Answering my Opponents in Regard to Atheist Dr. Peter Atkins

                                                             Background

In a debate between Christian philosopher of science, Dr. William Lane Craig, and atheist professor of Chemistry, Dr. Peter Atkins, the latter stated (8:37) that he didn’t have to prove the non-existence of God, but merely demonstrate that appealing to any possible god is unnecessary to account for the existence of the universe (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=hVCVt-dvVOc).  So I took up his challenge by writing my paper, “The Scientific Impossibility of Our Universe Creating Itself” which can be accessed at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles).  Then I announced it in the comment section of the debate by three weeks ago stating,  “The scientifically-substantiated fact of the Big Bang singlehandedly demolishes Peter Atkins' claim of a universe coming into existence by naturalistic causes. Absolute physical nothingness prior to the "zero-volume" cosmic beginning lacks any possible means to produce anything.”  Even more recently I repeat, I posted, “See my rebuttal of Dr. Atkins’ premise by searching: ‘article, ‘The Scientific Impossibility of Our Universe Creating Itself.’”  Just a few days ago I began receiving multiple challenges to my position from several opponents now listed; my opponents in red, and myself in blue.  By the way, you may wish to return to this conversation at a later time since it is possible that other like-minded skeptics may join the conversation.

DocReasonable

Who said there was nothing before the Big Bang?? And proposing supernatural magic as the origin of everything because you don't understand science is puerile

 

@garyjensen3004

What's up Doc? That authoritative scientists speak of a "zero volume beginning at the BB indicates the non-existence of anything at all prior to it. How do you know on scientific grounds that there was something before it? You're just guessing. Secondly, it is you, the 'reasonable Doc,' who bear the burden of scientifically accounting for physicality deriving from nothing at all. BTW, I am "just" (as you imply) a pastor.

 

@Garrison169

Why not say the universe (or possibly the multiverse) has always existed and save a step?

 

garyjensen3004

Because no empirical evidence exists that indicates that there is any such thing as a multiverse, a view that rests instead solely on speculation

 

@Garrison169

Every discovery in science began with speculation. It would explain why this universe is so well adapted to life. Interestingly, there are a few parameters that would make our universe better for life. Maybe they exist. Your god of the gaps may shrink into nonexistence if the multiverse is discovered. I can see why you want to deny the possibility of it. It wouldn't be the first time that religion impeded science.

 

Gary Jensen

I am surprised that you are charging me with the "god-of-the-gaps" ploy. Since it is at this point in time true that no known or even conceivable naturalistic alternative of a causal agent has been presented, it is your position which is in principle committing the parallel fallacy of the "place-holder of the gaps." "Maybe"-placeholders don't qualify as evidence

 

@Garrison169

What caused the BB is not yet known, but that does not mean that your god did it. The god of the gaps will get smaller as science progresses.

 

Gary Jensen

My article, "The Scientific Impossibility of Our Universe Creating Itself," in the first two paragraphs answers why science has no means to bring a universe into existence.  Correction, should say first page.

 

@DocReasonable

The universe has always existed. Looks like you've wasted a lot of time on hot air. 

@DocReasonable

How do we explain the beginning of the universe? A better question would be WHICH beginning? In 2016, a team of mathematicians from Canada and Egypt have used a staggering set of equations to work out what preceded the universe. They didn't find any gods. They concluded, via quantum mechanics, that the universe basically goes through four different phases. More importantly they discovered what came before this universe was -- another universe or more accurately another ‘cosmological phase’. The universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up, but the team finds that certain modification motivated by quantum mechanics will ultimately halt the expansion and pull the whole lot back to a near infinite point – at which stage the universe will start expanding again, as per the Big Bang.

@garyjensen3004

The problem with your claim is that the "staggering set of equations" you appeal to excludes empirical facts and data that can be tested. So that venture does not qualify as scientific.

 

@DocReasonable

​ So, what are the 'empirical facts and data' that support your religious screed? Were you able to ascertain the molecules that made up the magical fairy dust Yahweh used to create an entire universe?

@garyjensen3004

So since it can't create itself, what then is your alternative?

@DocReasonable

​ Please present those two paragraphs here (which I mentioned at top of this page). And Like I've told you several times, the universe/reality are eternal.

 

@DocReasonable

I did suggest that you read the article in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Non-singular and Cyclic Universe from the Modified GUP.

 

Gary Jensen

 I will read it, though I have every reason to doubt it for the very reasons I already stated.

