C.H. Spurgeon

Sinners, let me address you with words of life; Jesus wants nothing from you, nothing whatsoever, nothing done, nothing felt; he gives both work and feeling. Ragged, penniless, just as you are, lost, forsaken, desolate, with no good feelings, and no good hopes, still Jesus comes to you, and in these words of pity he addresses you, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Posing Questions From An Atheist

From a comment here, from a post here, come these questions at their request here:

My thoughts are in green.

What is the "something" of a god? The God said I AM THAT I AM and scripture says He is a Spirit.

What is the energy that god or gods used to create "something"? The God used His voice to speak things into existence.

Is matter part of a god? Is energy? If so, what kind? Both matter and energy are creations of The God, for by him all things consist.

To repeat, what is the nature of the "something" that supposedly created another "something"? The God’s nature is holy.

Logic only applies to the real world and a certain quality that has developed in the evolution to human beings. To propose a non-naturalistic cause takes you outside of the system. You are correct. The God is outside of the natural system He created, He is supernatural.

Mitt Romney recently said, “I’m not exactly sure what is meant by intelligent design,” he said. “But I believe God is intelligent and I believe he designed the creation. And I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body.” I disagree with evolution.

This begs the question of what is meant by "intelligent"? What does it mean to say that a god is "intelligent"? The God fully understands all of creation for it was He who has thought and spoke it into existence.

Where did this "intelligence" come from and what is its nature? It comes from The God Himself for before creation there was nothing but God Himself.

In fact, "intelligence" also only has meaning in the real natural universe and simply defines a quality now found in a certain level of evolved beings. "Intelligence" could not exist outside this framework. This is an assumption based on human intelligence. The God is all knowing, so you could claim He is above “created” intelligence if you must.

If "intelligence" has always existed, as in a supernatural proposition such as a god, then human beings must be as gods. The serpent claimed mankind can be as gods knowing good and evil, but not as The God knowing all things. There are gods and lords but one True God.

If a god has a superior "intelligence", it would know all about the past, present, and future. So why would it trouble itself about how humans act? Why not? For His purpose.

For that matter, if a god has such intelligence, why would it bother with such a roundabout system as evolution, as Romney claims, instead of creating everything immediately as it wanted? In this case, the young earth creationists make more sense than Romney. He did create as He wanted.

But even that doesn't make sense. The further question would be, "Why did an "intelligent" god create anything at all? What "interest" would there be for it to create such inferior beings as us and the other animals, or plants, or non-sentient matter and energy? Can a god even have "interests"? The problem is that you cannot understand the mind of God, for you have said yourself “The God is outside of the natural system He created, He is supernatural” meaning the creature cannot and is not smarter or more intelligent than their Creator.

8 comments:

Splinters of Silver said...

The links don't show up since I changed the color to green. If desired one can run their mouse pointer over my comments to find them.

JohnFen said...

Remember when I mentioned the difficulty in conversation between atheists and theists that stems from a stark difference in worldview? This post is a great example of that. In your worldview, you answered all of the questions posed. In the atheist worldview, none of your answers actually answer anything at all.

Splinters of Silver said...

JohnFen,

I figured as much, but when asking a Christian these questions what do you expect to get? :)

King Aardvark said...

I agree with johnfen, there is definitely a sense that you are talking past each other here.

Quite frankly, you sound a lot like the bible here. Atheists sound more like a science paper in a research journal, full of qualifiers, descriptions, definitions, discussions, etc.

For instance, take this exchange:
"What is the energy that god or gods used to create "something"?" "The God used His voice to speak things into existence."

What does it mean for God to use his voice? To the scientist, voice is just a sound produced from the communicative organ of an animal. It is vibration through a medium (usually air). The medium is part of the physical universe and the sound is a property of that universe. It has no creative properties in any way. To answer the question satisfactorily, you would need to explain God's voice (does God have a vocal apparatus? is he in a medium? what does it mean for God to speak while outside the physical universe?) and how speaking ideas about things creates the energy/matter and organizes it, since in our experience, this is beyond what speech can do.

Splinters of Silver said...

Well King Aardvark,

I can see what you are saying, so I will do like the atheists (or at least some) feels free to do:

I'll say "I don't know until I get further revelation from God". :)

Of course they would say until science gives more evidence. :)

By the way: How could I explain a supernatural God in a natural way to have everyone understand?

Thanks for the visit.

BEAST FCD said...

This is odd.

Linking evolution with atheism actually doesn't make much sense, since evolution speaks neither for nor against the hands of god at work.

In any case, Darwin was an agnostic, and some christians with a more scientific mindset also know that evolution is true.

Note that I do not invoke "belief" when it comes to evolution, simply because we know evolution to be a fact. There is too much scientific data and fossils to collaborate natural history of this kind, and any claims otherwise would be required to refute the entire collection of scientific data, which, to date, no religious institution has done so (forget Creationist-Research, those morons can't prove shit).

Splinters of Silver said...

we know evolution to be a fact

I guess that explains why it is still taught as a theory and there are those scientist which disagree, and they are still looking for missing links.

But thanks for the visit.

BEAST FCD said...

The idea of "missing links" is actually a bloody fallacy, in a way.

Say, for example,someone finds a fossil that seems to fit into a particular evolutionary tree, then the Christian will ask, where are the other missing or intermediate link between this species and the next? And then the evolutionist will have the impossible task of tracing every damn missing link in Earth's Natural history, which is damn well impossible.

I think most Christians have construed one important fact when it comes to the meaning of theory. When scientists define a natural phenomenon as "theory", it does not indicate the exact opposite of "fact". Rather, a scientific "theory" is granted to a phenomenon that already is established generally as factual, although some mechanisms of that phenomenon are still being investigated and disputed by scientists.

To give an example, the theory of gravity. Everyone knows and acknowledges it to be a fact, but it is still classified scientifically as "theory". Does it take away any credence of gravity? Definitely not.

I hope I have clarified on this matter.

John Bunyan

To be saved is to be preserved in the faith to the end. 'He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.' (Mt. 24:13) Not that perseverance is an accident in Christianity, or a thing performed by human industry; they that are saved 'are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.' (1 Pet. 1: 3-6) But perseverance is absolutely necessary to the complete saving of the soul…. He that goeth to sea with a purpose to arrive at Spain, cannot arrive there if he be drowned by the way; wherefore perseverance is absolutely necessary to the saving of the soul.