Questions for the atheists (The geeky christian)

[Chad32]

It would be nice if the answers were separate from the questions, so I could do a simple copy/paste with this.

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 can be reasonably certain that gods don't exist, much like any other supernatural creature. Especially the type of god that desperately wants to be worshiped. I'm not aware there is any evidence for supernatural beings.


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

I don't see anything in the world that wasn't made by the beings within it as intelligently designed. The more we find out about the universe, the more it looks like it wasn't.


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, I don't believe that something can come from nothing. Christians are the ones who seem to push the idea that things can be willed into existence. There has never actually been nothing in the universe. The universe was just much more compact at one time.


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?

I can agree with that, though we can detect the things you mentioned with other senses and tools.


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

If we could detect him with other senses and tools, that would be enough to know he exists. We can't, so we have no good reason to believe.


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?

I believe it is more reasonable to believe cosmic forces can eventually result in life, than some intelligent cosmic being that's capable of speaking things into existence. If you're going to argue for the immortality of this being to explain why he wasn't also created, I will argue for the universe's eternal existence. Also again, there is no such thing as nothing, unless you're a christian who believes matter comes into existence because someone wantsa them to badly enough.


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?

I find your questions a bit redundant. Yes, as far as I know the universe has always existed. It was just very compact at one time, then expanded outwards.


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.)

Amoebas are evolved lifeforms. It does not take an intelligent designer to create life. It just takes particles, molecules, or whatever was already there enough time to get it done.


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?

We have no evidence of a mind producing matter. We do have evidence of matter producing a mind.


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

Right and wrong is a complex subject. Morals come from our need to work in groups, as all social creatures do. The group sets up rules that allow the individuals to prosper, and those are our morals.


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

Sure.


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?

We don't know that the universe had a beginning. Who is to say the compressed state that started our universe isn't a previous universe that collapsed on itsself? Given that the laws of physics that we use to figure out our universe didn't exist until after the big expansion, we don't know how to figure out what happened before that time. All we know is that the universe exists, and we don't know of any state where the universe didn't exist. Asking who made the universe is senseless at this point.


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?

We don't know if the universe was ever not there, so we don't know if it needed a cause. It's the same as asking what caused god.


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?

We don't know of anything that's beyond the universe. I see little point in worrying about it.


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?

Given the amount of space in the universe where life is not found, compared to the amount of space where it is found, I don't think the universe is fine tuned for life.