Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Philosophers' view on god (First Installment)


There is a lot of talk about if god exists and even if one exists why should we believe in him. I am going to focus on the Christian God because I know Him the best, but a lot can be applied to other monotheistic religions. We have been talking about Bertrand Russell a lot in this class this semester so I figured let us start with his view of God, but I will go more into other philosopher's views in my next post. Most of my information about his arguments I have gotten from this website and this paper are going to be counter arguments. In this I am going to take just a few arguments of the few arguments he proposed: who created god, microevolution versus macroevolution in design, existence of injustice, Christianity is the adversary of moral progress.

            Who created God? To answer this question, we must assume he is like us or like any other normal matter since natural law states matter cannot be destroyed or created, but if we do this how is he omnipotent, omniscient, all powerful, and creator. We must assume that he lives outside what we know as the universe. Russell argues against the causation theory by saying that if everything has a then God cannot be all powerful meaning the world always existed. Science goes against him in this fact because we know the world did not always exist and that it had a start date. This means that something caused the world to exist, but what? We have two responses to this: chance or God. If chance can create the world and life, then I can continuously lay four aces down in poker and not be cheating because there is a possibility for it to happen. The creation of the earth has an absurdly insignificant probability of existing in a field where life can exist and everything around it to exist that it had to be designed. Lee Strobel who wrote “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for Faith” wrote “Dr. Stephen Hawking has calculated that if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball” (pg. 77). After stating this, he proceeds to go in depth about other laws of nature that if changed by the smallest fraction would have the most detrimental consequences to human existence.

            There are a couple different arguments against the creation of the world first being we evolved from a single cell organism or from apes. Lets stat with the creation of life. We don’t know scientifically how life was created, but according 1to Lee Strobel increasingly more scientists are becoming Christians because of the intricacies of even a single cell organism is so in depth that it is impossible to happen. Taking it even smaller the possibility of creating even one amino acid is basically zero. I really liked one example sir Fredrick Hoyle gave saying the probability of assembling one hundred proteins to make one amino acid is the equivalent of a tornado going through a junkyard and fully assembling a Boeing 747. On the other evolution. Microevolution is very true and animals do evolve to their environment out of time. There is scientific proof for microevolution, but macro evolution. Russell presents the argument against creation for when people say animals have certain traits to make our life easier. Russell states the argument “rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot.” Then continues to say he does not agree with it. I do too. If you look at Darwinism animals evolve to survive in their environment not so we can manage to live in the world. If you take it from a biblical view animals were not designed how they are now. God gave all the animals on the earth plants to eat, but when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit that action cursed the earth.

            A lot of people complain against religion because of the injustice in the world. I completely agree and have had the same question. I have asked several people in my church about it and got no sufficient answer. At some point though I had to just trust that there was a plan. Russell had the same problem as many others. Russell states “After all, I know only this world. I do not know about the rest of the universe, but so far as one can argue at all on probabilities one would say that probably this world is a fair sample, and if there is injustice here the odds are that there is injustice elsewhere also." I would have to agree there is injustice in this world, but does this mean there is no God, that He is not all powerful, or He is not all loving? The only way I can think to answer this is from a biblical view. God made us in his image. This means that we have some similar personalities such as humans desire to please ourselves. Another trait is the freedom to choose. This freedom to choose makes our love for God true appose to just robots programed to care. This is why injustice is in the world. Therefore God doesn’t just get rid of all injustice. He is a perfect being with a perfect ideal of justice. Because we are under a perfect justice and because we are in a cursed world with which injustice lives in. When we have decided to try and be our own gods are we really going to succeed? In this same paragraph from this website, Russell states “What really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early Infancy to do it” and I want to comment on this. I know a lot of people like this, but I also know people who run away from God. A lot of those with the strongest faith are people who converted to Christianity. Also from the point of view of logic. The bible is the most prophetic and oldest historical and religious document. Everything that has been stated in it has come true. We have found things to be true that was first stated in the bible. The bible itself ignoring religious aspects of it completely is a historically accurate document that is supported by historical documents from other religions. Stating that what encourages people to convert to Christianity is not any intellectual argument is not a valid argument. Yes a lot of people are begin as Christians because that’s what they grow up, but a true Christian owns their faith and has their own reasons for being a Christian.

3 comments:

  1. I thought this was a good post, I didn’t agree with you on everything. There was one specific statement that had me a little confused… you said “A lot of people complain against religion because of the injustice in the world. I completely agree and have had the same question. I have asked several people in my church about it and got no sufficient answer. At some point though I had to just trust that there was a plan.” I’m not sure what you got as responses from your church about this, but how I understand it it all makes sense to me. We only see what’s happening right now, we can’t see passed that, but God does. God abides in eternity, so when you say injustice I’m assuming you mean criminals who have gone without consequences or maybe the horrible deaths because of hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, etc. For the first case, no one goes unpunished. Believing in God, Jehovah God, gives you the reassurance that God will hold every man and woman accountable for sins they have committed without repenting. Therefore, no sin goes unpunished to those who have not repented, so there is no injustice. For the second one it may seem a tad harsh, but the truth is usually the hardest pill to swallow. These horrible incidents happen because of us. It’s not a punishment, but instead it is a consequence of our actions. I say this because it is not God causing these incidents to happen, but instead we have kicked God out and welcomed in evil. Many will say that’s not true, but God said “if you are not for me then you are against me”, therefore we would have to have welcomed in another even if it was sub-conscientiously done, we still did it. We opened ourselves up to terror and mayhem by kicking God out of our lives, our schools, and our country.

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    1. "criminals who have gone without consequences or maybe the horrible deaths because of hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, etc. For the first case, no one goes unpunished." How do you know? So far as we know, Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and all the rest of history's tyrants just died. We can't be sure that they've been held accountable. We have to hold OURSELVES accountable, for the crimes and injustices humans have perpetrated or might perpetrate.

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    2. "we know the world did not always exist and that it had a start date." We do? We think we know that OUR universe began about 13.5 billion years ago, but "the world"?

      "according 1to Lee Strobel increasingly more scientists are becoming Christians" - Doubtful. Who's Lee Strobel?

      "I had to just trust that there was a plan" - Why? Because the alternative is to court skepticism? But skepticism is often the necessary first step to enlightenment.

      "I would have to agree there is injustice in this world, but does this mean there is no God, that He is not all powerful, or He is not all loving?" It would definitely have to mean the latter, at least, unless "loving" is something completely foreign to human understanding.

      "The bible is the most prophetic and oldest historical and religious document. Everything that has been stated in it has come true." - !!??

      "The bible itself ignoring religious aspects of it completely is a historically accurate document that is supported by historical documents from other religions." - ???

      "a true Christian owns their faith and has their own reasons for being a Christian." - and these reasons are "intellectual arguments"?

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