A Challenge for the Atheist

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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?

I am not absolutely sure I will see the light of day tomorrow. Won't lose much sleep worrying about it though. The possibility of God appears to be slightly less, to me, than the possibility of unicorns.

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?

Yes to both - but I do not see evidence of intelligent design in the universe - unless the designer is not all that good at his job.

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. Sub-particles appear to burst out of nothingness. Even if these does have to be a cause for the universe there is no need for that cause to be sentient.

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?

Oh yes so thank heavens we have so much evidence for the existence of these things - otherwise we wouldn't know they exist.

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

Wouldn't a better question be if we can't see him, and we have no evidence for him, why the fuck would we assume he exists?

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?

Neither appears reasonable from our own experience of the universe. Do you have any other evidence of creation ex-nihilo with or without a creator?

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?

Not applicable in the light of my answer to 6, above.

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.)

A more pertinent question would be why an intelligent designer would need 100 times the amount of genetic material to create a single amoeba than he does to create us? Unless you are prepared to answer that God was learning on the job although that does screw up the whole omniscience thing.

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?

An effect can be greater than the cause. Simply fusing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms provides enough power to drive the sun for about 9 billion years and in turn created the planets and everything on them, including us.

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

Moral law? Moral sense perhaps.

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

No.

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. Weather patterns aren't intelligent but modelling them is a fucking nightmare.

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?

You think the universe is made of glass? You think it is ball shaped? You think small glass balls cannot be made by natural processes? I need to get some of those drugs!

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?

Big if - small probability. Who says the universe is finite? If something can exist outside of the universe we can't know anything about its properties whatsoever. We also have no reason to assume this external-to-the-universe entity can have any impact on the universe itself.

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?

Not big on the anthropic principle in these terms. Fine tuning "from its very inception" that takes 9 billion years to produce the first single celled organism isn't all that impressive. I reckon I could do it in half that time even with my current hectic wanking schedule.