Category Archives: Other Stuff

Posted on

Hypothetical conversation on the “Who made God?” question

I cam across an interesting post on this at whyfaith.com:

Christian: The cosmological argument is strong evidence that God exists. If the universe was made, it needs a maker; if it was created, it needs a creator. That creator is God.

Skeptic: Ah, but this merely raises the question “Who made God?” which Richard Dawkins himself asks in The God Delusion.* It just pushes the question back one step further.

Christian: This seems to me to be a category error; it confuses the uncreated creator with His created creation. God doesn’t need a maker because God was never made; He was and is eternally existing.

Skeptic: That’s special pleading at best, hypocritical at worst. Why is it okay for God to be “eternal, uncreated” but not the universe?

Christian: Because we have good reasons, both philosophical and scientific, that the universe is not eternal, whereas no such reasons exist to believe that God is so. God is not subject to the same limitations of the material world He created. The cosmological argument proposes not that everything requires a cause, but whatever begins to exist requires a cause; if God did not begin to exist (since there is no reason to believe He did, unlike the universe) He requires no cause.

Skeptic: Even if we agree that the universe is not eternal, why must its cause be God? Why not some other explanation?

Christian: Whatever created both time and space must transcend both time and space. Also, there are numerous other attributes which can be discerned about whatever created the universe that imply a personal entity (that is, it possesses volition among other things). So the creator of the universe is an entity which is beyond time and space yet still possesses certain attributes and is personal. This sounds to me a lot like God.

* In The God Delusion Dawkins is attempting to apply the question as a defeater to the design argument (p.109), not the cosmological argument (which Dawkins shockingly dismisses in less than a page). I’ve personally heard it applied more often to the cosmological argument, at least in the realm of Internet banter.”

(This conversation is from www.Whyfaith.com)

Posted on

California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design

Here is some of the LA Times article (and more about Intelligent Design “ID” below):

“A lawsuit alleges that the state-owned center improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution, as well as e-mailed complaints from USC professors and others. It contends that the center violated both the 1st Amendment and a contract to rent the museum’s Imax Theater when it canceled the screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record.”

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Freedom Alliance, an L.A.-based group described by senior fellow Avi Davis as a nonprofit, nonpartisan “think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals.”

The AFA seeks punitive damages and compensation for financial losses, as well as a declaration from the court that the center violated the Constitution and cannot refuse the group the right to rent its facilities for future events.

The AFA had planned an Oct. 25 screening of two films at the Exposition Park museum — one a short Imax movie called “We are Born of Stars,” which favors Darwin’s theory; the other, “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record,” a feature-length documentary that criticizes Darwin and promotes intelligent design.

Intelligent design is the theory that an intelligent being, rather than impersonal forces such as Darwinian natural selection, is responsible for shaping life on Earth. An overwhelming majority of scientists and science and natural history museums consider the theory of evolution to have been proved beyond a doubt by genetic and fossil evidence. Critics of intelligent design have dismissed it as a superficially scientific cloak for the straightforwardly religious belief known as Creationism that’s anchored in a literal reading of the biblical Book of Genesis….” (More)

For more on this story click here.

Just for the record and the 1 millionth time. Intelligent Design is not Creationsim derived from a literal reading of Genesis…well, I now feel better. (they are separate issues)

If you would like to understand Intelligent Design in plain language, see this book by Sean McDowell and William Dembski:

For understanding how to navigate issues of Science and Faith (as well as interpreting Genesis 1-3 and how all that fits with the age of the earth and Darwinian evolution) look no further than Science and Faith: Friends or Foes by C. John “Jack” Collins. (Hebrew scholar and MIT graduate)

Posted on

The Cost of Not Forgiving

I came across one of the most powerful / convicting insights on forgiveness:

“Only one thing I know costs more than forgiving someone. Know what it is? Not forgiving them. Non-forgiveness costs your heart. Frederick Buechner wrote that of all the deadly sins, resentment appears to be the most fun. To lick your wounds and savor the pain you will give back is in many ways a feast fit for a king. But then it turns out that what you are eating at the banquet of bitterness is your own heart. The skeleton at the feast is you. You start out holding a grudge, but in the end the grudge holds you.”–John Ortberg

Matt. 18:21-35

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26“The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

30“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Posted on

World Magazine’s 2009 Daniel of the Year – Stephen Meyer

“WORLD’s 12th annual Daniel of the Year does not save lives abroad, as Britain’s Caroline Cox and Sudan’s Michael Yerko do. Nor does he regularly save lives of the unborn, as Florida’s Wanda Cohn does through her pregnancy center work. No, Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, fights to show that those lives have eternal value because they are the work of a Creator and not the product of chance.

This fall Meyer came out with a full account of what science has learned in recent decades: Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (Harper One, 2009) shows that the cell is incredibly complex and the code that directs its functions wonderfully designed. His argument undercuts macroevolution, the theory that one kind of animal over time evolves into a very different kind. Meyer thus garners media scorn for raining on this year’s huge celebration of the birth of Charles Darwin 200 years ago and the publication of On the Origin of Species 150 years ago….” Read More

Posted on

Stephen Meyer & Richard Sternberg debate Donald Prothero & Michael Shermer on the topic: The Origins of Life

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

On November 30, 2009, Stephen Meyer & Richard Sternberg debated Donald Prothero & Michael Shermer on the topic: The Origins of Life.

Full MP3 Audio here. (2 hours)

Enjoy!

For Stephen Meyer’s phenomenal book, Signature in the Cell, see below…

(Thanks to the excellent Apologetics 315 for the heads up!)