Daylight Atheism » Gods of the Gaps

The Language of God: Biologos: Epic Fail

Ebonmuse — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:52:19 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 10

By B.J. Marshall

In this chapter, Collins tackles the claim that BioLogos damages both science and religion. Collins disagrees in a way that fails so epically that it almost makes the previous sections of this book seem prescient.

For the atheist scientist, BioLogos seems to be another "God of the gaps" theory imposing the presence of the divine where none is needed or desired. This argument is not apt. BioLogos doesn't try to ... [visit site to read more]

The Language of God: A Biologist in His Element (Sort Of)

Ebonmuse — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 12:38:15 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 4

By B.J. Marshall

This chapter is entitled "Life on Earth: Of Microbes and Man." Right from the beginning, you should probably know that there's a lot in this chapter that Collins gets right. It's like how William Lane Craig is totally in his element when he talks about cosmology, because he's an astrophysi ... wait, that's right, he's not. (I couldn't help ... [visit site to read more]

The Language of God: Cosmology and the God Hypothesis

Ebonmuse — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:37:41 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 3

By B.J. Marshall

Collins concludes this chapter by tying his overview of cosmology to the god hypothesis. He states that "[c]learly, the scientific view is not entirely sufficient to answer all of the interesting questions about the origin of the universe, and there is nothing inherently in conflict between the idea of a creator God and what science has revealed" (pp.80-1). We've already addressed this god-of-the-gaps mentality before; just ... [visit site to read more]

The Language of God: Ultimate Meaning

Ebonmuse — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:54:21 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 2

By B.J. Marshall

In this section, Collins poses the questions of whether the near-ubiquity of the search for the existence of a supernatural being represents "a universal but groundless human longing for something outside ourselves to give meaning to a meaningless life and to take away the sting of death" (p.35). The search for meaning in one's life is an important question, but I don't think the search for the divine stops there. We have a ... [visit site to read more]

The Case for a Creator: The Ultimate 747

Ebonmuse — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:55:53 +0000

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 6

In his frequently-maligned (but less-frequently read and understood) book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins offers what I think is an underappreciated argument against all varieties of supernatural design, the "Ultimate 747" argument.

Briefly stated, it goes like this: If we accept ID advocates' reasoning, complexity and organization require a designer. Yet it stands to reason that any designer that could create a complex, organized thing ... [visit site to read more]

The Case for a Creator: This Time It's Personal

Ebonmuse — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:49:22 +0000

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 5

To wrap up his cosmological argument, William Lane Craig comes to a laughably specific conclusion:

"A cause of space and time must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power," he said. [p.108]

(He didn't add "who is three persons in one being and who sacrificed his son for the sins of the world", but clearly he would have gotten there ... [visit site to read more]

The Case for a Creator: Atheistic Meteorology

Ebonmuse — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:53:18 +0000

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 2

In the second chapter of Case, Lee Strobel worries whether evolutionary theory, by its undirected nature, rules out the possibility of a creative and purposeful deity. He admits that some prominent evolutionary scientists, like Christian de Duve or Kenneth Miller, do believe in God, but sweeps them under the carpet with little fanfare. Without ever directly discussing their views, he insists that evolution does rule out a creator ... [visit site to read more]

Answering Lee Strobel's Questions for Atheists

Ebonmuse — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:56:56 +0000

Friendly Atheist has posted the third part of a dialogue with Christian apologist Lee Strobel. In it, Strobel poses questions that he thinks would be the most effective at planting seeds of faith in an atheist's mind. In this post, I'll answer those questions. I've written on some of these issues at greater length in the past, and I'll also provide links to those essays where ... [visit site to read more]

A Response to the Theist's Guide

Ebonmuse — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:03:00 +0000

I first posted "The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists" on Ebon Musings in June 2001. At that time, I promised that I would cite any theist who prepared an equivalent list and posted it on the internet. In the six and a half years since, I've had a total of two responses to that offer. One was discussed in June of last year.

Last month, I got ... [visit site to read more]