The Spoils of Atheism

"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)


"High levels of organic atheism are stongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low poverty rates...however, throughout much of the rest of the world -- particularly among the poorest nations with highest birth rates -- atheism is barely discernible." [Phil Zuckerman, "Contemporary Numbers and Patterns," in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 61.)]

A Few of My Favorite Things

I don't know why but when I'm around others, I often ask them about their "favorites." What's your favorite book of the Bible? Who's your favorite pro athlete?

I've never really known why I do this. In fact, I never really noticed THAT I do it at all, until people observed this in me and mentioned it. But now that I've thought about it a little, I've reasoned that this is perhaps my unconscious way of coming to understand who people are or what is important to them. Indeed, it could even be a way of trying to understand someone's spiritual standing or position. If someone consistently prefers things with a gothic theme, for example, they may have a rather dark spiritual underpinning.

So, in light of my love for "favorites," I've decided to list (in no rational order) a bunch of mine. Maybe it won't mean much ultimately, but it's fun, nonetheless. Here goes:

Favorite Historical Figure: Jesus of Nazareth
Book: *Does God Exist?: The Craig-Flew Debate* ed. Stan Wallace
Author: William Lane Craig
Political Figure: Alan Keyes
Color: Orange
Sport: Mixed Martial Arts (i.e., "ultimate fighting")
Song: "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
Drink: Pepsi or Coke [tied]
Snack Food: French Fries
Entre: Chicken Cordon Bleu or Buffalo Wings (from Western NY
only) [tied]
Animal: Dog
American State: New York (tentatively)
Active Pro Athlete:Rich Franklin (mixed martial artist); Vitaly Klitschko
(boxer)
Retired Pro Athlete: Rex Chapman (NBA player)
Season: Spring
Clothing Co.: Ralph Lauren
Non-U.S. Nation: Australia
University: Grove City College (Grove City, PA)
Movie: Signs (starring Mel Gibson)
NFL Team: Cleveland Browns
NBA Team: Cleveland Cavaliers
MLB Team: Cincinnatti Reds
NHL Team: Buffalo Sabres
Cartoon: Mighty Mouse
Pro Wrestler: Rowdy Roddy Piper (old school WWF)
Comic Book Hero: Daredevil; Incredible Hulk [tie]
Bible book: James
Philosopher: William Lane Craig
Historian: Gary Habermas
Theologian: William Lane Craig
Scientist: Kurt P. Wise
President: Ronald Reagan
Pastor: Alistair Begg (tentatively)
Novel: *Oliver Twist* by Charles Dickens
Shoe Co.: Nike; Puma [tied]
Video Game: NBA Live '95 (Super Nintendo)
Autobiography: *Surprised by Joy* by C.S. Lewis
Musical Instrument:Guitar

Craig vs. Sobel

In his recent book, Logic and Theism, Dr. J. Howard Sobel attempts to refute the kalam cosmological argument, often focusing on defenses of the argument proffered through the years by Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig.

I recently found Craig's reply to Sobel (at Sobel's website), which is due to be published in the *The Canadian Journal of Philosophy* in the near future. It's an interesting and powerful response, which I believe ably dismantles Sober's position.

Go here to find it:

http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~sobel/OnL_T/SobelOnKalamCosmoArg.pdf

The Apologetic Call

Accomplished apologist James Sire presents some sage advice to those struggling to know whether they are built for Christian apologetics:


"Finally, there is the test of practice, practice, practice. If doing apologetics--not just the study of apologetic arguments--begins to become second nature and you just can't stop doing it...well, that should clinch the argument. Doing will become knowing." [A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics (Downer's Grove, IL: IVP, 2006)]

Irreducible Complexity: A Brief Defense (Part II)

In the previous post, I noted that the mere possibility of a Darwinian explanation of irreducible complexity does not suffice to overcome the prima facie greater probability of the design explanation. Irreducibly complex structures initially appear to be unified wholes made for specific purposes. If evolutionists want to say that the various parts of the complex whole had different functions in the past thus salvaging their theory, they have to give some reason to believe this. Merely pointing out a possible Darwinian explanation does nothing to increase its probable truth, let alone overcome the initally greater probability of the design explanation. Thus, design stands as the better theory of irreducible complexity.

A second often overlooked reason to accept design over evolutionary explanations of such complexity is the criterion of simplicity. All else equal, the simpler of two competing theories should be at least tentatively accepted. Thus, if we can explain a murder by positing only one killer, this is simpler and more plausible than holding that 20 killers were involved. We shouldn't complicate our explanations of things unless the evidence warrants it.

It becomes evident, though, that the design theory of irreducible complexity is simpler than the Darwinian one. For design theorists can say that such structures were merely brought into being by an intelligent agent all at once as a unified whole. This is surely less complicated than an evolutionary scenario that postulates thousands upon thousands of mutations and chance events ultimately producing the vastly complex biological feature.

Simplicity, then, presents another reason to prefer the design of irreducible complexity over its alleged evolution. The deck against Darwinism is stacked still higher.

Irreducible Complexity: A Brief Defense

Lehigh University biochemist, Michael Behe rocked the Darwinian community in 1996 with his book, *Darwin's Black Box.* There, Behe made explicit the irreducible complexity of many biological structures found in animals and humans. Roughly, irreducible complexity exists when a biological structure consists of various intricate/complex parts, none of which would have a function or purpose without the others.

To use a non-biological example (that Behe also uses), a mousetrap consists of multiple parts together serving to catch unwanted mice. However, when you disassemble a mouse trap you have nothing functional. That is, the individual parts themselves taken apart from the whole do nothing useful.

This is a problem for Darwinism, which claims new biological features evolve in response to the environment -- the organism evolves these features or else doesn't survive. But if, as Behe notes, many parts of organisms function only within an integrated whole, why would those parts evolve without or prior to that whole? These would apparently be newly evolved features that serve no function and don't aid in survival. Thus, it would seem that on Darwinism, these parts would not have come to be. Their existence is, then, evidence against that view. It seems more reasonable to believe these wholes come to be intact; they didn't evolve piecemeal.

In response to this ingenious argument, Darwinists typically just assert that possibly these parts did in fact have a function before they eventually were integrated into the whole system. Thus, they would seemingly have a place in a Darwinian hypothesis.

There are many problems with this response. But one that many don't appreciate is the prima facie plausibility of intelligent design over evolutionism in this case. That is, an initial look at these apparently irreducibly complex structures inclines us strongly to think that they came into being as a whole -- they wouldn't have evolved step-by-step. Since the evidence lends itself initially to design over evolutionism, the burden of proof now rests on evolutionists to explain why their explanation is as good or better. But merely hinting that possibly these features evolved in some way certainly doesn't meet that burden of proof. The mere possibility that something is true is no reason to believe it's true. These biological structures could've popped out of thin air, too. But that doesn't make the "out of thin air" theory as plausible as design. Unless they move beyond mere possibilities, evolutionists must admit that irreducible complexity stands as a reason to believe in design over evolution.