A Challenge for the Atheist

[Tartarus Sauce]

A christian friend of mine sent me a list of these questions. How would you guys respond to each? A link to a site or forum with the answers would also be helpful. Thanks

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?

No, absolutely certainty is a bullshit concept. And what evidence? I see a lot of counter evidence; evidence suggesting your god is nothing more than a human-made construct.

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?

Whether or not I agree if it would be that intelligently designed things call for an intelligent designer isn't relevant because I see no evidence of intelligent design in the universe. You are interpreting intelligent agency where there is none.

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?

It has already been determined through quantum mechanics that not everything in this universe functions under the laws of causality. Additionally, the universe may never have "not" existed, just existed in different forms previously. You don't know, nobody does. Additionally, even if it was proved that a cause other than the big-bang, or whatever model you wish to use, was needed, who's to say that the cause would have been what we typically call a god? Or even more specifically, your god?

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?

Yes, but we can observe and measure the effects of the phenomena you just listed. Nothing of the sort has been provided with deities without making logical fallacies or unwarranted assumptions in the process.

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

Correct.

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?

Your conception of nothing and the generally formulated state of the singularity which spawned the big bang are more likely than not to be non-equivalent.

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?

You are assuming that existence, as a quality, is always temporally finite. (Did time even exist as a concept in the theoretical previous forms of existence?)

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.)

Just because something is complex doesn't mean it had a designer, and DNA is not equivalent to human encyclopedias in a literal sense, only in the figurative. We know encyclopedias are created by intelligent beings because---big surprise--- we design them.

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?

Have you ever heard of nuclear fission? Look it up sometime.

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

Absolute, objective morals don't exist, we construct them for various purposes and give them value. Note that just because I don't consider them to be a natural property doesn't mean I disregard them.

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

Equivocation fallacy.

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, that seems like a massive leap in logic. We are intelligent creatures and can therefore create representations of what we observe, including a model universe. If the universe was in fact NOT created by a super-intelligence, would it still make sense to say that we as humans with the intelligent capacity to make representations, wouldn't be able to make a model universe in such a reality? The two simply aren't related.

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?

There is no substance to this question, it is pure analogy. I've already discussed about causes and the universe.

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?

How do you intend to speculate on something beyond the universe? Seems like an epistemological unknowable to me.

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?

The universe is most certainly NOT fine-tuned for life from my perspective. It's hostile to it more than anything.