Indeed, I have just visited that article. The problem is that even if the universe did collapse back on itself, the result would be so unstable that no conceivable smooth rebound would be impossible. Chaos, not cosmos, would result.

 

@DocReasonable

​If a god did create the universe, it's not the simple-minded genocidal tyrant of the bible. I hope you're aware of that much, at least. 

@garyjensen3004

I won't address your simple-minded offensive personal attacks, but instead suggest that you have failed to offer a sufficient causal agent capable of creating an entire cosmos.

 

@DocReasonable

 @garyjensen3004  I don't want to read your creationist screed, thanks anyway

 

Gary Jensen

When you employ the term, "universe/reality" I assume you are conflating the words by equating them. My view is that the universe is instead not eternal as demonstrated by the "zero-volume" conditions prior to the Big Bang beginning of the cosmos from out of nothing. I hold further that the God of the Bible (Genesis 1:1) is the only conceivable "sufficient cause" available that can account for the existence of the finite universe (with respect to both duration and extent). Neither "magical fairy dust" (as you framed it) nor even quantum physics.

@garyjensen3004

I sincerely appreciate your questions. However, I notice that you have yet to offer an alternative, naturalistic, cause of the universe that stands up to rational (or should I say "Reasonable") scrutiny, Doc?

 

Gary Jensen, NALC Lutheran Pastor, retired © August 27, 2024

                                           Gjensen549@gmail.com ** Christianityontheoffense.com ** offensivechristianity.blogspot.com                                                         M.Div. Degree, Luther/Northwestern Theological Seminary ** M.A. Degree in Science and Religion, BIOLA University 

 

Young-Earth Creationism Defies the Bible's Affinity with Science

"Blessed are your eyes, for you see." (Matthew 13:16a)                           

                Despite my title, I do affirm that young-earth creationism (YEC) is right about the Bible in one aspect.  From its premise (which I share) that Genesis 1 is part of biblical revelation, it follows that since its omniscient author is God (2 Tim. 3:16), Scripture is accurate.  Since God also declares Himself the creator of the universe (Gen. 1:1) we can hold that God is infinitely better-informed about our cosmic-beginning than are scientists.  So the Bible merits our trust as the final authority on matters of creation.  NONETHELESS, on this very foundation, unsettling as it may seem, it is NOT to Genesis that the Bible directs people, in order to possibly become persuaded witnesses of God’s compelling creative powers.  Stay tuned then to see the Bible’s preferred means to that end.

A recent Gallup survey says 40% of Americans are YECs. They hold that the creation days of Genesis were 24-hours each, the “two great lights” were made on the 4th Day, and that creation was “finished” less than 10,000 years ago.  They also claim that Noah’s flood formed our globe’s every surface feature except for recent volcanics.  Yet in reality the minimal requirements of just fossil-formation alone, renders that view impossible.  By contrast those of us who embrace the Big Bang (BB) creation of the cosmos some 13.75 billion years ago, declare that that momentous event stands as the most unassailable scientific proof ever, for God’s existence.  The reason is that the events entailed in Genesis 1:1 fully reconcile with the entire array of scientific facts.

Nevertheless, American Christianity is increasingly declining in numbers.  A separate Gallup poll notes that while two decades ago, 42 % of adults worshiped regularly, by contrast today only “30%” do.  Pew Research says, “Nones” [atheists, agnostics, apathetics] now comprise the largest cohort in America” (28%), having nearly doubled from 2007 to surpassing Catholics (23%) … and Evangelicals (24%) today. In seeking to reverse this trend, JW Montgomery urges Christians to both expose society’s rampant ignorance and substantiate as factual the historical claims that demonstrate Jesus Christ (JC) was raised from the dead as indeed the Bible portrays Him:  

“[Christ’s resurrection] is a factual claim…that can be supported by the very approach[es] we…use every day to distinguish truth from fantasy.  [Often] the 21^st Century Christian community [refuses] to present … the Gospel as a matter of [evidence-based] truth.  And I firmly believe that this reductionism of reducing [it] as non-factual…subjective, and emotional, is one of the most important reasons for the decline of the … Christianization of our modern societies.” (boldface mine)  

 Indeed both the scientific case for the BB and the historical facts that affirm JC, fully discredit YEC methods.  Because YEC picks just the “fruit” they seek,” it obfuscates the truth that biblical claims thrive from being evaluated by factual-scrutiny. 

