Analyzing Intelligent Design; Irreducible Complexity

Micheal Behe is famous for the argument against evolution known as irreducible complexity. His argument is quite simple and goes like this;
1) There are, in nature, certain biological constructs such that if one took away a single component from it, the entire construct would cease to function.
2) Such a construct could not have formed over time through evolution, for to do so it would have to develop without the parts it needs to function.
3) Therefore, evolution cannot account for various biological constructs in nature.

Kennith Miller, among many others, has pointed out a serious and fatal flaw to this argument. The argument assumes that such constructs can only have a single function. Miller uses Behe's favorite example, the mouse trap, to demonstrate his point. Behe points out that a mouse trap cannot preform its intended function without all of its parts. However, Miller points out that mouse traps can be used for many other things, such as tie clips, or key chains without all of the desired parts.

Here is a video of Kennith further explaining this refutation along with refutations of other I.D. arguments; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

I know Paul Washer has some pretty extreme views on some Christian doctrines, but I think he has a point in this video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RzToNo7A-94#!

A central question arises in this video, are we good? We like to think we are. We view goodness as being only good most of the time. If we fulfill that requirement, then we are good. But on the Christian view, to be truly good (and I'm equating good with righteous) is to be perfect. But to be perfect means to have no imperfection. I think we all have to admit that we are full of imperfection. And so on the Christian view, we are not good. Thus I fail to see how God does not have the right to punish us, if He is truly just, He must punish us. Unless as Paul points out, He dies in our place. So on top of God being well within His rights to judge us, He expressed love and selflessness towards us. This is the main reason why I am skeptical of the atheist claim that God is a moral monster.

Does absence of evidence equal evidence of absence? I hear atheists spout this claim ad nauseam, and I'd like to post a hopefully helpful explanation to why such a claim doesn't logically follow.

Imagine there exists a planet around a distant star but we have no evidence it exists, no one has observed it, but no one has checked the star to see if a planet is orbiting it. In this case, we have no evidence that such a planet exists, but is such a planet improbable? Not at all, given the lack of information we have about the star we are forced to make the neutral claim that the probability of a planet orbiting that star is 50%. But, if we analyze the star and find no evidence such as the star shifting position due to the gravitational pull of the planet, then we can say it is improbable that such a planet exists. Why? Because there was no evidence, where there should have been. This is an elementary point in logic, that no logician or philosopher denies, so why so many atheists can't seem to understand it is beyond me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diBYdQFEAW8&feature=plcp

This video illustrates a mentality which is within almost every single atheist out there. God has committed atrocities against mankind. He has allowed us to suffer, He has allowed us to die horrible deaths. He has allowed famine, plagues, earth quakes and floods to destroy entire cities and people groups. How can such a being be just, compassionate, loving? The problem with this mentality is that it is taking a secular ethical code and placing it into a Christian world-view. What do I mean by this? Well our ethical views are largely affected by the rest of our world-view. If you believe that there is no afterlife for example, you will probably view death as more horrendous then someone who does believe in an afterlife. But this impact goes even deeper, secular ethics generally leans towards the principle of whatever does harm to a person is wrong, and whatever helps a person, is right. In a Christian world-view this principle is generally true. However, there is a different focus as to what constitutes harm to a person, and what constitutes helping a person. In Christianity, unlike secularism, the focus of ethics is on the afterlife, not this life. This means that suffering that occurs in this life is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it leads to us accepting Christ and spending eternity without pain or suffering or evil.

From a Christian perspective I do not view suffering or pain as evil, I only view them as evil in certain contexts. A family killed by a tornado, for example, I don't view as evil. I distinguish between evil and bad, such an event would be bad in the sense that it would be unfortunate, but there was no malicious intent in the tornado to kill people, natural forces have no intent. You might say God had the intention of allowing the tornado to kill those people, but God is in a unique position. He knows all, and is in control of all, and as such, God has the right to choose who lives and who dies. This might be a difficult concept to grasp. but consider this God knows everything about you, He knows you better than you do. So He knows who is naughty and who is nice, so to speak. Thus He knows better than all of us who deserves punishment and who does not. But even more so, death in the Christian world-view is not always punishment, in many cases it is simply time for those people to go to heaven.

This is just one piece in the puzzle. There are many other factors to consider which give us a clearer picture as to why God allows suffering and evil to occur. Much like knowing the context of a particular action shapes the morality or immorality of it. For example; say a man is cutting a mans arm off with a dull saw. Given this data, the act is clearly immoral, but add the new data that the man is a soldier trying to save another soldiers life by getting rid of his mangled arm that is causing him to bleed to death. With this data the act is no longer immoral but quite noble and good. It is the same way with God, if we are not fair in looking at all the factors at play in many of God's actions, it is unfair of us to say that God is wicked or evil.

