The Faith - Chapter 2 part 2

My last post was about Colson's description of what he said were the only three choices for the origin of the universe. Colson follows up these three positions with this statement:

"The choice we make among these three options as to the universe's origin is the most important choice in life. Everything else follows from it. It's the place where the search for the truth begins."

This is the most important choice in life, so go out and ask people how much they think on it. Then ask if what they do is based on their belief in the origin of the universe. Finally do a little research to see how science works. Colson manages to keep putting strings of sentences together that are so wrong it makes me pause and reread them several times.

So instead of going directly into why this choice is so important, Colson describes a personal anecdote. This story involves Colson, an unnamed atheist and Colson redefining terms in order to trick the unnamed atheist. Personally, I believe Colson has made this entire story up, much like Kent Hovind's story about him and the unnamed professor on a plane.

To go into the story, Colson starts off by telling the UA (unnamed atheist) that he (Colson) had never met an atheist before. Colson then completely redefines the word atheist to mean, "An atheist believes the existence of God can be disproved." This is why I believe the story is fake, the UA does not immediately respond, 'No you are incorrect and are trying to shift the burden of proof. Atheist simply means the lack of a belief in a god or gods.' Instead in Colson's fantasy world the UA responds by back peddling and claiming instead that he is agnostic. Colson then decides to redefine the word agnostic as "But an agnostic is one who says he doesn't think God can be known, and you can only be agnostic if you've tried to know Him and exhausted the search." Again the UA in Colson's story just stops talking to Colson (that part I can believe especially after Colson just told the guy what he supposed to believe). Personally I would have rebutted that definition also saying, 'Again you have changed the definition. Agnostic is a person that believes the ultimate truth value of God is unknowable. You do not have to continually search to come to this conclusion. We say Pi is an irrational number because it never repeats itself, but we have only gone so many decimal places in Pi, according to your definition we cannot call it irrational because we have yet to find an end or repetition. Again you have shifted the burden of proof. It is impossible to prove a universally negative. Instead it is up to the positive claimant, that would be you Chuck, to show evidence for your positive claim in God. Furthermore atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. One deals in belief and the other in knowledge. Your first description was more akin to a gnostic atheist or a strong atheist, you are completely ignoring an agnostic atheist or weak atheist.' Again this is why I believe this is a fictional story, or the UA was just trying to be polite at an "exclusive dinner party" for the governor, instead of being pushy and antagonistic in mixed company.

Colson does admit that this was just a "clever debating ploy" (clever is not the word I would use but it is not my ego he is trying to feed). He proceeds to create another straw man, this time about science (scarecrows beware when Chuck Colson comes to town), "it doesn't answer modern science, which has rendered belief in a personal God irrational." When did this happen? Possibly with the recent study of the brain when trying to decide what would God do, but this book was out way before that study. Please someone show me the peer reviewed scientific paper that renders a personal god irrational. Here all along I thought it was the irrational claims of the Bible that made the Christian God irrational (let's face it this is what Colson is on about, he doesn't care about any other versions of God, this is evident in his only 3 choices for the origin of the universe).

Next Colson tries his hand at philosophy and presuppositions. It is painfully obvious already that Colson has no idea of anything outside of fundamentalist Christianity. In a case of pseudo admittance of this, he quotes Alvin Plantinga. Colson claims that the statement 'God is' is a valid first presupposition. He "proves" this by pointing out that Plantinga makes the same presupposition (wow a Christian agrees to there being a God). He also claims that when Plantinga is questioned on this, he responds "whether they believe that other people have minds. Is this rational?" Now Colson gets tricky and replaces naturalism with solipsism. "But Platinga points out that individuals who call themselves solipsists each believe that they alone have a mind." Naturalism does not make this claim. This is the logical fallacy of equivocation. Naturalism would point out that we can take an MRI of the person and see a picture of their brain, so where is the picture of God? What is actually happening here is that Colson is mixing Plantinga's arguments. Plantinga has an argument against Naturalism. It is basically and argument from personal incredulity. He doesn't understand how a reliable cognitive brain could come about through evolution, therefore God did it. Yes, there is a little more to it than that, but that is the gist of it. You can read all about it here.