My entire article, together with footnotes can be accessed at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles 

Mainstream Science De-Capacitates Atheism

                 Today’s mounting trend to dismiss the God of the Bible is more fragile (rationally speaking) than is commonly imagined.  Many skeptics urge the claim, “God can’t be proved!” as their way to imply that the God of the Bible is a myth.  Yet in reality, the non-provability of God’s existence places the degree of theism’s certitude at virtually the same level in principle, as is scientific certitude (likewise being not-provable).  Indeed, the posture of mockingly belittling the Bible, is indicative of a non-scientific spirit (the refusal to face evidence).  My goal is indeed to highlight the absurdity of those who demand proveability as a criterion for any statement to qualify as trustworthy.  By way of example, the conclusion of philosopher David Hume’s essay regarding Human Understanding, entailed a glaringly reckless directive:

“Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived … When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. [Then] Commit it…to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Notice that, based on his own criteria, this lauded intellect routed his own philoso-phical essay to the furnace since it too fails the truth-test that he deemed is demanded in order to escape “the flames.”

Now hear ye this!  Science is not provable.  Since frontier science firstly confronts interactions between occasionally unpredictable forces and obscure entities, and also faces the reality that observers must trust by faith that our very perceptions are correct, science is not provable.  Only abstract claims consisting of mathematics and logic are provable.  Consequently scientific theories are instead deemed to be “justified” insofar as they align with evidence that is superior in measure and quality to competing hypotheses.  Hume’s demand that all claims must conform to “quantity” etc. in order to qualify as true, is absurd since, by his own standard, defining even what the term science means, fails to meet his requirements for truth statements.  Indeed his strictures, if obeyed, invalidly deem it impossible to even assess the ramifications that logically follow from scientific data.  But Hume was wrong.  Rationality indicates that non-scientific statements too are trustworthy if they are logically framed and affirmed by relevant evidence.  If that wasn’t so, then social speech, even Hume’s, would lack any capacity to convey truth.

Similarly, the thesis of Stephen Jay Gould’s (SJG) book, Rocks of Ages, lays out his claim that the disparate concepts of science and religion constitute “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA) in which only the realm of science illuminates “the factual character of the natural world and develops theories that coordinate and explain these facts,” while the realm of religion by contrast, “operates in the…realm of human purposes, meanings, and values” to the complete exclusion of physical facts and realities.  By the term “non-overlapping,” SJG disallows the notion that these realms are reconcilable.  In other words, he denies potential reciprocal relationships between science and religion.  Indeed, since he is a practical materialist, he refuses even the possibility of intelligent agents impacting the physical realm.  Yet it is at this very point that Gould violates the standard boundaries of science by usurping its authority to referee his denial of that possibility.  In actual fact, the purview of science is limited solely to particulars of physical nature, to the complete exclusion of concepts concerning potential spiritual realities.

You may read my entire article complete with footnotes at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

The Ludicrous Rampant WILLFUL-Ignorance of Leftism

The Jubilation of Hamas is Symptomatic of  Academic Gangrene (2 Timothy 2:17) 

               For the reason that both  faculty at our nation's most prestigious law schools, and the students seated under them, embrace a nazified agenda by celebrating torture and atrocities against Israeli families on October 7, 2023, the "Free Gaza" placards they marched under (thereby making them “useful idiots”), heightens the urgency to expose them to the light of purging clarity.  Their naivety entails both moral and rational failures, the first of which is evident to all of us who rely on the rightful authority of morality in our conscience, while the latter while the latter betrays the gullibility of the protestors since, in actuality, Hamas would target every last one of them for death.  Yet the absurdity of their error is easily exposed by the following facts that can be known with full conviction to be “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”:

1.      Israelites have inhabited their present location in the Holy Land for the last about 3,500 years.

2.      In 136 CE Rome banished Israel (IS) from Jerusalem and out of spite renamed Judea, Palestine.   

3.      Arabs only began settling in the Holy Land after the founding of the religion of Islam in 622 CE.

4.      After the close of WW 2, it was not Israel’s decision, but the United Nations’ Balfour Declaration (UNBD) to create both of the independent homelands of Israel and Palestine.

5.      The Holocaust happened in part with the encouragement of Muslim leaders to see Jews killed.

6.      On numerous occasions Egypt, Syria, and Jordan simultaneously declared war on Israel.  Israel prevailed in every battle.  Indeed insofar as IS could ensure its safety, in contrast to every other nation, they gave back the spoils they rightfully won (land, oil, etc.) back to the avengers.

7.      In “Black September” of 1970, Palestinians living as refugees in Jordan under the independent fist of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) turned against their hosts by seeking to overthrow the Jordanian government.  Thousands of Palestinians killed each other in the clash.  