Another topic brought up in this video was this; God sends people to hell for refusing to believe in Him. This like the previous issue is a result of a straw man of the Christian position. In the secular world-view, most people are righteous. Righteousness is attained by doing the right thing as much as possible. In Christianity this is not the case. Righteousness is perfection in Christianity. Any evil deed or selfish act makes a person effectually deserving of eternal punishment. On Christianity we have all committed many selfish actions, so we are all deserving of hell. Given this data, it makes no sense to say that God sends people to hell because they don't believe in Him, He sends them to hell, because they, we are wicked people. The only way that we can escape such judgement is to have faith in Christ, to accept His gift of eternal life. Those who don't choose such life are choosing punishment.

Faith and feelings

I hear many Christians claim that to have faith in God you must throw away all reason and trust what you heart tells you, you must go by feelings. This idea seems particularly popular among charismatics for obvious reasons.   The problem with this view of faith is that you aren't having faith in Christ, you having faith in your feelings. Perhaps if the Bible taught us to trust our feelings, such a faith would be justified. However, this is not what scripture says, Jeremiah 17:9 states, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Faith means trusting that God has died for your sins and that He has called you to a purpose in life. We are not to work out this purpose by feelings alone. Rather we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is only by seeking God with all of these faculties that we will find Him and what He wants with our lives.

Can Christians account for God?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iISuppJE0LE&feature=related

This video asks 4 questions;

1) Why does God exist?

2) Why does God have the traits He has?

3) Why is God's will effective?

4) Why does God have to act consistently with His nature?

In this note I will attempt to respond to these questions. Lets start with the first one. Why does God exist?

Late in the video youtube user Venaloid states that in every worldview there are certain things which can't be explained. I disagree, I don't think thats the issue here. There are things which are self-evident or self explanatory. Take logic for example; logic cannot be rejected for to reject it you must use it. You cannot say the law of non-contradiction is false because if you say things can contradict each other than logic itself can be true and false at the same time, and thus the statement logic is true, would be meaningless. Interestingly we can still ask why is logic true? When stated this way logic does seem unexplainable. Why can't things contradict? I think the reason this question sounds so perplexing is because the question itself beggs the question. This is because the answer to the question is within the question, logic simply has to be true, there is no way around it. So why does God exist? If God is the greatest possible being, then like logic it would be impossible for God not to exist. And so again the answer is simply it is logically impossible for God not to exist.

Question two; Why does God have the traits He has?

First lets define what a trait is. Traits or attributes of a being are what defines that being. A chair for example has the attribute of being meant for sitting. If an object isn't meant for sitting, it isn't a chair. You could ask why are chairs meant for sitting? But the question is unanswerable, because the answer is within the question. Chairs simply are meant for sitting. Its how they are defined. This rule even applies for concepts of beings which do not exist. Unicorns for example, have horns. If a being doesn't have a horn it isn't a unicorn. But if we ask why does a unicorn have a horn? Well the question seems a bit silly, part or what makes a unicorn a unicorn is a horn. But one could say, we created and defined chairs and unicorns, but if God exists then He is the only self-existent being. So how can God be defined into traits? Well there are many objects we didn't create that we ascribe traits to, our planet for example, has continents, is habitable, and is one of 8 planets in our solar system. Note that we define things from our perspective. So when we "define" God we are describing God in terms we can understand. Perhaps Gods attributes go much deeper than our understanding can go. But thats another issue. The point I want to stress is that God's attributes are not arbitrary. God did not choose to be all powerful, He did not choose to be the greatest possible being. One might object and say, but could God's attributes be different? Well think about it, if attributes are what define something and God exists necessarily, then His attributes must be necessarily so. So asking why they are the way they are is a bit like asking, why is logic the way it is?

Question 3; Why is God's will effective?

This question perplexes me. Perhaps I can put it in a format that is easier to understand; Why is it that whatever God wills must happen? Why is it that when God wills a planet to form that it does form? Well first of all I think its important to distinguish what God wants to happen to what He wills to happen. What God wants to happen would be His goals for what He creates. What God wills to happen would be what He creates. You might say, how could there be a difference? Everything that God wants to happen, happens. Well not necessarily. Take for example God's desire that everyone freely choose to be in relationship with Him? Can God guarentee that that desire will become reality? Well it seems quite possible that it is logically impossible for God to actualize a world in which every human being freely chooses Him. Whereas an example of God's willing something to happen would be Him creating a planet. But more to the point why is it that when God wants to create something, that that something must happen? Yet again the answer seems to me to be within the question itself. The fact that God can do anything logically possible is part of what makes God, God. A more interesting question in my opinion would be to ask, why can't God do something against His will? Well this seems to me to be logically impossible. Because to will to do something is to make an effort to do it. But how can you make an effort against making an effort? So to do something against your will would require that you in fact will to go against your own will. Again take note, it is logically impossible for a being to go against their own will because of the definition of what it means to have a will to do something.

Question 4; Why does God have to act consistently with His nature?

This seems to me to be the most silly question of all. Its like asking why do I have to act consistently with my nature? The answer is simple. Because my nature is what makes me, me. Even if it were possible for me to do something against my nature, such as to change my memories or my perception, I would no longer be me. Similarly if God made Himself ignorant, then He would no longer be God. To put this concept into a clearer perspective imagine if a chair ceased to be made for sitting? Would it still be a chair? No. So in attempting to act against our own nature we would have to change our nature, and thus make our actions consistent with our nature. So it is logically impossible for God to do something against His own nature, especially when part of His nature is to be unchanging and unchangeable.

