A Challenge for the Atheist

[Lemonvariable72]

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

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?

1a. Sure there could be something that we might refer to as a god given how poorly the term is defined.
1b. No.

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?

2. Yes but I see no reason to think that this universe is intelligently designed, especailly for human life.

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?

3. No I would not. Science is often counter intuitive and the height of that is quantuam physics which is as well proven as relativity. Quantuam physics tells us that particle pop in and out of exsistance from nothing thousands of times a second.

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?

4. Yes we can't see those per se, but we can test every one of those under the scientific method. We can not do that with any god.

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

5. No, but he has proven totally indetectable under any known scientific means

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?

6. Why is it reasonable to suppose there was a who when there is no evidence to such.

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?

7. No I would not, quantuam physics shows us that things come from nothing all the time. Though I see where you are going with this and I'd like to quote Carl Sagan

"If God created the universe, we must then ask the next logical question: what created God? We might say God came from nothing, or that God always existed. If we say that God came from nothing, why not skip a step and say the universe came from nothing? If we say that God always existed, why not skip a step and say the universe always existed?"

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.)

8. You are using a analogy here, erroneously. DNA is a mechanism for storing cellular information that is a modification of RNA through evolution by natural selection. Infact the information in a unicellar ameoba is hundreds of times that in a human. Where is the sense in that
For further reading
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/f...9.471.html

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?

9. I would certianly say that depending on how you define great the is far greater then the big. I happen to think earth is great for us as is would you not agree? Perhaps it would makes sense to say dualism is correct and that the mind produced the matter, however every piece of experimental evidence we have shows otherwise. I'd refer you to the following case
Phineas Gage
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/f...9.471.html
The montreal procedure and Dr. penfeild
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/dimensions...field.html

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

10. empathy and reasoning together.

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

11. The laws of physics have no demonstrated law maker. It is only man's laws that require law makers

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?

12. No. If it intelligence to create a model of the ebola virus, did the ebola virus have a intelligent designer? I can go and watch a kid make a science fair model.

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?
13. Interesting example, givien libyan desert glass
http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsitems...21649.html
As for the big bang, the standard cause and effect business completely breaks down as there is no time before the big bang. But beyond that I do not know the exact cause.
[quote]
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?

14. Given we know so little about the cause how are you justified in making any claims to it's porperties?

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?
*Source:http://geekychristian.com/questions-for-atheists-agnostics/

15. I'm going to let Neil Tyson talk for me on this one




Now if I gave you the intended answers, how would that imply anything more then a deist god?