8.      In 2005 Israel “handed over the keys” to Palestinians to fully govern Gaza for themselves.

9.      While Israel agrees to cooperate with a Palestinian state, it is the firm goal of Hamas to utterly annihilate Israel. The discovered tunnels packed with weapons is physical proof that it is so.  

10.   That Hamas hides behind civilians as shields during conflict proves both that they don’t value their own children, and that the mounting Palestinian casualties are the fault of Hamas alone.

It is not our government that compels Leftists to embrace fascism, but instead infantile thinking.  Indeed,  the 1^st Amendment of the Bill of Rights states to the contrary says, “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.”           

There is clearly an “elephant in our room” (society) in regard to life’s most fundamental question, “What’s wrong with our world?” In reply, many causes (poverty, ignorance, prejudice, finitude, etc.) are suggested except for the most basic one, which confronts our human proclivities with respect to truth.

To be continued... For my completed article which contains my footnotes, visit my website at www.christianityontheoffense.com

The Choice: Flawed Liberators? or Clueless, Ruthless, Thugs?

        “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye .” (Jesus in Matthew 7:5)  

It is an absolute fact that every disciple Jesus called, and indeed every human author of Holy Scripture, was a miserable sinner, just like me…and you too.  I don’t state this to anger anyone.  But if anyone imagines themselves to be righteous before God, they are not allowing God’s law to expose the inner truth about themselves (1 John 1:7).  Indeed any dismissal of evidence of any kind that favors the existence of God renders such a person guilty of the first sin St. Paul mentions (Romans 1:18f).  Further-more, whoever imposes their expectations onto others while failing to adhere to the same standards (again, of their own design), is both a hypocrite and a violator of the golden rule.  Despite doubts by critical textual critics, I am convinced Jesus said the words recorded in John 8 for the reason that his challenge to the woman’s judgers is morally superior, in the manner that is be expected only of the true Son of God.  Similarly, people participating in toppling statues of our Founders have neither the moral authority nor the right to do so.  They are to the contrary imposing on historical figures criteria that are far more stringent than God applied to the biblical writers.  We all should plead for His mercy instead. 

 

               Neither do these self-appointed “revolutionaries” demonstrate any potential qualification to lead anyone, let alone an entire society, into uncharted waters.  Their credibility indeed is undermined right up front by their track record (televised) of refusing to submit their agenda to intellectual scrutiny.  To the contrary they merely out-shout and  bludgeon their dissenters.  For similar reasons, they offer no grounds at all for why anyone should trust that their brand of defiance of people in authority has any capacity to usher in a harmonious new world, or even a society remotely as just as our own admittedly imperfect one.  Recently I saw on TV one rioter berating police with his presumptive taunts that police don’t have intellectual skills to do “college-level” thinking.  I judge to the contrary that his obnoxious presence merely raised doubts about the credibility of universities as a whole (see below), even as he exposed as questionable the intellectual weight behind the college degree(s) that he claimed to earn. 

  

               More to the point, anarchists’ agenda depends on the distorted parody of US history that they impose.  Firstly, their methods of highlighting what they judge as the “unsavory” aspects of our record, reject classical academic methods of truth-seeking by censoring all arguments that thwart their goals.  And their “motivational” tools rely on pressuring for a compliance that is enforced by threats of harm.   

  

By contrast, authentic truth-seeking, as opposed to brain-washing, seeks out all substantiated evidence that is relevant to a given question.  It also frames the historical details correctly in light of its larger context.  And it debates in complete freedom the relative merits of each relevant hypothesis.

My entire essay can be accessed by the same name, and includes a substantial mumber of footnotes, can be at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles  

  

Transgender Societal Agendas Stands On a House of Cards

               "…they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened." (Romans 1:21) 

               With taunts evocative of the "huffing and puffing" of the "Big Bad Wolf," the transgender (TG) societal agenda is currently plowing roughshod through society with a degree of boldness suggesting that its tenets are grounded in truth.  Is that assumption correct?  Brashness of this level must surely appeal to some sort of grounds for surety as to the rightness of its cause.  Yet I ask, is the impulse that drives its touters legitimately grounded?  The sciences have strict rules which distinguish between either factual conceptions or mere emotions and opinions. Consequently, it is high time societal movers face the question whether the TG agenda is based on facts that justify the upheaval that it leaves in its wake.           