Final thoughts; The reason this youtube user asked these four question was in response to arguments such as the moral argument, which argues that atheists cannot account for why there is objective morality. Venaloid argues that the Christian can't account for God, so Christianity doesn't really answer this question either, it just pushes it back one step. As I have shown this is not the case. Morality is not self-explanatory, there is no logically necessary reason for why morality is the way it is, unless it is rooted in God's essense, or perhaps it exists as the form of the good as Plato thought (but there are many issues with this view).

I do, however, think that logic is self explanatory, so I don't think the theist can say the atheist is being inconsistent when they use logic. But that is all I have to say about this video, if anyone has questions, or disagree's with my analysis, please post a comment and I'll try my best to respond.

"'Jer. 31:33 states that the law is written on our hearts'

Which would be impossible since it is only a muscle.

'but the 10 commandments'

With four useless rules "You shall not worship other god, you shall not make graven image, you shall not say the lord's name in vain and you shall not work on the sabbath". Could have at least included : Don't rape.

But again, not one iota of the old laws shall change, the laws of israel included, until earth and heaven are no more."

An atheist said this to me, and he was serious.

Dan Savage bigoted hatred of bigotry

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao0k9qDsOvs

This video is really really sad. Not only because Dan Savage is being a total hypocrite in mocking Christians in such a way, but that the people walking out of the place in frustration are or at least were his Christian supporters. So he was mocking people who agreed with him that gays were being mistreated across the country, and across the world for that matter.

But it gets worse, Dan Savage claims the Bible condones slavery. This is partially true, but its important to point out how the Bible defines and views slavery itself. The Bible doesn't seem to view slavery as we view it today, as being beaten, forced into hard labor, and treated worse than a dog. Throughout the Old Testament slaves of the prophets and leaders of Israel are described as being treated with respect and honesty. Abram before he bore a child was going to give his estate to one of his slaves. Exodus 23:9 states "Do not oppress an alien;for you yourselves know what it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt." Slaves joined the Israelites in celebrations like the Passover (Exodus 12:43-45). In this time period in Israel people would sell themselves to get out of debt, much like indentured servants. According to the law, such slaves were not be held in bondage for more than 6 years (Exodus 21:2-6). In the New Testament Slave owners who are Christian are told to treat their slaves with kindness. Ephesians 6:9 states, "Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality in Him." Again in Colossians 4:1 states, "Masters, _a give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven."


As you can see slavery in the Old and New Testament is meant to be just, kind, and fair, not the hateful, disgusting form of slavery in the 18th century. But Dan Savage says, the Bible advocates the owning of another person, which is morally abhorrent. In secular ethics this is true, not so much in Christian ethics. In Christian ethics everyone is owned by God, at least in a sense, whats more, in Christianity everyone is described as serving something, whether it be God or ones selfish desires. In Christian ethics our relationships with each other are meant to be based on trust and love, not on each others worth or merit. In other words, where secular ethics says it is wrong to own another person because no one should dictate another's life, Christianity says that it is better to live in such a way that you benefit others by serving them, than to live your life focused only on yourself.  But more importantly, what makes it wrong to own another person? Well because that person has value and worth and is a sovereign creature free to do what he or she pleases. But in secular ethics, humans have no worth, as Carl Sagan put it we are all a bunch of star dust. What is wrong with star dust owning star dust?


What are your thoughts on Christian vs. secular ethics? Which system do you agree with more?

What is the nature of morality?

The question I wish to ask is this; how shall we define morality? I propose the following definition; morality is a code of conduct; what is righteous and what is evil. But an interesting question lies in this, why should we be righteous, and why shouldn't we be evil?

The answer to this seems to be in the further question, what does it mean to say something is righteous? It seems to me that the most helpful definition of righteousness is the optimum the ideal. But then we can still ask why should we conform to the ideal, the optimum? Well if the optimum or maximum of life is our purpose, then asking why should we conform to it, is a meaningless question. This is because the definition of what a purpose is is the intended end to an entity.

Take the example of an engineer who designs a self-aware robot, and he gives this robot the purpose of building houses. Why should this robot obey this purpose? In this case, the engineer is contingent, so the purpose he gives is only true in one possible world, and thus could be different depending on the character and/or state of the engineer in that world. But this means that the robot would only have that purpose in the actual world, so the Robot might ask, why not simply take a purpose from a different world? In contrast an infinite, necessary, all powerful being, could potentially give a purpose that is binding and true for all possible worlds in which the creatures it created could exist. So, this means that our purpose from this being is necessarily true. Now of course such a being couldn't simply make up necessary truths arbitrarily, but a purpose, by definition, must come from an entity, much like a command. Thus by making our purpose true in all possible worlds, we necessarily should follow that purpose.

What are your thoughts on this argument? Can an objective purpose or moral code exist? If so is it truly defined as what we should do, or merely what is righteous? And if righteousness isn't simply how we should live  then what is it?