Colson's next evidence of the existence of God is intelligent design. He claims that the universe was intelligently designed, citing the structure of human cells and DNA. He even trots out the Bill Gates quote of DNA being more complicated than any software ever written. Bill Gates is not a biologist, nor has he ever studied biology. What Bill Gates says about DNA means absolutely nothing. This is an argument from authority. If DNA is a program, it is loaded with unnecessary code, something that no intelligent agent would ever put into their programs. Also, the most advance computer programs are not written by a single person. Several programmers write out different parts which are put together by other programmers. It would seem that calling DNA a program favors polytheism over monotheism. Of course the argument against that is that God is all knowing so he could do it himself, which leads me back to junk DNA.

Colson then quickly jumps to the Strong Anthropic Principle. Which is easily defeated by pointing out that the major assumption is that life can only evolve as it did on Earth. This assumption has been called "carbon chauvinism" in recent years. Victor J. Stenger has also shown that these so called "just right for life" factors, can be varied well outside their current just right state and still produce the basics for life. Using a program he created called "MonkeyGod", Victor simulated multiple universes by varying factors claimed to be "just right" for human life according to the SAP (strong anthropic principle). Not all of the universes survived or could contain the basics for life, but several did. This utterly defeats the SAP. Colson still tries to defend the SAP by quoting and unnamed scientist:

"It is as if, one scientist wrote, 'the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.'"

He has an end note saying that the quote is from Freeman Dyson in his book Disturbing the Universe (Colson had the quote from the magazine Skeptical Inquirer in an article entitled "Intelligent Design and Phillip Johnson"). The quote is found on page 250 of that book and here it is in its entirety:

"It is true that we emerged in the universe by chance, but the idea of chance itself is only a cover for our ignorance. I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming."

In the book, Dyson goes on to lay out the case for SAP. Dyson is an adopter of the theistic evolution idea. Unlike Colson who is a YEC (young earth creationist).

The next part of the chapter asks the question "Is God Is irrational?" Colson goes back to his make believe Roman world from the prologue, citing it as fact. This time he does give an end note for where he got this information. It comes from the book "Rise of Christianity" by Rodney Stark. Without having read the book I can only make so many comments on it. On the very cover of the book, Stark admits he is a sociologist and not a historian. I do know that Stark actually uses faith healing as an example of miracles going on in the church to this day. James Randi and the James Randi Educational Foundation would love to see examples of this. They have a million dollars on the line for any proof of miraculous healing and have had that money on the line since the 70's. No one has claimed it yet. This review of the Stark's book tells me enough about the book. It also tells me enough about Colson's fact checking, that it is close to if not at zero.

Colson next talks about a study in the early 1990's of the spread of evangelical and pentecostal Christianity in Roman Catholic South America. Except he leaves out the bit about the people being Catholic and implies they were pagans. So instead of this being about Christianity overcoming pagan society, which it is painted as, it is more like a revival of Christianity among Christians. Colson says this is meeting the "criteria of secular social scientists as to what constitutes a rational choice." Of course again he does not mention the scientist but has an end note. The secular scientist is Rodney Stark, who is anything but secular.

Colson then tries to prove that God is not wish fulfillment by quoting the Bible.

So his logic follows like this:

The Bible says we are born with an innate sense of God.
Some scientists, that are not named nor end noted, are claimed to be studying this idea looking for a "God gene" (follow the link, it is one scientist and his study has not been replicated or published in a peer reviewed journal).
Because of these two factors and the fact that he (Colson) cannot come up with a way (argument from personal incredulity) for the straw man of evolution he created to do this, then God exists and the bible is right.

Colson then tries to take on Dawkins' book "The God Delusion". Claiming Dawkins called YHWH psychotic. Here is the exact quote: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." That is a bit more than just psychotic and Dawkins can point to scripture to prove every description he gave. If a human did what YHWH was claimed to have done in the Old Testament, no one would hesitate to call them a monster. Colson continues this Quixote quest against Dawkins with the ever popular quote mine.