               The guidelines certifying that knowledge is scientific are strict and clear.  Firstly, science draws a sharp distinction between observation (science) and boundless pondering (fiction).  Secondly, scientific insights are gathered without regard for either the wishes or the loathing of its researchers since only by its conformity to the facts is its validity secured.  Thirdly, qualities which attest that data is scientific include that it is both measurable AND observable.  Only claims that can be reconciled with data that fulfills both factors qualifies as being scientifically sound.  Fourthly, it is fallacious to suppress data in order to force a desired conclusion.  These parameters do not mean that non-scientific statements are necessarily false.  Far from it! (only materialism (MT) limits truth statements to just scientific discourse).  How ironic it is that by their own definition MTs disqualify their own views as unscientific!  Nevertheless, if any conception is subjective (sourced inside one's head) then it lacks the required grounds that justify imposing onto NON-TGs, demands that its' champions allege, can redress what are just fantasies!

               It is urgent that these guidelines be rigorously observed.  The clarity they bring is like the colored lines drivers look to in order to stay within their lane along a winding road on a stormy night.  Firstly, they hinder erroneous claims from getting a hold on audiences due to the seductiveness of charming, though ill-informed voices.  Secondly they boost the likelihood that principled scientists will focus their declara-tions on the verifiable realities that their academic curricula convey, thereby highlighting the actual facts of the matter under discussion as opposed to "poisoning the well" through ploys such as gaslighting. 

To be continued...

My complete essay is posted complete with footnotes on my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

The Scientific Impossibility of a Universe Creating Itself, revised edition, 07/27/2024

The Failure of Dr. Peter Atkins to Back Up His Claim that “God Isn’t Necessary”   

              

           In both of Atheist Dr. Peter Atkins’ separate public debates with Drs. William Craig and Hugh Ross, he admitted he cannot "prove" God does not exist.  Instead he claimed that conceptions of a god" of any kind are entirely unnecessary to account for the existence of the cosmos.  Yet by that claim Atkins instead exposed his vulnerability to falsification by means of the very same intellectual grounds that he claims to champion in his relentless attempts to disparage "religion." (27:13f).   

               Empirical evidence, which by definition pertains to concrete factors that are measurable, test-able, perceptible, ubiquitously-duplicatable, convincingly indicates that the physical cosmos began to exist out of a "zero…volume beginning." Physicist Paul Davies writes, "If we extrapolate [backwards into the past in regard to the currently expanding cosmos] we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero…For this reason cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe."  Furthermore Davies writes, "On this view the big bang (BB) represents the creation event…not only of all matter and energy in the universe, but also of space-time itself."  Indeed, this view is affirmed by leading physicists, some of whom aren’t sympathetic to belief in the God of Genesis 1:1.   

               This body of facts in and of itself renders the notion of an atheistically-caused beginning of the universe to be utterly impossible.  The grounds for this stricture are framed solely by scientific demands that are wholly distinct from religious dogma.  For example, scientific events entail (1) physical entities that interact in processes with other objects (2) by forces that propel (or impel) them (3) within spatial regions (volume) (4) over a duration of time.  Yet all four of these factors were utterly absent prior to the zero-volume beginning that marked the creation of the cosmos.  In light of this complete absence of matter and energy and space and time at that beginning moment, there was absolutely no conceivable physical aspect of existence to draw on through which any scientific event could possibly have occurred.

               Although this paper begins by highlighting the impossibility of a materialistic beginning of existence, I now make a positive case for the BB creation of our cosmos by the God of Genesis 1:1.  Numerous observations that follow from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity indicate that, like shot fired of  out of a shotgun, 1) virtually all galaxies as they advance are spreading apart from each other, 2) the expansion slowed down, 3) the cosmic temperature is cooling off, 4) The prediction that the BB will leave behind a certain form of “background radiation” is now confirmed just it as was expected.  

               While certain advanced-degreed scientists will dispute me, I point out in rebuttal the distinction between hypothetical conjectures that effectively ignore facts, as opposed to tying one’s conclusions to measurable and documentable data instead.  One common ploy for evading inferences that logically follow from BB cosmology is to chase the “skirts” of the multiverse (MV) theory.  Yet that tactic yields absolutely no valid data by which any MV schema could conceivably be validated.  Atkins absurdly denies the existence of matter altogether by suggesting that positive and negative energy nullified each other in the past, thereby leaving nothing behind.  But by his suggesting that the act of neutralizing the charges of the two entities banished them out of existence, he foolishly confuses unrelated categories.”      

 You may continue this article of the same title which also includes a visual illustration of the BB plus my footnotes at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles