimes there are such huge mounds of shit that the cause can't even be traced to its origin, but the smell nowadays reeks to high heavens.

14. If there is a cause beyond the whole finite (limited) universe, would not this cause have to be beyond the finite, namely, non-finite or infinite?

I don't know, but that's an excellent question. Good thing we have honest men looking into it instead of formulating the answer before coming up with any solid evidence. Oh...wait...

15. In the light of the anthropic principle (that the universe was fine-tuned for the emergence of life from its very inception), wouldn’t it make sense to say there was an intelligent being who preplanned human life?

Why yes! This entire, HUGE universe was created just for us! So much to do, so many possibilities within it! Except we can't eat pork, shellfish, or blood, we can't work one day out of the week, life is great, but being born homosexual is not, and we all go to a lake of fire and brimstone to burn forever and ever unless we give ourselves over to a god who is very judgmental of everything we do down to the thoughts that we have. Perfect sense!