"This is how Dawkins explains that belief in God is not rational: 'Any God capable of designing a universe, carefully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be supremely complex and improbable entity that needs an even bigger explanation than the one He is supposed to provide.' 'Thus,' Dawkins says, 'He's ruled out by the laws of probability.' Dawkins is saying God can't be God because He is beyond our comprehension."

Wrong. First notice the break in the two quotes. It is because these two quotes from "The God Delusion" are not even close to each other in the book. The first is a response to the SAP argument, pointing out that one would have to explain how such a complex God that could do these things could come into existence. It is found on page 176 of "The God Delusion". The second quote is found on page 68. This is the full quote:

"The deist God, often associated with the Founding Fathers, is certainly an improvement over the monster of the Bible. Unfortunately it is scarcely more likely that he exists, or ever did. In any of its forms the God Hypothesis is unnecessary. The God Hypothesis is also very close to being ruled out by the laws of probability."

Colson is a liar for Jesus. A person who thinks the ends justify the means. He has bankrupted his own position of moral superiority that he tries to cash in on at the end of this chapter. Colson is just another televangelist out for the money of the sheep. The only thing he learned from his time in prison, over his part in the Watergate scandal, is how to steal from people legally.

Colson ends his proofs of God with Pascal's wager. There is so much wrong with Pascal's wager that I will just link to the Iron Chariots page on it.

He concludes the chapter with the claim, "If we live in an exclusively material world, human life - including mine and yours - is absolutely meaningless. No matter how intense our passions, how great our accomplishments, or what side of history we choose, all of this will turn to dust in a universe doomed to extinction." Yes, if you don't believe in God then you are a nihilist. Just because the universe has no purpose, does not mean you can have no purpose. This is yet another straw man. Colson goes on to claim that only God can give meaning to life and thus moral responsibility. That we are nothing without God. I will end this with the Atheist Eve cartoon by Tracie Harris:

Discovery Institute and History

The Discovery Institute is a self described think tank. Yet it seems in a current article on their website, not a lot of thought was put into it. The article, "Jefferson's Support for Intelligent Design" is about what Thomas Jefferson would think about Intelligent Design and Evolution. It is also one big Appeal to Authority in attempt to get Intelligent Design (ID) taught in Public Schools.

I am citing Fair Use in the copying of the article.

This article is by Stephen C. Meyer and was first printed in the Boston Globe.

IN THE battle over how to teach evolution in public schools, Thomas Jefferson’s demand for a “separation between church and state’’ has been cited countless times.

This sentence is just factually incorrect. When the phrase "separation between church and state" is used, it has nothing to do with evolution. This is because evolution is not a religious idea. So there is no church.

Many argue that the controversial alternative to Darwinian evolution, intelligent design, is an exclusively religious idea and therefore cannot be discussed under the Constitution.

Not just "many", the courts ruled that intelligent design was a religious idea and not science. The judge further wrote that "ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." Kitzmiller v. Dover.

By invoking Jefferson’s principle of separation, many critics of intelligent design assume that this visionary Founding Father would agree with them.

Yes and no. They are saying he would agree that religion has no place in government and that includes public schools. His thoughts on creationism or ID are irrelevant to that point.

But would he? For too long, an aspect of Jefferson’s visionary thought has been ignored, hidden away as too uncomfortable for public discussion - his support for intelligent design.

So what? He could have believed anything he wanted. In fact, he was a deist and believed in a creator god. This god was nothing like the Christian God. Jefferson was a critic of all religions.

In 1823, when materialist evolutionary ideas had long been circulating,

I am stopping in mid sentence here. This is partially true. The idea of animals evolving had been around. The main idea at the time was Lamarckian Evolution. Lamarckism was the idea that an organism could pass on traits, it picked up during its life, to its offspring. The idea was that an animal could change itself and pass those changes to its offspring. This is markedly different than the current Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection was not introduced until 1859, 36 years after this letter was written and 33 years after Jefferson's death. Lamarck's work never had the support that Darwin's did and still does to this day. To say that evolution had been around is confusing the meaning of evolution and the Theory of Evolution. To do so with that purpose in mind is lying.

