A simple challenge for atheists

[Thumpalumpacus]

Religious thought is generally antithetical to science. The latter promotes investigation, the former promotes dogma. Those discoveries made by religious scientists do no credit to religion; rather, the credit belongs to the scientists, and their ability to compartmentalize their religious feelings from the hard-nosed discipline of science.

The fact of the matter is that science flourishes despite religion. You'll notice that no church has an observatory; no church has a particle accelerator; no church has a physics department; no church has a research department. No church has made any significant discovery about reality. Only those religious scientists who are able to keep their faith and their skepticism separate contribute anything to our knowledge -- du Chardin being my favorite example. The rest, like Herny Morris or Michael Behe, actively retard the growth of our knowledge by allowing their faith to infect their thinking and writing.

The two fields address different aspects of human experience.

[bob96]

Ah yes, the argument from ignorance regarding complexity; "I can't think of how this could have happened naturally, therefore it didn't." Sorry, but complexity is not exclusively a sign of design- in fact if you think of it simplicity is more a hallmark of design than complexity- and not knowing how it happened is not evidence for god. Try again.

Tell me this. Which is more complex: the infrastructure, processes and functions operating within New York City, or a single celled bacteria?

[Esquilax]

Ah yes, the argument from ignorance regarding complexity; "I can't think of how this could have happened naturally, therefore it didn't." Sorry, but complexity is not exclusively a sign of design- in fact if you think of it simplicity is more a hallmark of design than complexity- and not knowing how it happened is not evidence for god. Try again.

Tell me this. Which is more complex: the infrastructure, processes and functions operating within New York City, or a single celled bacteria?

The former, though I've no doubt you'll go on to tell me it's the latter, based solely on the fact that you don't understand biology so well.

Either point of which would be entirely moot, given that "it's so complex, and I can't see how that would have happened naturally!" is still only evidence for your ignorance of how it could have happened naturally and not evidence for god.

[Dystopia]

Argument from incredulity and argument from ignorance. Best theist arguments ever...

[Thumpalumpacus]

I reckon any creator god must be horrendously complex. Did he spontaneously evolve, or was he created?

[Cyberman]

Created, but definitely not intelligently.

[Esquilax]

I reckon any creator god must be horrendously complex. Did he spontaneously evolve, or was he created?

It exists outside the universe, therefore Bob doesn't have to support any part of what he says. Only people with reasonable beliefs have to do that.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ah yes, the argument from ignorance regarding complexity; "I can't think of how this could have happened naturally, therefore it didn't." Sorry, but complexity is not exclusively a sign of design- in fact if you think of it simplicity is more a hallmark of design than complexity- and not knowing how it happened is not evidence for god. Try again.

So I can't use the same argument that was used by a world leading atheist?

In that case, I believe what the following scientists believe.

“The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.”
–Charles Darwin, the founder of evolutionary biology, as cited in his book Descent of Man.


“Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”

“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.”

–Max Planck, the Nobel Prize winning physicist considered to be the founder of quantum theory, and one of the most important physicists of the 20th century, indeed of all time.

Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937) Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp. 184



“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.”

“Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.”
–Physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, who is credited with formulating classical electromagnetic theory and whose contributions to science are considered to be of the same magnitude to those of Einstein and Newton.


“The more I study science, the more I believe in God.”
–Albert Einstein
(The Wall Street Journal, Dec 24, 1997, article by Jim Holt, “Science Resurrects God.”)

“I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts; the rest are details.”
–Albert Einstein
(From E. Salaman, “A Talk With Einstein,” The Listener 54 (1955), pp. 370-371, quoted in Jammer, p. 123).

“The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”
–Albert Einstein

Argument from Authority.

Fail.

---

I reckon any creator god must be horrendously complex. Did he spontaneously evolve, or was he created?

It exists outside the universe, therefore Bob doesn't have to support any part of what he says. Only people with reasonable beliefs have to do that.

In that case, let's stipulate that I created his god.

It's just as likely as any other "just-so" story.

[abaris]

Created, but definitely not intelligently.

Given that his creators have been desert dwelling morons, this doesn't come as a surprise.

[JuliaL]

Tell me this. Which is more complex: the infrastructure, processes and functions operating within New York City, or a single celled bacteria?

I know (waves arm enthusiastically).
The infrastructure of New York City incorporating, as it does untold quadrillions of single celled bacteria digesting waste in recycling and sewage treatment plants.