Life Without God

photo titled Playing safe by Brett Jordan through a CC License

“Without God, a perfect, objective, supernatural being to create people with purpose and meaning, then purpose and meaning are self-derived from the minds of men. Men who are purposeless and without meaning. The truth is, God exists and He created everything with a purpose and meaning. God created mankind which has inherit value, derived from Himself as we’re all created in His image. If anyone needs a crutch, it is undoubtedly those who reject God, attempting to prop themselves up all on their own.”
– Terrence Covin, from the post “A Life Without God Is A Life Of Fantasy”

via http://jeticsleague.org/a-life-without-god-is-a-life-of-fantasy/

EPH 2:11-13 ESV

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Accusing theists of needing a crutch is a little hypocritical.

Life without God is meaningless and absurd. You don’t know where you came from, why you are here, or where you are going- and yet you create these things from yourself out of thin air…and how paltry they are without an Eternal Being to give them substance and meaning. Your only honest philosophy would be nihilism, and yet you don’t have the courage for that.

Truly Solomon was speaking of this worldview when he wrote:

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

– ECCLESIASTES 1:2-11 ESV

Simul iustus et peccator,

Eric Adams

The Belief That There is no God is a Belief|| Tim Barnett

Photo titled Counterfeit by Gillian Frew, used without alteration through a CC Attribution 2.0 license

“This is not the case with atheists. People don’t write books about things they don’t have any beliefs about. No one debates about non-beliefs. If they did there would be nothing to talk about.

This attempt to change the definition of atheism to a lack of belief is a tactic to try to shift the burden on proof. But it won’t work. The belief that there is no God is a belief. And if the atheist thinks it is a reasonable belief, he should have evidence to believe it.”
– Tim Barnett, from the article “Is Atheism Simply a Lack of Belief in God?”

via http://feedly.com/e/bGdQnP68

The Universe Was Created For Man To Live In || Robert Jastrow

English: The axes span ~60 order of magnitude (logarithmic scale)! The upper limit is provided by Planck scale, lower limit is from dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry by quantum chromodynamics. The right panel shows a zoom-in of the small box. The lines show the limits of 9 life-permitting criteria: 1. Above this blue line, there is only one stable element, which has the chemistry of helium with no known stable chemical compounds 2. Below this blue line, the only stable element consists of a single particle, which can combine with a positron to produce an element with the chemistry of hydrogen. A handful of chemical reactions are possible, with their most complex product being an analogue of H2 3. Above this green curve, neutrons in nuclei decay, so that hydrogen is the only stable element 4. Below this green curve, protons in nuclei decay, so that any atoms that formed would disintegrate into a cloud of neutrons 5. Above this violet line, deuteron is strongly unstable. Stellar nucleosynthesis would fail 6. Below this light blue curve, isolated protons are unstable, leaving no hydrogen left over from the early universe to power long-lived stars and play crucial role in organic chemistry 7. Below this dark violet curve, the diproton is stable. Protons can fuse to helium-2 via a very fast electromagnetic reaction, rather than the much slower, weak nuclear pp-chain 8. Above this orange line, the production of deuterium in stars absorbs energy rather than releasing it. 9. Below this red line, a proton in a nucleus can capture an orbiting electron and become a neutron. Atoms are unstable 10. The red arrow points the region potentially suitable for complex life (small green region with light green dot)

 

The theist begins with the first five words of the Bible, and sees the universe as a wonderful handiwork of an infinite God. The atheist begins with…anything but the first five words of the Bible. 

Which is more reasonable:

1. Seeing the intricately fine-tuned universe as evidence of a Designer, or
2. Seeing the intricately fine-tuned universe as evidence of nothing?

 

“If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”

 

— Robert Jastrow, agnostic astronomer, author of God and the Astronomers

via URLhttp://www.alwaysbeready.com/quotations

 

simul iustus et peccator, 

 

Eric Adams 

Rossville, GA 

godsguy12@comcast.net 

christianreasons@gmail.com 

https://twitter.com/xianreasons 

http://christianreasons.com/

Theistic Critiques Of Atheism | Reasonable Faith

“God is not ‘dead’ in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960’s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.”

 

“The face of Anglo-American philosophy has been transformed as a result. Theism is on the rise; atheism is on the decline.2 Atheism, though perhaps still the dominant viewpoint at the American university, is a philosophy in retreat. In a recent article in the secularist journal Philo Quentin Smith laments what he calls “the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy departments since the late 1960s.” He complains,  “Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism. . . began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians . . . . in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, ‘academically respectable’ to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today.3

Smith concludes, “God is not ‘dead’ in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960’s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.”4” — William Lane Craig

via Theistic Critiques Of Atheism | Reasonable Faith.

simul iustus et peccator,

Ерік Адамс

Materialism | Reasonable Faith

“Unless the materialist has some positive arguments of his own to prove that materialism is true, then he can’t justifiably dismiss theistic arguments merely because they imply that an immaterial, fundamental entity exists.”

English: This photo was taken by my wife during a cruise. It has no copyright concerns. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If materialism is false, what would be some good ways to attack it? First, demand from the materialist some arguments for the view that the only fundamental entities which exist are material. Don’t let him get away with just asserting his metaphysical worldview or trying to shift the burden of proof to you (demanding that you prove that a fundamental, immaterial entity exists). He’s making the materialist claim; now insist that he support his claim. Second, give arguments for the reality of immaterial, non-supervenient entities. The arguments for God’s existence come to the fore here. If God exists, then materialism is false. I’ve presented cosmological, teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments, all of which, if sound, imply the existence of a transcendent, immaterial being. These are great arguments to use against the materialist because they focus on what the real issue is: theism vs. atheism. Unless the materialist has some positive arguments of his own to prove that materialism is true, then he can’t justifiably dismiss theistic arguments merely because they imply that an immaterial, fundamental entity exists. He needs to show why those theistic arguments are unsound—which is just the discussion you want to have!” — William Lane Craig

 

via Materialism | Reasonable Faith.

simul iustus et peccator,

亚当斯李家祥议员

 

Reasonable Worldviews – Materialistic Naturalism vs. Christian Theism – by Apologist – Newsvine

“Naturalism cannot truly even provide a foundation for science itself”

“As explored in this series of essays, the worldview of the Naturalist fails to provide grounding for many important concepts, such as: the origin and existence of our universe, why there is fine-tuning of the cosmos and of biological systems, human consciousness, the ability to trust our reasoning ability, the existence of universal abstract entities such as the laws of logic, the consistency and reproducibility of Nature, or even why things like knowledge have any intrinsic value at all.  Because of this, Naturalism cannot truly even provide a foundation for science itself.  Ultimately the worldview of Naturalism is without objective meaning or hope.  Given this worldview, are there really even any moral \”oughts\” or requirements on us?  What would be the justification for them?  The worldview of the New Atheists provides at best a poor foundation to build upon.

An important point here is not that the Naturalistic worldview cannot give answers to many of the issues mentioned above.  The real issue is \”on what basis\”?  What are they grounded on?  Is there anything that is intrinsic or objective about them?  How are these beliefs justified?  That is the Achilles heel of this kind of worldview.”

via Reasonable Worldviews – Materialistic Naturalism vs. Christian Theism – by Apologist – Newsvine.

simul iustus et peccator,

Eric “the unevolved” Adams