Jefferson wrote to John Adams and insisted that the scientific evidence of design in nature was clear: “I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.’’ It was on empirical grounds, not religious ones, that he took this view.

Of course, it was empirical grounds. The evidence for Lamarckism was scant and it didn't satisfy the science community. It wasn't until Darwin's idea of Natural Selection in 1895, 36 years later, did Evolution have good evidence. It still took several years and many tests before Darwin's idea was accepted.

This is still an appeal to authority. So Jefferson did not agree with Lamarckism. So what? How does this help the argument for ID? Was Jefferson a scientist with knowledge of the current Theory of Evolution? Well, no, he couldn't be, as the current theory is nothing like the hypothesis of his time. So what does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Can anyone say what Jefferson would believe now, with a completely different view of evolution and the scientific support for it? No. All we can do is interpret the law as it is. Which was done in Kitzmiller v. Dover and ID was deemed a religious idea. Thus it can't be taught in school.

There is no reason to carry on with this article, but Stephen wrote a lot more.

Contemplating everything from the heavenly bodies down to the creaturely bodies of men and animals, he argued: “It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion.’’

Again so what? Jefferson did not know of the current Theory of Evolution. Jefferson was not a scientist or naturalist (as they were called at the time). Jefferson was a politician, lawyer and a yeoman farmer (yes, he did some paleontology and archeology but that was not even close to the bulk of his life work).

The “ultimate cause’’ and “fabricator of all things’’ that Jefferson invoked was also responsible for the “design’’ of life’s endlessly diverse forms as well as the manifestly special endowments of human beings. Moreover, because the evidence of “Nature’s God’’ was publicly accessible to all and did not depend upon a special appeal to religious authority, Jefferson believed that it provided a basis in reason for the protection of individual liberty. Thus, the Declaration of Independence asserted that humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.’’

This is the same as his last comment. It is meaningless today. What does it matter what Jefferson thought of Lamarckism. Lamarckism has nothing to do with the current Theory of Evolution and Jefferson is not a scientist. What if my Senator, Jim Inhofe, came out and said something like, 'global warming is not real'. Oh wait, he did say something like that. Does that make it true? No, it is ignoring a mountain of evidence, which is just shameful. For Jefferson the evidence was not there, at least.

Of course, many people assume that Jefferson’s views, having been written before Darwin’s “Origin of Species,’’ are now scientifically obsolete.

Assume? How could they be up to date, when he didn't have the same information we do? That is like saying, we assume someone from the 1800's idea of 'we would never travel to the moon' as being obsolete. It isn't assumed, it is true.

But Jefferson has been vindicated by modern scientific discoveries that Darwin could not have anticipated. For example, in 1953 when Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule, they made a startling discovery.

Actually, if you read On the Origin of Species, you would see that Darwin suggests that there is something in all living things that accounts for evolution. Darwin was so close to the idea of DNA. DNA just further solidified the Theory of Evolution.

The structure of DNA allows it to store information in the form of a four-character digital code. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotide bases store and transmit the assembly instructions - the information - for building the crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive. Francis Crick later developed this idea with his famous “sequence hypothesis,’’ according to which the chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or symbols in a computer code. As Bill Gates has noted, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.’’

Look, another appeal to authority. Bill Gates does not have a degree in molecular biology or any biology. His ideas on DNA are just from what he has picked up as a lay person and are meaningless. In fact that is not exactly what Gates said. This is called a quote mine. Here is Bill Gates quote in its entirety:

We have all had teachers who made a difference. I had a great chemistry teacher in high school who made his subject immensely interesting. Chemistry seemed enthralling compared to biology. In biology, we were dissecting frogs - just hacking them to pieces, actually - and our teacher didn't explain why. My chemistry teacher sensationalized his subject a bit and promised that it would help us understand the world. When I was in my twenties, I read James D. Watson's "Molecular Biology of the Gene" and decided my high school experience had misled me. The understanding of life is a great subject. Biological information is the most important information we can discover, because over the next several decades it will revolutionize medicine. Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. It seems amazing to me now that one great teacher made chemistry endlessly fascinating while I found biology totally boring. (Gates, The Road Ahead, Penguin: London, Revised, 1996 p. 228)

