The Case for Theism

[Drew_2013]

Stimbo,

I don't need to. You're the one building the case for theism; you supply the evidence.

I have done so, its not my goal to persuade atheists, just make a reasonable case to justify my belief.

Again, I don't need facts and data to support my lack of belief in your claims, just as I don't need to buy special non-food to not eat, or wear un-wings not to fly.

Then I would question how seriously you really ponder this issue. This issue we are debating is about how we as a people came into existence and how the universe that allows our existence came about. There are two lines of reasoning; we came about by some naturalistic process that wasn't by intention or design but just happened to have happened or we came about intentionally by design by some Creator who caused our existence. Why should either belief be accepted by default? Why should you or anyone think to themselves I'll believe it was by a natural unintended process unless proven otherwise? I don't know that natural forces did do it...I don't even know if they could do it. By the way, most atheists claim they have arrived at their conclusion because they claim thats where the facts lead. What facts?

Atheists as a rule don't claim that everything didn't come about as a result of some creator, intelligent or otherwise; we simply ask that theists who make such claims provide evidence for why they, and by extension we, should believe them.

You don't seem like a person who merely has a lack of belief, but actually a fairly strong conviction that there is no God and our existence and the universe isn't the result of a creator and subsequently is the result of a natural process that didn't intend for us to exist. If all you had was a lack of belief the reasonable case I've made from facts should give you reason to reconsider.

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I have seen another strategy. I have watched a couple of TV programs about SETI and the search. One scientist (I should look up his name but too lazy at the moment) has done a study on communication that he believes can differentiate between meaningless signals and intelligent communication. Regardless of language if communication is broken down into frequency of expression and charted from most frequent to least frequent it takes on a 45 degree angle. This is true of dolphin language even though we don't know what they're communicating. The upshot is if a pattern were detected they could use this method to determine if its intelligent communication.

When SETI engineers search for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, what are they looking for? The answer is surprisingly simple. They are looking for narrow-band radio emissions. This is because human beings build machines that produce these signals and, as far as we know, such emissions are not produced by mindless natural processes. The SETI engineers search for this signal, not because it is “complex” or fulfills some a priori criterion that would make it a “sign of intelligence,” but simply because they think they know what sorts of mechanisms are needed to produce it. This strategy may not work, but it is hard to see how the scientists could do any better. Our judgments about what counts as a sign of intelligent design must be based on empirical information about what designers often do and what they rarely do. As of now, these judgments are based on our knowledge of human intelligence. The more our hypotheses about intelligent designers depart from the human case, the more in the dark we are as to what the ground rules are for inferring intelligent design. It is imaginable that these limitations will subside as human beings learn more about the cosmos and the varieties of intelligence it contains. But for now, we are rather limited.

— Elliot Sober,