Again this is Bill Gates' idea of DNA from his recollection of it from High School and his 20s. The story is more about the importance of good teachers. To quote John Pieret from Talk Origins, "Gates may well know a lot about software, but he is in no position to assess how much DNA is, if at all, like a computer program. In point of fact, anyone who read the above passage would doubt that Gates had even a high school level understanding of biology and anyone interested in honesty would make that clear if they still wanted to use the quote."

This discovery has made acute a longstanding scientific mystery that Darwin never addressed or solved: the mystery of how the very first life on earth arose.

Well, Darwin never tried to solve how life arose. It is stated in On the Origin of Species that evolution is the process that takes place after life has arisen. Anyone who has read the book would understand that. DNA also says nothing of how life arose, so I really don't know what Mr. Meyer is trying to say here. Abiogenesis is the study of how life on Earth can arise from inanimate matter.

To date no theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the digital information in DNA needed to build the first living cell on earth.

Maybe because no one believes that DNA contains digital information. This is just nonsense and an attempt to make the Bill Gates' quote meaningful.

Abiogenesis has had some incredible breakthroughs in the last few months. John Sutherland and other researchers were able to synthesize RNA in conditions resembling early earth. RNA is a self replicating molecule and precursor to DNA. Wired has an excellent article on it entitled "Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory".

Yet modern scientists who argue for intelligent design do not do so merely because natural processes have failed to explain the origin of the information in cells. Instead, they argue for design because systems possessing these features invariably arise from intelligent causes.

Obviously, Mr. Meyer has not kept up with Abiogenesis and RNA world or is just being willfully ignorant. He has also not demonstrated that "systems possessing these features invariably arise from intelligent causes." He is just asserting this with no evidence to back up the claim.

DNA functions like a software program. We know that software comes from programmers. Information - whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, or encoded in a radio signal - always arises from an intelligent source. So the discovery of digital code in DNA provides a strong scientific reason for concluding that the information in DNA also had an intelligent source.

DNA does not function like a software program. The only person that has said this is Bill Gates and he is not a molecular biologist. I have a degree in Management Information Systems and have written software programs. If I wrote a program with lots of steps that did nothing, ie Junk DNA, it would be a waste of time and energy. This would not be intelligent on my part. To say that DNA has an intelligent source, is highly questionable with inclusion of Junk DNA. This is not even mentioning negative mutations in DNA which cause suffering, very intelligent.

Heiroglyphics, books and radio signals all have a source that we can look up. Even if that source has expired. They are also not self replicating. To compare them to self replicating biological functions is naive at best and lying at worst.

Design is an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority. Jefferson said just that, and based his political thinking on it.

The courts disagree with you. As well does the Discovery Institute for which you work and wrote this article. Also Mr. Meyer's acknowledged the Wedge Document, which speaks of broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat [scientific] materialism" represented by evolution, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" and to "affirm the reality of God" by the Discovery Institute. So which is it, Mr. Meyer?

The evidence for what he presciently called “Nature’s God’’ is stronger than ever.

Yet, you provide no evidence.

Our nation’s existence, with its guarantee to protect each person’s “inalienable rights,’’ may be counted among the fruits of Jefferson’s belief in intelligent design.

This is a total non-sequitur. The beliefs of Jefferson in founding the nation have nothing to do with ID being taught in schools. Even if Jefferson would support ID, it does not matter when it comes to the legality of it. ID was given its day in court and it lost. Kitzmiller v. Dover is the final word. Making fallacious appeals to authority are meaningless.

Edit: I just found the rest of the quote from Jefferson that Meyer is leaving out, in other words quote mining.

The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and cent. metal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animals and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutes” particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all of this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.

Emphasis mine. It seems Jefferson accepted some form of evolution, albeit this is still no endorsement one way or the other.